Heavy Laser II or Hull Laser II?

[TJJ]

I'm at a juncture where I have to sell one or the other, and can't make my mind up which to keep!

Hull Smasher Laser Mark II
15s charge
3x1 shots
Double damage on systemless rooms.

Heavy Laser II
13s charge
2x2 shots

This is on a soon* to be shielded stealth ship, to be used in conjunction with the stock Dual Lasers & Mini Beam plus Automated Re-loader. (*It's why I'm selling the weapon!)

I'm leaning toward the Smasher because I find breaking shields is more valuable than dealing optimal damage to systems. The greater recharge time of the Smasher is a small negative, but not build-breaking as I'm running a lvl2 cloak atm.
The double damage to systemless rooms is a nice boon too, though not of vital importance at this point.

Can anyone give me a reason to favour the Heavy Laser?

[liq3]

In this setup, I don't think there is one. Heavy laser is more useful when you already have say, 2 burst laser Mk IIs, or other ways to get shields down.

[Innominate]

If you have some way to get the shields down, the heavy laser will let you disable systems more effectively. Of course if the ship you're fighting has any dodge chance whatsoever chances are you're going to be better off with the extra shot from the hull smasher laser. That makes it highly likely that you'll be able to damage a 3-shield ship with your mini-beam and gives you a decent chance against a 4-shield ship, though you should try to either get a drone control and anti-ship drone or a better weapon instead of the mini-beam.

[bigbangnet]

I could be wrong but here are my thoughts on this :

Hull Smasher Laser Mark I : I would use that to lower the shields since every shot counts. After it's being used, I immediately use another weapon to do damage....no waiting after this one since shields do recharge fast.



Heavy Laser II: I would use it when the shields are down or at maximum 1 shield. doesn't make sense to me to shoot 2 times with 2 damage if theres 3 shields. It won't be enough to go through that shield

Either way, both weapons cannot be used alone as wouldn't be sufficient to destroy that target since with time you could lose lots of hull which is not easy to repair.

[TJJ]

Went with the hull laser II which I think was the right choice, as I eventually won with a score of 4561.

Final build was 2x Hull Laser II + ion bomb.

Final boss was remarkably easy; took zero damage for the 1st & 2nd stages.
3rd was a little harder, but was never in any real danger.
This was despite a sub-optimal set of augs, and only lvl 7 weapons.

Locking down the bridge with ion bombs is the way to go; for the cost of 1 weapon point you completely negate the opponent's dodge chance thereby increasing the effectiveness of your other weapons considerably (What's the bosses base evasion? 40%?).
It's a much more effective strategy than ion bombing the shield generator.

Have a new toy to play with too, as I unlocked the DA-SR 12.

[Warhawx]

Hull laser II: maximum damage output of 6

Heavy laser II: maximum damage output of 4

You do the math.

[mredge73]

3 shots are always better than 2
always...

[Kaerius]

Hull Smasher Laser II definitely.

Not just because 3 shots are better than 2, and it takes down shields better, and it has higher potential ship damage. Hull Smasher Lasers are good at causing breeches, thus if you breech important system rooms, such as shields, they get harder to repair, so it's easier to keep systems offline with it.