X-TRA POLLS Round #11 | Which main weapons do you prefer to use on your player ship(s)? (vote multiple options!)

[Tomonor]

Greetings, Members of the X-Community!

The last poll has concluded and we've received valuable data on how you prefered earning quick money.
Thank you for voting, especially if you took the time to voice your opinion and provide us with feedback!

The next poll is: “Which main weapons do you prefer to use on your player ship(s)?”
Notes: We are interested in your go-to weapons that you put on your "daily driver" ships. Since weapons can be combined in large varieties, you can vote as many options as you'd like! The missile launcher options were simplified to not clutter the poll options too much.
Please, do comment your favourite combinations, or what types of missiles you prefer in case you use them!

Considering the forum only allows 25 options per poll, further compromises had to be made. Thus, the "Other" poll option holds the following lines:
-I use capital ships as my player ship, thus I rely on its own weaponry and its turrets.
-I use player ships with that have pre-defined weaponry (Astrid, Experimental Shuttle, Odachi, Cutlass, etc.)
-I simple rely on turrets.
-I don't fight at all.

Feel free to comment your method if you have chosen the "Other" option!





How does the Poll work?
Every two weeks, we’ll be rolling out polls in the forum where you can weigh in on crucial aspects of our games. Your votes will play a key role in helping us gather valuable insights to shape the future of our games!

But hold on, there’s more! Beyond just data collection, we’re keen on fostering discussions and hearing your thoughts. Alongside each poll, there’s a dedicated discussion thread going on where you can share your insights, ideas, and feedback related to the poll topic. It’s not only a great way to engage with fellow gamers but also an opportunity for us to gather additional valuable input.

However, it’s important to note that while we value your input, the results of the polls won’t necessarily guarantee implementation or consideration.
These polls are primarily for fun and data gathering.

So, get ready to have your voice heard in The X-tra Polls! Let’s shape our beloved X-Universe together!



Previous Polls:
Poll #10: What are your favourite methods for gaining quick money?
Poll #9: In what way do you modify X4: Foundations?
Poll #8: Which factions do you usually consider your adversary?
Poll #7: Do you leave your game running when you're Away From Keyboard?
Poll #6: Have you played multiple gamestarts?
Poll #5: What type of ship do you primarily use?
Poll #4: Which is your favourite race of the playable races?
Poll #3: How long have you been playing your current savegame?
Poll #2: Which phase do you enjoy the most in X4: Foundations?
Poll #1: In your opinion, which X4: Foundations expansion was the most worthwhile?

[LameFox]

Assuming I'm flying a ship which has options, I typically favour bolt-type weapons. They seem to be in the best place for all-around damage application, in that I can hit any ship size easily, and don't have to wait a long time for cooling or the gimbal to sort themselves out. Then I also might add one or two specialized weapons like Ion Blasters, because ships tend to fold quickly without shields, or Thermal Disintegrators if I'm boarding and want to clear a ship's main shields in a small fighter.

I have at times carried missile launchers but don't find it especially useful on the kinds of S or M ships I'd fly personally as they don't have much missile storage.

Other than that I don't do a lot of primary-weapon mixing. I have tried it in some cases, like having a single plasma gun for heavier targets, two bolt repeaters for general purposes, and a beam laser to tag small fighters for shield regen. It just seemed unnecessary. I could already hit them with the repeaters so I didn't need the laser. The plasma gun by itself wasn't really meaningful against larger targets, and wasn't necessary against medium or small ones, so I'd end up back with just 4 bolt repeaters and be better off.

[humility925]

Asgard ATF main Battery, before nerfed, but still like it after nerfed, but I do like pre nerfed where one hit kill, but now it's take 2 to 3 time to do it for enemies destroyer, but for station, it's not very good, so I think it's better off use 100 bomber with misslie bomber or something like that.

[LameFox]

Asgard ATF main Battery, before nerfed, but still like it after nerfed, but I do like pre nerfed where one hit kill, but now it's take 2 to 3 time to do it for enemies destroyer, but for station, it's not very good, so I think it's better off use 100 bomber with misslie bomber or something like that.

Is that a VRO change or something? I have not noticed vanilla Asgards taking 2-3 shots to kill a destroyer.

[G315t]

I dont fight much, but when I do, I use Bolt repeaters. They are a good middle ground weapon and I prefer ballistic weapons and missiles in space games over laser and plasma stuff in general.
When I use turrets it's also bolts, flak or missiles.

[humility925]

Asgard ATF main Battery, before nerfed, but still like it after nerfed, but I do like pre nerfed where one hit kill, but now it's take 2 to 3 time to do it for enemies destroyer, but for station, it's not very good, so I think it's better off use 100 bomber with misslie bomber or something like that.

Is that a VRO change or something? I have not noticed vanilla Asgards taking 2-3 shots to kill a destroyer.

It's not mod, I played vanilla, I guess website called that name ATF, I assumed it's Asgrad main battery, it's depend on destroyers, in vanilla, it's dose take me 2 to 3 time to destroyer, I guess Xenon I battleship might take 3 time. This is nerfed version, of course, but pre nerfed, it's do take one shot to kill, mostly depend on destroyer/xenon I battleship.

Oh, I forgot, I did use turret as well, but only for large ship L and XL, M not so much.

[Alan Phipps]

I use a number of Cobras each with 2 Terran Pulse with in-game damage mods and 1 Argon Ion Blaster with cooling/rate of fire mod (flak used in the turrets). This is the ultimate general combat, boarding (my Cobras carry 25 switching-role servicecrew/marines) or capping loadout to my mind. The ion weapon reduces capital shields and after hull damage from the pulses its use invites crew to abandon ship; it also encourages fighters to bail at higher hull points. The Terran pulse is good range, fast bullet and really accurate and seldom misses the target (great for mine clearances too).

When I'm not personally flying one, a Cobra so equipped performs great in an anti-fighter role both IS and OOS.

[alt3rn1ty]

Selected quite a few as I have a load of personal ships for different roles.

I mostly have Boron ships these days, so overall favourite weapon out of those would be Boron Ion Pulse Railgun.

Boron Net Launchers were not mentioned, but I guess they come under Other due to the poll limitations. I love that weapon when I can use it.

I would say the one weapon favourite overall for none Boron ships is the Terran Pulse laser, with in game mods applied (again depends on role of the ship as to which mods are used).

Weapons I will not use are missile launchers for two reasons:
a) Restocking missiles per ship is a PITA
b) If you never use missiles, the AI of npc ships rarely use missiles. When you do use missiles, the game responds by upping the rate at which enemies use them.
Turrets got a new command recently to make anti-missile reactions better (ie you dont have to dedicate one turret to purely missile defence anymore because now it will switch to other targets), which has made the Missile launcher (and increase of NPC use of missiles) a bit more attractive, but point a) is still a pain.

Edit: Just seen Alans post which reminded me - My overall favourite most used Ship in the lifetime of X4 is the Kuraokami. Loadout was an Argon Ion Blaster (with the Exceptional mod increasing its speed and range) in the central weapon slot up front, and 4 x Terran Pulse in the other front slots for the same reason as Alan mentioned. The Ion blaster modded locks on first and reduces the enemy shields, and then the accurate Terran Pulses finish the job off. Add to that a couple of Split Flak turrets (modified for faster turn rate) for close range huge damage .. Its lovely . Added advantage of the Ion Blaster is when used on its own, the very low damage is ideal for unlocking lock boxes without blowing them up (the speed and range mod applied to this weapon also assists with this task).

Edit 2: I would also like to mention the Terran Proton Barrage, I would use it much more often if it was not so limited in what ships to apply it to. I'm not really a fan of Terran ships. I think right now I only have one of the freebie ships equipped with them, but that ship is mostly parked as a trophy ship.

[mr.WHO]

Bolt Repeate for Commonwealth S/M.
Proton Barrage for Terrans S/M.
Ion Pulse Railgun for Borons M.


These 3 are 95% of my pesonal ship use cases.

[Sutopia]

Asgard ATF main Battery, before nerfed, but still like it after nerfed, but I do like pre nerfed where one hit kill, but now it's take 2 to 3 time to do it for enemies destroyer, but for station, it's not very good, so I think it's better off use 100 bomber with misslie bomber or something like that.

Is that a VRO change or something? I have not noticed vanilla Asgards taking 2-3 shots to kill a destroyer.

It's not mod, I played vanilla, I guess website called that name ATF, I assumed it's Asgrad main battery, it's depend on destroyers, in vanilla, it's dose take me 2 to 3 time to destroyer, I guess Xenon I battleship might take 3 time. This is nerfed version, of course, but pre nerfed, it's do take one shot to kill, mostly depend on destroyer/xenon I battleship.

Oh, I forgot, I did use turret as well, but only for large ship L and XL, M not so much.

To be honest that doesn’t sound vanilla at all. Asgard beam still deals almost 1 million damage in one cycle which is only a little (edited) above an I’s shield and hull combined.

Asgard do take more than 3 cycles to kill Xenon or Khaak station modules since they both have over 3 million HP per module.



Using timeline ships as player ship so no real options to begin with. For NPC fighters I usually do proton barrage on terran but otherwise terran pulse laser for commonwealth ships. Boron have limited options but I generally prefer the phase+ion mix on small ships. Boron medium ships are awkward to use so I avoid those.

[BitByte]

My preferred ships have 3-6 weapon slots so in all of them main weapon is 2*Bolt Repeater Mk2. Then additional slots are filled using 1-2*Tau Accelerator Mk2 and last 2 slots will have Argon Ion Blaster Mk2.
For example my fav ship Dragon Raider is equipped with 2*Bolt, 2*Tau and 2*Ion Blaster. Argon Flaks are the main turrets I use in my ships.

For teasing BUC and making them bail I use Discoverer with 1*Bolt + 1*Ion Blaster or 1*Blast Mortar. When SCA reputation was locked I preferred Bolt + Blast when stealing their ships as with Blast it was possible make double kill as escape pods got destroyed when crew bailed from initial shot

[jlehtone]

Dragon Raider equipped with 2*Thermal Dis., 2*Tau and 2*Ion Blaster. I rarely leave the Dragon, but most likely to Destroyer/Battleship.

[Feloidea]

On S ships I like a varying assortment; typically one Burst Ray, one Ion Blaster and the rest Blast Mortars or Thermal Disintegrators (mostly just depends on what I have access to). Pulse lasers for when I just start out and have no options as it's a pretty solid allround weapon. For TER playthroughs Photon Barrage is king when I can get it.

On M ships I prefer to have one Ion Blaster and then either Thermal Disintegrators or Pulse Lasers for the rest as I leave the heavy hitting to my turrets so my main guns are just for dealing with annoying S gnats that the turrets struggle with. Again, for TER ships Proton Barrage is king.

Ion Blasters in particular are preferred not only for their great anti-shield performance but also because they're useful to open locked crates as an occasional miss won't instantly vaporize the crate like many other weapons might.

Haven't yet tried any of the Boron stuff so I can't comment on these.

[donzi]

My choices were few -- blast mortar, bolt & TER pulse

To be fair though, in all the time I've logged in X4 (~2.6k) I've yet to board a ship or do much with ship or station surface elements... mainly just dogfights.

I enjoyed the boarding in XR and do like stripping ships and stations in general but my first impressions of boarding in X4 were weak. I've since revisited that a little with timelines, but still have not done anything more in X4.

..so I probably would like and appreciate more weapons if I were to do more than dogfight.

[GCU Grey Area]

Mostly fly frigates because high missile capacity & their S dock also makes them exceptionally versatile for missions, particularly with an S miner docked to handle the mining jobs. Consequently assume I'm referring to the M variants of the weapons, unless stated otherwise.

Standard loadout for my Commonwealth frigates tends to be a torpedo launcher + shard batteries. Eyes & reaction speed aren't as good as they once were, so flying a ship armed with a multitude of shotguns (also a fan of shard turrets) means accuracy isn't necessarily essential. Any hostile which approaches gets pelted with a barrage of shrapnel - at least some of it is bound to hit. If I'm playing a Split game I use tau accelerators instead of shard.

I consider a torpedo launcher essential for all of my personally flown frigates. They give the ship the punch to hunt L & some XL targets. Find it particularly entertaining to launch those torpedoes at extremely close range, while boosting directly towards the target - makes it virtually impossible for them to evade the torpedo, shoot it down or distract it with flares. S beam emitter also gets a vote since it's a common weapon for me to fit on the docked S ships my frigates carry (for obvious reasons it's a bit more useful for opening lockboxes than either shard or heavy torpedoes).

During my Terran game found the meson stream & proton barrage fun weapons to use, the meson streams replacing torpedoes as my high damage option (since Terrans don't use torpedoes).

Currently playing a Boron game & since they don't have a frigate I'm making do with a Ray as my primary personal ship. It's a bit cumbersome compared to a frigate, but it's ion projector is absolutely fantastic for long range accuracy & precision (voted 'other'), while if I'm using one of the docked S ships they tend to be armed with a mix of ion gatlings & arc guns, with a torpedo launcher on the Barracuda. Occasionally fly a Hydra armed with ion pulse railguns, so that gets a vote too.

[sonicfan]

My ship until Timelines was a Katana with Proton-Barrage.
Now I changed to XPerimental with Electromagnetic-Gun. NOT the Gamma-HEPT.

[vvvvvvvv]

Terran pulse, as it "just works".

Asgard ATF main Battery, before nerfed, but still like it after nerfed, but I do like pre nerfed where one hit kill, but now it's take 2 to 3 time to do it for enemies destroyer, but for station, it's not very good, so I think it's better off use 100 bomber with misslie bomber or something like that.

Is that a VRO change or something? I have not noticed vanilla Asgards taking 2-3 shots to kill a destroyer.

Xenon I takes two Asgard beams in vanilla game.

[Scoob]

I chose Bolt as I usually go an ARG Start, it's the game start that influences things.

I like the Bolt as the shot speed is sufficiently fast to be reasonably accurate against more nimble targets, plus it does fair damage. I tend to equip this weapon to all my fighters, either those I capture or those I eventually build for myself and pop on Carriers.

Also, ratatatatatata

[TKz]

Kuraokami with 6 Tau for insane time to kill. Travel drive -> 500m -> boom boom -> rinse and repeat.
Bolt is fun, but Tau is way more powerful.

[chew-ie]

I need awesome sounds first and precision second, so:

Code: Select all

1. Boron Ion Gatling [ S ]
2. Split Neutron Gatling [ S/M ]
3. Terran Proton Barrage [ S/M ]
4. Bolt Repeater [ S/M ]
5. Beam Emitter [ S/M ]
6. Boron Phase Gun [ S ]
--- added because of DoT:
7. Split Thermal Disintegrator [ S/M ]

And while we are at it - I'm still mad at Egosoft that there are no turret versions of the Boron Ion Gatling, Split Neutron Gatling and Terran Proton Barrage.