Ion Cannon/ Gauss Cannon ?

[brattbags01]

Two weapons I hardly ever use, normally stick with PPC and IBL, am I missing out ?. Gauss Cannon ammo takes up LOADS of cargo space and Ion Cannon's range is not as good as the PPC.
Discuss.

[EmperorJon]

Ion Cannon owns shields and makes a nice combo with the PPC, Gauss cannon is of course super good for the Shrike, for everything else it's ok...

I keep GCs and ammo on board my personal M2 for any long protracted battles. When the laser energy gets low, I switch them in and laugh.

[xavierd]

Never used IC myself, but a quick glance over the stats they look pretty damn good. Slightly longer time to crack hulls but they should more than make that up taking the shields out faster.

[em3e3]

A picture is worth a thousand words:

[ external image ]

[GCU Grey Area]

Perhaps think of it this way:
ICs = roughly 40% more shield damage than PPCs
GCs= over 100% more hull damage than PPCs and they don't use up weapon energy!

If I'm flying a ship which can use both I tend to use them in preference to PPCs - ICs on the front turret to strip the shields, then GCs on the side turrets to finish them off quickly, while leaving plenty of weapon energy to power the flak turrets.

Only real use I have for PPCs is either for ships which can't use ICs or GCs, or for installing a single PPC in each side turret just so they start turning a bit earlier & are pointed in the right direction at about the same time as the target enters GC range.

[xavierd]

Nice graph. Just had a poke in tships and didn't realise how low hulls were compared to shields... I thought terrans were the high hull race but the osaka's shields are 28 times higher than it's hull Think i'm going boron next game!

[Carl99]

GHC's are pretty useful as a backup weapon, or as a limited armerment fitted in one specific turret bank. Your right that the ammo size can be a problem, (though at 200 rounds per unit of ammo it still takes an age to chew through it all). But if used in limited numbers to give the rest of your guns more enrgy to work with they have very good potentiol.

IC's on the other hand quite simply suck badly.

They have a few issues:

1. their hull damage is distinctly below Par. Fair enough this is an Ion weapon, but when combined with the other issues it ctually becomes an issue.

2. They use more energy per volley than PPC's, meaning they have a lower overall energy efficency.

3. They only have marginally more Sheild DPS. When combined with the Above two points PPC's actually work out as a better overall weapon. Without at lest some PPC's in there Ion Cannons wil kill kore slowly while using more energy. Even with PPC's in there you end up using a good deal more energy for only a slight ioncrease on kill time.

4. If you manually control the guns to charge them the Ion Cannon gets a significantly infiriour damage boost, and as a result of the weird Charged shot energy usage mechanics and RoF echanincs the PPC instantly becomes vastly supiriour in every respect.

[Khift]

GHC's are pretty useful as a backup weapon, or as a limited armerment fitted in one specific turret bank. Your right that the ammo size can be a problem, (though at 200 rounds per unit of ammo it still takes an age to chew through it all). But if used in limited numbers to give the rest of your guns more enrgy to work with they have very good potentiol.

IC's on the other hand quite simply suck badly.

They have a few issues:

1. their hull damage is distinctly below Par. Fair enough this is an Ion weapon, but when combined with the other issues it ctually becomes an issue.

2. They use more energy per volley than PPC's, meaning they have a lower overall energy efficency.

3. They only have marginally more Sheild DPS. When combined with the Above two points PPC's actually work out as a better overall weapon. Without at lest some PPC's in there Ion Cannons wil kill kore slowly while using more energy. Even with PPC's in there you end up using a good deal more energy for only a slight ioncrease on kill time.

4. If you manually control the guns to charge them the Ion Cannon gets a significantly infiriour damage boost, and as a result of the weird Charged shot energy usage mechanics and RoF echanincs the PPC instantly becomes vastly supiriour in every respect.

Honestly... that's not what the numbers show. The graph posted above indicates that Ion Cannons still do more damage per second vs. shields than charged PPCs do -- and they take less energy per second than charged PPCs. It also indicates that compared to uncharged PPCs the Ion Cannon does a solid ~30% more shield DPS at what appears to be an almost marginal increase in energy usage.

In every single case, if the above graph is true, the Ion Cannon is doing more damage per second vs. shields and getting more damage per energy than the PPC is, regardless of charging or not.

Really, the only downside is the low hull damage per second. Ion Cannons do half the hull damage per second of PPCs, and even worse than charged PPC. But, still, I would venture to state that it would take a bank of Ion Cannons less time to kill a target than a bank of PPCs (uncharged) would, simply because so much of a target's health is shields. Like Xavierd pointed out, an Osaka has 28 times more shields than hull. A 30% damage increase against shields at a 50% damage decrease vs. hull would absolutely increase your kill time.

All things said and done, I'd use the Ion Cannon in side turrets that you aren't controlling yourself and PPCs in the main guns. Charged PPCs are very effective, no doubt, but you can't charge all your lasers at once.

Of course, if you're using MARS you don't have to choose at all... Ion Cannons to drop the shields, swap to Gauss to eat the hull.

[Carl99]

That graph dosen;t have charged values on it.

Go look up the actual figures in the editor and you'll see what i mean.

Yes even after it's higher energy usage it's slightly more energy efficent, (minus charging effects), than a PPC but the lower hull damage is a killer.

And yes ships have less hull, but most weapons, (And IC's are one of the worst), have vastly lower Hull Damage than sehild damage as well. It dosen't tottally balance out, byut the hull isn;t as weak as the stats often make it out to be.

For referance a Charged PPC shot Does:

255MJ of Sheild Damage
45K of Hull Damage
It uses 576 Energy

Ion Cannons:

238MJ of Sheild Damage
13.6K Hull Damage
It uses 907 Energy


Even acounting for the increased RoF of the PPC, (around 50% more), the Ion Cannon still uses more energy per second while the PPC is doing vastly higher damage.

[Omini]

What you talking about? The 2nd and 3rd are C.PSP and C.PPC, implying "Charged PSP" and "Charged PPC"

[Khift]

That graph dosen;t have charged values on it.

Yes, yes it does. Look at it again. It does not have the charged value for the IC, because charging the IC is a bad idea.

And yes ships have less hull, but most weapons, (And IC's are one of the worst), have vastly lower Hull Damage than sehild damage as well. It dosen't tottally balance out, byut the hull isn;t as weak as the stats often make it out to be.

For referance a Charged PPC shot Does:

255MJ of Sheild Damage
45K of Hull Damage
It uses 576 Energy

Ion Cannons:

238MJ of Sheild Damage
13.6K Hull Damage
It uses 907 Energy


Even acounting for the increased RoF of the PPC, (around 50% more), the Ion Cannon still uses more energy per second while the PPC is doing vastly higher damage.

Charging Ion Cannons are not recommended. They don't benefit from it. Compare charged PPC and uncharged Ion Cannon; the charged PPC will do less damage per second to shields than uncharged Ion Cannon will while using more energy per second.

I double checked the math on other sources. It adds up. Unless all of these sources are wrong, then ICs are clearly the best anti-shield weapons.


Edit: Some numbers.
A bank of 10 ICs firing at an Osaka with no shield regen would take 18.154 seconds to remove the shields and 11.184 seconds to remove the hull, for a total of 29.338 seconds. In this time it would use 14757.014 energy.

A bank of 10 PPCs firing, without charging, at an Osaka with no shield regen would take 25.806 seconds to remove the shields and 5.183 seconds to remove the hull, for a total of 30.989 seconds. In this time it would use 13015.38 energy.


Time spent in hull is larger than I honestly expected, and this did definitely outweigh the IC's superior energy to damage efficiency in shields. Still, I would argue in favor of the IC; removing shields earlier means you can spam Hornets (or Typhoons, if you prefer) into the fragile hull to completely negate the slow hull kill time. Missiles don't care if they're dealing damage to hull or shields; a hornet will do 200k damage to hull regardless, taking out almost half of an Osaka's hull in one hit. And even without missiles, it still shaved a second and a half off the kill, and that's gotta be worth something.

That said, I would still use PPCs in any turret you plan on manning. Charged PPCs are slightly less energy efficient vs. shields than IC, but they still hit like trucks and are much more efficient vs. hull. Much, much more.

For shits 'n' giggles, here's the same stats for the Gauss Cannon, PSP, and IBL:

A bank of 10 GCs firing at an Osaka with no shield regen would take 28.436 seconds to remove the shields and 2.374 seconds to remove the hull, for a total of 30.81 seconds. In this time it would use... basically(?) no energy.

A bank of 10 PSPs firing, without charging, at an Osaka with no shield regen would take 47.619 seconds to remove the shields and 4.474 seconds to remove the hull, for a total of 52.093 (!!) seconds. In this time it would use 13023.25 energy.

A bank of 10 IBLs firing at an Osaka with no shield regen would take 25.974 seconds to remove the shields and 5.247 seconds to remove the hull, for a total of 31.221 seconds. In this time it would use 14923.638 energy.

This just in: PSPs suck if you don't charge them, and IBLs are surprisingly effective albeit energy inefficient. News at 11?

[em3e3]

Correct, there's no alpha-charged bar for IC because the DPS is lower-same for IBLs. However, unless you can't mount enough guns to one-shot an enemy with alpha-charging, the DPS numbers don't mean much. I think a 'one-shot alpha-charged' graph is in order...

[xavierd]

IC also strip 500 energy each hit (each time you hit, their next ppc shot effectively costs almost double), and reduce speed by 30% for 1.6sec

[Khift]

IC also strip 500 energy each hit (each time you hit, their next ppc shot effectively costs almost double), and reduce speed by 30% for 1.6sec

Well slap me silly and call me Shirley.

I'm sold. Give me some ICs. ICs to strip shields, missiles to kill the hull. Total battlefield domination.

[A5PECT]

A bank of 10 GCs firing at an Osaka... 2.374 seconds to remove the hull...

*Laughs uncontrollably*

[nap_rz]

I at damage/second... this mean nothing for IS combat, damage/hit%/shot is the most important.

[Triaxx2]

Considering how large a target the Osaka is, hit% isn't quite so important as say versus an M5.

[Insatiable]

While I haven't run any numbers on this, my own experience is to use ICs in conjunction with PPCs. The ICs give a boost to shield killing while the PPCs can finish the job. Frankly, damage to hull isn't very important.

[Insatiable]

I at damage/second... this mean nothing for IS combat, damage/hit%/shot is the most important.

You don't use ICs, PPCs, or GCs to fight anything less than an M7. Therefore, hit chance isn't much of a factor.

[eldyranx3]

I dont use IC's for the simple fact they do TOO much hull damage for their intended operation. Yes, then can bring down the target's shields in a hurry, but its too much micromanagement to effectively use in boarding operations.

If Im going to be killing capital ships, I call in a single M8. End of Line.

If Im going to be boarding capital ships, I call in my M7M.

During the final stage of OFF, Gauss Cannons allowed me to engage THREE Khaak capital ships at the same time and come out on top when energy weapons would have long run dry. Range wasnt an issue. I jumped right in the middle of all three.