Concussion Impulse Generators - what's the use?

[Meltdown]

So they can knock a fighter a good distance away. Well, colour me unimpressed. An AHEPT still does more damage.

What am I missing?

[esd]

Strategic use? They have a 4km range and can be mounted on a fighter. They're fanastic for getting a ship's attention (eg, that M5 that's legging it away from you for the gate).

Damage is but one factor to consider in a weapon, grasshopper!

[eladan]

Not to mention that by tumbling it around, it makes it difficult for it to get a bead on you.

[GCU Grey Area]

An AHEPT still does more damage

...and needs a LOT more energy to run.
Energy drain for CIGs is less than 15% of the energy required for A-HEPTs so can be fired for much longer. They are also significantly more efficient than A-HEPTs so more of that energy inflicts damage to the target. Combined with the range of a PPC & the concussion effect (to make it difficult for targets to shoot back) makes them extremely useful weapons IMO. Only major downside is that they are rather bulky so fitting a full set of them to fighters can be impractical (not much space left for missiles or jumpdrive fuel) so best to keep to 1 or 2 & combine with other weapons. They work particularly well with PBEs - CIGs to keep the target spinning, while the accuracy/shot speed of PBEs means they still hit, even if the target is being knocked around all over the place.

[avenger4o]

and you can "easyly' kill khaak M1/M2, staying just at weapon range and fire on them, they barery can hit you from time to time.

BTW few days ago i just noticed energy use of them is 0. my laser energy was 0/0 all the time, with 8 CIG mounted on my Eclipse. thats a bug or what ? GCU Grey Area said its about 15% less of AHEPT energy. and still shooted on khaak M1 for about 40 min almost without remove my finger from trigger....

[eladan]

It simply means that you were using energy at the same rate it was being generated. You'd find that you weren't firing all 8 CIGS in that situation.

[Starcub]

So they can knock a fighter a good distance away. Well, colour me unimpressed. An AHEPT still does more damage.

What am I missing?

That was my impression as well. They are usefull only against M4 and M5 craft, and only when used in combination with fast/light weapons. Since it takes an M3 to use CIGs, those smaller fighters aren't really a threat anyway. You'll probably want to kill them as fast as possible, and if you're combining them with HEPTs you're going to screw up your hit rate.

[avenger4o]

It simply means that you were using energy at the same rate it was being generated. You'd find that you weren't firing all 8 CIGS in that situation.

hmm, may be i was wrong at first. with 8 CIGS energy isnt 0, its 8000, anyway i made experiment. equiped them again and started fire non stop, my energy never dropped bellow 7998%(99%) for about 15 min shooting (commanded my ship to atack a station while i was watching energy). with 8 AHEPT equiped energy will down to 0 for like 20 sec or so. if CIGS use about 15% less energy that means they cant least for more then like 23-25 sec. and you are right, after first shoot they didnt fire together, but almost. and same happans with HEPTS anyway after first shoot even if you have energy.

for me it seems eregy use of CIGs is 0, vanilla X3 2.0.2 with latest bonus pack.

or may be its "fixed" in 2.5 ? this patch slow down performace on my system a bit and i didnt use it.

[maphys]

CIGs negate turrets - they get you Novas and the mighty LX more easily. In an M4 with one CIG and decent other weapons (PACs or HEPTs) you can keep the Nova spinning while you hammer it. In a Falcon you can easily take the LX without all those tactics thingies. The BHEPTs don't even get to fire at you.

I sometimes keep one around in the LX as well in case I get jumped by several LXs at once. Keeps the shield damage down. Thought - they'd make really good turret weapons in an M3+? Wonder if you can fit them?

M

[GCU Grey Area]

hmm, may be i was wrong at first. with 8 CIGS energy isnt 0, its 8000, anyway i made experiment. equiped them again and started fire non stop, my energy never dropped bellow 7998%(99%) for about 15 min shooting (commanded my ship to atack a station while i was watching energy). with 8 AHEPT equiped energy will down to 0 for like 20 sec or so. if CIGS use about 15% less energy that means they cant least for more then like 23-25 sec. and you are right, after first shoot they didnt fire together, but almost. and same happans with HEPTS anyway after first shoot even if you have energy.

for me it seems eregy use of CIGs is 0, vanilla X3 2.0.2 with latest bonus pack.

or may be its "fixed" in 2.5 ? this patch slow down performace on my system a bit and i didnt use it.

CIGs do use energy, but not much more than A-IREs (CIGs need 25/sec, A-IREs need 23.6/sec) so for most ships that can fit them recharge rate for weapon energy exceeds the energy drain of CIGs (or A-IREs), even with a full set of 8 installed. To see how they compared with other weapons just did a little test. Used a Chimera with full (8 gun) sets of various weapons & made a note of how long it took to go from full charge to the audible low energy warning:
8x A-HEPT = 6sec
8x A-PAC = 14sec
8x B-IRE = 1 min 18sec
8x A-IRE = >5minutes with neglibile energy drain (energy drain < recharge rate)
8x CIG = >5minutes with neglibile energy drain (energy drain < recharge rate)

EDIT: forgot to mention, recharge rate for Chimera weapon energy = 219
for comparison, 8 gun energy drain for each weapon type tested is (roughly):
A-HEPT = 1500
A-PAC = 760
B-IRE = 320
A-IRE = 190
CIG = 200

[Poobah]

CIG:

The Good:

-One of the most energy efficient weapons in the game. Only the GPPC and APBE are more energy efficient in the vanilla game, versus Shields; nothing beats the CIG for energy efficiency versus Hull (the Terran EMP weapons aside, as they cannot be used in Vanilla). Energy efficiency means that you can do more damage to the enemy while consuming less energy, when compared to other weapons. This is a Very Good Thing.

-Completely screws anything that has turrets. You can bat Novas and LXs around all day without much to worry about from those nasty turrets.

-Fast projectile speed for damage done (speed is similar to the BPAC, while damage per shot is much better). This means that it is harder to dodge than, say, a HEPT. Energy efficiency aside if you miss the enemy or the enemy dodges your shot then you are 0% energy efficient; your enemy is going to generally be hit by a CIG than a HEPT.... draw your own conclusion here.

The Bad:

-Fast projectile speed coupled with the concussion effect. The problem with this is that you can't really use the CIG with a HEPT or a weapon with a lower projectile speed when using the CIG against fighters because the CIG will hit first and its concussion effect will nock the fighter out of the way of the HEPT.

-Slow rate of fire. Self explanatory, if you're using only CIGs and you miss then you'll be waiting a comparatively long time to fire again.

-Massive. Again self explanatory - they take up 25 units of space each, that's huge amounts of space for a fighter.

-Low DPS, the biggest minus for the CIG really, which you have to weigh against the high efficiency. They have a lot of staying power and will last a HELL of a lot longer than say the HEPT, which will dish out masses of damage in a few seconds then need to recharge.

These points considered I use a mix of BPAC, AHEPT and CIG on my PNR (I've still not managed to cap a LX and now I put a few pandora crates into my PNR am not so bothered about trying to do so).

I pair the PAC and CIG for use against fighters (the PAC travels at roughly the same speed as the CIG so no worries about fighters getting knocked away before the PAC hits the target) and I pair the HEPT with the CIG for use against M6 and the occasional bigger ship (I use XTM so there are other M7's and stuff flying around in the command of the Pirates/Yaki/Xenon) as anything that isn't a fighter doesn't seem to be affected by the concussion effect (I'm fairly certain that I have my effect/affect usage correct) of the CIG so I can use the green stuff (more efficient than the BPAC and does more DPS too) against assassination targets in TS/TL too.

My weapon groups are:
1: 4BPAC / 2CIG
2: 2AHEPT
3: 2CIG
4: 2CIG / 2AHEPT

When fighting M5/4 I shoot the 4BPAC / 2CIG which results in a very quickly disabled and killed fighter. For the M3/M3+ I tend to use just the 2AHEPT, not able to use the CIG with them thanks to the concussion effect, but not wanting to use the inefficient BPAC and needing to dish out the damage quickly to take out the bigger fighters. I tend to quickly switch to the 2CIG for one shot to knock them about abit to disable any Kyon weaponry they might be firing at me (Kha'ak fighters in a head on fight or some pirate vessels in XTM) and mess with their turrets (Novas, LXs) then back to the 2AHEPT to keep hammering them. For larger vessels I use the 2CIG / 2AHEPT to balance the DPS of the AHEPT with the excellent efficiency and staying power of the CIG.

[XanII]

Does the player ship spin when hit with CIG?

i've been hammered with CIG by pirates and i have never spun around. But i guess i have been flying M3/M3+ at the time. Maybe i should try if i go merry go around in a M4 or M5.

[Poobah]

The player ship does not appear to be affected by the concussion effect.

[fintoozler]

I load up the rear turrets in my Ray with them since it doesn't have anything really good for sorting out large numbers of fighters.
The rear array has good coverage so I find I can cruise through a Xenon sector without having to worry about fighters at all (tested against about 50 assorted fighters after clearing out the Js & Ks) they never manage to to enough damage to make a permanent dent in the shields.

With the fighters off the list of worries (even if the're not actually dead) I'm free to load up on big guns everywhere else.

[GCU Grey Area]

I load up the rear turrets in my Ray with them

Same here (except mine's a Colossus). CIGs are definitely useful as anti-fighter weapons for capital ships - reasonable tracking speed (much better than PPCs but still have similar range) & energy drain is more or less negligible for a capital ships power supply. However, recommend fitting at least 1 Ion D to all turrets to provide an all round anti-missile defence field - the neat thing about Ion Ds is they don't need to be specifically targetted at a missile & will intercept almost all incoming missiles even with 'Protect Ship' or 'Attack My Target' orders running on the turrets.

[Turricanion]

Can u buy CIG's or only find them?

[GCU Grey Area]

Can u buy CIG's or only find them?

Can't buy them, can only find them or steal them from NPC ships - either use the Cartel Shield Hacker or destroy the ship & hope the CIGs survive the explosion. I got most of mine from assassination mission TLs.