Coming back to Transcendence.. a few questions!

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Trion
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1. What does "WMD" mean on the weapons I never seemed to remember that being a thing the last time I played this great game.

2. In regards to mods, should I only use Xelerus mods that are now 1.7 updated? Older mods are pointless correct?
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 First off: Welcome back!

 1: “WMD” is short for Weapons of Mass Destruction. I have no idea how long ago you last played, but if it’s been since, like, 1.2 or so, it’s worth noting that capital ships have interior HP instead of critical armor segments. WMD is the mechanic for weapons to do significant damage to multi-hull stations and interior HP on capital ships.

 2: …That’s actually a tricky one. Some older mods work fine, some work fine with minimal tinkering, some kinda work but would take a bit of effort to properly fix, and some are just outright broken altogether. There’s really no easy way to tell which you’re working with without testing it out.
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Trion
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AssumedPseudonym wrote:
Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:13 am
 First off: Welcome back!

 1: “WMD” is short for Weapons of Mass Destruction. I have no idea how long ago you last played, but if it’s been since, like, 1.2 or so, it’s worth noting that capital ships have interior HP instead of critical armor segments. WMD is the mechanic for weapons to do significant damage to multi-hull stations and interior HP on capital ships.

 2: …That’s actually a tricky one. Some older mods work fine, some work fine with minimal tinkering, some kinda work but would take a bit of effort to properly fix, and some are just outright broken altogether. There’s really no easy way to tell which you’re working with without testing it out.
Thanks for the quick response! This game always had a soft spot for me in terms of nostalgia because it reminds me of a lot of other old school games I played.

That is nice to know about WMD and the newer mechanic I had no idea that is what it meant (although I did gather WMD probably meant Weapon of Mass Destruction I just didn't know exactly what it was quantifying in terms of damage)

No worries on the mods, I won't mind testing them out but I mainly just going for the UI mods and quality of life stuff. I don't want to get too cheaty because I have literally never made it past like 3 or 4 systems mostly because everything is kind of vague starting out and I am a bit slow to take it all in LOL.
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 Heh. The quick reply was mostly me still being awake at oh-god-thirty and having happened to poke at the forum at just the right time. I know what you mean about the nostalgia, though; it’s fond memories of Escape Velocity: Override that helped hook me on Transcendence.

 Most UI and QoL mods are either going to fall under the heading of working fine or hopelessly broken. There doesn’t ever seem to be much middle-of-the-road with them.
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Trion wrote:
Thu Jun 01, 2017 9:52 am
1. What does "WMD" mean on the weapons I never seemed to remember that being a thing the last time I played this great game.
The bottom line with WMD is that you need it to be able to effectively kill capital ships and stations. You can still hurt them with non-WMD (effectively WMD0) weapons, it just takes a lot longer. The bigger the WMD number, the more the listed damage actually applies, with WMD10 dealing the full listed damage and everything else doing some lesser percentage. The NAMI launcher is a great earlygame source of WMD, as ammo for it is readily lootable and not very expensive to buy.

You might find this thread to be helpful; it has a lot of advice for new players that is up-to-date with the current version of the game.
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Thank you for all your responses. I appreciate the generosity this community has show towards its players. Another thing I never got to really test is getting the Targeting ROM. Does this basically make all your weapons home in or auto target kind of like an omnidirectional weapon or is it something different?
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 Automatic targeting for omnidirectional or tracking weapons will typically pick the nearest hostile target. The targeting ROM lets you specify your target for those weapons with the “T” key. You can also target non-hostiles with the “F” key or clear your selected target with the “R” key. Also, targeting shipwrecks will override docking priority — which is great if you’re having trouble finding just the right spot to convince the game to let you dock with that Borer-II instead of the wrecked outlaw mine it had been guarding, for example.
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Trion
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AssumedPseudonym wrote:
Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:02 pm
 Automatic targeting for omnidirectional or tracking weapons will typically pick the nearest hostile target. The targeting ROM lets you specify your target for those weapons with the “T” key. You can also target non-hostiles with the “F” key or clear your selected target with the “R” key. Also, targeting shipwrecks will override docking priority — which is great if you’re having trouble finding just the right spot to convince the game to let you dock with that Borer-II instead of the wrecked outlaw mine it had been guarding, for example.
Ah okay I feel like a lot better then. So its not some "easy win button" that allows every weapon to hone in on the enemy. It is just for the weapons that already had some form of tracking it sounds like. I appreciate it.
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And to clarify WMD a little more: the WMD rating tracks the proportion of damage dealt to hardened targets. Specifically, multiply the number given by 10, and you get the exact percentage of base damage (IE: a weapon with 10 base average damage with a WMD5 indication will do 50% damage to hardened targets,or 5 average damage). The game's a little arbitrary with what stations have the "multihull" attribute (which makes WMD matter), but for larger ships the damage indicator shows the hull condition for any ship with internal compartments modelled (which is the other thing that makes WMD matter). This replaces the older system of "non-critical" armor. It's worth also noting that unlike on stations, WMD does not improve damage against the armor: just the hull underneath it.

WMD has always been in the game (at least, since many, many years ago), but it got revamped a year or two ago and only recently started to be indicated in the GUI. Fortunately, some more recent changes made weapons with no extra WMD rating do reasonable damage against hardened targets (I think it starts at 10% base damage and works up).
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Trion
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Shrike wrote:
Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:43 am
And to clarify WMD a little more: the WMD rating tracks the proportion of damage dealt to hardened targets. Specifically, multiply the number given by 10, and you get the exact percentage of base damage (IE: a weapon with 10 base average damage with a WMD5 indication will do 50% damage to hardened targets,or 5 average damage). The game's a little arbitrary with what stations have the "multihull" attribute (which makes WMD matter), but for larger ships the damage indicator shows the hull condition for any ship with internal compartments modelled (which is the other thing that makes WMD matter). This replaces the older system of "non-critical" armor. It's worth also noting that unlike on stations, WMD does not improve damage against the armor: just the hull underneath it.

WMD has always been in the game (at least, since many, many years ago), but it got revamped a year or two ago and only recently started to be indicated in the GUI. Fortunately, some more recent changes made weapons with no extra WMD rating do reasonable damage against hardened targets (I think it starts at 10% base damage and works up).
Ah I see so its more for the heavy hitter weapons you would say which might not always be ideal for dogfighting?
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Trion wrote:
Fri Jun 02, 2017 1:10 am
Shrike wrote:
Fri Jun 02, 2017 12:43 am
And to clarify WMD a little more: the WMD rating tracks the proportion of damage dealt to hardened targets. Specifically, multiply the number given by 10, and you get the exact percentage of base damage (IE: a weapon with 10 base average damage with a WMD5 indication will do 50% damage to hardened targets,or 5 average damage). The game's a little arbitrary with what stations have the "multihull" attribute (which makes WMD matter), but for larger ships the damage indicator shows the hull condition for any ship with internal compartments modelled (which is the other thing that makes WMD matter). This replaces the older system of "non-critical" armor. It's worth also noting that unlike on stations, WMD does not improve damage against the armor: just the hull underneath it.

WMD has always been in the game (at least, since many, many years ago), but it got revamped a year or two ago and only recently started to be indicated in the GUI. Fortunately, some more recent changes made weapons with no extra WMD rating do reasonable damage against hardened targets (I think it starts at 10% base damage and works up).
Ah I see so its more for the heavy hitter weapons you would say which might not always be ideal for dogfighting?
Exactly. Usually you're trading either damage or rate of fire, sometimes things like requiring ammo or having slow shell velocity.
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Trion
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Also sorry to be a pest... but my memory is very foggy when using the Sapphire I have multiple weapons right now on her and one of them is a dual shooting Centauri Recoiless and the other one is a single fire level 1 recoiless (non centauri). If they are both enabled how come my Centauri is only one being activated and I am not just shooting a 3rd stream of kinetic bullets but instead just the 2 from the centauri recoiless. Does one weapon take prestige over the other? Thanks.
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 Yeah, you can only have one weapon active at a time. (Well, two, including the missile launcher, but that’s a different trigger key. Some mods work around this in assorted ways, but let’s not get into those just now.) You switch between them with the “W” key.
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Trion
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AssumedPseudonym wrote:
Fri Jun 02, 2017 2:59 am
 Yeah, you can only have one weapon active at a time. (Well, two, including the missile launcher, but that’s a different trigger key. Some mods work around this in assorted ways, but let’s not get into those just now.) You switch between them with the “W” key.
Yeah no worries, I am strictly just trying to beat Vanilla for now (Not permadeath just yet)
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Later in the game you can find linked-fire weapons that can fire at the same time as your main weapon. However, in addition to eating into your energy budget, they tend to be externally-mounted, which means they can easily be damaged (irreparably in most cases) by enemy weapons' fire.

Otherwise, yeah, if you want to fire two weapons at the same time, one of 'em will have to be your launcher. :) Speaking of, launchers are great for WMD; you can readily find WMD10 ammo even in the early game, while primary weapons with WMD don't show up much until later. Howitzers are pretty good WMD primaries, but they're absolutely rubbish for dogfighting. Later on, most thermo weapons have WMD as well.
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