The Worst Weapons in Infinite Space, Ranked
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Infinite Space trilogy has always had a wide variety of weapons for players to collect and use. Many of these are quite good, and there are even a few truly outstanding ones as well. But what about the worst weapons the series has featured? Well, there are actually a few weapons that aren't worth using and are best traded in for other items. This is because they either do too little damage, or aren't effective enough relative to their price. Here are some of the worst offenders - and I have also mentioned some similarly priced alternatives that I have found to be much more useful.
#5: Impaler Missile Rack - This is the cheapest and most widely available missile weapon in the entire series, and it shows. In addition to having a slow fire rate, its range is quite short for a missile launcher, and it causes less damage on impact than other missiles. Most capital ships carry at least one of these weapons by default (at least early on), but that doesn't make them any more useful. Moreover, like other missiles, they can be deflected off-course by any ECM system and/or targeted by point-defense weapons. Fortunately, if you start the game with the Terran Corvette, you can trade it in for a second Neptunium Railgun and still have 332 credits left over - enough to buy any piece of equipment up to and including a Ruby Laser Drive without having to trade in any other starting equipment.
#4: Iridium Pellet Gun - It really is as puny as it looks - although it is standard equipment on every Calatian ship, has a high fire rate, and has point defense capabilities to boot, it cannot deliver very much damage at all with each shot, nor can it shoot very far. As such, the first thing you should do to the Thunderbucket (a Calatian Destroyer) after acquiring it is to trade in these tiny peashooters for more useful, and powerful, weapons, such as Fusion Rocket Launchers - as long as you can afford to do so. Even the Electric Bolt Gun, which is a smaller, less powerful version of the Plasma Blaster, is more effective against most targets, despite not having the Iridium Pellet Gun's point defense capabilities.
#3: Electron Accelerator Beam - This weapon is standard on most Urluquai ships, but isn't recommended for use on your own ships. It's more powerful than the next weapon on this list, but not by much, and fires more slowly. Moreover, its range is quite short, and at these distances, the Neptunium Railgun (which costs the exact same amount of money as an Electron Beam, at 89 credits apiece) vastly outclasses it with a greater fire rate and point-defense capabilities - something the Electron Beam cannot have due to its hitscan nature. It's telling that the Muktians were reworked in Weird Worlds to carry Molybdenum Cone Cannons instead of Electron Beams, primarily to avoid being held back by this weapon's ineffectiveness; as such, they have been more dangerous opponents (or allies, if you negotiate with them) in combat ever since.
#2: Laser Beam - In the original game, you could start your adventure armed with two of these short-range hitscan weapons, but this was the least effective of the three starting loadouts, and the Laser Beam has remained a weak weapon overall ever since - in fact, it is the weakest of all the beam weapons in the series. Unsurprisingly, no AI-controlled ships carry it by default (although the Zorg inexplicably offer it for sale on Loryx), since its low damage output requires it to be used in groups to be truly effective - and even then, it's still inferior to the Neptunium Railgun overall, and not that much cheaper to boot. Moreover, Ravian Bug Commandos are only armed with a variant of this weapon, the Ravian Hand Laser, which is equally puny; that lack of firepower, combined with their thin armor, make them one of the weakest fighters in the whole franchise. In fact, the Laser Repeater, with its multitude of rotating barrels (and the same price as a Neptunium Railgun), is a better choice overall if you fancy laser weapons, since it is basically a miniaturized version of the Gatling Laser - and therefore, unlike that weapon, can be installed on small hardpoints.
#1: Gluon Gun - This is the biggest waste of money you can find in Sector Prime, bar none. It costs 250 credits but isn't recommended over the simlarly sized Fusion Rocket Launcher or Plasma Blaster, and for good reason. Although it has a decent range, has homing capabilities (a trait shared with only one other small weapon - the aforementioned Fusion Rocket), and fires fairly quickly, each gluon stream delivers so little damage on impact compared to fusion rockets or plasma bolts (let alone proton blasts) that the Gluon Gun simply isn't worth using. One of the Ravians' unique weapons, the Gluon Web, shares this problem; even though it fires more gluon streams at a time, it's still fairly weak, and is therefore particularly ineffective against heavily shielded targets. So if you are (un)fortunate enough to collect any Gluon Guns during your voyage, make sure to sell them all at Glory for a decent profit as soon as you can.
Dishonorable Mention: Mass Driver - A shotgun-like weapon that shoots farther and faster than a Micrometeorite Gun seems like a good idea on paper. Unfortunately, it isn't very effective at long range due to having wider scatter, which means that most of the metal fragments launched in a single burst will tend to miss unless you are very close to the target, which can be dangerous or even suicidal in many situations. Moreover, individual fragments are extremely weak; it takes a lot of hits to do significant damage. At 255 credits, it's even more expensive than a Gluon Gun, and is therefore not recommended over the smaller Micrometeorite Gun. Even so, the largest Tan Ru ships carry at least one of these weapons by default - but they are useless against the longer-ranged weaponry you will most likely possess by the time you encounter such foes.
Thus ends my discussion of the least effective weapons in all of Infinite Space, relative to their price. Fortunately, the next post will be about the complete opposite - the best weapons in Infinite Space, bar none - so stay tuned.
