Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Save/Load UI, Autosave, Intel Map Markers, and More (04/10/24)
Again, beams are supposed to be support weapons, not main damage weapons. Other some fee exceptions like the tachyon Lance, beams are mainly used to support main damage weapons at low flux cost. I have an eagle with 2 gravitons and 1 ion beam and they do their job pretty well as a long range pressure weaponIf they cost more than they do AFTER you consider the effect of spending that same OP on vents, they are worse than useless: they hurt you more than they hurt the enemy. Remember that. The OP matters as part of their flux cost, because it's vents you won't have. If you're filling slots with beams theres absolutely no way you are going to max out vents/caps, even without including the flux hullmods.
With the d-mod removal skill and the guaranteed recovery officer skill, you don't really need to worry about that. The only way you could end up losing them is if you lost your entire fleet.Well the whole idea of the XIV being unique very old ships you salvage while exploring was really cool, but since you can produce them with blueprints like any other ship, they lose a lot of weight/coolness in my opinion
the battlegroup legion is the only low tech ship i use, and the fact that we can now produce them makes them much more usefull as mainstay ships
meaning i can acutally use them as line ships instead of only keeping them as flags and banking all others i find in case of.... "failure"
Probably that you're running ships with almost the worst shield efficiency in the game and then spending all your OP on PD instead of boosting the shield values (hardened shields, max caps/vents). Not that I know whether that's any good for sunders or not, I don't use them because they are frailer than most frigates and die whenever something breathes in their direction, but it's the general theme of my fleets.I noticed this espechially hit pirates hard. I just ignore broadswords and talons now they do such minimal damage to even a frigate they might as well be human piloted flares.How? I've had multiple instances where pirate broadswords brought my Sunder from zero to overloaded in around five seconds flat. I've gone out of my way to equip every ship I have with IPDAI and tons of PD just because broadswords kept punching hard enough to flatline destroyers and even pause cruisers on some occasions. What secret am I missing?
I don't run SO anything. Too short PPT. It's hard to imagine AI making good use of it.That must take hours. I always try to finish my battles in minutes. If two thirds of the enemy fleet isn't dead within 3 minutes of real time, I probably did something horribly wrong. I go after the biggest fleets I can find, multiple at once when possible.
Plus, my fleet is mostly there to survive, distract and finishing blows to crippled capitals. Rest is done by player-piloted Afflictors.
Hello Valdeez, welcome to the forum.Increasing the level cap also makes story points harder to earn. The XP per level keeps increasing, so the higher your level, the more XP it takes to earn a story point. I'm also pretty sure that there are things in the game that scale off of character level, maybe bounty fleets?
Ive not seen that and its a good idea and i like it, but i dont see how thats not mechanically similar to just increasing the level cap?
New Hyperion is good, but is not exclusively overpowered. Scarab displays quite similar level of performance under AI control, despite only half the DP cost.I haven't actually tried it, but I highly doubt that. My SO hyperions run 3x Heavy Blaster and pose a legitimate threat even to Radiants. I don't see how a scarab could even hope to match that with small mounts only and way less flux.
The new Hyperion's system doesn't require 0-flux, it requires the zero flux boost. This means that with Elite Helmsmanship you just need to put your shield down and hold your fire to teleport at any time. This does, however, have the issue of making elite Helms a must-have skill in order to use the Hyperion to its fullest.I suspect the AI won't be smart enough to do that, but I give them SO anyway so it's not a big deal.
Dual Phases is my go-to for Tempests. Zip in, pop F, unload a pile of damage, and zip back out to cool off while the lances cycle. Advanced Optics can give them the extra poke range to stay relevant in larger fights where the battlespace becomes more hostile to small ships, and jumping Phase Lances from 600 > 800 range is way more relevant than any other range bonus you can get on a frigate hullmod.I used to use Phase Lances with Hyperions last patch. If you can get them on an exposed target they are pretty good, although blowing through shields isn't usually possible. Damage on Phase Lance is OK but its usage is extremely niche, and probably obsolete now. I figure boosting it to the same 1000 unit range as every other offensive beam would probably be sufficient as a buff, but even that is less absolutely essential than buffing gravitons.
The sheer volume of soft flux is enough to overwhelm anything else in their weight class, even REDACTED frigates.
I've been running around with Wolfpack Tempests equipped with Hvy Blaster and Scatter Amped Gravitons and the gravitons have been doing a pretty good job of providing shield suppression at a flux cost offsetting the Hvy Blaster's hunger. Especially with other Tempests hanging around ganging up on a single target. Don't forget that Gravitons are Kinetic damage and so in this case will do 200 hard flux DPS on shields for a very minor 75 f/s.You don't need or want sustainability with fast frigates. The longer you are in the more danger to you. Better to dump your load fast and get out. 2 heavy blasters works best for that (maybe even 2 mining blasters). The AI actually does that anyway, they never stay close to the enemy for long.
2 Pulse lasers can do 600 DPS on shields at 1 to 1 flux to damage but has issues against punching through heavy armor common with bounties, and 1 Hvy blaster with a pulse laser can do 800 DPS but will be very flux hungry to a tempest lowering its sustainability.
Beams have long range and low flux cost. They kinda have to be weak or enough beams on a fleet would turn them into a death wall that no frigate or fighter can cross since you're not gonna dodge them. The 1000 range ones will hit you before any serious weapons on a smaller ship are in range.A massed fleet should be a death wall. No frigate or fighter should be able to get in between 20 ships all bunched up and waiting for it. And that's exactly true with non-beam weapons. As it is, if you are piloting a frigate and see the enemy fleet is beam heavy, you know that it's SAFER to try to get between them than it would if they didn't use beams.
Way less damage to shields and hull. 300dps is the low-end for medium weapons. Even small weapons usually do more than the 100 that the graviton does.Not with Advanced Optics and ITU they don't. The flux cost is lower, the range is still higher and they either do more damage to shields or do the same damage to hull.Use High Scatter Amplifier.With the range reduction, it turns them into worse IR Pulse Lasers that cost more OP. Just get IR Pulse Lasers instead.
Problem solved.
You wouldn't get Advanced Optics either, if you aren't using beams, because beams are too weak to be worth the OP.I forgot the part where you wouldn't get those hull mods in the first place.You forgot the part where you spent a half of the OPs on hullmods just to make beams wacky and quirky.Not with Advanced Optics and ITU they don't. The flux cost is lower, the range is still higher and they either do more damage to shields or do the same damage to hull.Use High Scatter Amplifier.With the range reduction, it turns them into worse IR Pulse Lasers that cost more OP. Just get IR Pulse Lasers instead.
Problem solved.
The only hull mod that is "extra" is High Scatter Amplifier.
Beams suffer from BOTH soft flux and low damage. If it were just one, they wouldn't be too bad. Both though makes them worthless. Graviton beam is 100 dps, for a medium slot with 9 OP. A pulse laser is 300 DPS in the same slot for 1 more OP that does hard flux. Soft flux alone would be enough of a penalty for the range, losing two thirds of the DPS as well is overkill.Except that's not how it works at all. Beams do not cripple the offensive capability of anything. Ships keep firing until they run out of flux, or the AI fears they are about to run out of flux. Beams don't cause that. At best, they might make it happen faster, but that's what every weapon does. Beams are simply worse at it than every other weapon. What they need is a higher DPS number until they are able to accomplish the job.Which is the price for being a long ranged perfect accuracy, fast turning, instantaneous and continuous weapon type.
There would be no reason to use hard-flux weaponry if those were less effective than the soft ones in every way.
And yes of course i'm talking about flux denial, just forcing the shields and reducing the on-paper available flux at a guaranteed pace and ratio mean that the AI derps once at high flux as is doesn't know what to do and just stands there not firing and shield-flickering until it's too late.
Except that's not how it works at all. Beams do not cripple the offensive capability of anything. Ships keep firing until they run out of flux, or the AI fears they are about to run out of flux. Beams don't cause that. At best, they might make it happen faster, but that's what every weapon does. Beams are simply worse at it than every other weapon. What they need is a higher DPS number until they are able to accomplish the job.Gravitons do hidden work, as they constantly reduce the flux available for the enemy. 2 gravitons is -400flux/s which can seriously cripple the offensive power of most enemies, useful when you want to save op for high quality weaponry and win the flux war.No they don't need buff...Care to explain? Let's focus on Graviton Beams for now, since they are the most egregious problem. If you can explain why they don't need buffs, it probably covers everything else as well.
It's a 1000 range pressure armament, of course it's not going to single-handedly kill anything with it's damage equal to that of a LR-PD against armour.
The simplest beam combo would be Tachyon Sunder with two gravitons.
