What is the weapon of your choice, and Why?

[Fyron]

PvK said:
If you see a huge crystalline ship, neither shield depleters nor PPB's are going to answer the problem particularly well.

The shields will be phased, and the PPB's will just lower the shields. Then when you hit with a damaging weapon, the shields will go back up.

So, you want to hit it as hard as you can, so not all of your damage will turn into enemy shields.

PvK

Unless, of course, you alternate shield depleters with other weapons in the design. SD, APB, SD, APB, etc. Works decently. Better yet, get some Shield Disruptors. No need for any other types of weapons just because you face a crystalline enemy...

brianeyci said:
Don't they [PPBs] have the highest damage/kiloton ratio, or do torpedos have an advantage over that?

Brian

No. Don't forget that damage/kiloton/rate is a far more useful statistic than just damage/kiloton in most situations. Ripper Beam IIIs have the highest. The next if I recall correctly is the Telekinetic Projector VI (?). At least, at some range increments. APB XII comes next, except at one or two particular range increments, where PPB V is stronger. You can use this program by Suicide Junkie to get all sorts of stats on the weapons:

Weapon Stats

[Alneyan]

I think the PPB comes second (at range 6), just before the Meson BLaster/Telekinetic Projector (something like 2.1/2.0 respectively). At range 1, the APB should be second.

The problem with using Shield Depleters is that you need decent chances to hit for it to work. If you are fighting at range 7 or 8, you will seldom hit, making this strategy not too reliable. If you have good odds of hitting, the APB/SD/APB/SD design is perfectly good however. Shield Disruptors are nice enough, if you can get the research done, as they come later than the first Crystalline ships (with the regular 10 Crystalline Armour).

Contrary to what I thought, high-level of APBs work as well, so long as you get at close range (but Ripper Beams are better in this case). I think the heavy-mounted APB XII is above 150 damage per hit from range 5 or so, which will be enough to actually damage the Crystalline vessel. If you cannot get them in time, then Torpedoes or Baseships (be careful if the enemy is fighting at maximum range) should work out nicely for direct fighting. But I would prefer to avoid fighting altogether in this case, being a most courageous player.

[AgentZero]

My personal favourite would be a few sets of shield disrupters, then WMGs, then APBs. If a ship's got any shields left after a the SDs, the WMGs take care of that, and the APBs finish the job.
As for missiles, I'm play with a self-made mod where they are a lot more powerful, and also have their own set of mounts. A Massive Mount CSM will take out a Dreadnought with 1-2 hits.
But in the stock game, I only ever used missiles as a support weapon. I'd have a squadron of BCs usually, loaded to the gills with CSMs who would hang back and pummel the enemy from afar. The AI (and most players) doesn't put enough PDCs on their ships to deal with seriously heavy missile bombardment so they'd have to use other guns, and each one of those fired at a missile is one NOT fired at one of my ships. :-)
I also find a few CSM ships quite useful for bringing down Starbases. It can sometimes take a while but it keeps my ships out of the way of Massive Base Mount WMGs, coz those things hurt!

[Aiken]

tmce said:
self-made mod where they are a lot more powerful, and also have their own set of mounts. A Massive Mount CSM will take out a Dreadnought with 1-2 hits.

How? Afair missile's damage cannot be altered via mounts. Or I missed something?

[Fyron]

tmce said:
The AI (and most players) doesn't put enough PDCs on their ships to deal with seriously heavy missile bombardment so they'd have to use other guns, and each one of those fired at a missile is one NOT fired at one of my ships. :-)

Only PDCs can fire at missiles.

The solution to an enemy that uses a lot of missiles is to use the space yard ship you included in your fleet to retrofit all of your ships to use extra PDCs. Emergency build a space station with only repair bays if you need extra repair capability. Takes only a turn or two. This probably won't save the first fleet, but the others will slaughter the missle ships. If they stop using missiles, just retrofit the warships back to the orginal design. Takes even less time to repair than adding the PDCs, as there are 1/3 or so components to repair (depending on weapons used).