Future request: make use of secondary weapons

[Mr.Killer]

I've been puzzled by these secondary weapons settings, I can't place weapons there next to primary, there is no space on the ships to put them?!?! I don't know the purpose, but if this is an future option to put there 'other weapons' or repair lasers, then I will wait what comes...

How awesome would it be to have a behemoth with four guns, working together, WOW! Makes Xenon shiver by it's firepower. And justifyable!

[GCU Grey Area]

Any weapon can be assigned as a secondary weapon, just click on the relevant box in the loadout tab of ship info. Means those weapons have a separate trigger & an additional set of weapon groups. I generally configure missile launchers as secondary weapons, although sometimes also use the feature to split main guns so each gun has it's own trigger. For example, on 2 gun destroyers (such as Behemoth) I often have my weapons configured so the starboard gun is my primary weapon, with the port gun as my secondary. Can then fire the guns alternately to maintain a continuous stream of fire & prevent shield regen (i.e. while one gun is firing the other is cooling). Just find it more convenient to do it this way (using independent triggers for each gun), than to switch between primary weapon groups every few seconds.

[Mr.Killer]

Any weapon can be assigned as a secondary weapon, just click on the relevant box in the loadout tab of ship info. Means those weapons have a separate trigger & an additional set of weapon groups. I generally configure missile launchers as secondary weapons, although sometimes also use the feature to split main guns so each gun has it's own trigger. For example, on 2 gun destroyers (such as Behemoth) I often have my weapons configured so the starboard gun is my primary weapon, with the port gun as my secondary. Can then fire the guns alternately to maintain a continuous stream of fire & prevent shield regen (i.e. while one gun is firing the other is cooling). Just find it more convenient to do it this way (using independent triggers for each gun), than to switch between primary weapon groups every few seconds.

Every big L class ship has 2 or maybe 4 guns, the firepower more or less equivalents with the Xenon L turrets, and the K has 6 of them and the I even more. But our humble two shooter is a minority, so why have 8 slots on a ship that has 2 guns?
M class Katana has 4 guns, ideal if you want to shoot criminal traffic, then put just one gun in slot 2 and your finished, but this overkill is, overkill!

[GCU Grey Area]

why have 8 slots on a ship that has 2 guns?

Presumably because it's simpler & quicker to create a common UI for all ships than to go to the extra effort of creating a different one with fewer options specifically for ships that have fewer guns. There's no downside to having unused weapon groups, indeed can be handy to always leave at least one of them empty to avoid accidental misfires. Often do that for missiles. Until I need them I keep an empty secondary weapon group selected, so I can't inadvertently waste ammo by hitting the wrong button.

[Mr.Killer]

why have 8 slots on a ship that has 2 guns?

Presumably because it's simpler & quicker to create a common UI for all ships than to go to the extra effort of creating a different one with fewer options specifically for ships that have fewer guns. There's no downside to having unused weapon groups, indeed can be handy to always leave at least one of them empty to avoid accidental misfires. Often do that for missiles. Until I need them I keep an empty secondary weapon group selected, so I can't inadvertently waste ammo by hitting the wrong button.

Hitting the wrong button is in your case torpedoes etc, I hardly use them and find them absolutely not handy, and by the time it takes effect, you are out of ammo, something in the heat of the battle not wanted.... They are quit effective against the player, but the other way around not so much. That's why I don't throw money away on that kind of ammo.

Give me the option to put a double blaster instead of a single, or plasma gun that fires two bolts at the same time instead of one. That is making progress!
But I would love to see a future option where main battery's are extendable, four instead of two.

[GCU Grey Area]

Hitting the wrong button is in your case torpedoes etc, I hardly use them and find them absolutely not handy, and by the time it takes effect, you are out of ammo, something in the heat of the battle not wanted.... They are quit effective against the player, but the other way around not so much. That's why I don't throw money away on that kind of ammo.

I find torpedoes far too entertaining to miss out on. It's one of the reasons why frigate is my favourite ship class (can carry 100 of them). Typically I boost before launching so they're travelling at several km/s & launch them at close range (~3km). Used this way the enemy generally has less than a second to react, which makes it essentially impossible for them to evade or distract with flares (torpedoes are effectively dumbfires at that sort of speed due to 0.3°/second turn rate).

Find it's an absolute thrill to boost directly towards an enemy capital, launch a torpedo at the last possible moment, then twitch the nose up (to avoid slamming into the side of the target), before boosting again to get clear of it's turrets. After turrets are dealt with I can fly in close & fire everything I've got to finish them off. Have also had some success using similar boost-launch tactics against enemy M size ships, which can be immensely satisfying when it works.

They're also by far my favourite tool for smashing the engines on ships I want to board. Those engines are often in a neat little cluster, meaning a single torpedo can smash the lot all at once.

[Mr.Killer]

Hitting the wrong button is in your case torpedoes etc, I hardly use them and find them absolutely not handy, and by the time it takes effect, you are out of ammo, something in the heat of the battle not wanted.... They are quit effective against the player, but the other way around not so much. That's why I don't throw money away on that kind of ammo.

I find torpedoes far too entertaining to miss out on. It's one of the reasons why frigate is my favourite ship class (can carry 100 of them). Typically I boost before launching so they're travelling at several km/s & launch them at close range (~3km). Used this way the enemy generally has less than a second to react, which makes it essentially impossible for them to evade or distract with flares (torpedoes are effectively dumbfires at that sort of speed due to 0.3°/second turn rate).

Find it's an absolute thrill to boost directly towards an enemy capital, launch a torpedo at the last possible moment, then twitch the nose up (to avoid slamming into the side of the target), before boosting again to get clear of it's turrets. After turrets are dealt with I can fly in close & fire everything I've got to finish them off. Have also had some success using similar boost-launch tactics against enemy M size ships, which can be immensely satisfying when it works.

They're also by far my favourite tool for smashing the engines on ships I want to board. Those engines are often in a neat little cluster, meaning a single torpedo can smash the lot all at once.

I see you are having a lot of fun but that is your forté and mine is any enemy with extinguishable items to disable, I start with the engines, so they can't move, and from that point I take out anything that comes after. Last night I captured a behemoth with 19 rookie marines, but took out all its engines, launchers and shields, but I got it eventually. And, I got shot at with missiles yes, but the option 'shoot missiles first' for the turrets is effective enough. (never launched one flare)

[GCU Grey Area]

I see you are having a lot of fun...

Well I would be, but current game is Boron & they don't make a frigate...
Instead I'm lumbering around in a Ray. Hydra can't carry enough torpedoes, Thresher only has a single main gun & I do prefer a ship with an S dock (another of my favourite features of the frigates). Oh well, at least Ray has by far my favourite main gun of all of the destroyers, so it's not all bad & with a Whirlygig mod on it's engines it's handling is at least tolerable.

[Mr.Killer]

I see you are having a lot of fun...

Well I would be, but current game is Boron & they don't make a frigate...
Instead I'm lumbering around in a Ray. Hydra can't carry enough torpedoes, Thresher only has a single main gun & I do prefer a ship with an S dock (another of my favourite features of the frigates). Oh well, at least Ray has by far my favourite main gun of all of the destroyers, so it's not all bad & with a Whirlygig mod on it's engines it's handling is at least tolerable.

Boron, Borong, Boring? not that far apart from another

[GCU Grey Area]

Boron, Borong, Boring? not that far apart from another

Quite the contrary for me. Have always found them to be some of the more interesting ships to use. Generally strong stats across the board for everything except guns. Meant you really needed to think carefully if you wanted to go to war in a Boron ship & find alternative solutions to make up for that weakness. They've been some of my favourite ships since X2 (my first game in the series). Was particularly fond of the Hydra. Had mine armed with front Ion-D, rear A-PSG turret & a big hold full of missiles & laser towers, to make up for the distinct problem that it's main gun was utterly incapable of damaging an enemy ship's hull.