Question about ion weapon + a trick I found.

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MC3craze
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Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:36 pm

Re: Question about ion weapon + a trick I found.

Postby MC3craze » Tue Mar 12, 2013 2:03 pm

You are positive? :O im so confused right now lol. Anyway thanks for the advice guys. I tried FTL for the heck of it and thought "What the hell is this shit?" suddenly 3 days has passed and my friends will soon have to cut down the branches that has grown on my door with a machette to get me out of my chair :D Dying has never been so fun but after 25 hours played ingame Im getting a little frustrated. As my number 1 and 2 causes of defeat is boarding parties and enemy ships having to many shields. Even blast door 3 cant help when 5 mantis teleport to my ship and chops my 3 engi crew into juice.


With two auto-loaders (15% cooldown reduction each) and a maxed out gunner, (19% cooldown reduction) You should take down any number of shields provided you don't miss.

(.15x2) + (.19) = .49

(.49)x(8s) = 3.92s

(8s) - (3.92s) = 4.08s

Ion Blast Mark II cooldown: 4 seconds for 3 power
Ion Blast Mark I cooldown : 8 seconds for 1 power
Ion Blast Mark I (with 2x autoloader & max gunner) cooldown: 4.08 seconds

As you can see, with the power of reloaders you can get the equivalent of an Ion Blast Mark II for only one power bar. You should see what they do to a glaive beam.
UltraMantis
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Re: Question about ion weapon + a trick I found.

Postby UltraMantis » Tue Mar 12, 2013 2:07 pm

Why no love for the Heavy Ion? Sure it's slower and kinda prone to missing, but it deals double Ion damage at a reasonable pace. I disliked it initially but was forced to make use of it by the "roll with the punches" nature of FTL. Since then i have allways been happy to have one on my ships.
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BKT
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Re: Question about ion weapon + a trick I found.

Postby BKT » Tue Mar 12, 2013 3:33 pm

UltraMantis wrote:Why no love for the Heavy Ion? Sure it's slower and kinda prone to missing, but it deals double Ion damage at a reasonable pace. I disliked it initially but was forced to make use of it by the "roll with the punches" nature of FTL. Since then i have allways been happy to have one on my ships.


I actually kinda like it— I personally like the Heavy Ion + Ion MK1 more than the Ion MK2 in some certain situation; it work better with Igniter, for instance. ;)

There's also a difference in the way it work in battle as well: both set do 3 Ion damage within 13 seconds, but the timing is different and the first set only fired 2 shots while the other fired 3 to do the same task... Which one is better, or whether these difference actually mean anything at all to begin with, I'll let you guys ponder about it. 8-)

With 1 reloader, Heavy Ion can also permanently disable system (that is, you must not miss a single shot!). Still, because of its awkward rate of fire, it's not as versatile as Ion MK1/2 in many laser mix-up with no other Ion / augment, but still usable— as with any gun in the game. :)


... nothing beat Heavy Laser though! :mrgreen: :twisted:
MC3craze
Posts: 42
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:36 pm

Re: Question about ion weapon + a trick I found.

Postby MC3craze » Tue Mar 12, 2013 4:24 pm

UltraMantis wrote:Why no love for the Heavy Ion? Sure it's slower and kinda prone to missing, but it deals double Ion damage at a reasonable pace. I disliked it initially but was forced to make use of it by the "roll with the punches" nature of FTL. Since then i have allways been happy to have one on my ships.


Heavy Ion is great if you get your hands on an Ion Blast. I've taken down shields with a Heavy Ion + Ion blast combo faster than one Ion MKII. I rarely see them for sale though, so the only real chance I get is with the engi cruiser.
Agg Shell
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Re: Question about ion weapon + a trick I found.

Postby Agg Shell » Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:06 pm

i don't like the heavy ion because most of the time it is only used for taking down shields, and most of the time you can't stack damage, so it just costs more power than the ion blast mk.1
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cicobuff
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Re: Question about ion weapon + a trick I found.

Postby cicobuff » Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:31 am

I like the heavy ion when paired with a beam against low level enemies.

But I prefer 2x blast ion in almost all other cases. The 2x damage of the heavy ion is great but you are heavily penalized when it misses. The 13 seconds it takes to charge if way too long for another shot. When I miss with the heavy ion, the enemy shield bubbles are normally back up fully and you have to work to get the bubbles down again.
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5thHorseman
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Re: Question about ion weapon + a trick I found.

Postby 5thHorseman » Wed Mar 13, 2013 7:05 am

I'm a huge fan of the ion blast + ion blast 2 combo. They fire in nice sequence, the mk2 firing twice for every one time the mk1 fires. Every 8 seconds they do 3 ion damage, which is enough to keep a shield down even with a miss here and there. They ramp your gunner up QUICK which just helps all that much more to keep those shields down.

I like to aim the mk2 at the shields (so once they're down they stay down) and then the mk1 at the weapons (because ioning weapons is SO fun, so long as it's not your weapons!).

And then the best part: You have 4 whole weapon power for something else, like a Glaive Beam or 2 Burst Mk 2s. Once I had those 2 ions and a Pike beam, and I SO wanted a second Pike but never found it.
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