Best "bang for your buck" weapon?

[Beag]

So, what is the best weapon overall, and why?

Playing a bit I´ve noticed the differences in some weapons, and what is good for one race and one situation might not be as good for others. For example, with good targeting the fast-firing rail gun type is pretty good, but requires to get close in and if a base has good area weapons, then it´s a VERY bad choice. And if I have a race with good thrusters then probably going for missiles and staying as far as possible might be a good idea, specially because it would allow to save space on shields. One thing I really don´t like is the bad armor damage rail guns and missiles weapons have, while phasers and torpedoes never fail in that aspect.

[Kayoz]

Not sure how out of date this is -

tm.asp?m=2686169&mpage=1

[Beag]

It´s missing rail guns, are they from the Legends expansion? Pretty good job and I think it´s still up-to-date. However DPS is misleading. A weapon can have 100 DPS but if it can´t reach the ship with 10 DPS it´s useless. Also, burst damage is superior to continuous damage. For example two units with 100 HP each are engaging. One deals 50 DPS, the other 150. If the one that does 50 DPS actually uses a 200 damage shot that fires each 4 seconds, and the other does 10 damage per shot and fires 15 times per second, the unit with the lower DPS willl win because it will kill the other unit in the first shot. DPS alone doesn´t cut it for analyzing weapons in any RTS.

I´m particularly curious about rail guns because the by-pass of shields is pretty interesting, specially if the neighbour is a Zenox. Only problem is that a long range weapon is a must or area effect weapons will rip fleets with such a short range. Will try using the rail gun/missile combo and see how it fares.

[Gareth_Bryne]

Currently, phasers, definitely phasers. Reasons - no damage loss, high to-hit, high relative damage, relatively long range.

[Beag]

Yeah, plus the fact they are better versus armor too. I´d suppose that versus ships with low armor rail guns are better, and versus heavily armored ships, phasers.

Another question, what about ion weapons? And how exactly they work?

[Beag]

Updating.

The "machine gun" rail gun has good damage output, but some very nasty perks. First, having improved targeters is a must, the accuracy is bad. But above all, the short range means that it´s impossible to close in and fire at ANY race with good thrusters, and what´s worse, if you manage to close in the ships have a very brief firing opportunity because of how quick the attack pass can be. So if your ship has bad speed and turning speed, the fast-firing rail guns aren´t a good choice. It´s probably a good choice with Sluken and Mortalen, which can stay at firing range longer.

[Kayoz]

Just curious -

Aside from the aspect of raw damage output, since rail-guns cause internal damage - that can cause ships to flee the combat - effectively removing them from combat prematurely.

I just thought that might be worth considering in your evaluation. Internal damage triggers the ship to try to escape. Doing this to one ship might only be an annoyance - but doing it to a bunch of his ships in a sizable fleet engagement - might be more worthwhile.

Food for thought. I just think that comparing DPS without considering the "escape when damaged" behaviour is an unfair comparison.

That said, I'm not a fan of rail-guns. Too much trouble to micro-manage them to use them effectively. Gobs of phasers do the job sufficiently on a "bang-for-buck" basis.

[Beag]

Sigh, bases with short range rail guns are so crappy... Better to stick with the long range version only. More versatile.

[Fishman]

Range and speed are everything: Go with the Plasma Thunderbolts or the Missiles (but probably not both). It doesn't matter how many phasers he has if he can't ever hit you. A base armed with anything other than the longest-ranged weapons, no matter how many of them, is nothing more than a sitting duck. If you can't hit it, you can't kill it. The shorter-ranged weapons may have better DPS, but that's not going to enable you to mow down hundreds of enemies in a dogfight.

[jpwrunyan]

I also vote for missiles. Long range and shield penetration.
Also lower energy cost. This is also important to me re rail guns. I can get by with fewer and less advanced reactors on my ships.
Anyway I find missiles to be all around versatile. But they wont take down fighters so I take point defense as well.

[Fishman]

Railguns are useful for triggering the autoflee behavior, but even the most powerful railguns are apparently totally worthless vs. armor unless you have a +damage admiral. The most powerful railgun does 18 damage per hit, but is only half as effective vs. armor, or 9. Since armor ignores 10 damage, you do no damage at all and therefore are simply an annoyance. This matches my observations when my battleships engage railgun-equipped ships, even at the highest levels such as those owned by Mechanoids or Shakturi: Their weapons are totally ineffectual and even a single armor plate negates all damage. This alone kills the utility of railguns as a primary weapon. You can keep a few on large bases where size isn't a factor in an attempt to repel transports, but as weapon for combat, they are worthless due to bad range, accuracy, and total inability to actually harm anything.

ORIGINAL: Beag

Also, burst damage is superior to continuous damage.

This is true only if you kill your opponent in the first shot. If you can't, and this is most likely to be the case, DW weapons are not generally that powerful unless you're talking DeathRay/SuperLazor, then DPS is what matters. Additionally, a high burst damage, horrible refire weapon, even *IF* it has higher DPS, is considerably less effective if it actually DOES massively overkill an opponent in a single shot, like the Superlazor does. It doesn't matter than you can do 30000 damage because anything short of one of my Gargantuan Spaceports isn't going to survive even half that.

[Jeeves]

Don't forget that repair bots cut damage by a factor of three to four. Spaceports with lots of shields are hard to kill when they have bots. So if you can afford the maintenance, one size 4500 supply ship armed with a super laser is a good investment. Be sure to give it plenty of shields (5000+) and point defense.

Lonnie Courtney Clay