BPBEs- ULTIMATE M5 swatters?

[Akula87]

4 BPBEs on a M3 or M4 and any M5 is gone in a second (almost literaly) WAY better then a MD and cost in same ballpark (right?)

*edit* NVM- cost like 4x as much lol. But still worth the money if you can mount them.

[Kazuma]

The weapon has 3 major drawbacks... the first being its pathetic range for effective "hit"; although its massive refire rate is intense (atleast as good as the MD). Cost is a a mojr factor with the weapon... it is very expensive for what it is; especially for mounting on a fighter... They dont do alot of damage, there more like an anti-shield version of the MD, which mostly ignores shields and does hull damage. There power consumption is unholy... now mind you, on an LX...

Avoid putting them on a TL for fighter defense, as there range only gives em maybe... a 1 sec burst before said fighter turns off his "attack run". APBE's are a little less nasty on your wep energy... the betas really chew it up in a hurry... much like a BHEPT or PPC.

Personally, no LX is complete without a pair of A's and B's; its recharge is good enough to support em in continuous use, and its great for forcing lots of 'cap' checks... as it criticals shields at a good clip. On the smaller fighters... 1, maybe maybe... 2; any more then that, you wont get 3-4 secs of trigger time before you go dry.

(personally I love the wep, but then again, I love the MD too; but its probably not for everyone).

[GradeALunatic]

IGS are my favourite, their area of effect , "the size of the actuall projectile" is huge, and they're quite fast too,

[Akula87]

CIGs? Yea, they are sweet. Don't do too much damage though. I guess this topic can relate both to larger fighters fighting off M5s and Cap ships swarmed with many smaller craft. I find that CIGs on M3s are great for disorientating M4s and M5s. Although, on cap ships they don't cause any *actual* damage to destroy the little buggers. FAA is the only real weapon that has the potential for point defense in regards to fighters. PACs are not effective because the turrets are too slow to track, and when they DO track the target is soon out of range. Same goes for ANY energy weapon. Because of that, I will not buy another ship TL or larger that can not mount FAAs. For all those who fly Phoenixes- how can you survive? I know it has 10GJ of sheilding and a bugged reactor... but with NO FAA mounts...? PBEs are somewhat OK but as said earlier there range blows...

[Kazuma]

Once you go Orca, you dont look back... mind you I v. much enjoyed my elephant... but the flak bats are simply better if you plan to spend time on the ship IS.

[GradeALunatic]

What! the orca uses flaks!! how many hanger bays it got?

[Graaf]

An Orca can hold 10 fighters. But if you use FAA its more one-shot-one-kill, dont count on capping anything.

[pjknibbs]

An Orca can hold 10 fighters. But if you use FAA its more one-shot-one-kill, dont count on capping anything.

Depends how many you have. An Orca's turrets only mount a pair of AFLAKs each (apart from the front one, which can't take them), so it takes a fair few hits for it to take out a single ship (unless it's an M5).

[ffboo]

Favourite ship right now is Chimera with:
2xAHEPT (for longer range)
4xBPBE (for up close dogfighting)
2xMD (but rarely have them turned on as the turret MD does the job nicely)

BPBE range sucks, and they eat energy, but they are so quick the target sight rarely leads the enemy making hitting anything quick real easy. Overall, get fun in a huge dogfight.

[Kazuma]

4 Turrets, 3 of which can mount flaks, but there only 2 bay... meh solution was a bpac with a flak... using the bpac as a "tracer" between the flaks; sadly the forward most turret has no flak slot... and of course the wep gen is weakness... buts its a TL; so I cant hate.

[-eni-]

An Orca can hold 10 fighters. But if you use FAA its more one-shot-one-kill, dont count on capping anything.

Wrong. I even cap a lot of Xenon M, L, LX just by passing with my FAA phyton. (one time even an N. but only happened once)

But for my palyer ship LX i prefer a-PBE becasue of the much better dmg/energy ratio than the beta version (PBE is it only weapon that gets worse in dmg/energy with higher versions)
For wingman LX i use 8x bPBE. They kill everything. Why beta for AI ships? Becasue the Ai only does a few shots per second and that way AI only use about 1/10 of the possible PBE dmgoutput.

[Sipa]

But for my palyer ship LX i prefer a-PBE becasue of the much better dmg/energy ratio than the beta version (PBE is it only weapon that gets worse in dmg/energy with higher versions)
For wingman LX i use 8x bPBE. They kill everything. Why beta for AI ships? Becasue the Ai only does a few shots per second and that way AI only use about 1/10 of the possible PBE dmgoutput.

No PBE's weren't the only ones PSG's and IRE's also drain more energy per damage dealt at higher versions

[japesk]

I have 8 APBEs mounted on my LX, and that gives me a greater capacity for capping. I've noticed a much greater chance for caps with this loadout. I have 1 group of all eight, and 1 group with just one APBE selected, and my technique is is let loose with all eight until shields are gone, then while still holding the fire button, witch to group 2 for the single, and chip away. If I get to 60% hull on enemy, I witch back to 8, and blow them away. This seems to be extremely effective with Cycrows Assassin, Boutny, Merc mods.

This morning, I tailed a group of 5 m3s, and 1 m6 for an assassin mission, and capped all 5 m3s---very profitable assassin mission--especially since there was 2 chimeras, and one LX: Yummy

[fud]

This morning, I tailed a group of 5 m3s, and 1 m6 for an assassin mission, and capped all 5 m3s---very profitable assassin mission--especially since there was 2 chimeras, and one LX: Yummy

Cycrow's Assassin Guild is a great add on for people who love killing for money.