| Dragonfire Torpedo Pod
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| General Information
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The Dragonfire was created to anticipate increasingly sophisticated anti-missile solutions. The concept is simple: use an enriched AM-catalyzed nuclear warhead to pump a focused plasma beam, delivering destructive energy without worry of point defense interception. The results were spectacular.
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–-In-Game Description
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Overview
The Dragonfire Torpedo Pod is an upscaled version of Dragonfire DEM Torpedo, with more than twice the ammunition capacity. All munition stats remain the same.
Notes
The following section contains user-submitted suggestions, these may be inaccurate or outdated.
The torpedo fires from 1100 units away and its beam has base 8000 DPS applied for half a second, making it particularly devastating against armor, but is of limited use against shields as it inflicts soft flux; however, the large burst of 100% shield-efficient energy damage can push a partially-fluxed ship into an overload or force them to eat the torpedo on the armor, this is especially effective against low tech designs with weak shield emitters.
Like most DEM missiles, the Dragonfire is capable of unleashing its payload safely from beyond the range of most PD weapons. However, its slow flight speed makes it rather vulnerable to being intercepted while en route to the target or simply crash into debris and other obstacles. Much like the Atropos, the Dragonfire has homing capabilities. But like other DEMs, it has a brief delay during which it takes aim and charges up the laser, this allows faster ships to evade the energy beam at the last second and precludes firing the torpedo at close range where other torpedo weapons excel while having increased effectiveness when used at range.
Even as a large mount, the Dragonfire remains a highly impractical weapon. Costing 28 ordnance points, it's the second most expensive missile weapon in the game, yet it retains the same flaw of having extremely limited number of ammunition for its cost that plagues its medium mount version. With just 5 rounds, the Dragonfire Torpedo Pod contains a bit over a third of a Cyclone Reaper Launcher's ammo capacity while still costing 2 more OP to install. For large finisher missile weapons, the aforementioned Cyclone, the Hammer Barrage or the Hurricane MIRV Launcher are better options for most builds. However when this drawback is compensated for with hullmods such as Expanded Missile Racks, the Missile Specialization Officer Skill, and (when available) the Missile Autoforge ship system, Dragonfire mounts can have sufficient combat endurance to be useful in extended engagements.
Change History
0.97a
- Dragonfire Pod (large): increased refire delay to 15 (was: 14, probably by mistake)
0.96
Up to date for latest
version, 0.97a.
