Autocannon VS Mass Driver, Plasma VS Laser

[mcsproot]

As it says.

Any tips on what situation/role which weapon class wins out?

[The Bored Chairman]

I'd like some insight into the finer points of these weapon classes too. From my understanding, Autocannons have a higher fire rate than Mass Drivers and the larger version ignore armor instead of having anti-shield capabilities (though they have no penalties against them). As for Plasma and Laser, I think Plasma is just an upgraded anti-armor weapon with greater range but poorer accuracy and higher armor penetration.

Could be wrong though, I'm still learning the ins and outs of all the different weapon types.

[markdb92]

laser is only good to get lances. autocannons are like the best small slot weapon since they only target corvettes and corvettes have no armor. Mass drivers are like the jack of all trade weapon useful when fighting in wars with muti empires which will happen as soon you take one empire out when ai starts dog piling you in wars. Plasma only good against battleship and cruiser which mean the large slots. I use the e torps to strip shields. Bombers can be deadly sure they get taken out easy but not all ai empires use pd.

[Duckie]

Autocannons are kinda mech to be honest. Their high rate of fire makes them look like they can deal allot of damage to targest with low armor. But that actually isn't always the case. Their short range means your going to miss out on 2-3 shots while your ships are still moving into range. Which actually lowers their damage out put. I generally would always go with mass drivers over them any day.

But they are good at compeltely destroying strike craft and bombers. So it is sometimes worth investing in a few and i mean a few ships designed to just counter those at mid to late game.

Same thing applies to Plasma throwers, their pretty good at damaging heavily armored targets such as battleships. But their lower tracking makes them pretty weak against anything smaller. Also they do all around less damage against anything with low armor compared to Lasers. So for most part your better of with just lasers. Lancers are the main reason you would want to go down laser tech tho.

If were just talking about early game like your main starting weapons for your fleet. I would probably go with Missiles now over any of the three. Their ability to retarget if their original one is destroyed now has basically made them the go to starter weapon. Early game your facing mostly corvettes and destroyers who have the 2 highest evasion stats out of the 4 ships types. Which means Kinetic weapons will struggle to hit them because of low tracking. Lasers also will miss occasionally and out of the 3 types do all around less damage. Missiles have the best tracking making them the most likely to always hit their target, do the best all around damage. Their big downfall is PD, but its always 50/50 if the AI your facing even has PD on enough of their ships to make a difference.

So I would always personally go with Missiles now at the start of a game. They do fall off mid to late when more advanced PD comes into play more often tho.

Late game lancers which are in the Laser tech tree are always great to have. Missiles tend to fall off around that time so switching over to lancers and mass drivers/artillery are probably for me the best combo's. Along with occasional torp and bomber carrier ships.

So to avoid the wall of text:
Early game = Missiles
Mid-Late = Energy Kinetic combo

[HugsAndSnuggles]

AC vs MD
nothing changed, really: ACs are better early game, when ships are small, shields are not as strong, and you still don't have them (ACs) researched.

Lasers vs Plasma
Lasers got their tracking and damage (including armour bonus) buffed, while plasma got it nerfed (including armor, and, IIRC shield damage modifiers). This makes lasers better at hitting smaller, armoured targets (how many small ships use armour, again?), while plasma is only useful for killing armour on cruisers and above (which it was good at before, but got worse in case of plasma corvettes).

[-=EDF=- Kouta Seto]

*sigh* autocannons are close quater weapons, wile mass driver have RANGE, their good for large ships that broadside (albeit then you would use the kinetic battery ofc.). AC are for corvettes and DD that rush in and circle the enemy, albeit i never use stuff like that. Its one of the many reasons the combat in stellaris is the actual worst part of the game for me (Ever seen a CR90 swarm against an ISD? Yep ISD wins quiet easily by sheer number of guns alone..). So one is for evasive and fast ships, the other for big broadsiding ranged ones. The Laser/Kinetic combo works fine against anything, yet i would suggest to not take the lance but the lightning XL weapon, it does direct damage no matter the armor and shield power (good against those who are not fortunate enogh to either have living metal or regenerative hull wich is the only counter to said lightning gun (it tends to do little damage from time to time, and 1 damage per shot is not realy what an XL weapon should do).

Plasma against laser hm... this one is tricky. AI beats me with plasma frequently in the mid game yet after finding out how the weapons actualy work since 1.8 its easy to kill most plasma heavy fleets with range weapons (so no laser but missle and kinetic). AI will then most of the time switch to PD loadouts wich seriosly drains their firepower and alow's you to just nuke em. Plasma is good against slow ships (lack of tracking) and can do decent damage against everything, yet hitting is a problem especiel when you have a screen of fast ships that actualy tank them with their evasion (the dev's realy need to revamp how battles work.. i would never shoot a bee with a gun, i would rather face a ship my sice because i know that small fryes cant hurt me at all)