Focused Arc Emitters vs. Tachyon Lances (Facts) (2024)

I read somewhere that people were debating which one to get. Well straight from the game, here are the facts:

Arc Emitters: 1-195 Base dmg | 6.60sec cooldown | 100% Acc. | 105 Range | 14.84 Avg. dmg
Tachyon Lances: 85-232 dmg | 8.85sec cooldown | 90% Acc. | 105 range | 16.11 Avg. dmg

Now where the Arc Ems. have better cooldown and perfect accuracy, their damage is randomized, not consistent. The Tach. Lances are 2.25 seconds slower, but will hit for at least 84 more damage. Is this correct?

Moonshadow101 said:

Isn't the whole point of the arc emitter that it jumps to secondary targets chain-lightning style?

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It doesn't though.

polymorfhsacarose said:

I use arc emitters on all my corvettes beat the crap out of all Fallen they just bounce&jumps target to target. Next question.

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I almost believe you. Arc emitters are Large-only mount which corvettes lack.

Arc are awsome against Corvettes, and destroyers.
Lances against Large targets (battleships etc)

NPC mostly have a fleet with lot of evading ships so 2 arc 1 lance is good balance.

Arc emitters waste quarter of their raw damage as long as a target has shields up and are just about worst weapon for bringing those shields down barring weapons that ignore them. Use energy torpedos if you really want direct fire weapon that ignores shields, or lances for general purpose.

And no, arc emitters do not ignore evasion like missiles and torpedos from kinetics line do.

Moonshadow101 said:

Isn't the whole point of the arc emitter that it jumps to secondary targets chain-lightning style?

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I wish it did like in SOTS.

Antediluvian Monster said:

Arc emitters waste quarter of their raw damage as long as a target has shields up and are just about worst weapon for bringing those shields down barring weapons that ignore them. Use energy torpedos if you really want direct fire weapon that ignores shields, or lances for general purpose.

And no, arc emitters do not ignore evasion like missiles and torpedos from kinetics line do.

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you do know they ignore 50% of the shield?, also how many maximum hit points do you think a shield can have?.

Wouter445 said:

you do know they ignore 50% of the shield?, also how many maximum hit points do you think a shield can have?.

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Unless the target has more Shield HP than Hull HP, ignoring 50% of shields isn't going to make much difference in the long run.
Lances don't ignore shields, but do ignore 100% Armor, vs 50% armor ignore for the Arc Emitters.

If you use Arc Emitters mixed in with anything that doesn't ignore shields, you are wasting that ability entirely - as bad as mixing Torps and non-shield penetration weapons.

The advantage of the Arc Emitter is a 10% higher base accuracy.
The advantages of the Lance are 100% armor ignore and higher base damage.

If Arc Emitters actual did bounce to other targets, as described, they would be a much better weapon. But as they are now, Lances are almost always better.

Aevalis said:

Tachyon Lance all day every day. I stopped making corvettes and just made a ton of destroyers with a single Lance and PD on the other two S slots. They still get blown up by my god they can deal some serious punishment. I'd say Destroy spam is the new corvette spam. Backed up with a few battleships of varying auras and some power house ones and I've been completely unstoppable.

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Destroyer build L mounts are terrible compared to Battleship builds. Your evasion will not nullify as much damage as the extra defense a Battleship brings.

Four destroyers costs equiv in time, size and resources of one Battleship. 4 destroyers have 4 tachyons, one battleship has 5 tachyons.

You replace more destroyers than battleships by using destroyers for such a job. It is a waste of resources. Using just Tachyon battleships will make you unstoppable, also but at a much higher efficiency.

Antediluvian Monster said:

Arc emitters waste quarter of their raw damage as long as a target has shields up and are just about worst weapon for bringing those shields down barring weapons that ignore them. Use energy torpedos if you really want direct fire weapon that ignores shields, or lances for general purpose.

And no, arc emitters do not ignore evasion like missiles and torpedos from kinetics line do.

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Just to clarify what was said here.

Arc emitters do 50% damage to shields and do 50% shield penetration. So if you strike a target with shields with 100 damage. You do 50 points to the hull and 25 points to the shields. That means that while a target has their shields up you are losing 25% of your weapon strength.

polymorfhsacarose said:

Arc Emitters
50% evasion(88,5 sec)=656,67

Tachyon Lances
50%evasion(88,5sec)-10%chance=678.921

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Combined with this information, where you are already doing less damage with Arcs anyway.

If you have a choice, the choice is simple. Although I have had situations where I didn't have lances available, but I did have emitters so they were good for the time.