Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: CrashToDesktop on March 13, 2012, 04:59:14 PM
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Probably one of my favorite cruisers, I got my first one in campaign and I never left it. Since I was low on money, I attached 2 assault chainguns and 1 heavy autocannon to the front, 2 harpoon missiles on the sides, and 2 LR PD lasers at the back. I filled the rest of the ordnance points with flux and vents. The heavy autocannons overload the ship while the assault chainguns chew through the armor with the harpoons as finishers. This served me very well, I could just pound down on slower ships and overload and whack down larger ships with the harpoons. This is a nice setup for a low-cost, good performance cruiser.
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Eagle is a great ship, people have a beef against it because it can't beat an Aurora head to head. But that's hardly a fair fight considering the difference in fp.
For my eagles I put 3 railguns, 8 tac lasers, pair of those homing torp launchers, pd ai, turret gyro, accelerated shield and rest vents. 3 railguns will kill shield in no time, then just let the 6 forward lasers bore the hull. Throw in torps if target is overloaded or venting
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I sorta lost faith in the Eagles when I lost one to a Lasher on its first battle. My mistake for thinking it could be left alone. I swapped it out for a pair of lashers (one with harpoons, one with salamanders), piloting the harpoon one and letting the other escort it. Made a lot more kills. I could actually take on an Aurora, for one.
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I have to admit, I'm not very fond of the Eagle, but I love its aesthetics. I tried to like it, but I just suck with it and kept exploding :P
Any advice on how to use an Eagle? :) You guys seem to know how to handle it well. At the very least I know from experience that I shouldn't let the AI fly one...
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Always keep the front facing towards the enemy. That's where the shields are, and that's where the most firepower is facing. 3 medium balistic, 3 medium energy, and 2 medium missiles can do a lot of damage when used correctly.
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Always keep the front facing towards the enemy. That's where the shields are, and that's where the most firepower is facing. 3 medium balistic, 3 medium energy, and 2 medium missiles can do a lot of damage when used correctly.
Good advice. I can see how that much firepower can be deadly, but what sort of loadout do you use when faced with fighter/bomber wings, though? Most of my losses in an Eagle were in the hands of a bomber wing while I'm pounding away on their bigger ships.
I guess that's what makes the Aurora well-received; it can take fire from all sides and stay alive. :)
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I have to admit, I'm not very fond of the Eagle, but I love its aesthetics. I tried to like it, but I just suck with it and kept exploding :P
I cant really stand the pointless forward mounts - they just dont seem to do anything.. Id really love to see them moved back a bit and made into turrets, even if the arcs arent amazing
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The eagle has been growing on me. Currently with 3 railguns on front, 3 pulse lasers, 3 tac lasers, 2 harpoons or atropos torps, 2 rear pd lasers accelerated shields and I think integrated targeting unit. I think accelerated shields is really important for ships like the eagle.
I cant really stand the pointless forward mounts - they just dont seem to do anything.. Id really love to see them moved back a bit and made into turrets, even if the arcs arent amazing
They work quite well for railguns, but I haven't had success with much else.
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The Eagle is where I find myself drawing the line between ships I can fly and ships that are so painfully slow that I have to let the AI control them. The Eagle is the latter.
It has some of the same issues that the Brawler has, really. A lot of firepower and good shields, but it's ALL forward-locked and the ship itself is incredibly slow. I watched a pair of Tempests absolutely destroy one simply by staying behind it and blasting it.
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mine
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/arwan2/second-chop-shop-flag-ship.jpg)
it has no PD weapons but it does fine without them. i stay with ships that do have PD.
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mine
Mines pretty close to this. I REALLY like heavy mgs b/c they are so light on flux and heavy on kinetic damage. Downside being you have to get close.
Oooo I threw triple hvel drivers on once. That was ridiculous. You can overload ANYthing in two volleys it felt like, haha. And the range is amazing.
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An Eagle I played on a Random Battle mission had the front Heavy MG setup and it was great. Shields were pretty much useless.. The only issue is getting the damn Eagle close enough to use the MGs on other ships. It's not exactly speedy.
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Yeah. :/ There's where the support comes in handy, an enemy pinned down by interceptors or frigates is much easier to chase down. That or you just take augmented engines and don't use all your weapons.
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I really dislike the 3 graviton beams on the Eagle, the Autopulse/HIL's were OP no doubt but I honestly don't see any use for the Graviton beams, they have good range but that's about it. Even doing kinetic damage they do nothing to a ships shield larger than a frigate, and it has 100 DPS, is this intended or are they just really underpowered
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I really dislike the 3 graviton beams on the Eagle, the Autopulse/HIL's were OP no doubt but I honestly don't see any use for the Graviton beams, they have good range but that's about it. Even doing kinetic damage they do nothing to a ships shield larger than a frigate, and it has 100 DPS, is this intended or are they just really underpowered
Pulse laser > Graviton Beam ... nuff said. They are powerful enough against cruisers but can also provide pd against bombers and wreck frigates. They also makes for some awesome pew pew moments. ;D
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Oooo I threw triple hvel drivers on once. That was ridiculous. You can overload ANYthing in two volleys it felt like, haha. And the range is amazing.
Triple hypervelocities is pretty cool, but I've discovered that they work fine on an Enforcer, where they're in turrets and on a faster ship, and flux still doesn't seem to be a huge issue.
So yeah, I like the heavy MGs idea too.
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The best weapons in the world wouldn't matter to an Eagle because they are all facing forward. Combine that with a torturous turn rate and a frontal-only shield and you've got a disaster in the making the second anything manage to get to its rear. =(
If you can stay away from the three frontal medium ballistics (easy feat) then the Eagle has about the same DPS of a Medusa but MUCH slower and has less shield coverage. Come to think of it, why would you use an Eagle instead of a Medusa?
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Uh... what? B/c it's awesome? And using a fleet of only medusas is boring.
Eagle is awesome especially if you pair it with a falcon or two. Also fighter escorts are incredibly powerful now for ships like the eagle.
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Uh... what? B/c it's awesome? And using a fleet of only medusas is boring.
It looks neat, but my metric for what is "awesome" in games involves more than appearance. It's not fun to fly, and not terribly useful. Medusas are cheaper, faster, and in practice capable of doing just as much if not more damage.
Eagle is awesome especially if you pair it with a falcon or two. Also fighter escorts are incredibly powerful now for ships like the eagle.
Why use an Eagle plus fighters when I could use a medusa which needs no escort and send those fighters somewhere else? And Falcons are just slower medusas...
You know, come to think of it, the only cruisers I use are Ventures and Auroras. Ventures provide fire support and act as a carrier, and Auroras... are Auroras. But every other cruiser seems lackluster to me. Even after the speed buffs the combination of low speed and the weapon ranges being what they are make them pretty useless. Whenever I try to use a carrier or capital ship I just end up chasing targets and watching as the rest of my fleet destroys them before I arrive (especially now that fighters are better at keeping themselves alive).
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I dunno what I'm doing, but I really liked playing with midline fleets. The pros of the eagle/falcon are the ridiculous contentrated fire. No medusa can ever match the sheer overloading power of three heavy mgs. It just won't happen.
That said, they do require a certain type of fleet, and I can see why you say they are "boring". But they don't have to be for everyone.
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The best weapons in the world wouldn't matter to an Eagle because they are all facing forward. Combine that with a torturous turn rate and a frontal-only shield and you've got a disaster in the making the second anything manage to get to its rear. =(
If you can stay away from the three frontal medium ballistics (easy feat) then the Eagle has about the same DPS of a Medusa but MUCH slower and has less shield coverage. Come to think of it, why would you use an Eagle instead of a Medusa?
But the Medusa is balanced because it costs more! Even though it's faster, has better Flux, has better shields, and can carry almost as much weaponry...
I tried using the Eagle. I really did. But without SIGNIFICANT fleet support, it gets eaten alive by Frigates and Fighters. And most ships that it really needs all that forward firepower to take on can meet it with an equal amount of firepower and/or outmaneuver it. That said, in the right type of battle (One with almost all big ships, not many Fighters/Frigates flying around), it's a great ship and a lot of fun.
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The way I do my Eagle Cruisers (Which are by far my favorite Cruiser in the game.)
3 Pulse Lasers for the Medium Turrets (Gotta have my Star Destroyer Green lazors!)
LR PD Lasers for...well, point defense.
Sabot or Harpoon Missiles
1 Heavy Auto Cannon and 2 (Heavy Maulers?) Not sure. Some Medium ballistic High Explosive long range weapon.
with Auxiliary Thrusters and the rest Vents. maybe Expanded missile racks
Always the best combo, if you ask me. Gives you very nice maneuverability and loads of firepower to pound on stuff.
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The way I do my Eagle Cruisers (Which are by far my favorite Cruiser in the game.)
3 Pulse Lasers for the Medium Turrets (Gotta have my Star Destroyer Green lazors!)
LR PD Lasers for...well, point defense.
Sabot or Harpoon Missiles
1 Heavy Auto Cannon and 2 (Heavy Maulers?) Not sure. Some Medium ballistic High Explosive long range weapon.
with Auxiliary Thrusters and the rest Vents. maybe Expanded missile racks
Always the best combo, if you ask me. Gives you very nice maneuverability and loads of firepower to pound on stuff.
More or less my original butt-kicking combo. xD
And that's why I like the Eagle. I love to watch my enemies die under complete and utter firepower. Nothing really until the Onslaught can lay down that much fire in one direction.
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i have an eagle cruiser in one of my files it has the two out facing medium energy slots fitted with 2 heavy blasters and the only other thing on it is PD and a mass of vents, capacitors and various hull mods, it can fire those two blasters ALL DAY even with shields up and it is amazing for supporting my aurora's or other ships. oh augged engines is one of the hull mods if i remember more ill update this.
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I tried the builds recommended here, with some minor variations here and there. I find that the Eagle is fine when I use it. :)
In the hands of the AI, however, its a different story. No matter what build I try, it just doesn't *feel* as effective :( I might be doing something wrong or not using the ship in the correct role, but it feels to me like the Enforcer destroyer can be just as effective an escort as an Eagle, a cruiser. Its just too big of a target, and speed/maneuverability feels almost the same too.
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I use the Eagle primarily. The Eagle is designed to take on ships face to face. If you can get it in medium range, facing head on, that is 9 turrets aiming them in the face, + 2 launchers. If you get something in front of it, the Eagle will annihilate it. Also, if you use tactical lasers it has quite an effective coverage to take down fighters. The Eagle can be wrecked from the engines, the largest issue with it. The eagle essentially annihilates anything smaller than a capital ship with speed. If the enemy has a lot of medium sized ships, the Eagle will take them out one by one with speed. The missiles from capital ships will however overwhelm the Eagle unless you build it to cope.
Never give an Eagle to the AI. It doesn't know how to use it.
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It's built for a niche role, that is being a concentrated fire support for large capital ship battles.
Everyone here is talking about how awesome having 9 weapon slots facing one direction, but with 3 of them being small, 3 of them can't turn combined with the ship's poor turn speed, it's not really all that. Not to mention it's vent can't sustain constant fire from all 9 of its weapons if you actually equip them to handle big ships. Hell, almost no ship can sustain fire for its weapons if you give them big guns, so more than hard points, I would say that it's the flux vent that dictates a ship's firepower more than its hard points most of the time.
Doesn't mean that it sucks, but it's a support ship.
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The best weapons in the world wouldn't matter to an Eagle because they are all facing forward. Combine that with a torturous turn rate and a frontal-only shield and you've got a disaster in the making the second anything manage to get to its rear. =(
I learnt this the hard way. Had enough credits in the campaign in order to buy two of them and since I was a bit bored I decided to do just that. Equipped them with proper weapons and PD's and after a short time I had two fully equipped Eagles ready for combat. Found a pirate fleet, and it was showtime.
One was destroyed by a Lasher.
The second one was destroyed by another Lasher.
I was numbstruck seeing how that happened, but after replaying the battle and looking at what was actually happening I saw that the Lashers just casually strolled right past them and shot them in the ass rear. They couldn't turn fast enough to engage the Lasher so it was just a battle of attrition that they finally lost.
Speed and agility is pretty damn important I guess.
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It's built for a niche role, that is being a concentrated fire support for large capital ship battles.
That's hardly what you'll call a niche role. For Starfarer, large capital ship battles are at least as important as small single-ship actions. Eagle, more so than even the Aurora due to it's all guns forward design is built for that kind of battle. It's not suppose to take on Hyperion or Lasher in one on one dog fight because that's not what it's for. It doesn't care about its exposed rear because in the kind of battle it's designed for that area is going to be covered by an assload of fighters and frigates and destroyers. It's a cruiser designed purely for slugging it out with other cruisers and capital ships, and when it's fighting other lumbering ships of cruiser and above class it has plenty of speed and maneuverability to keep the target trained in front of its guns.
If you want to see a bad ship design that's unable to keep the target in front of its main guns look no further than the dominator.
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That's hardly what you'll call a niche role. For Starfarer, large capital ship battles are at least as important as small single-ship actions. Eagle, more so than even the Aurora due to it's all guns forward design is built for that kind of battle. It's not suppose to take on Hyperion or Lasher in one on one dog fight because that's not what it's for. It doesn't care about its exposed rear because in the kind of battle it's designed for that area is going to be covered by an assload of fighters and frigates and destroyers. It's a cruiser designed purely for slugging it out with other cruisers and capital ships, and when it's fighting other lumbering ships of cruiser and above class it has plenty of speed and maneuverability to keep the target trained in front of its guns.
If you want to see a bad ship design that's unable to keep the target in front of its main guns look no further than the dominator.
It's pretty niche if it can only efficiently target capital ships with its weapons and get soloed by AI controlled lasher. And requiring "assload of fighters and frigates and destroyers" make it extremely niche because guess what, assload of fighters will win you the battle by themselves. That makes the eagle nothing but a leech that require other ships' success to ride on lol
And how can you put down Auora's firepower compared to eagle? Didn't you read my post on vent being the real measure of ship's power? Even the Auora can't sustain constant fire from 2 heavy blasters, what makes you think that the eagle can make use out of those 9 weapons with less than 2/3 of Auora's vent? Do a hit and run while flux dissipates? Good luck with that on the eagle.
Even the dominator you speak so ill of have more diverse role thanks to its three medium missile slots. Oh and it won't die to an AI controlled lasher too ;D
And notice how I specified the role as "support", meaning it needs something else taking on the said capital ship before joining the fight. That's what makes it truly niche, because it can't even take on the only target it can adequately target.
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It's pretty niche if it can only efficiently target capital ships with its weapons and get soloed by AI controlled lasher.
He did write that it's not designed to take on smaller, more agile ships. So I'd say yes, it does have a niche role.
And requiring "assload of fighters and frigates and destroyers" make it extremely niche because guess what, assload of fighters will win you the battle by themselves.
The way I see it the Eagle requires another ship in order to successfully fulfill his role in combat, which is to combat larger vessels.
That makes the eagle nothing but a leech that require other ships' success to ride on.
Having a Talon occupying an enemy cruiser so the Eagle can move into range and do its work doesn't sound much of a leech to me. Battles can vary quite a lot.
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It's a decent ship at doing what it does: head-on attacks against big, slow targets. But when you have any fast ships in the mix, they'll just circle strafe it and send missiles up it's tailpipe every time.
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It doesn't take a ridiculous amount of support to field an eagle. One good support frigate or destroyer will do. And if you let a smaller faster ship flank you when it's the only enemy around the problem is you. Not the ship.
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And if you let a smaller faster ship flank you when it's the only enemy around the problem is you. Not the ship.
Except it is the ship in this case. Player skill can only do so much when the ship you're piloting has a limited speed and manueverability.
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Welp. You are welcome to your opinion. But a single frigate has never taken me out in an eagle. Ever.
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The Eagle is kind of like a mini-Onslaught, right down to the Star Destroyer-y wedge shape. Similar bow-mounted hardpoints, centrally-mounted turrets, PD turrets all around. Trouble is, the Eagle has a totally anemic complement of missiles, it can't take hits on its hull armor the way the Onslaught can, and it generally can't out-punch the ships that are slow enough to get stuck in its sights (Ventures and Astrals, obviously, being exceptions). It's a decent support cruiser, sure, but I actually think the Falcon is better.
I used to think of the Falcon as the poor-man's Eagle, but since the patch I've come around. Try outfitting a Falcon with hypervelocity drivers and giving it an integrated targeting unit—even though it's got speed and an FP cost more like a destroyer, the Falcon gets the cruiser-level 35% range boost, which pushes the hypervelocity drivers' range out to 1350. Cap ships, even with the ITU, can only extend their usual main guns out to 1200, and none of them are as fast as a Falcon, so it can keep up a steady fire from a safe distance. It's a great support ship for a fleet mainly built around fighters or frigates and fast destroyers. Maybe you could actually do the same with an Eagle—augmented engines, leave the medium energy mounts empty (or just put more small PD in them)?
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I think this highlights the difference between 'fleet' ships and 'solo' ships. The frigates (minus brawler) and fast destroyers and the Aurora are solo ships - maneuverable enough to protect their own flanks and survive against agile threats. Generally this is compensated with lower heavy firepower (debatable for the Aurora, but it does cost 17). Then there are ships that are only effective as part of a fleet where they have escorts to protect their flanks - the Eagle, Onslaught, and to a lesser extent Enforcer are good examples. They generally have higher firepower to compensate.
I find the Eagle to be very effective if it has an escort - I feel the same way about the Enforcer. I love the enforcer very much actually - one of my favorite ships. Depending on the fleet I consider it better than the Medusa, but the AI general doesn't support it properly so we rarely fight against it at its best.
I do feel that the Eagle shouldn't be packing those medium energy mounts though... I know it makes thematic sense but it just doesn't have the flux capacity to mount heavy blasters or really even pulse lasers. There are just so many more options for low-medium flux medium ballistic (*coughflakcough*) then their are for energy...
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Welp. You are welcome to your opinion. But a single frigate has never taken me out in an eagle. Ever.
Neither have I. The problem arises when the AI takes control, and if the Eagle is only worth using as a player ship then it might need some tweaking.
Then again, the full game has not yet been released, and there will undoubtely be some changes and improvements to the AI in the future.
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AI-flown Eagles... they do nothing. :-\ Maybe I'm bad at loadout and positioning, but I'd prefer destroyer and Lasher spam.
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So... I felt like selling all my ships and buying a solo Eagle, so I did. Small fleets of 3-4 Lashers, Hounds, and fighters would intentionally target me.
I felt like I was playing an MMO and using taunt, because they'd all die. I guess I need to try doing it again but letting the AI control it and see if they can do it too. I did have to outfit the Eagle specifically to deal with smaller ships, but its hardly impossible.
The key is to overload the frigate so you have time to turn and blast them with the forward guns. Though often they'd die simply from the energy turrets.
Triple graviton with ITU for bonus range seemed best. Lashers can't kill your engines if they're overloading and taking so much grav beam it is stripping their armour off. Antimatter blasters are also good for guaranteeing an overload if they get in range, though relying so heavily on the forward guns for the kill shot makes them die slower. Grav beams are also awesome for shooting down fighters, doubly so with the ITU.
I use small ballistics because I'm using my OP for mods and because light guns are more efficient. At first I didn't even use extended shields. It helps a lot but isn't necessary.
If you want your PD to actually kill missiles, use PD lasers with bonus range, not LR lasers. I wasn't able to get better performance out of anything else. They also contribute best to shooting down fighters and frigates.
Despite all this, to effectively compete with the Aurora, I suspect the Eagle needs more armour. Taking the shields down is essentially not an option, which means it's a race between killing my target and running out of hard flux capacity. Piranha and Broadswords are serious trouble to my loadout, especially considering crew death and repair time.