Wine pairings: Matter disintegrators and.... something? Steak? Chicken? Strike Craft?

[Secret Master]

Okay, so I am trying to figure out if there are any good pairings with matter disintegrators.

Since they bypass some armor and shields, but not all, I'm not sure what I should put them with.

Arc emitters bypass shields completely, so I guess that kind of makes sense. But since the MDs are just bypassing some of the shields, it's not like you are going to kill those enemy ships instantly at close range when the MDs come into play.

Kinetic artillery has far better range, but just does bonus damage to shields (like many kinetic weapons in general).

Lasers stink at shields. Disruptors strip shields well, but why bother with MDs in play?

Bombers bypass shields and armor like arc emitters. Maybe grab MDs to fill the small slots, while bombers and arc emitters take the other slots on battleships? Put the MDs on the corvettes and destroyers so they can join the fun?

Or am I just missing the obvious, and MDs should be the sole weapon type on a ship if you go that route. Is that the right answer?

 

[RagingMonkey]

Okay, so I am trying to figure out if there are any good pairings with matter disintegrators.

Since they bypass some armor and shields, but not all, I'm not sure what I should put them with.

Arc emitters bypass shields completely, so I guess that kind of makes sense. But since the MDs are just bypassing some of the shields, it's not like you are going to kill those enemy ships instantly at close range when the MDs come into play.

Kinetic artillery has far better range, but just does bonus damage to shields (like many kinetic weapons in general).

Lasers stink at shields. Disruptors strip shields well, but why bother with MDs in play?

Bombers bypass shields and armor like arc emitters. Maybe grab MDs to fill the small slots, while bombers and arc emitters take the other slots on battleships? Put the MDs on the corvettes and destroyers so they can join the fun?

Or am I just missing the obvious, and MDs should be the sole weapon type on a ship if you go that route. Is that the right answer?

Unfortunately I have nothing helpful to offer, but I just wanted to say the post title elicited a good chuckle and well done sir.

 

[Milten]

We had a thread about similar matter not so long ago. The answer is yes, if you go for shield penetration, go till the end.
If your shield pen weapons deal less than 50% damage in your fleet you waste their shield pen ability. If they deal more than 50% you waste weapon slots on other kinds of weapon.

 

[Secret Master]

We had a thread about similar matter not so long ago. The answer is yes, if you go for shield penetration, go till the end.
If your shield pen weapons deal less than 50% damage in your fleet you waste their shield pen ability. If they deal more than 50% you waste weapon slots on other kinds of weapon.

But in that other thread, the discussion turned on whether combining bombers and arc emitters made sense against the Unbidden, since both have 100% shield penetration.

MDs only have 50%. This makes them really weird. If you have bombers and arc emitters, I guess they're okay. But if you have better weapons (more DPS or whatever thanks to repeatable techs), it seems like MDs are not that great. Either they have a small niche to fill, or you lucked out and had crappy tech before reverse engineering them.

But I've not really used them in awhile, so I was wondering if there was something I am missing.

 

[Milten]

the discussion turned on whether combining bombers and arc emitters made sense against the Unbidden, since both have 100% shield penetration.

Unless we are talking about RP/taste preferences, emitters are superior because unlike strikecrafts they don't have hard counters.

MDs only have 50%. This makes them really weird. If you have bombers and arc emitters, I guess they're okay. But if you have better weapons (more DPS or whatever thanks to repeatable techs), it seems like MDs are not that great.

In this case you are right, but only with condition that you have something with better dps.
50% penetration makes them spread their damage between hull and shields equally, so it doesn't give you any advantage (nor disadvantage) in combination with usual weapons. In such case one can take them for their damage, which is quite impressive btw.
In combination with 100% pen weaponry they are the only viable choice to fill in s/m/l slots (if I'm not missing anything).

 

[IkkeTM]

Matter disintegrators simply aren't very good:

First off, they have poor accuracy, which gets offset by better DPS. I.E. they are balanced to be better against less evasive targets. But then autocannons have better DPS and accuracy for a penalty in range and armor penetration, making them at least break even.
Secondly, 50% shield bypass means only 50% of your damage get through the shields until the shields get taken down. Considering you need to take down the shields to get a good damage output, the weapon lacks any bonus to do so (+poor accuracy). I.E. even if you could outfit your fleet for shield bypass they are 50% reduced in damage output (so pretty bad), if you outfit your fleet to take down shields, their bypass is neigh pointless.
Then when we get to 50% armor ignore, it's nice-ish, better than kinetics, but there are better options for armor killers. Large gamma lasers with 60% armor ignore, better accuracy and worse dps probably already break even. But Plasma's of any size (except maybe small) beat them hands down.


To sum up: You can take MD's as armor killers if you lack the better alternatives, but they have no place in an optimised build. To take down shields you want energy torps or disruptors, to take down armor you want plasma's, for sheer DPS (against poorly tank-fitted small ships) you want autocannons.

 

[Elfwind]

Matter disintergrators seem best on destroyers since corvettes favor shields. But this is mostly if you have energy weapons repeatables. This way the destroyer can kill corvettes reasonably fast and still have something to use on heavier ships. Sort of a jack-of-all trades.

 

[Pchang]

By the time you can get MDs, I already have every other weapon. As a result, i don't use them because my other weapon mixes are all superior to using MDs.

 

[The 14Deadsouls]

I too find MDs pretty useless. If they had buffed DPS and cost 5 more power as a balance then prehaps.

To be honest, the 50% to both armour and shield is just kind of weird. +50% dmg to shield and 50% armour pen with increased power cost may make them feel more like a 'boss weapon'. However, I wouldn't want another "best end-game weapon spam" scenario like we had with Tachyon Lances.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Against battleship armor, a large MD does about 22% less damage than plasma. Of course, against shields, a large plasma does 40% less damage than MD. So, assuming you're facing just battleships and the opponent has more hull than shields (so the shield bypass doesn't matter) which one is better depends on exactly how much shields there.

Of course, you're not using pure plasma. And you're not facing just hull-tanked battleships.

Medium MD is even worse vs battleships compared to medium plasma. But, has higher tracking, so better vs corvettes and destroyers. Small MD, meanwhile, is closer vs battleship armor, and far better against everything else, and since some of your shots will definitely hit shields, is probably just better.

Even with lasers' higher accuracy and DPS compared to plasma, their lower armor pen means all MD is better than them against battleship armor. Meanwhile, MD DPS still makes it better against shields. Small/medium lasers are just slightly better vs low armor hull, due to their accuracy, and large lasers slightly better vs battleship armor, but not much.

Of course, we know the current meta is more shields always better, and capacitors to make them regen in combat. Only battleships will have 90% armor, and destroyers and cruisers are likely to regen enough shields that you're doing more shield damage than armor damage, especially with how kinetics spread their damage. And even battleships might regen more shields than their hull, though this is less likely. This means 2 things.

1. As an all-rounder, MD is the best, handling battleship armor (which kinetics can't), shields (which plasma and laser can't), without spreading their damage (which makes kinetics terrible as an all-rounder). Since you're not wasting slots on kinetics which don't focus their fire, this may already be a better setup. I don't recall any of the relevant threads actually testing MD vs KA/plasma, though.

2. If using mostly MD against shield tanked enemies, with only other shield pen weapons (arc emitters is the most likely candidate but torpedoes and strike craft would too if pd didn't tear them up) you will most likely destroy ships that still have shields left. And if this happens, MD probably beats everything against everything. Remember, if a ship blows up with 25% shields left, your 50% shield pen effectively translated to +33% shield damage.

But yah, would have to see a test from that guy, with type 42 cruisers vs type 4MD cruisers, see which prevails.