X4: Foundations Weapons & Turrets Comparison Guide

Pulse: Low dps, best cooling, Anti-Fighter weapon or allround weapon when in great numbers (Nemesis + Dragon)

Bolts: Allround weapon, medium dps + cooling, useful against almost anything

Beams: Anti-Fighter weapon, hitscan accuracy, but bad cooling, only useful in lower numbers (frigates, fighters and gunboats)

Plasma: Anti-capital weapon, great range, high dps, but bad cooling, useful in low numbers

Shards: Allround weapon with Plasma level dps, better cooling, but short ranged and inaccurate

Burst rays: Short ranged, low dps, hitscan, but can penetrate shields with dps bonus. Anti-Module weapon

Mortar: Comparable to Plasma, but with Flak-esque aoe damage and higher projectile speed. Currently stronger in IS combat due to double damage mechanic

Mass drivers: Railgun, long range support weapon. Lowish dps and cooling problems

Thermal Desintergrators: Pulse-Laser-styled weapon but with shield penetration and dot effect. Very effective weapon, M sized variant very inaccurate though

Split Minigun: Bolts but with higher dps and inaccurate, useful against bigger targets, but Shards and Tau’s are better suited for that. Underperforming imo

Tau Accelerators: Shards but with more dps and higher accuracy. Very effective allround weapon

Boson Lances: Mass drivers with way higher damage but with less range and even more cooling problems. Still testing around, but seems too unreliable. Strongest OOS weapon though

Pulse: Anti-Fighter turret with highest rotation speed but low dps

Bolts: Higher damage than Pulse with slower rotation speed

Shards: Higher damage than Bolts but short ranged and inaccurate. Useful against M+ sized ships but so is Plasma

Plasma: Insane dps for its size (L Pulse level), useful against M and above sized ships. Outperforms their fixed gimballed version due to lack of cooling problems

Flak: Anti-Fighter – Allround turret. Somewhat short ranged but with aoe explosion effect and thus with higher dps than shards (~140 ARG, ~210 SPL). Very useful turrets if you have access to them

Beams: Don’t bother, they can’t kill space flies

Pulse: Allround turret, useful against anything. Struggles with XL shield regeneration in low numbers though

Plasma: 3x Pulse’s dps, Siege and Anti-capital turret. May sometimes struggle hitting moving targets (even large ones), but most potent against impaired targets

Beams: Very dissappointing turret. Hitscan makes them effective against fighters but their dps is comparable to 1 M sized Pulse Lasers. Never use them against anything M+ sized targets. L+ targets don’t even get damaged by them and Pulse is way more effective against M sized ships.