What is the best weapon at the end game?

[Muton]

I have death ray, wondering if mauler or something else is stronger

[ashbery76]

The fart gun.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

It's the time-dialation/slow-down weapon the AI's employ, anytime between 300 and 500 turns. Rumored to leverage hyper-threading on the victim-Empire's computer systems.

[bilbous]

I think it is overwhelming numbers and nothing else matters. I've done fine just using missiles throughout, might depend on difficulty levels tough. Missiles are fine for very hard.

[Red Earth]

I'm also going to give a real answer and be helpful, so the replies are at least 50% on topic.

Looking at the numbers, other weapons are better in specific areas, but the death ray is generally good in all areas. Armor penetration, damage/accuracy at range, size etc.
The only real weakness it has is that it is a beam and so it hits shields multiple times and gets its damage reduced by, I think, 4 times the shield's strength. So I'd say unless you're a facing ships with very thick shielding, death rays are a safe bet.

[Captain Keen]

Originally posted by Red Earth:

I'm also going to give a real answer and be helpful, so the replies are at least 50% on topic.

Spoilsport :p

[Muton]

what about Mauler and other late game weapons. Say you dont have death ray and youre facing a real person

[permeakra]

Zeon missiles. and plasma torpedoes ? Death ray requires a to get some end-game technologies boosting energy weapons to show full potential. Missiles and torpedoes do not, though ECCM and huge volleys may be needed?

[frdnwsm]

There are a lot of possibilities. Plasma beams with HEF and Hyper-X. MIRVed Zeon missiles with Dauntless. Titans mounting stellar converters. Anything at all with massive numbers of ships.

[bilbous]

Aw c'mon you only need several stacks of twenty or so titans with a like amount of troop transports to take over the galaxy You have to keep replacing the transports of course. You might also have to combine the fleets until you tame your opponents...but none of that has much to do with multiplayer which I am quite unfamiliar with. You might have mentioned that particular focus in the original post.

I designed a titan with a full "special" row and 3 stacks of fully buffed zeon missiles and 2 stacks of anti missile rockets. It crushed ....... my GPU. 120 missiles per ship 20 ships, that is a lot of sprites on the map.

[frdnwsm]

>>"You have to keep replacing the transports of course. "<<

That's what telepathic trait is for. Build a battleship early, and go terrorize the Galaxy.

[bilbous]

I haven't felt a need to play more than a vanilla game yet. I didn't even buy the new races pack although in the one MP game I just played they were one of the AI opponents, so perhaps I could have chosen them from the start.

[masotime]

Plasma Cannons are a good candidate. The base weapon does 30 damage and procs 5 times.

If we consider Heavy Plasma cannons with High Energy focus, the damage is 30 x 2 (heavy) x 1.5 (HEF) = 90. Assuming it fires against class X shields, that's 65. 5 procs makes it 325 damage for one cannon, ignoring damage falloff (it doesn't seem too significant for Plasma cannons)