Best weapons for campaign?

[Elafi]

What do y'all think are the best weapons in campaign mode?

[Angelous Wang]

Most things are viable.

But energy weapons are pretty much better all around, simply because it allows to completely ignore sulphur, ammo and ammo production.

Which saves you on crew to do all of that.

And the extra power they use vs projectile is really nothing.

[Morkonan]

Whatever system you can best use effectively, really... I know that sounds trite, but it's basically true.

It's usually better to focus on either Energy or Ammo weapons. However, some systems are good in any ship: Point Defenses, Flak, and Missiles are desirable in all "Either/Or" types of builds.

Ion Beams combined by Crystals used to be one of the "metas" but they recently got their ranged nerfed. I don't think it's a terribly big deal, but just be advised you will see a lot of older flashy designs featuring that kind of system and those may no longer be as viable as they once were. (Still strong, though, I think. We'll see.)

Railguns with long barrels are the the "ultimate long-range sniper weapon." But, they require very precise aiming. For end-game Railgun ships, look up the topic of "Rail Fanning" where a large ship has multiple long Railguns and swivels back-and-forth to allow each to pass over their target after reloading.

All designs can have their own powerful strengths and some weaknesses. Even then, its possible to not have many weaknesses at all and still get severely damaged in many fights. Cosmoteer is not about keeping your ship's paint from being scratched - It's about "surviving the fight." So, in many combat situations, expect little to be left that looks like your original ship and just a couple of engines, a cockpit, and a lot of prayers to be left... If you live to see the enemy die, you win.

"Crew" is tied to Fame and that is the Great Progression Limiter. To get Fame, you have to advance to tougher combat. You can reset those requirements at any time so you can get more Crew for your Fame rank via the Options menu if you find it particularly rough going.

Note: At some point in Career Mode, you will probably want not only a Frieghter/Miner/Factory ship, but a secondary combat ship to provide the things you need in terms of combat capability or defense. It'll likely be a smaller, complimentary, ship that is designed as an "Escort" for your larger main ship. Just keep that in mind if you get frustrated in combat when only using one ship. That's when you'll need to think up designing the other or capture one that suits you.

[Katitoff]

The one you build your ship/fleet for to use.

There is no IWIN weapon, all have ups and downs.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Originally posted by Elafi:

What do y'all think are the best weapons in campaign mode?

Depends on how you like to play. Id encourage you to try all of them in different ways to figure out what you like. :)

[Sokaku]

Try everything. All weapons have trade-offs, and it comes down to a lot more than dps numbers. Logistics are a huge part, keeping weapons powered and manned, plus how vulnerable/protected they are.

In career you need to live and repair between battles so having a ship that blows up enemies fast might not be as desireable as having 2 ships capable of tanking & flanking to hit vulnerabilities or strip thrusters/weapons for good salvage with more precise weapons.

[Scoob]

I'm still pretty new, but I've played with most of the weapons now and the one I've found most effective will likely surprise you. The basic Laser Blaster. Not the heavy one, the basic one. Why? Well, likely because of how I've chosen to play the game...

Basically, I've gone from having one does-it-all ship to several lighter ships armed with Laser Blasters. These ships are fast and nimble - though a bug (I assume it's a bug) does reduce their effectiveness in combat (I posted about this just now) - and the Laser Blast is accurate and long range.

With fast enough - reverse is important - to maintain distance from a target, they can chip away at them from a distance. Not a perfect solution, but a decent one. If any of these ships get damaged, they're cheap to repair. If they get destroyed I can spawn in a new one quite cheaply too, as they have no expensive parts.

This is why I'm finding the basic Laser Blaster to be working really well for me so far. Now, I'm just early-game - my third system, level 9 enemies tops - so things may well change. However, I'm quite enjoying this approach. If the quirks with combat manoeuvring are addressed, I'm gonna like it even more.

[General Bugdiver]

As others have said anything is viable it depends how you play and build your ships.

early on (lvl 1-5ish) energy is definitely best since you dont need to worry about ammo though.

but later for me thats railgun plus flack guns. good point defense and great offense at long and short range. the railgun is especially valuable as it flattens shields.

the one point i would make is that people may make the poor choice of putting manufacturing on your combat ship for ammo. you need a logistics ship for resources and manufacturing.

[Şilen¢e]

A few days ago Ion got nerfed 450 range to 300. Last week Railguns got a buff ( Range limitation +200% is Canceld). So i would say Railgungs are atm the most powerd one`s in Engame Vanillla. As long you have the speed/range advantage.

Early game Laser weapons ( normal and big ones ) are superior till Level 7-9

[Xenomorph]

A lot of ship designs go for ion beam builds, which can be a bit misleading for thinking of it as the best weapon system. They kinda suck a lot against heavy shield or missile\nuke boats.

In the end, it all sums up to ions, missiles and deck cannons. Ions are that good range, VERY power hungry weapon system that will suck vs shields and dealing with missile boats. Missiles are the safest, yet most boring option. They outrange everything, but very ineffective against ships with point defense. Deck cannons ♥♥♥♥♥ wreck face in a very cruel way, but are very ammo hungry and need to get up close and personal, thus need a VERY thick forehead mostly in the form or armor, which is steel and the most abundant resource out there. But will get a bit slow.
One deciding factor is speed. Everything you add to your ship will make it slower, specially thick armor. Engine clusters will take up huge space, depending on how you design your ship, they will have diminishing returns no matter what.

Think of it as rock paper scissors. There is no one winning ship build or weapon system. You can't have the one ship good for everything, no matter how big and thick it is. You should have a rock, a paper, and a scissors 🙂

I'll let you figure out railguns, and state that ONE ship will not do it. For a very long time.

[PyroMancer]

In career mode you want to disable more than destroy enemy ships to maximize salvage. Thus anything that lets you focus fire is the best.

Ion and Railguns both have the ability to focus a lot of damage down a narrow path which lets you dig into the enemy ship and take out key systems without much damage to the rest of the ship.

Missiles can be effective at winning combats but their damage is so unfocused the ship is often a pile of debris at the end so your salvage is a bit low.

Other weapons can be useful when deployed as a fleet so the smaller craft can flank and breach the less defended rear of the ship to take out key systems.

[Billy]

Railguns with kite strategy: no hit (see Warlords Enforcer in Workshop)
AND
Ion with lot of shield/armor (see DeathStar in Workshop or in-game Sol Invictus, Odysseus, Apotheosis, Ipsissimus...)
Deck cannon are useless and consume too much ammunition at the end of the game

[Underprivileged White Male]

Rails and kite, or 2 ships 1 with tractors to turn the ship so you can just ram it with ions and win without having to worry about ammo/resources and just move on. It's only going to shoot at the more expensive ship so just slap an armor block in front. It can't hit your prisms if you just ram it from the side.

Failing that just build some structures around an asteroid push it around in front of the more expensive ship and kill the AI from behind with a second ship. AI's too dumb to figure it out.

[hellatze]

Originally posted by Elafi:

What do y'all think are the best weapons in campaign mode?

weapon for tanking : deck canon will full plated armor in front

weapon for DPS : missile.

weapon for sniping : railgun

weapon for kite : mines

other weapon is risky

[hellatze]

Originally posted by Xenomorph:

A lot of ship designs go for ion beam builds, which can be a bit misleading for thinking of it as the best weapon system. They kinda suck a lot against heavy shield or missile\nuke boats.

In the end, it all sums up to ions, missiles and deck cannons. Ions are that good range, VERY power hungry weapon system that will suck vs shields and dealing with missile boats. Missiles are the safest, yet most boring option. They outrange everything, but very ineffective against ships with point defense. Deck cannons ♥♥♥♥♥ wreck face in a very cruel way, but are very ammo hungry and need to get up close and personal, thus need a VERY thick forehead mostly in the form or armor, which is steel and the most abundant resource out there. But will get a bit slow.
One deciding factor is speed. Everything you add to your ship will make it slower, specially thick armor. Engine clusters will take up huge space, depending on how you design your ship, they will have diminishing returns no matter what.

Think of it as rock paper scissors. There is no one winning ship build or weapon system. You can't have the one ship good for everything, no matter how big and thick it is. You should have a rock, a paper, and a scissors 🙂

I'll let you figure out railguns, and state that ONE ship will not do it. For a very long time.

u use deck canon not as DPS but for aggro. so you make a tanky ship for that

[Recklessdvo]

I have been having fun trying new builds, all point defense and get up REAL close. Not viable, late i'm sure, but man is it fun on a very mobile ship