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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - Arcagnello

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1
Well yeah Aurora got buffed, both directly and indirectly, it's good now. But it wasn't for 2 major patches.

To be fair a lot of ships weren't after Safety Overrides was unable to be built-in anymore, that gap took a while to get filled back with..something.

Executor mono-fleet is really good when near-perfectly optimized and microed. The horror.

How's it "near-perfectly optimized and microed" with a single "Defend" waypoint and a couple Kill/Escort orders here and there, while the rest of the battle is AI control only? I'm sure there's more advanced istances to try even coming close to this result, but then again those are not using Executors  ???

4 Ordos without Clean Disengages automatically rules out anything that's not capitals, the sheer amount of chip damage on armor and hull rules out every single Capital without a good shield ratio or absurd armor (Of which only the Invictus Classifies, maybe, but it does have issues Executor does not have), and the amount of enemies also rules out anything using missiles other than Locusts (or Pilums, hah) since they'll just run out halfway through.

The only leaves Executor. And we all know what that means, unless you have yet to have your fun with the thing and want to fiddle with it more before it gets nerfed, then you'll say it's perfectly balanced  ;)

Guys no worries. Unlike the Pegasus where it got nerfed immediately after I posted that triple Ordo fleet, this time I've waited out the hotfixes. We're perfectly safe for at least a year.

I think Lawrence's characterisation of it as a mini-Radiant was more apt than mini-Paragon, although both are kind of not it because it has neither a mobility system to charge or escape with nor Paragon level shield tanking ability. Plays quite differently from both of those ships. The speed definitely helps it coordinate fire and do the little dance I do with the ships in the video where the front line falls back and the rear charges. If anything it's kind of like Conquest, though slower but with great shields.

Jokes aside, I'm biased but I hope it won't be nerfed though. It's not at all clear it's stronger than Pegasus or Gryphon under normal sub-3-ordo circumstances where they don't run out of missiles or PPT, it's just that the Executor can keep going longer.

I respect the hustle, you're doing Ludd's work.

You see, the more fun you have with something (the majority of) people are not yet aware is a cut above anything else, the more likely it is to get nerfed sooner. You may not want it, but all roads lead to Rome eventually  ;D


2
Why are we calling for nerfs lol? CapnHector found a build that works well and that's it. if we judged every ship by the most optimized loadout then 80% of the ships should be costed higher.

And let me remind everyone when people cried Aurora was OP, then it promptly got nerfed and it became a joke AI ship unless you used SO.

The ship is specialzied to have maximum peak performance time while being 3DP cheaper, you could probably get a better individual ship with Hull Restoration in order to be able to cut Combat Endurance for a more useful skill.

The same applies to the Built-in Automated Repair unit, which is used to combat sub 41% CR malfunctions. It could be swapped for something else to eke out more combat prowess, like built-in Flux distributor for more flux dissipation, then 20 more capacitors and voilà, it's gonna work better overall while sacrificing on the 5 Ordo, no Clean Disengage slaying potential.

I'm using 2 Auroras myself now, without SO, still working it out tough.

I'd like to think I did enough 0.95 Ludd-posting about Hyperion, Scarab, Glimmer and Aurora back in the day to get them all deservedly nerfed, and this guy right here...hmmm..

He's in need of some squeeezin'

3
I really wouldn't go that far and say it's a better Paragon. It has horrible flux stats for its weapons and cost and unlike Paragon if it tries to turtle it will die.

Who needs to turtle (with a ship ability that even activates even against missiles a properly kitted out Paragon would shoot down with PD, but that's another can of worms) when you got the range and enough speed to just...well...delete enemies from a distance, with the help of an Energy Bolt Coherer thigmagig beebop whatever that does, oh and it also comes in with built in Solar shielding that comes real useful since 90% of endgame is energy damage.

It is better, the simple fact it has capital range, 50 base speed, 0.6 shields, 5 medium ballistics, 4 medium energies and 2 large energies (plus two flux free large missile slots) and they can all be used togheder if you go easy on the mounts make it better than Paragon, without needing to explain much of anything else, really.

It's getting nerfbatted on the teeth, that's a given. It's only a matter of how, namely through DP inflation or reduced stats.

4
Huh? That combo was always considered great. Look at Champion when it just came out, people were yelling broken even before the patch dropped. Only other ship that I know of that has access to a large energy + ballistics is Prometheus MkII and that's kinda a clunky ship. Champion is a smaller version of that but more elegant. Now I'm wondering how a fleet of champions would fare against your Ordo testing. The problem is just the sheer number of Champions that would probably block each other's line of fire.

Part of the reason why Brilliant is very good is that it's got two medium synergy hardpoints, 1 large energy turret and 2 medium energy turrets, meaning it can also cosplay as a "mini Executor" with 2HVDs, 1 HIL and two IR Autolances, altough the Fearless AI is really bad for it as we've discussed in that other thread.

Still, Executor actually GAINS weapons (where it matters) compared to two Brilliants since it's got 2 large Energies, 5 medium ballistics, two Large Missiles and two small energies (not gonna count the ass weapons, no), while two theoretical Brilliants stapled togheder have 4 medium ballistics, 2 large energies, 2 medium energies, 2 medium synergies and 4 small energies.

Essentially, Executor has better usable firepower per DP than the second best [redacted] ship and, unlike it, can get to 100% CR without giving up on having multiple of them, can run Derelict Contingent and is not forced to get into Hull Restoration (for the extra +15% CR with 3 Smods), without even mentioning the fact that its Capital Ship status gives it more range by itself, without even mentioning special hullmods built in or the fact it's got more armor and hull to tank with.

All of this is traded for 10 less top speed (kek), inability to get a 360° shield (still gets 0.6 base efficiency,lmao) and a lower base flux dissipation per DP, which is the only real meh part about the ship that can easily be overcome with good weapon loadouts and not looking at Ion Beams or Tach lances or Heavy Needlers.

It's a better Paragon. One that actually leverages its own advantages and is not an immovable brick.

The ship might need a DP increase pronto. I'm somewhat flabbergasted the ship was not introduced at 60DP to begin with.

P.S: very impressive loadouts by the way, downgrding to 3 Arbalests and 2 HVDs was the optimal choice!

5
Hmmmmmmmmmm
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HMMMMMMMMMMMMM
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...is it a bad idea? It seems pretty damn fine to me, even without S-mods! I wonder how many of those bad boys I can spam alongside 4 Alpha Core Brilliants and still get 41% CR...

I mean,a theoretical 3-Smod Sentry class could have uh- 3 Harpoon MRMs with ECCM, Missile Autoloader and Expanded Missile Racks built in, plus maybe Automated Repair Unit for the spare 3OP so that it's not 100% guaranteed to just croak to a Salamander hitting it and letting the enemy get close?

6
Thoughts from my current low tech playthrough:

Re: small ballistic slots on Dominator/Onslaught

I have found for these that Elite PD is a transformational skill for these slots, because I can use Dual Light Machine Guns to have both 'decent' PD for stopping torpedoes while also have (300*(ITU +10% Ballistic +15% Gunnery Implants)+200 Elite PD = 695/755 (cruiser/capital) range screen of shield pressure for extremely low flux. Same with HMG for medium slots, if I don't want a longer ranged gun there to match the 'main' armament. I find that I absolutely need good enough PD to stop torpedo and missiles strikes: Ordos don't use massed missiles too much so I don't need "heavy" PD, but I need something or else my armor gets wrecked.

I'm also using built in ECCM on my Dominators at present - pity about the bug, I can't wait for them to be immune to the ECM range nerf! The Harpoons are still great with ECCM though. (On balance I think Dominators are fine. Able to stand in the line of battle vs Radiants with support, get wrecked if they get flanked and overwhelmed by ion damage. I think Onslaughts may be better value/DP though (haven't tested swapping out my doms for an onslaught, not in true endgame for this save yet where I can print ships to test. Also none of these are XIV variants yet.)).

Re: Storm needler:

I'm still using it on my Onslaught vs ordos and it is still working. Vs these enemies I just need more kinetic DPS - at this point I'm stacking machine guns on top of a storm needler and burning in, with mk IXs on the wings to deal with flanking destroyers and missiles/TPCs (boosted via built in hullmod for +50% sustained dps) for armor/hull damage. I'm only level 10 on this save, so it could be my lacking skills that are responsible for the struggles vs shields.

Comparing the performance of Mk IX vs Storm Needler: I think the Storm Needler is a better tool for this specific job but I'm not sure its worth all of the extra OP. I wouldn't say no to an OP discount.

Re: Mjolnir:
On my Dominators I'm running Mk IX + Mjolnir (with elite pd machine guns/heavy machine guns in the other slots) and its working quite well! With an officer (ordinance) the ship has enough flux to run them reliable and the combo has a good anti-shield/armor/hull balance (with missiles to give armor cracking, as the ship has no true armor crackers otherwise). I've used the same combo on my (regular) legions as well, though I'm not using any of those right now.

Re: Heph:
I was using it as the central mount on my onslaught vs everything but ordos (and even vs ordos before they all leveled up to alpha cores and I just needed all the kinetic damage I could get!) and it works well there - not a bad ratio of max flux to devote to HE, and it helped wear down ships. Maybe I should try a Mjolnir instead and get a better anti-shield balance? Maybe if the TPCs weren't 50% boosted in output (with an attendant increase in flux cost).


Anyone have thoughts on the 10% fire rate from s mod armored weapon mounts? On the one hand, great more firepower. On the other hand, I'm feeling like on the onslaught at least, flux is more of a limiter than fire rate.

I'm under the idea that the 10% extra DPS from built-in armored weapon mounts is used a lot more on High tech and Midline ships than Low Tech, for the fact you stated above. Low tech tends to have more mounts than the Flux Generator can handle, while sometimes Midline and especially High Tech tend to have better flux stats but less weapon mounts.

Any ship making a big use of Burst PDs, AM Blasters or Pulse Lasers of any kind is a prime target for built-in armored weapon mounts, especially when it comes to further buffing weapons like the Mining Blaster and the Ion Pulser, both of which have terrible recoil and tend to be the only truly offensive, non missile weapons installed on some strike-fast-strike-hard ships, like an Aurora, or a Medusa, or even a non-overridden Hyperion if you kit it out with 1xIon Pulser, 1xHeavy Machinegun and 1xMining Blaster.

Ironically, some ships can't even get a full use of their newfound flux dissipation once Overridden with certain combos, like a [redacted] Brilliant choosing to not use a Plasma Cannon on the Large mount.

I've been fiddling with some builds and Ludd you not, a combination of Paladin PD, 2xHMGs, 2xIon Pulser and 2xAM Blastrs only really shines with both Expanded Magazines and Armored Weapon Mounts built in.

I am serious about the Paladin PD. The frag damage it does is NOT to be underestimated.

Heh, as soon as I read you writing "I'm using ECCM" I immediately went "heh, he's using Harpoons on the Dominator isn't he"  ;D

7
To SCC
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Odydo yessey

There is a 15 DP gap between the highest DP non phase ship and the Odyssey, which is a hodgepodge of many things, then there's a further 15 DP gap between the Odyssey and the unmoving, immovable and arthritis-stricken Paragon.

A 35-40 DP High Tech Battlecruiser and a 45-50DP High Tech battleship with interesting Active Abilities would fill some gaps.

A good example of this would be a mod ship called the Chronos, which is a 35DP Battlecruiser that only sports 1Large mount and 3 mediums but has Temporal Shell like the Scarab



8
Yeap sorry I've got the wrong screenshot for the Brilliant, it has two LRPDs instead of the Burst PDs ::)

Yeah Fearless AI got into PD range to use them offensively since I started playing in 0.95, the main thing that's changed now is that Fearless will keep advancing onto the enemy almost completely disregarding its own flux level, the own-flux-relative-to enemy-flux ratio and even the presence of other enemies in the area, all of of that is with a simple Engage order and nothing more.

This is the reason why Heavy Needlers or Tach Lances were taken away from my Brilliants, since I noticed they would stay at 95% hard flux unable to fire their main weapons but the Fearless AI would refuse to fully retreat and take shields down, or vent, or anything but killing itself in the process.

HACs, continuous beam weapons and generally flux constant weapons fit [Redacted] the most, unless they have teleport or are Overridden

9
Did you try any Autopulse Laser builds yet?

I had a quick try for fun since I like killing sim Onslaught and this won 3 out of 3 fights vs sim Standard Onslaught.


Issue with Autopulse is that the ship will become even more aggressive due to the shorter range of it and the other clip based weapons you're going to install like Burst Pads or Ion Pulsers or Mining Blasters.

If I were to get any sort of Magazine version of a Brilliant I'd probably both Safety Override it and Unstable injector it, while filling it with magazine weapons.

I will try this in the future, although it would not fit my fleet well considering my short range role is already plenty saturated

10
Update to two of my builds, specifically my 4 Alpha Core Brilliants and 3 Medusas, which I'm 99% sure it's the best ship in the Destroyer class in the whole game bar the Harbinger, which is probably the most useful besides it.

Brilliant Build. I've essentially designed the ship to kneecap anything it's firing at and, incredibly, sometimes manages to beat the sim Onslaught, just barely.
Officer Skills
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HAC Weapon Range
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Ions/Beam Weapon range
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AI control Win against Sim Onslaught (I'd say it's a 50-50?)
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Medusa build, it's missing built-in Extended Shieds for that 360° coverage. Getting a specialized Officer for it is also proving to be really hard; that said, a level 6 officer with an optimal Skill setup would have
-Elite Point Defence
-Elite Ordnance Expertise
-Elite Helsmanship
-Elite Field Modulation
-Gunnery Implants
-Target Analysis
It would also have to be of the Steady or Aggressive) personality, the latter being better since the ship will keep firing the Needlers while attempting (and most of the time succeeding) at getting close enough with the AM blaster to deliver the finishing blow(s). Very important to have both Needlers and AM Blasters on alternating, or it won't fire them while high on Flux.

Subpar officer (for now)
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Needler range
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Heavy Burst PD range
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AM blaster range ( think the mod tooltip lies and it's got a higher range since it also gets affected by built in IPDAI + Elite PD)
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SIM vs 40-ish DP in Destroyers, wins about 75% of the time (This version still had Railguns, performs better with Needlers)
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I'm also reworking my Auroras but that will take a while, I need new officers and uh, about 14 story points

11
Some lategame enemies that really incentivize the use of high explosives and those high armor damage energy weapons like tachyon and gigacannon, someone already mentioned a scary redacted phase capital and i'd love something like that in the game, but also some kind of redacted invictus as well, i was thinking a bunch of derelict vessels fused together and being controlled by a remnant core of some kind would be cool from a gameplay perspective and flavor one too

Though just capitals wouldn't be enough i think, maybe some destroyers and cruisers with an upgraded remnant version of the damper field would also go a long way towards making armor crackers more valuable

I actually wrote a thread orbting about a (spoilers)
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theoretical Phase conversion of a Radiant
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It's a bit old but the general concept hasn't reallly grown old, let me just quote post it down here real quick, in spoiler tags:

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Momentarily coming back to suggest something sadistic:
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Litteral Phase versions of the Brilliant with Alpha Core Officers are more balanced DP wise than the Radiant right now. No, it's not a joke:

I wonder if making the Radiant a phase ship would really buff it much or even nerf it, one big problem with it is that super efficient shield system combined with its ability to back off but as a phase ship it would be more vulnerable while attacking. Though OTOH there's also the randomness of officer skills, I drive the P9 Eyfel in my current campaign (a phase capital with the same teleport ability) and it's seriously underwhelming without skills, only good for kiting with slightly longer ranged guns but pretty useless when facing something it can't outrange since it'll attrition and the phase and teleport won't make up for the relatively low base speed of a capital. With skills however, wow. Teleporting twice as often? Double the speed in phase? Suddenly the ship has a lot more control over where it moves and can easily outpace other ships' ability to maneuver, even chase down fleeing frigates.

I'd claim that a skill-less phase Radiant would be much easier to kill than a regular Radiant.

Yes and no, assuming this theoretical Phase Radiant would get the same amount of extremely suboptimal setups on it. Most, if not all current Vanilla Radiant Builds:
-don't have front shield conversion, accellerated shields or stabilized shields as far as my knowledge goes
-don't have expanded missile racks if they use limited ammo missiles, the 5 Autopulse variant does not even seem to have Expanded Mags
-don't have Hardened shields (I'm not 100% sure about this one) or Solar Shielding
-have a set of 5 large weapons that don't synergize well at all with the 4 synergy hardpoints in the back

A theoretical Phase Radiant would not only have an Alpha Core with Elite Phase Mastery which would litterally quadruple the speed the capital ship goes at while in phase, but a decent setup on it would also have things like Unstable Injector, Auxiliary Thrusters, Heavy armor, Automated Repair Unit, Solar Shielding, Resistant Flux Conduits and the like, basically making it as tanky as the shield variant (especially if the Alpha Core at the helm also had Elite Impact Mitigation and Elite Damage Control), with the very, very important difference than a ship with no shield can not be prevented from firing by saturating it with kinetic fire, like pretty much all other Vanilla Remnants. Phase ships also usually have higher base armor than comparable ships of the same class, so it could be even worse than I Imagine it.

It would honestly be nastier than the standard version of the Radiant if they both got boosted up to 60DP. You don't usually bring beam weapons against Remnants since you're dealing with a lot of very good shields, a Phase capital would be a very smart (and incredibly sadistic) way to exploit that.


Then again, the current Radiant is not balanced by its Deployment Cost but by the fact two thirds of the Autofits for it are complete ass, so I would expect the same of the "Radiant-X Phase Droneship".

It's one of those "fail at it twice to make it right" kind of deals, really  ;D

Edit
Oh, I also forgot one thing about this theoretical "Brilliant-X Phase Droneship". The ship system it would supposedly have.

I could perfectly imagine it using Damper Field to make it more durable rather than an abominable delete machine using High Energy Focus, Fast Missile Racks or something even nastier that borrows System Distruption from the Harbinger or the Entropy something something go die now from the Afflictor.

If you're wondering where I got the Damper Field idea from, it's from the Phasegon (yes, it exists) from Caymon's Ship Pack: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19712.0

It's got something called "Advanced Damper Field" that I'm not too sure about how it differentiates from the normal one, aside from having a much shorter duration(?), so make sure to properly thank Caymon Joestar for when we're (hopefully) getting this brand new Phase Radiant added to Vanilla  ;)
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You could make it 60 Deployment Points so you can legitimately brag about your modded content being more balanced than Vanilla  :-X

Edit: put the quote in a spoiler tag since I just noticed it was too long for mostly everyone's liking
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This was a discussion Regarding the Phase-agon from Caymon's Ship pack and how the same treatment could be given to big boi [Redacted] ships


12
Are you sure about the bit regarding the Antimatter Blaster? I've got a couple of Auroras with built in Expanded Mags and the 4AM Blasters on Hardpoints seem to fire really, really fast with it, namely because the ship has full vents and the written weapon flux generation is less than half the flux dissipation but the ship still manages to get up very high soft flux values.

Yeah just tested it in sim, 7 AM blasters on Aurora, weapon flux of 1024, so with AWM (built-in) it's 1126.4 dissipation; if I make it have 1124 dissipation it'll pretty much empty out after each burst. With EM (built-in) it still empties out after each burst.

Are you accounting for the shield upkeep and/or other weapons? One thing this update changed is that front shield conversion no longer halves the shield upkeep, so that was basically a somewhat nerf on the Aurora -- even with stabilized shields, it still needs 200 flux in shield upkeep.

I did notice that, yeah, Stabilized Shields + Front Shield conversion pretty much was a staple on most if not all decently sized High tech and [redacted] ships.

Also uh, yeah, My Aurora also has a bunch of Burst PDs of both small and medium variant all over, since the ship is using small energies as main weapons with built in IPDAI and Elite Point Defence. GIves the AM blasters on the Aurora some damn good range when combined with ITU!

13
Edit: Question, does a weapon with a clip system affected by expanded mags (mining blaster, autopulse, burst PDs, Paladin etc.) also get affected by built-in Armored Weapon Mounts?

Yes they both work but note that they affect different things. AWM increases the fire rate by 10%, EM increases the ammo regen by 50%. For something like the Antimatter Blaster, only AWM will matter since it doesn't regen ammo. For most ammo weapons, you're still going to be limited by the ammo regen rate, which is still +50% due to EM, since AWM only affects how quickly you get rid of the ammo, not how fast you regen it.

AWM doesn't affect continuous beams but it *does* affect burst beams like Phase Lance, Tachyon Lance, etc. For those beams, the chargeup/chargedown and burst duration are unaffected (since that's when they're actually doing damage, you don't want to shorten that), but the cooldown between bursts is reduced by 10%. So a Phase Lance, with 0.25 second chargeup, 1 second burst size, 0.5 second chargedown, 4 second burst delay is a shot every 5.75 seconds, but with AWM the delay becomes 3.6 seconds, so it's a shot every 5.35 seconds. So that's not a full 10% increase in damage but it's still a 7.5% increase.

Aye, Armored Weapon Mounts and Expanded Magazines also stack with each other on weapons like Burst PD, Mining Blasters and of course the obiquitous Autopulse Laser. Thank you for the much needed knowledge on the matter!

Are you sure about the bit regarding the Antimatter Blaster? I've got a couple of Auroras with built in Expanded Mags and the 4AM Blasters on Hardpoints seem to fire really, really fast with it, namely because the ship has full vents and the written weapon flux generation is less than half the flux dissipation but the ship still manages to get up very high soft flux values.

14
Nice Paragon. Let's see if you can make it work. If we're being objective about it you really probably shouldn't S-mod in AWM just for the Gigacannon because it won't be a good weapon anyway, but it is of course important for the memes. On a related note, have you considered trying a 5 Gigacannon Radiant?

Also, here I thought you would be opposed to the Path, but you are a fellow walker on the Path instead. Intriguing.

I'm sorry Hector I legitimately did not see that link.

That build really makes me wish we could alter the Core personality to fit whatever ship loadout we desire, but alas [Redacted] can't really help themselves when it comes to faceplanting into the enemy and either kill it or die trying.

I ALSO would like to have Kinetic Blasters on hand but it's been 25 years of in-game time and despite exploring 80% of the sector I haven't found a single,bloody Kinetic Blaster!

Edit: Gigacannon could legitimately get a damage increase from 2000 to 3000 with a scaled up flux cost to mantain the same efficiency and it probably would still be subpar compared to other large energy weapons, I hope Alex finds a way to buff it...interestingly.

15
Don't know much about Omens since they seemed inferior to Shades in testing but a Shade (P) with antimatter blasters, Systems Expertise and elite Target Analysis which shares the system is nothing short of ridiculous for 6 DP. It is nigh invincible while PPT lasts and disables any ship that dares duel it. If I remember correctly those were doing about 5 times their DP in damage according to combat reports when I used them last version.

Thing I like about Omens is that I couold most likely delete most Point Defencefrom any other ship in my fleet and still neutralize most enemy missiles and fighters just thanks to the 6 Omens I have, plus having a very good ratio 360° shield on an incredibly small frigate goes a long way into negating enemy firepower, altough I guess an Omen does just about the same, with the Caveat of being slightly more vulnerable to beams and fighter swards it can't EMP all at once.

I will try Phase Ships in future playthroughs, this one is mostly Automated Ship focused!

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