Shield Piercing/Mass driver

[georg2357]

Hi,
could not find it in the "manual" or online so:
what does "shield piercing" in the mass driver description mean? Mass drivers certainly do not ignore shields (as my fleet found out the hard way against the Orion Guardian).

And does it only seem to me, that the newer weapons are always better than the older versions even with reduced size etc. Is there even a use in using dated tech? Every time I go up against enemies of the same tech levels but more modern guns installed, I bite the dust. Is that normal? Would be sad if all those earlier weapons would become useless for anything other than point defense.

Cheers

[Constable]

1.0 Mass Driver Shield Piercing:
I am uncertain as to what has occured between you and the Guardian (never actually fought in MoO CtS) however, I can tell you that against traditional shields (at the very least Class I and Class III), the do in fact bypass them.

Mass Drivers are the first weapon type to rival the early game dominance of Missiles due to the fact that one, they bypass shielding and two there damage is not mitigated by range. The third reason they are great has to do with the fact that they start out with PD mount availible.



2.0 Newer Weapons vs Older:
New weapons are not exactly better than old by virture of the fact that they are new. Take the Mass Driver vs the Graviton Cannon for example. The Graviton Cannon does more damage, however it does not only disipates with range, it also my shoot through the shields before it can apply its damage to the ship's hull. A Mass Driver on the other hand can be set to a Heavy Mount which does make it 1.5x the size cost, however, with that you are now able to fire 1.5x as far (farther than a Missile can be shoot from), do 2x the damage (12x2=24 to the Grav Gun's 25), pierce the shields, and do full damage upon impact. The Cost here is the extra space and a 1.25x modifier to fire rate which makes it take longer to fire, 6sec compared to its default of 4sec which is slighty slower than the Graviton Cannon's 5sec.

Missiles are the same way. Pulson Missiles do 50 damage per round and Merculite do 25. Howver PD can still shoot both down at a 1 to1 ratio, 1 PD for 1 Missile which makes the Heavy Armor mod for the Merculite all the better. Yeah it sucks that Pulson cost 10 and now the Merc will cost 12.5 but that Armor makes the Merc 2 PD to 1 Missile ratio.

It all depends on how the weapons are used.

I hope this helped.

[Roderick]

Can't say anything to the shield piercing matter, sorry.

The weapons you use should be supported by the rest of your ship. I almost only use phasors in the later game. Best computer, Battle Scanner, The two technologies that enhance energy based weapons by 50% and the other one which makes em smaller, the upgrade which makes it stronger and fires further away and a race with bonus to aim... there would be no use for rockets or topedos or fighter/bomber bays at that ship, and no use for special technology which would just steal away space.
I may have miscalculatet, but due to the size of the Death Ray from Orion, these phasor-combination is even stronger than the Death Ray itself.
I haven't used the stellar converter much, so I could be wrong, but that is my experience so far. :)

[Birdie_Sparrow]

The Guardian is a whole different ball game then every other races ships. Guardian shields are not comparable to the "low tech" races :). But yes MDs do bypass shields. Normally. :)

[WhatAMess]

Well The Orion Guardian May have hard shields...
Using Mass Drivers against hardshield renders the piercing useless. So with MDs you may keep doing the same damage but without piercing damage, since hard shields blocks Shield Piercing Damage

[martin77]

hard shields negate the shield piercing for weapons.
The same with heavy armor(it is the right tech nameP,i play the german version?),
it negates armor piercing weapons

[purdueguy]

Originally posted by Roderick:

Can't say anything to the shield piercing matter, sorry.

The weapons you use should be supported by the rest of your ship. I almost only use phasors in the later game. Best computer, Battle Scanner, The two technologies that enhance energy based weapons by 50% and the other one which makes em smaller, the upgrade which makes it stronger and fires further away and a race with bonus to aim... there would be no use for rockets or topedos or fighter/bomber bays at that ship, and no use for special technology which would just steal away space.
I may have miscalculatet, but due to the size of the Death Ray from Orion, these phasor-combination is even stronger than the Death Ray itself.
I haven't used the stellar converter much, so I could be wrong, but that is my experience so far. :)

The gauss canons towards the end of tech tree out match the phasers since they are shield piercing. And top level semi guided torpedo is devastating!

[Imricdaelf120741]

Orion has Hard Shields if I remember correctly, so yes your MD is worthless against the Guardian.

Mass Drivers, Phasors, Gauss Canon, Plasma Beam, Disruptor. These are the best beams across the board. Late game you should be specializing with one of the last three or massing the Phasors. And every PD you have should be Phasors once possible.