Soo... Frag Bomb Launcher

[Arcturas]

Yes? No?
I was disappointed.
I'm playing the bankrupt assassin start I'm 14 hours in have some local traders and 4million credits. Anyway, I'm flying the Theseus ( love it m4+ ) and I found one frag bomb launcher in the forge in ... I think it's empror's ridge. Tried it out on an assassination mission. Didn't work like I figured it would. Looks pretty, sounds cool when it blows.. but.. it doesn't explode on impact.

Any tips on how to use it more effectively? ( i shot at the escorts and they just scattered so I sent silkworms up their plasma vents )

Otherwise I'm just gonna sell it and find something more fun to shoot. ( My theseus "Outlaw Star" is also packing 4 PACs )

[Nanook]

FBL's are worthless. Their best use is as loot that you can find and sell for big buckzoids.

[Arcturas]

Damn. I was so hoping someone wouldn't say that.
Oh well, I can just sell it then and the assassination mission I did paid for the thing twice over. Thanks

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Yeah, frag bombers are monumentally useless in Vanilla. I'm trying to mod them into something worth as much as a HEPT. Maybe some kind of micro-flak with long range and a big hit box...

[Thanatos_23]

not to mention the ear splitting sounds they make when multiple are shot...ugh

[Gothsheep]

not to mention the ear splitting sounds they make when multiple are shot...ugh

Oh god, yeah. FBLs are most useful for the AI as psychological warfare weapons, at least in my game, because the things drive me loving INSANE after about 30 seconds.

[jannix]

This reminds me how long its been since I've heard that frag bomb ruckus. In fact, its been quite a while since I've heard any sort of weapons fire, after starting to use my M7M exclusively for the last few game days.

But yea, I never could find a use for this particular weapon.

[mrbadger]

I'm being forced to use it in my DiD game, because I can't buy weapons or ships, only steal/find them.

Its not doing too badly as a rear turret anti missile gun for my Nova, but its not great. What I really want is an IonD.

[Doc Quixotic]

Its not doing too badly as a rear turret anti missile gun for my Nova, but its not great. What I really want is an IonD.

Split Fire is the sector to hunt for Ion's. Every 3rd weapons dealers has one or two on board. Farnham's Legend is nice too, but seems to have less traffic in general.

[PegasusJF]

They are very effective mid range weapons in Combat Mod 3

[Neferdias]

I think the idea behind the FBL is a fighter flak cannon doing damage along the lines of HEPT or slightly more. But as stated above it is bugged, similar to the current flak/cluster flak bug but a perma state. It will do damage to the target on impact but very little and it doesn't explode as it should.

There are tons of them in the game, so use them as loot untill they're fixed in a patch.

Sad thing would be if they're working as intended... i've come to hate that phrase...

[Gothsheep]

I think the idea behind the FBL is a fighter flak cannon doing damage along the lines of HEPT or slightly more. But as stated above it is bugged, similar to the current flak/cluster flak bug but a perma state. It will do damage to the target on impact but very little and it doesn't explode as it should.

There are tons of them in the game, so use them as loot untill they're fixed in a patch.

Sad thing would be if they're working as intended... i've come to hate that phrase...

You know honestly? I would hate it even more the other way. Imagine every freaking pirate in the game carrying Flak-equivalent weapons. It would be a nightmare until you got a big enough ship to shrug it off.

[Seleucius]

You know honestly? I would hate it even more the other way. Imagine every freaking pirate in the game carrying Flak-equivalent weapons. It would be a nightmare until you got a big enough ship to shrug it off.

It's not near as bad as it sounds. Were the FBL to work identical to flak (keeping in mind the projectile speed is some 6600m/s slower than flak), it would do about 1/5 the damage on impact.

The whole reason FAA is so effective boils down to bullet speed and slight area effect. 7,051m/s is, obviously, damn near insta-hit, considering PBE is 6980m/s, and is thus a way to basically guarantee that a slow-moving ship can hit a fast-moving ship with its turret. The area effect is only part of its effectiveness, given that it's small enough to not completely wipe out a section of space around the ship, but large enough so that it will tag a ship that's far too close to the flak's target.

FBL is a much slower projectile, slower than HEPT by about 70m/s. Even if it had the same area effect as flak, how hard is it to dodge HEPT fire in a decently quick ship?

Also remember that FAA does nearly 14k shield damage and 2k hull damage, while FBL does a measly 2.8k shield and 471 hull. This, while slightly harder-hitting than HEPT, is less than half the shield damage and 1/5th the hull damage of CIG, which is still faster than FBL by 60m/s.

So no, it really wouldn't be all that scary, provided you can dodge M6-level weapons some of the time, or your ship can survive a HEPT blast or two.

[Snowship]

I wish both the FBL & CFA would get fixed cause then they'd be near the top of the best weapons (apart from the obvious FF issues).
Proximity detonation of area effect/cluster explosives... (like a directional cluster bomb )

As long as the FBL warhead came within a M3 width of the target it'd explode into multiple munitions covering a area 4 times the fighter width and do damage (enough to say instant kill a M5)... fun for all.

[Lyth]

FBL's are worthless. Their best use is as loot that you can find and sell for big buckzoids.

Seconded, Incendiary bomb launchers are another matter though.