I’ve been mainly using lasers, but I’ve heard about artillery and it’s awesome range. So I want to try it out sometime.
Artillery ammunition has multiple kinds of shots. I’ve heard people using T1 ammo for self defense against NPCs when exploring but keeping a store of emergency Tremor in case a player approaches them. So I could do something like fire a round of Carbonized Lead as I approach and then start blasting away with Depleted Uranium or Plasma once it falls into my optimal range.
But the problem seems to be clicks. If I stuck with one ammo, the sequence would be “shoot, reload, shoot, relaod, shoot, reload.” To switch ammo wouldn’t it be “shoot, start reload, switch, (this wastes time) actual reload with ammo I want, shoot,” which makes it sound too much trouble for it to be worth it.
You should be working to keep the target within the optimal range of the ammo you’ve decided to use. EVE’s combat gameplay for Artillery (other weapons can be different) really isn’t designed for you to be constantly switching ammo types. Pick one and pilot your ship to keep the target in that ammo’s optimal.
Switching really only comes into play when you’re changing targets with different resistant profiles, or when you get attacked by some players in an engagement range that’s different from what you’ve been killing NPCs with.
TL:DR; Stop swapping ammo. Pick one and stick to it. Pilot your ship to control optimal.
In fairness to the OP, switching from Lasers to another weapon type is a bit jarring.
To the OP:
The reloading bit for Hybrids and Projectiles is intentional. It is meant to not only provide some difference in how weapons behave, but also compensate for some of the weapons inherent strengths.
Since you are coming from lasers…
Lasers have poorer tracking compared to Hybrid and Projectile weapons (meaning the latter two are better for hitting close range targets… sans Artillery weapons).
Lasers deal pretty consistent damage under ideal conditions, but Hybrids and Projectiles are MUCH better at dealing “burst” damage.
Note that the ships that primarily use Lasers are often slow “bricks.” Thus, they need flexibility of weapon range to keep up with faster, more mobile targets. Hybrid and Projectile-centric ships are based more around “being mobile,” so this is less of an issue.
I could continue, but I believe you get the point.
Yeah I thought that since it had different types of ammo, I could open up and get a free volley in before getting into the optimal range of the ammo that I really wanted to use.
So you’re saying that a group of artillery ships could go up against 7 and they decide “you know what… let’s just blast away one of them and his shield regen is moot”
Laser ships you’re saying can’t do much range control, they just kind of have to maximize what damage they do in the fight they findthemsleves in.
An Artillery ship will want to keep range from its target.
How much range?
Enough range that the target would have have trouble pursuing, but not so much that it would be hard for the Arty ship itself to slip into it’s own weapons’ envelope and take a shot.
As you can imagine, an Artillery ship needs to be decently fast to pull this off.
The idea is to shoot and run. Shoot and run.
Pick off targets of opportunity and hope that the Artillery’s massive volley damage can nuke the target in question.
if it helps:
Artillery (projectile) weapons are medium-long range weapons. Their strength lies in doing MASSIVE volley damage. Their weakness is low volley rate, abysmal tracking, and high ship resource requirements (see: can’t fit much else on a ship)
Railgun (hybrid) weapons are very long range weapons. Their strength is their absurd range. Their weakness is anemic damage output and so-so tracking.
Beam (Laser) weapons are medium-long range weapons. Their strength is in consistent damage output over a wide optimal range. Their weakness is terrible tracking, crazy high energy needs, and high ship resource requirements.
This sounds to me like you are aiming to “brawl” with a target at close range.
Might I suggest not doing this with “long range” weapons?
The reason for this is simple: Long range weapons (Beams, Railguns, Artillery) have trouble keeping up with targets at close range.
If something gets too close, you’ll find yourself quite defenseless as the weapons will not be able to land a hit.
Pointing back to what Scoots said: Pick a weapon type and design your tactics to maximize its potential. Long range weapons like staying out at range.
Lasers are probably the most forgiving when it comes to this mantra, but they still hold true to it.
NPCs: You must get a feeling which NPCs are dangerous, some you can kill with 2-5 T1 drones which don’t need high slots. Others you can just ignore, and some are a real threat which can’t be dealt with some additional turrets either.
PvP:
You want to fight? Fit your ship for fight according to your chosen tactics.
You want to survive? Speed tank and vigilance, your chances winning in an exploring fitted ship are very low if the opponent picks the fight.
A very valuable rule in EVE is that versatility in most cases is inferior to specialization, and if someone attacks you, you can be pretty sure that attacker is specialized.
That makes sense. But some people think I was trying to brawl with artillery, which isn’t the case.
Although all the small turrets seem to have descent enough tracking so that wouldn’t be the worst idea ever even if it wasn’t a good one
See artillery has a stupidly huge optimal range. The falloff range isn’t bad either. If I’m at optimal + 1.3X the fallout, I hit 30% of the time against a stationary target, although apparently I can only be at optimal + 1.14X fallout to get 30% damage. Optimal to Optimal + 1.14 fallout is where I plan to operate in when I get to some PVP and since artillery has such huge optimal range, a lot of enemy targets will just wiff. Heck before ship bonuses, a lot of small artillery has their optimal at 12 km! That means I can be at 15 km and just pound away! And I’m not talking about the range extending ammo, but just the standard Depleted Uranium.
So that’s what I want to do, get to range range and hit hard.
But before I get to 15 km (or whatever optimal + 1.14 falloff is) I’ll be at 30 Km or something. And when I’m like Optimal + 3X falloff, i’m going to miss a lot. But since there is an ammo that extends optimal range, I feel like I could get a free volley. As long as I’m loaded with the ammo I actually wanted to fight with by the time I get to 15 Km (or whatever it is), I didn’t lose anything.
But as I explained in my OP, starting to reload and then switching just seems to waste time. IF I waste too much time, by the time I reload with what I really wanted to use, the distance might be closer. That would be a miss opprtunity.
