Difference between revisions of "Low Level Weapons Guide"

Latest revision as of 22:32, 12 July 2009

There are many weapons out there for lower levels. Many people first joining will think “Why use this weapon over that?” This guide will hopefully answer some of the questions.

Six main weapon types are used at lower levels. One of these involves a large ship, and equally large guns. If you are the type who wishes just to take the hit, have a big shield, and dish out damage without worrying about the way you are facing, 100% tracking weapons are the way to go.

100% Tracking Weapons

At lower levels there are a two main 100% tracking weapons available. The most commonly used of these two is the HTL, or Heavy Tracking Laser. This weapon has 100% tracking, meaning it will shoot towards the enemy no matter which way you are facing, decent range, decent damage, and uses a weapon type of laser, as the name implies. Many ais have resistance to laser type damage, so this is not necessarily the best choice. This weapon is also fairly large, and uses a lot of energy. The best ship setup for the use of this weapon at lower levels is a Roswell or Rosburst using a minor capacity augmenter, a quantum bank, and a number of solar panels. Just set yourself up near a sun and start firing.

The other weapon is much more expensive, costing over 100mil and being bought from players only, but somewhat better. It is the Mzungu Trading Defense. This weapon also has decent range, damage, and is 100% tracking. The major difference is that it is mining damage. As you progress throughout the game, you will find that fewer ais have resistances to mining damage as do resistance to laser damage. This can play to your favour, as less resistance means greater damage. An example of a lower level ai that is even weak to mining is the serenity, a red and black ship that looks like a boomerang. The strategy for the use of this weapon is the same as above, solar panels, a large ship, a sun, and then hit the trigger.

The Bule Tracking Laser (basically a Heavy Tracking Laser+ but size 5 and purple) is available from players too.

Ethereal Lasers

Another type of weapon is often used at lower levels. This is the ethereal laser. These weapons have some tracking, but not complete tracking; i.e. you still must aim at your target, but if you are a few degrees off your weapon will correct. The main advantage of this weapon comes because it can travel through objects such as warp holes and suns and still hit your target. This means that if you are fighting an ai without an ethereal laser, you can sit on a sun all day and not get hit, while pummelling your opponent. At lower levels, the only damage type available for these weapons is laser, showing itself at any ai base in the form of the Ethereal laser, or the Ethereal laser II at a bit higher level.

Cannons

A third weapon type used at lower levels is the missile type weapons such as MagCannons. These weapons shoot projectiles rather then lasers at your enemy. This means that if the enemy is intelligent, it can dodge these. However, these projectiles will turn towards your target and follow it during its flight. This makes it much easier for them to hit your target. This weapon also has another useful quality. If you are moving away from an enemy, and that same enemy is moving towards you, the MagCannon will have an increased range. This allows you to easily keep out of range of enemies while still hitting them yourself.

There are two damage types that you can get at lower levels for this type of weapon. The two are energy and heat. The heat damage weapon is slightly more expensive, but not excessively so, and only available in Lavanite. This weapon is the fire cannon. It shoots three seeking projectiles towards the target at good range. The other damage type is covered by the MagCannon I, II, and III. These each shoot one seeking projectile at large range towards the target. While the MagCannons do more damage, the fire cannon must be considered as a choice because of its weapon type; less ais are strongly resistant to fire then are to energy.

Short Range Weapons

For those who favour quickly moving around rather than going straight out and firing, or standing in one place, short range weapons are the key. Most of the time, short range weapons do more damage, or have better DpE (damage per energy) ratios then their longer range equivalents. Examples of this are seen when comparing the Nova to the Bullets Blue Alpha. The damage on these weapons is effectively the same, but the Nova uses about 10% less electricity to deal the same damage.

There are many weapons out there that have short range and larger damage. In these weapons there are two major classes; those that damage yourself, and those that don’t. Weapons such as the squat laser and nova are short range and high damage, without damaging yourself, while weapons such as bule craziness and immolation deal higher damage and damage both you and the opponent.

People may wonder why they should take a weapon that damages them over one that doesn’t. You would pick these weapons simply because of their much higher damage output. Also, with simple items such as heat diffusers, or energy diffusers the damage you deal to yourself can be drastically reduced, without reducing the damage to your opponent. These weapons can be particularly devastating when used against opponents with no resistance, or even weakness to your damage type of choice.

Thoraxes

A very interesting, and more difficult weapon type to use is the thorax or torpedo type. These weapons drop a projectile straight beneath your ship. It sits there for a while then shoots at high speed towards your target. Some of these weapons have more tracking then others, but all have some. The real difficulty in using this weapon type is that whenever your opponent flies over your projectile before it has started moving, the projectile disappears harmlessly. While they take some skill to use, these weapons typically have a large damage potential for comparatively little energy. The main weapon to look for of this type for lower levels is the silver thorax, found as a drop off of lower end dgs.

Projectiles

The final weapon type I will go over is the projectile weapon type. These weapons shoot a projectile forward a distance. The range greatly varies on this weapon, and they can be found in all damage types except for laser. These are the most common weapon type, and thus the most widely used. It is fairly simple to use, as you just aim at an enemy and fire, without having to worry about the enemy flying too close to you. This weapon type typically does not let you stay out of range of enemies, but does a larger amount of damage then things such as MagCannons. Weapons to look for of this type are Pulse Guns, Blue Bullets, Invertoblasts, and Pulse Shotguns.

Conclusions

It is my hope that this brief guide has cleared up some issues new players have with choosing a weapon.

Bluejayek