Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Blog Posts => Topic started by: David on January 16, 2016, 11:05:24 AM
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Blog post here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/01/16/the-ion-pulser-development-process/).
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Looks like Aurora will be useful for something besides being a high-tech Gryphon without the nanoforge. I would like to see a high-tech energy version of Dominator or Eagle, and perhaps the changes to the Aurora might do it.
New weapon... built for so-called "support". At least I can say it will be something new to try.
P.S. Just noticed what appears to be a new destroyer-sized phase ship.
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An exciting and fun read, David!
I note that new ship seems to be firing while phased.
So everyone, how long are we betting before Alex creates a Ballistic/Missile type slot to round things out?
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yay, finally a medium sized ion weapon! and a phase destroyer! \o/
and new phase mechanics to go along with it. and a new frigate. already can't wait to play around with all that. is it coming out soon™? ._.
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the .2 releases continue to be the best ones ;D
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Very nice! The hype levels have just received a massive injection!
Tad bummed you didn't decide to go with the higher frames rotary barrel animations (the little details do matter!) but everything else is gravy! I see art for a new phase destroyer, The Ion Pulser (of course) and in the last screenshot it appears to be the new Ion Beam! :O
Also phase ships firing while phased? Wicked! >8D
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I was a bit skeptical when I saw the first three frames animation... But then I noticed the second one that is far far better indeed ^^
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New weapon... built for so-called "support". At least I can say it will be something new to try.
I think there are two new weapons now: the Ion Pulser is an energy version of the Assault Chaingun (so massive damage, massive flux cost) and then there is the new Ion Beam that can send EMP arcs through even shields provided the victim is high on flux. Ion Pulser isn't support but rather assault/strike due to its high burst.
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More Ion weaponry? I am very pleased <3
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It does seem two new weapons: the burst cannon and the beam.
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The new 6 AM blasters Aurora with high energy focus is going to be fun.
I hope you won't keep that idea of knocking down engines through shields, i'm afraid it'll feel quite unfair playing against this, especially when the player is outnumbered. A normal ion beam without that effect would still be pretty handy against the Hegemony's flying bricks which regularly lower their shields to tank with their armour. Not a really good flagship weapon, but pretty interesting for a wingman in its Vigilance, or maybe that Tri-Tach Brawler you talked about? However, it shares the graviton beam colour, which could make it confusing. Especially when one is harmless to armour and the other will kill engines.
The Pulser looks pretty good. I'm a bit worried it'll directly compete (and lose) to the heavy blaster for a place in the medium mount. The limited ammo clip, shorter range and (i assume) lower damage per shot doesn't seems like a good trade-off for the bonus EMP effect and burst dps.
Oh, and that destroyer (http://i.imgur.com/lPl3OVF.png)...
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@ HELMUT: Well, the Ion Beam can't do that unless the target is already high on flux. Just watch your flux level around a ship equipped with one; seems both fair and interesting to me! Don't wait until your at 75% flux before you attempt to disengage!
Another thing of note is that there are now fewer ships that can mount large missiles; obviously this calls for another new ship with at least 1 large missile mount! :D With this change only 4 in the game can and 2 of those are capitals so perhaps a destroyer built around a large missile mount? Call it the Cyclops!
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Assuming you can disengage, yes, it's not that big deal. But with a lumbering Paragon that regularly stay at high flux, flickering its fortress shield to survive? No fun allowed, especially if the enemy stacked 2 or 3 ion beams at your shield.
And to answer your note about large missiles. The Gryphon is already a very mean beast with missile spam, an even cheaper large missile weapon platform would be unfair. Just imagine a dozen "Cyclops" with those monstrous Hurricane MIRVs wrecking anything that move...
(https://media.giphy.com/media/DBa308wq8XTMs/giphy.gif)
It's the main reason there's no such ship in mods too (as far as i know), it's pretty much impossible to balance that.
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The Ion Beam's chance to arc through shields is based on the hard flux level (with 0% chance up to 10% hard flux, going up to 90% chance at 100%), and it's very expensive both in terms of OP and flux. "Unfair to play against" is definitely a concern, but hopefully that'll be enough to balance it out; it's really not meant to be something you can easily jam onto direct-combat ship. That, and there's some counter-play available in terms of managing your hard flux. Could tweak the probabilities at some point, too.
The Pulser looks pretty good. I'm a bit worried it'll directly compete (and lose) to the heavy blaster for a place in the medium mount. The limited ammo clip, shorter range and (i assume) lower damage per shot doesn't seems like a good trade-off for the bonus EMP effect and burst dps.
Your guesses re: stats are correct. In addition, it's a bit less OP, a bit more flux-efficient, has a significantly lower sustained flux cost, and can really lock down a target if a full burst gets through shields. I think that should be enough to carve out a niche, but yeah, again it's something to watch out for.
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Hmm. This is all well and good, but I'm still waiting for those patch notes to come out soonTM. Then we'll REALLY have the hype.
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The most important stat for ion weapons imo is flux cost, more specifically that they should be low commitment when it comes to flux. The new ion cannon proved this.
In small scale combat, disabling an entire ship counts for very little if you've driven yourself way over 70% flux in the process, unless you have some serious missile chops to finish the job there's no guarantee they won't just be at 20% flux and ready to tank anything on shield. Extreme example but I just want to make my point.
Btw, 3 medium Synergy on that new destroyer? :o Or is it asymmetrical loadout wise?
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For a weapon that complements the loadout of the ship it's on, yeah, this is true. But the Ion Beam is meant to expand a "support ship" niche. An early game example might be a "Vigilance with a cautious officer, Salamander Pod, Ion Beam, and Unstable Injector". The amount of chaos that thing can cause should be well worth the deployment cost, but it's not a frontline ship, so how high its flux goes to get the job done is less of an issue.
Btw, 3 medium Synergy on that new destroyer? :o Or is it asymmetrical loadout wise?
REDACTED
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Is the Ion Beam clocking in at the standard beam range of 1000? Can you share with us the DPS? Something like a Tac Laser DPS or over 100?
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Currently: 50 dps, 400 empdps, 200 flux/second, 1000 range, 12 OP.
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What about the pulser?
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Off the top of my head, 75 dam/shot, 10 shots/second, 400 emp/shot, 450 range, 100 flux/shot. And either 11 or 12 OP. Probably 11.
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Noice, more knife fight weapons.
Im not too enthusiastic about the ion beam's stats, but now that officers exist it may not be too bad. I also wanna try Forlorn Hope with 2 of those on the Paragon, bye Hounds.
I like the Vigilance example - that ship's only lifeline is its shield, so you'd really need all the range you can get and a cautious officer with some nice skills to make it work. Situationally powerful weapons are fun, and if it was a no brainer it'd just make shieldless ships even more useless.
Get Stian to make some more beam sounds btw. ;D The phase lance is so unassuming, almost a no-sell given how powerful it is and how quiet it is. And this thing needs a nice crisp loop!
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I doubt the upcoming Ion Pulser will compete with Heavy Blaster, given its lack of range. Players who simply want raw energy DPS will want as much range as they can get, and anything less than 600 is not enough if not using Safety Override. I get annoyed with 600 range with Pulse Laser and Heavy Blaster, enough that I might take Applied Physics to 7 (instead of ignoring the skill completely) just to get Advanced Optics for 800 range Phase Lance, which becomes much better if the ship can use them with Needlers or Heavy Autocannons (mostly limited to Medusa, Falcon, Eagle, and Doom). I would love to have long-ranged non-beam energy weapons akin to needlers. Even heavy energy weapons top at 700, same as Railgun and Arbalest.
I suspect Ion Pulser will mostly be a Safety Override-only weapon, much like Assault Chaingun.
200 flux/sec will be high for ion beam, so I doubt there will be much abuse, aside maybe from Paragon, which has better options than tickling enemies with stun beams.
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I would love to have long-ranged non-beam energy weapons akin to needlers. Even heavy energy weapons top at 700, same as Railgun and Arbalest.
Mm, something horribly inefficient yet very top-down effective like SS+ Lightning Gun would be nice. But range is kinda the signature of ballistics now that ammo is gone.
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Mm, something horribly inefficient yet very top-down effective like SS+ Lightning Gun would be nice.
I tried that long ago and thought it was overpowered, but that was when non-frigates had unlimited peak performance.
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i love the addition of new emp/support weapons. any weapon that can be powerful without focusing purely on dps is a good thing for making refit more interesting.
i think my favorite new loadout in v7.0 was a Sunder with two Graviton Beams and a Tachyon Lance. i never really liked the Sunder before, and was initially disappointed by the changes to the Tachyon Lance, but that loadout with a cautious officer is amazing as long-range support, and lethal against frigates and low-tech destroyers.
can't wait to build more stuff like this with the new Ion Beam! ^_^
i agree with HELMUT that the beam colors could be confusing. you could make Ion Beam and Tachyon Lance blue (since both have emp damage), Phase Lance green (like the Tactical Laser, since both do only energy damage) and the Graviton Beam purple.. or something like that. some kind of color coding that makes it apparent what a beam does.
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But range is kinda the signature of ballistics now that ammo is gone.
That, along with superior PD from Vulcan and Flak, is why ballistics will be superior to energy if the ship has a choice.
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So everyone, how long are we betting before Alex creates a Ballistic/Missile type slot to round things out?
(Oh, that's already in the dev build. "Composite".)
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are there any other ships planned that use these mounts, besides Aurora? like Medusa... putting two Light Needlers on that already very powerful ship always kinda felt like cheating. ^^
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I love this game. Just keeps getting more fun.
I think this is related (if not a direct result) of twitter banter between me and Alex. I am proud that my little idea baby grew up into such a sweet sweet weapon.
Phase destroyer! :D Complete with awkward side mounts. Because of course it does.
Keep up the awesome work.
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This is freakin' cool.
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That Aurora though. I could already imagine 7 AM blasters on that thing. Looking forward for them patch notes
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are there any other ships planned that use these mounts, besides Aurora? like Medusa... putting two Light Needlers on that already very powerful ship always kinda felt like cheating. ^^
Not to me. Medusa does not need that kind of nerf. It will certainly kill the Needler and Phase Beam combo. Needlers and Heavy Blaster is too hard to support without removing Hardened Subsystems or other must-have hullmod. (I use railguns if I mount heavy blasters.) Also, two light needlers is less ballistics than the what Enforcer and Hammerhead can bring. Moving within weapons range of most ships in a fragile ship (more so than Sunder)... Medusa needs to be powerful.
I wish Wolf and Aurora could use some ballistics so they can use Phase Lance effectively. As is, Phase Lance is only good for Paragon or smaller ships that can use ballistics.
EDIT: It would not be so bad if energy had a 700+ range light and/or medium weapon that could hit for hard flux and decent damage, even if it had top OP cost for its size. So far, most of the best beam users are midline ships, due to having access to ballistics. High-tech without ballistics are stuck with short-ranged pulse lasers and blasters to punch above their weight on their own.
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are there any other ships planned that use these mounts, besides Aurora? like Medusa... putting two Light Needlers on that already very powerful ship always kinda felt like cheating. ^^
Not to me. Medusa does not need that kind of nerf. It will certainly kill the Needler and Phase Beam combo. Needlers and Heavy Blaster is too hard to support without removing Hardened Subsystems or other must-have hullmod. (I use railguns if I mount heavy blasters.) Also, two light needlers is less ballistics than the what Enforcer and Hammerhead can bring. Moving within weapons range of most ships in a fragile ship (more so than Sunder)... Medusa needs to be powerful.
I thought about it for the Medusa, yeah. Might eventually replace those w/ "synergy", heavy emphasis on "might". The range on that light needler is just so good, combined with a high-tech ship's mobility. I wonder how much the Medusa's stock would tumble if those were replaced w/ "synergy".
I think this is related (if not a direct result) of twitter banter between me and Alex. I am proud that my little idea baby grew up into such a sweet sweet weapon.
Could well be, yeah :)
I wish Wolf and Aurora could use some ballistics so they can use Phase Lance effectively. As is, Phase Lance is only good for Paragon or smaller ships that can use ballistics.
(Had some fun the other day running a Phase Lance loadout on that new phase destroyer...)
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are there any other ships planned that use these mounts, besides Aurora? like Medusa... putting two Light Needlers on that already very powerful ship always kinda felt like cheating. ^^
Not to me. Medusa does not need that kind of nerf. It will certainly kill the Needler and Phase Beam combo. Needlers and Heavy Blaster is too hard to support without removing Hardened Subsystems or other must-have hullmod. (I use railguns if I mount heavy blasters.) Also, two light needlers is less ballistics than the what Enforcer and Hammerhead can bring. Moving within weapons range of most ships in a fragile ship (more so than Sunder)... Medusa needs to be powerful.
I thought about it for the Medusa, yeah. Might eventually replace those w/ "synergy", heavy emphasis on "might". The range on that light needler is just so good, combined with a high-tech ship's mobility. I wonder how much the Medusa's stock would tumble if those were replaced w/ "synergy".
To answer the question, I do not think Medusa would be much less effective (because dual Heavy Blasters are so good, just annoyingly short-ranged) but it would reduce the number of top-tier configurations available. All of my Medusa would use the same one, maybe two, configurations instead of three or four.
If hardpoints became synergy, I would abandon Phase Lance on Medusa since it cannot back them up with attacks that deal hard flux (aside from IR Pulse Laser with only 500 range - too short). Unless the new ion weapons are Templar overpowered, I would use either Pulse Laser or Heavy Blasters exclusively for medium mounts, depending on skills. In the hardpoints that become synergy, I would probably use one among the following: Tactical Laser to prevent AI from lowering shields at 600+ range, Salamander or Ion Cannon for disabling, Reapers for alpha strike, or single Harpoon/Sabot for no OP cost.
Currently, I sometimes use Phase Lance on Medusa if I have Advanced Optics hullmod and Needlers to spare. If neither are available, Phase Lance gets dropped because it is overshadowed by Pulse Laser or Heavy Blaster (same range, but does hard flux).
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Thanks for the extra info. Sounds like a pretty good argument for keeping them as-is, then, at least for the time being, given the weapon options.
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Are the empty weapon slot covers still going in? I think they are a nifty addition.
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This looks awesome, though I'm a little sad that the Ion Pulser is stuck at 450 range. Looking forward to the patch notes!
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that EMP damage looks scary, good job!
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(Had some fun the other day running a Phase Lance loadout on that new phase destroyer...)
Triple phase lance on the sunder is surprisingly fun, too, fyi.
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(Had some fun the other day running a Phase Lance loadout on that new phase destroyer...)
Alex is practically screaming 3 Synergy on that new phase destroyer. How about those rear small mounts? Hybrid? Or plain ol' energy?
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(Had some fun the other day running a Phase Lance loadout on that new phase destroyer...)
Triple phase lance on the sunder is surprisingly fun, too, fyi.
Sunder can support triple phase lance with needlers when beams alone are not enough.
Phase Lance (with Advanced Optics) is great when target has poor dissipation or is nearly fluxed out. Against current phase ships or any ship powerful shields, not so much.
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For some reason I read "Ion" as "Iron" in the title of the blog post, I was very pleasantly surprised by brand new ion weapons, one of my favorite things.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought that first animation for the spinning barrels was lackluster, that second one though, very nice, I can't say exactly what that reminds me of but definitely something I've seen from sci fi. Possibly anti-fighter deck guns from some show or movie but I digress, I can already see throwing one of these ion pulsers on my flagship wolf and flanking some poor fool between myself and something else, probably an enforcer.
Also I've always thought of ion weapons as condensed pirate-begone their lack of shields make ion weapons, particularly devastating. These new additions to the arsenal will certainly be appreciated.
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I do not think Medusa would be much less effective (because dual Heavy Blasters are so good, just annoyingly short-ranged) but it would reduce the number of top-tier configurations available. All of my Medusa would use the same one, maybe two, configurations instead of three or four.
that's a good point. Medusa always felt somewhat op (as flagship) to me, since it strikes such a great balance between mobility, survivability and offensive power. but i suppose you're right in that taking away the Universals would really just reduce its flexibility, not its damage potential.
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Before 0.65, my Medusa used two Heavy Blasters, two single Harpoons, and four burst PD, and soloed fleets with ease (thanks to unlimited peak performance at the time). Two Heavy Blasters with or without ballistics is still the most powerful Medusa configuration. I do not use Needlers on Medusa with two Heavy Blasters because they cost too much OP without giving up either capacitors or Hardened Subsystems. Even Railguns is squeezing capacitors a bit too close for comfort. Today, two Phase Lances with Advanced Optics combined with Needlers is another powerful option that can compete with Heavy Blasters. It trades some raw DPS for extra range and ease-of-use, especially by AI. One disadvantage of using ballistics with Medusa is you cannot alpha strike with them. Only missiles or AM blasters will let Medusa output strike-level damage.
Changing universals to synergies would just reduce Medusa's flexibility, not power.
That said, perhaps the new Ion Pulser will make a Safety Override configuration for Medusa a good idea, and expand the number of competitive endgame configurations.
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I'm really going to miss being able to have a Locust SRM mounted on the Aurora. That made it the perfect cruiser to obliterate carrier-centric fleets, being fast enough to chase down everything but a 2-Nav-Bouy Heron and with enough energy firepower to break through even an Astral's shields to deliver a 4-Annihilator payload. It's also great at scything through anything cruiser-sized or smaller that it can get in range of. I didn't play it like a hang-back missile boat at all.
That Phase destroyer looks mean. I can't wait to get my hands on it, though ideally I'd prefer a few front-mounted small energy slots for AM blasters. I'll just wait and see, I guess. The Ion Pulser looks very interesting, especially when you consider putting it on that new phase destroyer. The low per-shot damage means it'll be bad at punching through armor, but I can see a phase destroyer with 2 Ion Pulsers and 1 Typhoon Reaper being the scourge of low-tech ships everywhere, especially the Onslaught.
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I'm really going to miss being able to have a Locust SRM mounted on the Aurora.
That Phase destroyer looks mean. I can't wait to get my hands on it, though ideally I'd prefer a few front-mounted small energy slots for AM blasters.
I am pretty sure the new synergy mount is energy/missile. So that possibility has not been removed.
It would be somewhat wasteful to put three amblasters on the front, but one of the pictures suggests it sports three medium universals, so it should be possible. At any rate three forward facing universals is amazing and I need it.
EDIT: Oh no ballistics in the pics. Silly brain. So maybe 3 synergy mounts. Still awesome.
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I am pretty sure the new synergy mount is energy/missile. So that possibility has not been removed.
Unfortunately the Locust SRM is a large missile weapon. It can't be loaded onto a medium Synergy slot. That same change effectively killed one of the few missile-heavy loadouts I actually use in-game. That kinetic missile launcher (I forgot the name, but it was the large, blue thing) coupled with four annihilators and 3 AM blasters up the nose just wrecks piles and piles of fleets. It's a shame that it is gone now. :(
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That said, perhaps the new Ion Pulser will make a Safety Override configuration for Medusa a good idea, and expand the number of competitive endgame configurations.
definitely wanna try that as well! would you still put Needlers into the univerals with SO, despite the range penalty?
The Ion Pulser looks very interesting, especially when you consider putting it on that new phase destroyer. The low per-shot damage means it'll be bad at punching through armor, but I can see a phase destroyer with 2 Ion Pulsers and 1 Typhoon Reaper being the scourge of low-tech ships everywhere, especially the Onslaught.
i think low damage against armor is a reasonable prize to pay, seeing as how that is where ion weapons are most useful. i imagine taking a full burst of that weapon to your armor will still be quite painful, even if it doesn't do a lot of actual damage. ^^
It would be somewhat wasteful to put three amblasters on the front, but one of the pictures suggests it sports three medium universals, so it should be possible.
multi-type mounts are restricted to their own specific weapon size, though. as in, it's not possible to slot a small weapon into a medium univeral or hybrid mount. i imagine synergy will be the same. :/
Unfortunately the Locust SRM is a large missile weapon. It can't be loaded onto a medium Synergy slot. That same change effectively killed one of the few missile-heavy loadouts I actually use in-game. That kinetic missile launcher (I forgot the name, but it was the large, blue thing) coupled with four annihilators and 3 AM blasters up the nose just wrecks piles and piles of fleets. It's a shame that it is gone now. :(
since we've got the Gryphon as dedicated missile cruiser now, i like that the Aurora (which is kinda the archetypical high-tech cruiser) becomes more energy focused. and while the lack of a large missile mount will make some current loadouts impossible, being able to slot up to 5 more energy weapons should open up quite a few interesting new loadouts.
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I hate to say it but after playing Starsector since v0.43, I'm not really interested in anything combat related. Actually, I've only spent maybe an hour or so for each of the the last 3 updates.
I need to see a living universe that I can interact with and react to my presence. I want to start seeing progress being made in manufacturing, mission, quests, economics, over arching AI etc. Considering it took months just to get a feel for the weird food shortage exploit, custom inspection and the obtuse faction relationship, I can't imagine the game being ready until at least mid-2017. :-\
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@ Sy: The point of Needlers, and beams for that matter, is to hit things at long-range. If I use Safety Override on Medusa, and I use the new Ion Pulsers, I would not use Needlers, and I might use IR Pulse Laser, Light Assault Gun, or some sort of missile (Safety Override does not affect missiles) on the hardpoints instead.
Currently, Aurora is just a MK ninja color swap of the Gryphon. Changing missile mounts to something more versatile is nice, though I miss it losing the large mount. I was looking forward to mounting a plasma cannon on Aurora. Now, with only seventeen light weapons worth of weapons, it is barely more armed than the Falcon or Doom, and matches Apogee. I would like to see a high-tech energy version of the Dominator, and none of high-tech cruisers fit. Currently, Dominator is the most powerful cruiser overall, and it is my go-to choice for cruiser.
Could a few of the small mounts on Aurora be upgraded to Medium (if Aurora has no large mounts)? For instance, the one near the back and to the left. The one on the right is medium, the one on the left is small. Also, maybe one of the small hardpoints upgraded to Medium, like the one furthest out forward?
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@ Megas: With these recent changes, surely the Aurora would now have a dual frontliner/missile support use. Pretty different compared to the Gryphon. Gryphon is useful for alpha strike damage and heavy missile support. Now the Aurora can close in and bring the hurt. Besides, them Synergy and Energy mounts are now going to play nice with its ship system.
What would be nice would be some more new ships. The incoming ones are the Scarab and the yet-unnamed-phase-destroyer. I would like to see how these spice things up a bit more, in addition to the new ion weaponries we're about to get.
Let us have those patch notes already!
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I do not mind Aurora is losing large missile, though I was hoping it would be replaced by large energy or hybrid. I was hoping it would evolve into an high-tech energy version of Dominator, but it seems it will morph somewhere between Falcon and Eagle.
For missile boat, I currently prefer Aurora over Gryphon because it can move and shield tank better and fire four small front missiles instead of three. That said, I would like a high-tech cruiser that is somewhere between Medusa and Paragon, but none of the current high-tech cruisers fill that niche. Unless I want to use Aurora as missile boat, I am better off with two Medusa or an Eagle instead of any high-tech cruiser.
I think a Tri-Tachyon version of the Gryphon with more speed, better flux and shield stats, and a blue paint job, at the cost of downgrading ballistic mounts to energy, would make a fine pre-0.7.2 Aurora replacement.
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Large or another medium energy slot for Aurora will create best ship in its class. Dominator is slow to rotate and got fixed inefficient shield with fixed large slots to balance its weapon power. I understand desire to buff high-tech ships but really do we need all "best" ships be simply high-tech energy based ones? Aurora is fine as it is compared to awful shield efficiency on conquest :)
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@ Megas: With these recent changes, surely the Aurora would now have a dual frontliner/missile support use. Pretty different compared to the Gryphon. Gryphon is useful for alpha strike damage and heavy missile support. Now the Aurora can close in and bring the hurt. Besides, them Synergy and Energy mounts are now going to play nice with its ship system.
What would be nice would be some more new ships. The incoming ones are the Scarab and the yet-unnamed-phase-destroyer. I would like to see how these spice things up a bit more, in addition to the new ion weaponries we're about to get.
Let us have those patch notes already!
I already used the Aurora as a frontliner though, and downsizing the Large Missile Slot is going to kill that build because it now it won't be able to deal with massive fighter swarms nearly as well.
Large or another medium energy slot for Aurora will create best ship in its class. Dominator is slow to rotate and got fixed inefficient shield with fixed large slots to balance its weapon power. I understand desire to buff high-tech ships but really do we need all "best" ships be simply high-tech energy based ones? Aurora is fine as it is compared to awful shield efficiency on conquest :)
High-tech ships should be the best in their class because they cost more supplies to maintain and deploy. You can also deploy fewer high-tech ships at once than you can low-tech ships. E.g. you can deploy 5 Enforcers for fewer supplies and fewer battle points than 4 Medusas, so the Medusa should be at least 25% better than the Enforcer. The Aurora costs 35 supplies to the Dominator's 25, so even if it can't take a Dominator in a straight up fight it should be better than a Dominator at something, most preferably at killing everything else.
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Currently, Enforcer competes with Medusa for best-in-class for destroyers; player controlled Medusa is probably best, but it is a hard call for AI. For cruisers, Dominator is best-in-class, although Eagle can sometimes handle smaller threats more efficiently. For capitals, Onslaught and Paragon are about equally effective. If anything, midline suffers.
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Shouldn't it "synergetic" or "synergistic" rather than "synergy"?
(All the new stuff looks awesome, by the way!)
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Shouldn't it "synergetic" or "synergistic" rather than "synergy"?
(All the new stuff looks awesome, by the way!)
Spoiler
It's a pun. Sy-energy
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Shouldn't it "synergetic" or "synergistic" rather than "synergy"?
(All the new stuff looks awesome, by the way!)
Spoiler
It's a pun. Sy-energy
Methinks that's not supposed to be a pun.
Speaking of which, what would be the name for the ballistic-missile mount? Kinetomacy? ;D
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Speaking of which, what would be the name for the ballistic-missile mount? Kinetomacy? ;D
Composite, according to a post by Alex on page 2 of this thread.
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I would like to see a high-tech energy version of the Dominator, and none of high-tech cruisers fit. Currently, Dominator is the most powerful cruiser overall, and it is my go-to choice for cruiser.
I'd like to see that too and I vote that such a ship be called Manticore. Oh yeah!!!!! 8)
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Seems a bit too powerful against unshielded ships, I say this should be on large mount to prevent excess number of them from showing up.