The ULTIMATE Guide to WEAPONRY! | Elite Dangerous 2024

For veterans and noobs alike! Learn more about EVERY TYPE of hardpoint in elite dangerous.
Mining Guides
• Mining Guides
Piracy Guide
• A Beginner's Guide to ...
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro
0:14 - Hardpoint Basics
1:10 - Pulse Laser
1:38 - Burst Laser
2:06 - Beam Laser
2:39 - Multicannon
3:08 - Cannon
3:48 - Fragment Cannon
4:21 - Missiles
4:53 - Torpedoes
5:22 - Mines
5:45 - Rail Gun
6:23 - Plasma Accelerator
7:22 - Conclusion
This tutorial works on horizons and odyssey, or the 3.8 and 4.0 codebase. This means it can be followed on:
- PC
- Xbox
- PS4/PS5
Dituri’s Elite is a channel about the space sim Elite Dangerous. My aim is to guide people with up-to-date information, as well as focus on the fun and variety this game has to offer.
Oh also, find me at / dituriselite
#elitedangerousgameplay #elitedangerous #elitedangerousodyssey

[@DiturisElite]

What’s your favourite? Why? Lemme know! A few comments here have let me know about my confusing use of the word hardpoint - it means the mounting point on your ship, rather than the weapon itself. I legitimately had no idea, my friends and I have always used it to mean the equipment/weapons, and I’ve never been caught up on it. My bad! So yeah, I'm sorry about that. it’s surprising what you miss despite having been a CMDR so long! 🫡

[@WhoTheLoL]

My favorite weapon has to be the rail, albeit it's worth noting I play Solo. I sport a five-rail Krait Mk2, all long range, two with feedback cascade and three superpens. Against small ships, it's one shot kill. Against the toughest nuts like Elite Cutters, it's ~8-10 salvos to drop shields (periodically switching to spamming the two FCs exclusively to nullify shield cells when I see them used), then it's ~6-8 salvos to drop Power Plant health to zero, and from that point onward every salvo has like ~10% chance of popping the enemy ship due to power plant explosion. The second place would be Efficient Plasma Accelerators with Plasma Slug. I use a pair of such on a Vulture to satisfy my periodic cravings for dogfighting. They take some skill to land on smaller ships, but remain effective against even the heaviest targets, which I find appealing. Modified Plasma Chargers are super fun, kinda like a bastard child of Plasma Accelerators and Rails. Finally, Huge Beams are just mean. I have a Corvette with a pair of Long Range Huge Beams with Thermal Vent for Conflict Zone farming. I pick something at 6km range and start zapping. Before it gets close, its shields are down and (just like with rails) I focus the Power Plant. Beam Lasers seem to have low penetration, but the Huge variants actually do a pretty decent job at penetrating the hull and damaging internals, including the Power Plant. Once the Power Plant is down to zero health, it's a matter of moments before the enemy ship pops, because a zero-health Power Plant has a flat chance to blow up upon taking damage and beam lasers deal damage multiple times per second, triggering the effect extremely reliably. With no ammo required, no internal damage ever taken due to zero risk of overheating (thermal vents), and no damage ever taken due to engagements happening from outside the most heated region (long range mod) and enemy ships popping before they even get close, this allows for truly carefree farming of conflict zones when combat bond Community Goals pop up. It only ever requires a bit of actual user involvement if I decide to target a Spec Ops FDL or something of that sort xD

[@OldManPaxusYT]

yay! (I thought i was going mad!) Good but why haven't you CHANGED THE TITLE?!

[@Garryck-1]

Personally, I'd suggest you do more than fix the thumbnail and title.. I'd re-record the narration, and then re-upload!

[@DiturisElite]

@@Garryck-1 personally, that sounds like way too much work...

[@Bean41]

Couple things I’d like to add, 0:27 On average increasing the hardpoints size infers a 50% damage increase, this is why the Anaconda can deal more DPS then the Corvette as it trades a huge hardpoint for a pair of large hardpoints. A pair of small hardpoints are worth more than a single medium on paper and generally in practice. Going from turret to gimble to fixed gives around 30% more damage. 2:39 Small, medium and especially large multicannons have a spin up time, I couldn’t find any concrete numbers but the numbers I did find ranged from half a second to 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds for small, medium and large respectively. Huge multis don’t have this, this make large multis a liability at times because they take so long to start dealing damage especially in a fire group with other weapons as they’ll waste ammo and/or distributor as they wait if you pull the trigger early to account for the spin up. 3:08 Cannons are the only weapon that has a modified breach chance unengineered (they also have no falloff unengineered, fun fact) most weapons have a 40/80 breach chance where cannons have a 60/90 breach chance. I’ll explain that in a minute the order of this is a bit weird bear with me. 4:53 Torpedoes are only really useful in a specialized assassination build with Reverberating Cascade experimental which causes 35% of a weapons damage to be applied directly to a ships shield generator, killing it even while it’s active. This can be useful if say a Prismatic Cutter is giving you trouble as as little as 5 torpedoes can deal an effective 22,000 damage (assuming the Cutter is stacked with heavy duty boosters and cell banks) leaving a shield tank ship without its only line of defense. Mines can also have this effect applied but are somewhat more difficult to deploy for obvious reasons. I should also point out that you only need 3 to kill a 5A Prismatic that the FDL carries. 5:22 Mines aren’t really going to dissuade most attackers unengineered however they can be engineered to reboot a targets thrusters, FSD and as mentioned can kill shields with ease (the same Cutter as above only needs 12 hits and the FDL only needs 8, for a slightly stupid attacker that comes easily). Mines inherit your ships momentum for one second before slowing to a stop. You can use this to kind of dive bomb onto slower, less maneuverable ships. 6:04 Ohh boy, the Armor Piercing myth. It’s a very common one but Armor Piercing has nothing to do with modules. All AP does is interact with a ships Hull Hardness, if HH is higher then AP damage is reduced based on some maths else full damage is applied. What actually affects modules getting damaged is Breach Chance, BC is the same for most weapons rails and PAs included, 40/80. Cannons have a higher BC as stated above. What this means is at 100% hull integrity any given shot has a 40% chance of damaging a module and against a hull at 0% integrity it’ll have an 80% chance. Cannons are 60% and 90% respectively meaning they’ll damage modules more often and explosive weapons have a 0% chance to penetrate unengineered. Dumbfire missiles and torpedoes can have the Penetrator Munitions experimental applied which will give these weapons a 100% BC. Notably Super Penetrator for rail guns doesn’t give any increase to BC but instead allows a shot to have a chance to continue traveling after it has hit a module. Note that this only applies to internal modules such as power plants, sensors, shield generators etc but not external modules such as utility mounts, hardpoints and drives. Despite drives being considered internal for the purposes of module reinforcements they are external for the purpose of damage. Far as I know BC in a purely background thing and isn’t shown anywhere in game, edsy.org will show you the BC but it can be misleading at times as it says the dumbfires and torps have a 100% BC (I assume this is because of the way their coded but that only speculation) while they definitely do no internal damage.

[@Uselessnoobcow]

Was about to comment about reverb cascade, great summary comment

[@Majima_Nowhere]

The problem with having two small hardpoints instead of one medium is that the smalls will have lower pierce, and as such will likely do less damage to larger ships. The Mamba runs into this issue; on paper it should have slightly more DPS than an FDL (like half a small hardpoint's worth) , but you'll struggle to see that in practice against the more armored ships in the game.

[@Bean41]

@@Majima_Nowhere This is only true for more “normal” weapons like lasers and multis. If you’re running rails and PAs it doesn’t matter as they have 100 piercing across the board.

[@r4dios1lence92]

Torpedoes, along with Mines, are the only ones with Reverberating Cascade engineering modification. They can destroy a shield generator (not the shields, the Shield Generator itself) just by striking the shields. And since they have high damage, you don't need a lot of hits to destroy shields. They end up being VERY case sensitive because of that (and for being slow), and it's usually easier/better to just deal with shields (or do damage) through other means. Also, different than missiles, Torpedoes do full damage against all ships (10,000 Armour Piercing). Missiles will deal reduced damage to targets with Armour Hardness higher than 60 (majority of combat oriented ships). Also, different than Missiles, their ammo can't be synthesized, so you're stuck with constant docking for reloads. EDIT: Armour Piercing and Breach Chance are unrelated (although weapons with high Breach Chance often have high Armour Piercing). Armour Hardness reduces the damage from sources with Armour Piercing below its value. A missile with 60 Armour Piercing will deal 80% of its damage against a Type-10 Defender (60/75 = 80%). Against a Krait Mk II it will deal full damage (60 higher than 55, so no reduction).

[@meoka2368]

A fun one with mines is to put a mix of ion and shift-lock on your cargo ships. If someone pulls you, just start pumping those things out and high wake. They won't be able to follow. If you got the space, add in Radiant as well so their sensors stop working and they drop target lock. Now I want to go fly a bait ship around a CG...

[@mattoverminder]

I want to add that when it comes to plasma and any other slow moving shots, you can set your reticle to "follow" instead of "lead" in the ship tab of the right-hand menu. This shows where your shot is going to land based on your trajectory, instead of trying to guess your targets. It takes some getting used to, but I find it more useful, since it's more absolute "if you shoot now, your shot will go here" configuration.

[@matheighway]

Some people may be very confused by your wording here. 'Hardpoints' are the deployable platforms built into your ship to which weapons and other modules can be fitted - not the weapons themselves. In other words, you don't buy hardpoints - you buy weapons and FIT THEM TO hardpoints. I hope this helps to clarify. Still a good video though :O)

[@sammorrow8420]

I advise a video on hardpoint placement and convergence on each/all ships. With your excellent camera b roll, I thought you would cover this aspect. I'm absolutely sure that video will be viewed multiple times by each commander, new and old. Like if you agree. 👍

[@niMBis]

I love when Maurice from the IT Crowd explains details about one of my favorite video games. 😉

[@57thorns]

Very nice, would like to add one thing about multi cannons: Size 1, 2 and 3 have a spin-up time before they start firing which requires more time on target before doing damage. Size 4 however will unleash their hail of deadly minibuss sized shells immediately upon pressing the trigger. As for amour penetration of cannons, NPC are much less affected by damage to modules than players which makes this less useful for pve. For a player, any damage to the power plant (once you are past your margin) means shutdowns, while NPCs will keep firing all their laser, boost and manoeuvre like they were on the first test drive in a pristine ship.

[@docrock3234]

You are so great for putting this together. I had to 3 video in the garbage in order to find this one.

[@psyantologist]

Shock Cannons are a lot of fun to fire. Sadly, no engineering to alleviate the low ammo capacity. The hidden gem for PVP: Remote release flechettes can damage modules (like the targets shield generator) even while the shield is still up. Neither point defence nor ECM protects against them.

[@c44448]

If you use a build with multicannons i higly recommend getting the Corrosive Shell engineering with high capacity on the smallest one for the very nice 25% more damage to hull from all incomming damage. In general i would try to fit one medium or small multicannon for that reason. Unless your build is fitted for no ammo use.

[@sammorrow8420]

He says only one cuz the effect does not stack. so using it on the smallest hardpoint saves the damage for the bigger hardpoints.

[@Sephyricon]

A very good guide to weapons and hardpoints. Nicely done!

[@mikeespinosa1433]

I want to mention focus engineered pulse/burst lasers. This engineering path increases your weapon range to 6km, improves the damage falloff and is especially good for class 1 and 2 lasers because of the increased amor pearcing.

[@Neo-vz8nh]

Good summary, but I would like to add some more things. The damage per sec (dps) value is important but the damage per energy (dpe) as also important. High dpe weapons means you can fire more without draining the distributor. Infact sustained damage is mainly limited by the weapons dpe rahter then the dps. Pulse & burst lasers: They have relativly good dpe value compared to beams. So on unengineered gimbaled weapons they are better then beams. Beam laser: low dpe unengineered, but high birst dps. When unengineered best to use on fixed weapons. When engineering to efficent it become superior in every aspects compared to pulse/burst. They are fairly usable as a fixed due to its hitscan nature, but gimbaled is also common. Multicannon (MC): Maybe the best all-around weapons. Good dpe, low dpe, no heat, easy to use. Can be engineered to thermal so it becomes good against shields. A full MC build is viable. The Huge variant is a beast. High dps, no spinup, and huge dpe. The Corvette can fire its dual huge MC with only 1 pip to its weapons. However small varians are not that useful, better suited for experimental effects (like corrosive). Cannon: It is not particularly useful. Maybe the worst weapon in game. It has some niche use due to its experimental effects, but slow projectile, low ammo count and overall not good dps means it is not good. It still has good dpe though. Frag cannon: Very high burst dps, and good dpe. Only usable on close range. I prefer using the high capacity, but the overcharged is still good. Double shot is meh. The frag damage is huge, but it counters its long reload time. The high capacity make the mag size double, almost doubling the burst damage, and doubling overall damage (damage*max ammo). Double shot does not do that. The powerplay specific Pacifer is very good, as it has far less spread, but it is only fixed. Missile: They are niche. The dubmpfire is hard to use, and even if you can sue it, better to use plasma instead. Seeker ones are good but they heavily lack ammo, so the oevrall damage is low even with high capacity. They are mostly good against hardpoints, especially the powerplay specific one which peels the hardpoints. Torpedos: They are really bad. Very very low overall damage due to its very limited ammo. However the reverberating cascade effect directly damage the enemy shield generator, so a few of these torpes can stript even a Cutter of its shield in one volley. Mine: Hard to use, but at least has ammo. It also has reverberating cascade effect. Rail gun: The standard rail is not particularly good. It sounds that it has good dps, but in reality it has only around a dps of a medium fixed unengineered MC, due to its chargeup time. Also low dpe, which can't be really improved. The experimental effects makes it important in PvP (anti shield cell bank rounds, and super penetrator rounds). The powerplay specific hammer are better in dps, because they are automatic, and can fire constantly, doubling the dps, while still has the same experimental effects. However it generates huge amout of heat. Plasma accelerator: The only engineerable human weapon which deals absolute damage. However also generates heat, it has low dpe, and slow projectile speed. Efficent canb negate the heat and dpe, long range can make the projectile go faster making it easier to use. It is not particarly that good in PvE, because the absolute damage does not deal extra damage against unengineered NPC ships. In PvP however it is one of the best weapons as it deals significant extra damage and has some good experimental effects too. Shock cannon: Unlockable weapon, no engineering, but has autoload. Not particarly bad, but it lacks the ammo. Very high burst dps, and good dpe. Good agains single target hull, but not for extended use. Remote release flechette launcher: Unlockable, no engineering. Relativly bad, but the explosion ignores shield, so it can be used to damage shield generator/powerpland while the shield is still up. Enzyme missile rack: Another unlockable. Very bad. Epplies small corrosive effect like the Thargoid does, but very small, and does not bleed though shield.

[@psyantologist]

to contradict the statement on railguns, "low dpe, which can't be really improved.": DPE on rails improves massively when using Short Range. 1.5km is still plenty far for most engagements. The only downside next to the range drop is more heat and thermal vent beams can take care of that without having to rely on heatsinks

[@Neo-vz8nh]

@@psyantologistLightweight also increase dpe, but that is not to good for hull tanks. Short range does increase the dpe and the dps, but then the range becomes like 1.1 km. Yes the max range is 1.5 km, but at that range it deals 0 damage. It deals half damage at 1.25 km. The range becomes very small, a huge compromise. The lack of overcharged and efficent mods hurts. I just prefer lightweight on shield tanks, but none of them are REALLY that good, so that's why I said what I said.

[@Neo-vz8nh]

@@psyantologistOn the flip side, none of the engineerings on rails are really bad. Everything has its use. Lightweight increase dpe, so good for shield tanks, and for exploration ships, as it can be used to deplete fuel with plasma slug. Cost is integrity. Long range increase range and falloff, greater damage even at 1+ km. High capacity adds more ammo. For the hammer it gives the best sustained dps increase as its mag size increase too, so it will has a 6 burst instead of 3. Short range increase dps and dpe. Cost is range. Sturdy decreases heat, which is a problem for rail, especially for hammer. Also increase integrity.

[@OldManPaxusYT]

WHY IS THIS NOT PINNED!? hahaa

[@Majima_Nowhere]

​@@Neo-vz8nhFunny thing about high cap hammers is that the burst will ALWAYS be 3, even through reloads. So if you end up with, say, 4 shots in the magazine (after a malfunction, or running out of ammo and synthing more) it'll go "pepepew-pew...reload...pepew" even if you let go of the trigger. It's quite annoying 😂

[@hazefields9598]

I've been playing for 7 years. Although I'm not a combat guy, this video taught me a lot and gave me something to think about for my 2 combat ships. Thanks! 🖖

[@snowghost70]

Lol wow

[@Tectonicbg]

o7 Dituri, thanks for this. Glad to have new Elite content coming out in concise episodes with no faf

[@VerticalBlank]

Thank you for this excellent analysis! The game's UI confuses us a bit about nomenclature here. To clarify, the *hardpoints* are the points upon a spaceframe (or airframe) that are sturdy enough for weapons to be mounted upon and take the recoil etc. So this rather excellent video is, to be exact, talking about the *weapons* that can be mounted upon a ship's *hardpoints*. A review of ship hardpoints might for example ask why the Clipper's four hardpoints don't converge correctly. o7

[@firstname6333]

Love seeing new Elite youtubers still! Love the videos, and hope you keep it up!

[@genogaron]

I am here in the comments to share the Good News of Frag Cannons, available now to fill your favorite Mamba with easy peasy kill-as-you-pleasey death. Also, torpedoes engineered with the Reverberating Cascade experimental can directly damage a ship's Shield Generator when striking a shielded target, turning 3-4 torpedo hits into potentially thousands of MJs of shields going offline immediately. Very handy against slow, well shielded targets like the Type 10, Corvette, or Anaconda, or in PvP fights where a cocky opponent doesn't take a torp boat seriously. They are unpopular given their low speed and the fact that you can shoot down the torps with a little skill, but you'll see them on bounty hunter kits and the odd Big Ship Killer build.

[@saberswordsmen1]

How do you like the pacifiers from Hudson? I already have prismatics and just unlocked and have been having a blast (heh) with packhounds, but my first love was frags on a clipper.

[@genogaron]

@@saberswordsmen1 Pacifiers are GOOD, don't get me wrong, but they're a bit fickle. Convergence issues on, say, the Mamba, can make them hard to land on non-large targets, and if your convergence is REALLY GOOD, like the Python II, then fixed frags technically do more damage. Pacifiers' main advantage is extended range.

[@marioawario6125]

Great video! One more thing about missiles: they are great for clearing out ground NPCs on crash site missions 😀 So how about ground missions as next video? 😉

[@Barbequeque]

You were asking for uses for torpedoes, the only one I've ever seen is torpedoes with reverberating cascade, which is useful for pvp, completely disabling players shields modules, so if you're in a cutter and get hit with one of these, your 10k HP is useless.

[@arch_..]

Dituri never fails to deliver amazing content. Thank you for all the hard work, man!

[@meoka2368]

Excellent video as always. Keep it up :)

[@antwan1357]

space trucking in Elite Dangerous for 6014 hours , and listening to this video.

[@BlenderGeek4196]

Something like this but for fighters would be really good. There are so many fighters in the game all with unique weapons.

[@eoconnor2000]

Fantastic Video - I have started playing ED again this year and have been enjoying it.

[@SWIFTO_SCYTHE]

This is a good guide to explain size and function. Thank you

[@virtuallyglace]

for pa shots that they inherit ship velocity as well, so they are easier to hit on boost vs 0 speed and you can use horizontal and vertical thrusters to move the reticle closer to the ship .. good video though :]

[@OldManPaxusYT]

For both *Cannons* and *Torpedos,* i'd simply explain, that the time to use them are on *big ships* that have lots of weapons hardpoints, so it's not a detriment.

[@OldManPaxusYT]

Excellant Tutorial! You're a natural! One minor, weird query though....: Not sure why you're calling ship components or modules 'hardpoints'! 😂 It's almost like a typo or mistake! Does the E.D. really use this convention??! A hardpoint is the PLACE YOU PUT components, not the component itself! E.g. A 'Pulse Laser' is a module/component/item/weapon... and it gets installed into one of a ship's several 'hardpoints'.... No?

[@Ducky_yandere]

yes and no, its rarer to have them called hardpoints, but they are one in the same for referals sake

[@golferchin76]

will you do a video in the future about trade?

[@jasperlit1345]

Flechettes? Oh and Reverberating Cascade for Torpedoes, they kill Shield Generators.

[@shadowmystery5613]

If the amount of Hard Points amazes you you never played the X Series and had to equip a capital ship with like 18 Gamma Photon Impulse Cannons 😂 ...or had to name and equip 100+ Fighters by hand on a Carrier Type ship 😆

[@Garryck-1]

Why do you keep saying "hardpoint" when you mean "weapon"? A hardpoint is merely the location a weapon gets placed upon/in. It's called a hardpoint, because the hull in that area is reinforced (hardened) to cope with the forces the weapon imposes on the hull. (Edit: sorry, I see you've already addressed this in comments!)

[@snowghost70]

Dude this us just basice beginners bs and not fully on point with the info you give. He said no matter if you've played 3hrs to 3000 hrs you'll learn something. Dude maybe you should play more than 3 hrs before post instructional videos

[@WhoTheLoL]

Sorry, Dituri, but I have some beef with your video. First, your use of the word "hardpoint" is truly confusing. A hardpoint is, by definition, an **attachment location on a structural frame** designed to transfer force and carry an external or internal load. There are four types of hardpoints in this game: small, medium, large and huge. That's it. What you're describing are hardpoint (mounted) modules, which are ship weapons (or mining tools). Using "hardpoint" as a synonym for a weapon or a module mounted on a hardpoint, and then using "mount" to refer to the actual hardpoint, is very confusing. Second, the way you talk about one kind of weapon and then, without a notable breaking point or a significant change in tone, begin talking about the next weapon type, is also confusing. I often listen to YT videos while multitasking and every time you did it in this video made me go WTF, like 4:16 - 4:25 ("but if you're willing to play to their strengths, frag cannons can be insanely good options for burst damage. You won't be surprised to learn that these deal explosive damage..."). I was looking away from the video at the time and my mind was like "frags don't deal explosive damage, whatthelol is he smoking...". Only then I realized you started talking about missiles. The visual indicator that you're changing subjects doesn't help, the relatively small header with the weapon type is dominated by the actual footage which takes the viewer's attention, so even looking at the video doesn't help to ease the confusion. Only if you watch this fullscreen does it become quite clear that you're now changing weapon types. I would suggest using some verbal cue, like naming the weapon type before you proceed to talk about it. These are my primary issues. There's a lot of other tiny stuff I take issue with, but most of it can be plausibly dismissed as too advanced for this video. The two above, however, really take away from how well done this video is.

[@DiturisElite]

Fair enough, both my bad. I’ve edited the pinned comment to address the ‘hardpoint/weapon’ debacle so I won’t repeat myself here. The other point comes down to editing. I had a few sections recorded to separate sections that I cut out, just to reduce run time. For instance, in between frags and mines I had me saying ‘so, on to the explosive options’. Might’ve been an idea to leave it in, though hindsight is 20/20! Appropriate pause length and good transitions are not a strength of mine, so I’m happy to be criticised on it. Hopefully I’ll improve with time! 🫡

[@WhoTheLoL]

@@DiturisElite You're doing very well. I applaud how you manage to narrow down the scope of your videos to the basics - I don't think I would be able to create a script for a video like that without making it 3x longer. And, as mentioned elsewhere, I really like the magic you do with DaVinci Resolve :) . It's also not easy to take criticism, so kudos on that as well. Take care :)

[@OldManPaxusYT]

wow, YOU get a reply - HAHhahaha glad someone else said it! I thought i was LOSING MY MIND, about him calling modules/componants/weapons HARDPOINTS!!!

[@scorpion29a]

The title should be "BASIC guide to hardpoints" not ULTIMATE, barely any info.

[@OldManPaxusYT]

no, no it shouldn't coz he's talking about weapons, not hardpoints. So it should be called "BASIC guide to weaponss"

[@Phalanx443]

OMFG!!! That muzac is just too much to listen to. Redo the video without it.

[@Polybiased]

Love your content and @bean41 covered what I would've liked to have added ;). o7