can someone explain weapons to me?

[Dire Wolf]

I have played a lot of master of orion 1 and 2, but that's it. I have also played a lot of civilization series so I'm familiar with tech trees. I played my first game about 3 hours, on easy and it was super easy, but I don't know how all the weapons work. Do some do better vs armor/shields or how do you tell a weapons range etc? Like in moo2 how plasma cannons hit all four shields but have very high dmg dissipation from range, while gauss cannons lose no damage due to range. That kind of detail. Cus right now I just load up the biggest ships I can and run right at the enemies with heavy and artillery ion cannons.

[Pherdnut]

GUGHHhhh. I guess. But give me some of your tots.

Direct fire cannons:

Beams have excessive damage dissipation in this game. So they're best used way up close.

Mass-driver tech, including railguns and force beams don't dissipate and have excellent range mods. Mass drivers do less damage than their laser counterparts in the early game but they pierce shields (heavier shields are pierced less) and damage doesn't dissipate so they're a good early choice.

Gatling lasers have excellent beam mods, including rapid fire (double the shots) and x-ray lasers (armor-piercing). It takes a few extra research topics to get everything but they are available mid-game and don't suck all the way to the end. Ions are cheaper to research and quite strong.

Force beams are the ultimate medium hardpoint weapon.

None of the cannons are great in large hardpoints IMO, although the impressive range from mass drivers or rails is nice to have in the early to mid game.

PD:

PD fires automatically as fighters/missles/energy projectiles come into range. IIRC, MOO2 did exactly the same.

There is cannon PD and missile PD. Missile PD has insane range and a flat damage roll. The advantage of missile PD is that the more ships you have the greater the defense is because they can almost always support each other with a tight formation. Fusion PD is pretty good. Antimatter is phenomenal. Don't waste your time researching nuclear missilie PD. Missile PD is limited by ammo. I've rarely run out myself. Missile PD can also be an excellent long range weapon when they're hanging by a thread. Also, you can boost ammo on a misisle ship by putting PD in it's lighte hardpoints even if you never intend to use them for PD.

Cannon PD is nice because it never runs out. Mass driver PD is unique for being the only long range PD weapon and is quite powerful in the early game because you can squeeze twice as many cannons into a medium hardpoint. Higher end gatling laser and primary beam PD is probably stronger for an individual ship but a large fleet is much more effective against fighters/misisles/energy-poop with AM PD.


Energy Torpedoes:

Most races only get the pulson torpedo which is the best thing you can put in a large hard point for damage (but at a pretty severe cost to range). But wow do they hurt. Like missiles they are vulnerable to PD. Unlike missiles they never run out. The Gremak start with a much lighter version on all of their ships, which are all awesome by the way. Also the Gremak get much-improved range on all energy torpedoes.

Edit: Actually the Gremak PD cruiser is terrible, and only because their starting light cruiser is freaking insane.


Missiles:

You have to upgrade them but upgrades are cheap and damage potential is geometric across 3 varieties. Antimatter missiles are pretty easy to get by mid-game and no joke. Especially against harpies which have almost no PD that will ever get used against your missiles. Pretty much the same as MOO. They require ammunition. They hurt an awful lot. The can be countered very easily with a little focus but the AI is not so good at focus except when it randomly is so maybe not go 100% missiles past the early game.

There are two special missiles; leech and ecm. The first does tons of damage vs shields (more than AM would) and the other stops ships cold until their turn is over if they hit unshielded armor or structure. I think humans get those very cheaply. ECM might have an advantage against star harpies, the generic ones with no armor.


Torpedoes:

Missiles with not-quite-double damage, half the number of shots and really, really, really slow after the inital launch which actually sends them a bit farther than standard missiles. I find them mostly useless. They are especially hampered by the fact that there are so few places where you can equip them. They'd be interesting on a cloaked ship with a butt-ton of torp slots.


Fighters:

Very much like MOO, interceptors get a reduced version of your best cannon (PD basically). Bombers get your best missile-damage. Strike fighters are really hard to kill and get either/or depending on what they're attacking. MIssiles for ships. Cannons for stuff PD targets automatically. Like MOO they upgrade automatically.


Assault Shuttles:

Like moo. Very powerful in this game. The weird thing in this game is that having an assault slot gives you a tank slot. Without the tank the assaults aren't as powerful for capturing ships. Capture strength is based on crew count. The humans have a powered armor unit that doubles the attack for ship capture when you fit in that slot. But they're not as good at planetary invasion.

Captured carriers with powered armor is ababout as parrful as it gets for capturing shipss but lighter/faster carriers are probably ideal for the job of stealing ships.