Confused about how HBC works

[onyhow]

The wiki says:

Heavy Beam: Picks a target ship and attacks it. If the target ship's health is reduced to 0, the beam continues on to a second ship. The beam will hop ships until it has done the entirety of its listed damage.

So, if there's 100 100hp ship (10000hp total) and a beam cannon that does 10k damagel, does this mean that if the cannon is fired, all 100 ships will be destroyed? Or just one?

[Faulty Logic]

They would all be destroyed, provided they were in the beam.

[onyhow]

So it's basically Spire beam but instantaneous?

[Mánagarmr]

So it's basically Spire beam but instantaneous?

Pretty much.

[Hearteater]

I believe armor is applied for each ship though.  So say you have 100 ships with 10,000 armor and 1,000 health.  HBC has 8,000 Armor Piercing.  The first ship's armor blocks 2,000 damage (10,000 Armor - 8,000 AP) and then it takes 1,000 damage and dies.  The beam now has 3,000 less damage and continues on to its next target.  But I can't confirm that since it is fairly hard to test.

[keith.lamothe]

There's also a small loss of beam power per target beyond the damage done, but this is generally not noticeable.

Thinking of it as an "instantaneous photon lance", or rather thinking of the photon lances as a "single-beam, continuous HBC", is accurate.

HBCs are distinct in their ability to have multiple rays.  Though the Wrath Lance is actually a multi-ray photon lance, the first and only of its kind.

[onyhow]

^ But the wrath lance can't really do freeform targetting...it's just fixed beam with the station itself rotating...

Anyway, thanks for the answer everyone!

[Lancefighter]

Odd - I wouldve went with a heat beam. Then again, you broke the heat beam mechanic not to murder everything instantly