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Originally posted by Sattomax:
I will have to disagree with Esponer (nothing personal) and say protons.
They do massive damage to shields, especially with three or more. And they actually do more damage to shields than lasers.
this is an interesting opinion, and by interesting i mean wrong (nothing personal).
some numbers, from the ev data file:
Proton deals 10 damage vs shields, 10 damage vs armor.
Laser deals 10 damage vs shields, 2 damage vs armor.
The formula for damage against shields is ( ShieldDam + ( ArmorDam / 4 ) ).
The formula for damage against armor is ( ArmorDam + ( ShieldDam / 4 ) ).
Thusly, Proton Cannons deal 12.5 damage to shields per hit, and 12.5 damage to armor per hit.
Lasers deal 10.5 damage to shields per hit, and 4.5 damage to armor per hit.
However, Lasers have a reload of 20, and Proton Cannons have a reload of 30. Thus, the Laser Cannons can fire out 50% more shots per time period than the proton cannons can.
Laser shield damage: 10.5 x 1.5 = 15.75
Laser armor damage: 4.5 x 1.5 = 6.75
Per base time unit, Proton cannons deal 12.50 damage to shields and 12.50 damage to armor.
Per base time unit, Laser cannons deal 15.75 damage to shields and 6.75 damage to armor.
so you see lasers actually do much more damage (26% more damage in fact) to shields in the same time period. more damage is not the same as less damage, i am afraid (nothing personal) hee hee!
however, they deal much less damage against armor (only 54% as much damage). this would make them vastly inferior if not for the fact that most ships in ev have way way more shields than they have armor
the laser cannon also has other advantages. both it and proton bolts last for the same time, but it has a slightly higher speed (875 vs 850 for the proton) meaning that it travels a greater total distance (although only about 3%). the laser cannon is also less inaccurate, with a mere 1 percent inaccuracy versus the proton cannons 3 percent inaccuracy, and, of course, is cheaper and takes up a bit less space. however, these are not big issues and you would probably never notice them much in the actual game (clearly the guy who thought proton bolts went further didnt hee hee! 
).
one thing that might appear to be a problem with the laser cannon, the fact that you can only get four, is actually not a problem at all. because proton cannons are so much more effective at taking down armor, you should never use only laser cannons (unless you only have one cannon hee hee! ). i would suggest the following:
1 Cannon: Laser
2 Cannons: One Laser, One Proton
3 Cannons: Two Laser, One Proton
4 Cannons: Two Laser, Two Proton
5 Cannons: Three Laser, Two Proton
this is probably the most effective mix of cannons against the widest range of targets. basically, proton cannons alone can be effective against shields or armor, but laser cannons alone take a long time to kill armor, even though they eat through the shields a bit quicker. i think this is why many people do not like the laser cannon. however, if it is mixed with enough proton cannons to take down the relativley small quantity of armor that ships have, it can be very effective, and you can end up doing more total damage in a shorter time than you would have with proton cannons alone. in other words, the laser cannon is better than the proton cannon would be in the same situation, up to a point. then you begin to lose the efficiency that you gained by switching to laser cannons when you need to kill armor. hee hee!
however, because the laser cannon makes a funny sound that i do not like at all and the proton cannon sounds good (and is blue i love blue hee hee ), my vote goes for the proton cannon hee hee hee!!
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-Asmodaethur
