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1

General Discussion / Legion/Sunder/Medusa vs 6 Ordos, 2380 DP

« on: March 22, 2024, 07:40:45 PM »

Seeing how some people think Onslaught is too strong for the cost I was curious how current Legions perform compared to it.
Gave base version a spin, with the usual Sunder support. Non-XIV because Sunders/maulers got hull damage covered, mark XIV battering down shields looks more helpful.
Ships are under AI control, player character is used in an op center kite, needed 1 merc to have enough officers:


Combat results, skills

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Legion
Tanks and takes shields down, fighters confuse omni shielded enemies and add some damage+PD capability. The usual Maulers do armor and hull damage.
Xyphos was probably a mistake, Claw for some extra tanking and good EMP output would've been better.
Part of the 10 OP saved on the Claw could've gone toward expanded deck crews, solar shielding or just more caps.
Still worked with Xyphos despite me fumbling around a lot, good enough

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Sunder, Medusa
Same as in the Osnlaught/Doom mix vs 2350 DP battle:

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Overall Legions are more fragile, but can deal with smaller targets much better than Onslaughts.
Lots of wide arc turrets+fighters help dealing with any target in a big area, but have less standalone finishing power and are less generous with OP.
IMO in relative strength adjusted for DP Legions, Onslaughts and Executors are on the same level (do different things well ofc).

2

General Discussion / Doom/Onslaught/Sunder/Medusa vs 6 Ordos, 2350 DP

« on: February 27, 2024, 09:50:30 AM »

Used salamander/pilum Dooms often in the previous versions, wasn't sure they were pulling their weight but it's fun to follow them around.
Gave them a go in a fleet that has trouble clearing frigates fast enough, and things got much easier so it seems like they are worth the DP.
Ships are under AI control, player character is used in an op center Sunder:


Combat results, skills

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Doom
Tucked behind allies, throws around mines, pilums and salamanders.
The missiles/mines often force shields away from the Sunders or the IR autolances on the Doom.
Can cover a huge area in little time, confuses enemies and also throws in a little extra firepower across the entire line.

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Onslaught, Sunder, Medusa
Not much new here, similar loadouts to the ones used in some previous battles.

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The heavy lifting is done by lots of firepower being concentrated in a small area with rally civilian waypoints, 2350 is probably doable with Legion/Sunder or Executor/Manticore this way.
Buffed storm needlers are just too cool to ignore.

3

General Discussion / Executor and Manticore vs Ordos

« on: February 23, 2024, 10:20:56 AM »

Gave a spin to some other recently changed stuff: HAC, Heph and Maticores with Hydras thrown in.
Technically 4 Ordos, but only 1457 DP so it's more like 3.5. Destroyers(even Manticores) need hardened subsystems for going higher, don't like gimping them.


Executor
The tank and finisher. Has high speed for a capital and very good shields, it's hard to catch it in a really bad position.
HIL can smack armor, 6 turreted HEF autolances are brutal and can still throw in a good amount of kinetic with the hardpoints.

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Manticore
Lots of high range high projectile speed kinetic+HE DPS with decent mobility to cover the Executors.
Helps with keeping the smaller ships in check and makes big threats cry when they get surrounded (or 2-3 of these focus them from the front).

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Medusa
Same as the Onslaught/Sunder fleet, they are very good at protecting allies.

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Player ship is an op center Omen, just used for capping.
Used 2 mercs here, wanted to go full Manticores without more high DP ships.

The Hydra grew on me: it sucks at doing damage, but the AI fears the little green beams so much it often just takes some HILs and a dozen autolances to the face instead.
With slower reload from builtin racks ammo is also generous enough to not even need missile spec for 3-4 Ordos. Great for fleets that are strong against big targets but can be thrown off by chaff.
Already liked Heph so not much of a surprise it can work well with a minor buff, same for HAC.
Similar for HIL flux use going from 1 to 0.8, was already my favorite L energy.

Manticore is my favorite Destroyer right now.
Sunder is probably stronger overall, but the Manticore is more versatile by bringing 3 rangefinder railguns instead of 2 base ones.
Heph sound is worth the lower range/hull damage.

4

General Discussion / Escort Sunder/Medusa, storm needler Onslaught vs 4 ordos

« on: February 19, 2024, 08:26:08 PM »

A fleet showing some of the new additions in action, AI control vs 1600 DP.


Onslaught
Wins long range shootouts with smod mag TPCs+maulers and spams storm needlers against things that get closer.

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Sunder
Nukes whatever drops shields.

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Medusa
The swiss army knife doing everything else.
With escort package, elite sysexp and cyber aug damage reduction it's extremely tanky and can use skimmer to dump the damage taken.
Escort package also makes it able to throw in decent damage at range, and can capture plus hunt down straggling Scintillas if needed.
On top of all that also functions as a discoball shooting down missiles and improving morale.

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For this fight Sunders had hardened subsystems instead of hardened shields, and Medusas hardened subsystems instead of 10 vents.
They work well enough without those and the limit is their PPT.

Skills (player character is piloting an op center Sunder):

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It's nice to be able to use ships that didn't have a good place in fleets before.
Also really enjoy phase lance being a versatile generic option for low flux setups.

5

General Discussion / Thoughts about 0.97

« on: February 16, 2024, 12:37:05 PM »

For 0.97 did a full "smell the flowers" playthrough starting with single Wolf.
Focused mostly on destroyers, high tech and DEMs.

Hyperspace
Love the new rewards for collecting topography points!
Slipsurge and reverse polarity are both big favorites of mine, and they come early enough for getting them to not be a slog.
Finding something like this early game is exciting:

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• I think slipsurge doesn't need to be limited to giants and above. The cost is a deterrent against shorter distance jumps, always having pinball travel as an expensive option could be fun
• Once slipsurge is unlocked the points aren't worth much, data that sells for ~40K is really nothing compared to the effort it takes to collect 250
• Sensor ghosts could be a source of points in some way, they feel pretty pointless beyond the occasional interdictions being annoying

Escort/ships
Escort package makes destroyers work, wee!

• I think the smod bonus should be a universal damage reduction, not just a shield one.
  Hammerhead is much more agile than Enforcer, that's a big advantage when working close to other ships. Also has its 0.8 shields buffed.
  One of Enforcer's selling points is the high armor/hull durability but that's unchanged, would be nice if it also got a boost so relative power stays closer to the original.
• Some way to keep ships close to capitals without escort command would be nice (defend and rally both wander off too far).
  Dominator would love the range and the agility, but with escort it's always in the way and always rotates barely firing the hardpoints.
• A bit more esoteric: would also be nice to give escorts a preferred side.
  Want 3 capitals in a line, 2-2 specialised escorts protecting the outer sides, 1-1 between the capitals but routinely end up with anti-fast specialists in the middle and unprotected fire support on the sides.

Skills

• Electronic warfare change is just great. Low investment does domething, medium-high gives a noticeable bump and holding sensor array matters.
  Maybe coordinated maneouvers could get something similar? It's trivial to max it and nav buoy doesn't matter beyond the initial capture for deployment.
• Love cybernetic augmentation getting a fleetwide bonus, feel less guilty for taking flagship boosts
• Still don't think support doctrine is strong enough for a capstone.
  Giving up an officer(including wolfpack + new cyber aug boost) for a 20% deployment cost reduction is a bad deal.
  They have low range, low durability, low damage and damage/hit. Kinda works for fighter and missile-heavy ships, but officers are much more powerful, AND you get BotB.

My 1 gripe about the change is that cyber aug competes with a source of extra officers, automated ships.
Overall I feel officer limits are just fleet composition limits, making cheap ships less attractive.


Combat
For most of the game piloted Wolf, Shrike, Fury and Aurora in this order.
Had an absolute blast with Aurora, in player hands it feels very good with the 0.6 shields and it has lots of possibilities with that many mounts.

Ran a ragtag fleet from what I captured, max 1 of each hull without worrying about how they work together.
Had 2 bounties back-to-back that were genuinely hard this way, a Hegemony one with gauss Onslaughts/Dominators and a Persean fleet with Pegasus Hydra spam.
Gauss fleet outranged/outgunned everything I had and it was up to the Aurora to make someting happen, Hydras added too much soft flux for the Aurora to be able to do much alone so had to coordinate the fleet.
Don't know if they were random or handmade enemies but enjoyed the markedly different challenges a lot.

By the time first colony crisis came I've already started using "proper" ships so taking them out 2-3 fleets at a time was straightforward, not much of an opinion about that.
Loved seeing the main fleets full of smods, and threats being more predictable is very nice.

Missiles seem to be much weaker than I'd have expected from elite helmsmanship buff/missile spec nerf.
In fleets with only some reapers adding 2-3 ships with racks, elite skill, ECCM MIRV or Dragonfire barely registered.
The same ships and the same fleet with the L missile mount empty (blasphemy!) often did much better.
Spamming missiles still works ofc.

DEMs felt too clumsy to use.
Dragonfire in particular takes ages from being fired to triggering the payload, when AI fires it the target more often than not is dead or out of range.

With the buffs to forming a line high tech destroyers/cruisers feel pretty weak under AI control.
Shrike is low DP/low impact so don't think it's worth an officer, Fury range is very short for a cruiser, Apogee has strong competition in Sunder.
Both Shrike and Fury are still pretty suicidal with plasma burn flameouts.
(escort Medusa is the exception, it's great!)

Contacts
Spam bars, look for people with important-sounding descriptions(does that even matter? dunno), maybe get a contact on mission completion.
You still have to visit that planet regularly to build relation, once relation is high enough you might get the more interesting missions/bounties.
IMO one of the grindiest annoyances in the game right now, up there with getting/replacing officers.
I'd gladly spend 3 story points for a 0 relation very high contact on a given planet, and another 3 so I don't have to visit it with the entire fleet for missions.

6

General Discussion / About buffed storm needler and thumper

« on: February 11, 2024, 05:57:11 PM »

Always liked storm needlers but their use was very narrow.
The main change in 0.97 is that they use regenerating ammo, you can spend an smod (so OP) on expanded magazines to bump their sustained DPS from 500 to 750.
It also makes them reload 1.5s worth of ammo in 2s, so a burst from full ammo is very long and actual DPS will usually be closer to 1000 than 750 in practice.

Downside is the usual 700 range, and spending 28 on the weapon itself plus ~25/15/10 OP on the most expensive hullmod magazines took the place of.
Damage is very good but don't think too many L ballistic ships take that deal, most need the range too much.

The one place I think it's a great choice is Onslaught (duh).
Onslaught likes builtin magazines for the TPCs anyway, 750 sustained energy DPS with 250 hit strength at 1000 range.
Adding storm needler in the middle gives it all the kinetic DPS it'll ever need with a wide turret arc and high projectile speed, frees up the M ballistics so new loadouts are possible.
Overall I think storm needlers are pretty good, the super high effective OP cost makes sure they are not too over the top.




Thumpers on the other hand, still can't find a use for them.
M ballistics are generally very important HE/kinetic sources for the ships that have them, rare to have enough spare mounts for thumpers.
Where there are mounts there is still a flux problem: thumpers will be spammed on shields for less than half the efficiency of kinetics, and an arbalest still has 4 times the hit strength so hull damage done will often be very close.
They also use most of their flux (333/s!) when they contribute very little, and drop to low DPS by the time hull is exposed.
The times where a frigate is actually caught by them looks great, but overall they felt like a hindrance in most battles even when they had builtin magazines.

Tried them on escort Enforcers to hunt flanking frigates and in the front 3 slots of the Onslaught.
Eagle/Falcon need to use the M ballistics on high impact weapons, Eradicator/Hammerhead wants something that gets double DPS from AAF, XIV Legion needs range (and HE or kinetic, not low power frag).
Might be useful on player piloted Retribution, but don't like to fly it so didn't try.
Overall Thumper still feels weak to me, all ships I've tried did much better without them.

7

General Discussion / Escort package and RC8 escort order

« on: February 10, 2024, 04:08:21 PM »

Spent most of a 0.97 playthrough playing around with escort package destroyers, overall the changes feel very good.

Forming a line is much easier: you don't have to pack capitals as close as possible and hope they don't get isolated.
Can park them a decent distance from each other and destroyers are fast/durable enough to fill in the gaps.
When pressured they just retreat between the big boys, come back to provide high firepower/DP when the coast is clear.

Escort order leash and the hullmod bonus range are on the tighter side, so generally need long range weapons for full benefit.
Against 700 range or lower the enemy frigates and fast destroyers can become a problem, only need to backpedal a bit before your escorts give up the chase.
High burst like needler+phase lance Medusa can also do a good job there, downside is it has a hard time fighting in the line against larger ships.
Manticore, Hammerhead, Sunder and Enforcer all felt worthwhile (Sunder does stand out though, tons of firepower).

Sunders and Hammerheads in particular are very good at staying alive now, they consistently disappear into the gaps between bigger ships:

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Flexible lines are maintained, no need for babysitting:

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Destroyers pulling their weight, 80-90 pro rata DP to the Onslaught's 250:
(stats are slightly skewed, Sunders mostly do mostly armor/hull damage that inflates their contribution but intangibles like fending off frigates are also not reported)

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There is still a problem with escorts ignoring obvious targets right in front of them.
Onslaught amped by Afflictor and fluxed out by the escorted Onslaught, 2 Sunders ignore it:

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Brilliant ignored by 2 Sunders:

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P Falcon fluxed out, amped, direct eliminate order on it, nothing else close, Sunder actually turned away from it:

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Overall a big fan of the change.
Seemed like needing a hullmod and staying close to big ships is a bit arbitrary, but the hullmod is powerful enough to be worth the extra attention and might be too powerful without the requirement.
Now you get damage output and better defense against flankers, but need to keep an eye out so smaller ships aren't getting bursted down.
Also makes more mix&match fleets possible, can delegate most HE/kinetic/ion/whatever to escorts and they'll actually use it.

8

General Discussion / Heavy mortar: slow projectile+high inaccuracy a bit too much?

« on: January 06, 2024, 09:22:49 PM »

Been tinkering with destroyer-heavy fleets recently, and heavy mortar sticks out to me.
The base stats are very nice: extremely cheap, high DPS in one mount, efficient and pays with low range and low shot strength for it.

The hitrate is just ridiculously bad (left base, right gunnery implants+armored mounts):


It's extremely inaccurate and the second pair of shots already reaches ~max recoil, plus the projectile is as slow as a hellbore.
Even with elite ballistic speed+gunnery implants+armored mounts it can't consistently hit frigates/destroyers, and against larger ships the shots are spread over the armor (S/M kinetic are faster and only have to hit the shield bubble).
Fixed mount ships like Hammerhead and Brawler can use it, but I think cost-adjusted the heavy mauler is better in basically every situation despite the 2 having different roles on paper.

Does anybody else feel like heavy mortar could use a boost?
Most S/M HE ballistics in general feel pretty limited (LAC: frigate/destroyer skirmishes or antifighter, light mortar: similar problems as heavy mortar, chaingun: SO range)
Would be nice to have a versatile alternative to heavy mauler, even if it means a minor OP bump.

9

General Discussion / The real reckless AI in action

« on: June 24, 2023, 04:37:11 PM »

Bravely charging into battle, there is no slowing this one down

10

General Discussion / Some Gryphons

« on: May 20, 2023, 08:03:50 PM »

A silly video showing how Gryphons+derelict operations perform with the weaker squalls.
No reason to fight multiple ordos, lots of story points needed, the usual.



Skills, weapon groups and loadout (click for bigger pictures)





Result against above average triple Ordo at 1260 DP

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11

Suggestions / Legion staying too far away, HIL stops firing

« on: May 16, 2023, 01:53:41 PM »

Having a blast with the new toys, got some behaviors that might be worth a look.



At the start:
Reckless Legion with heavy maulers, heavy autocannons and sarissa fighters is backing away from its target waypoint, staying at the edge of heavy mauler range.
Easily reproducable with a sim Paragon, it won't close into Sarissa range.

Starting at ~00:24:
Executor repeatedly stops firing HIL at a target in front of it.
HIL also did this in the previous version, gets really nasty with hardpoints far apart on the Executor.

Legion:

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Executor:

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Officers:

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12

General Discussion / Builtin armored weapon mounts doesn't affect continuous beams

« on: May 13, 2023, 01:42:03 PM »

Makes sense that it doesn't, just wondered about myself.
Tested and posting the answer for whoever is looking for it later.

13

Suggestions / Small range boost to mining blaster

« on: May 10, 2023, 04:46:34 PM »

Turns out my favorite change in 0.96a is the mining blaster overhaul.
Great effects, chunky hits, effetive at cracking but has low DPS so it really is a support weapon for the previously underused high DPS/low hit strength energy projectiles.
Also has nice extended mag synergy with the high DPS hull killers (autopulse, autolance, thumper).

Played around with it a lot and I feel range is a bit too low for the main candidates I could think of:

• Autopulse Sunder: autopulse range 700, Sunder M slots are slightly behind the L
• Autopulse Apogee: autopulse range 700
• Eagle: M energy mounts are pretty far behind ballistics, and most ballistic options have a range of at least 700.
  Rangefinder could add +100 to the blaster, but it's 15 OP and at that point it's probably better to just get a "real" weapon

HE weapons having lower range than shield pressure can work pretty well, but >200 difference made the mining blaster look pretty weak in my battles.
It's also a low range weapon with slow turning, lagging behind is a noticeable problem.

IMO bumping range to ~600 would help in making it a bit more attractive compared to the usual heavy blaster/phase lance, or even pulse laser.
(only taking ships with M energy slots into account, heavy mortar and heavy mauler have slightly different roles but are generally much better IMO)

14

Suggestions / Salamander health increase

« on: March 03, 2023, 08:52:52 AM »

In my experience salamander is mostly useless above the smallest scale fights.
Very low health for salvo and over time, and it'll be fired whenever possible with no synchronisation.
It's not really a threat even against the fleets with the weakest PD, it'll get smashed unless accidentally synced up with a big fighter strike or something like squalls/breaches.

IMO a minor durability boost would be justified, even if it's never shot down it still needs to avoid shields and hopefully connect on engines.
Something like a harpoon slipping by always has a noticeable effect, with salamander even an engine hit can be wasted if it doesn't happen at a good time.

15

Suggestions / Reduce tactical map clutter

« on: February 21, 2023, 05:51:39 AM »

If you are using orders on the tactical map it's hard to see what order belongs to which ship.
Also hard to click on some waypoints close to others.
Making the markers smaller with more legibility would be nice.