Does anyone else finde it odd that small weapons are on whole signifigantly better than large weapons?

About the only exception to this is the mining beems and they arn't really weapons at all.

To me this seems counter intuitive and I think there should be some new heavy weapons made that are more effective relative to the small weapons.

But all the special ships only have small slots!
Uhm beside the special UIT Warthog of course...

That is a personal opinion, Lord.

There is a thread in this forum where many players said they think the swarms are too effective a weapon.

Gatling Turrets are effectively used by several pilots.

Many will agree that Plasma Devastators are... devastating against bots.

You frequently see a heavy ship with L ports in the Serco CtC teams -Prom, Rag or Hog- using mines and/or missiles to kill/divert/slow down those little blue bees in their centurions.

And if you go mining or trading in the grey, you may even make contact with jackhammer rockets if you are not enough careful...

Sun Tzu,

It is an opinion, i mostly wnated to see if anyone agreed with me. Also i'm not trying to say that existing L weapons are useless. My point was that on average it seems that the BEST weapons are all S sized, and therefor the best ships are the ones with several S slots.

In my opinion there should be some (two or three) L weapons that are better than the average S weapon, maybee something comprable in function to the Newt 2, or the rail gun. after all heavy weapons does seem to imply a level of power that i think is lacking amoung the existing L weaponry.

Also if there were some more parcticle L weapons than i think it would make ships like the Warthog and the Wraith more usefull without taking anything away from the other ships.

Again this is just my opinion, i mostly want to see who if anyone agrees with it.

I tend to agree that S-port weapons outclass L-port weapons. (This is not a rant, just an analysis.)

Example: A Neutron Blaster Mk2 does more damage than a Plasma Devestator Mk2 when you adjust for firing speed (1715 vs 1600), but the Neutron Blaster weighs only half as much and uses only 3/4 as much energy. What really tilts the scales, however, is that a Vulture with two Neutron Blasters weighs a lot less than a Warthog with a single Plasma Devestator. No matter what you put in the Warthog's S-port, it will never "catch up" to the Vulture in performance. I'm not saying it should fly as well as the Vulture, but you'd think it would be able to deal extra damage to compensate. That's not so -- the Vulture does more damage -and- is more maneuverable.

The Gatling Turret, adjusted for firing speed, matches the Plasma Devestator. Jackhammer rockets are likely to deliver 1000 damage on average. Neither of these can compete with the mighty Neutron Blaster Mk2, especially a pair of them (although the Hammer's concussion effect is nice).

I don't think anyone will complain that the Chaos Swarm is too weak. And mines -- well, that's something else entirely. There's no comparing either of these to S-port weapons.

Yes, I tend to agree. "Heavy" weapons in "Large" ports would lead one to believe
that these weapons do significantly more damage than "Light" weapons in "Small"
ports. As pointed out above, when the added mass and greater energy consumption of large weapons is considered, they really aren't much better.
Personally, I don't use large weapons at all.

Hehehe Go kill 10 queens :D

I used heavy weapons for botting... The plasma devestator rocks to bot (if you put off autoaim that is)

and to use jackhammers untill I got sunflares.

Although I have to say I prefer flying heavy ships then the light ones, I overturn to much on those light variants :(

Although my favorite is the 2 ported centurion with 1 neutron and 1 sunflare... It roxorz my Boxorz :D

Now see, here's the thing.

we're comparing a single neutron to a single gatling, to a single, whatever. That's rarely the case in battle. The only time you see single neutrons are on stock Centurions, and on busses. Most fighters have at least two s ports (the IBG Centurion, the Orion Rev C Centurion, the Vulture), some even have three (the Valkyrie, the Marauder).

In terms of damage per second:
(s)Phase Blaster II: 1900 damage/sec
(s)Gauss Cannon: 2500 damage/sec
(s)Gauss Cannon II: 2750 damage/sec
(s)Positron : 3200 damage/sec
(s)Neutron: 4000 damage/sec
(s)Neutron II/III: 4300 damage/sec

(l)Plasma Devastator: 3625 damage/sec
(l)Plasma Devastator II: 4000 damage/sec
(l)Gatling Cannon: 4000 damage/sec
(l)Gatling Turret: 4000 damage/sec
(l)"Queen Gun": 4800 damage/sec

On paper, it looks as if the L port guns are on the average better than the S port guns. So theoretically, ships that mount L ports have enormous advantages in terms of the damage they can deal. But in practice, that's rarely the case. The Plasma Devastator's rate of fire and its weight make it difficult to employ in PvP situations, especially against fast ships like the Centurion. The Gatling Turret's high rate of fire means that it can generate lots of hits on fast moving targets, but its spread makes it next to useless at ranges over 150m. The prize for 10 Queen Kills does a lot of damage, but even in a Warthog, it's very difficult to hit a fast moving target. I find that for every one hit I make, the opponent usually can make two. And that's just assuming that I'm flying a single L port Hog against a single S port Centurion.

But most ships in the game have more than 1 S port. A 2 s port ship, like a Axia EC-101 Rev B (?), the EC-107, Orion Rev C Centurion, IBG Centurion, the Vulture, and the SVG all can do 8600 damage per second. A 3 s port ship like the Valkyrie or the Marauder can do 12900 damage per second. So a Valkyrie fighting a Hog has an ENORMOUS advantage because if the pilot is accurate enough, he can kill the hog in less than a second. It's happened to me before.

While I was fighting one Valk, a second came up and landed every single shot on me. I saw a red flash and an explosion. If I stuck a Neut III and a "Queen Gun" on my hog, I could technically deal back 9100 damage/sec, but good luck getting my hog pointed at a quick target like a Valk long enough to do that. Besides that, every hit I make on the valk with BOTH guns, he can do the same back to me, and his rate of fire is higher than mine.

So why is the Gatling Turret so effective? Well it really isn't all that great. It's about equal to a Neutron Blaster in terms of damage/sec, but its spread is so great that you're unlikely to hit over 150m. I've had lots of fights where I would be beating away at a Valk for what seemed like forever. The valk was making all sorts of mistakes, but then they'd turn and just pound the stuffing out of my fighter with just a couple good/lucky shots. On top of that, the Gatling Turret is about the weight of two Neut IIs, but considering the starting weights, a dual Neut Vulture will still weigh less than an empty Hog! So sure, the Hog could probably keep the Vulture in its sights, but what would it shoot with! The other day, I managed to beat Shape's Vulture, and he messaged me, saying that it was tough in his 5000kg Vult. I just had to reply that I'd just beaten him with a 6900kg Hog, and that I was lighter than I normally am (I usually fly a 7800kg Hog).

As I've repeatedly stated, I like playing as the underdog, but this is getting ridiculous. The Hog AT BEST, difficult to fly with. It's slow, it's heavy, and it's underpowered. The Rag is near impossible to fly 1v1 PvP unless you're packing a lot of missiles and rockets. It's pretty much the same with the Centaur. You can only win 1v1 PvPs if the other makes a serious mistake now. And it's a hell of a test of skill when it's friggin' impossible to dodge enemy shots. Before the update, the Hog was a very competitive fighter (though it was hard to use), even the Centaur started to be used, but now, we're completely outclassed. Yes, the Orion Rev C is just a little too good, but CAN WE PLEASE FINISH THE HEAVY SHIP BALANCE, AND MAKE THE L PORT ENERGY WEAPONS MORE COMPETITIVE AGAINST THE EXTREMELY FAST, MULTIPLE S PORT FIGHTERS?!

If u want to swat flies, use a flyswatter, not a sledgehammer.

I mostly agree with ananzi. The only thing is that currently almost everything fits in the 'fly' catagory. But we'll have the capital ship soon to fix that. :-)

Lets compare L-port energy weapons to S-port energy weapons. I'm not talking about ammo using weapons here.

Against capital ships the best choise would be the most energy efficient weapon. Because it'll take a lot of fire to kill one, your battery will be empty most of the time. So the damage you deal will be limited to the recharge rate of the battery, leading to the fact that the most damage you can do will be with the most efficient weapon.

At the moment I think that's a neutron II

As a single neutron II can drain a FC battery, you won't need a ship with more then one N2. So even against a capital ship, the most nimble fighter will be the best choise.

That sucks.

To fix that, the L port weapons will have to be a LOT more energy efficient. It was allready explained that those big weapons don't do much more damage then the small weapons, so where is all that mass used for? It should either be used to do more damage, or less energy usage.
That, or their mass should be massively decreased.

Yeah, you're right The Noid, but I hope & think the battery/energy system is one of the things that will be seriously changed as we get closer to player owned & operated capital ships. I can't see the current system working very well at all with capital ships, so I expect we'll see either multiple batteries, or some such dramatic change. This would also hopefully affect the larger ships we have now, like the Ragnarok, Prometheus, and maybe the Hornet.

It seems the real issue is about ships with L ports rather than L-port weapons.

Now the whole concept of what weapon is best is quite relative. It depends on what you intend to do. For CtC, I found that Ion guns and UIT special phase blasters are best (with a Centurion or a Valkyrie). They would not even enter into a list of efficient S weapons made on paper.

what, so we're basically only agreeing that the only fighters worth using are small port guns?

Where's the fun in that?

There is one advantage to having L port weapons / ships be inferior.
It gives me something to fly when I want a severe disadvantage. :P
-:sigma.SB

I think that the problem is with the ships, but not in the way that usualy means. The problem is that L weapon slots are treated as an advantage for balancing perpouses, and that isn't really so. anny of a number of changes to existing weapons could undo this.

However my opinion is not that existing weapons should be changed but that a small number of new weapons should be created. These could be anti-capitle ship weapons, such as nuclear missiles, or weapons that are able to bypass shields or damage reduction (provided cap. ships have eithor of these features). If ships with L slots were more efective at anti-capitle ship combat than they have a place (or will eventualy).

Alternatively they could be more energy efficent or have a grater damage rate. as has been sugested before.

Think about it this way: if you could put a small weapon in the L port on a hog, would you?

if yes, than the hog has no place as there is the Vulture that is more agile, and faster with 2 S ports built in.

if no, than the hog is filling some role now, and doesn't need new weapons.

The hog is probably the best example because it has a close substitute. the rag and centaur don't have close substitutes. The idea as i understand it is that the hog is supposed to bridge the gap between the small fighters and the large support ships, but in truth it is inefective at both jobs.