Medium Weapons, Anyone?

[Van Manfred]

I am not the most experienced player, but the more I play, the more I appreciate Light weaponry over Medium ones. In my humble and maybe incorrect opinion, their little clips, loading time, slow projectiles and general clumsiness in movement and firing arcs for only slightly superior damage is a bad compromise. It is even moreso since they now recoil so much when firing them. Give them a Spire, and most gunners will prefer manning the light weapon on top instead of the clumsy beast below.

Also, Medium gun emplacement have like three times less choice for outfitting them. What's missing in this category, is a quick-firing, short-to-medium range weapon, reasoneably accurate, that either has a good magazine or a shorter reload. Something like a quad Gatling, or a quick-firing harpoon Ballista. Anything, really, to make them even desirable.

I would be glad to hear some of the vets' comments and tips about Medium weaponnery.

PS - I know there must have been some threads around this subject, but I didn't feel like necroposting anything past the first two pages.

[Alistair MacBain]

I cant agree with you on this.
Besides the carronade every medium weapon is a stronger aquivalent to its little brother.
THe hwacha can disable a whole ship when you have an experienced player on it. The artemis needs much longer to disable a even certain components with its 4 rockets.
The hflak will nearly instakill an unarmored ship while a light flak will take much longer.
The lumberjack doesnt even have a light aquivalent.
Only the heavy carronade is a bid weird cause it needs 3 bullets (while only having a clip of 2) to kill a balloon while a light carronade can kill a balloon in one clip.

So no in a good build a med gun is mostly the better choice.

[Captain Smollett]

Only the heavy carronade is a bid weird cause it needs 3 bullets (while only having a clip of 2) to kill a balloon while a light carronade can kill a balloon in one clip.

This is false by a lot.  The heavy carronade is in all ways superior to the light carronade.  Higher damage per shot, higher damage per minute, longer range and it can two shot balloons.

As for the other heavy weapons, they're some of the hardest weapons to really master in GOI, but the payout is worth it when you do.

[HamsterIV]

The light guns are generally preferred when going into PUG's because you don't know the quality of your crew. It is easier to zero in on a target with a large clip fast reload gun than with a slower heavier hitting weapon. Also the ships that carry heavy weapons are very dependent on the gunner skill (exception the Blenderfish and to a degree Hwachafish). Even the best captains can't get a sniperfish, spire, or galleon to work if their gunner's can't hit. Ships that mount the medium guns tend to be "worse" than the ships that mount lighter guns. They are either lacking multiple gun angles, health, or maneuverability. This is of course offset by the added fire power a medium gun provides. It is not that the medium guns are worse than light guns as they are just riskier to take. Victory will depend less on the captain's skill and not all captains are comfortable with that.

[Alistair MacBain]

No it actually cant two shot balloons if u dont get charged rounds or a buff on it.
With normal ammo and no buff it needs 3 hits on a balloon.

And as Hamster said it. You have to hit with that guns.
The lumberjack and the heavy flak need to hit. And they are longrange/midrange weapons. Its not as many light guns. Get in close and just spray the enemy.
If you cant hit that sniper weapons you are useless. There is a reason that only few ppl use this. This sniper ships are even rarely seen in Competetive. And that has a reason.
Even a Manticore needs a good player. Yes every idiot can hit with it but to get the disable you need you have to take a decent player. Look a competetive hwachaplayer and a public.
The Public will rarely get 3-4 disables on the enemy. The comp player will disable 90% of the enemy.
Only the heavy carronade is easy to hit. But to use it on its fullest its hard when not on a blenderfish. A Spire will most likely not take a carronade and to utilize a carronade as engineer on a galleon it takes a bid. If you cant get the balloon in one clip for which u need charged rounds or a buff, you can leave that weapon alone.


This is the thing with the medium guns. They are more sniper weapons and this is actually one of the hardest things to pull of effectively.
You need good gunners, you need a decent ally to protect you and you need a pilot with alot of map awareness to not fall for the enemies tricks.
Oh and you need alot! of patience. Which might be the biggest issue in pubs.

[RearAdmiralZill]

No it actually cant two shot balloons if u dont get charged rounds or a buff on it.
With normal ammo and no buff it needs 3 hits on a balloon.

Who ever uses normal ammo in a heavy carronade? Point being, it's a very weak point to use making it sound worse off then the light carro. I'll refrain from derailing now.

[Alistair MacBain]

Who? Me cause when im on a sniper galleon with a hflak, a lumberjack one side and a hcarro, manticore other side. And as engineer i have only one ammo type i probably take lesmok to get the longrange i need. So i cant take charged rounds.

And i didnt ask for a change. Im  fine with that fact.

[Captain Smollett]

1 Heavy Carronade shot has 340 flechette damage and 360 shatter damage.

Multiplied by the modifiers (340*1. + (360*.2) = 684 balloon damage per shot * 2 shots (684*2) = 1368 balloon damage per clip.

All goi ships have 1200 balloon health so even with vanilla, accurate gunnery can two shot a balloon with damage to spare.  This of course is greatly assisted by use of heavy clip, charged rounds, lochnagar and/or a buff set further easing the assured destruction of your opponents balloon.

[Zenark]

A medium Carronade using Heavy Clip easily two shots balloons at gatling ranges.

A medium Flak, when used well, needs only 3-4 shots to take out an unarmored Galleon.

The Hwacha is the best weapon at its job, ie. breaking many components in a few seconds.

The Lumberjack, arguably the hardest medium gun to use, is absolutely devastating when used right. Balloon is gone in 2-3 hits, even if you don't hit it directly, and it strips armor ridiculously fast. The only time I've felt more helpless than being locked down by an LJ is being locked down by pre 1.3 dual Mercs.

Medium weapons, while I agree that there should be more, fill their role well.

[Alistair MacBain]

Well i think some numbers have changed on this because im pretty sure i once shot and hit 2 hcarro shots on a balloon and it didnt instapop. And as u cant buff the hp of a balloon there is either a fail at my side which i will watch or the numbers arent correct anymore but thats not the point of this thread imo so bbt .

[Captain Smollett]

Well i think some numbers have changed on this because im pretty sure i once shot and hit 2 hcarro shots on a balloon and it didnt instapop. And as u cant buff the hp of a balloon there is either a fail at my side which i will watch or the numbers arent correct anymore but thats not the point of this thread imo so bbt .

It's common to hit two shots of heavy carronade into a balloon without a balloon break.  The carronade shoots 16(?) projectiles with a fair amount of spread but only shows one hit marker per componant hit. 

With the new hit markers you could hit 1 or 16 of the hit scan projectiles and get the same hit marker on the balloon.  You really only know how accurate you've been after the second shot; if the balloon pops you've been accurate enough, if it doesn't than you missed (or were too far out to hit all the shots against the balloon you were aiming at).

[Echoez]

I am not the most experienced player, but the more I play, the more I appreciate Light weaponry over Medium ones. In my humble and maybe incorrect opinion, their little clips, loading time, slow projectiles and general clumsiness in movement and firing arcs for only slightly superior damage is a bad compromise. It is even moreso since they now recoil so much when firing them. Give them a Spire, and most gunners will prefer manning the light weapon on top instead of the clumsy beast below.

Also, Medium gun emplacement have like three times less choice for outfitting them. What's missing in this category, is a quick-firing, short-to-medium range weapon, reasoneably accurate, that either has a good magazine or a shorter reload. Something like a quad Gatling, or a quick-firing harpoon Ballista. Anything, really, to make them even desirable.

I would be glad to hear some of the vets' comments and tips about Medium weaponnery.

PS - I know there must have been some threads around this subject, but I didn't feel like necroposting anything past the first two pages.

Main reason you don't see many Heavy weapons is because of the ships that accomodate them can be a pain to master. Yes, even the Goldfish which is probably one of the most popular Heavy gun bearing ships, having only one gun facing at one direction isn't always easy, comes with drawbacks.

Light guns are easy to get used to, they usually have large clips and allow for more mistakes, plus most of themdon't REQUIRE you to bring a gunner, so you can go a third engineer which makes people feel safer and more durable sometimes.

An other reason you might feel like this is because currently there is only one Heavy brawling weapon, the Heavy Carronade, all others are artillery guns so they are harder to shoot (Lumberjack, Flak) or just have too long a reload time to be considered a true brawling weapon (Hwacha).

There's lots of understanding that you need of the game to get used to some of the current Heavies, but I'm sure Muse has more brawling Heavies on the way. (Still waiting on that Heavy Flamer.)

[Alistair MacBain]

Sometimes you just get sth and explained and feel real stupid afterwards .
Thx for making that clear.

[Van Manfred]

I cant agree with you on this.
Besides the carronade every medium weapon is a stronger aquivalent to its little brother.
THe hwacha can disable a whole ship when you have an experienced player on it. The artemis needs much longer to disable a even certain components with its 4 rockets.
The hflak will nearly instakill an unarmored ship while a light flak will take much longer.

Longer? In terms of seconds of firing? I'd take the light flak in a fight, since it can fire 4 projectiles by the time the heavy one fires two. And if one of those two shot miss (like between hull and balloon), you just given extra time to the other ship's engineer, whereas it is of little consequence with light flak. Granted, prceise firing with little Flak requires Heavies, but if the target's close enough you'll hit with anything in there.

The lumberjack doesnt even have a light aquivalent.

Yet there's two mortarlike guns among Light weapons, both a lot easier to use than Lumbering Jack. One in broadside position on a moving galleon is all but useless - The projectiles are not fast enough, and if they are, then the ennemy is too close for the shots to arm, or to have an AoE damage. To be the one-shotter that it can be, Jack requires a stationnary ship, a solid gunner, an engineer to buff it up once the range is found, the Pilot for spotting the shots, time, and an almost willing target - near perfect conditions that are rarely met in combat.

[Dutch Vanya]

(slightly off-topic)
It still feels weird to me now that they are referred to as medium weapons when there aren't any larger guns.