f13.net

Looking to fit my upcoming Brutix. On my current Vexor, I've been pretty happy with my dual-150mm compressed coil guns. They give a nice balance between damage and range (optimal range is 8 km using antimatter charges.)

I'm looking at moving to Heavy Electron Blaster I for the Brutix since dps is about 25% higher. But there's a significant range cost (2.3 km optimal.) I'm also partly motivated by how hard (and expensive) it is to find seven compressed coil guns.

Some other trade-offs I see are:

With 7 guns, capacitor drain and CPU is a big issue. This rules out many gun types.

It looks like with blasters, tracking speed is much faster, although it's not clear to me how much that's offset by the need for closer range.

Anyone else making that choice between blasters and rail guns? Any insights?

Well the Brutix is going to be painfully slow compared to what you're used to. You might find it a pain getting close enough to use those blasters effectively.

I've always been a railgun guy myself. I like to snipe from long range and use my drones on anything that gets too close.

Well, QuickFit tells me that with a MWD, max speed is 925 m/s. :) But ya, closing 40 km even at that speed is going to be annoying. Time to start training up Acceleration Control...

I've been reading many builds on the boards. It's interesting; they're all over the map. Many (most?) people are using blasters and AB 2 (rather than MWD.) That surprises me a lot -- sure, MWD has an enormous hit to cap, but I can't imagine closing range with an AB.

Well if they're using it to run missions an AB2 will be better because it'll work in deadspace where an MWD won't.

MWD also balloons your signature up from 300 to 1800 making you a very large, very easy-to-hit target with only half the tank of a battleship.  So while you're closing, you're taking very hard hits becaue you lack the AGI of a frig to mitigate.

MWD's don't work in deadspace?  :|

Nope.

Well, it's clear I'm going to have to experiment a little and see what works best for me. Here's the build I'm thinking of starting with, aimed at ratting in 0.0:
With this, assuming the nos is in play, I can run the guns, webber and repper all at the same time with stable cap. It would have been nice to get a nano-fiber or two in play to cut closing time; maybe this would be possible if I replaced one of the blasters with a second nos.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Does that fit with the mwd?  I'd drop a blaster or the nos for a tractor beam (req. science IV), and train up to use a medium armor rep, as they kick all kinds of ass compared to the regular and named versions.  Angels do kinetic damage as well, so make it two explosive and one kinetic hardener.  Otherwise looks like it will do well.

Not sure what you mean... according to QuickFit, it comes in under power and CPU limits...
I assume you mean medium armour rep 2? Yes, definitely in the plan. What use is a tractor beam (other than making it easier to loot?) Thanks CC!