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[Linnis]

Scarabs are better off using multiple AM blasters, in all battles I have done they do much better with them than pulse laser.

They do well with pulse lasers are well, but that's more because scarabs are overpowered and tac lasers are even worse.

[Igncom1]

I'm not even 100% sure what this thread is about.

Anyway out of the large energy wepaons I class them as:

Autopulse Laser - Cost effective generalist/anti shield weapon. Not great vs armour but very powerful.

Plasma Cannon - Premium anti-everything gun. Best used when the ship to built to use it as it's one of the most flux intensive weapons in the game.

High Intensity Laser - Cost effective anti-armour beam with HE damage type. Only slightly slower at killing things then the T-Lance.

T-Lance - Premium anti-armour beam with an EMP effect. Nightmarish against sub-cruisers. A laughing stock vs targets with a decent shield. Best used in conjunction with an anti-shield weapon. (A Radient with 4 T-lances is a joke vs other capital ships.)

Never go full T-lance or HIL. You are only hurting yourself.

[intrinsic_parity]

I don't agree that stacking tac lances is bad. It might not be the perfect 1v1 loadout, but it's super powerful at picking things off, and the range is actually fairly oppressive.

IMO 5x lance radiant is one of the hardest variants to deal with because it will hang out at 1000 range and murder you if your flux levels are ever raised. It makes it really hard to kill other things because you will be punished very hard for even the tiniest mistakes. It will also just once shot everything short of a cruiser. 4x lance paragon is also the best player variant IMO because you can get absurd range with advanced optics. Even if you're not one-shoting things, the ion damage cripples things, and the soft flux burst is enough to be a problem for any ship.

The AI is not super good at using tac lance though.

[Megas]

Last release, four lance and two HVD Paragon (controlled by player) slaughtered every fleet that did not have Radiants in it flawlessly.  It falters once Radiants come along, and it makes sense to swap some lances for plasma cannons and HVDs for needlers.  Four lances murders small ships, and heavily punishes brief openings caused bigger ships dropping shields foolishly.  If the target has hard flux, four lances will cause significant damage regardless of shields.

Both pulse lasers are decent in this release.  Last release, they were not efficient enough, but they seem to be now.

[Zonk]

I made an Aurora build with IR pulse lasers on every potentially forward-facing small energy slots and Phase Lances in the medium slots. I can't remember off the top of my head how many IR pulses that is but it's something like 8 or 9. On a ship like the Aurora with maxed flux stats this is really a nasty ship to fight. It can pump out a lot of hard flux at a reasonable flux-per-damage (1 to 1) ratio and the phase lances punish anyone who lowers their shields. I use Unstable Injector instead of SO in this situation because unlike the classic AM blaster SO Aurora I need this ship to have long endurance for longer fights against lots of capitals, so the limited deployment time of SO and limited ammo of the AM blasters doesn't work for me.

I can't really think of a ship this works nicely on except for the Aurora. Frigates and Destroyers don't have the flux to power enough IR pulses to do serious damage, and I tried a Conquest or Paragon build with IR pulses but tactical lasers just have so much range in a sniper Conquest or Paragon with mods and officers that they force any ship within 2500 units to have their shields up.