Why should I not only use weapons that can fully penetrate shields and armor?

[Evoxrus XV]

So you know how if you destroy the Hull you basically destroy the entire ship. So there are weapons like Torpedoes, Arc Emitters, Cloud Lightning and Disruptors that basically ignor the shields and armor and go straight for the hull to destroy the ship. So for a somewhat new person like me this sounds fantastic and that I should basically only use those weapons. Apart from point defense attacking the missiles, I don’t see how I could go wrong using only penetration weapons. However weapons that damage shields and armor exists so I Guess there must be some reason why it would be bad if I only use penetration weapons. So why shouldn’t I use penetration weapons only and what are the downsides of doing so?

[Danny]

Torpedoes only ignore shields, they still need to go through armour.

As for the arc emitter, cloud lightning and disruptors.
If you're unlucky, all those weapons only do like 1 damage per hit.
As they're minimum damage is 1... XD

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Penetrating weapons do less damage to compensate for the penetration. If your opponent doesn't have much in the way of armor or shields (as is typical of other players in the early- and mid-game) then you lose more from the lower damage output than you gain from the penetration. Once armor and shields represent a more significant portion of a ship's defense (armor + shields > hull) the balance tips and penetrating weapons shine. (Also, there are certain foes for which this is true from the start of the game, so if you fight those foes then penetrating weapons can be good even early on.)

[Jonen]

If your enemy has token shields and is armor heavy, an armor penetrating weapon that reliably does more damage than a full penetrator is preferable.

Likewise, for shield heavy armor thin enemies, you want weapons that ignore shields to deliver much pain.

Or if you face a mixed grabbag and can't optimize your forces in between fights, being able to batter down shields and crush armor usually means you can output lots of damage reliably.

Many full penetration weapons gamble on damage, or being able to hit. That said, if you have enough of them they can be a decent one size fits all. OTOH if you play a human and they spot your loadout they know to max out hull and regen and optimize against your preferred defense.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Did you bother checking their DPS? Taken into account actual HP of hull (or half of it, if we assume 100% disengagement chance) and shield/armour HP with respective damage bonuses of weapons?

[Azunai]

disruptors, cloud lightning and emitters have *much* lower raw damage than normal weapons of the same tech tier. disruptors and cloud lightnings also have very short range compared to most other weapons.

those weapons are useful against specialty designs that have way more armor & shields than hull hp. like fallen empire ships - they have huge amounts of shields and armor compared to the raw hitpoints, so it makes sense to use specialty weapons that bypass their defenses and go for the hull directly.

generic AI ships will usually not have such a skewed hull:shield:armor HP ratio, so the longer range and higher overall damage of generic weaponry can compete with penetration special weapons.

[Evoxrus XV]

Originally posted by Danny:

Torpedoes only ignore shields, they still need to go through armour.

As for the arc emitter, cloud lightning and disruptors.
If you're unlucky, all those weapons only do like 1 damage per hit.
As they're minimum damage is 1... XD

I see, I knew using only penetration weapons for my fleets was too good to be true, so there are drawbacks. Thanks!

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

Did you bother checking their DPS? Taken into account actual HP of hull (or half of it, if we assume 100% disengagement chance) and shield/armour HP with respective damage bonuses of weapons?

I don’t know how to check DPS.... still somewhat noobish here.

Thanks, got it!

Originally posted by Jonen:

If your enemy has token shields and is armor heavy, an armor penetrating weapon that reliably does more damage than a full penetrator is preferable.

Likewise, for shield heavy armor thin enemies, you want weapons that ignore shields to deliver much pain.

Or if you face a mixed grabbag and can't optimize your forces in between fights, being able to batter down shields and crush armor usually means you can output lots of damage reliably.

Many full penetration weapons gamble on damage, or being able to hit. That said, if you have enough of them they can be a decent one size fits all. OTOH if you play a human and they spot your loadout they know to max out hull and regen and optimize against your preferred defense.

[Jonen]

If you check the stats, they actually give you the average DPS a couple of lines above where it says how good it is at penetrating shields/armor etc.

[Belhedler]

The main issue is: you won't have enough ports to have enough of them to destroy ships in one attack and Torpedoes while having a long reach are easily countered by P and one type of S slots (defense battery). The ennemy probably has them so your range advantage is not actually one. Only the X slot cannot be countered but its DPS range is far too wide to be a sure bet. So this will actually become damage over time rather than instant death.

Take note that IMO this type of long range weaponry is extremely efficient at dealing with starbase, especialy the ones with no +50% range module. You just need to use a ship type whose computer allows to stand far away and snipe freely. Starship has one and X slot electrical is the best for it because you can stay at the farthest range (150) and still attack but it's a bit expensive for this use I'd say.

[Brigor]

AIs are dump, but a player could 100% konter your penetration build with crystal plating, what gains no shild and amor, but lots of hullpoints.

[-Singularity-]

Disrupters also cap out at medium size.

[Maya-Neko]

And above all don't forget point defense. If your damage relies on torpedos for example, then you'll be screwed if the enemy have many ships with point defence. You might be lukcy against AIs if the RNG is on your side, but a player propably would re equip his ships before declaring war against you.