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Author Topic: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?  (Read 4733 times)

Maethendias

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #15 on: November 28, 2021, 03:59:14 PM »

The heavy blaster is better in 99% of cases. While it has higher flux/s, it also has higher efficiency so for a given amount of flux you get more damage out. Firing some, then waiting (or venting), then firing more with a heavy blaster will do more damage in the same time as a mining blaster just fired. Mining Blasters are ok to have early game against armor tanks because they are common weapons to crack heavy armor when other options might not be available, but HB's are just better.

Pretty much the only time a mining blaster is actually better is on a Hyperion or phase ship when you fire a single shot then go invulnerable again.

i honestly do not understand why people dont like the mining blaster so much.... ESPECIALLY on high tech ships...

shrikes, wolves, or auroras are prime candidates for mining blasters, you know, skirmisher that need a heavy punch.

the thing with the mining blaster is that it has a high per shot flux cost, but is overall quite flux efficient, again, with the caveat that the ship using it can acutally take the flux burst, and vent it during the reload. and high tech SO ships are PERFECT for that, high flux cap, quick passive venting...

another thing with the mining blaster is that it is acutally really good in combat... its burst nature allows it to very reliably overload enemy ships, burst down openings from flankers, and "sneak" shots behind enemy shields after they have dropped said shields to vent.

ironically, the mining blaster is alot more flux efficient than the heavy blaster... and costs less op too...

ships that utilize energy slots usually dont play the dps game, since dps energy weapons just do not work in this game... but bursting? ye boy

and ye, like someone else said before already, mining blasters arent mainstay weapons, imagine them like a secondary grenade launcher strapped onto your assault rifle.
 
i usually use them on shrikes, that have 2 ir lasers, and an ion cannon, with pd and whatever armor missile i have laying around
« Last Edit: November 28, 2021, 04:06:22 PM by Maethendias »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #16 on: November 28, 2021, 04:43:49 PM »

Mining blaster is the least efficient weapon in the game in terms of raw damage/flux, it does .583 damage/flux.... Heavy blaster is by no means efficient, but it still does .694 damage/flux.

Against heavier armor, mining blaster is actually reasonably efficient, but against hull, it's completely outclassed by the heavy blaster.

If you want really efficient alpha strike damage, the anti-matter blaster is much more efficient than either of these weapons and much better suited to small ships like wolves, but it has limited ammo and a super low ROF, meaning it isn't really great for dealing lots of hull damage which is what the heavy blaster excels at.
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Maethendias

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #17 on: November 28, 2021, 04:53:51 PM »

Mining blaster is the least efficient weapon in the game in terms of raw damage/flux, it does .583 damage/flux.... Heavy blaster is by no means efficient, but it still does .694 damage/flux.

Against heavier armor, mining blaster is actually reasonably efficient, but against hull, it's completely outclassed by the heavy blaster.

If you want really efficient alpha strike damage, the anti-matter blaster is much more efficient than either of these weapons and much better suited to small ships like wolves, but it has limited ammo and a super low ROF, meaning it isn't really great for dealing lots of hull damage which is what the heavy blaster excels at.

people put way too much importance on flux-damage efficiency, rather than the overall performance of a weapon, OR more importantly, how the flux is generated
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #18 on: November 28, 2021, 06:51:18 PM »

Flux damage ratio is the efficiency of the weapon, there's no other metric... You can vent between shots with any weapon, that doesn't change the efficiency of the weapon, the less efficient weapon will vent for longer per unit damage because it built up more flux.

You will do more damage with the heavy blaster in the same scenario and you will also deal that damage faster and build up less flux while doing so.
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Maethendias

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #19 on: November 29, 2021, 12:54:02 AM »

Flux damage ratio is the efficiency of the weapon, there's no other metric... You can vent between shots with any weapon, that doesn't change the efficiency of the weapon, the less efficient weapon will vent for longer per unit damage because it built up more flux.

You will do more damage with the heavy blaster in the same scenario and you will also deal that damage faster and build up less flux while doing so.

there is a diffrence, A BIG diffrence, between a sustained burst, and a burst
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SCC

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #20 on: November 29, 2021, 01:00:30 AM »

Mining Blaster might have a big burst, but it's flux cost is too much for the damage it puts out, to the point it very well may hurt you more, than it hurts the enemy. It might be okay if you aren't shot at, but so are all weapons. Winning the flux war is the hurdle you have to overcome and Mining Blaster is miserable at this job.
Anti-matter Blaster is a better alternative thanks to its better efficiency and being a small energy weapon, instead of a medium one.

Jackundor

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #21 on: November 29, 2021, 01:03:25 AM »

the mining blaster is obviously intended to destroy asteroids, and thus is way better than the heavy blaster, smh
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FooF

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #22 on: November 29, 2021, 06:51:38 AM »

Mining Blaster works but it’s awful efficiency means if your opponent takes the hit on shields or you miss entirely, you’re out a ton of flux. If it only hit armor, you could make a case for it but in all other circumstances, HB is better. However, Mining Blaster is way more available and doesn’t cost as much OP so at least fielding them isn’t difficult. They’re supposed to be a poor-man’s HB so it makes sense to me that a true HB outshines them.

I treat the AMB as an energy torpedo so it’s a little apples and oranges to me, but I do love them. A pair of them linked or even a triplicate has both a ton of damage or overload potential. Great on Auroras and the like.
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ubuntufreakdragon

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #23 on: November 29, 2021, 11:37:36 AM »

I don't like these two guns fighting over the same niche.
Heavy blaster should be the heavy generalist.
Miningblaster could be more armor focused, and cheaper to use, ie HE half dmg half flux and some range in exchange.

And AMB is a high ammo torpedo in unexpected slots, given it's 9 op cost it should be medium and as a medium gun ammo recharge would be ok.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2021, 11:54:02 AM by ubuntufreakdragon »
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rabbistern

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #24 on: December 02, 2021, 02:07:59 PM »

Flux damage ratio is the efficiency of the weapon, there's no other metric...
consider a hypothetical energy-type vulcan cannon, delivering 500 DPS in packets of 25 dmg each. against anything that isnt a high-tech frigates residual armor, each of those 20 shots will be cut down to a fraction of said 25 dmg. it could have half the listed flux efficiency of a heavy blaster, yet would still effectively have a higher real dpf value.
its also not just armor, shield combat favors high-damage projectiles too. overload duration is based on the damage that the overload-delivering projectile dealt, which is why weapons like HVD or gauss are S-tier, despite being among the worst flux efficiencies in the game
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #25 on: December 02, 2021, 03:27:30 PM »

Flux damage ratio is the efficiency of the weapon, there's no other metric...
consider a hypothetical energy-type vulcan cannon, delivering 500 DPS in packets of 25 dmg each. against anything that isnt a high-tech frigates residual armor, each of those 20 shots will be cut down to a fraction of said 25 dmg. it could have half the listed flux efficiency of a heavy blaster, yet would still effectively have a higher real dpf value.
its also not just armor, shield combat favors high-damage projectiles too. overload duration is based on the damage that the overload-delivering projectile dealt, which is why weapons like HVD or gauss are S-tier, despite being among the worst flux efficiencies in the game
Strongly disagree that HVD and Gauss are s-tier. They are B tier at best IMO.

I am aware of armor mechanics and minimum armor. When I talk about armor and hull efficiency, I have calculated the flux/damage values against hull and armor (at varying armor levels) for HB and mining blaster using the armor damage reduction. Heavy blaster requires less flux to deal the same amount of damage to hull for all relevant base armor values (<2500). Against armor, mining blaster is slightly more efficient for value above ~625 armor, but the difference in efficiency is like ~.01 damage/flux so basically they perform the same against armor.

I agree that alpha damage is valuable, but inefficient alpha is the equivalent of taking a big hit on your own shields. Shields reward efficiency super heavily because weapons are effectively doing 'self damage' to your own shields when they fire. With the mining blaster, you're effectively taking a bigger hit on your own shields than you're dealing to the enemy shields, it's really not useful unless you have a massive flux capacity/shield efficiency advantage, in which case you would easily win with pretty much any weapon setup.
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RustyCabbage

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #26 on: December 02, 2021, 03:36:50 PM »

I am aware of armor mechanics and minimum armor. When I talk about armor and hull efficiency, I have calculated the flux/damage values against hull and armor (at varying armor levels) for HB and mining blaster using the armor damage reduction. Heavy blaster requires less flux to deal the same amount of damage to hull for all relevant base armor values (<2500). Against armor, mining blaster is slightly more efficient for value above ~625 armor, but the difference in efficiency is like ~.01 damage/flux so basically they perform the same against armor.
also worth mentioning that, against armor, damage boosts scale better with higher efficiency weapons, so a 40% damage boost (e.g, 15% from Target Analysis, 5% from 85% CR, 20% from Energy Weapon Mastery) raises the armor required for efficiency parity to closer to 900.

Histidine

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #27 on: December 02, 2021, 04:40:27 PM »

Also overload duration only matters if you can actually inflict enough total flux to cause an overload in the first place.
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Kanjejou

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #28 on: December 05, 2021, 09:49:33 AM »

Well most fo the medium energy slot ships go quite fast(shrike) or have the improved energy gun module(sunder) so its totaly doable to get in burst get out vent rinc eand repeat.

And for that I find the mining laser is way better as a Flanker or Boom and Zoom ship. but if I have a ship that stay in range for a time I do indeed prefer the Heavy blaster.
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Thaago

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Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« Reply #29 on: December 05, 2021, 12:25:13 PM »

Well, the mining blaster if better at burst if you are going to be firing one shot only - any more than that the the Heavy Blaster is better in all ways. For ships that do the 1 shot thing (phase ships, Hyperion) it can be a good choice.
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