Whats better in your opinion?

[Zeroxephon]

This must be done, FOR SCIENCE!!

also I was reading that different class weapons have different effects on different class ships. So a class 1 laser will only do something like 33% damage to a class 4 ship (anaconda, FDL for examples). So those 2 C2 Beams really my not be doing as much as the C3...HOWEVER, a vulture with a fully kitted out power system will be able to sustain those c2 beams a bit longer...so there is that.


Ugh... this is complicated.


My other conundrum is this.... I can stick 2 c3 pulse lasers on, this will allow me to put a bunch of shield boosters on as well, allowing me to take far more hits. So again, a trade off...

[Feldspar]

I use the large beams on my Vulture, the loadout was crafted around this and probably loses a little shield power. The result is that I fire them in short bursts as they overheat quickly, but as they tend to melt anything rapidly I've just adapted my playstyle to suit.

I should try out pulses, but as I am not losing the shield often I'm not sure what I'd gain with the extra power available.

[Cmdr Kharma]

I just think try things out for yourself.......you'll soon know wether it works or not and if you are comfortable with it......

Like rails and plasma.....I cant get on with......Frag cannons I can...But only 30 !!!! No good for sustained combat.....

Put two gimballed bursts on my taxi (sidewinder) tonight......after getting bored with teh grind in the T6......

Took out Cobras.....adders and eagles with em.....not all low ranks either...seemed to quickly take the shields down and do a fair bit of damage to the hulls...

Can't say against the bigger ships......coz I aint that silly......

[Xebeth]

So my understanding is that small weapons do 33% of their damage to large ships, and 66% of their damage to medium ships

From Mike Evans (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=127951)

...there is no bonus damage system. Only a penalty. Your weapons either do their full damage or a percentage of their full damage based on the size and type of the weapon versus the size of the target. A Class 1 weapon will have damage reduction on anything larger than a hauler. A class 4 weapon will be effective against everything.

So from this I take to mean that there is a penalty against a weapons base damage, so if a small weapon's base damage is say 12 (a made up number for illustration purposes), then against a small target it does 12 damage, 8 damage against a medium target, and 4 against a large target.

But, if a large weapons base damage is say 36, it will do 36 damage against small, medium and large targets.

So in essence you loose more that the 33% reduction when dropping from large to medium weapons, you in fact loose the difference between the large and medium's base damages and 33% of the medium's base damage when attacking a large target.

The best illustration I have seen of this is when I compare my Vulture to my Asp, my Vulture does more damage to say a Python, but my Asp (with it's 2 medium and 4 small weapons) does more damage to something like a Cobra.

Edited: grammar

[Cmdr Kharma]

*Reads post for the fourth time*

*Thinks*

*Takes a slurp of cider*

Yea that sorta makes sense.....

[Xebeth]

On a side note, I have 2 C3 pulse on my Vulture and I haven't found anything I can't kill, pulses do a lot of damage against targeted modules, so if you target an Anaconda's power plant, once their shields drop they take no time at all to destroy.

[Ahriakin]

I think it really comes down to your play style in your current ship, aswell as the obvious for power draw etc. I love beams, had them on every ship up to and including my first Vulture build but then moved away to Bursts. The main reason being that yes Beams have the highest DPS (and look/sound awesome) but when taken past the first Weapons cell drain they can be less effective over time than Bursts or even Pulse. The reason I mentioned your style being a factor is if you are the type of pilot, and in the type of ship, that benefits from quick hits of maximum power then Beams are a no-brainer. If you have a reflex/aim/ship/target relationship (tm) that is going to leave you in a more prolonged battle then Bursts will fair you better. E.g. A Vulture vs. Viper and below - I'd go with Beams. Hunting larger prey try bursts. Got a ship with a bigger Power Distributor and more mounts then try a mix so you can pour on the heat when up close and personal and fall back to the bursts when you need to.

Lastly in power restricted ships like the Vulture and FDL there can even be a case for dropping back to plain old Pulse lasers if you want to tank shields for example.

[Zeroxephon]

I think ill try two c3 pulses tomorrow and tank up my shields with some boosters. I am running into this issue in the system I am in now where a faction hates my guts and sends groups of sidewinders after me. This becomes an issue when I am trying to pick a fight with something bigger. 6 class 1 weapons plinking my shields widdles them down pretty quick. Sure I could move systems, but this particular faction is ALWAYS wanted, the RES is only 20ish ls from a city station and the RES has a pretty small mass lock zone. Also its a very populated system (dont know if this really makes more ships spawn or now, it seems like it.).

37 Librae for anyone in the area that might want to team up sometime.

[Walter]

I am running into this issue in the system I am in now where a faction hates my guts and sends groups of sidewinders after me. This becomes an issue when I am trying to pick a fight with something bigger. 6 class 1 weapons plinking my shields widdles them down pretty quick.

I'm in exactly the same position. You line up a Python only to find a wing of three or four snotty little red-highlighted Sidewinders like mosquitoes with teeth popping off at you. You take 30 seconds to burn one of them and the others usually cut and run. Then you've got to find your original target with your shields at 50%.

My other conundrum is this.... I can stick 2 c3 pulse lasers on, this will allow me to put a bunch of shield boosters on as well, allowing me to take far more hits. So again, a trade off...

The down side of shield boosters is that they also need recharging at the same time as your shields. Shield recharging from 100% loss already takes a long time on a Vulture, so adding another overhead leaves you sitting on the fence (or behind it) for quite a time.

This must be done, FOR SCIENCE!!

If you're serious, it's not difficult to set up the parameters - half the work on the SAT (Standard Attack Target) has been done, but needs refining. Then there needs to be a standardised setup for each ship to be tested (the Weapons Test Facility or WTF). Establish distance to target norms and Bob's your proverbial, apart from doing all the work. I suggest opening a dedicated thread for discussions.

On the other hand, Kharma, in one of his calmer moods, succinctly proposes an apt counter-argument:

I just think try things out for yourself.......you'll soon know whether it works or not and if you are comfortable with it......

If you knew all the answers, there wouldn't be the need for threads like this. Then what would you do?

[KleinerFisch]

I am running into this issue in the system I am in now where a faction hates my guts and sends groups of sidewinders after me. This becomes an issue when I am trying to pick a fight with something bigger. 6 class 1 weapons plinking my shields widdles them down pretty quick.

I'm in exactly the same position. You line up a Python only to find a wing of three or four snotty little red-highlighted Sidewinders like mosquitoes with teeth popping off at you. You take 30 seconds to burn one of them and the others usually cut and run. Then you've got to find your original target with your shields at 50%.

Sheesh, and here I was thinking I must be getting paranoid as that happened more often with each session of RES hunting ... like, why the **** are those dang Sideys attacking me without even doing a scan, got no cargo nor bounty on my head !!?

Looks like I have to head to a system where that faction rules and make friends again ... or maybe SHOOT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM !