Photon or Quantum?

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I am a LTC 1, and am going to drop some EC at the Exchange getting better gear. I am a tac/Escort, and I'm trying to decide if i should go with quatum or photon torps. which should I pick?

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At present, in-game:

Photons have the fast cooldown but the lowest dealt DPS. Photons can't be targeted.
Quantums have the second fast cooldown & the second highest dealt DPS potential. Quantums can't be targeted.

Personally, I roll with Quantums on all my ships.

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It looked like quantums had a lower DPS than photons. Was I just reading it wrong?

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a photon does less damage per hit, but fires every 6 seconds. a quantum does more damage per hit but fires every 8 seconds. a photon ends up doing more damage over time, but a quantum will spike harder.

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It looked like quantums had a lower DPS than photons. Was I just reading it wrong?

Sorry, not DPS but DPV.

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My personal opinion: Depends on your ship, slower turning ships probably should use quantums because they don't get to fire their torpedoes as often and want a high damage punch when they do fire, while faster turning ships should go with photons, because they can take advantage of their faster reload (and DPS) by keeping the target in their firing arc for longer.
Personally i go with quantums in my cruiser.
Does that make sense?

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My personal opinion: Depends on your ship, slower turning ships probably should use quantums because they don't get to fire their torpedoes as often and want a high damage punch when they do fire, while faster turning ships should go with photons, because they can take advantage of their faster reload (and DPS) by keeping the target in their firing arc for longer.
Personally i go with quantums in my cruiser.
Does that make sense?
Theoretically, I'd say yes. WIth the caveat that I still think no matter what you fly, Quantum Torpedoes will be better overall.

All the times you manage to fire your Photons and just hit shields they aren't doing much. So it's best to fire them rarely, but well timed, hitting the enemy's hull and inflicting the full damage potential of your torp.

Also, if I remember correctly,if you use a power like High Yield Torpedo, it provides more bang for buck on quantum torpedoes as well. No matter how fast your torps fire, HYT only fires every 60 seconds or so, and the damage boost depends on the weapon's single shot damage, not DPS.

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Photon ! Photon ! MORE PHOTONS ! But it doesnt matter much while you level up.

While Quantums have superior (easy) mode burst. 2x photon can yield even better burst, if you time your HYTs rights.

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I like the qucker recharge time of photons while im charging an enemy in my defiant. Theyre slower then quantums but with photons at close distance to point blank the timing can be just right where they hit right after your heavy cannons tear down the shields when u fire everything at once. Its a noob tactic that use when grinding for gear in Ker'rat. No shame :-D. And if you want to get up on their butt same tactic has worked for me when sneaking in a tricobalt in that cannon madness :-P

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Something can be said for using photons in single cannon/ turret cruisers were your more or less face forward on your target. you don’t have the burst to blast down shield’s and dump a HY, but as you wear down your opponents shields, holes will appear for a second or 2, and the quick reloading photon has a slightly better chance to hit hull during those momentary shield holes then a quantum.

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It makes me wonder if anybody's ever actually experimented with the "default" build for a lot of cruisers, i.e. two photon torps fore n' aft. You'd be able to pop one off every three seconds, I'm considering rolling with it a while just to see what happens.

Personally I'm using Tricobalt at the moment for the monumental damage they do, but the minute long cool down hurts sometimes, I may switch back to Quantum.

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On my TAC escort I use photons

I can actually Fire the HY volley and track them in. Right before they hit I can hit Beam Overload, bring down the shield facing and in goes the HY volley right after. Quantums are so fast you really need to wait till after the shield is down to fire them

Just a matter of timing and preference really

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It makes me wonder if anybody's ever actually experimented with the "default" build for a lot of cruisers, i.e. two photon torps fore n' aft. You'd be able to pop one off every three seconds, I'm considering rolling with it a while just to see what happens.

Personally I'm using Tricobalt at the moment for the monumental damage they do, but the minute long cool down hurts sometimes, I may switch back to Quantum.

I'm using double photons on most ships. It works fine (for me).

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Don't quantums also travel faster than photons?

But yeah, my ships are all in the quantum camp... except my TOS Connie, which doesn't fight, anyway.

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Yeah, I have to say the speed of quantums over photons made me switch.

I can't tell you how many times I launched a photon salvo at a fleeing ship only to have its shields come back up before they even got there.

The shortened load time just wasn't worth it to me.

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could have both, have 4 beam arrays, two on each side of course then either have quantum then photon or the other way round which i have.