your welcome, I did not have to share this basic understanding of the firing sequences, but once you understand it, you can make all ships better. For instance...

Lets take escorts. You wonder why they run that DHC 3 or 4 sets with turrents in the back, knowing the base mechanic of 4 weapons firing?

They understand their power consumption, rate of fire (weapon cool down cycling), and rate of fire (bo powers). They have their big Alpha strikes, CRF, CSV, DEM, etc, power them up and cut loose.
Now, understanding your going to get a power ratio drop vs each weapon class that fires, knowing 4 are going to fire right off the bat, and then it is going to cycle through its firing sequence, you can plan out the Damage you wish to fire off vs your power consumption.

They key here is to keep your power as high as possible. your front weapons will fire first, so you might see the following formula

DHC Fires -12 power per cycle
HC fires -10 power per cycle
turents fires -8 power per cycle (or was it 6? hmm not at home to look on the game)
etc...

Knowing this, you look at BO powers you are buffing them with, and realize which weapons are in cycle during that powers duration, and ensure you have enough power to maximize your damage. If not, then you add abilities to up that power to cover the loss during heavy BO power usage so you dont diminish your damage potential.

If you think i am talking greek, and your live in hawaii, then dont worry about it. If you are a student of the game then you may understand some of the mechanics I have mentioned.

Turrent boat design is doable, but understand, range becomes your enemy. Simply plan accordingly and you can be a monstrocity on the battle field too.

So please explain these two short fraps I took, or am I just wrong again?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aojvyckadvg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBVQqODtBF4

you are still only firing 4 weapons.

what you are seeing is the global cooldown countdown. the weapon is cycling and the fifth is activating as the 1st goes into cooldown but still has not returned its power back to your pool. A weapon does not do that until it completes its firing sequence, including cooldown.

start pausing the vid on 1080HD, and you will see not 6 beams firing. good comp btw to show this so clearly.

Look at your power. understand 106 is not a static hard number, it is based of many variables that I would go into the math to help you figure out, but to simplify it, you "wander" about 1 point off your "extra" power when you begin fluxing in power use per weapon as your base number drops in usage. Not a bug, just a formula display toff a number that is not a hard number, but one derived from stacking. as your usage changes it changes your reading.
In truth you are only looking 40-45 power poitns dropping down to 61. Your 5th weapon cycles through, so you can see it dropping your power before the first one cycles back to add its power back to your base number.
If you were firing all 6 you would loose a minimum 48 power. 106-48=58. You notice you only drop to 61-64.

Remove autofire so you can see the ones firing better, they will blink to soft white. it makes it easier to see them work. The base mechanic still is there, only 4 fire at once, and then cycling begins. Again do the test I proposed, add a turent in the mix and you can see the cycling.

NOTE: understand teamt his isnt new, this has been like this for quite a while, it just so quick folks do not realize it is happening, but that mechanic was put in place to remove the big 8 beamers from PVP, since BO powers at that time made them monsters of the midway in pvp space battles.

Sorry I still don't see it , all I see is 6 beams firing within the same cycle of each other which in my books means they are firing at once. I slowed it down and paused it every second and all I could see is them firing together. If what you were saying was true then there is no way my power would drop to 56 from 106 like it did. I'm sorry but this smells ot theorycrafting.

We will just agree to disagree and I will stick with my 6 beams

Edit: (trying to be nice out)

Of course the turret will fire at a different time , it has a toggle of 2 so it will fire in a different cycle pattern than a beam with a toggle of 4. Understand the math? seriously? there is no math involved in this other than adding and subtracting, there is just watching numbers go up and down. Lol

Untill a dev comes in here and tells the thread otherwise there is nothing in the mechanics of this game to prove only 4 weapons fire at once other than your IMHO

I see you dont do the simple test so you can see it for yourself and just assume , hey that is cool, odd, but ok with me.

Not theory crafting, good try at an insult, but strike one.

Simply because you dont understand the math that has existed for some time does not change the simple fact that was told to everone a good while back of the 4 weapon firing limitation without BO abilities. Where do you think we were all told about that and who told us? consider that a moment...

Never said there was anything wrong with 6 beam build, or an 8 beam build. Stated that there are better ways to use that power setup, and not to worry on regular firing if you had more then 4 weapons. Even stated to make sure to keep your weapon power high when you fire off those big BO powers that those extra weapons firing will suck that power down and basically make your multi weapon firing useless if you dont have alternate means of keeping that power up.

On any overloaded weapon build folks just be mindful of your power drain, and plan accordingly to maximize your damage output.

Be well folks.

Brak has clearly shown that all 6 beams are firing. Your just wrong, and you can't admit it.

Your just plainly wrong in saying we are viewing a global cooldown. Freeze salvo 2 at 14 seconds and you can clearly see all beams in a firing state. Maybe you don't know what your looking at.

The only problem really with 6 beam builds that at 60-70 weapon power, those beams aren't doing much damage. I had a cruiser with 6 beams and a science ship with 5 beams at weapon power levels 125 and 120 respectivly. What I ended up doing was switching to cannons + turrets (with a beam here or there in the rear) and using rapid fire 1. Much better way to get damage i my opinion.

I took my Sci and Nebula out for a spin, it has 2 single cannon , 3 turrets and a boosted power of 126. It clearly shows all 5 weapons firing at once and power constantly dipping to 91. I am in the process of uploading the video now and will add the link to this post after lunch.

Edit:

Here it is, it clearly shows at 13 , 17 and 20 all weapons and the exact same cycle. Granted there is a nano second delay between each of the 5 weapons firing but that could be lag or angle or just the autofire logic. Last video as YouTube sucks for upload speed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ6-r00e54g

My Science is in a nebula as well and I have the same build, except I have a dual beam bank up front. Having a dual beam bank not only lets me use the ship built in subsystem targeting, but also Beam overload. Beam overload + cannon rapid fire = fun

I use the uni lt station with a tact, and I use beam overload, cannon rapid fire, high yield and tact team... figure its one of the best ways to get dps out of a science ship.

Hrm I might actually give that a try. The only problem with the Nebula is it’s almost a fatty cruiser with its low turn rate, that’s why I went 180 arc main weapons. I guess it will give me and excuse to use the Tractor Beam skill instead of a second Hazard Emitter. Ugh another repec for beam skill heh

Ha well I use an RCS Thruster and some points in engine performance. I get 18.2 degrees/sec. Not great, and yea, the turnrate is the one most frustrating thing about the Neb... other then that its one of my favorite ships. Anyhow, 18.2 seems ok enough to use the dual beam banks, just takes a little practice. PVP can be tough depending on who your fighting, but I rarely die with the nebula thanks to its outstanding survivability. Along with the Star cruiser I feel they are the best ships in the game for simply tanking.