Don't ever think that the paragon can stand toe to toe with the Onslaught... you'll just get slaughtered by the autocannons and then the H assault guns. If you want to try it, try it with 4 tachyon lances. You might survive
What! This is total nonsense. I recently captured a paragon and I switched immediately to it as my flagship. The paragon is absolutely insane with max vents, flux conduit, hardened shields, and stabilized shields. You'll have to sacrifice 4-6 weapon slots to get this though.
Trying to optimize my Paragon loadout. I've probably forgotten some test cases because I didn't run into them.
Also,Don't ever think that the paragon can stand toe to toe with the Onslaught... you'll just get slaughtered by the autocannons and then the H assault guns. If you want to try it, try it with 4 tachyon lances. You might survive
What! This is total nonsense. I recently captured a paragon and I switched immediately to it as my flagship. The paragon is absolutely insane with max vents, flux conduit, hardened shields, and stabilized shields. You'll have to sacrifice 4-6 weapon slots to get this though.
Outrageous indeed - I feel compelled to respond. Including the bit about sacrificing weapon slots.
Change the lances to plasma cannons.
Change the blasters to pulse lasers.
Change the back four burst PD to LR PD
Change the sabots to annihilators.
Swap out hardened shields for armoured turrets, gryos, and slap the rest in vents.
This thing can go head-to-head with a standard Onslaught, with regular crew, and win without hull damage. Tactics: put everything but the plasma cannons on autofire and fly straight up to the Onslaught with shield up. Idly shoot until the Onslaught drops its shield, then fire a single plasma salvo. Drop shields when flux gets high, and then shoot into the hole opened by the plasma until there's pretty flashes.
The armour's pretty much shot after one Onslaught though. This could be solved by better tactics, but then that could be countered by better AI...and I'd rather just avoid the whole intelligence arms race.
Which AI problem in particular?The one I always encounter, when the captain decides now is a good time to lower shields. I lower shields in fire when I don't want to overload, happy with armour and hull state and know it's worth it.
Which AI problem in particular?The one I always encounter, when the captain decides now is a good time to lower shields. I lower shields in fire when I don't want to overload, happy with armour and hull state and know it's worth it.
Which AI problem in particular?The one I always encounter, when the captain decides now is a good time to lower shields. I lower shields in fire when I don't want to overload, happy with armour and hull state and know it's worth it.
I actually think thats pretty much fixed in this version. The AI rarely gets overloaded by kinetics and is pretty dang twitchy at getting the shields up to block HE. I swear I've sometimes seen it timing its shields in pulses between my heavy mauler and hyper velocity rounds, taking the kinetic on the hull and HE on the shield.
I've tried to catch a Paragon with my Onslaught, but it isn't working. Either I get Paragon And Friends - oddly I don't fare so well ramboing against multiple capital ships and/or Auroras - or the Paragon deploys last and runs away because everything else is dead.Easy for me, Gauss cannons to the rear and it seems they can't outrun that, further shots overload - flameout - dead.
Here is my favorite Paragon loadout. I've found it to be the most effective in every situation, whether directly or AI controlled.
No missiles. All slots are: Autopulse, Pulse, or IR pulse, exceptions being the two rear side small mounts, which are burst PD. 1875 flux dissipation and accelerated shields are especially helpful when the AI controls it, for obvious reasons.
With manual control and careful flux management, this loadout can easily defeat multiple enemy capital ships without taking hull damage at all, even default Paragons. The ridiculous barrage of pulse lasers is even reliable for taking out incoming missiles from any angle, though the burst PD in those high-coverage turrets often help.
However, I'm fairly convinced that there could still be improvements made to this loadout to further increase general effectiveness. I just wish there were more choices for small energy mounts.
Picture:Spoiler(http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q572/j0181/pulseparagon.png)[close]
Tach-Lances take a bit of the fun out of actually doing something with the Paragon. I find myself preferring to actually getting in the brawl to beat the bloody hell out of something rather than hanging back and just sniping stuff from stand-off ranges. Well, assuming I'm even in a Paragon as my player ship/flagship. (I'm usually not since I despise the lack of speed.) For AI use, though, yeah; I go Tach-Lances for my AI Paragons.
The Odyssey can hold three tach lances plus carrier duty for 18 FP, isn't that a better deal?
Aren't all those beam weapons? If so, ITU doesn't help much.
Aren't all those beam weapons? If so, ITU doesn't help much.Sure it DOSE help, beam are included in energy
| raw | with ITU | and AO | |
| Heavy Burst Laser | 600 | 900 | 1100 |
| Gravition Beam | 800 | 1200 | 1400 |
| High Intensity Laser | 1250 | 1875 | 2075 |
| T-Lance | 5000 | 7500 | 7700 |
Nope, advanced optics clearly states that it stacks with ITU.
If you don't have enough fast ships to cap points then get a cheap carrier and a few wasp wings and rectify that problem.
I would go with Range = Base *1.5 +200. When you think about it, optcs upgrade, such as better lens, affects the weapon directly, without dealing with electronics and such. On the other hand, ITU is simply a better computer, capable of increasing computing power for efficient targeting for additional 200 su.Nope, advanced optics clearly states that it stacks with ITU.
If you don't have enough fast ships to cap points then get a cheap carrier and a few wasp wings and rectify that problem.
Err..how they stack? Range = (Base range + 200) * 1.5 or Range = Base range * 1.5 +200?
Beams don't leave hard flux which means against an opponent with sturdy shields you're not going to get anything done.
Outranging opponents will only work if you can move away faster than they can close in. With a battleship that sounds kinda unlikely. Projectile weapons can slowly build up hard flux in the target that cannot be removed without turning the shields off so in a battle of attrition against a shield-heavy opponent you're at a disadvantage.
For a very pretty light-show and pretty damn good performance try outfitting a paragon with tactical lasers in the small slots, graviton beams in the medium and HIL's in the large slots (missiles are empty). With ITU and Advanced optics, it has obscene range, and due to the graviton beams and HILs enemy ships have no option but to get slowly worn down from outside their own firing range. Could swap out some gravitons with phase beams for some purple beams too!
Due to the fact that beams are cheap in OP and flux usage, you can also stack up on all of the standard goodies with enough OP left over to get 45 vents, so will be losing flux while firing nearly all weapons (need to be not using 4 tac lasers to be even)
Missiles are easy enough to just block with the shield.
Glad to see I'm not the only one that goes without missiles on the paragon. I feel like the missile slots are a waste of OP on this ship. You really can't get any missiles that warrant using up (at least 16 for any decent missile) OP, when you can apply it towards much better things.
I still love the Tachyon Lances though. Their range and power is undeniable, though once enemies close in your turn rate hurts it a bit.
I find the Paragon just to slow for my taste. I prefer the Odyssey with Augmented engines, that's as slow as I'm willing to go.
I also think the Paragon is difficult to equip, there are just so many options and you have so many points to spent and yet it is difficult to make a balanced ship capable of handling any given situation. I've yet bin able to top the standard "Elite" variant in overall performance. But I also haven't spent enough time with it yet.
Would a moderator kindly merge this accidentally-started thread with the other, current thread on the same subject (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2762.0), please? Thanks.
Mauler hammerhead with 4 alternating pulse lasers, looks badass when firing....Can't handle firing both maulers AND pulse lasers for long though...Plus does reasonnably good against fighters for some reason....How exactly did you mount Pulse Lasers on Hammerhead? They require Medium Energy slots, and Hammerhead has none of these. File hack, perhaps?
Wish there was a simulation mode where I could try a new conquest loadout....
Mauler hammerhead with 4 alternating pulse lasers, looks badass when firing....Can't handle firing both maulers AND pulse lasers for long though...Plus does reasonnably good against fighters for some reason....How exactly did you mount Pulse Lasers on Hammerhead? They require Medium Energy slots, and Hammerhead has none of these. File hack, perhaps?
Wish there was a simulation mode where I could try a new conquest loadout....
Ah, yes - that's actually interesting setup, I've always mounted tactical lasers on my Hammerheads, I'm curious how the one with IRs would work out.IR pulse lasers?Mauler hammerhead with 4 alternating pulse lasers, looks badass when firing....Can't handle firing both maulers AND pulse lasers for long though...Plus does reasonnably good against fighters for some reason....How exactly did you mount Pulse Lasers on Hammerhead? They require Medium Energy slots, and Hammerhead has none of these. File hack, perhaps?
Wish there was a simulation mode where I could try a new conquest loadout....
Ah, yes - that's actually interesting setup, I've always mounted tactical lasers on my Hammerheads, I'm curious how the one with IRs would work out.IR pulse lasers?Mauler hammerhead with 4 alternating pulse lasers, looks badass when firing....Can't handle firing both maulers AND pulse lasers for long though...Plus does reasonnably good against fighters for some reason....How exactly did you mount Pulse Lasers on Hammerhead? They require Medium Energy slots, and Hammerhead has none of these. File hack, perhaps?
Wish there was a simulation mode where I could try a new conquest loadout....
Better versus larger ships worse versus frigates and fighters.hydremajor stated that it does well against fighters aswell, which makes me even more curious.