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[JohnVicres]

Don't really feel it. I know it's an "armor-stripper" like the chaingun, and the 0.96 flux cost reduction helped some, but the problem is the OP cost compared to the Hellbore: 4 OP is a big difference, even if it's a large gun. As it stands, the Hellbore seems to be just too good with both armor penetration and chunky, instant damage, whereas the Heph needs time to get it done, time that entails getting shot at for longer and generating more soft flux. Perhaps there's a plus in Heph being able to deal with fast and/or small targets, but then it's competing with the Devastator. In the spreadsheet the gun seem fine, but gameplay-wise I've never picked a Heph over a Hellbore or Devastator; the only ship that could mount Hephs wisely is the Conquest, and strictly DPS guns in the Conquest is a bad mix.

I recently wondered if keeping  the flux cost (if not lowering it again) AND buffing the damage BUT increasing OP cost to 22 would make it more interesting. Gets it closer to the Mjolnir, but still lower to define it as less extravagant. I've experimented with (flux/damage) 110/130, 110/140, 110/150 and 100/150, but I don't really have an accurate testing setup so I'm certainly overcompensating.

[Wyvern]

Yes, it is. It's absolutely a more powerful weapon than either the Hellbore or the Devastator, in terms of killing things that aren't swarms of fighters (where the Devastator edges it out due to AoE damage).

It's less of a chaingun-like armor-stripper, and more of ballistic's answer to the HIL - except that, unlike the HIL, it does hard flux, and also unlike the HIL, it can actually hold fire on-target against mobile opponents.

In general, if you're short on large ballistic slots, need anti-armor and/or anti-hull, and are not critically short on flux, take a HAG.

(Now, some people are going to come in here and tell you that you should always use the HAG over the Hellbore. I don't find that convincing; the Hellbore's low cost and dedication to its role make for a very useful weapon. But, for example: if you're building an Onslaught for forwards firepower, use a HAG in the central turret, not a Hellbore.)

[Vanshilar]

Not sure why this topic seems to come up a lot lately. The Heph has been in a good spot for a long time; even when I started testing weapons and optimal builds in 0.95.1a, it and the Mjolnir generally performed the best for large ballistics. I don't know why Alex keeps buffing it, although he's mentioned before that he feels like players keep sleeping on it.

It's not really an armor-stripper per se, it's basically a DPS weapon geared more toward anti-hull rather than anti-armor. But winning in combat tends to favor the ship that can put out more DPS, in addition to flux efficiency, especially against hull when the enemy ship is backing off and you're trying to finish it off before it gets out of range and/or retreats behind another enemy ship, so you have a very limited time window. So it should be your general go-to large ballistic if you already have other weapons doing anti-shield, and Mjolnir instead if you don't. That covers most cases, with the other large ballistics essentially getting niche use for particular circumstances or builds.

Having said that, as I've mentioned elsewhere, when looking for what weapon set makes a ship the best in combat (as measured by what minimizes battle time against the same double Ordos test fleet), thus far it's always ended up being Mjolnir or Heph. Even the Manticore, which I thought would be a poster child for using another weapon (due to its low base flux), ended up performing best with Mjolnir or Heph.

[Grievous69]

I was the one hating on HAG before and saying it wasn't as good as people kept saying, but right now I can definitely say it's 100% in a good spot. Accuracy buff helped a ton, you could argue I was sleeping on it then, but when the efficiency buff came I was more convinced to keep trying it out on my ships.

[Killer of Fate]

Not sure why this topic seems to come up a lot lately. The Heph has been in a good spot for a long time; even when I started testing weapons and optimal builds in 0.95.1a, it and the Mjolnir generally performed the best for large ballistics. I don't know why Alex keeps buffing it, although he's mentioned before that he feels like players keep sleeping on it.

It's not really an armor-stripper per se, it's basically a DPS weapon geared more toward anti-hull rather than anti-armor. But winning in combat tends to favor the ship that can put out more DPS, in addition to flux efficiency, especially against hull when the enemy ship is backing off and you're trying to finish it off before it gets out of range and/or retreats behind another enemy ship, so you have a very limited time window. So it should be your general go-to large ballistic if you already have other weapons doing anti-shield, and Mjolnir instead if you don't. That covers most cases, with the other large ballistics essentially getting niche use for particular circumstances or builds.

Having said that, as I've mentioned elsewhere, when looking for what weapon set makes a ship the best in combat (as measured by what minimizes battle time against the same double Ordos test fleet), thus far it's always ended up being Mjolnir or Heph. Even the Manticore, which I thought would be a poster child for using another weapon (due to its low base flux), ended up performing best with Mjolnir or Heph.

It has to do with sim testing. Weapons perform significantly differently in combat where large amounts of officers are involved. Which explains why one may think that Mjollnir or Hephaestus are garbo. When in reality they could be good as long as you had stuff like Polarised Armour+ and Ordnance Expertise+. As well as stuff like Resistant Flux Conduits, which paired with good armour and durability behaviour can very much increase a ship's ability to fire WEPHNS.

We also have to remember that these buffs aren't that necessary when we think of the new bonuses s-mods give. These may actually turn these weapons into somewhat broken versions of themselves due to large benefits of having s-modded shield shunt for eg. Though that mostly applies to Mjollnir.

On the other hand, I imagine that Fractal gave those buffs out mostly to improve general NPC behaviour with Hephaestus, as it was too confusing to utilise effectively. And weapons, as well as ships, designed to be only useful with player tweaking are kinda odd to have in game. Looking at you Tri-Tachyon. And your *** lvl 1 officers piloting Hyperions into the freaking wall. WHICH YOU FOUND SOMEHOW IN SPACE.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

I said it before and I'll say it again: the problem with HAG is not the stats of the weapon itself, it's that the weapon type - large explosive ballistic - has almost no practical use when all the strongest enemies in the game are (very) high tech ships.

[Amoebka]

Go ahead and do a kinetic-only fleet against """high-tech""" remnants. At the end of the day, it's hull damage that kills ships, and HAG is exceptionally good at dealing it.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Go ahead and do an explosive-only fleet against the Remnant then, see if it performs better than the all-kinetic one. Since apparently going all-in on either are the only two available options.

[SCC]

I don't think HAG needs any changes at the moment.

I said it before and I'll say it again: the problem with HAG is not the stats of the weapon itself, it's that the weapon type - large explosive ballistic - has almost no practical use when all the strongest enemies in the game are (very) high tech ships.

It has a very practical use, in my experience: not letting Remnants get away with minimal hull damage. It takes longer for Remnants to dribble from the top of the screen, than to vent and come back for another go. At the very least, going HE large and KE rest is viable.

[Killer of Fate]

this "you don't need HE damage to bully Remnants" logic applies to Hellbore, which is why Hellbore is now a Hellboredom. Also cause Hellbore becomes irrelevant when you put s-mods into the equation, which causes it to be out-tiered by weapons that can benefit more from the bs that is late game.

Hellbore feels like an early or mid game weapon. Or a gun you bring to annoy maybe elite mercenary fleets, Hegemony stuff (no longer as relevant as it was before) or maybe fight off Guardian bounties.

But Hellbore definitely isn't that practical against Remnants, unless we're thinking about using a Dominator's excess OP being spent on Ballistic RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGEfinder and Railguns along a pair of Hellbores to defeat a Remnant Radiant, but that feels somewhat impractical compared to just spamming bullets. At least on paper. Or Tri-Pad, I guess.

[prav]

Against low-armor high-shield ships it's important that you actually kill them once the shield pops, otherwise you spent all that time shooting it for basically nothing.

[Amoebka]

Go ahead and do an explosive-only fleet against the Remnant then, see if it performs better than the all-kinetic one. Since apparently going all-in on either are the only two available options.

You are the one pretending it's all or nothing, saying an anti-hull weapon has "no practical use" against shielded enemies. Adding HAG into the weapon mix makes fights much easier compared to plinking away at hulls with kinetics.

[Draba]

I think Heph is good right now, wouldn't use a Hellbore over it on any ship in the base game.
L ballistic slots are very good and aren't that plentiful, feels much better to put high impact weapons in them.

An example fight for Hellbore's best case (1000 FP Hegemony fleet filled with huge/slow armor bricks):


The sequence at  3:45 shows off Hellbore's weak point very well:
Shoots fighter, shoots fighter, misses Onslaught, misses Onslaught, hits Onslaught, shoots between Onslaught and Grendel. 6 shots, 1 meaningful hit (ok, only had a good target for 5)
Even when it hits: spread is generally big enough to damage armor in various places without doing hull damage, Heph just drills the same general area and eats up both armor and hull.

For those who don't want to watch a video, it's 3 Executors with 1 Hellbore and 1 Heph Manticore escorting each one, mostly left to their own devices after clicking the top border.
Hellbore loadout and combat results, Hellbore manticores are the ones in the blue rectangles (scrolling over them at the end of the video):

Spoiler

[close]

In general Heph does much more than the Hellbore against any fleet for me.
Ofc it should do more for 190 extra flux, IMO op is close to even since advanced gyros are basically mandatory for Hellbore.

I said it before and I'll say it again: the problem with HAG is not the stats of the weapon itself, it's that the weapon type - large explosive ballistic - has almost no practical use when all the strongest enemies in the game are (very) high tech ships.

It has a very practical use, in my experience: not letting Remnants get away with minimal hull damage.

Against low-armor high-shield ships it's important that you actually kill them once the shield pops, otherwise you spent all that time shooting it for basically nothing.

This was addressed last time you brought it up, piling on to the 2 previous posters: going heavy on HE/autolance/high hit strength energy against remnants is very good.
Radiant has the same hull as Onslaught with armor that's pretty close, no HA but it's guaranteed impact mitigation+damage control+polarized armor. Every time you let it jump away you have to go through the full base 0.6 shields again.
Apex is very durable for a cruiser with guaranteed impact mitigation+damage control, whenever it escapes it regenerates both shields and some hull (elite CE).
Nova is basically begging for HE to be spammed into the sides.
Since the only good HE options for ballistic are mauler or L the L HEs are good by default, S or M can take care of kinetic (you really don't need as much kinetic as you think).

[Draba]

Think this is worth a separate post:
Hellbore projectiles do not seem to take the velocity inherited from the firing vehicle into account when aiming.
In case it's not just in my imagination that could be worth taking a look, they are really slow and every little bit of lateral velocity can screw them over.

Edit: nvm it does account for inherited velocity, turret is just really slow even with gyros so acceleration can throw it off target.

[Megas]

It is better than it used to be.  The accuracy on a turret was awful until relatively recently.