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Messages - TaLaR

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2011
Suggestions / Re: Odyssey's piloting
« on: March 30, 2018, 05:46:32 AM »
TaLaR might have had a more fair (but very dangerous) way to kill Paragon, but I forgot what it was.

Not completely fair either - I exploit shield drop behavior and fire off center (AI always deploys shields exactly from facing to your ship). Then again, I could potentially build up hard flux up to 100% same way.

3xTL, 2xLongbow, ITU, Advanced Optics, Hardened Shields, full vents and rest into caps. That is to maximize chance vs Paragon by dropping everything unnecessary, of course more reasonable build would at least include Tac Lasers/ LRPD.

Then stick exactly outside of Needlers range while using Longbows to build up hard flux (engage -> fire sabots from your shield's edge -> regroup). At about 10-20% hard flux Paragon drops shield -> quickly go in and fire at it's edge. Retreat to vent and repeat whole process about 4 times.

This tactic would fail against a better Paragon build though. Just 2 HVDs would be enough. Or all 4 TLs, especially if combined with Advanced Optics and extra Tac Lasers.

2012
General Discussion / Re: A story of betrayal and loss
« on: March 30, 2018, 01:49:01 AM »
Followers faction is weird. Though seems more like bug report for modded section.

Also attacking Independents is never a good idea - they are the only faction (beside one player belongs too... Well, not in your case) that is guaranteed to stay friendly.

2013
General Discussion / Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« on: March 29, 2018, 11:48:36 PM »
1-2-3) PD is not anti-fighter. For example, in small energy slot Tac Lasers and in a different way IR Pulse both easily outperform any PD laser variants against fighters. It's just about having higher dps, while retaining enough accuracy against fighters. True PD tend to have too low damage output (all PD lasers) or too short range (LMG and Vulcan, which also suffer from low shot speed).
Also, prioritizing missiles comes at great cost in terms of fighter killing efficiency. Tacs and IR pulses don't get distracted by Talon's swarmers (letting these hit shield, while weapons fire at fighters is a much better tactical decision) and flares (these greatly reduce usefulness of any non Flak PD-tagged weapons).
Which is why I tend to ignore PD or have only minimum on most player-piloted ships that can't use mass Flak (like Onslaught).

4) It's not just AI problem. Try attacking a simple sim Condor with Talons using a skill-less Tempest (one of top frigates). It's barely winnable. Expecting that level of piloting from AI would be unreasonable.
You need to keep killing Talons as they spawn to make a dent in their respawn rate. Anything less won't matter. And it's not like you can just ignore them and go straight for carrier - you'll die to fighters much faster.

5) Depends on how you define big fleets. Optimized Onslaught can shrug off several Astrals worth of fighters (exact number depends on character-skills and Astral's builds).

You kind of missed point I consider more important in terms of shifting balance in carrier's favor:

6) Carriers can easily keep zero flux bonus (due to Helmsmanship 3) for whole fight. Having +50 effective speed advantage makes them very good kiters.

2014
Suggestions / Re: Odyssey's piloting
« on: March 29, 2018, 09:27:21 PM »
@Megas, could you write which sim opponents did you use for these tests? Just to have a more precise reference point (and maybe test my piloting skills  :) ).

2015
Suggestions / Re: Full AI Weapons Control
« on: March 29, 2018, 10:09:05 AM »
This makes me want to revisit building an Omni shield AI for players; that can’t be too hard, other than overriding the control inputs.

I think that’s a real need; the tank controls are just a bit too much when both shields and weapons are there, especially when using the mouse steering mode.  I’ve lost count of how many times a Conquest build doesn’t work because the weapons can’t be focused because the shield needs to be elsewhere (for example, taking out a wounded Dominator that’s flanked while tanking hits from an Onslaught).

Yeah, optimal player behavior here could be switching current group to auto (and selecting empty one, while targeting Dominator) -> use mouse to control shield -> disable auto on previous group, re-select it once crisis has passed. All while using tank controls.

Maybe doable as exercise in manual dexterity, but not something I can reasonably do in normal play... Though it looks like a rather nice idea for macro. Need to try it sometime later.

2016
Bug Reports & Support / Re: Swiching key binding on mouse
« on: March 27, 2018, 09:04:05 PM »
There is always autohotkey to fix this kind of issues.

2017
Suggestions / Re: Odyssey's piloting
« on: March 27, 2018, 09:47:35 AM »
If 3 turrets were changed to not overlap, first thing I'd prefer changed would be ship system. Wouldn't be able to gain much out of HEF with just 2 turrets anyway.

2018
Suggestions / Re: Beam Stuff
« on: March 27, 2018, 04:40:48 AM »
if the general sentiment is that the odyssey is poor for its supply cost, then what would be the correct supply cost if we are to reduce it without changing any in-combat stats of odyssey? 35? or something around 38?
The problem with that is that it would make it cheaper than the Onslaught, which is a low tech ship AND the Conquest, both of which are 40 DP.

I think we need to look at combined supply and fuel costs (I think I spend comparable amount if not more on fuel in my playthroughs...). Onslaught is 40/15, Paragon 50/10, Odyssey 45/10, Conquest 40/10.
Is Odyssey superior to Conquest in it's combat performance? Maybe for some specific situations under player control, but generally not.

2019
General Discussion / Re: I'm so ready for a development post!
« on: March 27, 2018, 03:19:17 AM »
I will be missing this development cycle when the game is finished. The blogposts are always thoroughly enjoyable and great reads and the forums are nice and cozy when there aren't many people playing the game.

I hope Alex stays comparably active on developing expansions  :) .

2020
Suggestions / Odyssey's piloting
« on: March 27, 2018, 01:13:44 AM »
(based on discussion in http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13310.0 , among other things)

Odyssey can be decently strong as 3xTL kite-and-snipe boat, BUT doing so incredibly awkward due to narrow and offset sweetpoint where all 3 large turrets align. And other builds just don't come close in terms of power (arguable, as seen by some community members, but that's at least how I see it).
Seems dangerously close to unfun, but optimal gameplay to me.

Can Odyssey be somehow changed to alleviate that?

-1) Embrace it's role as TL sniper and make sweetspot more usable. Either by moving it forward so that I can pilot with turn-to-cursor. Or make it significantly wider, if it stays offset. Or maybe even give a setting in variant design that allows to set custom turn-to-cursor facing.

-2) or radically redesign Odyssey so that it can't be used as TL sniper at all (no 3 turret overlap or even close enough coverage, since you still could manage to fire all 3 TLs within HEF active time, if gap was small). But compensate it with significant buffs elsewhere.

-3) or are most people actually fine with Odyssey as is.

2021
Suggestions / Re: Beam Stuff
« on: March 27, 2018, 12:28:59 AM »
You also only use 2/4 turrets on the conquest at once... you’re deciding to use 1/3 of the ships speed and and all of its shield rather than simply not taking damage.

And you don’t charge into a 1v1 with an enemy capital. Like... I just described how it works. Defeat in detail.. you destroy the larger force piece by piece

On Conquest it's not a matter of choice - aligning all it's turrets on single target is impossible, and it doesn't have flux to fire all 4 at different targets for significant duration.
Also Conquest kind of has to go for asymmetric build to be competitive - 2 Gauss on 1 side to safely(but slowly) kill Paragon/Onslaught, whatever else (probably Mjolnir) on other side to quickly kill smaller or distracted targets.

Odyssey can align all 3 turrets on same target (even if doing so is awkward), and does have enough flux for that. HEF gives additional stimulus to do so (to fire all 3 during short HEF window). TL reload time also aligns quite closely with HEF cooldown.

Any other Capital can kill a an enemy that is distracted by your allies, in most cases even faster than Odyssey. If your fleet as whole already has that much advantage, performance of Odyssey doesn't matter much.

It's mobility is also overstated.
Conquest is close in terms of general speed due to system. Onslaught can be even faster, as long as we speak strictly about pushing. Astral and Legion have fighters to get over speed advantage and do not need to drop zero flux boost most of the time (with helmsmanship 3). Only Paragon is truly limited in terms of mobility.

2022
Suggestions / Re: Beam Stuff
« on: March 26, 2018, 09:59:21 PM »
If you’re shooting at capitals sure.... but you can build up hard flux with the third turret when necessary... which means you’re not all in with soft flux as you have hard flux options.

Closing into hard flux range against a Capital is suicidal enough even with proper full hard flux build (no-skills vs sim). With just one large slot on enemy you are at best a sidekick to your allies, with no 1vs1 viability.

Edit: The third turret, regardless of what is in it, should be shooting maybe 5% of the time.

That means you basically use only 2/3 of the ship. Criminally inefficient piloting, as I see it :)

2023
Suggestions / Re: Beam Stuff
« on: March 26, 2018, 08:39:59 PM »
@Goumindong
There is significant difference between using 2 or 3 TLs on Odyssey. Soft flux is all or nothing approach, so either you overwhelm their flux vent rate, or you can't even scratch them. Any additional damage output past tipping point radically decreases time-to-kill.
3xTL (+HEF) + extra Tac Lasers is the best that Odyssey is capable of, so that's what soft flux Odyssey should do.

I am not fielding an Odyssey or a Paragon or an Astral or an Onslaught or a Conquest* until I have enough firepower to take down a single capital with the fleet (minus its support of course). I don’t need to be able to punch through the thing later.

- Onslaught is fairly suitable for solo deployment (since you can catch pesky frigates with Burn Drive)
- Paragon not so much (prone to stalemates due to enemies avoiding it)-
- Astral is probably fine too, but I never have carrier-skills to properly use it.
- Conquest can do it too, though against smaller fleets than Onslaught.

Plus "enough firepower to take down a single capital with the fleet" boils down to one Afflictor (or at most two chain-deployed)

2024
Suggestions / Re: Beam Stuff
« on: March 26, 2018, 11:21:31 AM »
@ Goumindong:  I see what you did.  You outsource PD on fighters and use them as escorts, which may let you skimp on light weapons and squeeze more OP on the side that matters most.  I tried it your way and while effective enough to be viable, is not significantly better than the other loadouts I tried against capitals (and others).  Unskilled, Onslaught will maul Odyssey just as easily and very hard to solo.  Conquest is a difficult fight, and Paragon is virtually impossible.  With Helmsmanship 3 and the other must-haves (like Loadout Design 3), winning against SIM Onslaught is about 50/50, Conquest is at least 50/50 or better.  Astral is still difficult, and Paragon is still nearly impossible.  Helmsmanship 3 on Odyssey is not always enough to flank Onslaught.  (Meanwhile, if I use a similarly skilled battleship against a lone SIM capital, it utterly crushes it without much of a fight.)

Skill-less 3xTL, rest Tac Lasers beats sim Onslaught fairly reliably and almost without taking damage. Not even that long fight, assuming Longbows perform well enough. No need to flank it either.
Funnily enough, sim Conquest might be a more difficult target (or at least time-consuming), because you need to drain it's Squalls before being able to attack properly. Plus there is minor, but real threat of being cornered before this happens (since Conquest pushes quite aggressively in this scenario).
Sim Paragon is only kill-able by cheesing shield drop behavior and firing off-center. Process that takes a lot of time and leaves almost no margin for errors.

With that said, I just don't enjoy piloting it. Keeping enemy within 3xTL sweetspot is quite tiring.

2025
Blog Posts / Re: Minefields
« on: March 25, 2018, 10:58:30 PM »
+1 to keeping skimmer on Medusa. It is the only vanilla DE I like piloting (for significant amount of time), precisely because of it's system.

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