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[Grievous69]

That 700 vs 900 range "pfft who cares" comment made me laugh out loud. Come on now range is #1 most important stat in the game, followed by speed. If you have enough range, you practically don't care about anything else. Of course nothing in this game has such huge range where you could just afk and your whole fleet would bombard the enemy at 5000 range but the advantages still remain. Others have explained it well so I'm not going to be a parrot.

Back to the OP:

Arbalest is a choice when you need the cheapest most flux efficient kinetic in a medium mount. Those scenarios are not common, usually you want better kinetics, but there is a place for it on some builds.

MkIX has been explained already.

Gauss Cannon is overrated and I don't even like using it on the Conquest, it's wasting the ship's true potential. The only ship I tend to use it on is the Atlas MkII. Manticore would be another good choice if it didn't have its flux dissipation nerfed.

Oh yeah and I put Ballistic Rangefinder on 90% of my Onslaught builds, it's amazing. There's other ships that can make it work great but Onslaught is prime candidate since it has a boatload of OP and enough small mounts.

[LeetKroo]

That 700 vs 900 range "pfft who cares" comment made me laugh out loud. Come on now range is #1 most important stat in the game, followed by speed. If you have enough range, you practically don't care about anything else. Of course nothing in this game has such huge range where you could just afk and your whole fleet would bombard the enemy at 5000 range but the advantages still remain. Others have explained it well so I'm not going to be a parrot.

Back to the OP:

Arbalest is a choice when you need the cheapest most flux efficient kinetic in a medium mount. Those scenarios are not common, usually you want better kinetics, but there is a place for it on some builds.

MkIX has been explained already.

Gauss Cannon is overrated and I don't even like using it on the Conquest, it's wasting the ship's true potential. The only ship I tend to use it on is the Atlas MkII. Manticore would be another good choice if it didn't have its flux dissipation nerfed.

Oh yeah and I put Ballistic Rangefinder on 90% of my Onslaught builds, it's amazing. There's other ships that can make it work great but Onslaught is prime candidate since it has a boatload of OP and enough small mounts.

IDK, I'd rather have HAC rather than HVD on the Executor. The hardpoint accuracy + DPS makes it very competitive vs Remnants and fast fleets (LP, High tech, ManJets)

I also have better results with Needler rather than with HVD on the Paragon. Probably because it synergizes well with fortress shield.

[Grievous69]

You're responding to the wrong comment, I have not mentioned HVD a single time in my post.

[Killer of Fate]

That 700 vs 900 range "pfft who cares" comment made me laugh out loud. Come on now range is #1 most important stat in the game, followed by speed. If you have enough range, you practically don't care about anything else. Of course nothing in this game has such huge range where you could just afk and your whole fleet would bombard the enemy at 5000 range but the advantages still remain. Others have explained it well so I'm not going to be a parrot.

Back to the OP:

Arbalest is a choice when you need the cheapest most flux efficient kinetic in a medium mount. Those scenarios are not common, usually you want better kinetics, but there is a place for it on some builds.

MkIX has been explained already.

Gauss Cannon is overrated and I don't even like using it on the Conquest, it's wasting the ship's true potential. The only ship I tend to use it on is the Atlas MkII. Manticore would be another good choice if it didn't have its flux dissipation nerfed.

Oh yeah and I put Ballistic Rangefinder on 90% of my Onslaught builds, it's amazing. There's other ships that can make it work great but Onslaught is prime candidate since it has a boatload of OP and enough small mounts.

the irony of this post is that you mention how range is the most relevant stat, and then explain that Gauss Cannon isn't that good. At least that's how I understand it. So, you can clearly see that if something has high enough stats then it can make up for the ship's lack of range.

And if it comes to how Storm Needler works, the sheer firepower it provides at ranges at which it trades with Remnants allows it to actually trade quite well. Sure, MK IX outranges Remnants, but if you are going to get overwhelmed, the ability to rapidly deter them is going to prove more valuable than the ability to shoot at them at higher ranges.

The stacking of firepower is obviously a very important aspect. But consider the fact that you are dealing way more damage by just simply firing the Storm Needler. And stacking 2 Storm Needlers will allow you to rapidly flux up something like a Brilliance. Whereas with MK IX you have to be too patient for your own good.

On paper...

[Grievous69]

My bad I didn't explain my thoughts on Gauss Cannon fully. While it has superior range, it's beyond bad in every other aspect (except precision but kinetic weapons really don't need perfect accuracy to pull their weight, it's just a bonus). It has the worst efficiency of all ballistic weapons, it's too much even for some capitals, OP cost is very high, and the worst of all DPS is kinda ass considering how much you need to run it properly.

The main thing is that it's an anti-low tech ship weapon yet it can be almost exclusively mounted on low tech ships. The only non low tech ship with large ballistics is Conquest, and I've said I'm not a fan of it there either.

So while yes, range is extremely strong, you can still have a long range weapon that is not good.

[Killer of Fate]

I think Dominator can use it.
It's true that it has the worst flux efficiency, but it's impossible to counter, acting as a hard flux beam weapon. Weapons like these have to be controlled by something to be kept in check, cause mobile options in the game are really just incapable of surviving long enough to punish them. All they can do is strafe or hope they are the ones doing the outranging.

I understood the first time. And whilst I understand that MK IX has its niches. Ultimately the devastation Storm Needler has is just plain ridiculous. I would much more would like to at least interrogate the idea of Storm Needler being what Heavy Needler is to Arbalest. A higher anti-shield DPS option that operates also at higher OP cost. Not a... Melee death machine. We should just invent a wholly different weapon for that. But I suppose repeating the same concept is really boring.

[TK3600]

Excessive range is also bad, in the sense your fleet is not big/wide enough to take advantage fire density. You would have to break the current DP/ship limit.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

the irony of this post is that you mention how range is the most relevant stat, and then explain that Gauss Cannon isn't that good.

Allow me to offer a piece of heresy: it's fine for kinetic weapons to not have long range. Or rather, it's fine for kinetics to be outranged by explosives, because once you flux the enemy up, it's the explosives that actually finish the enemy ship off. So it's mostly important for the explosive weapons to have as long of a range as possible so that the enemy ship doesn't get away in time. Kinetics only need to not be outranged by the enemy ship's main battery so that they actually fire when the enemy ship is in range and trade flux in your favour. Anything beyond that is just gravy.

Also, kinetics generally scale poorly with size - first of all you don't really care about how much damage each shot does because it's going to be terrible against armor/hull either way, so the advantage of firing "larger bullets" is mostly meaningless(unlike explosives where damage/shot is very important) Their damage output scales poorly too, for example Mark IX has twice the DPS of a Railgun, despite being three times larger. Is one large mount worth two small mounts?

So when you're fitting a ballistic ship it's usually better to put explosive weapons in all the largest mounts you have to maximize range and damage, then just use smaller ones for kinetics because you don't lose much by doing so.

This is also why no one uses the Gauss Cannon - sure you can overflux an enemy ship at very long range, but then it's just going to retreat and some other ship will take its place, which in ideal conditions will repeat forever until you run out of CR(because flux is an infinitely renewable resource) And even the large mount Gauss Cannon, the most "anti-armor" of all kinetic weapons, still deals less damage per shot than a medium mount Heavy Mauler(and Heavy Mauler fires three shots at a time)

[Sendrien]

This is also why no one uses the Gauss Cannon - sure you can overflux an enemy ship at very long range, but then it's just going to retreat and some other ship will take its place, which in ideal conditions will repeat forever until you run out of CR(because flux is an infinitely renewable resource) And even the large mount Gauss Cannon, the most "anti-armor" of all kinetic weapons, still deals less damage per shot than a medium mount Heavy Mauler(and Heavy Mauler fires three shots at a time)

I use the Gauss Cannon as the cornerstone of my Invictus fleet. Its range is such that no capital ship can get anywhere close to even remotely threaten it; meanwhile, the smaller ships are chewed up by its escorts.

[Thaago]

I unironically use the Gauss in the center slot of an Onslaught for the AI, along with a single heavy mauler forward (can do 3, but I like having the other 2 forward medium mounts be HACs for some medium range kinetic DPS or HVDs for full artillery). This is a rare non-ballistic-rangefinder build (there are some really great rangefinder + lac + arbalest + HAG ones too).

While its not very flux efficient, it is effective because it supports the Thermal Pulse Cannons at ranged beyond what other ships can match (TPCs have a sustained dps of 250 without emags, so adding the gauss brings the anti-shield dps up from 500 to 1200 plus some from ballistic mastery). If nothing it firing back the ship doesn't care about flux efficiency as it still has enough dissipation to support the guns that can actually fire.

Watching the AI, it is reasonable about turning the Gauss off when ships get in close and flux gets high. Not perfect, but reasonable, and then the other groups fight at higher efficiency. That's part of the reason why I often do 2 HACs in the forwards rather than HVDs.

All that said, I do think the Gauss could stand a small buff, either in efficiency or in lowered OP cost. Specifically to make it better on Manticore and Dominator.

[Brainwright]

Eh, Gauss is good for its efficiency.

Now before you burn me at the stake, it is simply the Gigacannon of ballistics.  It's really not good on its own, but it compliments most weapons pretty well.  In some ways, it's good that it eats up enough power to prevent its use in close range.

As for the Arbalest... most low tech ships can keep firing that gun when all other guns eat too much flux per shot to fire regularly.  It's saved my Enforcers many times.

[Sandor057]

I can understand LMG and DLMG being crap in their described roles as PD. For small ballistic slots Vulcan simply outperforms them. So in that context it makes sense. For SO builds though, oh boy, are LMGs on a whole different level. I remember having some fun with SO Enforcers with a lot of +armor & +hull hullmods and 5xDLMGs.

Arbs are OK on Enforcers or if you are lacking better options for an Onslaught or Legion with Ballistic Rangefinder. They're basically in the category of the Light Autocannon compared to the Railgun. They cost less OP and have a smaller flux upkeep compared to better guns of its type. So use it if you are either overfluxed otherwise or lack the OP to fit anything better.

Mk. IX is something I frequent in builds where I don't want to S-mod Expanded Magazines. Also I like the range advantage over Storm Needler and it has performed well for me.

Haven't used Gauss for a while, so can't say much about that.

Are you, by any chance, using mods which outclass these weapons? If so, I understand they feel lackluster, but (besides the Arbalest) they all seem to be decent.

[Daynen]

I've come to enjoy the storm needler a lot lately, especially on the Retribution.  Two of those with a hellbore and two thumpers has proven to be a frighteningly good ship grinder when paired with a built-in expanded magazines.  Sure, the hellbore is technically the only anti-armor thing on there, but the sheer number of hits scored by the other weapons means that even if the hellbore is consistenly blocked by shields (and it isn't) I'm STILL shaving faces at a rate that would make Sweeny Todd proud.

It's true that pure kinetic ships can find themselves in trouble once the enemy starts dropping shields to fire weapons, but consider this: every hit on armor reduces armor, which cannot be regained in battle.  Every time your puny needles hit the enemy, they are losing damage reduction, bit by bit.  When you're hitting them dozens of times a second, that armor loss DOES add up.  You WANT them to drop shields so your fleet can start doing real damage.  If they don't, they're just reducing their own DPS by staying at high flux...or handing you the win by overloading themselves.

I think kinetics are generally in a good place.  The arbalest is the OP saver, the mark IX is its bigger brother, the needler is the all-in shredder, the gauss is the standoff sniper; overall they all seem to serve their purpose fairly well.  Tweaks?  Maybe, but I couldn't tell you what they should be at the moment.

[Sendrien]

I've come to enjoy the storm needler a lot lately, especially on the Retribution.  Two of those with a hellbore and two thumpers has proven to be a frighteningly good ship grinder when paired with a built-in expanded magazines.  Sure, the hellbore is technically the only anti-armor thing on there, but the sheer number of hits scored by the other weapons means that even if the hellbore is consistenly blocked by shields (and it isn't) I'm STILL shaving faces at a rate that would make Sweeny Todd proud.

It's true that pure kinetic ships can find themselves in trouble once the enemy starts dropping shields to fire weapons, but consider this: every hit on armor reduces armor, which cannot be regained in battle.  Every time your puny needles hit the enemy, they are losing damage reduction, bit by bit.  When you're hitting them dozens of times a second, that armor loss DOES add up.  You WANT them to drop shields so your fleet can start doing real damage.  If they don't, they're just reducing their own DPS by staying at high flux...or handing you the win by overloading themselves.

I think kinetics are generally in a good place.  The arbalest is the OP saver, the mark IX is its bigger brother, the needler is the all-in shredder, the gauss is the standoff sniper; overall they all seem to serve their purpose fairly well.  Tweaks?  Maybe, but I couldn't tell you what they should be at the moment.

I agree with Daynen. Kinetics are in a good place. In fact, Ballistics in general seem to be in pretty good shape. I would argue that Energy weapons are what need a good balance pass at this point.

[prav]

Ballistics were overbuffed.