Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Squallboogie on August 11, 2019, 02:47:11 PM
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I'm confused. I've seen videos of people mounting Typhoon Reaper launches on their Harbinger. But when I go to put them on, all the mounts are medium energy mounts in front and wont mount missiles. On the wiki it shows they are synergy mounts. Is there a hull feature and mod that I have to install to mount missiles?
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Harbinger was nerfed, synergy slots were just too powerfull since that allowed for use of missiles, of which no one used anything but Typhoon Reapers.
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Cool, thanks. I figured as much, as it seemed really OP in the video I watched. Guess I didn't read patch notes far back enough.
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You can perform comparably well with Afflictor. Well not quite as straightforward point and click to delete ships as Reaper Harbinger, but it can still 1v1 any ship including Paragon.
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I'm confused. I've seen videos of people mounting Typhoon Reaper launches on their Harbinger. But when I go to put them on, all the mounts are medium energy mounts in front and wont mount missiles. On the wiki it shows they are synergy mounts. Is there a hull feature and mod that I have to install to mount missiles?
All the old game versions are available for download, you can play 0.9a to get that version of the Harbinger with missiles.
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Honestly, giving the Harbinger it's centre synergy mount back wouldn't be terrible.
It's not really any different from allowing the Afflictor to mount Reapers. It gets 1 more missile, but with more waiting between explosions.
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If I am stuck with energy mounts on the sides, I probably want the center to be energy too so that it can mount three AM Blasters instead of two AM Blasters and whatever medium. (Medium synergy cannot use AM Blasters.) Without Reapers, AM Blasters are the next best thing for Harbinger to use, better than Phase Lances.
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If I am stuck with energy mounts on the sides, I probably want the center to be energy too so that it can mount three AM Blasters instead of two AM Blasters and whatever medium. (Medium synergy cannot use AM Blasters.) Without Reapers, AM Blasters are the next best thing for Harbinger to use, better than Phase Lances.
But what's the point of 3 AM blaster Harbinger? Afflictor does 3 AM blasters better both in offense (same shield bypass through different means, but +50% damage on top of that) and defense (faster movement, longer cloak time).
At least 3 Phase Lance variant has frigate hunter niche. Which due to simplicity of operation and higher rate of fire it can do better than Afflictor (bypassing frigate shields can get tricky, they deploy and rotate faster than on larger ships).
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But what's the point of 3 AM blaster Harbinger?
Harbinger cannot use Reapers. If I bring Afflictor, I want to use Reapers. If Harbinger could use Reapers, I would leave my five Afflictors behind and use two Reaper Harbingers instead like last release. Harbinger has some use as AM Blaster ship since it is cheaper than a capital or Aurora if I feel like sweeping some minor trash.
I do not like AM Blaster Afflictor. Not enough shot range and too easy to die after pilot error. (Big ships have too much blast range when they die.) Harbinger is more forgiving to use, especially with Quantum Disruptor. Even with Harbinger, I need both ITU and Gunnery Implants 3 to have enough shot range to use both blasters and QD together comfortably. Even so, I use Reaper Afflictor far more than AM Blaster Harbinger. I can live without AM Blaster Harbinger. Reaper Afflictor is too useful not to use (against pirate battlestations) even when I have a killer quad lance Paragon as my default flagship.
AM Blaster Harbinger is good for frigate hunting, perhaps even better. All I need to do is aim and QD-and-fire immediately. I do not need to maintain beams on target for a second or so, especially if I rely on Quantum Disruptor for opening. QD is more forgiving for instant strike weapons instead of damage-over-time like beams.
P.S. Harbinger also has more peak performance.
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Afflictor AM blaster range is short, but it's manageable even without ITU or Implants. Just need to attack at exactly max range against corner of enemy ship furthest from center while unphasing on get-away trajectory (that is against Cruisers and Capitals, DEs are much easier, frigates are difficult in another way due to faster shields)... Learning to do so involves a lot of dying, but eventually you can get it reliably enough.
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I have no problem with using AntiMatter blaster Afflictors. The only problem with Afflictors is that as they require skill and some patience and some judgement. Afflictor simply aren't as powerful as a Harbinger. The difference is their ship system. The Harbinger's ship system, Quantum Disruptor means that a ship has to take Harbinger hits to their hull, whilst Afflictor has to hit aim where the shield is not, or have to have good timing. If it wasn't for the ship system, Afflictor and Harbinger would practically have the same playstyle. So the difference is not AM blaster, but that the harbinger is simply better than the Afflictor in any case where you want to kill a ship immediately. As it is, they are close enough together anyways that the differences can be regarded as fairly minor.
I've used plenty of different Afflictor load outs. Generally speaking, for the Afflictor, 2 AM blasters is enough. 3 is too many as there isn't enough of a flux margin to approach, fire all three AM blasters and retreat out of long range fire completely safely. The other two forward mounts can be LAG if you want a reliable way to go through armour after breaking down a shield, and the turret can be ion cannon. Or they can be reapers.
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I tried AM Blaster Afflictor, and the range (with Gunnery Implants 3) is not quite as bad as I thought, because Afflictor does not need speed hullmods, while I need Unstable Injector and Auxiliary Thrusters for Harbinger (without SO) to be fast enough, and UI kills shot range, meaning Harbinger needs ITU and Gunnery Implants 3 to get enough range back to use AM Blasters and QD together. The reason for AM Blasters on Harbinger is Quantum Disruptor. They have shield? No problem. QD blows it away.
That said, all AM Blaster Afflictor really needs is 12 capacitors and maybe Flux Coil Adjunct so it has enough flux to fire three, maybe all four, AM Blasters at once (or quick succession if alternating). Four AM Blaster shots boosted by Entropy Amplifier is much stronger than three shots against targets that do not need QD to hit. Afflictor has faster damage potential under best case. Harbinger just makes things easy if Afflictor is too annoying to use.
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Afflictor doesn't need QD to bypass shields. It's fast enough to simply fire at point that omni shield does not currently cover (and won't be able to during AM shot's flight time). 4x cloak skill makes it easier but is not strictly necessary. Accelerated shields hullmod on victim makes Afflictor's job harder, but doesn't really prevent bypass.
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Main motivation for AM Blaster on Harbinger instead of Afflictor is 1) Harbinger cannot use Reapers but Afflictor can and 2) sometimes, I do not care to finesse around shields (especially against either targets that have their complete shields up against one of my flunkies and I am just joining the battle in progress, or it is a small nimble target with enough shielding to make it a pain to bypass) and simply want the shields gone without any fancy moves. The only reason I would want AM Blaster on Afflictor instead of Harbinger is it can do more damage than Harbinger in the best case. However, if it can use Reapers instead, I prefer Reapers because they kill big ships fast and splash damage kills battlestation modules from behind the wall.
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Reaper Afflictor is fairly bad at killing omni shielded targets on it's own. Especially something like capitals with accelerated omni shields. The only way I know to land Reapers on them is point blank, which is only acceptable on non-finisher attacks. AM Afflictor can then easily cleanup these badly damaged ships.
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Afflictor doesn't need QD to bypass shields. It's fast enough to simply fire at point that omni shield does not currently cover (and won't be able to during AM shot's flight time). 4x cloak skill makes it easier but is not strictly necessary. Accelerated shields hullmod on victim makes Afflictor's job harder, but doesn't really prevent bypass.
Lots of ships have 360 degree coverage or is fast and manoeuvrable enough to make shooting their rear difficult. In any case it's not really a problem that Harbinger is a better player ship than an Afflictor in many cases, because one is 8 Deployment points and the other is 20 Deployment points.
In any case the point of having an AM Blaster armed Harbinger over AM Blaster armed Afflictor is because you want to use a Harbinger, not because the Harbinger is better at using AM Blaster. (It is better, but that is beside the point).
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Most of the targets I send Reaper Afflictor at do not use omni shields, but have tremendeous armor and hull to chew through, namely Onslaught, Legion, most cruisers, and especially battlestations. Against targets that have small arc, omni shields (like that annoying pirate Venture) I wait until it is distracted by the rest of my fleet, then launch. (But usually, I pass on those and pick off big, tough targets with fixed shields immediately - see above.) In any case, I want them dead immediately, and I do not care if it has less steam than AM Blaster ship. Reaper Afflictors are Ultima V-style glass swords in my fleet, which I bring out to assassinate big, annoying targets faster (or more cheaply) than my conventional fleet can deal with.
Afflictor is not a perfect substitute for Reaper Harbinger, but it can still do most of the cheese against a large chunk of available targets, including battlestations (where I really abused Reaper Harbinger last release, and currently abuse Reaper Afflictor today).
For small fry, I usually send conventional warships or carriers (or Doom) at them, although I occasionally use Harbinger instead (often to conserve CR of my big bad capital flagship).
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Afflictor doesn't need QD to bypass shields. It's fast enough to simply fire at point that omni shield does not currently cover (and won't be able to during AM shot's flight time). 4x cloak skill makes it easier but is not strictly necessary. Accelerated shields hullmod on victim makes Afflictor's job harder, but doesn't really prevent bypass.
Lots of ships have 360 degree coverage or is fast and manoeuvrable enough to make shooting their rear difficult. In any case it's not really a problem that Harbinger is a better player ship than an Afflictor in many cases, because one is 8 Deployment points and the other is 20 Deployment points.
In any case the point of having an AM Blaster armed Harbinger over AM Blaster armed Afflictor is because you want to use a Harbinger, not because the Harbinger is better at using AM Blaster. (It is better, but that is beside the point).
AI (wrongly) does not consider Afflictor a sufficient threat to keep shields up all the time (well, forcing all AI ships to keep shields up all the time just by bringing a phase frigate or Hyperion would be quite powerful in it's own way). And trying to raise shield during Afflictor's approach is guaranteed to be too late even with Accelerated Shields. So you can just issue Avoid order on target to ensure that they don't raise shield due to your other ships around or go for them before fleets meet.
In fact you can even manipulate enemy shield (face the enemy ship with your charged guns - it raises shields, face away - shields drop). Rotating cloaked Afflictor is nearly instant in world-time, so this clearly shows AI too optimistic about it's shield raise/drop times.
8 DP vs 20 DP is exactly part of reason why Afflictor is better. It does more for less DP.