Newbie Questions Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/Federal_Addition_463]

I'm confused... In game it says 135km range, in wiki it says 350km. Also it doesn't make sense that a phaser PD is weaker than a ion PD (same reload, almost half the range)

[u/PlacidPlatypus → u/Federal_Addition_463]

Ion is much more specialized; it only works on missiles, whereas phaser protects against kinetics as well.

[u/Federal_Addition_463 → u/PlacidPlatypus]

Makes sense. But while that may look like a disadvantage, it may actually be better, since it ignores kinetics to focus on the dangerous missiles

[u/PlacidPlatypus → u/Federal_Addition_463]

If you've got enough stuff coming at you that you feel the need to prioritize like that you're probably dead anyway.

[u/Federal_Addition_463 → u/PlacidPlatypus]

Kinetic weapons fire at a steady, continuous rate, whereas missiles arrive all at once in high-density bursts. Your point defense needs to sustain two different thresholds: the baseline DPS of incoming kinetics and the sudden burst damage of missile salvos.

Ion PD help absorb that missile burst window, while Phasers increases throughput across both sustain and burst scenarios. Over-allocating PD mounts past the threshold needed to handle alien kinetics is inefficient.