Question on Fixed CV weapons

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Nicholas Drake, Oct 17, 2020.

  1. Nicholas Drake

    Nicholas Drake Lieutenant

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    So, other then the odd thing that turrets seem to do more damage than fixed weapons (silly that), is there any reason to install more than one type of weapon?

    A CV for example can have Pulse Lasers or Rocket Launchers. But since I have to select my tool bar slot to to fire one- I can't fire the other. Is there a way to map both?
     
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  2. Khazul

    Khazul Rear Admiral

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    Nope, though switching isnt that much of a chore?
     
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  3. Nicholas Drake

    Nicholas Drake Lieutenant

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    It's not a chore, but it does seem pointless.
     
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  4. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    It's called game rules. Maybe you would prefer the enemies to fall on their backs dead when you approach them too...but this is not how this game works.:p


    On the other hand you can edit the config file and make the weapons do a ton of damage per shoot, so technically you can do both the rocket and laser damage by firing one weapon.
     
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  5. nottrox ¯\ (ツ) /¯

    nottrox ¯\ (ツ) /¯ Captain

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    It's not pointless, Laser deals more damage to shields, rockets ....
     
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  6. Nicholas Drake

    Nicholas Drake Lieutenant

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    And Rockets do what? An AoE that against the only target that it can fire against against destroys stuff I could be salvaging to say nothing of 'what is that thing even homing on and thus targeting anyway?'

    Or do lasers do pitiful damage against CV blocks? Or do rockets home on cores?

    The weapons are poorly described in this game.
     
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  7. Amethyst613

    Amethyst613 Lieutenant

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    lots of games have multiple manual weapons fire from your ship as selected from a number key in exactly the same way as empyrion. And Empyrion also behaves the same way, as cooldowns for each weapon are independent. So you can actually tap between multiple weapons and fire them at the same time. Try it out! Load up an SV with railguns, plasma cannons, homing rockets, and dummy rockets. Click 4 times fast while running through keys 1-4 quickly. You can practically fire all weapons at the same time. In SWTOR we called it 'piledriving,' and is still part of the game now. Sync-ing up shots from weapons with different cooldowns can maximize your dps from manual shots quite a bit.
    On CV's, since there are only two manual weapons, it's not as useful to use both weapons at once. lasers for shields, then switch to rockets for armour.
    Edit: Though I agree, a LOT of stuff in the game is either not explained at all, or not explained well. HUD and UI experience could both use major overhauls. The Tutorial mode was a step in the right direction, but a lot of basic player/user questions could be handled with better worded tooltips and HUD prompts. Still too much of the game relies on trial and error, or combing through old forum posts on old versions and wondering if they are still relevant.
     
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  8. Khazul

    Khazul Rear Admiral

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    Not really - they do a slightly higher proportion of much less damage to shields, so in the end - rockets are much more effective per shot. OTOH, I you can just sit there and pummel the shields and not miss any shots due to evading etc, then the pulse lasers will do better, especially as you can have 6 of them.

    In practice by the time you have to evade and so can only shoot part of the time, I think rockets do a better job. If you can land half of your shots while shooting at max rate of fire, then pulse wins - just with it six weapons vs the 4 rockets.

    In practice it is probably your turrets that are mostly bringing the shield down, so if I have to choose - I dont bother with pulse lasers at all except for show.
     
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    Last edited: Oct 18, 2020
  9. Amethyst613

    Amethyst613 Lieutenant

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    Edit: moot point
     
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    Last edited: Oct 19, 2020
  10. Khazul

    Khazul Rear Admiral

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    Re read - sorry accidently posted while I was still writing.
     
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  11. Amethyst613

    Amethyst613 Lieutenant

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    Ah yeah, sorry mate. Bunch more there now. My whole reply is rendered a bit pointless.
    But ya pulse lasers are kinda extra. Shield's are gunna be down in maybe a minute or so, and a good 1v1 can be upwards of 15-30mins. not losing out on much by omitting them in favour of thrusters for the CPU cost
     
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  12. Nicholas Drake

    Nicholas Drake Lieutenant

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    I'm more interest in CVs then SVs, and at 100 rpm I can't switch off lasers to rockets and back fast enough to justify it. Perhaps I'm old.

    I guess the thing that most disappoints is how much better turrets are than fixed weapons. No need to play the keyboard, better damage values. Able to zoom visually. No downsides other than you can't fly the ship and we have multiple players for that. This is just a Turret game I guess.

    I'd love to have a daisy cutter (to clear trees for landing and use on bases) and other bombs with a bigger thump then rockets however. Then I might pay attention to SVs again.
     
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  13. Amethyst613

    Amethyst613 Lieutenant

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    Ah, you've got it backwards. Fire the slowest weapon first, then the faster one on the shot cooldown. Again, it's not super useful in CV's and way more so in SV's. But the manual rockets are by far and away the best gun.
    I'd rather have 4 manual rockets than a full rack of 34 turrets. They'll lock on to the component that yu're pointed at, so you can manually pick off enemy turrets and disarm an opponent with them while still flying. Having buddies in turrets tho is great no doubt!
    Since turrets always auto-target the closest valid target, an opponent can make sure your turret shots (auto not with buddies) will hit a favourable side or area of their ship for them. In that respect, having 4 manual rocket launchers is superior

    As far as a bigger explosion for trees, you might like HV (edit: or Base) artillery. Clearcutting is pretty fast with a Gatling gun on an Sv or HV tho.
     
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  14. Nicholas Drake

    Nicholas Drake Lieutenant

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    Not very practical for the CV, first shot is likely against a shielded ship and the Lasers rule here and should be the opening weapon. At 100 rpm, I'm best left just firing those until the shields are down.

    After the shields are down, if Rockets work as claimed (i.e. homing on the component under the cross hair) then switching over solely to Rockets might be an option to take out enemy turrets- but again something best done by turret gunners with their ability to zoom in visually to select their target But now from the pilot seat, from there I've had good luck with spray and pray with lasers against the turrets and doubt rockets would improve my chances at that unless I've very close to an slow moving foe that precision work becomes possible.

    Still, it's cost me nothing in practical terms (given my excess CPU and resources) to install 4 fixed rocket launchers for show. I've almost reach the point where salvaging my foe is just piling up a horde of resources, so maybe rockets will be better for turning my target into a random collection of blocks in loose formation after the shield's go down.
     
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  15. Khazul

    Khazul Rear Admiral

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    When you fire the rockets, you can immediately switch to another weapon and fire that. The rocket will reload in their own time, so if you want to switch and use them again and then switch to pulse you can.

    Most of the time - it isnt worth bothering, however for something like the zirax dreadnought, anything to get its shields down a few seconds sooner helps alot as this gives you more time to core it before it gets your shield down and does too much damage to your ship.
     
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  16. The Big Brzezinski

    The Big Brzezinski Captain

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    If you do have to choose between the two for some reason, the optimal choice depends on the ship and the mission. A nimble CV will benefit from how the lower commitment per shot of lasers allows them to evade and shoot. Rockets will probably work better on a larger, tougher CVs that tanks damage and maneuvers mainly for aiming. It's also generally easier to hit small or moving targets with lasers than rockets. There's also logistical considerations. Fixed launchers use the same rockets as turrets, but lasers have unique ammunition.

    If your CV is going to bother with fixed weapons at all, though, you might as well have both. They supplement each other well.
     
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  17. Taemien

    Taemien Ensign

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    Empyrion could benefit from manually selecting weapon groupings. Similar to how they had them in MW3, MW4, MWO, and MW5.
     
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  18. Khazul

    Khazul Rear Admiral

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    The thing I want to see is sequential firing for groups of weapons and turrets. Ie Instead of them all firing a salvo, they instead fire each weapon on it own with a delay of fire delay / N so 4 rocket would each fire at one second. 10 rocket turrets would be firing one of them every 0.4 seconds etc.

    Often the damage of a salvo seems wasted by overkilling the same blocks.

    Apart from anything else - sequential firing looks cool - I used to use a script for it in space engineers :)
     
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  19. Nicholas Drake

    Nicholas Drake Lieutenant

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    So agree.

    Plus it would be nice to arrange the hot button bar for vehicles, the current semi-random assignment is painful.
     
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  20. Amethyst613

    Amethyst613 Lieutenant

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    I'm not really speaking from a point of theory, I play pvp regularly on the US official server and our faction is pretty (the most) dominant by far. It's from practice of well over 60 different pvp ships built from the ground up and flwon against both NPC's and other players. You can disagree, sure, but you're wrong lol. I've also flown with three or four guys on one ship with several managing turrets manually. In practise, it's still inferior.
    Manual rockets are far and away the best CV weapon in the game currently and it's not even close. You can fire 4 at once while still flying the ship. If you don't believe the rockets work "as claimed," I invite you to go try. If you're still struggling with taking out POI's with your weapons, then there is still much further up the curve to go I assure you.
    That being said ifyou do have 3 or 4 other guys with you, you'd be better off as a group if you all were in CV's with manual rockets.
     
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