Do you use disruptor? (2024)

Beagá said:

Ignoring Shields and armor IS Sweet but the damage IS só bad... Still prefer the Gauss/plasma combo.

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Torp/hangar/disruptor cruisers can be a good powerspike fleet if rushed.

I enjoy them more as a meme/theme build, but they have their uses. The most important of which is that if you just focus on them, you can effectively ignore all the other weapon techs, boosting your empire in other ways while these are 'good enough' in order to get an overwhelming economy of scale.

I particularly enjoy them for Crisis/anti-Fallen Empire games, where I don't go for a pure techrush to overpower as much as economically attrit them to death. A Endless corvettes with max-dodget camping the FTL exits with disruptors is a good way to get enough of a victory to claim that Fallen Empire techs, to then up-jump your crisis ships with the best tech you don't actually pay the exotic resource requirements for.

I hardly use them anymore. There was a time when FAE + 1 hangar + 6 disruptors was my battleship of choice as the universal counter to all crisis types and awakened FEs, but I guess I just kind of got bored of using the same design over and over.

Arc emitters are still my favorite X weapon, but disruptors I don't really like very much. They're weak when they first appear because ships still have more hull than armor+shields and then later when hull becomes a smaller percentage of total hit points they suffer from not having an L-sized variant. It's not just damage, it's even more so the range which is stuck at 50. Meanwhile Proton/Neutron Launchers have 130 range. Cloud Lightning is a thing, but it too only has 60 range and it actually has lower damage than two medium Phased Disruptors.

Penetrating weapons are still effective vs awakened empires and especially useful against the Contingency, which has good shields and armor, but very low hull.

I use disruptors only in specific situations. The last time I used them was when a federation partner got a punitive war declared on him by a FE. I retrofitted all my fleets with disruptors and other shield-ignoring weapons to get past their dark matter shields.

We won that war. So sweet getting dark matter tech at mid-game.

There is a tipping point for me where disruptors become bad but were good. In the mid game, I like to put disruptors on my carrier battleships. They have terrible range and damage but good tracking and accuracy, so they are amazing point-defense—they shoot down fighters and missiles really well as well as decimating corvettes and destroyers that get too close. But once the AI starts making primarily cruisers and battleships, or the crisis comes around, I always update my battleships to spinal/large ships because disruptor range is trash and arc lightning DPS is also trash.

But yea, I don't consider disruptors a weapon, their stats make much better point defense even in a medium slot.

LordQulex said:

There is a tipping point for me where disruptors become bad but were good. In the mid game, I like to put disruptors on my carrier battleships. They have terrible range and damage but good tracking and accuracy, so they are amazing point-defense—they shoot down fighters and missiles really well as well as decimating corvettes and destroyers that get too close.

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Unless you use mods that change things a lot it's your fighters and PD that are shooting down enemy fighters and missiles. Disruptors will only shoot at ships and starbases.

Dragatus said:

Unless you use mods that change things a lot it's your fighters and PD that are shooting down enemy fighters and missiles. Disruptors will only shoot at ships and starbases.

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Early game, you can watch combat and see ships firing their lasers at missiles and fighters. I know that's not as accurate as looking at the code, but it's good anecdotal evidence that weapons act as point defense if there is no other valid target. And if your carrier fleet gets assaulted by a throng of missile corvettes, you can bet a disruptor kills a missile or two before the ships get in swarm range.

Dragatus said:

Unless you use mods that change things a lot it's your fighters and PD that are shooting down enemy fighters and missiles. Disruptors will only shoot at ships and starbases.

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Is it possible he means using them as a defense against lighter, faster ships like corvettes, and not necessarily against missiles and fighters? Because in that case they probably do work out very well as a close support weapon system.

Shark7 said:

Is it possible he means using them as a defense against lighter, faster ships like corvettes, and not necessarily against missiles and fighters? Because in that case they probably do work out very well as a close support weapon system.

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Yes, that's why I said, "as well as decimating corvettes and destroyers that get too close."

LordQulex said:

In the mid game, I like to put disruptors on my carrier battleships. They have terrible range and damage but good tracking and accuracy, so they are amazing point-defense—they shoot down fighters and missiles really well

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Shark7 said:

Is it possible he means using them as a defense against lighter, faster ships like corvettes, and not necessarily against missiles and fighters? Because in that case they probably do work out very well as a close support weapon system.

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It looks like he specifically says that he thinks Disruptors shoot down missiles & strike craft.

HFY said:

It looks like he specifically says that he thinks Disruptors shoot down missiles & strike craft.

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Two things can be real... I don't understand, weapons shoot at targets in range. Yes they prefer ships, but without ships in range they do shoot at missiles and strike craft.

So they shoot at the initial wave of missiles that your strike craft don't get, and then at the corvettes and destroyers when/if they get in range. They do both. I don't understand the confusion here.

LordQulex said:

Two things can be real... I don't understand, weapons shoot at targets in range. Yes they prefer ships, but without ships in range they do shoot at missiles and strike craft.

So they shoot at the initial wave of missiles that your strike craft don't get, and then at the corvettes and destroyers when/if they get in range. They do both. I don't understand the confusion here.

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I'm pointing out to @Shark7 that you said something specific, which indeed you repeat here, but which he thought you might not have said.

What "confusion" do you think is happening?

Mastikator said:

Generally no. I typically go from corvettes to battleships. For battleships I use only X and L components

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Sometimes I use H sections on battleships.

Do you favor the 2p+2s+2H over the 4M+2H section? (Or do you just not use H sections?)

LordQulex said:

Two things can be real... I don't understand, weapons shoot at targets in range. Yes they prefer ships, but without ships in range they do shoot at missiles and strike craft.

So they shoot at the initial wave of missiles that your strike craft don't get, and then at the corvettes and destroyers when/if they get in range. They do both. I don't understand the confusion here.

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The only weapons that can shoot missiles and strike craft are flak and point defense, on P slot.
Others weapons (S, M, L, X, T) don't. Maybe what you observe has something to do with mods you are using who change weapons slots/behaviour, or you misinterpreted what your weapons are shooting at.

Disruptors can be good as a low range/high accuracy weapon, but autocannon + small laser/plasma perform generally better

In theory they become good weapons in the ultra-late game, because shields and armor keep scaling with repeatables but hull doesn't, meaning you are skipping a progressively larger proportion of total ship HP. I don't know if a normal game ever gets there in practice, though. Before the repeatables stage, it seems to me that disruptors are countered extremely hard by crystal plating (which is honestly a generically good choice of protection anyway pre-repeatables, assuming you have the tech), and even the basic hull techs could be a big problem.

They could be decent as a specialist weapon against certain preset enemies who you can be confident in having few hull points (maybe complemented by explosives, assuming these enemies don't have too many P slots either). The main problem is that disruptors have poor range (except for the X weapons), and with most preset enemies, you'd rather have a plan to kill them before they get many shots off on you.

Another thing to consider once you get to the artillery battleship stage of the game is that the Focused Arc Emitter is actually pretty good as an alpha strike weapon: it has the full 150 range and deals around 2/3 as much base damage as the other X weapons, but completely skipping shields and armor will get you a lot of outright kills on large enemy ships. If you do decide to use Focused Arc Emitters and the enemy has a mixture of ship sizes, there's a case for finishing off the enemy's small ships with disruptors or cloud lightning.

Low damage and low range just bury disruptors for me. Being pummeled by alpha strikes, beta strikes, and delta strikes before a disruptor ship is in weapon range completely negates any advantage skipping shields makes.

Furthermore, I just don't see the advantage in the late game against neutron launchers. Sure, a disruptor might get enough repeatable to have 2x dps, but the neutron launcher has the same, and incredible range. So any slot given to disruptors is just...less alpha strike, so more opponents longer.