Question about Ion Disruptors

[killyg]

How exactly does the ion disruptor work in regards to destroying equipment? Do systems/weapons have hidden health values that gets chipped away as the ship gets blasted by ions? Or is it a dice-roll for every cycle of weapon firing?

Also, once I got the enemy ship down to 0% shields, is there a difference between using just 1xion disruptor to destroy the weapons vs using a full rack of them? I tried to disarm a tiger with 8xion disruptors, and after about 5min not a single weapon was destroyed =(

it's pretty obvious that I'm attempting boarding operations. So while on the same train of thought, is there a way to remotely launch pods from an M7M? I can't use Barrage, and using the Attack commands end up with either Hammers or Flails launched. I guess it's not a huge pain to zip myself over to the M7M, but it'd be nice to keep ions on the enemy while remotely launching pods.

[perkint]

Equipment is destroyed based on a dice roll for each weapon hit, when the shields are at 0%. So yeah - more IDs mean faster weapon destruction. But, anything can be destroyed - missiles, shields (except the last one) etc. Exactly what constitutes a single hit for ID I am not sure - for other lasers it's obvious (single "bullet") but since IDs fire a continuous beam, I am not sure what counts as a single hit...

Assuming you're using v2.5 then yeah - remote boarding is easy. Just issue the piracy/board command to the M7M and he'll sit back where he is and wait for you to drop the shields on the target. As soon as you do, he'll fire off the boarding pods. For some reason he won't fill them completely tho. I think you only get 4 marines in each, so he'll fire 5 pods of you're doing a full spread.

I think he's also only meant to fire the right number of marines based on your target, but the only time I've tried this, I got all 20 marines fired at an M6

Tim

[killyg]

thanks for the reply perkint, I didn't know the boarding command on M7Ms automatically meant it fired off pods. I just assumed it'd send the marines space walking

Of course after I made my post I realized that I can't use ion disruptors in conjunction with pods, since the beams would bounce off the target and fry all the pods within a 1km radius. But it will still be very helpful if I swap out the disruptors for PBEs once the weapons are destroyed.

On the same note, do you happen to know if the 5min of me zapping a tiger is the normal expected rate?

[em3e3]

It could take a lot longer to fry all the weapons off, and I wouldn't be surprised if this changed in one of the more recent patches since Nuklear-Slug popularized it in his first DiD story. Of course, by frying all the weapons, you're depriving yourself of possible loot, so try another approach to keep the shields low - fighter drones and/or missiles. Both keep you away from the action, and if planned correctly, will keep your target with everything intact. Including the hull.

[jlehtone]

This zapping is lot older than the X3TC. At least in the X2 era it was used. IonD was more powerful back then. And I have used/am using it in X3R.

But I have no idea what "works". Single guns, multiple guns, long sustained frying, short repeated burst. I've tried all, but without systematic observation.

Five minutes? One Xenon K, 30+ gPPC, 10+ hours of zapping.

Spoiler

Show

Terrans in X3R.

Odins have 8 missiles, 12 shields, and 12 bEMPC. Not a single missile has popped.

Thors have 8 missiles and 8 guns. Missiles seem immune there as well. For some odd reason the last gun is not installed, and appears immune. But I was a bit impatient at the time (as usual).

[Kapakio]

Equipment is destroyed based on a dice roll for each weapon hit, when the shields are at 0%.

Not sure if this is 100% true. I've lost some equipment in my ship (an Hyperion) after getting a big one-shot hit, even if the shields were still at around 5%.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Only installed weaponry is susceptible to ION-D. It's perfectly possible to burn off all mounted guns but you can never remove that last shield.

Shields don't necessarily have to be at 0% to lose equipment, as Vbruzal says even a heavy hit when they're very low can be enough to break something, it's just less likely.

[perkint]

Yeah - I've lost equipment when hit hard with over 0% shields, but I thought that was a plyer only quirk (for some reason)

Tim

[Nanook]

Only installed weaponry is susceptible to ION-D.....

Don't think so. I've fried weapons dealers flying TM's to kill their turrets, and destroyed most of their cargo - weapons, shields, missiles - in the process, most of which wasn't even capable of being equipped. In my experience, cargo is just as likely to be destroyed as equipped equipment. Unless, of course, something's changed in the last patch, since I haven't done it in a while.

[killyg]

Five minutes? One Xenon K, 30+ gPPC, 10+ hours of zapping.

lol you're killing off my hope here

[jlehtone]

Over 11 hours, actually, but I think I did swap ship a couple times, so it was not continuous action. And with that many guns to fry, its under 20 minutes per piece on average.

But do not despair, that was X3R, so X3TC might be different.


PS. Whatever my real goal on that exercise was, failed.

[Derkylos]

Only installed weaponry is susceptible to ION-D. It's perfectly possible to burn off all mounted guns but you can never remove that last shield.

I'm fairly sure I destroyed all equipment on a Demeter, once, using Ion-Ds alone. have not been able to replicate it since, tho.

[Mystery00]

After a bit of testing this out, there doesn't seem to be much advantage in having lots of ion disruptors, other than destroying shields faster.

I ended up having a few ion disruptors and one IRE, all equipment and shields seem to get destroyed by ~70% hull, this is against small ships though so I'm not sure about capitals.

[Bobucles]

Is there any benefit to using multiple ships with Ion Disruptors? I mean, other than watching your entire wing get fried at once?

[Lancefighter]

Is there any benefit to using multiple ships with Ion Disruptors? I mean, other than watching your entire wing get fried at once?

all the friendly fire issues perhaps?

[Llama]

Khaak weapons seem to eat equipment

So find yourself a #deca

[Catra]

Is there any benefit to using multiple ships with Ion Disruptors? I mean, other than watching your entire wing get fried at once?

missile defence

[Master of the Blade]

Khaak weapons eat equipment because they're beams- As I understand, once shields are low, every hit has a small possiblity of destroying equipment. Because beam lasers like the Kyon emitter and Ion disruptor have such an incredibly high hit rate, there is a far larger chance of destroying stuff onboard your target. So the #DECA isn't better than a wing of ID capable fighters if you're trying to destroy equipment. It's safer though.