X2- Ion Disruptor

[RJames]

I've noticed that sometimes when I am draining the shields of pirates which are flying fairly close to a neutral ship, the disruptor beam seems to "jump" to that ship, and hit them repeatedly, making them go hostile. Can the Ion Disruptor hit multiple targets at once? And if so, is there a way to disable it?
Thanks

[solah]

The Ion D is very indiscriminate, and will jump from target to target like bolts of lightning. For this reason it is highly recommended not to use when friendly or neutral craft are in the area. This also holds true for the PSG weapons which fire an expanding sphere of destruction. If you do wish to use these weapons, you should use a direct fire weapon such as IRE, PAC, HEPT etc or a light missile to get the ships attention. Move away from the main shipping lanes to a quite part of the sector then unload with your area effect weapons (ID or PSG). As to switching the JUMP effect of these weapons there is no way to do this.

[RJames]

Thanks for the strategy and prompt reply, I'll go try this now

[JulianG]

The "jumping" of the ION D's can be rather usefull as well. I fired my duel ION's (on my Nova) into a Khaak cluster as it broke apart and completely removed the shields from most of their M5's and brought the M3's shield down to about 75%. I just aimed into the centre of the cluster (targeted the the M3) and the ION beam jumped around to almost all the M5's. The Khaak then promtly blew me up.

I have also used the ION's to shoot the far left pirate ship in a squed of three (Pirate TS with a Bayamon on each flank as escorts) and the beam jumped to the second and third ship as well. Makes capturing them easier...

The coolest thing I have seen with the ION's was accidental, I fired at a Pirate Orinoco when it was not in range yet, the ION beams found some spaceflies instaed and jumped from spacefly to spacefly till it hit the pirate. I then proceeded in using my strafe drive to move around the stunned group of spaceflies and bounced my ION's of them hitting the Pirate, switched to B-HEPT's and reduced it hull and back to ION's to capture him

I also have a Boron station and a Argon Disco P!$$ed at me becuase of the ION's... they are still red!

The Boron station was worth it though, I got a KM3 out of this little "accident"

[parameter]

Thats a funnier and more sporting way of catching them I suppose!