Beam Lasers on Asp Explorer

I have four gimballed C1 beam lasers on mine and A grade power kit - you get about seven seconds continuous fire with four pips in weapons.

I would advise four gimballed - the Asp doesn't have the pitch speed to keep fixed weapons trained on targets for long enough, and targeting individual modules would be very hard.

I also personally wouldn't mix gimbals with fixed for the same weapon type - unnecessarily confusing!

C2 Multicannons are amongst the most effective weapons for their class in the game - they tear through small and medium ships, and make a pleasing 'ratatat' sound on hulls!

Vex tells me C2 fragment cannons are also very effective - especially at shorter range. They fire explosive buckshot.

4 gimballed beams work very well for me on my asp. 2 medium multi-cannon to support them.

So I think I've found my Asp weapon loadout:

4x Size 1 beam lasers
2x Size 2 rail guns

Heat management is a slight issue against very heavily armored targets who need a lot of rail fire. However, these targets can be evaded whilst my ship cools down a little.

I currently have the beam lasers gimbled. However, I am considering trying fixed for the increased damage and it would mean a common sighting system for them and my rails. Though I'll have to weight this off against the sluggish turning of the ASP against fast targets.

I'd thought of the 3rd, but not the first two. Definitely good points and worth considering!

I still think I will have a go this evening, but I will keep an eye out for those issues and if they do crop up then I'll revert back to gimbals.

There could be an element of etiquette to that. As in: they consider gimbals to be an unfair advantage. Perhaps.

Having read the discussion on this I think Al's right. It's generally considered that if you're good enough then fixed are the way to go. But you need to be really really good for a small improvement in damage output.

It's also ship specific, for example the clipper you almost have to use gimbals for some load outs because of the weapon placement.

As far as etiquette goes I quote you Terry Pratchett

The last words of a surprisingly large number of people were “Stuff the bloody Marquis of Fantailler-"

OK, so I've just spent an hour or so in the Ipilaqa CZ with a fixed beam on the vulture. Now bear in mind the vulture is probably one of the best ships to put a fixed weapon on as it's pretty damn nippy. Also bear in mind that this is just my experience. Your mileage may vary.

My experience was...mixed. Against larger ships it is devastating. Certainly worth it and the slight gimbal effect that they have (a sort of auto convergence) means that targeting sub systems is actually not a problem. Asp and larger is really where they come into their own.

Against medium sized ships it's OK, no better or worse than a gimbal. Cobras and other vultures are large enough that they can be hit straight forwardly and the extra damage cancels the time I spend missing.

Small ships however are their Achilles heel. Vipers, couriers and eagles are a small enough target that move fast and keeping the weapon trained on them becomes a huge frustration. The TTK is much larger than it is with gimbals and so if you're attacked by a group it can get very hairy very fast. They just don't have the damage output to compensate for the amount of time I miss.

This may be why they are the preferred weapon for PvP. Most of the time you will be facing larger opponents and so the benefits really come into play. I suspect that even a fully tricked out battle python, flown by an experienced PvPer will jump is he gets pulled over by 3 or 4 middling Cmdr eagles.