There's no way to tell what the weapons actually do.

[maxolina]

1. Are hull and shield the same damage type?
2. Are Ion Blasters stronger against shields but weak on the hull like past games?
3. Why do they cost less than the regular starting gun but appear to do many times more damage by looking at the ship stats screen?
4. Weapons have different heat buildup stats, do certain ships have bigger heat capacity than others? What about cooldown speed? If so where does it say this in-game?
5. What exactly is burst weapon output vs sustained? Why is the unit MegaWatts? How does it actually translate to MegaJoules of damage to shields?
6. Is hull now the same as shields since it's measured in MJ too? Does it even make sense to measure hull strength in MegaJoules? It's not really energy-based like shields...
7. Why do launchers have damage stats? Is it not based on the actual missile?
8. Is there any kind of balance? The numbers seem all over the place to me.

[Darlandra]

Well I can answer the ion weapon question. The only thing I saw changing was the output MJ, and the ion cannon was way higher than the pulse laser so I assumed that would be a good weapon. And sure they shredded shields, and did effectively nothing against armor...had to run from my first fight after that purchase.

[gobbibomb]

I think Egosoft not have write stats on info because not have time..
Same my questions.
Can only try and learn.

[maxolina]

I think Egosoft not have write stats on info because not have time..
Same my questions.
Can only try and learn.

Like almost everything else in the game it seems

The core gameplay is amazing, but everything seems placeholder and/or unfinished... Let's just hope they can get on top of it quickly. It looks like they just needed a little more time to finish the game.

[SirNukes]

From a glance at the underlying game files, ion weapons have an extra shield damage component. For example, bullet_gen_m_laser_01_mk1_macro has damage = 52, while bullet_arg_m_ion_01_mk1_macro has damage = 15 and shield damage = 228.

[mr.WHO]

I wrote similar topic - basically we need equipment and weapons descriptions like for yesterday!

[DaMuncha]

So what weapons does what? bullet speed? fire ratio? target tracking?

[Playbahnosh]

See, EGOSOFT? This is why you need a manual!

Well, if they stuck with the convention from earlier X games, it's like this:

- Ion shreds shields but does next to nothing against hull
- Chaingun/Bolter shreds hull, but does next to nothing against shields
- Beam laser is hitscan but has low damage and range overall
- Pulse laser is not hitscan, better damage but higher heat
- Plasma is really strong, especially against shields, but projectile speed is abysmal, it's only good against stationary targets or capitals
- Flak is good against clouds of small fighters, but underpowered, usually slotted in turrets on large ships. Don't use it as a main weapon.
- Dumbfire missiles are dumb. Only against slow or stationary targets.
- Tracking missiles are either heat-seeking or friend/foe. Decent damage, but expensive ammo.
- Mines are useless.
(- Mining laser shreds asteroids but does next to nothing against anything else. Duh.)

That about covers it. However, right now targeting is broken, turrets and AI ships can't hit the broad side of a barn, the only weapon they can do any kind of damage with it the beam laser, since it's hitscan.

[Spiralrazor]

Shard Cannons can wreck pretty much anything, but have very short range. If you hit with the full volley ive 2 shot any small fighter ive run across with the mediums(2 cannons in the nose.) First bust is shields, second is hull. The up-close plasma cannon:)

[Tadas]

In spoiler section guy just posted excel spreadsheet with weapon statistics.