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[Randaru]

Intro:

This is the second part of my Noob’s Insight thread series, where I, a complete noob at the game, unburdened by such trivial concepts as “actually knowing how to play the game”, try to overanalyze and overexplain core gameplay options available to the player, in my attempts to spark a critical discussion, or at least provide people with a fresh point of view to point and laugh at.

In my last post, I’ve done mostly all ships in Starsector in a tierlist order. However, with weapons, I want to take a slightly different approach, because rating and evaluating every single weapon this game has is just too much work in both writing and formatting, due to the sheer quantity of them. Therefore, I’ve decided to go in a different direction, and only evaluate the select few weapons that I personally would put on my ships in several areas of performance, giving them separate ranking in each aspect of my choosing. So, if a weapon is missing from the list entirely – it doesn’t mean I forgot it or never tested it, it just means I’ve tested it enough to never want to put it on my ships ever again. However, for the sake of not robbing people of opportunity to taste my salty noob tears, I’ve decided to include weapons that I think are the worst in each category as a dishonorable mention, just to highlight what I deem to be “the absolute unusable trash”. Also, built-in weapons are completely thrown out from this list, since they are not optional.
Alright, so, back to the criteria. The three areas I intend to evaluate each weapon in are as follows.

Function: This determines how well does the weapon perform in its designated role, as well as how important that role is in combat, as well as how often the weapon gets into the situation where it becomes useful. This includes damage, range, precision, flux efficiency, reload time and so on. In other words, how often does the weapon operate at peak performance, and how impactful it is on the field.

Versatility: This one is a bit vaguer, it defines how well a weapon performs outside of its intended purpose. For example… Does it become a strain on you if you fire it against targets that it’s not exceptional against? Does your shield-breaking gun become a pea-shooter once that shield is broken or lowered? If there are no huge ships for your huge gun, can it also take down faster targets? In other words, your gun providing more value to you than putting a toll on your flux and/or its ammo count if you fire it against unfavorable targets results in a higher rating in this category.

Sustainability: How much stats does a ship need for me to decide to put this weapon. In other words, how efficient and cheap OP-wise is it, how many shots it has, as well as how likely do I want something else in that slot instead of this weapon based on that slot’s role. The difference in flux-efficiency with “function” category is that “function” ranking already assumes that the weapon is passively sustainable on ships the weapon is already installed on; “sustainability” ranking, however, does not. Sustainability in general defines how many ships (especially good ships) that would benefit from having weapon in question, can effectively install it without sacrificing OP needed for other core weapons, or being practically unable to use it due to high flux costs or flux inefficiency when breaching opponents' shields.

If this didn’t help at all, just wait until I apply it in practical explanation – I am certain, you will get even more confused make sense of this criteria when we get to the actual weapon evaluation. Speaking of which...

BALLISTIC WEAPONS

Spoiler

Small

Light needler
(Function: S) (Versatility: S) (Sustainability: S)
Whomst'd've not anticipated this to be the perfect weapon for the slot? Light needler has the best range possible for ballistic slot, it's extremely easy to hit due to firing in a quick stream of high-velocity projectiles, and due to its "burst and reloag" nature it doesn't require to stay under sustained enemy fire until you are ready to shoot again. It's very versatille due to being flux-efficient and easy to hit with, as well as giving you enough time to chew through target's armor between bursts in combined arms scenario, so you should keep up using this weapon over and over, at all times. Also it's effortless to sustain flux-wise on all but the crappiest ships, and being an 8-OP weapon is no issue due to you only ever needing this weapon facing in the same direction as your main weapons do.

Railgun
(Function: S) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: A)
Sharing the first place for best range in the slot with the light needler, as well as being as expensive and having as fast a projectile as one, railgun serves a slightly different purpose. This is a weapon best used in prolonged, sustained fire to overwhelm your opponent's shields while keeping them in range at all times. This is not as easy to hit consistently on moving targets due to relying on being able to hit the entire thing to do anything at all, instead of just cliping them with a few projectiles in your burst to be of any use. It's also slightly less flux-efficient compared to the needler at ranges where there is no chanse of missing, although it does have higher DPS. All and all, railgun is a lot like the needler in its role, but it just hits different. Literally.

Light Dual Autocannon
(Function: C) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: S)
I usually use these to fill hardpoints with the same coverage as main weapons on larger ships - mostly those that rarely have to fire, but sometimes still do. Having these on larger ships also negates their main weakness, being not very flux-efficient, while also saving you a lot of OP in the long run for not filling them with railguns or needlers. A good example of autocannon usage for me would be placing them on Onslaught's broadsides, where they only ever need to shoot flanking opponents or get some heat off main point defense systems, all while not being a strain on already massive flux and freeing some OP to get heavier main weaponry or sneak an extra hullmod in.

Light Machine Gun, Light Dual Machine Gun
(Function: C) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: S)
These are both used interchangeably depending on how much OP am I willing to spend on point defense hardpoints that don't support PD lasers. They are dirt cheap to deploy and fire, and are somewhat precise to be reliable against what few enemy planes make it past all of your ships with proper laser defenses.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Light Mortar
(Function: D) (Versatility: F) (Sustainability: C)
This weapon should be a good example of how being cheap crap can actually lose you a lot of points on "sustainability" scale purely based on which slots are you going to install it in. Either you use this weapon in your main slots (which from now on is what I'm going to call "slots that face the side your main weapons are facing"), where it's probably going to be collecting dust until your now smaller frontal ballistic firepower wins against the enemies' shields, or you use it in point defense slots where it's gonna generate no value at all, and you would've been better off without it. Thing is, in frigate fights, breaking the shield usually already means you will do significant damage to your opponent, and stripping yourself of kinetic weapons just so you could style on your enemies by doing the same damage for their armor for less flux - and that's assuming you actually hit this slow, imprecise projectile - is an extremely stupid idea in my book.

Medium

Heavy needler
(Function: S) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: A)
It's the exact same thing as light needler, but for bigger slot. And that's its main advantage, and its main weakness. In small slots, needler was competing with cheap rubbish weapons and point defenses, whereas in medium slots you actually have the option to use more specialized, more versatile, more impactful attachments. In this light, being the most expensive one to deploy OP-wise doesn't help its case. For the opportunity cost of deploying this weapon, now you also have to reliably hit every single burst you fire. Regardless, this is your best shiled-burster for the slot, which makes it an automatic pick for certain ships that rely on quick and decisive strikes.

Hypervelocity Driver
(Function: S) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: B)
Somewhat expensive and not the most efficient, this is weapon nontheless has a lot to offer to its user. First and foremost, this is the furthest your medium ballistic slot is gonna shoot, so this gun becomes a no-brainer for your ranged support ships. Second of all, ranged support ships are also going to be limited by their range, so, when armed with hypervelocity drivers, they are more likely to stay further away from the opposite side of the battle lines, lobbing missiles or launching fighters from a safer position. Despite not being primarily suited for frontal engagement, this weapon allows your more fragile ships to dispose of your opponents' shield from a safe distance, as well as disable some of the systems of already overloaded enemies with one precise shot, instead of relying entirely on their supporting capabilities to generate value in prolonged combat.

Heavy autocannon
(Function: A) (Versatility: S) (Sustainability: A)
Gaining some well-needed range over both its smaller counterpart and the heavy needler it's mainly competing against for this slot, the heavy autocannon, albeit not exactly flux-efficient, is the best option for sustained fire for a medium-sized hardpoint. Cheap to deploy and easy to land a hit on your targets with, this gun deals consistent DPS as long as your targets stay within its very generous range.

Flak Cannon
(Function: A) (Versatility: C) (Sustainability: A)
You will not see this weapon too often, as only the largest ships have medium ballistic slots that can only be used for point defense will ever have these installed. Regardless, this is the best thing you can get in such scenario, being both cheaper, more precise, and more cost-efficient compared to its competition.

Heavy Machine Gun
(Function: B) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: B)
Same as flak cannon, but kinetic damage, can sometimes be deployed facing in random directions on bigger ships for better coverage, but it's somewhat costly to use.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Dual Flak Cannon
(Function: C) (Versatility: F) (Sustainability: D)
More expensive to deploy and fire than normal Flak cannon, the dual version also comes with severely limited range and insane flux cost per point of damage dealt. Taking this over singular Flak variant would've been a tough decision even for the same OP cost, but this costing 1.5 times more makes such decision into an automatic "no-from-me-dawg". If you want more expensive ballistic PD systems, you can just get the heavy machine gun, which shoots further, hits harder, uses less flux and has a better damage type, while at the same time costing you 2 OP less than this trash.

Large

Mjolnir cannon
(Function: S) (Versatility: S) (Sustainability: B)
This is the weapon that makes half of its competition for the large slot obsolete. Yes, it does cost more to both deploy and fire than all three high explosive damage type cannons of this tier, but what it also does is - damage against shields, and a lot of it. Even on ships where you can rely on smaller weapons to win the flux tug of war with the enemy vessel, Mjolnir will still be superior due to providing secondary utility of doubling as a decent source of EMP.

Storm needler
(Function: S) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: C)
As mount sizes go up, the good ol' needler just seems to stay mostly the same almost to a fault. It's still the best shield burster for the slot, but aside from just doing more damage and costing more, it doesn't improve on its predecessors in the slightest.

Mark IX Autocannon
(Function: C) (Versatility: S) (Sustainability: A)
Despite being cheap and easy to hit with, this autocannon variant doesn't really get rid of its flaws from medium mount option, while also dealing less overall damage than its competition for the slot. I usually stick these into hardpoints that are rarely operational, mostly as a scare factor for the enemies and as a way to conserve some OP for bigger and better main guns.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Hellbore Cannon
(Function: C) (Versatility: F) (Sustainability: C)
Despite already being outclassed by the mjolnir, this devil-tube design also doubles down at being the "cheap garbage" weapon option even compared to other competing explosives, for the slot where garbage is the last thing you want to have. And, if I do choose to install a cheap substitute for a weapon, I at least expect it to do anything at all in autoaim, since I'd rather freeaim guns that actually pull their weight to win the fight, than guns I'm already barely getting anything out of. If this was the only weapon I was allowed to use in a slot, I would've ripped it out all together to improve other guns instead.

[close]

ENERGY WEAPONS

Spoiler

Small

IR Pulse Laser
(Function: B) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: S)
The main general purpose gun of this size, as well as one of its main damage dealers, this weapon has nothing to sing songs about. Small energy slots are usually reserved for long-range lasers or point defense lasers, but in some designs, pulse lasers will be used on decks as a genuine source of damage for frontal mounts, usually as a supplement for bigger main weapons. Energy-based ships usually win flux wars due to having trickier designs and having just better flux in general, rather than having better weapons, which will be the running theme for this entire size category.

PD Laser, LR PD Laser
(Function: S) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: S)
These are your main point defenses, you basically pick one or the other based on whether you want (and can afford) having your vessel protect nearby ships, or preserve some OP and flux for self-sustenance.

Tactical Laser
(Function: B) (Versatility: S) (Sustainability: S)
Constant, cheap stream of damage, and the main candidate for being used in disco ball builds on whichever hull facilitates such atrocities.

Antimatter Blaster
(Function: S) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: C)
This expensive close-combat weapon somewhat breaks the rules of this ranking system, as I no longer use it in my fleets, but it's worth mentioning nonetheless. This is your main "delete enemy ship" button, that basically follows the same implementation logic as missiles do, but uses energy slot instead, and actually costs flux on top of limited charges to fire. Extremely dangerous in short-paced engagements, slightly less so in prolonged combat.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Burst PD Laser
(Function: A) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: C)
Now, before you publicly execute me for such blasphemy, hear me out. I'm not saying this is thing is complete garbage at all. What I am saying, however, is that, within designated role that values efficiency and longevity, burst PD kinda lacks both. I can't possibly imagine where I would use an expensive inefficient PD that becomes worse than any cheaper counterpart after less than a second of doing what it's supposed to do 24/7. Burst nature says "phase ships", OP and flux costs say "massive capital ships", then my last two brain cells chime in and say "ditch this weapon all together". Investing into point defense shouldn't be such massive undertaking, especially considering that for about the same price, larger ships can override much cheaper tactical lasers to be used as point defense instead.

Medium

Pulse Laser
(Function: B) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: S)
This is pretty much the same pulse weapon as before, only bigger. It symmetrically improves on all of its aspects to accommodate using a bigger slot, while keeping the exact same identity intact.

Phase Lance
(Function: S) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: B)
A very precise and easy to use anti-everything-but-shield weapon, that can also double as a supplement to your shield bursts in a pinch, especially against smaller craft. On energy-based ships, if I already have anti-flux damage types covered, this is what I'm installing as part of my main weapon salvo pretty much every single time.

Ion Beam
(Function: S) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: C)
Despite being ineffective at dealing damage, and a pretty rare sight in my own builds, this nonetheless is the best way in the game to disable the entire capital ship worth of systems practically at the same moment its shields get breached. A solid support option overall, but very few hulls can actually fit it without sacrificing anything of value as a tradeoff.

Graviton Beam
(Function: C) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: A)
As mainly a part of disco ball builds, this beam puts a significant strain on opponent's flux dissipation by constantly burning their shield, at almost no cost for the user themself. Still, it's not winning any flux wars all by itself any time soon, so its place on all but largest energy ships always seems questionable.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Heavy Burst Laser
(Function: C) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: D)
Nothing I've said about its small counterpart applies here, this thing is actually worthless. Think about it: where would you be able to install it as point defense? On energy ships. What energy ships never lack? Small hardpoints that you can fill with other efficient and extremely cheap point defenses. Its main redeeming quality is that it can kinda double as a semi-effective weapon against hulls, should you happen to have it installed with an overlapping firing angle, but for what it's worth, 11 OP for such an unnecessary weapon is an overkill.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Heavy Blaster, Mining Blaster
(Function: A) (Versatility: D) (Sustainability: F)
I couldn't help but put a second dishonorable mention in this category for two weapons at once, up to a total of three, because both of the entries are completely stupid options in my book. Think of it this way: where would you use clunky, extremely inefficient in a flux war, and hard to hit against anything but bigger ships close combat weapon? That's right, pretty much only in fights you are already winning. Which, considering you now have one less weapon to use against enemy shields, will now happen less frequently, with each consequent installation of this rubbish. Not only that, there are weapons such as antimatter blaster or ion pulser that achieve the exact same results with more realistic OP cost, AND they are actually infinitely less wasteful with flux in the long run.

Large

Plasma Cannon
(Function: S) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: B)
Heavy blaster, but bigger and good. This is usually the main weapon system for ships with fewer large mounts, as it does cut deep both into flux economy and OP pool if you install too many of them, but it's great at what it does as primary source of firepower, and it's consistent at prolonged firing across the board.

Tachyon Lance
(Function: A) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: B)
The meme, the legend, this weapon is somewhat tricky to use as a primary weapon system against other big hulls one-on-one, and is best utilized as part of focus fire salvo to quickly overload and damage the enemy in a short period of time, either on a dedicated ship, or when additional kinetic sources of damage are installed on the same ship. What a lot of people seem to sleep on in this weapon, however, is how it doubles as point defense, but against larger craft such as frigates and destroyers, with only a few of these just dunking even on shielded smaller enemies in a split second, all while staying well beyond their reach.

Autopulse Laser
(Function: A) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: S)
While being a very cheap and flux-efficient energy mount, autopulse, however, suffers from the same problem as ion pulser does, as in, you have to make every single shot count, lest you are one missed salvo away from being a helpless sitting duck for a foreseeable future. If used on larger ships that are expected to fire almost constantly, OP cost advantage dwindles due to requiring investments into Expanded Magazines hullmod just to not run out in the initial engagement, so I usually reserve this gun for ships with weaker shields or weaker vents.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: High Intensity Laser
(Function: C) (Versatility: F) (Sustainability: D)
You've probably been expecting Paladin PD here, but it was I, a weapon idea that seems interesting on paper, but simply doesn't work in reality. The only kind of target this explosive beam is good against is phase vessels - but guess what, so is any other beam in the entire game. Outside of that specific rare scenario, however, HI-laser usually does practically nothing. On player's ship it usually collects dust until the very moment a shield is broken on a fresh ship somewhere, while if given to the AI, it just serves as a direct command for them to fire it constantly on every shield they see, blowing flux into the wind and doing absolutely jack in the process.

[close]

MISSILE WEAPONS

Spoiler

Small and medium

(These practically share the same pool of missiles, with bigger mounts coming with more charges as the only difference)

Sabot missiles
(Function: S+) (Versatility: C) (Sustainability: A)
This is a "screw you, I win the flux war" button, and even on ships that don't specialize in missiles you can never go wrong with placing these, as even the wasteful AI usually hits at least one of them. They don't do much against anything other than shields, however, and are somewhat unreliable at usual firing distances.

Harpoon missiles
(Function: S) (Versatility: C) (Sustainability: B)
Probably the most consistent guided heavy-hitters amongst missile ranks. I often put these on heavier flanking vessels that are sent on the outskirts of the main engagement, so AI doesn't get confused about timing on firing these, since their suppy is somewhat limited to be wasteful with it.

Reaper torpedoes
(Function: S) (Versatility: D) (Sustainability: C)
Close range ship exterminatus that is very OP-affordable in those cases where you don't really have to rely on any other kind of missles. It's only ever useful in player's hands, as AI tends to completely disregard their target's escape options.

Pilum missiles
(Function: A) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: B)
The most spammable missile due to being infinite, you can cover the entire battlefiled with these, starting practically as soon as the battle itself does. Relies on being installed on ships with ECCM package to be able to consistently hit something, but AI can't possibly use these wrong, and they create a solid distraction even against nimble or well-defended fleets like remnants, while also being a constant danger to any overloaded ships due to their tendency to swarm at any blood in the water like a school of frenzied piranhas.

Swarmer missiles
(Function: B) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: A)
Specialized at destroying small aircraft, these missiles also remain dangerous when fired against bigger unprotected targets. These are very versatile and are pretty easy to hit with - a sound deal for how cheap and expendable they are.

Salamander missiles
(Function: C) (Versatility: D) (Sustainability: B)
I still have these in my fleets, and I don't know why. I only ever use them on smaller hardpoints on specialized missile cruisers with ECCM packages, they are somewhat spammable and disable random unprotected frigates and retreating capital ships from time to time, but I often catch myself wondering if the juice is even worth the squeeze, since they aren't exactly a cheap investment.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Breach missiles
(Function: C) (Versatility: F) (Sustainability: D)
It does nothing against hulls, and it does nothing against shields, meanwhile, when fired at armor, it does exactly the same job as any other kind of missile without being any easier to hit with. I guess it's cheap and has higher load than most missiles, but honestly I would rather not install anything at all instead, or get swarmers for the same price and even larger ammo count, which are actually dangerous against unarmored hulls as well.

Large

Hurricane MIRV Launcher
(Function: S) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: A)
Long range, easy to hit with even for an AI, and almost impossible for its target to rely on point defense to protect them sorry self against it. Even shield takes noticeable damage when hit by the entire payload, while it usually has enough ammo, especially on specialized vessels and/or with specialized pilots to last the entire fight.

Squall MLRS
(Function: B) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: A)
Due to long range and affordable cost, these can be installed on ships with a wide variety of roles, be it backline supports or carriers, ships on your main battle lines, or even rushdown battleships. Constant stream of beefy and fast rockets is also somewhat tricky to protect oneself against, especially in a point-blank shield war.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Hammer Barrage
(Function: A) (Versatility: D) (Sustainability: D)
Decent for what it does, but completely outclassed by reapers for the same slot, which is what you would probably pick instead, should you ever decide to forego all common sense and fill your large slot with more torpedoes that you could ever spend in a span of one deployment.

[close]

FLIGHT DECKS

Spoiler

Lux Heavy Fighters, Spark Interceptor Drones
(Function: A) (Versatility: S) (Sustainability: A)
Two pretty different fighters, but I use them interchangeably in my fleet compositions, becaue so does the AI during deployments. Quickly recovered and highly expendable, yet are a pain in the ass to kill when they single out targets in enemy fleets. Due to how often fighters die in combat, having no drain on your crew during long expeditions is a neat bonus to have.

Longbow Kinetic Bombers
(Function: S+) (Versatility: C) (Sustainability: A)
Sabot, but infinite, and installed in a flight deck instead of a hardpoint. Hightly spammable, since it can defend itself from interceptors and missile-based PDs to an extent. They're also very cheap. Just don't make the same mistake I made and sell their blueprints to the pirates, or you'll be fighting these annoying gremlins in practically every engagement.

Cobra Wing, Dagger Wing
(Function: S) (Versatility: C) (Sustainability: B)
Log-lobber torpedo bombers are practically the only way to make AI utilize torpedoes proper. There are more of them on the roster, but these are the ones I've got the most use out of. They are usually safe to deploy their payloads too, except for those times where the enemy snipes them with their main weapon systems.

Xyphos Wing
(Function: S) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: B)
These are ship supports that are mainly used in recalled state to protect their motherbase from missiles, fighters and smaller crafts alike. I've got some limited use out of these on ships like Odyssey, where fighters aren't exactly a focus of the build, since they also help you save OP on point defense.

Claw Wing
(Function: A) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: A)
I don't use them in my fleet, but they are basically a substitute for remnant fighters, and they also come in an easily acquirable blueprint version for your entire faction to make and deploy.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Anything cheap and unimpactful
If you intend to take ships that do have fighter decks over those that don't, you should never skimp on putting your OP into whatever's best for your craft. Being able to deploy fighters comes with a tradeoff, so picking your fighters from a thrift store just nullifies the advantage you've traded your general combat power for. That being said, I didn't put enough of a thought into fighters that were meant to be bad in order to pick anything specific for this entry.

[close]

OMEGA WEAPONS

Spoiler

Cryoblaster
(Function: S+) (Versatility: B) (Sustainability: B)
This is the best hull breaker for the buck in the entire game, and a perfect addition for a flanking ship that already has means of destroying shields and armor covered by other weapon slots. On ships with decent enough vents you can even fire these at shields to overload them faster due to their high base damage.

Minipulser
(Function: B) (Versatility: S) (Sustainability: B)
You really wish that this specific energy slot was, instead, ballistic, so you could put primary anti-shield weapons there? Minipulsers have you covered. Despite having mediocre stats at best when compared to other small kinetic damage dealers, minipulser guns completely turn the purpose of their slot upside down, giving you more interesting loadout options to try out.

Antimatter SRM Launcher
(Function: A) (Versatility: S+) (Sustainability: C)
Guided missiles that quickly and precisely snipe targets within their limited range, ASRMs occupy a wide variety of slots and are effective against a wide variety of targets. Unfortunately, they are not very useful in a one-on-one shootout due being very flux-draining to fire, but at the same time they can help you quickly overload smaller vessels that are harder for your other weapons to hit, or finish retreating beaters off, while also having a somewhat slow resupply mechanic to last you a while in combat.

Rift Lance
(Function: S) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: B)
Precise and deadly, not only are these miniature phase lances excellent at breaking armor and hulls, but they can also help you overload frigates at closer ranges. They also are a great addition to some of the phase ships in Starsector.

Rift Cascade Emitter
(Function: B) (Versatility: S) (Sustainability: D)
These are your tachyon lances on steroids: highly inefficient, extremely long range damage dealers that are now twice as deadly to smaller vessels due to dealing hard flux damage when they hit shields. Unfortunately, they are not very effective at utilizing their range, and are best used at nearly point-blank distance to justify having them as your main weapon system - that is, unless you put them on your phase ships.

Volatile Particle Driver
(Function: B) (Versatility: A) (Sustainability: B)
Just like the minipulsers, these serve as a somewhat inefficient way to turn your energy weapon systems into ballistic kinetic ones. Unfortunately, they are not very effective at operating at standard capital ship engagement distances, and their slow reloading mechanics further push volatile drivers to be a niche close combat burst weapon for a very select number of ships.

SHAMEFUL DISPLAY: Rift Beam
(Function: C) (Versatility: F) (Sustainability: F)
If addition of this weapon to the game was supposed to be a joke, the delivery kinda went over my head, because the other two omega beams are actually usable in many scenarios. But this... This highly flux-inefficient and very expensive short range sustained beam with pathetic damage classifies as point defense, but can't even be properly used as one due to not getting you nearly enough return on your investment, as well as only being useful at point-blank range, where fighters and missiles are never meant to reach in the first place against any decent amount of PD coverage. Practically harmless against shields and hulls alike. I legitimately thought that rift beam was bugged when I tested it, and I really hope that's the case, considering how you actually acquire this weapon in-game.

[close]

Final words:
So, these are my thoughts. Have I matched anyone's list of favourite options for every mount, am I sleeping on some broken weapons that I should totally use, or have I thrown your favourite shooter in a proverbial trashcan? Let me know, because getting to know public's opinion to me is as important as laughing at my ignorance is important to you!

[superhotdogzz]

Heavy Blaster is fun, and you can’t tell me no about it :p

[Ramiel]

No pd weapons?....never mind.....They are here, they just don't have a separate category.....still missing vulcans though...

[Randaru]

No pd weapons?....never mind.....They are here, they just don't have a separate category.....still missing vulcans though...

I've said that in the intro, weapons that I've tried out and ditched, but that I don't deem to be outright bad, didn't make the list at all. Working on the rest of the post was too much of an undertaking already.

[JAL28]

I don’t think the Hellbore is as bad as this guide makes it out to be. It’s both flux efficient and OP efficient, freeing OP for other possibly more necessary uses as well as reducing strain on flux(Onslaught I’m looking at you). Not to mention it’s actually better than Hephaestus in stripping armour on anything it can hit, since high-damage per shot weapons are generally better for stripping armour. The only issue is that it can’t hit small targets due to its low rate of fire, but that’s what the Hephaestus is for.

[intrinsic_parity]

I feel like you might not be all that familiar with the armor mechanics based on this list. You've rated many of the specialized anti armor weapons very low. You also rated some guns that are really bad against armor/hull (needlers) as being versatile, which doesn't make much sense to me.

Armor basically applies a reduction to each shot based on the damage of the shot, so weapons with very low damage/shot (particular kinetics which are further halved) are really weak against armor, while low rate of fire high damage guns are usually pretty good against hull/armor. In addition, there is 'residual armor' which means even after you strip armor, 5% of the max armor is still applied to every shot. This very importantly means that dealing good hull damage against ships with high base armor requires high damage per shot. If you want a more in-depth analysis, here is a link to a nice armor guide https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12268.0.

Needlers should get a C at best for versatility because they do no damage to armor/hull. Probably a D, but with skills, they can sometimes contribute a little to hull damage. They are still the best anti-shield in the game but they are not versatile at all IMO.

Similarly IR pulse laser is basically specialized anti-shield with only 50 damage/shot. It does very little against well armored opponents. It gets like a C for versatility, B at best. Pulse laser is also quite weak against really heavy armor, but reasonable against smaller opponents so I give it a B at best for versatility.

Heavy blaster is one of the best hull/armor DPS sources outside of the plasma cannon. It's like upgrading your medium mount to a large mount at the cost of a bit of efficiency. Very good with safety overrides as well. I would take a heavy blaster over a phase lance like 75% of the time, particularly on a player ship where I can manage it. I personally think phase lance is pretty bad because it's really bad against shields (moderately inefficient and soft flux is a terrible combination), and the AI just fires it on cool down like an idiot, so it really doesn't get used much against armor/hull where it is decent. The player can use it as a strike weapon, but I would rather just have a heavy blaster for DPS, or just downgrade the slot to an anti-matter blaster. I know that's not a super popular opinion though.

Another big disagreement is Mjolnir. It definitely gets like a D for sustainability from me, it's like A B/C D in your metrics. It's good anti armor/hull but it's so flux expensive and also costs a ton of OP, and it's not particularly efficient damage against shields, particularly when compared to kinetics. I basically only use it on conquest, nothing else has the flux stats IMO. I've tried it on others, but I would rather just use specialized damage type weapons with lower flux cost. I use Mark IX much more commonly than Mjolnir.

I also think the hellebore is good value sometimes, it's super efficient against heavy armor. Not a great weapon, but not a bottom tier weapon IMO. It fits well on low tech ships that have very tight flux budgets and works very well against stations, and big slow capitals.

Not including vulcan is criminal. Vulcan is the best small anti-missile weapon by a country mile. Like 60% of my small ballistic slots are just vulcans lol. I basically never use any other small ballistic PD outside of a few niche SO builds.

Pilums are hot garbage. They are way too slow to do anything, and PD kills them instantly. The only legitimate benefit is that the AI is stupid and is way too scared of them, but if you have good PD, it's fine.

Another point, the Omega beams all spawn rifts that deal extra damage, but that damage is not included in their list DPS, so it's really hard to judge them by the stats. I'm not sure if that actually makes them good, but they are much better than they seem from the stats.

[Randaru]

I also think the hellebore is good value sometimes, it's super efficient against heavy armor. Not a great weapon, but not a bottom tier weapon IMO. It fits well on low tech ships that have very tight flux budgets and works very well against stations, and big slow capitals.

The point I've made on Discord was, and I quote:
"Imagine aiming your worst cannon manually because it has practically no chance of hitting on autoaim", end of quote. If I install cheap garbage on my ship, I expect it at least to not have me babysit it all the time to get any value out of it. Actually, I might also clarify this in the opening post, since a lot of people seem to get confused with my hellbore rating.

Another point, the Omega beams all spawn rifts that deal extra damage, but that damage is not included in their list DPS, so it's really hard to judge them by the stats. I'm not sure if that actually makes them good, but they are much better than they seem from the stats.

Yes, I've accounted for that, hence the decent ratings of those beams that are actually useful for anything.


Also to bring a different point of your argument against versatility ratings, I try to rate weapons not based entirely on how they perform in a vacuum, but rather on what value do they bring in their slot compared to other options you can install there. I rate anti-armor on the lower end of versatility value simply because it's rather easy to get rid of with most energy weapons, stray missile hits or strike weapons, and that's assuming it survives your shield breaching salvo at all.

[JAL28]

I also think the hellebore is good value sometimes, it's super efficient against heavy armor. Not a great weapon, but not a bottom tier weapon IMO. It fits well on low tech ships that have very tight flux budgets and works very well against stations, and big slow capitals.

The point I've made on Discord was, and I quote:
"Imagine aiming your worst cannon manually because it has practically no chance of hitting on autoaim", end of quote. If I install cheap garbage on my ship, I expect it at least to not have me babysit it all the time to get any value out of it. Actually, I might also clarify this in the opening post, since a lot of people seem to get confused with my hellbore rating.

The thing is, the Hellbore doesn’t need to aim if you use it right. It%u2019s meant to be used against ships so slow no sane person would miss their shots, like big fat capitals. These ships have buffed armour stats perfect for the Hellbore’s high damage shots to strip away. The Hephaestus with its high rate of fire is better for small fast frigates, where its low damage per shot is compounded by the fragile armour of its intended targets and high DPS.

Also to bring a different point of your argument against versatility ratings, I try to rate weapons not based entirely on how they perform in a vacuum, but rather on what value do they bring in their slot compared to other options you can install there. I rate anti-armor on the lower end of versatility value simply because it's rather easy to get rid of with most energy weapons, stray missile hits or strike weapons, and that's assuming it survives your shield breaching salvo at all.

Armour-breaking weapons are important because:
Shield Breaking weapons will take ages to break through armour because they have an intrinsic 50% reduction to damage on armour.
Fragmentation weapons too will take ages to break through armour due to their 50%(or was it 25%?) reduction to damage on anything that isn’t hull.
Missiles have limited ammo. After you fire a Reaper, you can never fire it again.
Strike Weapons usually have very bad flux efficiency, riding up ridiculous flux levels per shot(s). Paired with the constant hard flux buildup of being in the thick of battle, a ship running these weapons that doesn’t have a deep enough flux pool/low enough shield flux/dam or is able to avoid or vent out of enemy range(Phase/Scarab), a ship can get overfluxed rapidly. In the context of high-tech(the main user of energy slots), this is essentially a death sentence as they will be quickly annihilated once their strongest defense(shields) are taken down.

On HIL, it’s more or less a “keep your shields up or get your ass handed to you” weapon, meant to put pressure on enemies to open opportunities for shield breakers to do their job, and once that happens to utterly boil the enemy alive. It’s useful for support ships like the Champion to pressurize ships, while also being useful to taking them down when the opportunity arises.

[SCC]

Preface: I don't use SO, this is all for non-SO ships (except the bit about machine guns, because they really have no other use).
I would say Light Mortar is a decent weapon for what it does, it's just that anti-armour guns in small slots suck, unless they hit like a truck (Anti-matter Blaster). I would say LAG is worse than LM, because LM has a better hit strength and is way cheaper.

I also agree with intrinsic parity in that while needlers are good against shields, they do nothing else.

Your low rating for dual flak cannon, and suggestion that HMG is a better point defence weapon, makes me think you did not use dual flak cannon at all. It is more expensive than single flak cannon, yes, but it's worth it. It's ability to stop missiles in their tracks is unparalleled, be they single or a massed wave. AoE attack is just that useful. It's second best PD in the game, after Paladin PD, though unlike it, it can be mounted on mounts you actually can spare for PD.
In addition to that, Heavy Machine Gun is a knife fighting gun, just like all other machine guns. It being PD is a nerf if anything, because it means it gets distracted with shields, instead of wrecking the shields of the schmuck in front of you.

Mjolnir would make most other weapons obsolete... If most ships could afford to fire it. Most cannot.

You don't use Heavy Mauler, Heavy Mortar or Gauss Cannon? Huh.
You are rating Pulse Laser too high. It's sustainable, but it's not actually very versatile; while it deals energy damage, it's still mainly a shield breaker and it's good efficiency might not mean much, if it's DPS is too low to allow you to exploit opportunities. Ion Pulser is everything Pulse Laser wants to be.

Mining Blaster is trash, I agree, but Heavy Blaster? It's tied for the best medium energy weapon with Ion Pulser. It seems inefficient, but the trick is, most high-tech ships can actually support it, if they have to, both flux-wise and with mobility. And if they can, you basically have a large weapon in a medium slot. While on some ships you don't need them (Medusa and Shrike can get ballistics and phase lances for better efficiency against shields. Wolf, Doom and Paragon are better off with Ion Pulsers instead), on others they are your lifeblood and while you can not use them, you still should. Ideally paired with an Ion Pulser, it's such a great combo.

You are also too harsh on High Intensity Laser. In vanilla, it's hard to find a ship where you can pair it with some ballistics (Prometheus Mk II (l o l) and Champion), but, for example, HIL Sunders melt armour and hull, whether just by pressuring an enemy into not letting your shields down ever, or if they can fire at someone with impunity. It might not deal hard flux, but it's the best anti-armour gun in the game, besides missiles and anti-matter blasters, who both have limited ammo and cooldowns.
Hammer Barrage is actually better in one metric than Cyclone: DPS. The one ship that can really make use of it is the Radiant, and oh boy, does it go to town with them! If you intend to fight more than a single ordo at a time, though, you are better off with Cyclone, since Radiant seems to have stuck the trigger for Hammers open and it runs out of them too soon...

[Thaago]

Huh. I think a lot of your 'shameful display' choices are the best weapons in the game, though they come with limitations.

[intrinsic_parity]

I also think the hellebore is good value sometimes, it's super efficient against heavy armor. Not a great weapon, but not a bottom tier weapon IMO. It fits well on low tech ships that have very tight flux budgets and works very well against stations, and big slow capitals.

The point I've made on Discord was, and I quote:
"Imagine aiming your worst cannon manually because it has practically no chance of hitting on autoaim", end of quote. If I install cheap garbage on my ship, I expect it at least to not have me babysit it all the time to get any value out of it. Actually, I might also clarify this in the opening post, since a lot of people seem to get confused with my hellbore rating.

That doesn't make much sense to me. The auto aim usually does as good or better as you can do manually. Obviously you won't hit frigates and fast destroyers, but you wouldn't be able to hit them manually either. That's not the point of the gun. The gun doesn't need to be manually fired, you can just auto fire it, it will hit shields a lot, but it's low flux cost and efficient enough that that doesn't really matter and more importantly it forces the enemy to keep their shields up to eat your kinetic damage. If even one shot gets through, all their armor is gone, and then it does basically full DPS to hull which very few guns can do. It's a specialized anti-station and anti-capital/cruiser weapon that is very efficient and low flux and OP cost. I like it on the onslaught which really struggles with Flux.

Also to bring a different point of your argument against versatility ratings, I try to rate weapons not based entirely on how they perform in a vacuum, but rather on what value do they bring in their slot compared to other options you can install there. I rate anti-armor on the lower end of versatility value simply because it's rather easy to get rid of with most energy weapons, stray missile hits or strike weapons, and that's assuming it survives your shield breaching salvo at all.

I think what you're missing is that the biggest benefit of anti-armor is not stripping the armor itself, but piercing the minimum armor on hull. Every shot that hits hull gets reduced damage based on the maximum armor of the ship.

To highlight this effect, consider onslaught with 1750 base armor -> 87.5 residual armor. Light needler against onslaught hull does ~20% of it's rated DPS so it's getting 3.6 flux/damage to hull. Pulse laser does ~54% of its rated DPS to onslaught hull, so it gets ~1.8 flux/damage to hull (with ~140 DPS). Heavy blaster meanwhile does ~85% of its rated DPS to onslaught hull, so it gets 1.7 flux/damage and ~425 DPS: more efficient than pulse laser and also more than triple the DPS of a pulse laser to hull in this case! I'm not 100% sure on beam/armor interactions but I think High intensity laser does 92% of its rated DPS, giving it 1.08 flux/damage and ~460 DPS to full, so hopefully that puts into perspective the role of HIL. All of that is before skills and hullmods are taken into account. A full armor build on an onslaught can be much tankier than that with skills and heavy armor, but obviously damage skills can help low damage/shot weapons do better against armor/hull as well.

I mostly don't use HIL much because plasma cannon is almost as good against hull/armor while also being decent against shields, but HIL paired with kinetics can be very potent in some circumstances, and 1000 range is also a nice bonus. HIL + HVD champion is one of my sneaky favorite builds. High energy focus HIL is kinda crazy, and 100 range beams are really easy for the AI to get value out of. If plasma cannon didn't exist, I think I would use HIL much more often.

I really disagree that you can just get the anti armor/hull role from wherever. A huge aspect of the game is taking advantage of short windows of vulnerability before things escape back to safety. You kill things SO much faster if you spend more of your flux budget on high damage/shot weapons. It also depends a lot on what you are fighting. Against high tech ships, anti armor is less important, but against an endgame low tech bounty with tons of onslaughts/dominators/legions, you really benefit a lot from weapons like the heavy blaster and hellbore.

Also if you are remnant hunting, consider that the radiant has 1500 base armor and likely elite armor skills as well. You're never gonna kill it without being able to deal lots of hull damage through all that armor.

[Grievous69]

Man, this one is even more quirkier than the previous one, there's so much questionable stuff that it would take an eternity to comment it all. I'll just say, putting Dual flak as the worst weapon in slot is the single biggest mistake in all tier lists I've ever seen, it's seriously that "wrong". If you can even be wrong in a personal tier list but oh well. You just need more time experimenting with the game's weapons on different ships, that's all.

I'm very surprised there's no mention of Gauss Cannon since Atlas MkII was an S tier ship for you. It's a perfect fit for a long range artillery craft like it.

[JAL28]

Dual Flak is basically a Flak that trades out OP for better efficiency at killing fighters/missiles through DPS. I usually use it when abundant medium slots to spam Flaks in are not available(eg. Heron, which I usually put a Dual Flak in to compound it’s otherwise lackluster PD set)

[Igncom1]

I think this just goes to show how many of the weapons in this game I like as there are few I'd even reccormend as bad entirely. Even the cheap ones are usually fantastically efficient. 

The Function, Versatility, Sustainability scores seem 100% arbitrarily assigned. Which is fine for your own list, but it doesn't make much sense to me really.

[Kohlenstoff]

Dual Flak is basically a Flak that trades out OP for better efficiency at killing fighters/missiles through DPS. I usually use it when abundant medium slots to spam Flaks in are not available(eg. Heron, which I usually put a Dual Flak in to compound it’s otherwise lackluster PD set)

Dual Flaks are there to fill the two universal slots of a Paragon. 
Then it gots all the PD it needs.