I’m interested in maximizing potential of this weapon. Tried it on last tournament and it performed pretty well but I’m sure I did some mistakes preparing ship to it (dragonfly, but I’m thinking about swapping bubbles from Bear for it)
-Charging increase critical chance, so what is optimal crit base crit chance for them?
-What ammo would work best, purple explosives, uranium or shaped charge?
-Is there any modifier that can speed up charging?
-R6 implant, projectile speed or crit damage?
-Does increasing range with decreasing damage with horizons worth it?
Can you give me some general tips and tricks for this weapon?
-I use mine at about 30%. This pretty much guarantess a crit on full charge.
-Purple explosives are very nice, or crit ammo if the ships doesn’t have enough CPU slots.
-Some say that iridium heatsinks speed up charging. I have never noticed such a change, so I think it is minimal if any. You could try it though.
-Crit damage
-I think it is not worth it. You are going for alpha strike with this weapon, so need every bit of damage you can get. Also it is harder to aim at high range.
Tips and tricks:
-Works very nicely combined with the slows.
-Make use of your damage boost on decloak.
-Try and always charge the shot. Not only will you do way more damage, but you also have lower spread.
-Make every shot count.
-Shared cooler is very nice with this weapon…
-Target painter is a very useful module
-It is nice to have high strafe speed for gauss
-Target federation interceptors or ship you know to be weak to kinetic.
-It is a very good weapon for kill stealing
This is all for tacklers. I don’t have much experience with use of the weapon on any other ship. I have seen some very skilled gauss gunship pilots though.
To maximise potential on the gauss cannon use it on a gunship, overdrive massively reduces the charge time + combat reboot is so good.
I normally use one crit chance module and crit ammunition.
Crit chance ammunition.
Since overdrive reduces charge time, I assume all other fire rate modifiers also effect it.
Crit damage is usually useful, however the projectile speed is not bad on ships with no railgun bonuses.
On every gauss ship I use 1x horizon, even with only one cpu.
ew, horizons.
Personally I prefer using the F2 implant for extra range. This way I don’t suffer a damage penalty, and I get a sensor range boost at the same time.
I typically shoot for my crit chance to be 34%, as that will guarantee a crit at full charge.
For gauss gunships, I tend to use a combo of heatsinks and pulse dischargers, to optimize the charging rate and damage.
For gauss tacklers, I use all pulse dischargers in combination with target painter to create huge hits, some hits are even capable of 1 or 2-shotting a ceptor.
Yeah I forgot to mention the pulse dischargers. Having two or three of those installed is so much fun XD
(who needs energy anyways)
My Rockwell is cap-stable with 2 pulse dischargers, as is my Bear.
I Prefer ~50% crit chance build, little less alpha, but way more dps.
If I want high-DPS kinetic, I go with rails. I use my gauss cannons for high-alpha damage. So I can hit a ship for 10k, making it panic and run (or killing it).
If I want high-DPS kinetic, I go with rails. I use my gauss cannons for high-alpha damage. So I can hit a ship for 10k, making it panic and run (or killing it).
as i said, difference in alpha is minimal, but difference in DPS is something else…
You cannot one-shot interceptors with assault railguns.
No, but you can kill frigates and fighters more quickly. It is all about specialization.
Also, a good rail fit with 6-3 implant AND uranium shells can rape interceptors, mostly in bonused ships. I have 8900 m/s rail projectile speed in my panther.
Engine: rotation is 2nd best with gauss, prefer strafe every time, would take 3 strafe modules over 2 strafe and one rotation on a ship with 3 engine slots.
Capacitor: Heatsink does nothing/as good as nothing on gauss. Better options are 2nd pulse/EB/energy regen.
Hull: I don’t know anything about hull tank
CPU: Would never fly a gauss ship without overclocked cpu, I’d prefer overclocked and 2 crit dmg, crit chance is good enough on charges anyway.
Ammunition: crit chance is best choice
Missiles: With gauss you want the missiles to finish off a ship that is hard to hit, firestorm doesn’t help with this. Due to lack of dps you should shoot frigates from out of firestorm range anyway, making firestorm not very useful most of the time.
Engine: rotation is 2nd best with gauss, prefer strafe every time, would take 3 strafe modules over 2 strafe and one rotation on a ship with 3 engine slots.
Capacitor: Heatsink does nothing/as good as nothing on gauss. Better options are 2nd pulse/EB/energy regen.
Hull: I don’t know anything about hull tank
CPU: Would never fly a gauss ship without overclocked cpu, I’d prefer overclocked and 2 crit dmg, crit chance is good enough on charges anyway.
Ammunition: crit chance is best choice
Missiles: With gauss you want the missiles to finish off a ship that is hard to hit, firestorm doesn’t help with this. Due to lack of dps you should shoot frigates from out of firestorm range anyway, making firestorm not very useful most of the time.
Active modules: best as they are in screenshot
tossing rotation so It’s harder for me to infight interceptors? use EB like a xxxxx? Heatsink does nothing? OVERCLOCKED CPU? TOSSING FIRESTORM?
Personally, I don’t like using the Gauss Cannons and I find them pretty much useless for tournament stuff. If you are going to try anything in the tournaments, I’d say railguns if you want to maximise your effectivity with kinetic weapons. With that on the flip, I will say they are definitely useful against interceptors, specifically on something like a Bear or an Achilles where you can have a heavy damage output, or combine it with the high potential critical chance from the Bear.
Switch your crew round so you have a higher damage and a high chance of critical hits in your Rank 2 top implant and Rank 6 middle implant, stack these with infrared scanners and then you should be away. For your Rank 14-15 ships, if they have critical hit bonuses do take as much advantage of this as you can; target tracking co-processors on top of an infrared scanner should go well on the Excalibur, considering its kinetic bonus. That’s my personal preference.
If you are the type of pilot who likes being able to evade constant barrages of fire and still be able to aim, I recommend using two inertias on your higher level ships and the Rank 5 top implant for your rotation. Could do a similar thing with the lower ships, but two collision compensators aren’t as effective your Rank 5 strafe and two verniers, which, theoretically, could also work even better for sit-fighting setups than what I first suggested.
Do listen to what Cr0 was saying. He has some pretty good points in what he’s saying.
If you are the type of pilot who likes being able to evade constant barrages of fire and still be able to aim, I recommend using two inertias on your higher level ships and the Rank 5 top implant for your rotation.
No, No, No
One Inertia stabalizer(+48% to strafe), rank 5 middle Implant(+75% to strafe) and one Vernier engine(+37% instead of +30% you get from Implant) is more effective(223% Strafe and 137% Rotation) then what you suggest (186.4% strafe and 130% Rotation).
Lately i found double heatsink gauss on a spark extremly hilarious. Naturally one would go for pulse discharger under normal cicumstances but due to the sparkyness of the spark, it works.
tossing rotation so It’s harder for me to infight interceptors? use EB like a xxxxx? Heatsink does nothing? OVERCLOCKED CPU? TOSSING FIRESTORM?
tossing rotation - hitting interceptors does not only rely on your turning rate. Strafing is as effective in keeping your guns aligned, especially with weapons that are capable of longer ranges.
use EB - yes, use EB. Especially in t5. There is plenty of things that kill you, why not reduce your chance to instapop.
Heatsink does nothing - they do. You just need to spamclick the mouse faster.
OVERCLOCKED CPU - useful on all sorts of craft, i love em on tacklers, not so much on gunships.
TOSSING FIRESTORM - yes get EM missiles. Firestorms require too much brainpower for too little damage. Rather take a missile that is fire and forget and poses a serios threat to your threat, aka interceptor bob.
Ofc you can say, this is all bullshit, since you fly your gunships with like 1.7km range xD But you know, range is gud and damage is not all the magic.
After all don’t forget, with gauss you rarely have ceptors that get close enough so they can shoot you. One hit and they already have doubts.
