Because.

To elaborate a little more: small ships are no mere temporary stopgap on some inexorable and twisted path to becoming an overweight space whale as is often the case within this genre.
Here they're their own thing; it's a size-class not a tier.

With practice and a little love, Size 1-2 ships are perfectly viable endgame vessels, to the point where an achievement for doing what they're meant to be doing; Hunting Ravagers, was introduced.

In fact, early on they're better at it than the big ones. If you can't outmaneuver a ship your only option is to beat it out with stats. Sure you can absolutely do that in spades in endgame with cruisers and dreadnoughts, it's stupid easy to do it faster and safer even, but until you are geared out for it, guess who's doing what you can't?

Also several people asked and eventually caused a "seemed like a good idea at the time".


In this somniferous column of long-winded rambling, we'll go over some basics of dispensing indiscriminate justice in (mostly) size 2 craft. It is not a playstyle all will find enjoyable, but for those who do, the rewards include a perk and ship focused entirely on doing even more of it.

Plus you'll get to claim you used some skill to pull it off.

The 'guide' assumes you've done the tutorial and played around at least a little bit.

This game has one. Nice people made it. It may be useful to you for perk and ship info.
https://star-valor.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Valor_Wiki



With new mechanics gradually being implemented this guide, much like wiki entries, is being very slowly updated. Patches may change the value of any info or advice within of course.

As it won't be detailed in-game for the time being - lore and whatnot coming after mechanics, I thought it a good idea to ensure it's passed on:


If this penalty is applied to every 'tick' of shooting just as it does regular shots for beam weapons, this certainly explains some of the heat issues observed with them on smaller craft.

• On a regular bolt-laser, this isn't too bad; efficiency goes down. A shot that inflicts 17 heat, four times per second, will do if you somehow had no cooling at all: 17, 17.68, 18.39, 19.12... though again that assumes no cooling offsetting a part of these gains - and there's always at least a little.
  
• A 50 h/s continuous weapon however deals 2.5 per 'shot' and likely recalculates, 20x per second. At the moment you reach 31.25, were the increase frozen there you would now be adding +25 heat per second from the gauge alone (1.25 heat x 20).

While higher heat levels would also overwhelm them as long as it remains near-0 thanks to high enough cooling, it never gets the chance to become a problem.

I'll try to confirm if this is indeed the way the heat penalty is recalculated, but it would match the insane build-up speed once you're in the yellow.

You may or may not start with these - anything unlocked you can start with no matter the faction. Even if you couldn't buy it due to some silly genocide faux-pas, you may still find it as a derelict. The only one that must be chosen (it cannot be found in-game) as a starter to have in your save is the Lacewing, and there won't be more so remember where you parked.

Reminder: No matter what ship you choose, even if you're currently using a keyboard, keep moving and abuse the boosted lateral movement during rolls. You are not a tank.

Size 1: Shuttles

Despite lacking a copilot seat (a lot more on those later), the V1 has 20% generic energy damage bonus, and the natural hull regeneration of all Venghi vessels.
Agile enough that for very low level hunting back in the early days of burst-lasers or rapid mediums(if you're lucky) if you don't have the Mi, the villa might do the trick.

There's a trick it's in graveyards to finding it, but once unlocked it's effectively the top shuttle currently in the game. Stupid high crit chance thanks to having the rebel faction buff and its own +10% crit chance, and it's got a copilot seat.
This thing earns its purple with ease.

Size 2:Yachts.

Yachts are the space minivans, Uhauls and 'heavy fighters' of the game. Anything bigger can actually use 'large' components, which are slightly more efficient per point of space in most cases as well.

However, not all differences are there on the stat sheet: widely spaced fixed points on capital vessels can't *all* hit such a small target at once; barely more (if at all) than they can hit shuttles, and much like in the Shmup genre it can take inordinate amounts of firepower sprayed around just to hit you. Meanwhile the few tightly packed guns on a Reaper are aiming at the broadside of an angry metal barn.

Walrus:

Got so fat they were reclassified as a corvette.

The new bombshell in the civilian category they gave Walrus' gunship job to after the incident.
This newer hotter model's not just about looks though, it's got some real credentials backing its position in this list: 6 well-clustered hardpoints, each backed by a 10% critical chance bonus.
Maneuvering and speed are poor for a Yacht, at a woeful 10, but the ability to stack up to 11 space of gun across six points allows excellent heat control. There's also another surprise not yet implemented into the model... underside that cockpit there. If you want a 'heavy fighter', the Dragon ought to do the trick. I know a couple of pilots who even prefer it over the 'too twitchy' Lacewing.

The PMC blue. Four hardpoints, nice and clustered up in front, with average speed/agility, good amounts of space, and a bonus to cannons. Also the four engines look rather neat. Quite viable if you go for cannons and a jousting style.
Watch the per-shot heat generated by your cannons (especially burst 2-3s), as overheat occurs just a little short of the real maximum and your cooling rate, like any other yacht, is abysmal.

The Venghi fighter is a relatively fine choice. It's a lot better than a low-grade copilot with that regen and general stats, but does fall short when compared to a Reaper or Phantom packing a blue or purple with good efficiency and bonuses.
As is, the V2 is a trio of energy guns, such as Rapid Mediums or the ever-efficient Venghi Blasters (they're rather rare though) that can put out quite a bit of hurt in a fairly tight package.

This was my personal choice for ravager hunting until Battleship Raid and the Lacewing came out. An excellent all-around combat machine for its size, topped by the best general-purpose faction bonuses for the job - agility and crit-rate. In a lot of ways it would be a better Dragon for the moment, but only three hardpoints keeps it from going full purple.
There is one severe drawback to the Phantom however: it's a bit wide and it sticks to things when colliding from the front. Less than originally, but still notable. While you can take advantage of this in specific situations with a bit of skill or luck it can also result in serious damage when you snag the front end of heavy plasma.

If you have this, you don't need to be reading this guide. This is the *other* reward for earning Battleship Raid (a powerful perk in itself). Thin, light, spectacular capabilities in all save straight line speed (where it matches the walrus), this is what you fly when *how you unlocked it* was not intense enough for you.
Minor warning about the very thin rectangular hitbox: if lying flat against a turning Titan, be sure your guns are pointed down into that muffintop protruding 'cross its belt.
The enemy-attractor effect is double that of Last Starfighter and Battleship Raid and stacks with both of them (as well as the recently altered White Collar and friends). Brutal start, but once you can dish out as good as what's coming for you this gradually morphs into a steady source of high-end loot.

When we're talking perks, there's a few things to consider.
First is "how much of a bother"
Second is "do I need this now"

This guides my selection of "Other Perks". Overall perks are self-explanatory, just seeing what they offer will tell you exactly how attractive this is to what you're building towards, so this is really just about picking and going for things early on as given enough time any save can have most if not all of the non-background perks anyway.


Battle Rush requires killing a ravager before level 10. Now this is a great way to get started on Battleship Raid, but unfortunately it's a little bit RNG-dependent. You can very well find yourself 10+ before you meet your fated victim as the early levels can be quick.
Easy to get in-game when the chance shows up, still a good pick for a starter.

Combat Genius / OCD / Dogfighter / Anaximander / Near Miss / Trial by Fire and to a certain extent if you bother Tutor are all "natural" perks in a sense. All of them 'will happen' over time unless you pretty much go out of your way to avoid it.
Do you need any of them now? Because if not, you'll have them later for sure. Don't take Near Miss, you're literally two warps away from getting it soon as you've got a drive!

Fun With Maps is in the middle here; it's relatively simple and straightforward to obtain, like the other 'naturals', but it's a bit of a chore, and back before Crew it was damned tedious.

Defender / Legionary / Last Starfighter may be a bit difficult for some to get, or can cause unwanted reputation drops. The bonuses are worth getting (if small); if you've got a spot or two left in your Others, whichever you've the hardest time getting or accepting is a good pick. Some have trouble getting Defender or don't want what comes with earning Legionary on their save for example.


Your intended or available starting size is also a factor; if you want to start with not-a-shuttle, you'll have to restrict yourself from quite a few of these. I usually pick Battle Rush just to be safe, and Fun with Maps because I am lazy. The rest can vary but depending on the background choice given what ship size you're wanting to start with.

Some perks are easier to get early. A level 12 Ravager when you're level 9 is a cakewalk if you know the game even a little bit. Get five ravagers before you hit 20 and all is well with the world, go roll up a Lacewing.

• The most blatant here is Perfect Predator; overkilling some level 23 Komb-E coming out of cloak with your Mi-laoshu is amusing but easy. Trying to down a level 51+ Pelican in under 3 seconds in that same shuttle ... that takes cheese.

Like mines and a tractor beam perhaps?
It's stupid-easy to blow up a mid-level yacht or the cheaper cruddier corvettes in something small, compared to actually having to put in some effort in against some 55 frigates. Also a lot more common to find too.


These are easier and require no unlocking. If we're trying to destroy things, Ordnance is a given. The others are more to your taste; Armor Plating's nice, so are Power Optimization, Storage, Maneuverability or Velocity.

For background, if you choose Outis (for that corvette base), you won't start with the nice bonuses but can switch to them later. Notable is Lone Wolf which makes everyone not-hate you at a cost of reputation caps, and comes with decent movement buffs. Make sure you grabbed some of those CoT/Venghi Honored gear before you hit 30 and 'go solo'. Should that happen, however, you can still obtain the gear either as mission rewards or (for the orange stuff) as drops - just be careful not to unfriend them with too many kills or a station.

Any background you want is viable. It may change your start conditions a little, but anything you
can't trade for you can always hope to get as quest rewards or loot drops.

So you've decided to fly a small ship, and now you want to shake down the tubby ones with gold stars next to them for their innards of the highest quality.

Eye their hardpoints closely: It rarely takes more than a second of combat to know just what you're dealing with and where it's coming from. Maybe 2-3 seconds if they're using heal drones since those won't come out until they've taken hull damage.

At low levels this is simple. If you want to get Battleship Raid, a lot of low grade ravagers are in frigates or cruisers, armed most often with non-beam lasers. You'd lose out on a slugfest, but your mobility can keep even a direct face-off in your favor with a practice.

• The earliest ones may not even have any regenerative capabilities, and some of the early ones don't even have shields, so hit and run becomes entirely in your favor
  
  
• Plasma is hit or miss in more than one way here. They can be hard to differentiate but there are 'light' bolts which will do significant damage though relatively low DPS - just don't panic - and also heavier ones which are usually larger. The latter in endgame may crit for upwards of 800 depending on your Damage Res. That's not the fun kind of math.
  
  
• Most endgame Ravagers have either an autorepair system or repair drones, and generally extensive shields. This acts as a bit of a DPS gate as you're going to have to overwhelm this even when using hit&run. You may reduce their current numbers on a consistent basis if you have a point-defense weapon but also assume they won't "run out" when planning an attack.

Early on, Ravagers are just gold-star frigates or cruisers. While certainly tougher than other things you might face so soon in your career, they're not much different in behavior or in threat; just a few more guns and a larger health pool. That said, like any other Ravager, they can be surprisingly quick-turning for their size - they have to be or they'd be much too vulnerable to everything they face.

• EXCEPT ONE: The recent multi-beam Kurma. I've run across them in the early 30s mostly, but another player's video on the discord showed them facing off against a level 24 with the same capabilities. Non-issue for cruiser facetanking... a nightmare match for an ill-equipped mid-level fighter on Hardcore. I'm not even particularly comfortable dealing with them on HC in full purple.
  
  The Kurma's three middle turrets are a 360° 4/2/2 combo (medium reds in the side 2-slots are the kind of thing we might be using too), and the rear 180° ultralaser gimbal is also non-restricted spacewise. Attack and Heal drones are mounted though the latter easier to swat than Titans, and the whole is supplemented by some missiles.
  
  Try to use a crew-extended-range sniper faceoff against the fixed-forward 'spinal' mount without going past the upper side of the forward flanks - lest you be close enough to have the turret trio shaving your shields off as well. Aft is a no-fly zone.
  
  Attack drone bay may supplement against bigger fare, but small ships are already forced to stay on the move so it's a very minor consideration even if you don't scrap'em. The missiles are no real threat on their own but a bit of knockback from the wrong angle at a bad moment could put the purples back on you.
  
  If its front ultralaser (stay the hell off the rear one) is chewing through you too easily despite constant rolling and repositioning, consider an asteroid (ideally field) and missiles; having one float just near the edge of its range and tossing out some homing. It'll take forever, it's going to cost you quite a bit of missiles, but the option's there. The missile launchers might toss your rocks out of position, so do watch out for that.

The most common lootbox later on is the Titan. As the currently-sole form of 'Ravagers' these come in a decent variety of loadouts, some of which are far more dangerous to you than others:

• Models sporting primarily projectile weaponry may have some side vulcans but are overall the easiest. Weave, try to keep behind it for maximum safety, and watch for the plasma bolts. Don't stick your nose in the little 'cup' in front against these ones, most of the threat comes from the turrets behind the fork.
  
  
• Titans with light beams supported by blasters require a little bit more care. While beams are difficult to take advantage of *as* a yacht, their DPS and hitscan velocity can keep a steady burn on your shields and/or hull from bad positioning. They don't usually have plasma, but their ability to keep the pressure on you, most particularly those with a fully turreted beam weapon, is a better alternative against the likes of you.
  The usual 4:30/7:30 positions work great, but the front hole may also be a relatively decent spot as well.
  
  
• Front-mounted Capital beam models. They're usually easier than the former IF you can force them into the typical turning-fight. Your first worry is this game's equivalent of a BFGreen hitting from offscreen, which on Hardcore could finish you off in a second if you don't react quickly. Ram that cup and see what else it has, decide whether if you'd be safer in the rear flanks on a turning fight. If not, just stay in there, watch your shields and be ready to run, preferably towards the side without the Station III (usually it's just on one of the two 'fork points').
  
  
• Attack Drone Ravagers are usually dead-easy if you've got PD weapons. A stack of these gradually (or quickly) picks you apart requiring abuse of their leash and movement speed limits to avoid certain doom from just staying nearby. Even a 0.5 sized purpled PD beam bought from the trader's or some orange you found will chew through them as fast as they can approach you.
  
  Without high explosion size such as can be crafted on a PD Burst Cannon, you'll want to swat the repair drones as they're orbiting around the side since their orbit's within the hitbox on the long axis of a titan. With it, you can aim right down the cup and catch'em as they cross the top. With drones being decimated, the rest of these is usually a basic projectile model of no real threat.
  
  
• A rare few are equipped with a turreted capital beam. This is a harsh fight on Normal. If you're not already covered in Oranges, you may want to avoid these on Hardcore, they leave a yacht with very little room for error. Maybe if I had a decent controller for smoother rolling and strafing, but even then these are dangerous.

Hey they're loot too. However, while the projectile-turreted ones are an easy enough affair; just roll around from a range where the fewest possible are even shooting at you, it's a different story if dealing with a 52+ Venghi Battlestation covered in green beams longer than your Optic-boosted screen.

• On Normal you can roll, hit&run and do a bit of damage until they die as long as you're striking the hull a bit with every run.
  
  
• On Hardcore they're basically not worth the risk unless you cheese it with extended range missiles and cloak aggro-abuse. And then it's not worth the time either

You may as well just play with hunter squads spawned by "You will often attract more powerful enemies", which are more profitable, a lot less tedious, and less likely to have six Capital Beam IIIs overlapping your dead aft.

As always be mindful of heavy vulcans with a light hull - that damage can add up if you aren't paying attention. When dealing with either Ravagers it's the Guardians you really need to watch in this regard, whereas with angry Red Skulls it's the Cerberi who tend to be coated in the damn things - a pathetic foe to an armor-focused dreadnought, but a real fight for a yacht in energy armor.

Never forget that shots that go *through* you can be used to your advantage. To even a slightly experienced yacht captain, enemy missiles are YOUR weapon.

You've probably come across the newest cruiser; the Hephaestus. To unlock it the first time it requires a little fight, reducing it to under 1/3 its health (if you destroy it you won't get the ship).

Its total weapon list would be scary, but this is a ship designed to blast whole crowds, with an AI that believes it can win a face-to-face duel without picking on someone its own size. Big mistake, as long as you yourself make none.

• Forward mount's a doom cannon, front turret's a burst cannon, rear turret a purple PD (cruiser gives it decent range), and the sides and rear traverse have burst or flak cannons in there as well.

The PD and traverse are solid enough, and the sides could easily demolish you if they actually managed to land hits, so unless you're twitching in a Lacewing, you want to avoid those. And even in that latter case, there's really one place above all you want to be: at the maximum of your weapon range, dead in front.

Doom cannons may be big and imposing, the shots are likely larger than your ship itself...
But against a small target equipped with lateral thrusters, what it really means is "don't screw up": This weapon, especially at level 15 (the earliest for this fight) will vaporize a yacht in white/green gear on contact more likely than not - and that's on non-crit strikes.
For all its power, it is huge, slow-moving, mounted to a very limited gimbal, and the lightest tap on your laterals will keep you from its wrath.

• Bigger danger? The front turret's a burst cannon that's more than capable of taking a hull-chunk off clean through your low-level shields in just a hit. You can handle a handful of hits, and it's preferable to take one than the doom, but expect to deal with both at once at their own different RoFs.

Park yourself neatly at the edge of your own guns, keep the strafing short and tight. A light side-stepping touch always ready to double-tap will make this fight surprisingly simple and straightforward. The pace is slow, the target certain of its forward might, so go in calm and it won't stand a chance.

Your respecs at this point in time are limited. Use them wisely.
I usually level up without touching them, making sure to grab Master&Commander. A crafting-focused (still keeping M&C) respec once at 50 to set everything up slowly, and once you've got everything just right with a good copilot, one more respec for a final combat build - you won't need more than Prodigy in Social nor require Nano-boosters in engineering any longer either.

This of course is an obvious and major part of any combat build.

For small ships, Weaponry can be preferable to Hardness. Multiple smaller weapons gain a lot more, % wise, from the slight DPS boost than a capital ship with capital weapons does (for whom the real bonus is that 1% from just putting a point in the tree), whereas 25% of a couple of hundred adds a little more margin from error but isn't as big a boon for little ships than it is when you've got several thousand and have an advanced autorepair unit running under it all.

Gunnery/Precision are excellent. 15% crit chance and +40% crit damage bonus. Crits are a base +100% damage, that 40% means a critical hit would do 2.4x the damage of a normal hit's final result. Continuous weapons are also affected by crits, which act more as a general dps gain due to the speed and relatively small size of each individual damage tick.

Deflectors buff shields, which can climb higher than hull on smaller ships more easily. Still, armor would be slightly preferable were it not for what five points in this unlocks; 12% damage resistance from the one-point Improved Plating.

Nano Components is your friend. +1 gun space per ship size may only mean 2 for your yacht, but combined with Dogfighter, you're adding a full 50% more gun to a Reaper or Mi-laoshu, or at worst 37.5% more gun to a Lacewing. For example this means a Phantom (base 7) can now carry two heavy weapons for perfect predator, and still have 2 space worth of something for its third hardpoint.


Only three skills here directly boost your combat capabilities though they're also about simply getting around.

Navigation increases acceleration and top speed. In the first tier it's very easy to just find a few floating points to dump in here in the worst case, they will be well spent.

Optics grants an extra zoom level. Quite optional or even worthless to some, I find it very useful for sniping if your scanner power gets too high. Also defensively useful when dealing with the boosted range of capitals or space stations.

Finally the capstone, Ultra Light Components, flat-out buffs your maneuverability and booster capabilities (if you have more than one).

While Master Explorer makes said boosts cheaper, for small ships unlikely to have more than just one or two, the energy cost of boosting is usually not an issue at this scale. A pathfinder system will help your warp drive and a navigator or Nodolo Warp Mod (if you ever find one) will as well.


This was once utterly ignored in favor of basically anything else at all. With the advent of crew and changes to the tree itself, this has changed, particularly for the little ships.

Early on Prestige is a good way to put points into this. You want to get started on crew, finding and training (and jettisoning and firing) them until you find an ideal partner. The earlier and cheaper you can get them, the earlier and cheaper you can find out if they're a keeper or a shove out the airlock. You're also short on cash.
Later, at high levels, with your respecs Renown becomes the better option for dumping the first five, as it lets you control aggro a little better for "who started what with whom".

The real meat however is these three:
Born Leader ups the efficiency of all subsystems affected by your crew. They themselves may have 110% or more, to which that 5% gets added before multiplying (past ship hardcaps on things like strafe and turn rate) the values. This effect may be 'mild' overall but an extra +5% to a majority of a ship's stats is phenomenal.

Prodigy is the grand prize here. YMMV on other bigger ships - if all you have in the first slot is some single Navigator or something, +1 tier and an extra boost to all their is probably not worth another 8% energy storage over in another tree, but a first officer might be worth it.
Put that on a copilot affecting numerous subsystems though, and you've just overhauled your ship across the board..
Here is a before and after for a two-skill purple copilot:
Now imagine a 3-skill purple or orange.

If you want those great copilots, you're going to have to up their rarity ... and also hope they're learning something nice instead of trash. You're not here for an Instructor/Supervisor/Navigator, you need something that actually helps you. For that they need to get their third skill and as much rarity as possible before they hit 50.
Therefore, until you've got some legendary friends or perfectly-bonused Epics at least, you want Master and Commander to get them there.
A very low (single digit) level blue hiree is *very* likely to reach Legendary (orange) rarity by the time it hits 50 under this skill - it would be only slightly more likely to reach Epic (purple) by then without it.

Engineering

Yeah we can skip Business, that tree's not for us right now, nor later. It's good, but not for us. Not for this.
Engineering's a good dip. 10 points opens access to the hybrid Advanced Cooling which is equal in power to a purple Pirate Heatsink. 2 space plus a tiny bit of energy saved there.

Power Capacitors + Reactor Optimization are great to have. Only pure ammo builds don't need more power unless warping (for which capacity is nice anyway), and even then it won't hurt if they can drop another reactor while putting more shields in its place.

Nano Boosters are critical when crafting. Once you've got your crafting done you never need it anymore. Get it, spec out of it later once you no longer need its boon. For energy weapon users that's a one point perfectly suited to cooling by the by.

The scavenging side is nice to have while leveling and all, but a debris analyzer comp doesn't just stack with it, it can also replace it for your purposes. They're by no means bad, Tech Level and loot are never bad to have, we're just not focused on this at this time is all.

Harder Components is highly attractive, but in a rough place for little ships. You get a lot more out of prodigy than this in overall value. 2-3 space depending on your ship is appealing yet below what 5% and +1 bonus tier offer.
Where it's great however is on the largest ships; this bonus easily turns into 11+ equipment space on capitals, a massive, versatile hardware buff.

A good final combat build personally, using 49 of the 50 points with the selected skills maxed (total point value in parentheses):

• Reactor Optimization, Power capacitors(10)
  
• Navigation, Fine Tuning, Optics (11)
  
• Weaponry, Gunnery, Precision, Deflectors, Improved Plating, Nano Components (16)
  
• Weaponry 10 / Engineering 10 Hybrid: Advanced Cooling (1)
  
• Prestige(2/5), Renown(3/5), Born Leader, Prodigy (11)

And you can either stick the last point in armor plating or keep nano boosters if you really want.

One of the biggest changes so far in the game has been the introduction of the first parts of the crew system (the developer's working tirelessly on various systems).

As of right now they're effectively "stat sticks". You put someone in a position such as engineering or piloting, they affect it, and they have extra bonuses to further affect it. Their effects go above and beyond limitations a ship may have by default; for example yachts with a 50 turning cap can go much higher with a good pilot.

• Bonuses rise significantly with 'tier' of the bonus, will gradually improve in number and quality to the limits of the crew's own rarity, and make a massive difference once fully 'grown' into their role.
  
• Only crew rarity (which caps their skill rarity) and number of skill categories known stops growing at 50, so that purple with three apprenticeships can make it all the way eventually.

The mightiest of seats is "Copilot". Reserved for smaller vessels (although corvettes can have it too so punish them mercilessly for this) this seat affects everything. All efficiency and bonuses of the assigned crewmate apply to the whole, except for the 'Aim' part of Gunnery.
That means a good copilot's gunnery bonuses affect all your weapons; Remember that picture back up there involving all weapons, plasma cannons and a crit bonus?

Of course, it's so good because for small ships, that's usually the only seat you get. Larger ships can have multiple dedicated seats for each of their various positions, thus while their gunners will only affect a single turret slot they can be specialized for their particular weapon or job, and though most of their multi-skill crew can only apply one of those to their new place in life, those stacked up piles of bonuses can indeed mighty their Titan.

To add insult to criticals, that's really easy to find in most cases: Specialist or Balanced of a particular category, with no need to care if that blue Supervisor will ever learn to navigate the big ship crew are everywhere! At most the rarity you need to worry about but you're levelling a half-dozen people at once or more just being big and crewed!

A small craft may only need the one, but they need to grind those trainees til they find THE ONE.
Be ready, this is going to take a while.

Prepare to "dismiss" a lot of applicants. There's a specific combo you're after:
Pilot, Engineering and Gunnery..
The order they get'em in doesn't matter. Balanced is alright, amazing even IF the right bonuses are what gets levelled up, but much of the time what you want here is Diversified instead.

Currently it is possible, very rare but possible for a diversified or balanced crew to double up on a skill category. For example "Pilot/Pilot" or "Engineer/Engineer". While efficiency is averaged and rounded down, bonuses all stack. It seems slightly less uncommon on diversified types.
This is of particular interest to Lacewings where there's a dedicated engineering seat. Just one more "but it's not perfect I could potentially find a..." on the grinding pile.
Given the difference in power between T1 and T2 bonuses, just the right set of bonuses on a Balanced model would effectively result in perfection.
Or maybe there's a triple engineer out there somewhere? We can dream.

• (A possible upcoming change to crew at the time of writing this is a change so crew only learn a single weapon to focus on. Since right now a gunner's biggest risk is the threat of learning four different weapons you don't even use, should this be implemented fewer victims will get spacedfired for leveling up wrong.)

Piloting has very few different abilities, all good. Just getting it's pretty much enough on a Diverse member; at 4 total bonuses, there'll be two spare ranks added somewhere in there - they aren't lost to the growth type.

So the *worst* that can happen to a diversified pilot is the spares both go into acceleration... which is no big loss. T1 in everything (T2 with prodigy) plus the efficiency is already wonderful.

A diversified engineer is going to be all over the place. Numerous different bonuses in the pool means you can get a lot of suboptimal combinations, again "but it's not perfect" is the worst case scenario - most of this stuff's good to have and the efficiency factor applies to a whole lot.

Bonuses here include more armor, shields, shield absorption, energy storage and generation, damage resistance, bonus tech levels (okay so ONE bonus that's kinda subpar later) and in rare but wonderful cases, Hull Regen (small but very significant value). It's all useful more or less.

The tricky one. This is one of the reasons this section comes before equipment and weapons. Your copilot will likely lean towards a particular weapon. Sometimes that's mining lasers, sometimes it's vulcans again.
Other bonuses include all-weapon%(lower than specific types but can stack with'em too), range%, flat range (like +24), maximum heat flat or %, -%heat generated (a favorite), +Crit chance and +Crit Damage...

The issue here is that this will either 'guide' your weapon choices, or make you balk at the gunner's results and look for someone else who doesn't demand you use Vulcans on an energy-focused V2F. An All-Weapons%, -%Heat, +Range +Crit +Critdmg abomination with the one weapon of your choice, something I'd consider a "perfect" result, but reality's rarely that kind.

• As of patch 1.2.5, getting a gunner early enough can allow you to choose what weapon they're liable to learn instead of having to find weapons to match their preference. A significant boon for little ships.

The Efficiency of Engineer and Pilot skills will be affecting your ship of course for a phenomenal rise in performance.

Here is a quick stat-shot of a (well-equipped) Lacewing: No one on the left, vs with legendary Prodigy-supported copilot. Total 117.5% engineering and 118.8% efficiency with Born Leader.
There's also an engineering seat (the Lacewing's got an extra space despite being a yacht), and not shown are the gunnery bonuses as those go on the weapon tooltips; even though cooling didn't improve those guns produce -18% heat apiece which makes a giant difference.

• If flying a Lacewing it is possible to swap the copilot's engineering skill for one with supervisor or navigator if you'd like, but double engineers, while averaging efficiency, stack all those bonuses right up. Balanced engineers or possibly even a specialist may be a better choice due to the lack of prodigy upgrades, if the resulting bonuses are what you need most.

The implementation of crew has made punching above your size-class easier than ever. The right purple or orange copilot will pay back all that time you spent training them up with massive shipwide passive buffs.

Don't just look at fifty blues in the high level areas - with a little care and the right social capstone skill, a low level blue or purple can become a magnificent orange covered in lethal buffs.

Where the biggest ships are deciding quite comfortably between their fourth shield generator or another trio of drone bays, at the shuttle and yacht scale every point of equipment is desperate for your love and attention, that you may grant it space on your exclusive little list.

Energy is also an issue here - not just for "all your weapons and the warp drive too" but simply for "can I afford to shoot and fly at the same time if I add a computer to my ship". And that means reactor count.
Small ship equipment may be smaller, but it is less efficient, and they're very low on space.

• Purple is normally (some exceptions) worth twice the base white rarity. A MkII gyro gives 13 turning power, that's 26 at Purple.
  
• Orange is 2.6x normally. An Orange Ardonian Small Battery (you may want a few) is 130 base energy (before your skill and crew multipliers), up from the 50 of the white version.

With space at a premium, the appeal is self-evident, especially as small ship gear is a tiny bit less space efficient than the larger stuff in most cases.


Let's start with the easier parts. I'll be mentioning primarily Legendary(orange) or sometimes Epic(purple) stats as these are the endpoint we all strive for. Most 'factional' equipment scales particularly well and may be rather unimpressive as a common in the shop window.

Reactors: You may get away with just one little one if using an ammo build. Otherwise you're going to need some cores. There are two target models at the time this was written:

• Miners Reactors are the PMC model. Looks like an ion generation-wise at first, scales up to 42.7 (21.35/space) generation and storage capacity.
  
• Venghi Reactors offer up to 65/s generation. However they're 3 space instead of 2, and offer no storage capacity, for 21.66~ generation per space

Things to consider are the space available versus your actual energy needs. Warp-drive costs aside you can get by with smaller batteries if your higher generation ensures those batteries drain more slowly. The Venghi isn't offering SO much more that you can get by without a bit of storage.

You'll get less generation but a lot more energy bar from a single Venghi with an Ardonian Battery, space in which you could fit two Miners for more power but less storage. Adjust your combination of these two to match availability and your individual requirements.

Batteries: If you need one - and you often do - there's currently just one option: A Small Ardonian Battery, as high rarity as possible. At 100, a Purple Ardonian's 1 space for four times the capacity of an early-game regular white 'small'.

Impulse: Two choices, one almost flatly superior especially for the lighter ships. A Mark Five impulse offers a little more acceleration, but for top speed it's all about the Pirate Drive. Lower energy costs as well just makes this a no-brainer.
You'll also be wanting a pirate booster as an upgrade to your regular speed boost.

Laterals and Gyros: While mostly self-evident, more turn more strafe more good, there's one thing to keep in mind: the cap.
Your turning speed is capped by ship category - a 50 before pilot on a yacht. Agility and mass help you get there cheaper but that's it.
Your strafing speed is capped based on your mass/agility. More thrusters won't help past that point, but changes in ship mass impact the results directly.
There is nothing to gain from equipping an orange Mk4 Gyro on a mass-reduced Phantom. It simply costs more energy.

Most armor changes your mass in exchange for health and damage resistance. Higher mass will drop your acceleration and require more turn and strafe power to keep up to your caps.
Here's some interesting ones.

• Lithrium dumps your mass by up to -45%, though at best 1.8x hull and 3.6% damage resist. Can do silly things to larger ships with the mass change, the good yachts are already so light this can only improve their strafe speed - with impressive results.
  
• Venghi Light armor is inferior to other endgame choices as an orange being inferior in all ways to Terran Armor at that point, but is an excellent purple much easier to find than the Terran (soon as you get one of those you switch). 2.6x HP, 17.5%, mass unchanged at any rarity.
  
• If you don't mind the added mass Venghi Heavy is extremely tanky, with up to an x4 health multiplier and 35.2% base damage resist. Your ship will get 9.1% heavier however, so be certain you're alright losing some of that precious edge against the biggest types. Their health still dwarfs yours after all.
  
• Terran Armor is a personal favorite and a powerful endgame armor: 3.8x HP, 28.3% damage resistance, -23.6% mass. Pretty much says it all.
  If more strafe isn't all that interesting to you (what? why?) you may also equip a Syndicate Cargo Expansion (+15% for +17.3% mass at purple), which can better support an ammo-build while still leaving you nimbler than if your ship was running around naked.
  
• Energy Armor is a whole other ballgame. It's always 1x mass, takes five space, costs 17.1 e/s to run on yachts, you can't equip another armor or main shield generators using this as your plating, and it does bad things to your main hull...
  
  
  • ...But at Orange, this armor gives you 0.7x HP, 33% damage resistance, and a base (remember the power settings, crew and your captain?) of 1100 shield with 11/s regen.
  
  You're more likely to find an orange one of these drop than you are 2 or 3 orange Venghi Shields, and you can still add more shield chargers. You're not gaining mobility and Heavy Vulcans become your new nightmare. Against anything else you may be capable of facetanking like a frigate in something too small to hit much of the time. Fun.

As always the choice is up to you. I try and do most of my hunting using Terran or Energy, but often use Lithrium early on and Venghi Light for "heavy" combat in mid-game if it's needed such as against turreted beam Ravagers rare as those are before 40.

Shields: 200% that stuff as always. If you're not using Energy Armor, it goes Venghi > MkIII. Chargers are better for you than absorption in terms of equipment - the latter are large and don't give much, but absorption itself isn't a bad stat. What you get from the Venghi shields and your crewmates will certainly help out.
If you're using Energy Armor, a good charger will help you immensely too.

Scanners and Drives Unless there's a friendly starbase in-system or you have regeneration you should not remove your warp drive for battle. So that's 3 space sunk there for a Deuterium.
Scanners for hunting are fine with as high a Basic Scanner as you can get, 1 space.
Ignore sensor boosters, these are not for us. It's alright to jump blind anyway.

The only other two you should be considering here are the Syndicate Scanner for hefty scanning scaling, or the 5-space D.O. Sweeper Drive, which can sometimes be found or bought and acts as a slightly better warp and sensor than your basic four point package. When doing long range exploration rather than murdering dreadnoughts, it's not a bad thing to pull out of the bank.

Computers:

• Optronic can drop with up to +39% damage at orange. It's a better Battle Computer. You want this.
  
• Pathfinder is also a good idea; you're using small scanners and a weak warp drive, and this gives a good chunk of extra range and lower cost. Also adds to jumpgate spotting range.
  
• Asteroid, Trader and Debris are not needed while in battle as they just cost energy. Weightless though, so there's no reason not to have as good a version of each as you can up in your cargo hold or banked for when you need'em.

First a little warning: The current crafting system and weapon balance are somewhat of a placeholder as new systems and levels of complexity are still being added to the game. This section may suffer drastic changes in the future.

And another little warning: Currently only the changes from captain skills are shown in the crafting window. This will change, but the numbers an item promises you is likely to look much worse than what's available in stores until actually made, if you're 'wearing' everything. Keep that in mind.

Let's start with a simple, almost-newbie-level overview of the options.

Weapon categories

Currently the game has four overall categories - a fifth would be drone bays but as they eat equipment rather than weapon space at the moment they're a very difficult proposition for small ships.

Which can be energy (Laser/Plasma) or Ammo (Vulcan/Cannon). Obviously these aren't hitscan - no railgun-likes or the such yet. Their range is supplemented by momentum from your ship.

This is both good and bad: If jousting you can begin an attack run a little earlier with plenty of shots impacting the target, however when in a strafe-heavy your shot trajectories may be hampered by your flinging them effectively sideways. If you're really sticking in there for a knife-fight however it won't matter.

Projectiles generally offer much lower energy use and heat generation than beam weapons. The ammo users are even lighter on your radiators and use no actual power, but can't be spiked with your energy settings either as a result and space is somewhat limited (much better as of the latest patch than before though).

• The most common way to murder ravagers early enough for Battle Rush is a couple of those cheap light burst lasers you can find anywhere.

Dumbfire unless you're locked onto something at which point they home until they hit something (preferably one of your enemies, whomever it was that even fired this) or run out of fuel. Only the ship that fired them ignores them with Friendly Fire kept on, so very often, for we agile little ships, other people's missiles are our friend.

Missiles are a little on the slow side thrust-wise in this game, but do have excellent range. Their per-hit power can be quite high though the reload can be slow and this comes with several additional drawbacks: Slow movement aside they can be shot down, and then there's their AoE

• Not because of splash - better a little splash to knock yourself out of the way than someone's plasma bolt... but because AoEs in this game inflict knockback. If you want to kill something with a whole lot of missiles - and you very well might - the first impacts can easily save them from the other ones.

The best way to reduce that is to grab them with a tractor-beam in 'slow/stop' mode. A locked target being tractored not only becomes easier for projectiles to smack about, it also finds itself with much of the impulse knockback would grant it negated. Perfectly time the cutoff of your beam if you want'em tossed by the final hit while you're at it, chances are you can just kill them instead.

Slow, but sticks around unless you give the mine some speed in the crafting (bad idea it turns out, it'll despawn soon as it reaches that very short range instead of staying where it is last I tried this). Mines are kinda crap as a weapon except they're absolutely incredible for cheesing things. You can just keep on laying them atop one-another and all it needs then is a victim...
... A victim and for you to not be near the blast radius when they blow.

Consider nudging things yourself, or pulling them into mines using a tractor beam, while remembering that these, being explosive, do inflict a bit of knockback. So do ensure a little bit of speed's picked up as they're sent right into the field of death. This is an easy way to gain certain perks easily at high levels.

Mines if very very carefully used can even be used to blow stations - you'll just need a trigger of some sort, luckily there's usually a few standing guard nearby who are just as friendly anyway.

Continuous beam weapons are fun, pretty much hitscan, can have excellent DPS, and run stupid hot. They're quite reactor intensive, but generally the highest DPS available per point of space... IF you can keep them online more often than not. They come in 'mining' laser, 'laser' laser, and 'ion' variants. Arguably there's also the healing beam but they're somewhat counterproductive for our purposes.

• They could use some variance in their sound and maybe some extra graphical styles though later on.

Beams don't get momentum imparted, but if you're doing lacewing acrobatics against a hostile fleet of golds this lets you keep your target where your cursor is, instead of recalculating lead multiple times a second to keep your shots from flying off in every direction. For all their costs, and they do have a lot of that, sometimes they're your best bet.

Stations and Capital vessels have no such restrictions, and with the right equipment can keep ultralasers and capital beams running, potentially eternally. SleepyDragon's stream is usually a whole lot of doing exactly that for example.

This is the easy part. Your choice of weapons involves quite a few metrics but these narrow down your options rapidly.

Weapon-Space is a given. DPSwise, usually it's a bit better to have multiple weapons filling up the space than one big one.

Hardpoints are of course 'a thing'. Each has its own heat gauge, which is another reason you may want to split things up as things currently are.

Gunnery gets involved too. If I'm on a Reaper and my copilot's offering -18% Heat and +21% Cannon damage too, they're trying to tell me something here. My current HC run at the time of this writing is using Miners Lasers precisely due to a legendary copilot's preferences. I ain't arguing with those numbers.

If your ship and pilot are telling you to do something... this may help do it.

Missile: With long range % range buffs are better than flat (the opposite is true of mining lasers). A missile-boat has almost no need of reactor power or battery capacity beyond that of running its base systems and warping about. You may well get away with as little as one reactor and an ardonian battery.

Consider the Syndicate Expansion + Terran Armor combo, and enjoy the space your lack of heat and energy requirements have created in your equipment tab.

Missiles due to their terrible reload time are extremely compatible with the aggro-control of a Cloak (regular or Ardonian) or Terran Mantle, though obviously this requires a little more reactor power in there to pull off.
Don't forget your tractor beam.

• PEACEMAKERS: are a fairly new addition to the game worth their own little blurb. You can't quite make the same combination of hit-damage, DPS, range, movement speed and ammo efficiency as these new cruise missiles. Peacemakers are excellent all-rounders with an abysmal reload time and brutal four-digit per-hit damage. You can craft more specialized affairs, but the peacemaker will beat them in the rest of the categories.
  They damn well better be for 4 space and ten ammo per launch though, but quite a few of our favorite ships can equip a pair.
  
• As can enemies now, like the occasional elite Dragon, so when you see an oversized missile flying at pulson speeds towards you, try to make sure it hits anyone else instead.

Mine: As Missiles but they don't move so you'll have to.

Vulcan: Avoid this unless your copilot really wants you to. The low DPS and per-shot efficiency make this as much a chore to use as a small ship as it is a threat to you when used by enemies on Hardcore if you're using energy armor.

• Recent changes do allow a hefty load of them, however going through 55k health on Vulcans will still take a while.

Vulcans create a bit of heat. Not much, and nothing using Nodolos over Pirate Sinks can't take care of, but it's there.

Cannon: Kanonenvogel are a bit dependent on a few factors but can be appropriately wonderful jousting platforms. Cannons have access to AP munitions in the crafting table which gives a massive crit-chance boost.

With the right copilot, perks and skills, the grand majority of your cannon shots could each be inflicting over triple their listed damage due to things like Precision and Battleship Raid, for superb DPS. Even with store-bought ones, cannons offer some flak variants and average power for no energy cost.

Cannons generate a fair amount of heat especially if crafted, since you're very likely to want to use Overload. Heating's not as bad as energy weapons but can still quickly build on Burst models.

'Blaster': Projectile type energy weapons, both laser or Plasma (the latter of which is its own thing for copilot bonuses, 'energy' turns out to mean 'non-mining laser cores'), will add at least one reactor to your equipment slots.

They heat up a bit more than cannons too in exchange for not touching your cargo bay, even moreso if set to 150 or 200%. Consider the total heat value of a Burst model versus your capacity before cooling rate, as the rapid release of shots could overwhelm and render heatsinks obsolete, but they're usually much higher DPS than normal or charge models.

Beam: Consider advanced cooling, and unfortunately as that would require going 10 into the business tree, ignore the ever-useful -% Beam Energy Cost in the hybrids. Beams want that -heat% bonus off your gunners like nobody's business, and you'll have to consider some pirate sinks instead of purely Nodolos if you have the latter.

Energy cost and Heat on these are both as high as it gets in this game. If your blasters would add one reactor, these add another and, chances are, a bit more battery to go with it.

There's another path with beams though; if you've got bonuses for mining lasers their heat and energy use are significantly lower, on the easier end of the 'blaster' building reqs reactor-wise.

Sure their range is utter crap but that's before flat adders such as ship type or copilot bonuses.
That's Miners Lasers (PMC rep) with 62 range thanks to ship and copilot. At 708.8 dps each, that's a decent knife.

If you're using so much side-thrust that sending projectiles forwards is becoming an issue, despite all the difficulties in running beams on a small ship, you may find yourself with little choice. Storewise, Medium reds are good, Improved can be better but are 3 space and need careful trigger management as they can overheat within a few seconds with good cooling.
Ultras are unfortunately not for us.
Purchased purple point beams can help round out your build and defenses.

The crafting system is at this time somewhat of a placeholder. This will change, probably greatly, in the future. At the moment however it's a bit limited but can be used for some nice tricks.
One of its biggest current drawbacks, space-notwithstanding, is that you cannot 'orange' a crafted weapon. That's not to say it's useless, but it does mean you can come across some drops that will be better than a lot of the crafting options if you're lucky, especially in regards to DPS/Space.

So before we craft, let's have a peek at some of their endgame competition just for reference.

All numbers here will be given assuming NO captain skills, crew, perks or anything. I've tried to keep them as naked as possible. For dropped weapons we'll use orange stats as these are what crafting risks having to compare to in the long term.

Right at the start there's generally three options we're 'looking' at. the Small Laser, Light Laser, Light Burst Laser and Simple Mining Laser. No, that's not four: the Small Laser is trash, sell it as soon as possible.
Of the four, the Light Burst and Simple Mining both offer better DPS (up to 32.5 at Orange). The hitscan of the Mining beam is countered by extremely short range and higher heat and energy. At low levels the projectile status of the Burst is more than compensated for by how easy it is on your reactors and longer reach. Lacewings can make the mining beams work surprisingly well however thanks to their +20 range tripling it.

Surprisingly damaging is the PD Laser. With 21.8 DPS and 30 range it may seem inferior at first glance, but 0.5 space means you can stack up twice as many. Use the 'Delay' function on a few per hardpoint to smooth out your heat generation.
Medium Lasers are better than your starters right out of the box.
Light Laser Beams are a high heat, 2-space option. At 50 range and 68.3 orange DPS you'll more than double the Mining Beams, but 10.5e/s base energy and 43.8/s base heat (and that's at 100% settings) is nasty for that amount.
Especially since they're soon to be replaced by Medium Laser Beams, just as big and offering 115.4 DPS for 19.2e/s and 55/s base heat. Sure that runs damned hot for a little ship, but the damage is significantly higher.
PD Rapid Lasers are the improved PD. 54.6 DPS for 2.4e/s and 21.3h/s. Again, it's a knife, but it's a good knife especially with flat range boosts.
PD Laser Beams are 1 space rather than 0.5, with 40.6 dps, 6.3e/s and 29h/s. Amazing at slashing away drones and missiles, but clearly inferior damage-wise to the rapids.

Rapid Medium Lasers are one of the better per-space projectile choices for small ships. 72.8 dps for 3e/s and 23.8h/s. These are a staple for small ships, excellent all-around as long as you don't need hitscan.
Burst Medium Lasers are green, and a bit stronger, though their 77.9 dps comes at a 7.97e/s and 33.2h/s. Thing is they're annoyingly rare in my experience, and orange ones even moreso (you'll find tons of basic blue beams and light bursts and the such though)
Venghi Blasters are high efficiency options that look different (little green balls instead of star wars 'bolts'). The lights have a base cost of 2.4e/s and 20h/s for 59.8 DPS and a little bit more projectile speed than the red bolts. Heavies take two space, but have 90 range, and 113.8 dps for 6.3e/s and 43.1 heat.

Improved Laser Beams are a 3-space with up to 148.1 dps, 70 range, and staggering (for us) 30.96e/s and 71.8h/s base numbers.
Heavy Mining Lasers are just barely less-inferior to sticking three mining beams upon the same hardpoint, with 'just' the heat of two. By the time we can get them that's not worth it.
Miners Lasers are another story. Base values of 149.5 dps, 20.7e/s and 47.7h/s; notice that range aside they're better than the Improved? Remember that picture earlier, with ship and crew bonuses? Bit of a hidden gem, with the right ship and the right crew.

Forget the Ultralasers, Heavy Lasers and the such for now. The heat's simply too high, scrapping their uptime.

You've noticed the lack of them up there. They're mostly better crafted for DPS. However, for the sake of per-shot efficiency, the Burst Missile Launcher offers up to 49.4 damage per missile, while, slow as they are, the 'heavy torpedo' style Demolition Missiles are at 130 per hit for 2 ammo (65 damage per missile spent), and have a massive mining bonus too in case they hit a rock.
The store bursts also have 5 base splash radius to a crafted missile's 4 (before additional explosion size upgrades, but those do drop damage). Though their DPS can't be fine-tuned for higher results, these are indeed better than what you can craft purely on a per-hit basis, so if you get lucky on the drops, these oranges may be finer options.

Size(weapon space used) goes up fast as you multiply cores and effects like Heavy and Continuous, and while it's more efficient heat/energy-wise than just stacking multiple small ones, the damage doesn't go up so fast.

Heavy is rarely worth it unfortunately, but modifiers like Rapid and Burst do not alter the required space and can significantly change how a regular peashooter actually performs. Overload's a bit harder to take advantage of on little ships unless making Point Defenses or single-shot overheat plasmas - we'll get to those.

• A current 'bug/quirk' in the crafting system (I believe Ladyhawk on Discord was the one to be credited for the discovery?) allows weapons capable of both Heavy and Point Defense to be built. Let's preface this by mentioning the results are generally ♥♥♥♥, but you CAN do them, whether just for fun or for a particular niche that might work well later (like a long ranged point turret once allies will be able to defend others that way rather than just themselves) you can grandfather in.
  
• Procedure is this: Select a weapon that can take point defense, and highlight it. Hit reset, don't touch the mods below, but now pick a Plasma core. This automatically adds Heavy, but PD remains highlighted. Now *REMOVE* (not reset) the plasma core, and add the core you actually wanted (such as a purple laser or something). Now click add for the highlighted Point Defense mod.
  
• Again though, the stats tend to be pretty bad.

Relics: We won't be considering the cost too much or too often here. They're not abundant early on, but with good scanners or a penchant towards murdering bosses, they'll eventually be flowing in regularly. That cost by the way can get quite high; if you want to purple 12 guns, that's either 36 or 24 (depending on a certain hybrid skill and your crafting location so take a look) relics. There's a reason I save one of my respecs for a "crafting/crew-training" phase when 50 comes.

Burst: Burst rating 2 offers the highest DPS; it was Burst III before, which only beat it by a sliver despite the added heat spike on the volley from an extra shot. However burst timing was altered in a patch not long ago, so as a result, Burst III begins to drop the total DPS in most circumstances.
Burst 4+ can still offer some nasty damage spikes of course, which can be useful against large swarms of gold elites as their constant pushing and piling shifts who's eating your fire at any given moment, and the Venghi ones in particular can heal up rather quick up on Hardcore.

Rapid: Rapid modifier greatly diminishes the per-hit damage. It increases heat and damage both significantly less than Burst. On ammo weapons it actually reduces ammo use, making it easier to play with efficiency on multi-cores, though the damage loss per shot must be considered too.

Rapid and Burst can have odd looking effects if you grab the Weaponry Skill. As it improves DPS, higher ratings will diminish the per-shot damage a little in accordance to the increased rate of fire a tiny bit. It's enough to glare at angrily, but the mods are usually still very much worth using.

Here are some simple early, easy recipes to start us up, mostly in the 1-space category with very low tech level requirements. Since they cannot be oranged, we'll be looking at their purple stats, once again completely naked and with weapons set to 100%.

Purple's range boost is ideal for beams, while the extra damage and projectile speed of Greens makes them the most capable projectiles.

1 Core, Overload, Burst x1: Even on a single blue core this twin-shot, 1s reload weapon will net you 48.6 DPS, a solid 50% more than the Light Burst Laser. Greens start running hot at 32.4h/s, however 72.9 DPS for 1 space isn't bad and it's still cheap (but the crystals are green rather than blue).

• You can adjust the burst, laser type and whether or not you're keeping overload to further enhance and refine the damage, heat and energy envelopes for your weapon. If you've got a .5 or something left to stick in a hardpoint, a pair of heat or critical boosters may be just what the repair drone ordered. Whatever you choose will

You'll notice the reds still doesn't quite match up to a looted Rapid laser, the recipe only going over orange rapids for DPS if you go for Burst 2~3 overload. Naturally you'll be running a little hotter too.

Just one Mining Core: Keeping it stupid-simple, a purple crafted single core gives 37.5 DPS with 12 range (a whole two more) and just a tiny bit more heat(19.1) and 7 (vs 4) e/s. Hey, better's better.

• With Overload, this becomes 46.9 dps, 10.63e/s and 26.1h/s
  
• With a second core instead you get 75 dps, 14.18e/s and 25.5h/s, but it's 2 space
  
• Two Cores and Overload: 93.7 dps, 21.26e/s, 36.1h/s

Melee weapons, but in certain ships and/or with certain crew bonuses they can get significantly longer. A single solo core may not look good next to even the orange light blue beam but at just one space you could do more damage for less heat and just a tiny bit more energy than the blue by stuffing two in a hardpoint.
Available possibly in the very first system with a bit of luck. Inexpensive and effective when you need hitscan.

There's a unique orange, the X-27 Flak, which at 2 space and 130.8 dps for 12 splash radius is a pretty sweet find. However, other than that, you want these crafted.
Armor Piercing is good stuff. You can even overload these weapons for more power and heat, though watch the burst cannons should you go that far.

Just one Cannon Core: Already better at purple than an orange light cannon with nothing on it. 28 dps to the LC's 25.9, with +10 range to boot. Dirt cheap.
Cannon Core: Armor Piercing, Overload: Same materials, still not even 220 credits apiece. 38.9 DPS, and THAT calculation assumes you don't have crit damage boosts (precision, battleship raid, etc)

• With Burst 3 we'll take it to 71 DPS. At 11.2 heat per shot fired, some cooling will help here in the long term.

The X-27 is more efficient damage and DPS per ammo what with just needing two per shot for 91 per hit, but looted 2-space burst cannons are just barely more powerful than a pair of non-burst AP Overload Cannons, but using 3 ammo rather than 2. It may be quite a while before you find X27's, especially orange ones.

Just one Vulcan Core: Interestingly while the DPS starts lower than the Rapid Vulcan you can buy for TL6, a single vulcan core outranges it, creates less heat per second, and most importantly hits much harder per point of ammo, having 6 damage *at white rarity* over the Rapid Vulcan's 4.4. 12/hit for 22 DPS at purple.
Vulcan Core: AP Overload: And here we beat it outright. 13.5 damage per hit for 30.4 DPS and a mere 8.7h/s
2 Vulcan Cores: AP Overload Rapid 2~3 not counting crit bonuses, the Rapid II crafted version here outperforms an orange looted Gatling Vulcan handily, with 8.2 damage per hit (vs 4.9), 73.5 dps (vs 67.3), and 23h/s (vs 28.8). Crit rate of 35% (vs 9%) will also take things up another notch with later bonuses and crew.
Note that this won't even use a second point of ammo at Rapid 2 until your SIXTH Vulcan Core if scaling up, and Rapid 3 gets even sillier. Not saying they're good that way, but we'll cover mucking about in the next section.

• Gatling (Rapid III) further lowers the per-hit damage to 4.2 (but again criticals may overcompensate this in the end), but increases DPS to 80.9 (and heat to 30.5 hps).

AP Overload Vulcan, Burst 3: less brrrttt, but keeps the 13.5 damage and offers 51.6 dps in one space.
AP Overload Vulcan, Rapid 1, Heavy Actually works quite well. The 11.9 damage shots may only grant 53.5 dps for 2 space, but this comes with 90 range and keeps costs at 1 ammo per shot.

More complex recipes are where the current crafting placeholder tends to show its weaknesses

Blue Core Continuous: Better at purple than the orange Light Laser Beam at 78.7 dps for just 15.75e/s and 44.3h/s, but while a bit less power and heat intensive still falls way short of the orange Medium Laser Beam's 115.4 / 19.2 / 55.

• Adding Overload's still not worth it either, given 98.4 / 23.63 / 62.6 with worse crit chance is just plain worse than the MLB in every way. Unless you want to up a green's damage, you're better off just upping the laser's color type.

Red Core Continuous: The slightly (4%) higher crit chance doesn't make up for the 20.5 difference in DPS. Again, falling short of the MLB.
Purple Core Continuous: Here we get closer. 102.4 dps for 24.57e/s and 55.5 heat MAY, sometimes, be maybe worth considering for the extra 20 range it packs... but usually not.
Green Core Continuous: We now have something interesting. 118.1 dps, 30.71e/s and 61.2h/s. It MAY not be quite enough to switch, but what if you have a 0.5 space lying about? 1 space across two guns? Though it's more energy, for a 2.5 space weapon you can drop the heat back down to 55.1.

Two core models Unfortunately this tends not to be any good. The 4-space weapons find themselves competing against:

• Improved Laser Beam (148.1 dps, 30.96e/s and 71.8h/s) with 6% base crit and 70 base range
  
• Miners Lasers (149.5 dps, 20.7e/s and 47.7h/s) though 18 base range and 0% base crit chance

2 Green, Continuous: 236.3 for 61.42e/s and 97.6h/s. With a good enough -heatgen% gunner, it could be useful for short bursts with Perfect Predator as it is a 'heavy' weapon (and therefore would be getting a buff from that). However the ease of overheat still keeps things highly questionable. Small ships just can't build up enough cooling with base 15.

Now this is a jousting weapon. Plasma's not particularly efficient, having Heavy tacked onto it always, and can't be made into a beam.

• (Base) Orange Plasma: 96.4 dps, 6.12e/s, 39.8h/s. 9% crit, 50 speed 80 range. 2-space
  
• Orange Heavy Plasma: 202.8 dps, 11.7e/s, 111.9h/s. 20% crit, 50 speed 100 range. 4-space.

One thing about Plasmas however is that you can add the Explode modifier to carefully fine-tune your damage and heat generation. Each Explode rating drops damage a little while adding splash, which at worst could help you throw yourself about when fighting close (or getting stuck in a phantom), preferably in a rapid/gatling type so you don't one-shot yourself in the process.

Single Core: 91.5 dps, 11.23e/s, 39h/s. For +1% crit and +5 range... not good.

• We could add Overcharge, but for less heat and energy, we could stick a pair of RMLs in that spot for a lot more damage - if a bit less range.
  
• If we add a second core and a few batteries however, we can forego heatsinks entirely by adding Overload and Slow Charge II at which point your RoF becomes your Overheat timer.
  You'll want a Balanced copilot that doesn't waste their bonuses on anything heat related (you want weapon damage, plasma damage, crit chance and crit damage), and can focus on trying to one-shot smaller things. Bad DPS for a 4-space but a pair of those are prone to exploding smaller ships in a single blast.

Plasma Core, Rapid: 100.7 dps, 12.36e/s, 44.2h/s. 105 range, 10% crit instead of 9, but still, not great.

• If you can afford an extra .5 space, though, you can get the heat back down to 39.8h/s for 13.59e/s. Still not much of a gain.

It's no better with the heavies. At 4 space, if you're comparing poorly to so many lasers, there's just very little point; the heat's too high for the space and damage, and heatsinks just make it bigger (while quickly negating the lower energy cost over lasers).