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Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Grievous69 on July 11, 2020, 10:58:36 AM

Title: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 11, 2020, 10:58:36 AM
I just want to clarify something, I don't think it's bad, I've definitely used it numerous times in my campaigns. But I was thinking, it's classified as a proper battleship, and it's 40 DP, meanwhile battlecruisers usually cost the same, Odyssey is even more expensive. Now I know it's perfectly okay for it to work like that, obviously there's more to factor in that just firepower. So my idea was to make it actually terrifying and up it's DP cost accordingly, 45 or 50 maybe idk. I think it's fair to let its 3 large turrets all converge forwards, it's a ship with a Burn drive after all, not a broadside ship. Perhaps add some more small mounts on it to really match the word Onslaught, and give it some more flux stats because even now you're barely able to fire your low flux guns, let alone something stronger, and I think battleships should be able to do that.

Hopefully it could also help with these ''problems'' a bit. It already has huge crew and fuel costs, this way it'll be worth it at least (it's actually more expensive than the Paragon weirdly). And since capital spam is a thing that's trying to get resolved maybe this would reduce the number of capital ships in some fleets. So it's no more a 5-6 Onslaught fleet but maybe 3 or 4 of them. Finally, this could potentially leave place for a low tech battlecruiser of some sort.

So would this be a good/bad thing and why? Or maybe it won't change much in the grand scheme of things so it's unnecessary?

EDIT: Actually I shouldn't have said ''real battleship'', it would imply it is weak right now. Let's then say a ''proper battleship''.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 11, 2020, 11:19:22 AM
I would not mind at all if the onslaught was buffed to be more comparable to the paragon, both in DP and in combat power. I do feel like the paragon is 'the best' capital mostly because nothing else really fills the same role as a true battleship.

Flux stats are definitely the biggest thing holding the onslaught back IMO, but better turret arcs would also help a lot. I don't think it really needs more mounts, although the extra OP might not hurt. Maybe a bit of extra Armor could be another interesting direction, doubling down on the theme of the ship and maybe allowing it to compete with the paragon a bit more in the tanking department.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Igncom1 on July 11, 2020, 11:22:08 AM
Ehh I dunno about needing to 'up' it really. Fixing minor quibbles is fine.

It's a 'low tech' style design and they benefit mainly from being basic and cost efficient equipment rather then flashy bleeding edges of technology. Much like the Dominator and Enforcer before it it suffers in the flux war but wins out at simply being mobile platforms for the efficient ballistic weapon types along with a healthy stock of missile mounts that might otherwise only be seen on more specialised ships.

They are always flux hungry, but I find that basically all of my ships are just as flux hungry but they, like midline, can afford to use the flashier weapons, or in the case of high tech they are forced to use energy weapons. So I'm not as sure it's really as big of a problem, least of all for for onslaught which is unique in that the ship is built around two massive energy blasters. Essentially making all of it's other guns secondary to the fixed forward batteries.

But this, is just me.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Mondaymonkey on July 11, 2020, 11:25:24 AM
I made some experiments recently.

Wider (to front) arcs and more armor does not do much.

To be a proper beast Onslaught need more flux, little wider shields and more charges in his thermal cannons. Even minor buff in thees three makes it almost equal to Paragon.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 11, 2020, 11:28:36 AM
Oh yeah good point, forgot to mention that one. Most people immediately jump on the ''Paragon broken'' train but in reality there's a difference in 15 DP between it and the next most expensive capital. We really could use something closer to its DP so there's more choice between the heavy hitters.

@Igncom1
Yeah you're right about TPCs, nothing else the Onslaught can mount can compare to them. I disagree on low tech being cost efficient tho, their ships eventually start costing more than other techs in the long run, especially if you tend to take armor or hull damage. The only thing that makes them seem cheaper is the lower credit cost upfront.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: TaLaR on July 11, 2020, 11:29:22 AM
It's 'safe' for Paragon to be the most powerful, because ultimately it's slow and easy to play around (just stick 'Avoid' on it, then kill it last). Onslaught isn't same, whatever buffs it gets it would be able to press with Burn Drive. This risks creating a new meta where spamming Onslaughts would be far better option than spamming Paragons currently is.

I'm in for lesser buffs though, like converging 3 large guns (at least barely so at long range) and making Burn Drive cancel-able.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 11, 2020, 11:34:12 AM
Yeah I understand you, which is why I'm not suggesting any buffs to its defense in any way (apart from flux stats). And in the end it would still remain a sluggish ship with a weak shield and little cover in rear. I also can't see too much harm since AI is notoriously bad at using Burn drive.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Mondaymonkey on July 11, 2020, 11:39:01 AM
No buffs to defense? Fine. But more charges to thermal cannon! And rotate them 2.5 degree so they can focus fire...
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: TaLaR on July 11, 2020, 11:50:56 AM
Sure, AI is bad at deciding when to use Burn Drive. But the stronger the ship is, the easier is the decision (just keep pressing your advantage). I'm also not fond of balancing around AI's inability to properly leverage a ship system, rather than trying to improve it.

The changes would make Onslaught a terrifying sniper platform - with 3 converging Gauss Cannons and flux buffs what would be the point of Conquest? So getting close to enemy with Burn Drive wouldn't even be that much of priority.

There is also capital-dominance angle as whole. Do we really need to make it even more pronounced? Non-carrier DEs already have pretty much no place in end game combat, while frigates are only good as distraction/fodder.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 11, 2020, 12:13:20 PM
This feels like it is rapidly devolving into another ship class balance thread :P so I will avoid discussing those implications for now and attempt to keep the thread on topic.

Of course you could buff the onslaught too much for the DP increase, and then it would be too strong, so if you reach that point, then reduce the buffs until its balanced. The idea is just to increase the onslaughts DP to be more representative of a true battleship, and then give it buffs to justify that increase.

The idea is to make the onslaught better than the conquest in a straight fight, but cost more DP right? so that seems reasonable that it would be stronger than conquest in some ways. The conquest would still cost ~10 less DP (could be more if it turned out the buffs were that significant), less supplies and fuel per month, and have much better maneuverability/ kiting capability. It would be a battle cruiser and the onslaught would be a battle ship, I don't think the roles really overlap too much because the onslaught is not fast enough to kite anywhere near like the conquest can.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 11, 2020, 12:20:40 PM
Fair points, but you do realise only one Gauss cannon has currently the same flux/second as the base flux dissipation of Onslaught. What kind of buffs do you think I'm proposing to wield 3 lol? And that's even ignoring all other weapons. I just want to make it a tad bit better all around, with small corrections, and then increase its DP. Capital dominance should be dealt with in the next update I think, so this change wouldn't impact that imo. And yeah improving the Burn drive AI will help, but I don't think that's that easy to do, it'll have to take a thousand of things into account at once.

@intrinsic_parity
Yep that's the general idea.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 11, 2020, 12:32:25 PM
Things I want on Onslaught:
* Wider arcs for heavy mounts.  Currently, it works better as a broadside ship like a low-tech Conquest (because ship can aim two instead of one heavies), but AI will not play it that way because of TPCs.
* Better dissipation.
* Ability to (permanently) shut-off TPCs to prevent AI from killing itself by firing TPCs until it flux-locks itself.

As for Onslaught vs. Paragon, I think Paragon is fine since it is worth a cruiser more than Onslaught, and Paragon does not seem to outperform a duo of 40 DP battleship and 20 DP cruiser-sized warship or carrier.

I would not mind if Onslaught was upgraded to 60 DP monster.  Onslaught was fun when it was the most powerful ship during the 0.7.x releases, putting Paragon and all other capitals to shame.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: TaLaR on July 11, 2020, 12:36:10 PM
The idea is to make the onslaught better than the conquest in a straight fight, but cost more DP right? so that seems reasonable that it would be stronger than conquest in some ways. The conquest would still cost ~10 less DP (could be more if it turned out the buffs were that significant), less supplies and fuel per month, and have much better maneuverability/ kiting capability. It would be a battle cruiser and the onslaught would be a battle ship, I don't think the roles really overlap too much because the onslaught is not fast enough to kite anywhere near like the conquest can.

Conquest isn't *that* fast compared to Burn Drive using Onslaught. Conquest can keep Onslaught away, but it's mostly done by weapon pressure, not pure speed. Against a stronger Onslaught, Conquest risks becoming simple prey.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 11, 2020, 12:40:52 PM
Conquest isn't *that* fast compared to Burn Drive using Onslaught. Conquest can keep Onslaught away, but it's mostly done by weapon pressure, not pure speed. Against a stronger Onslaught, Conquest risks becoming simple prey.
Conquest was simple prey before 0.8a.  +200 to hull and armor, and heavy ballistics integration, along with weakened skills that no longer pushed Onslaught over the top made Conquest more like a fast battleship than a battlecruiser that was no match to a real battleship.

Come to think of it, I do not want Onslaught to be stronger if Conquest gets left behind.  If Onslaught gets stronger, but not Conquest, I would want a new proper midline battleship to compete.  Currently, Onslaught, Conquest, and Paragon form a decent triangle of battleships.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 11, 2020, 01:35:13 PM
The idea is to make the onslaught better than the conquest in a straight fight, but cost more DP right? so that seems reasonable that it would be stronger than conquest in some ways. The conquest would still cost ~10 less DP (could be more if it turned out the buffs were that significant), less supplies and fuel per month, and have much better maneuverability/ kiting capability. It would be a battle cruiser and the onslaught would be a battle ship, I don't think the roles really overlap too much because the onslaught is not fast enough to kite anywhere near like the conquest can.

Conquest isn't *that* fast compared to Burn Drive using Onslaught. Conquest can keep Onslaught away, but it's mostly done by weapon pressure, not pure speed. Against a stronger Onslaught, Conquest risks becoming simple prey.

Are we talking about kiting, or brawling, and are we talking about AI or human controlled?

For kiting, the burn drive does nothing because it only goes forward with direction lock, the conquest will be better at gauss kiting 100%.

For brawling, while the conquest might not be able to straight up run away (I think it's actually pretty close if we uses zero flux boost because that stacks with maneuvering jets while it doesn't stack with burn drive), it can easily outmaneuver an onslaught. Isn't that how the battleship vs battlecruiser match up should be? If the conquest tries to brawl a battleship head to head, it should clearly lose, but it can outmaneuver to win the duel. Of course the AI doesn't know how to outmaneuver a burn driving onslaught, but the onslaught doesn't know how to use burn drive, so it becomes an RNG fest of which AI accidentally does it right in AI 1v1, but the 'theoretically optimal' matchup seems to make sense IMO.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: TaLaR on July 11, 2020, 02:07:13 PM
Conquest's ability to kite an Onslaught with Gauss Cannons significantly relies on Onslaught's AI flaw.
Onslaught is too easily cowed with weapon pressure to not use BD (as long as you maintain lower flux than Onslaught). If you were to start a duel by holding fire against an Onslaught at max Gauss range (to provoke it into using BD), trying to win the fight from that point is quite difficult (skill-less, against better than sim build of Onslaught). Now imagine if Onslaught was massively buffed on top of that.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 11, 2020, 02:12:33 PM
Yeah but isn't that the whole point? Going toe to toe in a battlecruiser vs a battleship should be hard. You ideally want distractions and wait for the right time to go in, or just do a wide flank. At least that's my understanding.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 11, 2020, 02:26:21 PM
It's very easy for the player to defeat an overly aggressive onslaught (BD on cool down) flying a conquest without abusing range (assuming a 1v1):

Just wait for it to burn drive, then activate maneuvering jets, fly to the side, let it pass you and then go behind it. Conquest has a shorter cool down so you're guaranteed to be able to do that every time it burn drives. Of course the AI will not do that, but that's another AI flaw. With the right timing of maneuvering jets, I'm pretty sure you can always avoid being directly in front of the onslaught (and thus avoid the TPC's and maybe a significant amount of the forward facing turrets as well)..
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: TaLaR on July 11, 2020, 02:56:44 PM
It is possible to get behind an overly aggressive Onslaught, but without skills advantage margins are quite thin. A buffed Onslaught might do too much damage even at side. You also have to commit to either kiting or getting behind it as soon a Onslaught activates BD, you won't be able to effectively switch tactics later.

This also relies on easily fixable vulnerability, which can be solved with Augmented Thrusters + EA1 + Helm1 on Onslaught.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 11, 2020, 03:30:58 PM
I like that in the current version, Conquest can brawl Onslaught with middle-of-the-road weapons (Mark IX and HAG) and have roughly 50-50 chance of winning.  (More if Conquest has skill advantage.)  If Conquest will be the only midline capital warship, I like for it to keep its fast battleship performance.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Thaago on July 11, 2020, 08:00:05 PM
I was playing the last hurrah recently and Conquest without hardened shields has a really rough time trying to fight the Onslaught from the front. With HS and a capacitor heavy load it can do it against a not very kinetic heavy Onslaught, but its not super effective.

Which I think is ok - the ship is much more nimble and can fire the really flux hungry stuff with ease. And if it gets behind the Onslaught all it takes is a bit of ion and 4x reapers from the front to crack it wide open in seconds (default variant).
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 11, 2020, 09:49:59 PM
The fact that the onslaught is compared to the conquest rather than the paragon is evidence that it is not a true battleship as suggested by the thread. No one complains that the conquest cannot brawl with a paragon, so why should the conquest be able to brawl with an onslaught. If the onslaught was buffed to be a proper battleship, the conquest would be just as good against other ships, and I don't see any reason it would need to be buffed to stay competitive with the onslaught in a straight up fight. IMO, the conquest should be compared to the odyssey not the onslaught and maybe it could use a small maneuverability or speed buff to cement its role as a battle cruiser a bit more if the onslaught was buffed, but it definitely doesn't need firepower or defensive buffs to 'keep up' with the onslaught if the onslaught were buffed.

I've nothing against having a proper midline battleship (like the victory) in vanilla, but the conquest is not supposed to be that IMO.

Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: TaLaR on July 11, 2020, 11:45:44 PM
The fact that the onslaught is compared to the conquest rather than the paragon is evidence that it is not a true battleship as suggested by the thread. No one complains that the conquest cannot brawl with a paragon, so why should the conquest be able to brawl with an onslaught. If the onslaught was buffed to be a proper battleship, the conquest would be just as good against other ships, and I don't see any reason it would need to be buffed to stay competitive with the onslaught in a straight up fight. IMO, the conquest should be compared to the odyssey not the onslaught and maybe it could use a small maneuverability or speed buff to cement its role as a battle cruiser a bit more if the onslaught was buffed, but it definitely doesn't need firepower or defensive buffs to 'keep up' with the onslaught if the onslaught were buffed.

I've nothing against having a proper midline battleship (like the victory) in vanilla, but the conquest is not supposed to be that IMO.

Conquest doesn't need to be able to brawl a Paragon, because Paragon is a sitting duck waiting to be sniped. Even with 4xTL + 2x Grav + 2x HVD  loadout it's only a moderate challenge for a Gauss Conquest, anything less isn't even a threat.

Odyssey can defeat Paragon in a brawl while taking no-to-minimal damage (no skills). It's fast enough to stick to Paragon's side, ignoring most of the latter's guns.

Odyssey is the superior brawler by far, Conquest is kite and snipe.

A speed/maneuverability buff for Conquest would help to preserve it's usefulness in face of buffed Onslaught, but would obsolete all smaller ships even further. How are DE/Cruisers expected to survive that?

Imo, what really needs buffing are smaller ships, not capitals (and not necessarily direct stat buffs, AI improvements + some solution for officer limit could probably fix most issues).
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: SCC on July 12, 2020, 01:06:33 AM
I don't think Onslaught needs to be buffed. It's pretty good, but it has its weaknesses. The only buff I really want is the return of burn drive cancelling and to make AI capable of using it. And if you need an even bigger low-tech ship, Paragon plays almost the same, just with good shields.
Though I'm not a fan of TPCs. They're nice for burst, range and being free, but if I could, I would choose the old reliable kinetics+high explosives combo. Gauss Cannon is the only kinetic ballistic weapon less efficient against shields than TPC and against armour it's probably worse than all medium and large high-explosive ballistic weapons. It's nice for opening combat, before your other weapons come into range, or for finishing fights quickly so that overfluxing yourself doesn't matter of the enemy is dead, but most of the time it's best to avoid shooting it. Onslaught doesn't have the flux for that.

Yeah you're right about TPCs, nothing else the Onslaught can mount can compare to them. I disagree on low tech being cost efficient tho, their ships eventually start costing more than other techs in the long run, especially if you tend to take armor or hull damage. The only thing that makes them seem cheaper is the lower credit cost upfront.
Eventually? Conquest and Odyssey are cheaper at 300k and 330k credits respectively. Fuel costs and crew salaries are the real killer. (https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/275764710312247296/711664017697013900/Alexpls.png)

The changes would make Onslaught a terrifying sniper platform - with 3 converging Gauss Cannons and flux buffs what would be the point of Conquest? So getting close to enemy with Burn Drive wouldn't even be that much of priority.
Running away. Slow ships can be overwhelmed, even the Paragon. On the other hand, Conquest can easily run away and keep shooting you while at it.
Onslaught is stronger than Conquest, but Conquest is faster than it overall. It's Onslaught's job to fight Conquest directly and it's Conquest's job to avoid a straight fight.

(I think it's actually pretty close if we uses zero flux boost because that stacks with maneuvering jets while it doesn't stack with burn drive)
You need Helmsmanship 3 to get zero flux boost with burn drive, which is one of the rare instances where the skill gives the player an actual benefit, instead of being just a patch for AI.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 12, 2020, 01:31:47 AM
Ok maybe I shouldn't have said the word buff since some people got the wrong idea. It's more of a rework if anything, buffing it would just mean making it stronger and keeping everything else the same, which is not what I proposed. The only thing I can see being improved without nerfs in other areas is as you said, Burn drive cancelling. Also holy *** I didn't know Odyssey is cheaper than the Onslaught. I mean I always knew crew and fuel were making a difference in the end but it's been so long since I've bought these in markets I completely forgot what the costs were. And the high tech ships are the ones that were supposed to be more expensive to buy haha.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Titann on July 12, 2020, 03:50:28 AM
what onslaught need is little bit more flux dissipation and special hull mod that reduces EMP damage or increases turret/engine durability without spending op for it

though ill be happy with little flux dissipation buff because if you reach max flux and under pressure there is no way to keep firing unless you vent lol. Currently Onslaught is dead if it reaches to max flux.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 12, 2020, 07:00:22 AM
Paragon is the outlier worth 60 DP.  All other capitals (that are not civilian mods) are in the 40 to 45 DP range.  Conquest was called battlecruiser long ago when it was still a battlecruiser.  It is not that anymore, it is a full-blown battleship... that is also fast.

Quote
Odyssey is the superior brawler by far, Conquest is kite and snipe.
Only for the playership.  AI will burn into a mob and die.

Not a big fan of Gauss Conquest.  Gauss is inefficient, and seems to struggle against a group of nimble attackers.  Also, AI seems to have problems with it no matter what officer I use.  Cautious kites beyond Gauss range and takes itself out of the fight, Steady cannot seem to get into optimal position to aim and fire Gauss consistently, and Aggressive gets too close and defeats the point of Gauss.  Also, Gauss Conquest means I cannot use the best missile, Locusts, due to lack of range.  I have to use the gross and overpriced MIRV and ECCM (and Expanded Missile Racks) combo if I want to use missiles with Gauss Conquest.

Quote
Imo, what really needs buffing are smaller ships, not capitals (and not necessarily direct stat buffs, AI improvements + some solution for officer limit could probably fix most issues).
They need more PPT!  That is the biggest reason why I do not use them.  They do not last long enough to fight a big battle.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Yunru on July 12, 2020, 07:02:45 AM
Either more PPT, or a slower CR decay.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 12, 2020, 07:05:51 AM
In what way is Conquest a full-blown battleship? Sure it's got firepower but also a 90 degree arc 1.4 efficiency shield. And for its shields, the armor is not that crazy. I mean you could call it a glass cannon battleship but I don't know if that would be an oxymoron.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 12, 2020, 07:25:12 AM
In what way is Conquest a full-blown battleship? Sure it's got firepower but also a 90 degree arc 1.4 efficiency shield. And for its shields, the armor is not that crazy. I mean you could call it a glass cannon battleship but I don't know if that would be an oxymoron.
Because unskilled AI Conquest outfitted for medium-range brawling has a 50-50 shot at killing a sim or unskilled Onslaught, the sort that appears in the campaign if it does not have an officer on board.

Also, midline tends to be faster (in combat) and less armored than low-tech.  Not just Conquest vs. Onslaught, but also Eagle vs. Dominator, and so on.

Either Conquest is a battleship (except in the Codex) or Onslaught underperforms too much to be worthy of the battleship.

Conquest shields has poor efficiency but it has great flux stats, enough that either Hardened Shields or max caps will let it absorb enough.  (Odyssey has a similar problem, given low flux capacity and energy weapons, plus low OP.  Odyssey needs Hardened Shields too, and it wants max caps too if it goes double plasma.)  I need to give up too many mounts to make Odyssey a good brawler that only I can use because AI will plasma burn into a mob and die.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 12, 2020, 07:29:16 AM
Tbf the sim variants aren't that great imo, but I get where you're coming from. Well then definitely you could say the Onslaught underperforms as a battleship, even if its the same DP cost as Conquest.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 12, 2020, 07:33:23 AM
Tbf the sim variants aren't that great imo, but I get where you're coming from. Well then definitely you could say the Onslaught underperforms as a battleship, even if its the same DP cost as Conquest.
It may be true Onslaughts are badly equipped, but that does not matter if that is what the player fights in the game we are given.  The best people can do is bug Alex to make better loadouts.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: FooF on July 12, 2020, 12:36:26 PM
I don't think the Onslaught is in a bad place considering what it is: a Low-Tech battleship, with all the pros/cons of that school of thought. If it needs anything, I say double-down on its ability to face tank. Not just armor (bump it another 250?) but the hull itself should be more difficult to penetrate. Give it a "Ultra-Durable Hull" hullmod that doubles the minimum armor value of hull to 10%, from 5%. Given other hullmods and skills, an Onslaught would be near-invulnerable to low-caliber weaponry, which is kind of the point for a true battleship.

Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Morrokain on July 12, 2020, 02:14:18 PM
@FooF

That's a neat idea. I like that and it keeps it thematic.

For those struggling with flux stats, I actually put medium weapons in the large weapon slots and small weapons in the medium weapon slots (except Flak because that's flux cheap) and it actually gives the Onslaught a fairly tanky shield. DTC or ITU is a must, of course, and the extra OP can go into defensive hullmods or caps/vents.

These weapons support its primaries (TPCs) and missile batteries better than large weapons, imo, without making it as vulnerable to flanks. The flux efficiency is super great for dealing with swarms of smaller units too. Anyway just a thought.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: SafariJohn on July 12, 2020, 03:07:51 PM
Onslaught probably benefits the most out of all ships from skills. Evasive Action 1 in particular has a disproportionate effect because the Onslaught has to face particular directions to optimize its weapons, system, and PD.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 12, 2020, 09:24:00 PM
Well...onslaught benefits a lot from stat skills because it’s kind of a stat stick.

But mainly it benefits from piloting. The onslaught doesn’t need to focus its TPC to wreck ships, and they can even be counter productive. If you have HE and Kin on the ship then the TPC is less valuable than firing either given the targets shields are up/down. And since the “worst” large HE is 2:1 at 240 pen vs armor while the TPC is 1:1 at 250...  there are few situations you really want to be firing it if your other guns are in range

The thing that the onslaught has trouble doing is leveraging its armor with current AI. If you have armored turrets and an auto-repair the onslaught is able to take shots off its armor far better than most ships. This lets it flux dump effectively. (Still not going to beat a paragon without skills but does far better vs other ships)

But the AI doesn’t effectively do this because it always wants to have its shields up. Thus it doesn’t get to the point where it could effectively dump until its out of flux to do so... 
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: TaLaR on July 12, 2020, 11:42:55 PM
The thing that the onslaught has trouble doing is leveraging its armor with current AI.

Yeah, AI is horrible at that.
Whole low tech gameplay rotates around purposefully trading armor for flux advantage (when competently executed by player). But AI either defaults to 'always shields up until high flux' or randomly drops shield while at low flux and there is nothing to be gained from taking armor/hull damage.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 13, 2020, 12:06:08 AM
Yea. As an example. A player piloted skillless onslaught that has heavy armor, armored weapon mounts, and automated repair unit(with 2x HAG, and 3 HN's on the heavy side and PD/AC's on the weak side/back) will beat a "stock"* onslaught without taking any hull damage so long as it doesn't raise its shields. Edit: with skills its possible to make this onslaught a LOT more tanky because you can have both sides be strong sides (and/or close to it). And so you can use the right side until you start to take damage and then swap to the left side to finish the battle.

*might not actually be stock since i have the 2nd wave set that gives enemies better default loadouts
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Igncom1 on July 13, 2020, 12:27:45 AM
I tend to rely on it's TPC's with the manoeuvring mod and officers to have them focus on enemy capitals/carriers and hound them across the map.

They aren't great vs armour or shields, but with their range and by constantly pressuring the enemy, catching them with burn drive, they will grind them to down and kill them. (Remnant Radiants can't truly escape two Onslaughts on an execution order, which is hilarious!)

I use accompanying Legions, or secondary guns, to deal with the rest of the enemy fleet.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 13, 2020, 06:04:57 AM
TPCs are adequate, if not optimal, at anti-armor when every other significant gun that points directly ahead is a needler.  I use TPCs as anti-armor when I cannot rely on Devastators (or missiles) to break armor.

There is one other (occasionally) useful role Onslaught is good at:  troop carrier.  It (and Legion) can haul significantly more extra personnel than other capitals, and most other ships for that matter.  The last time I brought thousands of marines to factions' capital worlds to steal items from Sindria, I did not bother to bring Valkyries or Colossus 3 (because they do not bring enough marine power, despite Ground Support Package), and I did not want to build or bring Starliners.  Instead, I stuffed my fleet with many Onslaughts like 250k+ named bounties do and spammed them in fights.  Onslaught can brawl and bring lots of marines to raid planets.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Igncom1 on July 13, 2020, 06:07:51 AM
You'd figure that that kind of crew capacity might be a special mod, rather then just a built in stat. To at least better advertise it as a part of the ship.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 13, 2020, 06:14:11 AM
You'd figure that that kind of crew capacity might be a special mod, rather then just a built in stat. To at least better advertise it as a part of the ship.
Maybe give Onslaught and Legion Ground Support Package to double down on being good raiders (for a single ship slot).
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Mondaymonkey on July 13, 2020, 06:48:37 AM
You'd figure that that kind of crew capacity might be a special mod, rather then just a built in stat. To at least better advertise it as a part of the ship.
Maybe give Onslaught and Legion Ground Support Package to double down on being good raiders (for a single ship slot).

Rather "Large Ground Support Package" or make original Ground Support Package to grade with hullsize.

+100 raid strength for cap isn't enough, IMO.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 13, 2020, 09:32:27 AM
I agree the ground support package in its current state would be very underwhelming on a capital ship. I think I might be a bit biased by Nex which I think generally increases the average defense rating of planets, but I find that I frequently need a few thousand marines to raid, and ones hundred is not really making a big difference.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: martin on July 13, 2020, 01:48:16 PM
I mean you could call it a glass cannon battleship but I don't know if that would be an oxymoron.

Such thing were refered to as "battlecruisers". They are considered a failed concept, but were mostly sunk fpr stupid reasons such as some genius ordering the underarmored ships to store munition in the turrets so the guns could be reloaded faster.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 13, 2020, 04:25:01 PM
I mean. The Onslaught is fine.  I just (more or less) solo’d Corvid Crowe’s fleet with a base onslaught without taking hull damage.* Sure i was well skilled but I didn’t have RFC or ITU or IPDAI or omni shield conversion! I just had 2300 armor, auto repair, and the smarts not to put my shield up unless I was going to eat a point blank explosion. 2 HAG is almost like 2 ACs except with 900 base range instead of 400. Do you like eating 2 AC to your face? Does a hammerhead kill things slowly? Well the onslaught does that more or less without as much risk.


Sabots? Face tank em. The EMP isn’t enough to shut down your guns because of the increased HP unless you take a lot of em. And when they do shut down your guns you put Em back online super fast anyway.

Reapers? Your Vulcans should clean em out before they hit you but you’ve got a bit of leeway there anyway.

Fighters? Don’t make me laugh they don’t survive long enough to be a threat.

Edit: some things that might make the onslaught better without making the onslaught hilarious would be changing its shield to an omni shield. This would make the AI better about putting it up/down since it would not be forced to start from the center every time it wanted to block a reaper. Built in blast doors could mitigate some of the logistical issues of expecting to take armor/hull damage.


It might also be possible to mess with the default weapon selection loadout to make it perform more like the conquest (where it wants to get to the side a bit) 

*and even if I did I would repair 75% hull and armor at the end of the battle for free anyway.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 13, 2020, 05:55:37 PM
As an example... I came into this fight after just having fought another one, so down on CR
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/ogmUFHK.png)
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Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/aPpAUPL.png)
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Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/pxXgQ0D.png)
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They deployed 368 ish DP of ships. I killed 222 DP of ships alone and another 51 DP of ships from assists.

Now. Obviously this isn't like...a Remnant fleet. But its still a pretty significant fleet.

The onslaught i am using for reference

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/jjLIztP.png)
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I could probably drop the Anhillators for a HAG on the weak side but toggling weapon groups like that would be a bit awkward. I could also pick up ATG or IPDAI (but i don't have IPDAI yet) by dropping launchers which is what i will probably do
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: SafariJohn on July 13, 2020, 06:48:15 PM
Fascinating loadout. I would never have thought of something like that.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 13, 2020, 06:59:10 PM
Some of that is just what I have. I only have 2 HN so I can’t stack them like I probably would want to otherwise.(though the rear/weak side would probably stay the Heavy Auto does do better than than the HN for DPS/OP and you need as much spare OP as possible) I only have 2 annihilators because I am heavy on one side and this mean the other two cannot effectively fire. Harpoons are also OK there but I like the consistent distraction that the salamanders present. If I was going to drop missiles (Or at least the annihilators) entirely I might move instead to 4x regular salamanders (they fire slightly faster for the OP than the pods)

I took a reaper in a fight after than and that makes me really want IPDAI so I would probably find OP for that once I have it. Once you have it or the +dmg to missile skill you don’t really need flack in the front. The volume of fire and Vulcans will clean up anything you care a lot about.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Thaago on July 13, 2020, 08:54:10 PM
That is a gorgeous broadside Onslaught. It makes me cringe and cheer at the same time. Do you ever find yourself using the TPCs?
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 13, 2020, 09:00:08 PM
Yes but not nearly as often as the broadside. I usually killed the atlas IIs in those fights with the TPCs as an example because I did not want to play around at the edge of their Hellbore range (they have one Hellbore and one mark IX) and while I can tank a hellbore or two it will still do about 300 damage per shot. Which adds up fast if they have their ability active.

I use it if someone drifts out of range of the broadside too. But largely it stays silent
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Mondaymonkey on July 14, 2020, 09:20:03 AM

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/jjLIztP.png)
[close]


Why DTC not ITU? Roleplaying?
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 14, 2020, 10:15:46 AM
Didn't have it yet. ITU is, obviously, a straight upgrade.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 15, 2020, 09:38:15 PM
If you thought that "oh no that was not a display of an Onslaught being a real capital ship" then i've got some more for you

That fleet wasn't that big. Lets see you do it to a real fleet

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/VCgJO9M.png)
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Edit: Somehow cut the fleet off. It was 1200 deployment points (4 at once)

Oh. Well pirates are weak, even when they're buffed all to hell and have checks notes 392 fighters to suicide into your ship. You would never do that to proper carriers

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/BIUCmp9.png)
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Oh well that isn't that big a fleet. And it only had 4 Astrals and was full of chaff carriers like Drover and Heron. Maybe if you had to fight something that was super high tech and modded and much bigger

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/f6M8mn8.png)
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I have ITU and IPDAI(and an XIV now) and have rejiggered things around (i run 2x Typhoon launchers because the HAG's don't have the best armor pen and sometimes you run into something that can tank a bit, and the rear side HAC's became HMG's for a bit better PD and because i didn't really need the extra range) But fundamentally its the same thing. Laugh in the face of their pitiful damage. Eat tachyon lances off the armor like they were nothing and keep ... shooting ... that ... dakka.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Thaago on July 15, 2020, 10:29:50 PM
Nice! Could you share a screenshot of your final Onslaught build and character skills? I'd love to see the final iteration of the broadside onslaught.

This is also my experience with Onslaughts, though I tend to go forward with ACG and HMGs in some of the mediums (truly). They just brute force overpower everything.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 15, 2020, 10:45:15 PM
This is the onslaught. There are maybe some tweaks that could be made. I would definitely want to find a place for RFC

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/7UPyMK8.png)
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I am now level 74, so i have a few extra skills than normal at 50. Though most of those are non-combat related.

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/DNDTFZz.png)
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Specifically for combat related skills i did not have at level 50 was power grid modulation and coordinated maneuvers/ECM or Helsmanship. PGM is the most "raw power" one of those and the rest were mainly just taken because they were there. I think i only had 6 officers too but i could be wrong there.

Edit: Lol trying to come up with 24 spare points and i forgot that i have 5 unspent... No wonder i could not figure out what i had and didnt. I didn't have PGM, EW 2, CW 2/3, Sensors, Navigation, planetary ops, colony management, or helsmanship. Had the rest.

Field Repairs 3 is... pretty key. Probably the most important skill of the bunch because you're going to take some hull damage* and 75% of your armor is still 1750, which is enough armor to make most hits deal minimum damage so this skill lets you fight multiple battles in a row without too many issues.

*those conquests had either 2x Squall or 2x Mirv and let me tell you that is NOT fun dealing with at the same time.

Using the TPC a lot more in harder fights/cleanup/vs capitals.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Thaago on July 16, 2020, 09:37:52 AM
I really like field repairs! I can pilot a lot more recklessly and not need to worry about it.

I'm going to try out this build and variations of it - seems quite solid, and the OP saved from having an off side gives a few more hullmods...
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 16, 2020, 11:26:18 AM
The real key is ARU and AWM. ARU makes is so you will not lose weapons from consistent damage and AWM makes it so you will not lose weapons to burst.

You can do similar things in a dominator (though not as good obviously)
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: SCC on July 16, 2020, 11:37:36 AM
The best thing about Field Repairs 2 and Damage Control 2 is that your ships get repaired between deployments, increasing low-tech ships' lifespan quite substantially.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 16, 2020, 12:05:05 PM
I may be overvaluing heavy armor. So HA provides a flat amount of HP equal to 400 x 1.1 (because we have AWM) /.9 (minimum armor dmg) /.8(take less armor dmg skill) assuming we perfectly block all 500+ hit strength weapons. This is 2750 HE dmg or 22,000 kinetic dmg (raw listed on the weapon damage)
 
But assuming you have the -25% hull damage reinforced bulkheads will absorb 10,666 HE or Kinetic net after doing armor dr calcs dmg(which your minimum armor is Between 246 and 370 so a LOT of kinetic will be doing minimum dmg to hull as well; inflating both of these values.)

And Heavy Armor is 10 OP more while also reducing maneuverability.

An omni shield instead to make it easier to catch missiles might be more valuable. But I bet bulkheads are just straight better

Edit 1750 + AWM minimum armor breakpoint assuming you have skills but the opponent does not is  320. Assuming attacker has all skills it’s 185(base weapon hit strength, 1/2 for kin). Only a handful of non missile weapons make that break* so its reasonable to assume minimum armor dmg from weapons through the entirety of the HA range.

* line break indicates moving to skilled opponent weapons that can do better than min dmg vs base x AWM. Second indicates the end of that but added a weapon for reference

Hellbore: 1500
Plasma cannon: 500
Tachyon Lance:1125
Mjolnir: 400
Heavy Mauler: 400
———
HAG: 240
Heavy Mortar: 220
Gauss: 187.5
——
Assault Chaingun: 180


Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: FooF on July 16, 2020, 12:14:14 PM
Not gonna lie, I never thought about trying a Broadside Onslaught but once I did, it's really effective. It's a shame the TPCs kind of get lost in the shuffle, though I do use them, but the ship can mostly handle one all guns blazing and saving the OP from not filling out the other side gives you a ton of hullmods.

Compared to a similarly-equipped Conquest, I feel the Onslaught is vastly tougher. I could make the Conquest hardier by adding Heavy Armor but slowing it down seems counter-intuitive while with the Onslaught, you know it's just going to have to take hits. 2450 armor (the most I could get) is no joke, especially with skills. Hellbores were just scratching the paint.

All that said, I have this nagging feeling that the ship isn't supposed to be played this way. It's disingenuous to its design, though I believe the intended design is counter-intuitive. That all three of its Large Ballistics can't hit the same target, its TPCs have hard time doing the same, and most of its Mediums are unilateral gives it almost no "good" angle to fire. They're all competing against each other for where the ship should be pointed. The Broadside makes sense because it fixes what guns are available on one target. So to take nothing away from the Broadside Onslaught, the standard design should be superior, but isn't. It takes some hyper-specialization to the make the Onslaught an efficient battleship and I've written it off as mediocre for years because I was trying to work within the box. I don't think it should be this way.

To put it into perspective, guns able to focus on one target:

Broadside Onslaught:
2 Large Ballistic
4 Medium Ballistic (3 if the rear Medium is used for PD)
2 Medium Missile
3 Small Ballistic

Standard (Forward-Firing) Onslaught:
2 TPC (only on large targets, though, more likely only 1 will hit)
1 Large Ballistic
3 Medium Ballistic
4 Medium Missile
2 Small Ballistic

I tried a hyper-specialized approach to the Standard (Frontal) Onslaught and dropped the side Large Ballistics and only put PD on the sides, focusing solely on Forward Firepower. I can run roughly the same setup as the Broadside Onslaught with the same OP. However, the TPCs are so much harder to focus fire with. I actually put them on separate weapon groups and just turn the ship slightly to make sure they can each hit (one after the other). It works but I don't know if they're better than having a turreted Large Ballistic. Having the more Missiles available gives me more versatility, or at least more punch when I want it. It's effective, but it feels like it has less punch than the Broadside with the 2x HAG.



Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Megas on July 16, 2020, 12:20:29 PM
Does AI even play broadside Onslaught properly?  Every time I tried, AI insists on pointing directly ahead for TPC use, even if the loadout is more favorable for broadside use.  I have given up and build for mostly forward loadout just so I can freely change ships and let AI pilot my Onslaught while I pilot something else (like Afflictor for cheese kills), without AI self-destructing my Onslaught flagship through sheer incompetence.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 16, 2020, 12:38:15 PM
The AI uses the broadside properly yes. Both because it will try to swing to spread armor damage*. And also because it will lots of times have enemies to the side. It definitely wants to use the TPCs more than is efficient but this isn’t a huge deal. Even a slight tilt is enough to get the second HAG to not fire off into the ether** and not trying to get all three on target is pretty valuable. As an example if you run two stock onslaughts against each other in the sim the hellbores on the side will attempt to fire at the enemy and wont quite have the angle to do so.

The main thing about the broadside onslaught is less that it’s a broadside and more AWM/ARU.  I could do almost or just as well with a normal one so long as you have AWM and ARU. The AI onslaughts main problem is that as soon as it’s shield goes down it ends up stopping firing because it’s mounts take damage***. If you remove this issue it can still pretty effectively leverage its armor.

*derp forgot to account for this in my undervaluing. Heavy Armor is probably not undervalued.

**though my AI onslaughts dont have a HaG there. They have a Hellbore on the side instead. This is because they are bad at using missiles (they will dump at the first opportunity) and so still need a way to punch through heavy armor and the Hellbore provides.

***its second main problem is that it inefficiently uses its medium slots for PD; both over-fluxing itself and preventing it from using more efficient/higher ranged medium sized weapons. You could use dual flak in the front mediums and then LNs in the small but you lose 100 range on your needlers, use 6 more OP per battery, increase your PD flux usage by 112 per battery, and reduce single target missile DPS by 1/2. Even if you drop IPDAI from the flaks you’re only saving 2 OP. And god help you to penetrate armor if you’re running anything but HE/Energy in the larges.

Edit: Here is an example I am playing with the second wave mod that changes fits around. Enemies tend to have far more effective fits (particularly pirates, which are all now atropos/assault chaingun'd SO monsters) though i don't like this onslaught

This is its "elite" Onslaught with one exception. Instead of AWM and ARU it has hardened shields

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/IK4THzD.png)
[close]

When you swap to AWM and ARU, with no eliminate command, the elite version wins against the one with hardened shields (like 20% hull left?) and this is a pretty weak showing since once things get low it dinks around at the edge of TPC and gauss range and entirely negates its advantage. (it also vents waaay too much but this is i think a pressure thing. My AI onslaughts don't vent in combat.) The main reason it does win is because in the initial trades its weapons don't turn off from taking damage(and because it doesn't flux up during the initial exchange where it tends to burn in). The non-elite version which has HN's and a hellbore in the front wins with like 60% hull (it still vents for no good goddamn reason and fails to push forward for no good goddamn reason) but it wins much harder. Again, because in the initial engagement its weapons aren't turning off.

In general because of the single target and preservation AI this tends to feel worse than in the campaign where there will be lots of smaller ships and more pressure. Its also a pretty non-ideal situation because you're fighting something with very long range weapons when you're at a flux disadvantage due to the primary type being kinetic and one side having hardened shields.


Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: SCC on July 16, 2020, 01:17:48 PM
To make an "all sides" Onslaught work, it either needs to have infinite flux dissipation it doesn't really matter and it can fire all its weapons all the time, or to have weapons so cheap to mount and fire that there's never a good reason not to fire them. The reason why broadside Onslaught might work better than the regular one is because of its constrained flux pool: it has only 600(+60+600+150) flux dissipation to work with, but if we made a "cheap" loadout with 3 hellbores, 5 heavy autocannons, 4 flak cannons, 6 vulcans and, obviously, 2 TPCs, then it needs 2781 flux dissipation not to gain any soft flux when firing all the guns, but just 1672 when firing only the forward firing weapons.

When working with limited flux, an ideal ship would have a priority list, where it would first fire most efficient guns and the least efficient guns last. Such a ship would not fire weapons past a certain point, because the most efficient guns used all the flux it has. A ship with a limited flux pool shouldn't fire more guns than its flux pool allows, because at some point it starts hurting more than helping. Even then, mounting any weapons uses ordnance points and if it won't (or shouldn't) be fired, those OPs are wasted. This means that you don't want any more guns than what you're going to use, and this number tends to be different to the number of mounts your cruiser or capital ship has at its disposal.

So, since you want to use the most efficient weapons, energy damage type is basically the worst type to use. Kinetic damage can be used against shields to double its efficiency, thus firepower you can put out with your limited flux. The same applies to high-explosive. This means that energy weapons of efficiency worse than 0.5 (which TPC is, at 0.8) are undesirable. Firing 2 TPCs continuously for 500 DPS against shields at 400 FPS gives you less is worse than firing 2 Heavy Autocannons for 800 DPS against shields for the same flux. To make TPCs desirable, their efficiency would have to be boosted enough that they are higher on the flux efficiency list than ballistic kinetics or ballistic high-explosives for anti-shield or anti-armour work respectively. Or give Onslaught enough flux that it just can be wasteful with its weapons. This is exacerbated by Onslaught's low mobility, so it has to be assumed that what weapons it fires, it's going to fire indefinitely, without breaks.

tl;dr: Thermal Pulse Cannons can't compete with ballistics for efficiency and efficiency matters a lot to Onslaught.

As an aside, I hope Heavy Armour's manoeuvrability penalty goes away. It doesn't make it a hard choice, as ships that benefit from it the most, are hurt from the penalty the most as well, hurt too much.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 16, 2020, 01:40:17 PM
Its not the flux. When your shields are down "winning the flux war" doesn't matter. Because flux efficiency of kinetic into 2400 armor with -50% kinetic damage done to armor is effectively zero. A heavy needler does 250 DPS for 200 flux/second. That is pretty damned good! .8 flux/damage! .4 vs shields! Have fun winning the flux war against that!   A heavy needler into 2400 skilled armor does 5 DPS for 200 flux a second. For 40 flux/damage. Get dunked shield tankers.


Only two things matter

1) Not getting hit by too many missiles
2) Keeping your firing up.

When that happens and their shields turn off. You're in the exact same game again.. except that their guns will stop firing before yours do because you have AWM and ARU. And once their guns are off it barely matters what you're firing into their hull.

My onslaught and my AI onslaughts routinely out-fire their flux. It doesn't matter. The AI does a pretty decent job or prioritizing things when flux is high. Decent enough that i don't really have to worry much about them. When their flux gets high they shoot their vulcans at missiles first and that is all i care about.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: FooF on July 16, 2020, 03:07:41 PM
Goumindong is pretty much on the money in regards to ships primarily face-tanking: since you never have to worry about hard flux, it's all about armor and keeping the guns themselves online. Hence the AWM, HA, and ARU. Personally, I haven't found ARU to be all that necessary (I tend to take Resistant Flux Conduits if I have to make the choice).

That said, there's another flux issue to consider. The Broadside Onslaughts I have recently built are hovering around 1700 flux from primary-facing weapons against 1450 dissipation. That's not quite parity but pretty close and considering the 17,000+ capacity, it will take over a minute of sustained fire to max your flux and even then, most guns will still fire. To put it plainly, flux will rarely be limiting factor. Weapon loadout is still key, though. It has to be efficient in what it does and Energy weapons like the TPC or Mjolnirs are typically less efficient at any given thing vs. straight HE or Kinetic.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 16, 2020, 03:19:02 PM
The main risk to the AI is that they foolishly put their shields up (they always do) and catch some sabots on them (which causes them to overload and turns off their PD) When that doesn't happen they're amazingly durable
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: RustyCabbage on July 16, 2020, 04:39:25 PM
...

Edit: Here is an example I am playing with the second wave mod that changes fits around. Enemies tend to have far more effective fits (particularly pirates, which are all now atropos/assault chaingun'd SO monsters) though i don't like this onslaught

This is its "elite" Onslaught with one exception. Instead of AWM and ARU it has hardened shields

Spoiler
(https://imgur.com/IK4THzD.png)
[close]

When you swap to AWM and ARU, with no eliminate command, the elite version wins against the one with hardened shields (like 20% hull left?) and this is a pretty weak showing since once things get low it dinks around at the edge of TPC and gauss range and entirely negates its advantage. (it also vents waaay too much but this is i think a pressure thing. My AI onslaughts don't vent in combat.) The main reason it does win is because in the initial trades its weapons don't turn off from taking damage(and because it doesn't flux up during the initial exchange where it tends to burn in). The non-elite version which has HN's and a hellbore in the front wins with like 60% hull (it still vents for no good goddamn reason and fails to push forward for no good goddamn reason) but it wins much harder. Again, because in the initial engagement its weapons aren't turning off.

In general because of the single target and preservation AI this tends to feel worse than in the campaign where there will be lots of smaller ships and more pressure. Its also a pretty non-ideal situation because you're fighting something with very long range weapons when you're at a flux disadvantage due to the primary type being kinetic and one side having hardened shields.
Thanks for sharing this. I'll definitely be tinkering around with your Onslaught adjustments - in fact yesterday I did try out some broadside Onslaught builds roughly according to your designs, but I couldn't get them to perform as well as I'd like.


(Also minor aside I don't think I actually made many changes to pirate ships; aside from the Gremlin (P) any Atroposes that show up are purely coincidental. Probably gonna have to take another look and tone it down)
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: Goumindong on July 16, 2020, 05:54:05 PM
Was a bit of hyperbole. Pirates have not been an issue for me past early game. The only thing that gave me significant issues was loads of carriers.
Title: Re: What if the Onslaught was a real battleship?
Post by: CommandoDude on August 17, 2020, 02:03:38 PM
The annoying thing about the Onslaught is that even if you design the ship to use low flux weapons, AND max out its vents, it still struggles with potentially overloading itself.

The ship is basically designed to alpha strike whatever it targets, kill it, and then vent. If it doesn't win the fight in the first 30 seconds its usually boned. Not very good for prolonged fleet actions except against missile heavy enemies.

I think its TPC flux gen could stand to be lowered a bit and its vents could be raised a bit.