Category:Energy

Energy weapons usually do energy damage. They come as beams (which travel almost instantly with great accuracy and have long range), or projectiles (which still have high speed and accuracy but lower range). Beam-types only do soft-flux damage to shields.

Burst damage

Energy weapons usually have a similar flux efficiency to ballistic weapons, but are usually considered flux hungry. Blasters and cannons have lower flux efficiency but another culprit are the number of energy weapons which have exaggerated initial firing rates, or with very slow rates of fire but high damage/flux when they do.

• The large Autopulse Laser has the same sustained damage rate as the medium Pulse Laser with worse flux efficiency - but fires five times as quickly in the first three seconds. The PD burst lasers, autolances/autopulsers, and the mining blaster all share this feature. This gives them rather excessive damage up front, but their sutained output is lacklustre compared to their peers. They also generate enourmous flux at the start of combat
• The Gigacannon and Antimatter Blaster both have low average flux use, and the Gigacannon actually has low damage per second too. However, they can only fire once every ten seconds, and when they do they both do a large amount of damage and generate 1500 flux in an instant

Types of energy weapon

Pulse-types have average damage, flux efficiency, and range. Beams have increased range but lower damage. PD beams have increased efficiency and turn rate but even lower damage. Blasters/cannons have increase damage but lower efficiency. There are rules of thumb and exceptions exist. Weapons with a specialisation (like burst damage or kinetic damage) are usually better than average in their role, but worse outside it.

• Beam weapons
  • Beam (laser) weapons fire a continuous beam at the target
  • Lance weapons fire an intermittent beam - 1 second of firing, 4 seconds of idle time
  • Burst lasers fire short duration (0.2-0.3 second) beams, rapidly at first but falling to a lower sustained rate.
• Projectile weapons
  • Pulse lasers fire a continuous stream of projectiles.
  • Blasters & cannons have a lower rate of fire than pulse weapons, and are usually specialised.
• Ion/Particle weapons (beam or projectile)
  • Ion projectiles can cause EMP arcs when impacting a hull, dealing EMP damage to systems not directly hit
  • Ion/particle beams can cause EMP arcs even when striking a shield, knocking out systems even without striking the hull
  • Ion weapons are primarily EMP weapons, but the tachyon lance only has a secondary EMP role
• Autopulse/autolance weapons are pulse/lance weapons with a high initial fire rate like a burst laser
  • Autopulse, autopulse, and burst laser weapons (and the mining blaster) can extend their inital burst period with Expanded Magazines
• PD, point defence weapons, are all beam-type with a high turret turn rate, and may still be useful against other ships
  • PD lasers are small beams intended to shoot down missile
  • PD Burst weapons are small to large and intended to combat fighters too

Hullmods and Ship Systems

• A number of the weapon-specific hullmods apply to all types of weapons
• The Advanced Optics mod increases beam range
• The High Scatter Amplifier mod increases beam damage and changes that damage to hard flux. Reduces beam range
• The Energy Bolt Coherer is a built-in only mod found commonly on Lion's Guard ships that increases range on non-beam energy weapons
• The High Energy Focus ship system increases energy-type weapon damage by 50% for three seconds