Let's Talk About Weapons

ishootfriendlie · 01-21-2012, 06:18 PM

There is a paucity of good information about this game online. The only walk-through I have found thus far is the one by VertigOne. I have not found a weapons guide. VertigOne ignores a ton of weapons. What are your experiences with weapons? What are your favorites? Here are some specific questions:

Are the Shell weapons better for shield destruction, or the energy bombs?
What is the best hull weapon? Torpedos? Plasma? Rail?
Is it better to attack shield and hull or devices? Can you ignore shells and hull killers in favor of lasers?
Do you use artillery successfully?

Any info is good. Let us know what your best strategy is.

ishootfriendlie · 01-22-2012, 09:44 PM

Ok, I'll go first. As far as I can tell, missiles are crap in the higher levels. They just get shot down by enemy fighters and flack. Has anyone been able to use them successfully? Is there a trick to getting them through the defense?

Speedingbullets · 01-23-2012, 03:32 PM

I`m aware of 3 walkthroughs. Vertigone (as you mentioned), Realbobb and MouseNo4 (includes config loadouts) and can be found on Google.
1. Prefer shells, energy bomb is area effect
2. Prefer gg/rail, for accuracy, especially early on.
3. Prefer slugging it out with shields and hull, though I`ve read that some find lasers work well and are even too powerfull (add some sickle gb too). Check the Youtube how to play First Blood for some laser action.
4. Generally don`t use missiles, find they`re shot down. If the enemy are using ecm, then I usually see a whole barrage of torpedoes go past them.

ishootfriendlie · 01-23-2012, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speedingbullets

I`m aware of 3 walkthroughs. Vertigone (as you mentioned), Realbobb and MouseNo4 (includes config loadouts) and can be found on Google.
4. Generally don`t use missiles, find they`re shot down. If the enemy are using ecm, then I usually see a whole barrage of torpedoes go past them.

So ECM will make a torpedo miss the target? Also, did not find the realbobb guide. Do you have a link?

ishootfriendlie · 01-23-2012, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speedingbullets

2. Prefer gg/rail, for accuracy, especially early on.

What about Plasma weapons? Do you use them at all?

Speedingbullets · 01-24-2012, 12:07 AM

I dont know how to post the link, tho Realbbobb`s is the 4th one down the list of a google search for `nexus the jupiter incident walkthrough` at this time.
The Nova Plasma has a bit more accuracy (later on) than the others, and playing on professional, unless you want to load/save all the time to ensure a hit, you`ll see an awful lot miss. Edit: you can also get advanced targeting (think it`s only anti-ecm tho) and they`ll still miss a battleship. Compared to the railgun accuracy and range 10 ( GG range 5).
You can see how ecm works by turning it off for a bit on your own ship (in the manual panel) and watch/compare the results while under fire.

Redshift 6 · 01-27-2012, 05:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speedingbullets

1. Prefer shells, energy bomb is area effect
2. Prefer gg/rail, for accuracy, especially early on.
3. Prefer slugging it out with shields and hull, though I`ve read that some find lasers work well and are even too powerfull (add some sickle gb too). Check the Youtube how to play First Blood for some laser action.
4. Generally don`t use missiles, find they`re shot down. If the enemy are using ecm, then I usually see a whole barrage of torpedoes go past them.

When I played it on normal, destroying shields was nigh-on impossible without the bigger ships doing all the work.
I want to try playing with the little destroyers and anti-shield weapons. That might be more effective. They're pretty useless with their lasers against shields. After shields go down, they can do some damage, not much.
I did experience some fun by destroying engines/shield-generators though. The most fun you can have is to destroy the weapon-gens on enemy ships. Completely neuters them. Sickle gunboats are great for this.

My tips that worked for me;
Avoid everything with AOE/missile/torpedo on angelwing and smaller. The avalanche comes with missiles(afaik) and you should leave those on, they're quite good. By the time you get more to play with, you're also getting the really good weapons, like delektron shells, which ruin shields.
At the beginning, stick to single target shield/hull destroying weapons, and take lasers only if you find they work(as in, actually damage/destroy subsystems without taking a year to do it).

As to what to focus on (shield drain, hull, subsystem) I can't add much. When I focused shields, they dropped pretty fast when I was fielding the avalanche and better, but very meh before that. Perhaps just default attack is better, but I'd need to replay the campaign and try it out.

Speedingbullets · 02-17-2012, 05:17 PM

A mention on Sensors. I think sensors are only used for locating ships, their subsystems and using the datascanner. So if your not using lasers, replace some sensors or turn them off bar one ship so that ships stay located, and also lowers your emissions.
Not sure if more sensors bring up subsystems quicker without scanning.
Edit: and having sensors off gives you more support energy to put somewhere else or recover it.

Roller · 08-03-2012, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ishootfriendlie

There is a paucity of good information about this game online. The only walk-through I have found thus far is the one by VertigOne. I have not found a weapons guide. VertigOne ignores a ton of weapons. What are your experiences with weapons? What are your favorites? Here are some specific questions:

Are the Shell weapons better for shield destruction, or the energy bombs?
What is the best hull weapon? Torpedos? Plasma? Rail?
Is it better to attack shield and hull or devices? Can you ignore shells and hull killers in favor of lasers?
Do you use artillery successfully?

Any info is good. Let us know what your best strategy is.

1. Crisis Energy Torpedo is the strongest shield damaging weapon, but bombs are area damage and not far behind in dps, depends on what you want.
2. Lasers dont disable a ship quick enough, so no.
3. There is no artillery in the game. All weapons have a certain range and some weapons have limited ammo. Torpedos are the best hull damaging weapon (twice as strong as the best regular gun). Havent looked into missiles because they are defeated by flak defense.

Red Spot · 08-07-2012, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ishootfriendlie

Are the Shell weapons better for shield destruction, or the energy bombs?
What is the best hull weapon? Torpedos? Plasma? Rail?
Is it better to attack shield and hull or devices? Can you ignore shells and hull killers in favor of lasers?
Do you use artillery successfully?

When you are swarmed by enemies coming in small packs » energy bombs (take the first mission where you support a station assault, I use 2 energy bombs to launch at the first pack once they reach about 8km distance, once we lock guns those guys see their hull being stripped, than shoot at the next group while they are just far enough away to not strip any friendly shields)
Most of the time the shell weapons will be better though, as you cant keep the enemy at a distance forever and also cant take all ships down at once. You'll know which weapon is best 'after' the mission is over

Your small 'destructive' lazor weapons will do just fine for taking down hulls. Early on I equip stuff with the 'tactical' beams, strip enemy flak and let my fighters help destroy every last weapon on an enemy ship, but that becomes pretty difficult later on. Plasma is cool once you start seeing more and more big stuff, but again, you know when to use it 'after the mission'.

As I already mentioned, device killing tactics are pretty good early on, than you come to a state where you need to take down shields, once you have equiped you ships with shield-destroyers its becomes expensive to switch back to lazors, so I'd just stick to shield/hull-weapons. (You will find out though that it is possible late game, as the AI has no problem showing you on some missions.)

Yes and no. Artillery is fun, but not as artillery. Like I mentioned I like using the energy bombs, however I never use the 'F8' command but order my weapons manually. If you use the 'F8' command you'll find your ship doing al sort of weird moves to try at a 'sweet spot' at max range of the weapon which is ret@rded(not allowed?) as you can easilly launch atillery weapons from a range where your energy weapons can already fire. I do ignore any other artillery though, as its generally a waste of a weaponslot (flak is too succesfull at taking down torps and such to sacrifice a weaponslot).

Roller · 08-07-2012, 06:06 AM

Lasers always suck, the reason why they seem to perform above zero in the beginning is that starting guns suck even more, really, they are that bad. Many regular guns actually work vs devices too with passable success, even if the description doesnt tell it.

Torpedos arent stopped by flak. Plasma is cool but not so in terms of effective firepower, its advantages are elsewhere... Torpedos rule this game.

Obz3hL33t · 01-12-2013, 08:52 AM

Lasers are devastating against unshielded craft, but there are only a very few ships that don't have shields.

Fighters are also good at disabling devices, so there's no reason to mount lasers except in the beginning, against Solar System ships that lack shields.

In the early stages lasers keep your allies from getting killed ... and you, too, if you're not careful. You don't have shields, either, and hull damage is forever unless you're on beginner. Your damage control is really good, though, so you have less to fear from laser damage to devices, which is repairable, than hullcutter damage, which is not. Use your lasers to take out the enemy's hullcutters and you'll be in pretty good shape. Go for the flaks next and your fighters can take over that target while you concentrate on the next. (This only applies to Solar System ships since they lack shields. Against shielded ships you want to throw everything you have at one target and never let up. There's nothing worse than almost making a kill and having its shields come back up.)

On weapons in general, keep reserve power so you can actually take advantage of them. I've only fought like 3-4 missions against shielded ships, so I'm sure my advice will become quaint an outdated at some point, but for now I rather like having 4 shieldbusters and 2 hullcutters. Weapons with ammo if you're not playing on easy will inevitably run out then you're stuck with an empty weapon slot, so only equip weapons with unlimited ammo.

Set your weapon energy to max at all times. There's no reason not to charge weaponry as quickly as possible. Shield energy is a question mark. If shields lose efficiency at higher recharge rates there's a good reason to keep the power low, otherwise there's no good reason not to max shield power as well. I split the difference and keep it in the middle.

ECM and ECCM don't use much power and AFAICT help your targeting and hurt enemy targeting, so I leave those on. Sensors I switch off unless I need to scan devices to disable (with fighters, since I don't equip lasers.) Otherwise no lasers, so no need for sensors.

Engine power is really where you make your savings. Engines use a massive amount of power, and once you're in weapon range all you do is lard about anyway; there's no reason to spend power on maneuvers once you're in range. If you need power you can starve the engines. You can also starve them enroute to a battle if you need to recharge your reserves. Works like a charm -- assuming you're not in a hurry.

So 4 shieldbusters. That's not a typo. Shields recharge fast and drain slow. 4 busters is what you need. Once the shields are down you can either save power or start working the shields of another nearby enemy ship once your current target's shields drop, but you absolutely need to keep an eye on your current target's shields. They will come back up.

I'm anxious to try that shield-bomb weapon and see if I can maybe balance my slots a little better. 3 shield busters take too long, while 4 leaves me with only 2 hullcutters. Maybe 3 shield bombs and 3 hullcutters -- or 2 and 4 -- will prove more efficient.

This is a much harder game than it looks, because every mission seems to be different. The tactics I learned against unshielded ships are pretty much useless against the shielded kind. It's like a whole new game. I'm really enjoying this -- you really have to think about what you're doing, an unexpected but welcome challenge.

01-21-2012, 06:18 PM	#1
ishootfriendlie Join Date: Dec 2010 Reputation: 0 Posts: 5	Let's Talk About Weapons There is a paucity of good information about this game online. The only walk-through I have found thus far is the one by VertigOne. I have not found a weapons guide. VertigOne ignores a ton of weapons. What are your experiences with weapons? What are your favorites? Here are some specific questions: Are the Shell weapons better for shield destruction, or the energy bombs? What is the best hull weapon? Torpedos? Plasma? Rail? Is it better to attack shield and hull or devices? Can you ignore shells and hull killers in favor of lasers? Do you use artillery successfully? Any info is good. Let us know what your best strategy is.

01-23-2012, 03:32 PM	#3
Speedingbullets Join Date: Sep 2009 Reputation: 5 Posts: 67	I`m aware of 3 walkthroughs. Vertigone (as you mentioned), Realbobb and MouseNo4 (includes config loadouts) and can be found on Google. 1. Prefer shells, energy bomb is area effect 2. Prefer gg/rail, for accuracy, especially early on. 3. Prefer slugging it out with shields and hull, though I`ve read that some find lasers work well and are even too powerfull (add some sickle gb too). Check the Youtube how to play First Blood for some laser action. 4. Generally don`t use missiles, find they`re shot down. If the enemy are using ecm, then I usually see a whole barrage of torpedoes go past them. Last edited by Speedingbullets: 01-23-2012 at 04:02 PM.

01-24-2012, 12:07 AM	#6
Speedingbullets Join Date: Sep 2009 Reputation: 5 Posts: 67	I dont know how to post the link, tho Realbbobb`s is the 4th one down the list of a google search for `nexus the jupiter incident walkthrough` at this time. The Nova Plasma has a bit more accuracy (later on) than the others, and playing on professional, unless you want to load/save all the time to ensure a hit, you`ll see an awful lot miss. Edit: you can also get advanced targeting (think it`s only anti-ecm tho) and they`ll still miss a battleship. Compared to the railgun accuracy and range 10 ( GG range 5). You can see how ecm works by turning it off for a bit on your own ship (in the manual panel) and watch/compare the results while under fire. Last edited by Speedingbullets: 02-04-2012 at 03:56 PM.

02-17-2012, 05:17 PM	#8
Speedingbullets Join Date: Sep 2009 Reputation: 5 Posts: 67	A mention on Sensors. I think sensors are only used for locating ships, their subsystems and using the datascanner. So if your not using lasers, replace some sensors or turn them off bar one ship so that ships stay located, and also lowers your emissions. Not sure if more sensors bring up subsystems quicker without scanning. Edit: and having sensors off gives you more support energy to put somewhere else or recover it. Last edited by Speedingbullets: 02-17-2012 at 05:20 PM.

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01-22-2012, 09:44 PM	#2
ishootfriendlie Join Date: Dec 2010 Reputation: 0 Posts: 5	Ok, I'll go first. As far as I can tell, missiles are crap in the higher levels. They just get shot down by enemy fighters and flack. Has anyone been able to use them successfully? Is there a trick to getting them through the defense?

08-07-2012, 06:06 AM	#11
Roller Join Date: Sep 2009 Reputation: 2 Posts: 33	Lasers always suck, the reason why they seem to perform above zero in the beginning is that starting guns suck even more, really, they are that bad. Many regular guns actually work vs devices too with passable success, even if the description doesnt tell it. Torpedos arent stopped by flak. Plasma is cool but not so in terms of effective firepower, its advantages are elsewhere... Torpedos rule this game.

01-12-2013, 08:52 AM	#12
Obz3hL33t Join Date: Jan 2013 Reputation: 0 Posts: 3	Lasers are devastating against unshielded craft, but there are only a very few ships that don't have shields. Fighters are also good at disabling devices, so there's no reason to mount lasers except in the beginning, against Solar System ships that lack shields. In the early stages lasers keep your allies from getting killed ... and you, too, if you're not careful. You don't have shields, either, and hull damage is forever unless you're on beginner. Your damage control is really good, though, so you have less to fear from laser damage to devices, which is repairable, than hullcutter damage, which is not. Use your lasers to take out the enemy's hullcutters and you'll be in pretty good shape. Go for the flaks next and your fighters can take over that target while you concentrate on the next. (This only applies to Solar System ships since they lack shields. Against shielded ships you want to throw everything you have at one target and never let up. There's nothing worse than almost making a kill and having its shields come back up.) On weapons in general, keep reserve power so you can actually take advantage of them. I've only fought like 3-4 missions against shielded ships, so I'm sure my advice will become quaint an outdated at some point, but for now I rather like having 4 shieldbusters and 2 hullcutters. Weapons with ammo if you're not playing on easy will inevitably run out then you're stuck with an empty weapon slot, so only equip weapons with unlimited ammo. Set your weapon energy to max at all times. There's no reason not to charge weaponry as quickly as possible. Shield energy is a question mark. If shields lose efficiency at higher recharge rates there's a good reason to keep the power low, otherwise there's no good reason not to max shield power as well. I split the difference and keep it in the middle. ECM and ECCM don't use much power and AFAICT help your targeting and hurt enemy targeting, so I leave those on. Sensors I switch off unless I need to scan devices to disable (with fighters, since I don't equip lasers.) Otherwise no lasers, so no need for sensors. Engine power is really where you make your savings. Engines use a massive amount of power, and once you're in weapon range all you do is lard about anyway; there's no reason to spend power on maneuvers once you're in range. If you need power you can starve the engines. You can also starve them enroute to a battle if you need to recharge your reserves. Works like a charm -- assuming you're not in a hurry. So 4 shieldbusters. That's not a typo. Shields recharge fast and drain slow. 4 busters is what you need. Once the shields are down you can either save power or start working the shields of another nearby enemy ship once your current target's shields drop, but you absolutely need to keep an eye on your current target's shields. They will come back up. I'm anxious to try that shield-bomb weapon and see if I can maybe balance my slots a little better. 3 shield busters take too long, while 4 leaves me with only 2 hullcutters. Maybe 3 shield bombs and 3 hullcutters -- or 2 and 4 -- will prove more efficient. This is a much harder game than it looks, because every mission seems to be different. The tactics I learned against unshielded ships are pretty much useless against the shielded kind. It's like a whole new game. I'm really enjoying this -- you really have to think about what you're doing, an unexpected but welcome challenge.