Preview of July Raid weapon and Special

New Launcher coming!

They have leaked the new weapon for the coming raid and it is indeed a New launcher! I am excited about this new launcher, why? Well, I am a fan of the launchers they have been some of the biggest force of change in player’s builds since their inceptions. This one is a bit different, and I am not sure if it will alter the game for us as the previous launchers. The reasons for that I will explain.

The Launcher

As you can see it has the typical range of the D98, this means that placed on your enforcers you will be 103.4 range. Too bad that our Fusion Cruisers do not have more oomph! As they would be awesome with this weapon and I will have to take a look at if I can make them useful with it. It also is different in that it is not a salvo weapon, but a multi-shot weapon. Meaning that it will function more like a scatter gun in that all shots fired at once. This multishot is a bit disconcerting for me in that the accuracy is low.  The Antipode has an accuracy of 80 for example.  As a multi-shot that 10,800 damage will be divided by 4, so with no bonuses, the damage done will be 2700 each one. The Vendetta has a 9000 Radioactive deflection stat, meaning that we will get the minimum damage for each one that hits. It should do well against the Revenge though if you can keep them from sniping you.

The reload time is high, so this alone might make it unusable on anything other than launcher dedicated boats. The benefit from older launchers was the fact they had around a 2.5 second reload meaning that you could get by on your vindicator or Mercury fleets and get some benefit from it. While this is the early release, and the numbers could change. I do not see this one changing much, and that will limit the usefulness of this weapon on anything other than Enforcers, Fusion Cruisers, Nuclear cruisers and the new boat. I think Frostburn and V2-C give some bonus to reload on launchers too, so those would be good choices as well.

Now there is some hope for this weapon and that is the fact it is a multi-shot weapon, meaning that we get to use multi-shot boosting specials for it. They are releasing a new special that is designed for this specifically.

The Special

This special is going to help boost that weapons damage potential nicely with the +2 multi-shot. The supercharge effect is not as big of a deal though as the shockwave from this is 1000. However, I might look into putting 5 of the new weapon and 5 Antipode on my ship to get a nice mix of upfront damage and a big shockwave. Of course, we need to see what the new defensive hull will have for stats to make the most efficient build possible. But, I see potential with mixing launchers to get a nice boost to damage up front and then a big shockwave. IT has to be noted this weapon will not work with other multi-shot increasing specials, and it will work with interception system, but not fusion charger. That piece comes directly from CM Doomrooster on the forums, and I will quote him in full.

(It will take the place of Barrel Systems or Fusion Chargers.  You can't stack Fusion Chargers, Interception System, and Emission System.  It will stack with Interception System, similar to Fusion Chargers, however. CM DoomRooster)

So, this will help boost the damage of the new weapon by a total of 5400 (2700 x 2), as we will get two more shots in each one fired. Granted it will still only be minimum damage against the Vendetta, but if you have watched your Enforcers against the Vendetta this last month, you will know that the minimum damage can add up quick with everything else hitting it.

Future for the lower levels

This particular early release means that my predictions of the Antipode coming back this raid are pretty solid. We have gotten a weapon, older hull and special from the same class as the top prizes. So, I suspect that we will see the Fusion Charger, Antipode, and Enforcer this raid for the first three tiers. With the new special, weapon and hull being T4 thru T6. This means that this raid holds a high possibility for alliances to help their lower levels get the Enforcer and Antipode for about 3 million points if things stay from the previous two raids!

More information will come as we get it, and hopefully, I will have a mock build up early next week if I can. Any questions feel free to ask below thank you for reading.