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[Catastrophic lolcats]

Game crashed at the final boss when I had on of the best load-outs I ever had. Apparently that also wipes your save.
Suddenly the game was never played again.

[Kilroy the Grand]

Is the bio gun actually any good?

Yup, with a mark 2 burst laser I was able to kill every single ship in my path, and that was before finding a mark 4, and an Artemis missile launcher.

[RedWarrior0]

Is the bio gun actually any good?

Yup, with a mark 2 burst laser I was able to kill every single ship in my path, and that was before finding a mark 4, and an Artemis missile launcher.

That may be a function of the burst lasers rather than the bio beam. Because it's generally accepted that BL Mk II is awesomesauce.

[Haspen]

Well, after some science was done, Burst Laser Mk3 had minimally better damage than Burst Laser Mk2 for doubled energy cost, so yeah, you're better off with 2x BLmk2 rather than BLmk3.

[GlyphGryph]

It depends on the situation. Technically, Dual Lasers are even better, energy to damage wise, than MKIIs.

But it's not just energy to damage, but /max/ damage. An MKIII can take down even a max shield unit to no shield - Meaning you can have your other slots filled with lasers beams to really tear the enemy apart. 2 MKIIs does a point more damage, sure - but at the expense of a laserbeam, and most lasersbeams do a MINIMUM of 4 damage. Or at the expense of a breach missile or ion bomb.

Slots are way more valuable than energy bars for a lot of ship builds.

[RedWarrior0]

Beams, I assume you mean?
On a four slot ship, no way. Using half the available power in one slot? The only combinations that use all the remaining slots are three one-energy weapons or two one-energy and a two-energy. I can think of a couple good weapons that fit, but not two 1-energy slots good enough to justify it.

On the Stealth, Engi, or Mantis ships, you might have a point, though.

[GlyphGryph]

4 slots: 1 dual laser, 1 MKIII, 1 artemis missile, 1 minibeam - 12 damage volleys, 1.4dps after first strike, 8 power
4 slots: 4 MKII - 12 damage volleys, 1.1dps after first strike, 8 power

Clearly superior, even before considering the following:

For most (of my, anyway) ship builds, I generally have missile or bomb slots that I only fire once or twice. These are "as needed" weapon. They take up a slot, either way, but they do their job and don't really add to DPS as a primary goal. As example: My ion bombs. I'll often only fire these once per battle, at the beginning. They only take 1 power. But I really couldn't do with them. Then I might have a glaive beam, and then a breach missile, and then my burst laser.

All big ticket items, sure, but I don't need them all active at the same time, and versatility is a wonderful thing. Ion bomb, MKIII and Glaive beam to start is a nasty combo, especially with the pre-igniter, and is something I've gotten a few times. I could get a point more damage out of 2 MKII, but then I'd lose my utility slot - a breach missile for suppression of enemy drone rooms if my volley can't get through to do enough damage, a bio beam or fire beam for killing the enemy without destroying the ship once I've beat it down, a healing burst to keep my guys alive in an emergency. (easy enough to switch from ion, which I really only need for the opener) Or even a dual laser to switch to and pile on a bit more damage after the ion does it's work.

And a number of ships do only have 3 weapons, yeah. But even on the four weapon ships, gaining an extra point of damage doesn't seem worth giving up a weapon slot and the versatility it offers.

[Sirus]

I have never seen 4 of any weapon in a single run, let alone been able to collect them

Also: Rebel ships with 3 shields, System Repair Drones, AND Mk II Defense Drones are a pain in the ass. I had to fire the BL-MKII and the Missile Launcher simultaneously to even hope to lower shields enough for a Halberd/Fire Beam strike.

I find it hilarious that even with the sheer, unending amount of crap that the RNG can heap on you, people are still playing this game so much. Losing really is part of the fun!

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, like I mentioned, my last (winning) run let me collect a whopping.... Hermes Missile and Heavy Ion II.
I was actually surprised I managed to win on normal with just those two and 12 missiles going into the first fight, but I was! (Thanks, teleporter!)

Several ships start with weapons, though, perhaps you should try one? Then you're halfway there!

[SomeStupidGuy]

Managed to fully unlock a third of all ships(including both layouts for each).
Oh also I finally found out what's in the stasis pod(thanks again Glyph Gryph).
I may be just about to actually win[Edit - Nope], but that's still kinda overly optimistic.

[lemon10]

4 slots: 1 dual laser, 1 MKIII, 1 artemis missile, 1 minibeam - 12 damage volleys, 1.4dps after first strike, 8 power
4 slots: 4 MKII - 12 damage volleys, 1.1dps after first strike, 8 power

Clearly superior, even before considering the following:

For most (of my, anyway) ship builds, I generally have missile or bomb slots that I only fire once or twice. These are "as needed" weapon. They take up a slot, either way, but they do their job and don't really add to DPS as a primary goal. As example: My ion bombs. I'll often only fire these once per battle, at the beginning. They only take 1 power. But I really couldn't do with them. Then I might have a glaive beam, and then a breach missile, and then my burst laser.

All big ticket items, sure, but I don't need them all active at the same time, and versatility is a wonderful thing. Ion bomb, MKIII and Glaive beam to start is a nasty combo, especially with the pre-igniter, and is something I've gotten a few times. I could get a point more damage out of 2 MKII, but then I'd lose my utility slot - a breach missile for suppression of enemy drone rooms if my volley can't get through to do enough damage, a bio beam or fire beam for killing the enemy without destroying the ship once I've beat it down, a healing burst to keep my guys alive in an emergency. (easy enough to switch from ion, which I really only need for the opener) Or even a dual laser to switch to and pile on a bit more damage after the ion does it's work.

And a number of ships do only have 3 weapons, yeah. But even on the four weapon ships, gaining an extra point of damage doesn't seem worth giving up a weapon slot and the versatility it offers.

First off, for 75% of the game you have less then weapon power then you need, and even at the end power requirements and max weapon power usage limits me far more (especially if you have 4 weapon slots). Adding a extra two power+weapon power usually costs 100-200 scrap, and having that much to spare for a weapon that takes 19 seconds to start is rare.
Secondly, the BL MK II has better DPS then the BL MK III, while costing 1/2 of the power, I could see it being better if you only have tree slots and you have maxed out weapon power, but otherwise it isn't really close.
Thirdly, your math is off. You are better served by waiting for the burst against 4 shield enemies (otherwise only the missile would get through, the others would probably break against the sheild if fired individually), so the DPS would be 0.63 (12/19) for your the BK MK II build, even assuming that you started with the dual laser (which IS the best laser in the game for a 4 slot build).
Finally, you are assuming that you have a pre-igniter, which is pretty rare, the 7 seconds faster the BL MK II charges means that you can preempt their large weapons, so you fire before their BL MK III, Beams and heavy missiles which help a lot if your defenses aren't quite up to par.

[RedWarrior0]

@Glyph: I'll concede the point on versatility:

4 slots: 1 dual laser, 1 MKIII, 1 artemis missile, 1 minibeam - 12 damage volleys, 1.4dps after first strike, 8 power
4 slots: 4 MKII - 12 damage volleys, 1.1dps after first strike, 8 power

Clearly superior.

Not really. I wasn't even thinking about using 4 Mk IIs, but they have 1 DPS together, compared to your setup's ~.913 (which, by the way, is only using 7 power, not 8) Where are you getting your numbers?
Dual Laser: 2 Damage/10s: .2 DPS peak
Mk III: 5 Damage/19s: About .263 DPS peak
Minibeam (assuming 3 systems hit): .25 DPS peak
Artemis Missile: .2 DPS peak
Mk II: .25 DPS peak.
My source
Re: Ninjas: Play on the challenging ground, and when you win anyway, it shows you're better. I'm assuming Pre-igniter, no shields: Basically, a raw firepower test. We left "practical" a little while ago.

Also, the BL mkIII does have a better DPS. By about .013.

[GlyphGryph]

My numbers are probably completely off, as I kept going back and change the loadouts.

Also, against most ships that matter, minibeam is a 4 system hit. There are a few where you can only get 3 (and the smaller autoscouts only 2), but I find 4 is the standard damage for me.

I think it may be partly because I'm crazy about rapid cycling for optimal results that I tend to favour it. This is the guy who has handled max weapons (and max+2 points of weapon power), two lv4 drones, cloak, 3 shield, and 50%+ dodge on the same ship, but doesn't use Zoltans. (Really wiped the floor with the boss that round, took 3 damage total, but it's a real workout)

I like versatility, and so I slightly favour the MKIII. The MKII is still bloody awesome though.

[RedWarrior0]

Autoscouts you can get 3 on. Auto Assault you can only get 2.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, that must be it.

Anyway, I learned something interesting today! If you meat a mantis who wants you ship, but then says "forget this" and tries to escape?

Let him.

You'll thank me later. ^_^