I <3 the Positron Ejector

[EvilPolygons]

I didn't play the Pathfinder update long enough to try out the positron ejector, so I'm just now discovering how completely awesome it is at mining large "space potato" asteroids. Beats the holy hell out of plinking away at them with photon cannons! Wow!

[Flash Hendricks]

Agreed. And when you have a badly damaged enemy ship coming right at you, with its shields in tatters, it's extremely satisfying to blast it into fragments with one last ejector splat.

[EvilPolygons]

Haven't tried that yet, but I am in a fighter so the next pirate who jumps in is going to get a nasty surprise.

[Chris]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but it sounds awesome.

[Mharr]

It's basically a ship mounted shotgun that one of the Vykeen in your base unlocks for you. It's pretty hopeless for dogfighting, hadn't considered its potential as a mining tool.

[EvilPolygons]

Haha! Single pirate jumps in while I'm mining a gold-filled space potato. I got on his tail and took him out in THREE shots. With no enhancements! OMG this gun.

Also, pulled almost a thousand gold out of the first gold potato, which spawned right outside the space station. Talk about easy!

[EvilPolygons]

Originally posted by Mharr:

It's basically a ship mounted shotgun that one of the Vykeen in your base unlocks for you. It's pretty hopeless for dogfighting, hadn't considered its potential as a mining tool.

Works great in a 1-on-1 fight against a pirate, especially when attacking from behind. I wouldn't want to rely on the positron ejector when facing multiple enemies, though.

[Galactic Starman]

Originally posted by Mharr:

It's basically a ship mounted shotgun that one of the Vykeen in your base unlocks for you. It's pretty hopeless for dogfighting, hadn't considered its potential as a mining tool.

I'm still learning on the effectivness of the new weapons too. I have found though in very close combat the positron wide arc really strikes hard the enemy sentinels flying past my hull. I was having difficulty being accurate with the phase beam since the mechanics had changed.

The sentinels oddly seem to slow down now just so I can have time to fire. Which is plain wrong and breaks the immersion and drama. I'd rather the phase beam 'lock on' effect went back to pre-atlas rises design instead of having sentinels slow down. Even if that meant some loss of its power to compensate.

Or maybe I haven't upgraded yet the ballista, infra knife and positron to their full potential. Either way I miss the fun tracking of the old beam graphics. Though this has been improved a little since the Atlas Rises patch.

Maybe my problem is just simply the 3 or 4 star sentinels lol...

[Mharr]

I try to avoid very close combat in space. Enemy fighters are exponentially more dangerous as their numbers increase, so if you can kill a couple before their weapons come into range you've basically already won.

The infra knife especially I struggle to see a role for. It appears to be the same class of weapon as the default cannon, but with less range, faster overheat and crappier aim.

[BaneBlackGuard]

Originally posted by Mharr:

I try to avoid very close combat in space. Enemy fighters are exponentially more dangerous as their numbers increase, so if you can kill a couple before their weapons come into range you've basically already won.

The infra knife especially I struggle to see a role for. It appears to be the same class of weapon as the default cannon, but with less range, faster overheat and crappier aim.

with the upgrades it slices through enemies like a red hot wire through butter

[Mharr]

Well sure, but so does the cannon, and in substantially the same way. It seems like a lot of tech slots for not much payoff?

[Cyber SGB]

Originally posted by Mharr:

Well sure, but so does the cannon, and in substantially the same way. It seems like a lot of tech slots for not much payoff?

Yeah, I tried it and went back to the photon cannon. I have the photon cannon completely upgraded and I yet to see the need for anything else. May have to test some builds out with a different ship.

[Mharr]

That. It's not that the other weapons are bad, they just seem so outclassed by the default gun in every way, why spend inventory, time and effort unlocking all the upgrades?

The photon cannon needs weaknesses. It's too damn good.

[BaneBlackGuard]

photon cannon has a slow fire rate compared to the infraknife. the different weapons aren't there to be better than photon cannon, they are there to be different. infraknife does it's damage in short controlled bursts. if you prefer being able to chase a ship around with a machine gun over a longer period of time, then yeah the photon cannon is probably what you want. infraknife is more like a M-61 Vulcan autocannon. sustained fire will cause it to overheat so you use it in short burps that sends outrageous amounts of rounds down range.

[Mharr]

I get the idea of different weapons for different circumstances, the issue I have is that assuming full upgrades on everything, the jack-of-all-trades weapon is 80% as good as all the specialist weapons in their particular roles. It's good for long range sniping, sustained fire, scores solid hits on close, fast moving targets, and puts out killing damage in a single burst. The others *are* better in these individual roles, but not better enough to be worth eight slots and several hours of research and development.

[Adarynin]

I'm fine with the weapons I have when I'm facing a pirate, my only problem is turning, I must be doing it wrong. The enemy is just a blinking red arrow for 80% of the fighht (i.e. always behind me), how do I turn quickly? Shift does not seem to help.