• Very reliable.
  
• General purposed weapon.
  
• Shield shredder.
  
• Suppressing fire.
  
• Medium weapon.
  
• Is not actually an auto-cannon. It's a machine-gun, firing bullets, not shells.

I have a saying for Auto cannons, "you can never have too many Auto cannons". Iv made a tech that has its entire surface sprawling with Auto cannons. It's quite enjoyable and effective.

Anyways.. I believe Auto cannons are under used, everyone just uses missiles. :c
Auto cannons are the ultimate shield suppressor (iv had someone tell me the Gatling laser is god-like for this, but lasers never hit so I'm a bit skeptical). Kinetic weapons have a bonus damage multiplier to shields, draining EP greatly. If that was not enough to sell you on using this weapon, when was the last time you saw a tech use armor heavily? Well, kinetic weapons have a damage reduction multiplier against armor! They have neutral damage to hull, so they shred through shields and hull (due to rapid fire in the hull's case) and no one places armor.. so.. there's no downside!! If you slap 12 of these bad boys onto a tech and focus fire, bye bye shields and hull.

Fun fact: The Auto cannon used to have 360* rotation! Giving it a massive hit-box, but was the ideal watch turret. I prefer the newer version as you can place more.
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Why you should use this weapon:

1) SHIELD SHREDDER!!! People spam batteries and shields, when shear explosive AOE damage fails... overwhelm the shields with a tsunami of kinetic bullets! Then let the few AOE weapons do the rest to the batteries.. Fireworks anyone?

2) Easy to place in mass.

3) Great size, not too small or large. The ideal main weapon for medium techs, and sub-weapon for titans (or even point defense).

4) Great firing arch. For all axis!! Up, down, left, and right!

5) Sturdy, (can survive an indirect volley of 15 megaton cannons), you won't have to worry about it popping off due to heavy explosive damage on the shields.

6) Its a machine gun. WHO DOES NOT LIKE MACHINE GUNS?!

7) Easy to mass produce. How? Better future Gatling lasers my friend, since lasers can't hit the broadside of Mount Everest, scrap them. They contain ALL the parts of an Auto cannon, some parts in excess!
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Why you may not want to use this weapon:

1) An expensive investment. We are talking Gluon beams and Coffman cells. Not very cheap. (But when you have 100 Gatling lasers from salvage.... well that's 100 completed Auto cannons and 50 incompleted Auto cannons which are missing only two component parts!

2) Auto cannons MUST take down the shield to begin damaging the tech directly. Having a full auto cannon tech is strange for most people as the enemy tech does not take damage until the EPs are depleted. (Though this is more placebo than effectiveness.)

3) Massive recoil for low mass techs.

... I can't think of anymore.. Are any of these reasons even significant enough to justify their lack of use? I think not! Use them more often!

• General purpose weapon.
  
• Good against everything and anything.
  
• Hybrid Kinetic and High Explosive. (Unique)
  
• Compact.
  
• Main and secondary weapon.
  
• Cheap.
  
• Very reliable.
  
• Can't shoot up or down majorly.
  
• Communal Weapon Type. (Abnormal)
  
• Suppressing fire. (If you have enough of them.)

This thing... this veteran of a weapon, is freakin forgotten. And I am no exception to that. It used to be the best weapon around before Hawkeye showed up. Now we have fancy weapons like the Auto Cannon and large lasers which leave it in the shadows.
Honestly though, this weapon has never failed, it's just such a good "jack of all trades" kind of weapon that all the more specialized weapons like the Mk3 as a devastator weapon hogs the spotlight. Though in reality, this is probably still the best general purpose weapon around, we just have more options now which are also more specialized, leaving it to be forgotten.
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Why we should use this weapon:

1) Super reliable for it's type. We have massive super weapons such as the Mk3 which can delete a tech with a single shot, but this weapon? It has 360*, moderate speed rotation. It can track enemies reliably enough that you don't need to pamper it for a good firing condition and will always be ready for the next shot when you need it to. It's the only heavy hitting weapon in TT that is reliable enough that you don't need to worry about it missing or positioning yourself to guarantee a hit.

2) Ridiculously cheap (for how it is). We talk about the Auto Cannon: ~21k BB, The Mk3:~32k BB, The Sticky Bomb Launcher: ~22k BB, The Sonic Blaster:~26K BB. And then there is this thing, ~13k BB. In terms of the other weapons, the GSO Megaton Cannon has a massive amount of fire power compared to it's price tag, making it very easy to slap many onto a single tech. A single Mk3 is almost Triple the cost of a single Megaton Cannon.

3) Common salvage. Play campaign? Fight a lot? Well 100 GSO Megaton Cannons sitting in your inventory is a rather normal condition. They are an excellent source of Proxima Dark components, the best source in fact.

4) Communal Weapon Type: Unlike A LOT of weapons in this game, the Megaton works well with other weapons in it's firing vision, like the Auto Cannon. Since it's a 2x2x2, having a height of 2 and an elevated firing muzzle, it fires it's shells about 1.5 blocks in height within it's height of 2 blocks. So you can place something like an Auto Cannon RIGHT in front of the Megaton and even with the Auto Cannon aiming upwards the most it can, still not be in the way of the Megaton. This also applies to Megatons in a staircase arrangement and can Mortar fire if spaced correctly (lobs shells above other weapons, it has a bullet velocity low enough to make this possible unlike [in practice] any other cannon.)

5) High bullet velocity, something many weapons desperately need. The GSO Megaton Cannon is the only general weapon that fully uses the maximum lock on range of the player, all other weapons that can are either missiles or heavy weapons.

6) Mixed High Explosive and Kinetic shells: Unlike some other weapons (cough cough... Ven Rapid Cannon), the Megaton fires a cannon shell that is not just high explosive for shields to nom on, it includes a massive impact force along with it's explosive payload. So if the enemy has substantial shields, the Megaton will STILL deal significant EP drain, in fact, it may be more Kinetic than Explosive, meaning it's more efficient against shields than just normal blocks. One thing is for sure, when your shield sponges a Megaton Cannon volley, it's not the volley that drains your batteries, it's the fact those shells are also kinetic AND high explosive. No matter what you fight, shields or hull, the Megaton will be dealing significant damage.
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Why you may use other weapons:

1) Generalized weapon, not specialized.
2) Space inefficient, (compared to the Mk3 [explosive] and Auto cannon [kinetic].)
3) Need many to deal devastating damage.
4) Need to be placed in a staircase arrangement to have many Megatons in a small area.
5) Incompetent AA. Whenever you are a flyer and you see an enemy tech with only Megatons, you can get VERY low to the ground and still not be fired upon, making it a very safe engagement, but if they ever do get a firing solution... they are actually excellent AA, the problem is they can't aim up to fire at air targets.
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Applications:
Generally, the Megaton is best use for larger techs that can have "unique" weapon positions like seen here. A flat front like the middle of this tech is an excellent location for a Megaton as you can place weapons in front of the Cannon and have no line of sight compromises. A simple 1 block difference in height (relative) at any location is enough to make a valid firing solution for a Megaton. It may not look like it, but every Megaton Cannon on this tech has a valid firing solution at their current position and orientation.

NOTE: This section only applies to pew pew BF weapons. (Except high pitched lasers)

After playing TT with explosion nerf and target prediction mods, I can finally give info about lasers.

Lasers in vanilla are useless. Don't use them unless you plan to melee. Lasers can't hit anything if anything, you or the target, moves unless you are in melee range. This includes rotating turrets, the rotation motion will cause the laser to miss due to inertia motion inherence.

-If you have target prediction mods however-
Lasers are a near ideal weapon in TT. No seriously, they are monstrous in effectiveness. Block spam? No problem. Heavily armored? Wait you had armor? Oh it's already gone. Shield spam? Well absorb 500 laser particles then.
The damage bonuses against hull and armor blocks along with the decent base damage of lasers adds up into a very deadly source of damage that can easily make up a lack of AOE damage for obliterating every block in the laser's path. Most weapons struggle against block spam due to the shear mass of health that needs to be chewed through unless the Explosion Nerf mod is not enabled, then the 100% penetration of AOE damage is overwhelmingly superior. The only thing lasers struggle against is Ven 'skin shields' (shields barely going outwards from the tech) as lasers have no main AOE and deal only 50% damage to battery Energy Points, and considering the decent base damage of lasers, that 50% reduction makes a large impact. Though due to the shear fire rate of laser weapons, you need quite the energy storage and/or energy efficiency for this to be an active problem laser weapons face.
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Why you should use laser weapons:

1) Bonus damage to hull and armor, lasers just peal entire techs like onions when the shields are down.

2) Lasers delete blocks: It sucks when that large GC block detaches, but just sits there, absorbing shots for days while being healed, you fire at it for 30 seconds and it's still just sitting there, damage sponging. That is if you are using anti-shield kinetic weapons, lasers? They deal so much damage it puts large blocks into "negative health" faster than a GSO 1 block flying off Tony the tech that just got hit by 10 cruise missiles. The larger the block, the easier it is to focus damage onto it. Focused fired lasers can deal so much damage to a single block that NO amount of heal spam is going to save it from detonating, it will just evaporate in no time.

3) Ultra-common salvage. We have BF techs easily with 15 Gatling lasers and are absurdly easy to destroy, salvage quality is exceptional as you tend to kill the cab before dealing significant hull damage (unless you are using explosives but even then, the weapons tend to survive). BF lasers are such an absurdly common salvage they are basically worthless in inventory value except for using as scrap. You can easily have hundreds of Gatling lasers (100+), Laser rifles (300+), and Speed Lance lasers (500++). Imagen gold being as common as dirt. Valuable as a material, meaningless in monetary value.

4) Shield quality threshold: Due to the fire rate of lasers, the damage de-buff against shields is meaningless against most targets. Only when the shield quality of a tech is high enough will laser's have difficulty. Shield quality is the combination of Shield efficiency and Battery capacity.
==================================================
Why you should not use laser weapons:

1) Can't hit the broad side of Mount Everest if Everest or the tech moves a meter at any time. (Unless target prediction mods are enabled.)
2) Visually disappointing (can't see the shots).
3) Loud. (High pitched noises for some lasers...)
4) Expensive, (large lasers are RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE!)

5) Flimsy. We only have BF for proper laser weapons. GSO's laser is rank 1, Ven's lasers are unwieldly/underwhelming, HE's Zeus laser is more cannon than laser. Only BF has a laser that is of the large weapon class yet BF is between Ven and GSO in block strength.

6) Terrible against efficient shields and heavily shielded enemies. The damage de-buff is very noticeable. (When the shield quality threshold is met or surpassed).
==================================================
Shield quality thresholds: (Thresholds include all other thresholds above it.)
Small techs: Few batteries, Ven shields. Made of batteries, GSO shields.
Medium techs: Partially made of batteries, GSO shields. Made of batteries, BF shield.
Large techs: Has some batteries, BF shields. Made of batteries, Havoc shield.

HAVOC SHIELD: TOO INEFFICIENT FOR LASER DAMAGE DE-BUFF TO MATTER.
If you attack a tech that has a Havoc shield and are using lasers, you do not need to think about the laser's damage de-buff against shields, you will just wish to have a damage-buff instead. (Lasers effectively do 100% damage against Havoc shield EPs instead of 50%, Kinetics effectively do 350% damage against Havoc shield EPs instead of 200%.)

• Super heavy weapon.
  
• Good against everything.
  
• Hull shredder.
  
• Suppressing fire.
  
• Main weapon.

This is honestly one of the strongest weapons in vanilla TT, dealing significant AOE damage at a super consistent rate unprecedented by other weapons. The HE Battleship Turret (BST as I call it) is the best single weapon around for shear damage, power, and reliability, it is good against everything.. even shields due to its rapid fire and moderate kinetic damage.

Generally, this is a main weapon that deals the bulk of a tech's damage.
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Why you should use this weapon:

1) Annihilates hull. Size is the main counter to this weapon as it reduces the likelihood of a single area being shot multiple times with its high firing speed.

2) Good against everything.
3) Super reliable.
4) Sturdy (in general).
5) Excellent weapon for turrets.
6) Powerful main weapon.
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Why you should not use this weapon:

1) Super expensive, 30k BB to be exact. The RR Sonic Blaster is a major competitor with the BST as its also Anti hull but can rotate 360*, has great lateral aim, and costs 5k BB less.

2) Limited firing angles, especially laterally, this weapon is near useless against high flying hovers when on a tank

3) Very large: You can fit many smaller weapons like the Megaton Cannon in the same area and be cheaper than the BST, giving the weapon rather strong competition for its alternatives.

4) Large target: When in a big fight, although this cannon is very sturdy, it is easy to focus down, so before you know it, pop, the turret goes flying off your tech while still having large amounts of hull points. I don't think I have ever seen a BST be fully destroyed before falling off the tech.

5) Difficult to amass (aka, non-cooperative): Its rather difficult to have many BSTs with similar lines of fire. This weapon is more of a single, primary weapon that techs posses only one of.

• Super heavy weapon.
  
• Anti-everything.
  
• Primary weapon.
  
• Single fire.
  
• Embeddable.
  
• No self rotation!

"The heaviest ballistic weapon currently licensed for use in off-world colonies. ...when it is on target it will really make a mess."
This is THE strongest weapon in TT. Massive AOE, extreme HPs, superb damage. This weapon is to be feared by all and in vanilla, can easily one-shot techs on its own.
Its simply the heavy weight champion of weapons.

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Why you should try to always use at least one MK3:

1) I look at you, you die. -Summary of the MK3.
2) Is so sturdy that you can use it as part of your hull! (Not more sturdy than HE six block hull however, just very close).

3) Two of these in vanilla can 1-shot almost any campaign enemy.
4) Massive burst damage.
5) Can penetrate shields due to its massive AOE. Only an optimized Havoc shield can negate a Mk3 shell.

6) Super co-operative to build with. You can easily stack them or embed them in the hull.
7) High kinetic damage. (The shell itself can easily destroy the block it makes contact with without the explosion).

8) Can casually delete a chunk of an entire tech with a single volley if the tech has somewhat shallow shields.
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Why you should sometimes not use the MK3:

1) Vulnerable to explosion dampening (especially with the Explosion nerf mod). The MK3 relies heavily on its AOE damage.

2) Large, heavy, and expensive.
3) Can be unreliable due to long reload.
4) Significant recoil. Small hovers can't utilize this weapon efficiently.
5) Very limited firing angle.

• Medium weapon.
  
• Ignores shields.
  
• Unrestricted rotation.
  
• Painfully slow reload.
  
• Pitiful range.
  
• Pure explosive.
  
• Support weapon.

Has a nice unique bullet!
Honestly, I can't fully judge the stick launcher. Its rate of fire and bullet velocity is SOOO PAINFUL!

The RR Sticky Bomb Launcher is classed special due to its specific functionality. Its unique.
Slow rate of fire, moderate damage, but ignores shields. I can't call it good, bad, or if it's worth placing on your tech.
The Sticky Bomb Launcher is a support weapon, its not expected to do much on its own but can help a lot during a fight due to it ignoring shields.
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Why you should use this weapon:

1) Penetrates shields.
2) Punishes glass techs.
3) Unrestricted rotation. Can aim directly up, down, and full 360* rotation.
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Why you should not use this weapon:

1) Rather weak DPS. [Long reload for only moderate damage.]
2) Worst bullet velocity in the game: You have to be in close range (assuming the fight is on even ground) for the sticky bomb to land, and even with target prediction and the launcher's aggressive rotation speed, any sudden movements from the user or target will cause the bomb to miss. It spends many seconds in the air traveling a short distance.

3) Expensive for its power. 20k BB.
4) Difficult to use in large quantity.
5) Countered by efficient repair bubbles: It deals so little damage for its reload time, when a bomb does land, if the damage is healed off efficiently (from a GSO or Ven bubble), it might as well have not been a contributor.

• Moderate weapon.
  
• Uses energy!
  
• Anti small.
  
• Limited range.
  
• Single shot.
  
• Parameter defense weapon.
  
• FRIENDLY FIRE ENABLED!!!
  
• Support weapon.

The first weapon to use energy to function... 7.5k damage per bolt, the highest damaging single shot in the game.. Has friendly fire.. This is one special weapon indeed.
The Tesla Coil is an IDEAL support weapon, it will zap any enemy tech, any where, that is in range, even through your own tech! (Causes friendly fire damage!).
As a parameter defense weapon, any large tech would have great interest in this weapon to destroy small and fast techs. Just be sure it doesn't ram you and cause the bolt to travel through your own tech and cause self-damage. This is the only weapon with a perfect 360* sphere firing angle. Large shields also counter this weapon due to energy weapons dealing half damage to Energy Points, so the coil will only do 3,250 damage in energy capacity, and energy storage obviously has higher numbers than block health.
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Why you should use this weapon:

1) Can easily destroy blocks. 7.5k damage per bolt is very significant, ~2x a Mk3 Battleship shell, that amount of damage can easily destroy a HE six block and an entire section of hull & armor if not intercepted by a shield or is discharged while within an enemy shield.

2) Full 360* sphere firing angle.
3) Cheap for the amount of damage it deals. (Less than a Mk3 Battleship cannon for ~2x the impact damage!)
4) Only uses energy once discharged, the charging does not take energy and so, it never wastes energy unless it was a pathetic target which was zapped.
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Why you might not use this weapon:

1) Uses quite the amount of energy per bolt.
2) Can cause friendly fire throughout the path the bolt takes.
3) Causes lag when unable to fire due to a lack of power. (Horrible when you have 7+).
4) Very heavy.
5) Limited safe locations to place onto the tech. (Referring to #2.)
6) Heavily countered by large shields. (Small AOE and causes energy damage.)
7) Limited range. The coil is a parameter defense weapon, if your tech is very large, the coil won't have enough range to effectively reach a safe distance from your tech's parameters.

8) The enemy MUST be in range upon discharging, or it has to charge up again. This combines with #7 greatly to create a large disadvantage.

Flame throwers are an interesting weapon. They are the earliest instance of shield bypassing, making them an ideal melee weapon as they aren't massive and don't care about loose blocks and shields. Are they under used? No. They are just odd to use. Shotgun or flame thrower.. Battleship cannon or flame thrower.. plasma claw or flame thrower... Or in a nutshell, non-volatile weapon vs volatile weapon. Not very appealing under normal circumstances when you can slap a battleship cannon on and annihilate the enemy. That is until you install the explosion penetration nerf mod (increases explosion dampening so damage in an explosion won't penetrate into the hull and destroy everything inside.). After playing with this mod, explosions are not the insta-kill weapon type. How did I solve this lack of killing power? ADDING FLAME THROWERS!
In the event that your close range battleship cannon proves too unreliable for what ever reason, flame throwers provide an EXCELLENT alternative. In fact, in certain instances, iv had improved success using them instead of battleship cannons in vanilla!
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Why you should use this weapon more:

1) Its a leach to repair bubbles. Healing.. more healing.. more healing... THE ENERGY COST!! Usually you want damage to be absorbed in their ideal situations, explosives hit shields minimizing AOE damage and EP loss, kinetic shots hit the armor dealing reduced damage.. but flames? Well they just don't care! Consider it a suppression for the enemy tech.

2) Its good at salvaging. (When the tech is not a bomb with wheels.)

3) AA (I am serious), in the event a hover tech gets too close, the sustain fire from the.. fire.. is capable of damaging everything, making all the blocks weaker and make the hovers easier to pop off. Heck, if it gets WAY too close, (especially if its a BF tech), it will get annihilated swiftly with lots of salvage for the picking.

4) Reliable melee weapon!!! Works against loose blocks so you can keep the pressure on and you don't need to directly ram the tech and be in a awkward position.
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Why you should not use it:

1) Makes big boom upon going critical. Not a problem with a tough hull surrounding it.

2) Not good against venture repair bubbles.. iv had instances when I had 23 flame throwers (don't ask how I got that many to have a firing line) burning a venture cab with few batteries and a venture bubble combo.. FOR LITERAL MINUTES! You need a follow up weapon that can exploit the amount of sustained damage the enemy is taking, preferably a rapid fire AOE weapon.

*3) Rather expensive and easy to go critical.. If it was not for this, I would complain people don't use flamers enough.

4) Poor against large blocks. Due to shear HP size, a GC one block you can imagen has 4x the HP of a single one block, flamers have to drain that extra HP, and considering their ability to have an AOE, having the entire AOE effect assault only one block is rather inefficient. Flamers best work against techs that can have the flame travel throughout the tech, damaging multiple blocks at the same time. Large blocks make this much more difficult, reducing damage efficiency.

Notice how the flames bounce off the block, this is exactly what I am referring to, those particles can be damaging more blocks but are only damaging a single block. If I am correct, the amount of particles hitting a block does not dictate the damage sustained, only that it has contact.

• Super light weapon.
  
• Great accuracy.
  
• Very cheap & light.
  
• Frail.
  
• Pure kinetic.
  
• Major support weapon!

There was a time long long ago.. when the Hail Fire Rifle was the #1 weapon around even with the Megaton cannon (which was a rare weapon at the time), it was so powerful in fact, it originally was priced at 2k! Now however, due to significant competition with new weapons, it has been overshadowed and has also been nerfed in the past. Now it remains in the shadow of other weapons and is rarely used in general by players...
HOWEVER! The Hail Fire Rifle I have always renowned as the ultimate support weapon. Every time I used it as a support weapon, it was the nemesis of shields. Its true I have not used it too much due to the Mk3 and Auto cannon... but in reality, 40 Rifles cost approximately the same as a single Auto Cannon but it takes only 5 to have more DPS.
However, they are easily picked off due to their lack of HPs. Most AOE weapons easily strip them from techs.
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Why you should use this weapon:

1) Super cheap.
2) Very potent kinetic capabilities.
3) Super reliable support weapon.
4) Unrestricted rotation. (Though it seems they are bugged and have issues firing up much like the naval gun in V1.4.4).
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Why you may not use this weapon:

1) Takes very little to strip them off a tech.
2) Amassing tens of Rifles can be difficult for smaller techs.
3) Armor stomps Ven weapons. Barely leaves any scratches!
4) Auto Cannons are more space efficient for DPS. Try fitting 20 rifles in a 12 block space. Its impossible.
5) Ven shields can withstand Hail Fire Rifles due to energy efficiency vs slight bonus damage. With ~76 damage per bullet, the damage bonus on shields would give it ~114 damage per bullet. A Ven shield would act more like a GSO shield (which is still efficient) in terms of efficiency against Hail Fire Rifles. This is why Auto Cannons are still the top shield shredder, they benefit more from the bonus damage than a hoard of Ven Rifles and have a faster rate of fire. ~158 per AC bullet, ~234 against shields and at a faster rate of fire. This also applies to armor in #3. The rifles already do little damage, doing even less per bullet means a lot against sturdy armor plates. And don't even mention sloped armor which have normal damage reduction for being slopped!

• Light damage weapon.
  
• Anti Air.
  
• Estimated 250m maximum range.
  
• S w a r m b o i s
  
• Parameter defense weapon.
  
• Intimidating.
  
• Heavy support weapon.
  
• If the target is within range, it WILL hit it!

Oh boy, HIVE launcher. No weapon is better at being a support weapon then this thing. Beyond reliable and very easy to place and utilize. The general rule with this weapon is that it will always hit. The HIVE missiles are absurd in maneuverability (and is probably the cause for their lack of fuel for 500m maximum range), it does not care for a clear firing solution, the missiles will find a way but only when the lock-on function is used.
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Why you should use this weapon:

1) See the screenshot to the right:
2) It's a real damn intimidating missile dispenser.
3) Excellent for large warships (due to #1).
4) VERY easy to place.
5) Moderate size.
6) Suppressing fire.
7) Real damn satisfying stacking multiple and watching the missile swarm.
8) Very AA competent. (Would also make for good missile interceptors if changed, lol)
9) AMAZING SUPPORT WEAPON.
======================================
Why you should not use this weapon:

1) Expensive and large for it's damage output. (Light damage vs 27.9k cost and 4x2x4 volume!)
2) Low damage with negligible Area Of Effect, HEAVILY countered by ALL shields.
3) Need many launchers for significant firepower.
4) Long priming and un-priming animations.
5) Has infinite audio glitch V1.4.5.2 (possibly patched, V1.4.6).

MORE! MORE HE SIX BLOCKS! ADD MOAARRREE!!... Then add the wrap armor please.
-Me

I will be honest here, I can't think of a better hull block. It has lots of health, great size, and can provide weapon symmetry with all weapons, from auto cannons to battleship turrets! The block also works amazingly with the wrap armor series! When in doubt, HE six blocks.
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Why you should use this block:

1) Amazing hull function. A hull that does not budge.. this is the ideal hull block. GO CRAZY!
2) Symmetry applications (as said earlier).
3) A combat tech's best friend.
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Why you should not use this block:

1) Massive of course. You can easily keep spamming only to have issues maneuvering when you are done. Then you are just a brick of hull points. If you are building massive, fill the interior with BF scaffolding blocks, let the HE six block be an outer shell.

2) Not ideal for small techs.
Me: "I will make a small tech with the HE six block!"
Also me: Makes a battleship with 64x25x35 volume. (X-Y-Z)

3) That moment when you need hundreds to load in your battle tech.. '

For those who watch the TT naval warfare challenge, my entry "The Toaster", has SIX HUNDRED AND ONE HE SIX BLOCKS!
Needless to say, I spend quite some time converting smaller HE blocks into six and four blocks in campaign saves.

Everyone loves shields. The thought of sustaining zero damage as long as its up is very enticing. The Havoc shield from HE is just that, a massive shield that can safely absorb damage from a far. Everyone uses it.. even spamming it! Now. Throw all of that placebo about the Havoc shield out the window and onto the moon.

The Havoc shield is energy hungry, it drinks energy at all times, even when idle. It takes quite the amount of power to sustain such a large hexagon shield, and when it's under fire by kinetic weapons.. unless you are a giant battery, you are gonna run out of power FAST. Yet I see player techs that spam them to the next dimension. Look, spamming shields is the worst possible idea, spam repair bubbles instead!

The most viable instances to use the Havoc shield are as followed: To protect an important area significantly, when the tech has power to spare, or when you plan to fully depend on the shield to protect the tech. But please, don't spam it..
If you ask me, the Havoc shield is both over used AND miss used. I blame ignorance and placebo.
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Why you should use this shield:

1) Massive.
2) Its mostly transparent.
3) Very reliable AOE sponge.
4) Sturdy. HE blocks being HE blocks.
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Why you may not want to use this shield:

1) Expensive.
2) Energy intensive to the point I have to inform specific situations to use it!
3) DON'T SPAM IT. ):<

4) If an enemy tech gets inside the shield and you don't have an internal backup shield... Nothing is stopping those shots anymore and you still have power! The shield is so large that this is a significant risk.

--[This guide has not been updated but is still very accurate to V1.4.15 Stable]--

I am very accepting to requests for adding other blocks to this guide.
#1: RR Gluon Blaster.
#2: HE BMB and Ven Swarm Missile launcher (silo missiles).

Limits on requests: (Semi-rant warning, I hate excluding anything so it takes quite a bit of issue to make me exclude something and boy do I have issues with some of the things below)..

• --GC blocks are excluded. GC is about mining, not mass destruction and fighting. The aim-able plasma laser isn't an exception too. Melee is not a form of combat in TT. If it was, then the devs would of bothered to allow detached blocks to be damaged by melee. Spoiler; they never did and still haven't.

  ---

  
  
• --GSO is greatly limited. Most of their blocks are designed.... uugh.. I have no idea what their design concept is besides just "general". Maybe that's why the GSO Megaton Cannon is so respectable. But that's a unique hero so-to-speak. I mean, the light machine gun has.. A... 10... METER... MAXIMUM... RANGE... AND A BULLET VELOCITY OF 2m/s. TWO, METERS, PER, SECOND!!...
  Sorry about that.. just.. WHY IS THIS A THING?! AND WHY DOES IT'S DESCRIPTION SAY IT'S A GOOD RELIABLE GUN?!???... *Sigh*. Sorry again.. But any weapon in history, ever made, ever fired, ever thrown, had more than 10 meter range. Even a SPEAR made of wood did!

  ---

  
  
• --The GSO Big Bertha cannon does not exist, it is too impractical and inefficient to even be worth mentioning in this series.
  ---(Rant warning)---
  Wanna know how impractical? It is an actual copy and paste of the Mk3. Code divers saw within the code no differences between the Mk3's firepower and Big Bertha. While it's perfectly identical to the Mk3 when it comes to what is fires, it costs much more, is comically larger (you can fit over 5 Mk3s with NO, FREAKIN, PROBLEM in that damn volume), fancier, and has the best vertical aiming ability that lets it have perfect accuracy at over 1.5km range which is only it's limit because techs literally despawn beyond that range. (I know this because of the Increased Range mod back when lock-on had infinite range). It's just a sad... sad.. weapon neglected by it's creators when it comes to being a weapon.
  ---(End of rant)---

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• --Venture is to not be significantly mentioned. Things like proper hull blocks, fuel, boosters, ect. You can mention weapons and topics relating to Ven, just nothing that indirectly involves how the intention of exploration impacts it like the Ven Rapid-Fire Cannon which only exists because the devs gave Venture a cannon yet didn't put all much thought in how it fits in the world of TT combat considering it's a cannon for an exploration faction.
  ---(Mini-rant warning)---
  The answer is; just because the devs want Ven to be about exploration, the Rapid-Fire Cannon has to be weak, so weak that it needs to exploit the poor combat balancing of TT to be a weapon. Fix the combat balancing, and the cannon is no longer a weapon but an explosion and noise marker for unshielded and unarmored techs to fear. It is painful to watch. The GSO Megaton Cannon does everything 10x better. Any heavier weapon than that is at least 3x the weapon it is and that assumes it is equal to the Rapid-Fire Cannon except for the fact it's a heavy weapon.
  ---(End of mini-rant)---

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I also apologize if I start to become a bit more rant-like. I have became involved in live-balancing ever since becoming a modder/scripter in Creeper World 4 and all that gained experience has done for me here, is give me more and more reason to despise TerraTech's core mechanics and fundamentals.