The Draconian Coaxial

Upon Information and Belief...

By: George Argyropoulos

a/k/a Dragon_Bane

There was a lot of chatter recently about the Draconian Coaxial turret. Particularly with regard to the Secondary Weapon - The Countermeasure half. Most of this chatter revolved mainly around the question of having a Multi-Shot listed and the use of the Hydroxide Coated Barrels. The answer that we previously had was that this special would not work due to the CM being a secondary weapon. This has changed.

This is the second 'correction' that has happened in-game recently that we have not been informed of in an update release. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but with the help of Jefe from the BP Crib we tested this to get some definitive proof. Given this new info, I thought it would behoove the community to make the info available and then spend a little time on this turret.

First let's look at some stills to show that the Hydroxide Coated Barrels now work. This first still shows a turret without the special.

The second one shows a turret with the special equipped. Clearly the pellet count has increased.

Now the question is- is it worth putting on your turret? My answer is no. The reason for this is the fundamental way in which Multi-Shot works, see this article for more info, coupled with the weapon's mechanic.

We first need to step back a little bit and understand how the Secondary Weapon of this turret works. Since it is a splash based weapon the accuracy stat[1] is much less important than the splash stat. Given that it is a Multi-Shot weapon, coupled with the splash based performance, the additional pellets are essentially redundant due to the very low spread (only 4 off-center) that the weapon has - particularly when you start adding splash specials. Of far greater import is the splash. Let's math, shall we?

If you add the Hydroxide Coated Barrels, you gain an additional coverage of about 8 along one axis (since missiles don't spread, we don't care about the other axis too much other than our own spread), 4 in front and 4 in back.

If instead you choose to boost your splash with a special like Sulfide Deployer or Fuel Tank 01-X you will gain a splash bonus of 80%, with a 4 base splash that gives you a splash radius of 7.2 giving you an axis coverage of  14.4.

The splash actually performs better along the other axis as well, which actually mitigates the spread drift of the CM along that axis. Of further note, if you have three slots, you can use both splash specials or some other combination that you'd like. How will this look for a result? Lets see...

With the Hydroxide Coated Barrels:

With splash specials:

As you can see the area of effective counter is larger in the latter. We have to remember, this is not a damage dealing weapon. The addition of pellets in this instance is essentially useless. So... one of the secret sauce combos looks like this:

While it isn't the only option, it is a hell of a splasher. The Countermeasure systems boosts the range of the countermeasure and the splash... well, the splash is still King.

Of note:

• A-T:R does not affect the secondary part of this weapon.

• Even though the Draconian Coaxial is not listed in the Retrofit lab under Countermeasure Turrets, this retrofit does buff the secondary of the Draconian Coaxial.

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[1] Accuracy, while not wholly significant, does play a part overall in that it determines the point from which spread is calculated for the CM.