A huge cannon which fires slow-moving plasma-charged projectiles. Rounds are highly effective versus armor and obliterate any hull structure left underneath.
–In-game description
A feared weapon platform, rarely deployed due to the complexity involved in manufacturing a built-up barrel that can safely fire enormous high-explosive shaped charge rounds. When such a shell impacts a target, the Neumann effect causes the warhead to propel a jet of molten metal into the target's armor, vaporizing a small area, causing hull breaches, depressurization, and extensive internal damage from the spall.
The following section contains user-submitted suggestions, these may be inaccurate or outdated.
The Hellbore Cannon is a large ballistic weapon firing high explosive shells. Due to armor mechanics favoring high-damage single hits over rapid low-damage shots, the Hellbore performs exceptionally well against heavily armored targets. Despite the low dps, even a single shot is often enough to strip armor from an entire section, exposing the hull for other weapons to deal damage.
Hellbore Cannon has the second-lowest OP cost of any large weapon at 16 OP, beaten only by the Pilum LRM Catapult. At the same time, it suffers from the slow turret turn rate, rate of fire, and projectile velocity, making it poorly suited for engaging smaller or more agile targets. Despite this, the Hellbore remains accurate enough to hit cruiser-sized ships consistently, and with the elite effect of Ballistic Mastery can improve the performance against more mobile targets even further.
It is often seen with considerably larger modified range since it is often mounted on capital class ships, which will also often mount Dedicated Targeting Core or Integrated Targeting Unit. At those longer ranges, the normally moderate spread of automatic fire is magnified. It is notable that manually controlling the fire rate and waiting an extra second can completely negate the spread i.e. the Hellbore has 10 max spread and 10 spread reduction per second.
While the Hellbore is almost always seen on larger ships, do be careful of the odd Mudskipper Mk.II packing a Hellbore.
Trivia
This weapon's name is likely a reference to the 1992 game Star Control II, in that game the Hellbore Cannon is the strongest weapon that a player can mount to their customizable flagship.
Alternately, it could be a reference to the Bolo series of science fiction novels by Keith Laumer, where the term first originated.
The term also appears in the Starfleet Battles and Starfleet Commands games, in the Space Empires games, and in the Orion's Arm science fiction universe.
Animation
Changelog
Patch0.8a:
Halved rate of fire
Reduced flux cost to 750/shot (was: 825)
Adjusted visuals for muzzle flash, shot, and impact (more prominent)
Overall: low dps, very high per-shot damage, very low flux cost
The following section contains user-submitted suggestions, these may be inaccurate or outdated.