Using beam weapons

[e11]

I'm wondering how to make these work. Sure, they do a lot of damage, but you have to get the shields down first. And once you're up against triple shields, the beam weapons are taking up the weapon space needed to bring those down.

[holdmykidney]

Yeah it's tricky. I'm finding that with trying to do a run with the Stealth ship. Once I get to a sector with double or triple shields I really struggle, especially since you have to really focus on keeping the shields down, rather than spreading damage to Weapons and Piloting.

I guess you just have to hope that you'll pick up better lasers which offer more shots and stay on top of the shields. More and more I think that Beams need to be used alongside missiles or bombs which can bypass shields to take them down.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

First of all, the Halberd Beam is the only beam weapon worth keeping.

- Pike - not very damaging. Good if you start with it (Zoltan B) but you'll need to replace it, as it just can't deal enough system damage to warrant 2 power.
- Mini Beam - you can't even buy this. Ironically IMO it's the best of the lot, for a petty 1 power and solid three (sometimes four) hull/system damage, but you only get it on the Stealth C and in that ship you need better weapons.
- Glaive Beam - too much of a power-hogger. Nice if you have a pre-igniter, but everything's nice then.

Beam weapons cannot work on their own (even the famous Glaive ideally needs a complimentary weapon) and they also require a very heavy deal of micromanaging. Setting everything to just fire works great for Flak and Ion Blast II, but not for Beams. Use your pause button a lot and spend a good ten seconds fiddling around trying to get max damage (I've done 12 with the Halberd Beam... Rock cruisers are so easy to smash with Beams :P).

You also need a shield-pelting weapon. Missiles theoretically work except missiles kinda suck and have an annoying tendency to miss. Ion weapons work surprisingly badly unless you have either Charge Ion or Ion Blast II (the rest can't autofire shields down). Charge Ion is pushing it and you need a fully trained weapons guy.

No, the best thing to go with beams are lasers and flak. Flak works super-well because it knocks all the shields out at once. Lasers have a teeny tiny delay between each barrage that does become notable against enemies with 3 or 4 shields - however lasers are able to deal more damage to specific subsystems.



Bonus tip: When using your Beam, start from the Shield room if you can. That way you may be able to offline their shields and as such have free reign over the rest of the ship. This is really important in S1-3 but less important in S4 onwards.

[mkzzz12]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

First of all, the Halberd Beam is the only beam weapon worth keeping.

- Pike - not very damaging. Good if you start with it (Zoltan B) but you'll need to replace it, as it just can't deal enough system damage to warrant 2 power.
- Mini Beam - you can't even buy this. Ironically IMO it's the best of the lot, for a petty 1 power and solid three (sometimes four) hull/system damage, but you only get it on the Stealth C and in that ship you need better weapons.
- Glaive Beam - too much of a power-hogger. Nice if you have a pre-igniter, but everything's nice then.

Beam weapons cannot work on their own (even the famous Glaive ideally needs a complimentary weapon) and they also require a very heavy deal of micromanaging. Setting everything to just fire works great for Flak and Ion Blast II, but not for Beams. Use your pause button a lot and spend a good ten seconds fiddling around trying to get max damage (I've done 12 with the Halberd Beam... Rock cruisers are so easy to smash with Beams :P).

You also need a shield-pelting weapon. Missiles theoretically work except missiles kinda suck and have an annoying tendency to miss. Ion weapons work surprisingly badly unless you have either Charge Ion or Ion Blast II (the rest can't autofire shields down). Charge Ion is pushing it and you need a fully trained weapons guy.

No, the best thing to go with beams are lasers and flak. Flak works super-well because it knocks all the shields out at once. Lasers have a teeny tiny delay between each barrage that does become notable against enemies with 3 or 4 shields - however lasers are able to deal more damage to specific subsystems.



Bonus tip: When using your Beam, start from the Shield room if you can. That way you may be able to offline their shields and as such have free reign over the rest of the ship. This is really important in S1-3 but less important in S4 onwards.

It's not heavy micromanaging, it's micromanging you should be doing anyway. And don't set flaks to auto.

Ions work fine, they're not weapons you use on their own. Get two if possible. ~4 power works amazingly.

Pike is perfectly good, as a 2 power weapon it doesn't need to be the focus and does an incredible job of turning the enemy ship to chaos. Suddenly everything is a little bit down, nobody is manning anything at all, and your whole next volley is even more effective. And start the beam with targeting some evasion, more of your further shots hit.

Lastly, I'd sure like to see that 12 damage halberd placement - was it the medium tier fighter, a very sketchy placement from a corner? It shouldn't really be possible otherwise, and even there I have serious doubts. (unless you're aiming between rooms, in which case, yeah, ok).

[Skinny Pete]

Glaive is fine and I've beat the flagship with it many, many times. I would only rarely buy it, though. Rather like the Vulcan, it has "issues" but it's just so awesome.

Halberd is the best all around beam. Pike also is nice if you start with it or if you're really desperate for something early. It becomes increasingly useless as you run into ships that can hammer you repeatedly with 8+ power weapons systems.

Agreed on the Mini Beam, too. This is a wonderful little weapon. But it's also on the Stealth A, not just the Stealth C.

[VIGILO CONFIDO]

You do not need any weapons for mini beam to be useful. All you need is level 2 hacking and the minibeam will hit like a truck for the entirety of the game.

[VIGILO CONFIDO]

Originally posted by Fusion:

Originally posted by VIGILO CONFIDO:

You do not need any weapons for mini beam to be useful. All you need is level 2 hacking and the minibeam will hit like a truck for the entirety of the game.

...... or at least until you run out of drone parts


And besides. Hacking has like what, a 20 second cooldown? Thats just as bad as mini-beam having a 20 second cooldown.

It is easy to manage drone parts with hacking. Obviously you fire the really good dual lasers to and that is enough system damage to take down most ships till like sector 6 or 7.

3-4 hull/system damage on average guarenteed every 20 seconds is not bad either. Way better than any missile launcher.

Here is nice tip early game with the stealth A. If the first dual laser shot hits the shields, you can target the mini beam at the pilot before the second shot lands and guarentee the second shot lands. Players who get win streaks on hard mode have many tricks up their sleeves not many know exist.

[beans]

Originally posted by Fusion:

Originally posted by VIGILO CONFIDO:

It is easy to manage drone parts with hacking. Obviously you fire the really good dual lasers to and that is enough system damage to take down most ships till like sector 6 or 7.

3-4 hull/system damage on average guarenteed every 20 seconds is not bad either. Way better than any missile launcher.

Here is nice tip early game with the stealth A. If the first dual laser shot hits the shields, you can target the mini beam at the pilot before the second shot lands and guarentee the second shot lands. Players who get win streaks on hard mode have many tricks up their sleeves not many know exist.

What are you even talking about. Hacking uses 1 drone part every time and is not affected by drone recovery arm.

It doesn't cost that much. If you're already using drones, it can add up, but if you don't have any drone systems then it's a good way to make use of excess drones.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by mekloz:

Lastly, I'd sure like to see that 12 damage halberd placement - was it the medium tier fighter, a very sketchy placement from a corner? It shouldn't really be possible otherwise, and even there I have serious doubts. (unless you're aiming between rooms, in which case, yeah, ok).

Pretty sure it was a medium tier Rock fighter (probably this[vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net]?)

Aim to the left of the weapon system and pelt
a) empty room
b) weapons
c) helm
d) medbay
e) shields
f) oxygen

... I'm pretty sure I managed to pull that off once. Pretty sure.

The beam length is ever-so-slightly more than what it actually shows as damaging rooms (about an extra pixel, I'd estimate).

-----------

The reason I haven't quoted anything else in your argument is because I'm a scrub and you're a pro :P Listen to mekloz, he knows what he's talking about. I can't beat the game on Hard after 200 hours :P

[mkzzz12]

Originally posted by Fusion:

Originally posted by PeggleFrank:

It doesn't cost that much. If you're already using drones, it can add up, but if you don't have any drone systems then it's a good way to make use of excess drones.

It... does not cost any less than other drones...
1 drone part is 1 drone part, which is 8 scrap.

You're right about the cost, of course, but it's extremely hard to run out of drone parts on hacking if you're even remotely smart about it. An average game will see you fight ~45 ships, so if you find yourself getting hacking with ~15 parts in, say, sector 3? It's not a problem. Earlier than that, you won't need that much offense, and even later you don't need to hack every ship.

Mini beam is not at all hard to take to the end game. I finished a Stealth A run some time ago with only adding a heavy laser and some attack drones, not even hacking. No damage taken from the flagship. Many other times with just hacking and some other small laser. As long as you keep the damage output high/fast, you can do a lot with very little.

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Originally posted by mekloz:

Lastly, I'd sure like to see that 12 damage halberd placement - was it the medium tier fighter, a very sketchy placement from a corner? It shouldn't really be possible otherwise, and even there I have serious doubts. (unless you're aiming between rooms, in which case, yeah, ok).

Pretty sure it was a medium tier Rock fighter (probably this[vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net]?)

I'm certain (have a screenie somewhere) I managed a corner to corner shield to weapons diagonal slash through two tiles on this one: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/ftl/images/4/47/Engi_Bomber.jpg

But I don't think it's reasonable to actually touch all the rooms on the way on that rock cruiser. Well, I guess not impossible, maybe.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by mekloz:

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Pretty sure it was a medium tier Rock fighter (probably this[vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net]?)

I'm certain (have a screenie somewhere) I managed a corner to corner shield to weapons diagonal slash through two tiles on this one: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/ftl/images/4/47/Engi_Bomber.jpg

But I don't think it's reasonable to actually touch all the rooms on the way on that rock cruiser. Well, I guess not impossible, maybe.

I may possibly be thinking of doing that with a Hull Beam, which has an extra 20 pixel length.... *shrugs* I'll have to get a Halberd Beam and wander over to the Rock Controlled Sector to check this :P

[anarcher]

Hull beam is fine. It makes breaches, works very nicely against the FS and only uses two power.

[mkzzz12]

No breaches, that's probably your CE.

It is a good beam anyway. Highest potential damage for that power, almost as good as pike at chipping at systems, fastest beam you can find in the wild. Unfortunately it's pretty expensive to actually buy.

[Watereaters]

Beam dmg is lowered by the amount of shields

[Enderminion]

Originally posted by Watereaters:

Beam dmg is lowered by the amount of shields

nulified by shields

[Petralicious]

Originally posted by Enderminion:

Originally posted by Watereaters:

Beam dmg is lowered by the amount of shields

nulified by shields

No, 1 shield bubble will block 1 beam damage.
So a 2 power beat hitting through 1 shield bubble will deal 1 damage per room.