X3 Terran Conflict PPC or Ion Cannon

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AgamemnonArgon
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X3 Terran Conflict PPC or Ion Cannon

Post by AgamemnonArgon » Wed, 25. Dec 13, 15:46

For Boreas and other Capitals, I plan a mix of Ion Cannon and PPC, for offence, with Flak and missiles for defence, with Frigate and Corvette escorting.

But are Ion Cannon or PPC best or should I mix both in turrets.
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ajax34i
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Post by ajax34i » Wed, 25. Dec 13, 16:02

Ion Cannon is slightly bigger cargo size, I believe, and has slightly longer range and does damage to shields more than hull. Personally I don't really bother with Ion C (hard to get), just put PPC's everywhere.

However, considering that capital combat is you just fly at the target and then pass it on the left or right so your broadsides can hit, if you have Ion C in the front and PPC in the sides, theoretically the shields will be taken out faster than PPC everywhere.

AgamemnonArgon
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Post by AgamemnonArgon » Wed, 25. Dec 13, 17:04

Good to know, many thanks dude
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OniGanon
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Post by OniGanon » Wed, 25. Dec 13, 23:04

PPC is the all rounder weapon. It has the longest range, is generally much easier to source than other capital weapons, and has no real weakness.

IonC has 42% more Shield DPS than PPC, but does only 46% of the Hull DPS. It's very very good at bringing down Shields, but once they're down the IonC is barely any better than a CIG.

GC has the shortest range, requires ammo and has slightly less Shield DPS than PPC, but it does tremendous (more than double) Hull DPS. It also uses very little energy, which may not mean much for M2s but it means a hell of a lot for the Condor, Raptor and Shrike.

Something to consider...

PPC x8
H DPS: 65600
S DPS: 372000

GC x3, IC x5
H DPS: 72700
S DPS: 457100

AgamemnonArgon
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Post by AgamemnonArgon » Thu, 26. Dec 13, 01:11

Cool.
I may go PPC in that case
Charging shots too
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Hemmingfish
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Post by Hemmingfish » Thu, 26. Dec 13, 02:37

I usually use a mix of IC and PPC, since ships in TC have vastly more shield than hull. You can afford the lower damage to hull and still come out on top.

AgamemnonArgon
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Post by AgamemnonArgon » Thu, 26. Dec 13, 10:43

Yeah
I demolished the infamous Xenon Q last night, with a front mix of PPC and Ion Cannon.

Mixing weapons may not be usual for my ships, but it may be worth trying.
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ajax34i
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Post by ajax34i » Thu, 26. Dec 13, 13:40

Congratulations!

The Q is an M7 and will fall easily to your own M7 if you pilot it, and certainly to M2's, which are better shielded and pack bigger weapons.

It's infamous because when you're out-of-sector (remote-controlling your ships), it packs "random" weapons (which means it packs IBL everywhere), and it shoots first, and because of the way combat is calculated OOS it can one-shoot even M2's (8 IBLs can kill up to 10 GJ shielding).

Soon as you eliminate this "random" effect, by flying yourself so you can dodge the initial shot, or by using laser towers or smaller ships as escorts to randomize where it shoots first, it becomes a relatively weak ship.

AgamemnonArgon
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Post by AgamemnonArgon » Sun, 29. Dec 13, 01:27

That's good advice, and I will take it into combat with me.
Fortunately, the Xenon Q seems to inhabit a limited amount of star systems, and the bulk of my fleet can deal with most other threats.
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mjwraw
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Post by mjwraw » Sun, 29. Dec 13, 13:46

Yeah, I've only ever used my Panther as a piloted ship for in sector cap ship bashing, (have a couple of Boreas with full PPC for OOS stuff), and my Panther only has IBLs on front turret, but even with that relatively modest loadout it rarely takes longer than 10-15 seconds to dispatch a Q in sector. What I usually do is turn off the font turret and use strafe to dodge Q fire until I get reasonably close - usually about 4 kms - then turn on front turret. That way I don't usually waste fire as Qs can move quite quickly, meaning the biggest danger in sector is if you fire too early, miss the target, then find yourself low on laser energy at the critical moment.

BTW, thus far I haven't had any issues OOS with Boreas vs. Q, the biggest challenge is usually catching up with the Q, but once in range in every case so far this type of OOS combat is Q gone in about 5 seconds, (for me at least).

Burnt Pies
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Post by Burnt Pies » Mon, 30. Dec 13, 13:35

TC has incredibly weird out of sector combat, which is the main reason for the Q's fame. In sector, it won't do too well against an M1/2. It's still the largest Xenon ship you're likely to see outside their sectors, however.

Out of sector combat is done at 30 second intervals, or 5 seconds if you're watching the sector map. At each 'tick', the game compares the speed of the ships that are fighting, with the faster ship likely to fire first. That ship then fires each weapon it has mounted once, multiplies the damage those shots would do if they all hit by the amount of turrets it has, then multiplies that number by a random number between 0.5 to 16. If that Q gets lucky and rolls that 16, it'll one hit kill almost any ship in the game, even the Boreas. I believe the only ships that can take that sort of punch are the Osaka and Tyr, which is why I favour the Osaka for my OOS patrols. So, sure, it's pretty unlikely that the Q will be able to take a Boreas in OOS combat, but eventually it'll happen.

I just hope I got that all right. Been a long time since I looked at TC's OOS fights.

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