Jumpgate Evolution: New Weapons Hit The Markets!

The weapons industry has been very busy recently as seen by the new changes in many of the weapons sold to the pilots of TRI. 103.10.7 was a very busy day as many manufacturers in the weapons industries for four of the five factions released changes and alterations in their line up. This comes shortly after a number of the weapons adjusted were completely pulled from production.
Both T&P Systems and Octavian Propulsion Labs have had very little luck in selling their heavy laser weapons since Cromforge Enterprises swept the markets some years ago when it introduced the Thorn as the premier Quantar laser. Tuesday both of these companies show they are trying to take a hold of the market share with their upgraded weapons. T&P also has made great strides in the mortar weapon class as well.
Samsun had been extremely quiet for quite some time, once they held the market on the Heavy Laser, but those days are far-gone. They saw a chance to redesign their V.A.P.O.R. weapon into an extended range, low delay weapon of moderate efficiency. Whether this was in the works before or after Cromforge Enterprises released the Shard is anyone's guess.
Cromforge Enterprises took a seemingly more relaxed approach to weapons modifications. They left their extremely profitable Thorn alone and instead focused on an older model weapon that they were able to adapt their new found Shard technology into the smaller package of the Warper, which places itself prominently into the market for the smaller combat craft.
PSI altered their Serializer plasma cannon on Tuesday with a smaller more efficient design.

T&P Systems:
Tens and Piney have revamped their Shark heavy laser to focus on the vessels that lack excess power to their guns. The Shark has gained higher efficiency, it is now capable of enhanced damage per blast with less power consumption than before. This weapon clearly outstrips all other lasers in it's ability to deliver a punch without taxing the power reserves of the ship. In the standard fighter configurations four sharks can save you more than 1750kw per second of continuous fire over that of the Thorn. It does this with a little less kick. Not too bad of a trade off.
Tens and Piney also took the lessons learned in their production of the Vantage weapon and were able to scale them down enough to fit into the smaller category mortar gun of the Peeler. While the overall damage was reduced in order to achieve the speeds seen in the Vantage they were able to perfectly match the velocity and range of the Vantage class mortar. These two should pair nicely with each other, even if they are a little slow to rearm. While they were at it, they found a way to increase the payload of the ammo bins for these mortar weapons. The Vantage received an increase from 150 rounds to 240 rounds before it needs to be reloaded, the Peeler has seen an increase to 300 rounds.
Also T&P Systems took this opportunity to rework the starting Solrain weapon, optimizing it for the power hungry shuttles taking some of what they learned in production of the Shark and applying it here. The S-W-28 has gained some damage potential and now draws less energy than it did before.

Octavian Propulsion Labs:
Desperate to win back some of the market share in their own faction Octavian Propulsion Labs has redesigned their Injustice Heavy Laser. Given their Octavian fighter vessels had ample energy to spare they tweaked until they could get a large amount of damage out of it. This resulted in a higher fire delay, but when they hit it is with the force of a loaded tow. The weapon is not exactly efficient, but Octavian Propulsion Labs in true red colors out did the Thorn in damage capacity while still making it possible for their ships to use them.
The Octavian weapons supplier was unhappy with the poor quality of the Lightfire weapon that has been handed down as standard equipment to every new Octavian pilot. They felt the weapon was tower power hungry for the shuttles that used them. They were able to apply new strategies and developments in the Lightfire increasing its efficiency while raising the damage output a little.

Samsun:
Samsun has been very quiet as of late, but somehow they were able to receive the funding needed to redo the woefully unpopular V.A.P.O.R. Heavy Laser. It is speculated that Samsun and Cromforge struck a deal given the similar characteristics of the earlier released Shard laser. The V.A.P.O.R. has obtained a refire rate seen only once before and was able to maintain slightly higher efficiency than the Thorn laser. It does not have the raw damage per shot of some of the others, but it more than makes up for it in the number it gets in. Samsun was also able to obtain an extended range of 2000 meters with this gun, which may be another reason for the lower efficiency. The V.A.P.O.R. Is a perfect match for the Shard in the heavier combat vessels that can mount the two. Samsun has placed themselves back in the game.

Cromforge Enterprises:
After presenting the first rapid fire long range high damage laser to be seen earlier this year the engineers at Cromforge Enterprises show us they're not through yet. They have been able to improve on the already low delay Warper laser. This new iteration receives an extended range to 1600 meters. Many believe it may have been stopped here for efficiency reason, this gun does not have the girth of the larger Shard gun. The damage over time has increased dramatically as well coming in just over the Shark in damage per second while keeping a respectably low power draw from ship systems. Not only does this weapon allow for a near perfect match to the newly introduced V.A.P.O.R. from Samsun it also should help out the smaller lighter fighter craft as well.

PSI:
PSI was able to make great strides in overall efficiency and bulkiness of their Serializer plasma cannon and finally was able to produce a smaller version of the Nova Mk.I. The Serializer has been reduced in mounting size and also sports a slight speed increase as well which rivals the Nova's. Ships with the power to push them may have a deadly pair of cannons available to them now.

To recap we now have many more options for laser payloads in the ships we fly, be they combat, mining, or cargo vessels. Spokesmen from within the companies have been quoted stating that this is only the beginning of a redesign phase for their industries. Only time will tell if the other items get completed, they may be waiting to hear pilot feedback regarding the recent changes to the larger more widely used weapons systems before they continue.

We now have new Injustice guns that are going to put out a great hurting when mounted on ships that can power them. On the other side of the coin we have the Shark laser which is ideal for those ships already in a power crunch.

The Shard, V.A.P.O.R., and Warper are now very similar weapons for their respective size categories. On the Heavy fighters the Shard can be perfectly paired with the .V.A.P.O.R. lasers to provide more overall damage than any size two laser variant out there, while closing the gap between ion and standard laser weapons technology.

The Peeler now pairs extremely well with the Vantage Mortar guns allowing a slow but devastating blast from these high explosives.
For those pilots with power to spare and love the feel of hot plasma being released upon their targets the Serializer and Nova Mk.I are now almost perfect size two and three weapons mount matches. These could be a combination to watch out for!

This has been an exciting week for the factions of TRI.