Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Havoc on May 04, 2020, 09:36:23 AM
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Hi, I've found an d-mod(powergrid,hull) legion on early game
my fleet was
1 Hammerhea
1 Drover
2 Centurio
2 Lasher
+tanker +Buffalo
I am not sure what to do with it.
My intention was for this run to be an pirate (pirates still on -65)
so small fast ships :D , low profile, a bit smugling and transporting and avoid fighting pirates
should I sellt it?
or put it in Corvus Abandoned Terraforming Platform
even if I could upgrade engines, it is still 7+2 < 10
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Is it a 14th battlegroup Legion? (Special hull mod.) If so keep it as it's a unique ship that can't be replicated (You can fund up to 4 I believe.)
If not or you don't have targets that might be worth the cost to lug it around, then just store, scrap or sell it. As the upkeep costs will kill you without a healthy commission or colony.
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If it is an ordinary legion - you probably do not need it (as a stealthy pirate). Using it means you have to change a playstyle. Selling is not an option - it would be more profits if scavenged and commodities sold.
If it is a 14th battlegroup legion - you better keep it(recover->mothball->abandoned platform) till you want to use it. And that would happen one day, can guarantee that.
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I would definitely agree that it is too slow to use in your current fleet, and it will mostly make you more likely to get caught by fleets you can't defeat. Unless you are really tight on cash, I would not sell it and just store it in an abandoned platform. Selling ships just gives you such a small amount of their market price. The only place you'll probably want it is to defend a colony from expeditions which is a ways off.
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It's only really good as a late-game ship, so just store it until you can get spark interceptors and flash bombers, the ship itself is kinda useless until then. Make sure that the colony where you store it does not get decivilized, as that will cause you to lose the ship forever!
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until you can get spark interceptors
Can anyone explain me why do everyone love them so?
Frankly said, never used them, but those [redacted] sparks able only to die, my opinion. Where am I wrong?
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until you can get spark interceptors
Can anyone explain me why do everyone love them so?
Frankly said, never used them, but those [redacted] sparks able only to die, my opinion. Where am I wrong?
Unmanned, shielded and each of the five fighters has a burst PD laser, small version. They were so OP in the previous builds that their firepower was cut in half (they use to have TWO BPD PER FIGHTER)
They are still great fighters now, just not game melting OP
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until you can get spark interceptors
Can anyone explain me why do everyone love them so?
Frankly said, never used them, but those [redacted] sparks able only to die, my opinion. Where am I wrong?
They don't do insanely huge damage like they used to before the patch, but, they are a great distraction. A lot of the times, they'll cause an enemy ship to raise its shield which your ships can exploit. Given that not all ships have 360 shield coverage, you can start getting free shots at the armor/hull of the ship. If you happen to have some ion pulsers on a fast ship like the Aurora, you're putting yourself leaps ahead in the fight.
They are also genuinely great at popping enemy fighters and shooting down missiles, so they can really complement your fleets PD capacity.
On an unrelated side note, this fighter wing is one of the reasons why the Odyssey class ship is so strong. You'll be able to get free bursts of shots into enemy ships with two Large energy weapons...
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thanks
I will store it in the nearest abandoned station
p.s.
I do not like fighter spamm like drover x12 :p
1-2 carrier would be ok
is there any other option to invest money instead of colonizing? (maybe storing weapons,....a lot of it, and food and ...hmm drugs?^^)
I enjoy early and lategame more
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Sparks have large wing size, shields, high alpha strike, burst recharge mechanic, high speed, long attack range with perfect accuracy, very high armor penetration for a fighter, and don't cost crew. Their only two downsides are that they have a good instead of great replacement time, but the Drover ship system nullifies that (and increases wing size), and that they do soft damage to shields - but that only matters when they don't have the numbers to overwhelm the shields.
Their high alpha strike, long attack range, and perfect accuracy make them the perfect fighter to swarm with, while their lack of crew removes any logistical penalty for doing so.
Quick calculation for the alpha: 3 charges stored, 1 recharges in the time to fire 3, so the first 4 shots are at full dps, at 128 damage per shot and 100 shots per minute: 1.8 seconds at max fire rate (first shot at time 0). In that 1.8 seconds a single spark wing unloads 4*5*128 = 2560 soft flux damage per wing. Even frigates can tank that on the shields (if they have good arc), but consider what happens if there are 4 wings (IE a single legion): ~10k damage = frigate instantly dead, destroyers completely fluxed out. Now consider say 10 wings, boosted because Drovers: 4*7*128 ~ 36k damage in 1.8 seconds. When that is concentrated on a single target even capitals are in trouble.
Any time the wings happen to be off target/unable to fire, this alpha burst is recharging. This might sound like it doesn't matter, but watch some broadswords attack a target: they spend a lot of their time not pointed at it and firing, because they are maneuvering. Sparks use that time to recharge their shots.
BurstPD has according to the chart 350 damage per second, halved because its a beam, for effective armor penetration of 175. That better penetration than a Warthog's light mortar, despite that being an HE gun!
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Thank you everyone. Will try them someday.
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Personally, if I got a Legion early, I'd use it. (And, in a few games, this is exactly what has happened, too.)
If you're going for stealth and skullduggery, a capital with Insulated Engines isn't that bad a plan - less signature than a cruiser, and better sensor range. Toss on Augmented Drive Fields, and it shouldn't slow you down too much, either. Yeah, that will eat up a lot of its OP in mostly-non-combat stuff, but even with that, the Legion is a ship that can take on entire fleets solo. (And insulated engines is something it should have installed for combat reasons, too, what with none of its guns covering the rear arc.)
This does, some, vary if it's a Legion or a Legion XIV; the latter is a bit more annoying to work with because of ammunition limitations for its large missile slots - you can get much higher firepower than the regular Legion, but only for a very limited time-frame; useful for blowing up star bases, but generally a poor choice against large fleets.
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The main issue with early capital is that its very very supply, fuel, and crew expensive. Its not bad and a Legion will wreck pretty much any pirate force, but its not exactly an exploration vessel.
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If you are planning to hit level 1 - 2 pirate star bases or hitting small to medium supply fleets as a pirate, keep the legion.
If not, the supply and maintenance costs will destroy you before you can even get into battle with anything.
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If you have a supply of high-range high-accuracy guns (maulers, HVDs, gauss cannons) and can pivot fully into combat skills, a Legion flagship with auxiliary thrusters can solo entire fleets.
With smart use of active venting and the 0% flux agility bonus, Burn Drive's cooldown is short enough that you can't be pinned down. Your own wings can provide point defense/air superiority. And you have a *lot* of turrets to work with.
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If you have a supply of high-range high-accuracy guns (maulers, HVDs, gauss cannons) and can pivot fully into combat skills, a Legion flagship with auxiliary thrusters can solo entire fleets.
With smart use of active venting and the 0% flux agility bonus, Burn Drive's cooldown is short enough that you can't be pinned down. Your own wings can provide point defense/air superiority. And you have a *lot* of turrets to work with.
In the hands of the right skills, outfit, and piloting, yes, especially when using the right wing combinations.
Unfortunately, vanilla only has 50 levels to work with, and a good amount of skills are useful in battle or out.
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You can get most of them while still getting the important campaign ones as well!
Industry skills are just kinda money boosts which are nice to have, until you have infinite money.
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If you have a supply of high-range high-accuracy guns (maulers, HVDs, gauss cannons) and can pivot fully into combat skills, a Legion flagship with auxiliary thrusters can solo entire fleets.
With smart use of active venting and the 0% flux agility bonus, Burn Drive's cooldown is short enough that you can't be pinned down. Your own wings can provide point defense/air superiority. And you have a *lot* of turrets to work with.
In the hands of the right skills, outfit, and piloting, yes, especially when using the right wing combinations.
Unfortunately, vanilla only has 50 levels to work with, and a good amount of skills are useful in battle or out.
Just ignore the colony related skills, as you can always opt for Alpha Core colony admins. Imho using the XIV legion early on takes special care because of the two large missile mounts. They can pack a punch, but once the missiles run out, the ship is about as strong as a cruiser. Furthermore, not having spark intereptors and flash bombers further decreases the potential of the ship.
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You can get most of them while still getting the important campaign ones as well!
Industry skills are just kinda money boosts which are nice to have, until you have infinite money.
Except of scavenging. It increase drop for both ordinary and rare items. Do you ever have 18 pristine NF and insanely large amount of corrupted ones? Scavenging level 3 can provide you that and even more. New update with unique, otherwise unobtainable items will make it even more desirable.
However, it is true that price of 6 character points is kinda hight for this.
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I am of the opinion, that you don't actually need more then a single colony.
I know many people will disagree with me about that due to defence or self sufficiency but I honestly kinda disagree that you actually do need more then 1 colony for most if not all of the end game activities.
More is nice, but after you get one large shipyard world you really don't need another.
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Another option would be to modify it to match a fast fleet at the cost of its combat strength.
Insulated Engine Assembly and Augmented Drive Field should make it behave more like a smaller ship, given it's crew capacity it can store all Marines for your raiding plans.
And with some long range kinetics and Remnant Drone it can be a good combat support, a close combat role doesn't fit if you are using many hull mods.
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I am of the opinion, that you don't actually need more then a single colony.
I know many people will disagree with me about that due to defence or self sufficiency but I honestly kinda disagree that you actually do need more then 1 colony for most if not all of the end game activities.
More is nice, but after you get one large shipyard world you really don't need another.
But then paying for ships becomes a massive chore due to lack of income, as well as high construction time, because multiple orbital works are going to boost speed, even if you have no forge for them. The colony also wont be able to defend itself, so you'll also need to baby-sit it a lot. Sounds like the worst of all options. Might as well not have any colony than one, because then you can at least do shenanigans to farm market shortages, and then buy whatever ships you like from your commissioned faction's military market.
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But then paying for ships becomes a massive chore due to lack of income, as well as high construction time, because multiple orbital works are going to boost speed, even if you have no forge for them. The colony also wont be able to defend itself, so you'll also need to baby-sit it a lot. Sounds like the worst of all options. Might as well not have any colony than one, because then you can at least do shenanigans to farm market shortages, and then buy whatever ships you like from your commissioned faction's military market.
I have a different experience personally. I have enough income to cover my expenses, so I can float my fleet about for basically free now, construction times can take months but that isn't much of an issue as that's just a back burner going on while I am surveying and hunting bounties, which make a hell of a lot of money to pay for construction. My single colony which only has a orbital works and a HQ never attracts anything it cannot defeat so I rarely have to go back to defend and even when I do, that's fun to do because I like having fleet battles.
I had small amounts of baby-sitting to begin with, but past size 4 it's basically a self sustaining piggy bank of money that even with pirate -50% access harassment still makes me enough money so I don't have to worry about it.
Honestly I am not experiencing the level of issues that some people are, albeit with the caveat that I am deliberately not putting a third industry on it as to attract as little attention as possible. I'am close to the core too so it's really not an issue to return to.
But yeah, that's just me. Not much profit from upkeep costs, but that just makes my bounty money go further.
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The Legion is a particularly awful ship to find early from a logistics standpoint. Not only is it tied with the Onslaught for worst fuel efficiency in the game (15 fuel/ly) but its crew requirement is second worst, too (700). The only silver lining is that its CR hit per deployment is low. If a Conquest or Odyssey were to fall into my lap early, those would be near-impossible to pass up but a Legion or Onslaught absolutely kill a small/medium-sized fleet in terms of supply cost.
All that said, an early Legion can solo most medium-sized fleets. It's a jack-of-all-trades and with the proper fighters and loadout, it will crush destroyers and cruisers. Efficiency Overhaul and Augmented Drives would probably be necessary to get it to keep up with a smaller/quicker fleet. That will eat a lot of OP but it will still be the biggest, baddest thing on the battlefield by a country mile for quite a while.