Post by AtomHeartDragon on Sept 3, 2018 21:11:15 GMT
Now, I know what you're all thinking - doesn't everyone just use modded stuff once they unlock the editor? Aren't stock modules kind of bad?
Weapons:
Cannons:
60mm Turreted Cannon
AKA lag gun. This guns combines relatively modest power requirements (even for stock capitals, though not necessarily for stock drones) with good accuracy and rapid rate of fire (which combined with low exit velocity is the main source of lag), allowing it to hit the same spot multiple times in quick succession and letting it drill and cut through the armour with frightening ease. Low velocity helps it defeat armour designed to stop hypervelocity rounds, while somewhat heavier rounds than it's usually the case with railguns can be quite devastating during fast intercepts. It also tracks quite rapidly, is small, light, cheap, not too fragile and doesn't have enough explosives in its magazine to cause widespread destruction if it explodes. Those traits make it excellent last ditch CIWS, small ship weapon and general purpose filler weapon, they also allow it to be surprisingly effective when performing rapid intercepts.
On the flipside, low velocity makes it easy to evade and greatly limits its effective range - you'll really *need* to intercept fast if it's your main weapon.
33mm Internal Cannon
Small, fixed gun with very modest power requirements - can (and should) be mounted in clusters even on drones. It has somewhat higher exit velocity than other stock cannons (though still nothing to write home about) and can actually be quite effective when mounted in clusters which greatly increses hit probability against small targets and vital systems, and also lets it rapidly cause severe structural damage breaking ships into pieces. Best fit for rapidly intercepting drones and small, fast ships,you will probably not want to mount anything faster on designs mounting it if you want it to be aimed effectively using broadside command.
22mm Turreted Cannon
Nuke Turreted Cannon
Huge cannon rapidly firing >2kt nuclear shells - what's there not to like? Unfortunately the gun is marred by severe issues making effective use of it nearly impossible. It is huge, heavy, insanely expensive and very thinly armoured. It also contains huge amount of explosives in its magazine so the end effect is putting a large weak spot on your ship that not only slows it down and bloats its cost, but also tends to split your ship in half when (not if) it explodes. And "when" is likely to happen much earlier than you will actually get to fire this gun making its already questionable utility even lower. Of course, as can be expected from it being a chemical cannon firing a very massive shell it has low exit velocity making its payloads take forever to reach the target (thankfully they don't need to hit directly due to being nukes, but they will be exposed to PD fire this entire time). It is also non-extruded, although given its vulnerability you don't want to expose it to direct enemy fire anyway.
If you happen to find a way to protect the cannon from nearly inevitable explosion (I recommend exploiting its low exit velocity and hiding it behind an armoured umbrella - leading the target while rotating the ship to face it) it can deliver quite a devastating barrage of nukes often reducing the target to an empty, incandescent shell in a short amount of time. Rare direct impacts by over 100kg nuclear shells are also quite devastating and the resulting gaping holes expose the affected ship's internals to nearby nuclear detonations. Of course, even if you find a way to protect the cannon, you should probably avoid clustering them or putting them near anything you'd rather keep. Of course, for nuke cannon to be in any way effective in offensive role, you need high intercept velocity. In defensive role it might be worthwhile against missile swarms, but keep in mind how much of a liability this weapon is.
HE Turreted Cannon
Scaled down Nuke Cannon, with similar set of liabilities - a bit smaller, but also prone to exploding and with even thinner armour. Interestingly it fires unfused HE shells, so you have to count on kinetic damage or its 20kg of octogen detonating due to impact alone. This also means that unlike nuke cannon this weapon requires direct hits. Unfortunately, paper thin turret armour renders it pretty much unusable, as it effectively can be detonated - disastrously - with a flashlight.
120mm Cannon
Heavy caliber fixed autocannon. Looks like it could be fun, but it's unusable with 100% stock designs due to lack of ammo bin.
1200mm Cannon
Apparently a joke weapon testing the limits of conventional artillery pieces. The weapon is ludicrously massive and just as expensive, while also pretty much impossible to mount on any reasonably sized ship without its explosion instantly killing the crew through rapid centrifugation even if you manage to limit direct explosion damage. OTOH you would really have to fire it up close to score hits with it (good luck mounting such a huge, explosive target) and while it punches quite satisfying holes in ships, the damage is rather disappointing due to only firing inert slugs. It's hard to see any way of making it useful.
Railguns:
200 kW 4mm Internal Capacitor Railgun
Small, fixed railgun with modest power requirements and great (for a stock railgun) exit velocity, but disappointing accuracy (for its range), weak penetration and unimpressive rate of fire. Can actually be quite effective when impacting certain thin but otherwise effective armour layouts from the side, due to spallation. Evidently designed for small ships and drones it can also be used to force desired orientation on the larger ships (it's the fastest stock kinetic weapon). Consider mounting it in clusters if you have room for it (and are actually using it) - radially offset spacers and small tanks are your friends if you want to still have a decent nose shape.
13.0 MW 11mm Autofire Railgun
Workhorse weapon of stock designs. Middling velocity and projectile mass, decent rate of fire, sturdy, not very large turret. Moderate power requirements. Doesn't excel at anything, but it's hard to go wrong with this one. Could use more accuracy. Uses capacitor so you won't be firing it between shots from other weapons if you're limited by power.
13.0 MW 11mm Turreted Railgun
High rate of fire, decent accuracy, poor exit velocity and very light rounds. Not extruded.
39.0 MW 11mm Scatter Railgun
Very high exit velocity, with somewhat heavy round, yet still ok rate of fire. Reasonably sized too. It would be an excellent weapon were it not for its low accuracy. As it is it must be relegated to pray-and-spray support role. Capacitor shape makes it somewhat quirky to accommodate.
39.0 MW 6mm Turreted Railgun
Light rounds, but decent exit velocity, great rate of fire compensating its somewhat lacking accuracy, and respectable tracking speed. An otherwise excellent weapon for both sandblasting and PD roles that is somewhat dragged down by its large and fragile turret. Lack of capacitor makes it easy to fit over internal component clusters and allows it to intermittently fire between other weapons' shots if low on power. Together with short firing time it also allows you to simultaneously fire far more of those than you might expect based on power requirements. You are likely to be quite happy with it, but pack spares.
67.4 MW 8mm Turreted Railgun
Curious capacitor-less railgun. Great rate of fire, decent accuracy and somewhat heavy round, but with rather awful exit velocity and reaction wheels consuming more power than the gun itself.
Coilguns:
200 kW 2mm Internal Capacitor Coilgun
Very small and accurate weapon with low power requirements, somewhat sub-par exit velocity and very poor efficiency leading to low rate of fire. Might be attractive as an alternative to spinal cannons and 4mm railgun for drones and small ships if you value accuracy and low profile over velocity, range and manageable rate of fire. It is prone to overheating which might cause ship fielding it to unexpectedly reorient to better use its other weapons - depending on armour, manoeuvrability and enemy weapons it can be an asset or liability.
39.0 MW 34mm Heavy Coilgun
Quite devastating if it hits with its 5kg round (and if it doesn't bounce), this weapon is otherwise quite disappointing. It has exit velocity barely exceeding reasonable combustion cannon range, very poor rate of fire and bad accuracy. Together those traits ensure that those devastating hits (or any hits at all) almost never happen. On top of that the weapon is badly affected by staged capacitor bug that drops its efficiency to low levels and contributes to its low rate of fire, while at the same time being housed in a very large (also heavy and expensive) turret that also fails to be very sturdy which almost guarantees its destruction before it does anything useful (at least it doesn't explode). It's hard to find a legitimate use for this one. Hopefully it gets replaced at some point with something derived from a flak coilgun, which is very easy to adapt to use exact same slugs much more effectively.
13.0 MW 1mm Turreted Capacitor Coilgun
Despite admirable accuracy and decent ballistic performance (velocity included, albeit with feather light round) this weapon is in some ways even more extreme showcase of Heavy Coilgun's issues. Its turret is even more massive, to the point it starts dwarfing some ships you might want to mount it on and its efficiency is positively abysmal (although thanks to its tiny round it still manages a workable rate of fire). It's hard to find an application for it as it comes at massive cost and mass penalty while also being readily destroyed, although you can at least count on it hitting consistently while it lasts. If you do have a platform that can accommodate this sort of mass and budget penalty while also providing the turret with partial cover (and for this kind of huge platform wasting the majority of 13MW drawn is also unlikely to be an issue), it *is* the closest thing stock CDE has to precision sandblaster, so you might find a niche for it.
13.0 MW 3mm Sniper Coilgun
This weapon is large, heavy, expensive and comes with somewhat disappointing efficiency and rate of fire. Thankfully it is also pretty sturdy, incredibly accurate and fires heavy 50g rounds at very respectable >8km/s.
You'll probably want a bunch of those on any sufficiently sized ship, as it excels at both surgical subsystem strikes (after compensating for enemy movement) and penetrating armour. In addition to large turret the weapon also features large capacitor and small, but protruding magazine for its rod-like munitions, making it somewhat tricky to accommodate. Being capacitor-based with somewhat low rate of fire you need to ensure it getting enough power when your other weapons are firing.
13.0 MW Flak Coilgun
With exit velocity deep in the combustion gun range and very low rate of fire this weapon isn't very useful and more of a curiosity, especially given rather poor accuracy and ammunition requiring almost direct hits. Which is somewhat disappointing as with a few simple modifications this weapon could have been a far sounder alternative to 34mm heavy coilgun.
Nevertheless it does have very small turret and good tracking speed, its flak shells are also decent laser baits and if a hit does occur it can admittedly inflict quite a bit of damage (if it isn't affected by flak bug, that is), so if you somehow find some niche for it, you're probably going to like it. It is still going to be incredibly expensive for this limited utility, though.
60.0 MW 1mm Turreted Coilgun
100 MW 1mm Turreted Coilgun
100 MW 3mm Internal Coilgun
Massive spinal coilgun with low exit velocity and large power draw. Probably not worth it. On the upside it throws heavy 100g rounds at staggering rate of fire and heavy, thin rods hitting below velocity that would shock them into plasma sound like a good idea if you want to pierce some serious armour, so if you want to make a largeish, rapidly intercepting ship with low velocity weapons, you might consider literally building it around this coilgun - or a whole bundle of them. Despite not having capacitor you won't be able to power multiple coilguns with just 100 MW of power as firing time is very long, so the weapon draws its peak power all the time.
Lasers:
400 kW Nd:YAG Near Infrared Laser
Small, underpowered laser for drone use. Due to low power and range it's probably best to not mount it on manned ships, but instead send it on drones to intercept and harass incoming missile and drone swarms - if you wait until they pass you by, you can shine infrared up their delicate nozzles.
1.000 MW Ruby Red Laser
Disappointingly heavy red laser. Still rather underpowered.
100 MW Titanium:Sapphire Violet Laser
High-powered laser, with decent range. Actually somewhat inefficient and difficult to manage due to very high all-or-nothing power draw. Still worth considering for big ships that need long range PD and precision component melting.
13.0 MW Nd:YAG Green Laser
The go-to general purpose stock laser. Light, relatively efficient, powerful enough to actually work, yet low powered enough to be fired in clusters or as secondary weapon and also to allow somewhat granular power management. A cluster of those with similar power draw might actually match or even outperform 100MW laser when it comes to dealing damage at range, although they won't force an engagement.
300 MW Nd:GGG Near Infrared Laser
Large, fragile, very power hungry and lacking spare optics. It's probably going to disappoint you unless you really want to maximize laser engagement range with stock components. Even then, it lacks frequency doublers to make all this extra power translate into range.
1.000 GW Ruby Near Ultraviolet Laser
Even more of a joke weapon than 1200mm cannon. You can field entire fleets for a tiny fraction of its cost and mass.
Missiles:
Flak Missile
Bread-and-butter missile. Somewhat prone to missing. It is an interesting alternative to precision weapon when it comes to disabling ships.
Blast launchers allow rapid deployment when closing in onto the enemy (although the moment of effective deployment depends heavily on intercept velocity), or, when forward facing, for launching missiles with some free extra delta-v. Electric launchers are better for careful long range deployment. All stock missiles have weak delta-v and use dangerous monoprops.
Striker Nuclear Missile
Tactical nuke version of flak missile. Comes with some extra mass and corresponding delta-v penalty. Somewhat useful both against incoming drones and missiles and enemy ships. Can be used as impromptu KKV when set to delayed detonation and used to directly impact the enemy.
Blast launchers and electric launchers work mostly the same as with flaks, although VLS arrangement can be somewhat risky due to exposing non-sloped flanks and risk of damaged missiles triggering premature detonation of the others - you definitely don't want a nuke going off meters from your hull and only half-emptied blast launcher.
Staged Striker
Striker with some drop tanks. Problematic to use, given that those vulnerable, external tanks are full of explosive monoprop (so you don't want them when you begin intercept) while discarding them puts them on a collision course with other missiles in the swarm.
Sniper Nuclear Missile
Essentially a higher delta-v striker without any sort of PD protection. Only really useful against stuff that can't shoot back.
Devastator Nuclear Missile
Pretty bad design. >2Mt warhead might be respectable, but the delta-v budget is abysmal and thick armour isn't effective enough to even remotely offset that. On top of that HOOH monoprop is insanely hazardous to the launching ship - launchers are likely to burst ship open if they are damaged and propellant explosion in a colliding missile is enough to send a frigate sized ship into a deathspin even if it doesn't set off the propellant in launchers or penetrate the armour. Hazardous and hard to use against enemy ships - the recommended strategy is orbital divebombing by deploying missiles while already heading for a high velocity intercept. OTOH the missiles perform quite well in counter-intercept role.
Nuclear Gyrojet
There are some good reasons to use stock stuff and it's definitely worth knowing whether you do use it or not:
- If you haven't beaten Vesta, you've got to use stock stuff to beat it "legitimately". Wiping the floor with Voitenko's fleet using a bunch of DeepFryers is going to be downright easy, rolling your own, stock module stuff (which is all you get at this point without mods or manually unlocking module design) is at least going to involve a bit of ingenuity.
- Stock and stock-like modules might a more accurate representation of 5' in the future technology COADE is all about than multi-GW reactors and 100km/s railguns. More advanced technology that would mesh better with this kind of stuff (think fusion) is, OTOH, not modlled by COADE at all due to scarcity of empirical data and exact mathematical models.
- Stock stuff is actually kind of fun from pure gameplay perspective.
- Stock modules provide a shared tech baseline for all players.
- Flaws of stock modules make interesting case studies for guiding your own module development.
- Modded design share a single namespace and overwrite each other if the authors are not careful, stock modules allow sharing designs without potentially conflicting module definitions.
Note, due to combination of stock module ships being limited to stock munitions and the launcher modules not doing anything interesting on their own, their respective munitions will be discussed instead even though they are technically ships.
Also note that the idea behind this thread is to focus on usage rather than exact statistics.
Any gaps are TBD, all observations regarding stock modules as well as creative tactics using them (especially the seemingly useless ones) are welcome.
Weapons:
Cannons:
60mm Turreted Cannon
AKA lag gun. This guns combines relatively modest power requirements (even for stock capitals, though not necessarily for stock drones) with good accuracy and rapid rate of fire (which combined with low exit velocity is the main source of lag), allowing it to hit the same spot multiple times in quick succession and letting it drill and cut through the armour with frightening ease. Low velocity helps it defeat armour designed to stop hypervelocity rounds, while somewhat heavier rounds than it's usually the case with railguns can be quite devastating during fast intercepts. It also tracks quite rapidly, is small, light, cheap, not too fragile and doesn't have enough explosives in its magazine to cause widespread destruction if it explodes. Those traits make it excellent last ditch CIWS, small ship weapon and general purpose filler weapon, they also allow it to be surprisingly effective when performing rapid intercepts.
On the flipside, low velocity makes it easy to evade and greatly limits its effective range - you'll really *need* to intercept fast if it's your main weapon.
33mm Internal Cannon
Small, fixed gun with very modest power requirements - can (and should) be mounted in clusters even on drones. It has somewhat higher exit velocity than other stock cannons (though still nothing to write home about) and can actually be quite effective when mounted in clusters which greatly increses hit probability against small targets and vital systems, and also lets it rapidly cause severe structural damage breaking ships into pieces. Best fit for rapidly intercepting drones and small, fast ships,
22mm Turreted Cannon
Tiny, non-extruded, drone issue turret with modest magazine. For when you want a turret on a very small drone.
Note: there is probably no point to ever mount it on a manned ship and it WILL run out of ammo.
Nuke Turreted Cannon
Huge cannon rapidly firing >2kt nuclear shells - what's there not to like? Unfortunately the gun is marred by severe issues making effective use of it nearly impossible. It is huge, heavy, insanely expensive and very thinly armoured. It also contains huge amount of explosives in its magazine so the end effect is putting a large weak spot on your ship that not only slows it down and bloats its cost, but also tends to split your ship in half when (not if) it explodes. And "when" is likely to happen much earlier than you will actually get to fire this gun making its already questionable utility even lower. Of course, as can be expected from it being a chemical cannon firing a very massive shell it has low exit velocity making its payloads take forever to reach the target (thankfully they don't need to hit directly due to being nukes, but they will be exposed to PD fire this entire time). It is also non-extruded, although given its vulnerability you don't want to expose it to direct enemy fire anyway.
If you happen to find a way to protect the cannon from nearly inevitable explosion (I recommend exploiting its low exit velocity and hiding it behind an armoured umbrella - leading the target while rotating the ship to face it) it can deliver quite a devastating barrage of nukes often reducing the target to an empty, incandescent shell in a short amount of time. Rare direct impacts by over 100kg nuclear shells are also quite devastating and the resulting gaping holes expose the affected ship's internals to nearby nuclear detonations. Of course, even if you find a way to protect the cannon, you should probably avoid clustering them or putting them near anything you'd rather keep. Of course, for nuke cannon to be in any way effective in offensive role, you need high intercept velocity. In defensive role it might be worthwhile against missile swarms, but keep in mind how much of a liability this weapon is.
HE Turreted Cannon
Scaled down Nuke Cannon, with similar set of liabilities - a bit smaller, but also prone to exploding and with even thinner armour. Interestingly it fires unfused HE shells, so you have to count on kinetic damage or its 20kg of octogen detonating due to impact alone. This also means that unlike nuke cannon this weapon requires direct hits. Unfortunately, paper thin turret armour renders it pretty much unusable, as it effectively can be detonated - disastrously - with a flashlight.
120mm Cannon
Heavy caliber fixed autocannon. Looks like it could be fun, but it's unusable with 100% stock designs due to lack of ammo bin.
1200mm Cannon
Apparently a joke weapon testing the limits of conventional artillery pieces. The weapon is ludicrously massive and just as expensive, while also pretty much impossible to mount on any reasonably sized ship without its explosion instantly killing the crew through rapid centrifugation even if you manage to limit direct explosion damage. OTOH you would really have to fire it up close to score hits with it (good luck mounting such a huge, explosive target) and while it punches quite satisfying holes in ships, the damage is rather disappointing due to only firing inert slugs. It's hard to see any way of making it useful.
Railguns:
200 kW 4mm Internal Capacitor Railgun
Small, fixed railgun with modest power requirements and great (for a stock railgun) exit velocity, but disappointing accuracy (for its range), weak penetration and unimpressive rate of fire. Can actually be quite effective when impacting certain thin but otherwise effective armour layouts from the side, due to spallation. Evidently designed for small ships and drones it can also be used to force desired orientation on the larger ships (it's the fastest stock kinetic weapon). Consider mounting it in clusters if you have room for it (and are actually using it) - radially offset spacers and small tanks are your friends if you want to still have a decent nose shape.
13.0 MW 11mm Autofire Railgun
Workhorse weapon of stock designs. Middling velocity and projectile mass, decent rate of fire, sturdy, not very large turret. Moderate power requirements. Doesn't excel at anything, but it's hard to go wrong with this one. Could use more accuracy. Uses capacitor so you won't be firing it between shots from other weapons if you're limited by power.
13.0 MW 11mm Turreted Railgun
High rate of fire, decent accuracy, poor exit velocity and very light rounds. Not extruded.
39.0 MW 11mm Scatter Railgun
Very high exit velocity, with somewhat heavy round, yet still ok rate of fire. Reasonably sized too. It would be an excellent weapon were it not for its low accuracy. As it is it must be relegated to pray-and-spray support role. Capacitor shape makes it somewhat quirky to accommodate.
39.0 MW 6mm Turreted Railgun
Light rounds, but decent exit velocity, great rate of fire compensating its somewhat lacking accuracy, and respectable tracking speed. An otherwise excellent weapon for both sandblasting and PD roles that is somewhat dragged down by its large and fragile turret. Lack of capacitor makes it easy to fit over internal component clusters and allows it to intermittently fire between other weapons' shots if low on power. Together with short firing time it also allows you to simultaneously fire far more of those than you might expect based on power requirements. You are likely to be quite happy with it, but pack spares.
67.4 MW 8mm Turreted Railgun
Curious capacitor-less railgun. Great rate of fire, decent accuracy and somewhat heavy round, but with rather awful exit velocity and reaction wheels consuming more power than the gun itself.
Coilguns:
200 kW 2mm Internal Capacitor Coilgun
Very small and accurate weapon with low power requirements, somewhat sub-par exit velocity and very poor efficiency leading to low rate of fire. Might be attractive as an alternative to spinal cannons and 4mm railgun for drones and small ships if you value accuracy and low profile over velocity, range and manageable rate of fire. It is prone to overheating which might cause ship fielding it to unexpectedly reorient to better use its other weapons - depending on armour, manoeuvrability and enemy weapons it can be an asset or liability.
39.0 MW 34mm Heavy Coilgun
Quite devastating if it hits with its 5kg round (and if it doesn't bounce), this weapon is otherwise quite disappointing. It has exit velocity barely exceeding reasonable combustion cannon range, very poor rate of fire and bad accuracy. Together those traits ensure that those devastating hits (or any hits at all) almost never happen. On top of that the weapon is badly affected by staged capacitor bug that drops its efficiency to low levels and contributes to its low rate of fire, while at the same time being housed in a very large (also heavy and expensive) turret that also fails to be very sturdy which almost guarantees its destruction before it does anything useful (at least it doesn't explode). It's hard to find a legitimate use for this one. Hopefully it gets replaced at some point with something derived from a flak coilgun, which is very easy to adapt to use exact same slugs much more effectively.
13.0 MW 1mm Turreted Capacitor Coilgun
Despite admirable accuracy and decent ballistic performance (velocity included, albeit with feather light round) this weapon is in some ways even more extreme showcase of Heavy Coilgun's issues. Its turret is even more massive, to the point it starts dwarfing some ships you might want to mount it on and its efficiency is positively abysmal (although thanks to its tiny round it still manages a workable rate of fire). It's hard to find an application for it as it comes at massive cost and mass penalty while also being readily destroyed, although you can at least count on it hitting consistently while it lasts. If you do have a platform that can accommodate this sort of mass and budget penalty while also providing the turret with partial cover (and for this kind of huge platform wasting the majority of 13MW drawn is also unlikely to be an issue), it *is* the closest thing stock CDE has to precision sandblaster, so you might find a niche for it.
13.0 MW 3mm Sniper Coilgun
This weapon is large, heavy, expensive and comes with somewhat disappointing efficiency and rate of fire. Thankfully it is also pretty sturdy, incredibly accurate and fires heavy 50g rounds at very respectable >8km/s.
You'll probably want a bunch of those on any sufficiently sized ship, as it excels at both surgical subsystem strikes (after compensating for enemy movement) and penetrating armour. In addition to large turret the weapon also features large capacitor and small, but protruding magazine for its rod-like munitions, making it somewhat tricky to accommodate. Being capacitor-based with somewhat low rate of fire you need to ensure it getting enough power when your other weapons are firing.
13.0 MW Flak Coilgun
With exit velocity deep in the combustion gun range and very low rate of fire this weapon isn't very useful and more of a curiosity, especially given rather poor accuracy and ammunition requiring almost direct hits. Which is somewhat disappointing as with a few simple modifications this weapon could have been a far sounder alternative to 34mm heavy coilgun.
Nevertheless it does have very small turret and good tracking speed, its flak shells are also decent laser baits and if a hit does occur it can admittedly inflict quite a bit of damage (if it isn't affected by flak bug, that is), so if you somehow find some niche for it, you're probably going to like it. It is still going to be incredibly expensive for this limited utility, though.
60.0 MW 1mm Turreted Coilgun
Somewhat inaccurate, power hungry and slowly tracking, with middling exit velocity, but also very small, lightweight and incredibly rapid firing, this weapon is probably THE sandblaster of choice among stock weapons. Beings small, and capacitorless, with short firing time you can mount a huge amount of those on your ship and fire all simultaneously drawing from limited power supply.
The only disadvantages compared to 39 MW 6mm RG are slower tracking, lower exit velocity (and thus range) and somewhat higher peak power requirements.
100 MW 1mm Turreted Coilgun
More accurate, with heavier (if still featherweight round), although also heavier, even more power hungry and with worse exit velocity, it can be an attractive alternative to 60MW version - provided you can deal with longer time to target, lower effective range against large targets and more power requirements. Interestingly, the way it overheats forces it to fire in bursts which actually helps it conserve ammo. It also tracks better and can hit small targets more consistently. Just like with 60 MW variant you can fire many of those concurrently without using anywhere near the amount of power their combined power requirements would suggest.
100 MW 3mm Internal Coilgun
Massive spinal coilgun with low exit velocity and large power draw. Probably not worth it. On the upside it throws heavy 100g rounds at staggering rate of fire and heavy, thin rods hitting below velocity that would shock them into plasma sound like a good idea if you want to pierce some serious armour, so if you want to make a largeish, rapidly intercepting ship with low velocity weapons, you might consider literally building it around this coilgun - or a whole bundle of them. Despite not having capacitor you won't be able to power multiple coilguns with just 100 MW of power as firing time is very long, so the weapon draws its peak power all the time.
Lasers:
400 kW Nd:YAG Near Infrared Laser
Small, underpowered laser for drone use. Due to low power and range it's probably best to not mount it on manned ships, but instead send it on drones to intercept and harass incoming missile and drone swarms - if you wait until they pass you by, you can shine infrared up their delicate nozzles.
1.000 MW Ruby Red Laser
Disappointingly heavy red laser. Still rather underpowered.
100 MW Titanium:Sapphire Violet Laser
High-powered laser, with decent range. Actually somewhat inefficient and difficult to manage due to very high all-or-nothing power draw. Still worth considering for big ships that need long range PD and precision component melting.
13.0 MW Nd:YAG Green Laser
The go-to general purpose stock laser. Light, relatively efficient, powerful enough to actually work, yet low powered enough to be fired in clusters or as secondary weapon and also to allow somewhat granular power management. A cluster of those with similar power draw might actually match or even outperform 100MW laser when it comes to dealing damage at range, although they won't force an engagement.
300 MW Nd:GGG Near Infrared Laser
Large, fragile, very power hungry and lacking spare optics. It's probably going to disappoint you unless you really want to maximize laser engagement range with stock components. Even then, it lacks frequency doublers to make all this extra power translate into range.
1.000 GW Ruby Near Ultraviolet Laser
Even more of a joke weapon than 1200mm cannon. You can field entire fleets for a tiny fraction of its cost and mass.
Missiles:
Flak Missile
Bread-and-butter missile. Somewhat prone to missing. It is an interesting alternative to precision weapon when it comes to disabling ships.
Blast launchers allow rapid deployment when closing in onto the enemy (although the moment of effective deployment depends heavily on intercept velocity), or, when forward facing, for launching missiles with some free extra delta-v. Electric launchers are better for careful long range deployment. All stock missiles have weak delta-v and use dangerous monoprops.
Striker Nuclear Missile
Tactical nuke version of flak missile. Comes with some extra mass and corresponding delta-v penalty. Somewhat useful both against incoming drones and missiles and enemy ships. Can be used as impromptu KKV when set to delayed detonation and used to directly impact the enemy.
Blast launchers and electric launchers work mostly the same as with flaks, although VLS arrangement can be somewhat risky due to exposing non-sloped flanks and risk of damaged missiles triggering premature detonation of the others - you definitely don't want a nuke going off meters from your hull and only half-emptied blast launcher.
Staged Striker
Striker with some drop tanks. Problematic to use, given that those vulnerable, external tanks are full of explosive monoprop (so you don't want them when you begin intercept) while discarding them puts them on a collision course with other missiles in the swarm.
Sniper Nuclear Missile
Essentially a higher delta-v striker without any sort of PD protection. Only really useful against stuff that can't shoot back.
Devastator Nuclear Missile
Pretty bad design. >2Mt warhead might be respectable, but the delta-v budget is abysmal and thick armour isn't effective enough to even remotely offset that. On top of that HOOH monoprop is insanely hazardous to the launching ship - launchers are likely to burst ship open if they are damaged and propellant explosion in a colliding missile is enough to send a frigate sized ship into a deathspin even if it doesn't set off the propellant in launchers or penetrate the armour. Hazardous and hard to use against enemy ships - the recommended strategy is orbital divebombing by deploying missiles while already heading for a high velocity intercept. OTOH the missiles perform quite well in counter-intercept role.
Nuclear Gyrojet
Between tiny delta-v and lack of any armour whatsoever I can't really see them being effective in any capacity.
Drones:
Stinger Drone
Basic cannon based drone, definitely not built with survivability in mind. It is equipped with single 33mm cannon, single RTG, and non-redundant methane-fluorine propulsion stack with all components lying in axis. It's best deployed in swarms as it will also die in swarms to PD fire, especially lasers. High velocity intercepts are recommended as they help offset its weapons low exit velocity and range disadvantage - a cloud of incoming 33mm fire tends to be pretty devastating to ships that can't move out of the way in time. It uses fragile and melty aluminium radiators, but in practice it is unlikely to lose all of them to a nuke flash and they make poor target for laser fire due to their redundancy - it's much easier to burn through the armour from the front, taking out the cannon and internal components behind.
Stinger Drone
Basic cannon based drone, definitely not built with survivability in mind. It is equipped with single 33mm cannon, single RTG, and non-redundant methane-fluorine propulsion stack with all components lying in axis. It's best deployed in swarms as it will also die in swarms to PD fire, especially lasers. High velocity intercepts are recommended as they help offset its weapons low exit velocity and range disadvantage - a cloud of incoming 33mm fire tends to be pretty devastating to ships that can't move out of the way in time. It uses fragile and melty aluminium radiators, but in practice it is unlikely to lose all of them to a nuke flash and they make poor target for laser fire due to their redundancy - it's much easier to burn through the armour from the front, taking out the cannon and internal components behind.
Hellfire Drone
Sturdier, much heavier alternative to Stinger, with thicker armour, hotter RTG and small, refractory radiators. Armed with quad closely spaced 33mm cannons producing quite destructive "shotgun" effect described in more detail in section devoted to 33mm cannon. Unfortunately, despite new, higher powered propellant stack (meth-LOx) and obvious efforts to improve survivability it retains Stinger's most important single points of failure - the RTG and lack of redundancy in the propulsion stack, making it still an easy picking for PD fire - more complex, composite armour scheme would definitely benefit this design more than simply thicker armour. The new RTG is also very expensive and the drone is slightly underarmed - the RTG could technically power one more 33mm cannon before even considering adding redundancy. All in all the only definite advantage Hellfire has over Stinger is the shotgun effect - you could fit more 33mm cannons in less mass, and with more redundancy by just sticking to Stingers. All the other tactical considerations are the same as with Stingers.
Beam Drone
Drone equipped with weak infrared laser. Excessive cost prevents it from being used in swarms. It's best used counter-intercepting and harrasing enemy missile and drone swarms at which it's actually quite effective. It shares propulsion stack with Stinger, but unlike Stinger's its weapon is turreted.
Lancer Drone
Apparently an NP design equipped with long range 4mm railgun, relatively low power but slow burning decane-LOx propulsion stack and, interestingly, an actual nuclear reactor. A somewhat atypical drone, as it relies on slinging extreme range railgun fire rather than swarms of heavy, low-velocity kinetics, but in most circumstances the latter strategy seems to be more effective. It also suffers from accuracy problems. On the flip side some armour configurations are prone to excessive spalling when hit with hypervelocity fire.
Shooting Star
Effectively a gun-mine/free ranging turret. Shooting Star is small, has no delta-v to speak of nor any kind of main engine, but it has slow burning RCS battery, hidden, backward facing radiator and 22mm turret. It's generally unable to go anywhere on its own, so it should be treated as standalone turret or dropped already on an intercept trajectory with launching ship backing out. Due to very limited ammo reserve and small propellant tank it should not ignore range or use broadside command outside its weapon range. Being very small it can be used in great numbers (beware lag).
