Hi everyone! I am new to the game so I’m going to need you’re help. First of all, whats the difference between the damage types? Thermal, kinetic, EM, etc. And the 3 different weapon types, rail gun, plasma, and lasers ( is pulse a weapon type? if so count it too ) Whats the difference between them? Their cons and pros. And can someone explain to me the 3 extra types of each weapon type? ( like long range lasers, and rapid fire railguns ) Thanks everyone!
Damage Types
By default, EM damage is efficient towards shields, while Kinetic damage is efficient towards hull.
Thermal damage is by default fairly strong against both of them.
However, resistance modifiers can be equipped for both shields and hull.
Usually as I fly around shooting peoples ships, I find that my damage is quite low compared to what it usually is, so I switch over from my normal Thermal damage on lasers to EM damage, using the weapon modifiers you get on Tier 2 and up.
As I do so, I can see that my damage per shot is greatly increased.
This is because the guy who outfitted the ship I am shooting at, added thermal resistance to their ship, denying a lot of damage from my lasers.
Weapon Types
Different guns have different range, fire-rate, damage per hit and so on.
Some guns may shoot bursts, and some may fire constantly.
Plasma cannons and railguns fire projectiles, giving them travel speed, while lasers have instant travel speed.
I suggest you try them all out, and then pick the one you think fits you the best.
I myself, believe it’s easier to aim with lasers, while plasma cannons can deal slightly greater damage if you can hit your enemy.
When it comes to railguns, I’d go for the slower fire rate, with more damage per shot, to penetrate resistances better, due to their oddly slower fire-rate in comparison to plasma cannons and lasers.
I hope this explains some of it 
Thanks for the help, but I still need to know the difference between a long range laser vs pulse laser and assault rail gun vs rapid fire rail gun and so on
Id be interested to know what you guys think is the best weapon type. T2 letting you swap damage types around seems to remove a large part of the weak points from guns and im just seeing if this has made you all move to plasma which imo is the best followed closely by lasers.
Any reason to run rails really or hope that they will get buffed?
Laser is good if you want to stay at range and support your team, just look at when dog-fight happen then you zap your laser toward your enemy, watch them panic like mad dog.
Plasma is up-close personal, waste shield real fast but not that good against hull, still if in Tier 1 the DPS is high enough to waste hull too
Railgun is slow fire but pack more punch per shot, i find this thing hard to use but the damage is quite nice to finish someone with low hp off.
Laser is good if you want to stay at range and support your team, just look at when dog-fight happen then you zap your laser toward your enemy, watch them panic like mad dog.
Plasma is up-close personal, waste shield real fast but not that good against hull, still if in Tier 1 the DPS is high enough to waste hull too
Railgun is slow fire but pack more punch per shot, i find this thing hard to use but the damage is quite nice to finish someone with low hp off.
Get the needler mod, it converts the plasma em dmg to kinetic. boom problem solved.
Get the needler mod, it converts the plasma em dmg to kinetic. boom problem solved.
Yea thats why Im interested to know what people think of the weapon balance. It seems kinda unfair that plasma is able to swap around its damage type to get 2 bonus damage types vs the other two getting one with and one with out. In all honesty it seems to throw everything out of balance when any weapon can just push a button and swap out its damage type and ignore its resistances.
Railguns can be equiped with shaped charges, boosting their critical hit chances drastically. Add this to the Interceptor’s natural 30% critical chance and the Broadband scanner, you can easily critical every 2 shots (~50%). That being said, the rapid rails need a spread adjustment/removal and a higher ROF.
They can hardly be called “rapid” if the normal railguns already have a higher ROF than them, the triple shot feature being less than useful. No point throwing a 3 round burst if that is the only shot you can throw, and for 1x only at the beginning.