Weapons Behaviour

Welcome to the weapons behaviour table data supplied by Jet. This will give you an idea on what weapons to select for your tactics. Hey! It worked for me.

Legend
C msl – Combat missiles
D msl – Disruptors
R msl – Remotes missiles
L msl – LDSi missiles
Pen – Penetration (to use against target armour)
Pod – number of weapons in a cargo pod.
Mag – number of weapons in a missile launcher magazine.
Lifetime (nb) – seconds the weapon will be active (duration of effect).
Dam – Damages
Blast – radius for the explosion/effect.
Expl – threshold below which explosion is triggered.
Sensor – sensor range for proximity fused/seek weapons.

CLICK HERE TO SEE MISSILE TABLE

Times are given in seconds, range are given in meters unless specified otherwise.

When you see AM in the damages it stands for antimatter, it’s usually enough to wipe out anything.

Note on Tactical Resource Interface (TRI):
The TRI setting apparently does not modify launched weapons behaviour in any way.

Note on salvo fire mode:
Salvo fire mode is compatible with all launchable weapon types except Remote missiles, if you have several launchers with the kind of launchable weapons selected you’ll fire one per launcher.

Note on Rockets:
Since they’re often fired continuously, the refire delays for Gnat, Hammer and Blizzard respectively are 0.5 second, 0.7 second and 0.15 second.

Note on using fire and forget missiles:
Using fire and forget missiles, the best chances to score a hit seems to be when you shoot between 10 and 1 km from the target (if it has decoy capabilities otherwise you can shoot from much farther than this).

Note on counter measures/decoys:
The “Time to engage” seems to correspond to the time between the missile acquisition and threat evaluation by the system before it automatically fires the decoy, this would mean that in some cases where missiles are coming hot from different directions and you are moving (ie. changing the distance between the missiles and yourself), the system could switch from missile to missile before deciding to fire the decoy (time to engage delay finished), so no decoy is launched and it’s up to you to evade the missiles.

Addendum on counter measures:
The Official Gameplay FAQ mention that you can load counter measures in a standard missile launcher and fire them manually, this is not correct the extra counter measures are still fired automatically but since you now have several counter measure launchers it makes counter measures more efficient.

Beams Legend
Range – Length of the beam in meters.
Dam – Damage per second of contact.
Pen – Penetration (to use against target armour)
Heat – Heat generated per second of use.
Recharge – Recharge time to fully recharge beam after complete discharge (ie. 0 power left)

Note 1:
Any fully charged beam weapon can sustain 6 seconds of continuous operation.

Note 2:
Beam weapons fire straight ahead (toward your cockpit center, not the HUD center), targetting cannot be used for these.

Note on Tactical Resource Interface (TRI) for beam weapons:
Energy allocation through the TRI does not affect range or recharge time but still impact damages (-/+50%).

Cannon Legend
Pen – Penetration (to use against target armour)
Dam : Maximum Damage.
Refire : Refire delay between shots (lower with weapon link on chain mode) in seconds.
Arcs : Firing arcs in degrees
Heat : Heat generated by each shot
Range : Max range (not much damage left)
Half Rng : see note below

CLICK HERE TO SEE CANNON TABLE

Notes on Tactical Resource Interface (TRI)
Use of TRI energy allocation modifies Base damage (+/- 50%), Max range (+/- 50%), rate of fire (+/- 25%) [Slug Throwers and Energy Cannons] and recharge rate [Energy Cannons only].

Note on half_range usage:
Half_range is used to computed the loss of energy of a projectile (both for Energy Cannons and Slug Throwers) across distance, It works in 3 parts:
– Anywhere inside the first segment (0 to half_range) the weapon does full damages.
– Then the decrease is linear for intermediate segments.
– The last segment is also linear but the 0 damage value correspond to the weapon’s maximum range.

The formulas to use are (when referring to Base damage, it stands for the weapon damage eventually modified by TRI allocation):

First segment (from 0 to first half_range increment):
Base damage value applied anywhere in the segment.

Intermediate segments (ie. not the first, nor the last):
Damage = (Base_damage / 2^(seg_number – 2)) * half_range / (Distance – (half_range * (seg_number – 2))

Last segment (from highest range increment multiple lesser than max range to Max weapon range):
Damage = (Base_damage / 2^(seg_number – 2)) * (Max_range – Distance) / (Max_range – (half_range * (seg_number – 1))

Examples:

For a standard PBC, the first segment is between 0 and 2100 meters, full damages (160 #in this case) are applied all across this segment.

Second segment is between 2100 m and 4200 m, damage at lower limit (2100m) is 160, #damage at upper limit (4200 m) is half the value at the lower limit, so it’s 80. Between #these two limits the damage value decrease linearly across distance. So damages at 3000 #m (inside 2nd segment) would be:

Damage = (160 / 2^(2 – 2)) * 2100 / (3000 – (2100 * (2-2))
Damage = 160 * 2100 / 3000
Damage = 112

Still using our trusty PBC at a range of 5000 m, in the 3rd segment, it gives:

Damage = (160 / 2) * 2100 / (5000 – 2100)
<=> Damage = 80 * 2100 / 2900
<=> Damage = 57.93

Using the PBC at long range (say 9000 m, fifth and last segment) will give the #following calculation:

Damage = (160 / 8) * (9600 – 9000) / (9600 – (2100 * 4))
<=> Damage = 20 * 600 / 1200
<=> Damage = 10

Cannons using ammo (Gatling and Longbow Sniper) apparently benefit/suffer from TRI setting, even though they logically should not.

Note on Assault and Gatling Cannons:
These weapons are essentially the same, the only difference is that the Assault Cannon mounts a dedicated energy ring (which explain why it uses one internal cargo space and has a slightly lower rate of fire) to provide energy instead of using ammunitions.

Note on Longbow Sniper Cannon:
The Longbow Cannon was especially designed for long range use and is recoiless to provide better aim, it can use the sniper zoom function to give long range subcomponent targetting (same as Imaging module) and since it’s a Meson based weapon it bypass conventional LDA shields.
Addendum: Despite the Longbow’s range of 53.55 km when maximizing energy to weapon through TRI allocation, due to targetting sensors limitations the maximum range a target lock can be achieved is 50km (same as maximum REM link range).

Note on weapon penetration and target armour effect on damages:

Here is a formula to compute the effect of armour on the damage caused/dealt by a weapon.

[*] Armour Modifier = (Target Armour – Weapon Penetration) / 100
[*] If Armour Modifier is negative damages are unchanged.
[*] If Armour Modifier is positive, you can compute the Damage Modifier by multiply the calculated weapon damage by the Armour Modifier (do not round the result up or down, keep the exact number).
Damage Modifiers = Calculated Damage * Armour Modifier
[*] You then substract the Damage Modifiers to the Calculated Damage to get Final Damage.
Final Damage = Calculated Damage – Damage Modifiers

The target hit points, after applying the Final Damage, should be rounded down if the hit points are above 50% of its max hit points and rounded up if they are equal or under 50%.

Example:
You’re shooting a cargo pod (armour 50) with a light PBC (penetration 35) at point blank range the Armour Modifier is:
AM = (50 – 35) / 100 = 0.25

Since you’re shooting at point blank range, damage done by a light PBC is 130,the Damage Modifier is:
DM = 130 * 0.25 = 32.5
FD = 130 – 32.5 = 97.5

If the pod still has 1000 hit points before you shoot it, it goes down to 902 (1000 – 97.5 = 902.5, 902 rounded down since a cargo pod max hit points is 1000).

If the pod had 510 hit points before you shoot it, it goes down to 413 (510 – 97.5 = 412.5, 413 rounded up since the hit points left is less than 50% of max hit points).

Note on TRI settings:
* When talking about High/Max TRI setting if mean that it gives max power to weapons.
* Balanced TRI setting is the TRI equalizing the power distribution to Propulsion, Shields and Weapons
* Low/Min TRI setting is Max power to either shield or propulsion.

Note on ammunition usage:
Ammunitions is kept track of using to things, the number of pods that are full and the exact remaining ammo count in an uncomplete pod (current pod) for this type of ammunition (the uncomplete pod is showed as a complete one in the inventory screen).

When you use ammunitions in combat the exact number of units fired is substracted from the uncomplete pod, when the pod’s content is depleted the number of full pods is decreased by one and the leftover number of shots fired is substracted from the max units number contained in a full pod to give the number to use for the current pod.

A table to summarize weapon damages at each half-life value for low/balanced/high TRI setting.

For damage reference, a cargo pods has 1000 hit points.

for the first segment the damage value does not decrease, full base damage for the weapon is applied from 0 to the first half-range value.

for other segments, damage value decrease linearly (see formulas for details).

Entries can be read like this (all range are expressed in meters):

• x. name of weapons concerned (base damage with balanced TRI, max range with balanced TRI, half-life value)
• Range values define segment the last digit of the range correspond to the end of the segment.
• Damage values indicated the damages done at the end of the segment they’re included in to have an exact damage value for a specific range refer to the formulas.
• The last number on the Damage lines indicates the max range of the weapon at this TRI setting (and the end of the last segment).

CLICK HERE TO SEE HALF-RANGE TABLE

Turrets:
Turrets (Point-defense or Dock-on) are equiped with a Light PBC cannon, refire rate is faster on Point-defense turret (0.4 second), normal (0.8 second) on a Dock-on turret.

Target re-acquiring time is 1 second for Dock-on turrets, Point defense turrets have a re-acquire time of 0.16 second.

Note on Point Defence Turret:
Despite the fact it mount a Light PBC cannon, the Point Defense turret only has a 2km #engagement range.

The point defence turret is located on top-backward side of the propulsor cone facing backward. It thus gives firing arcs of 80 degrees up/down/left/right facing backward from the direction you’re currently heading toward.

Aggressor Shield Legend
Coverage: The arcs the shield encompass in degrees.
Duration: Time in seconds for which the shield is on after activation.
Sweet speed: Optimal collision speed, basis for damage computation.
Dam Factor: Damage multiplier.
Self Dam: Ratio of damages applied to aggressor ship.

Base Damage is calculated by taking the agressor ship’s max hit points (ie. the bigger the better), multiplied by the Damage factor for the shield. Then a modificator is applied according to the speed at the collision moment (sweet speed is the reference and has a modificator value of 1).

If you hit at or below the sweet speed no damages should be applied to you. Otherwise the self-damage ratio is used.

LDA Shield Legend
Chance: chance the shield will activate to block incoming fire.
Capacity: number of energy units the shield can store.
Cost: number of energy units drained from the shield when it activate.
Recharge: number of energy units restored in 1 second.
Cover: hostile ship tracking coverage in degrees.
Fld Cover: the actual cover of the field in degrees for blocking purpose.
Hold: field hold time, the minimum delay in second between two activations.

CLICK HERE TO SEE LDA TABLE

Upgrades:

1. Particle Screen:
   Allow the LDA shield to stop fire from Meson based weapons (such as theLongbow Cannon).
2. Shield Booster:
   Activation Chance increased by 5%
3. Shield Synchronizer:
   Reduce field hold time by 0.05 second and increase Activation Chance by 2.5%