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Author Topic: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?  (Read 1670 times)

hydremajor

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Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« on: September 13, 2021, 11:28:51 PM »

I mean thats a damage type thats supposedly specialised in shooting Strike crafts and Missiles down, but I'm gonna be honest, however much armor thoses have is enough to just not care whatsoever about vulcans or Flak cannons

You'd have more luck converting Assault Guns into PD, sure the accuracy's bad but you only need 1 or 2 hits to land to stop oncoming missiles and make short work of strike vessels

This leaves Flak Cannons whose lack of fire rate prove underwhelming at best in a PD role

finally we get the Locust launchers who are mostly used to saturate PD, overwhelm shields through sheer spam, overwhelm strike craft armor through sheer spam, and shred Hull after armor is peeled

And then we have PD weapons like Swarmers and Devastator cannons who are given HE damage and are honestly pretty good in PD but also have extra utility through the HE allowing them to engage targets larger than than their intended role...


So the question is, since nobody uses Frag damage weapons for their intended purpose and would rather spam light machine guns because of the extra utility in added hard flux damage to shields, why keep frag damage in the first place ?
Not to mention they are a minority as far as damage types are concerned
« Last Edit: September 13, 2021, 11:31:47 PM by hydremajor »
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Ramiel

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Re: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2021, 12:10:08 AM »

Anti missile defence?
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SCC

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Re: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2021, 12:24:47 AM »

Point defence is actually a different role from anti-fighter. Missiles have 0 armour, so frag damage always does full damage to them.
While I agree vulcans are mediocre, have you used flaks at all? They are the best way of dealing with missiles (and I consider them better than Paladin on the basis that flak is actually used in practice) and I have never been disappointed with them. Against fighters, they're still somewhat okay.
Locust has seen better days. Namely, 0.9.1. It used to be my missile of choice and it was at least decent against everything but armour. Now it seems the same as before, just not as good, probably because there's fewer damage boosts.

Histidine

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Re: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2021, 12:37:51 AM »

Vulcans and flak are better at pure antimissile than any PD weapon in their respective size classes, other than the small burst PD. Seriously, try it against the Harpoon spam target in the Practice Targets mod.

If an otherwise exposed low-tech cruiser or capital has 3 active vulcans or one dual flak covering that sector, then I don't bother firing torpedoes at all (or more often, I notice this only after most or all of them have been shot down).
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Alliostra

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Re: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2021, 12:49:37 AM »

I usually prefer vulcans over machine guns, apart from SO builds that can actually get within machine gun range. They're much better at stopping missiles, a task which I've always found machine guns to be underwhelming for, as it's not uncommon for them to miss most of their shots if the missile or a fast fighter does not approach it directly in a straight line.

Flaks aren't underwhelming at all in their PD role due to their AoE, efficiency and reliability, and if you want a high firerate just use a dual flak or vulcans.  Not to mention that converting LAGs into PD costs extra OP and also makes other weapons target missiles, which might not always be what you want them to do.

Locusts already shred hull, giving it any damage type other than frag would make it too powerful against shields and armor, and nerfing it's damage down to 25% of it's nominal value would make it too bad at anything but destroying light fighters.

The
Spoiler
Cryoblaster
[close]
is an absolute beast.

Amusingly, you forgot to mention the only gun with frag damage that is actually worthless: the Thumper which is bad at everything and can't even deal significant damage to the bare hull of anything but the lightest armor due to it's low damage per shot.

As far as I'm concerned, frag damage has it's place in PD weapons which primarily fight low/no armor targets, while keeping them from melting regular ships with ease (imagine vulcan cannons with energy instead of frag damage).
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Daynen

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Re: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2021, 11:59:39 AM »

Frag damage is the "economy" damage.  Frag weapons tend to be cheaper, both in cost and ordnance points, because they're not specialized at and are generally bad for cracking any kind of defenses.  That being said, I really want to know what flak weapons people have been using because every time I employ flak of any variety, it goes everywhere BUT the target.  I must be cursed or something, I dunno.  I keep seeing people say 'reliable, efficient and accurate" and I'm like..."are we talking about the same weapon?"  I'm scratching my head on that one.
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Thaago

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Re: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2021, 12:32:53 PM »

I think Vulcans are good enough that I've started replacing flak with them in a bunch of my builds. Its not impenetrable anti-missile, but its good enough for "light" levels of protection (read salamanders, pilums, a few harpoons), nearly flux free, and 4OP cheaper. They are also relatively high dps vs fighters even after counting armor.

I've experimented with using LAGs with IPDAI, and the results are... not bad, but also not good. On the one hand, the extra range lets them shoot down missiles from farther, but on the other their shot spread and projectile speed aren't really up to the task so they miss a lot, all while cost 160 fps. I'd also rather have them shooting at fighters than missiles so I dislike the target prioritization IPDAI gives them.
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Flying Dice

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Re: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2021, 06:00:06 PM »

Frag damage is the "economy" damage.  Frag weapons tend to be cheaper, both in cost and ordnance points, because they're not specialized at and are generally bad for cracking any kind of defenses.  That being said, I really want to know what flak weapons people have been using because every time I employ flak of any variety, it goes everywhere BUT the target.  I must be cursed or something, I dunno.  I keep seeing people say 'reliable, efficient and accurate" and I'm like..."are we talking about the same weapon?"  I'm scratching my head on that one.

Flak's not really for "I have one missile curving towards my drive and desperately need it to be shot down", it's for "there is a small tidal wave of rockets and bombers headed for me".

Efficient it most definitely is, insofar as that it does a decent job for dirt cheap.
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Linnis

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Re: Do we really need Fragmentation damage ?
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2021, 01:30:43 AM »

Vulcans with the PD range increase skill in addition to range bonus from Hull mods and ship size is nuts!

My favorite weird little gem of this update.
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