I'm looking for informed opinions on Rail Guns in the Beyond (v3.0) expansion, specifically on engineering them.
If you have any thoughts on my weapon loadout, let me know. General Rail Gun feedback is also appreciated.
I'm hoping your answers will help me see a clear answer for myself. Quite a lot of text below, sorry about that.
My Weapon Loadout:
My specific situation is that I'm changing up the weapons loadout on my Python multipurpose mission running ship and I'm having trouble deciding what engineering to put on the two C2 Rail Guns I plan to use with it.
I'm certain that they will be lightweight for the reduced power and distributor draw, but I'm on the fence about Feedback Cascade, Super Penetrator, or Plasma Slug (for the reduced thermal load).
My other hardpoints are two C3 Gimballed G5 Efficient Thermal Vent Beams and a C3 Gimballed G5 High Capacity Corrosive Multi-Cannon. The beams are currently a given as they overlap with my combat loadout and I'm quite enjoying them; the MC is there for much needed kinetic damage and the corrosive effect.
On my mission runs (I'll take 6+ missions at a time), I'll often encounter a dozen ships and up to half of which will be big ships like Anacondas; the Beams and Multi-Cannon will do much of the work with the Rail Guns coming in for situations like chaff or particularly tough shields.
I'm thinking that two Feedback Cascades would be overkill, but I've never used them, so I don't know how effective they are alone. Reading up on the matter, it looks like two C2 FC Rails is enough to drop any active SCB in 1-2 shots.
With the two C3 Efficient Beams, I don't usually have too much trouble getting shields down as I can fire them alone almost continuously (~65s on 2.5pips in wep), and this effect seems better for a build where taking down shields isn't otherwise as easy.
I also plan on taking shots when the target's shields are offline and am not looking forward to the 20% damage reduction in that situation.
Super Penetrator seems to have few downsides for me as I still have some trouble lining up frequent shots with Rails, so I'm not firing 100% of the time I can anyway. Lining up to hit multiple modules is more of a "that's nice" than a "must have" goal for me.
Plasma Slug looks nice, but as far as I've been able to tell from videos on the subject, the fuel usage is about 1/10 ton per shot; this calculates to 160 shots (80 shots each) eating up half my 32t fuel reserves while still having a 10% damage reduction.
I know I'm unlikely to use that much in one encounter; I keep thinking that if I'm not going to get much more than 80 shots each before fuel reserves start being a concern, I might as well go with Super Pen without the damage reduction; I really don't want to clear an optional slot for an extra fuel tank as my optional modules are all there for the types of missions I'm usually running and some extra padding in case my shields go down.
Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts.