Cytoscrambler
A variant burst laser that is designed to damage shields specifically at the cost of little to no hull damage.
— In-Game Description
The Cytoscrambler is a burst laser variant that is very effective against shields but ineffective against armour. The Cytoscrambler is a close range burst laser that is available only as a Class 1 fixed mount. This weapon is a merit reward in Powerplay.
Usage[]
The Cytoscrambler features 61% higher ROF and 109% more damage than a normal fixed burst laser, leading to 238% more DPS. This comes at almost no cost in mass, distributor draw, and thermal load. This makes this weapon extraordinarily powerful against shields, dealing more raw damage per second than most Class 4 weapons, in a small hardpoint.
However, this comes at a significant cost. First and foremost, it has an armour piercing rating of 1, reducing its damage against hulls to a maximum of 5%, and dramatically lower against targets with a higher armour hardness rating. Adding to this, it has both a wide jitter of 1.7° and a maximum range of 1km. For this reason, it can only be used at "point-blank" range, rendering it ineffective for use in large ships as they lack the manoeuvrability to consistently bring the weapons to bare on their targets, but more useful in small ships which are more manoeuvrable. This is particularly effective against larger targets where the weapon's damage output is comparable to a Class 4 burst laser in a Class 1 hardpoint slot, leaving room to equip something more hull focused in any remaining hardpoint slots.
Cytoscramblers are best used as specialized shield-breakers against medium and large ships, allowing players to reserve larger hardpoints to damage the hull underneath, and can be a very powerful weapon especially for smaller ships that might lack firepower.
Notably, they can be used in combination with the Corrosive Shell experimental effect to dramatically improve their damage against hulls. This effect increases the armour piercing rating of any other weapons hitting the target ship by 20. While this does allow Cytoscramblers to deal full damage to the smallest classes of ships, they will still deal around a quarter their full damage against most large vessels, remaining relatively ineffective. Nonetheless, their bonus damage can be handy in a pinch.
Though Cytoscramblers have a very limited range of 1km and a damage falloff range of 600m, this limitation can be largely mitigated by using the Long Range engineering modification, which will increase both maximum range and damage falloff range to 2km, allowing for more consistent damage across varying distances.
Specifications[]
| Class | Rating | Mass (T) | Integrity | Power Draw (MW) | Damage | ROF/s | DPS | Thermal Load/s | Distributor Draw | Armour Piercing | Damage Falloff Range (m) | Maximum Range (m) | Jitter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | F | 2.00 | 40 | 0.80 | 3.60 | 7.62 | 27.43 | 0.28 | 0.31 | 1 | 600 | 1000 | 1.7° |
Engineering[]
This weapon can be modified by Engineers to enhance its abilities.
Modifications[]
The following modifications can be applied to this module:
Experimental Effects[]
The following Experimental Effects can be applied to this module:
- Concordant Sequence
- Double Braced
- Flow Control
- Inertial Impact
- Multi-Servos
- Oversized
- Phasing Sequence
- Scramble Spectrum
- Stripped Down
- Thermal Shock
Videos[]
| Thermal | |
| Kinetic |
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| Explosive |
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| Mixed-Type |
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| Powerplay |
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| Experimental |
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| Mining Tools |
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