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[CapnHector]

Powerful - it's still Hegemony like always. XIV Onslaughts backed by Moras and Dominators can take on anything including several lv 40 bounties or several [redacted] fleets and that turquoise pile of M&Ms that spams missiles all at once. Easy to find and easy to outfit, incredibly strong and survivable in AI hands. Max officer armor skills for profit.

Fun - definitely Sindria. You get to visit the beautiful Sindria system, have access to infinite fuel and supplies. No more hunting for fuel resources when the Lion has your back. The Conquest lends itself to asymmetric weird loadouts and is challenging to use but fun in a glass cannon way. Also mid-tech ships are fast, versatile and challenging to use correctly and less powerful than low or high tech which keeps the game challenging unless you fly to Nortia where you can buy everything anyway.

[FooF]

High-tech tends to be the hardest fights for me, which qualifies them as "the most powerful." I can wade through Onslaughts and Legions because of obvious blind spots and I don't find the Conquest particularly difficult to overwhelm. Astrals and Paragons, though? No thank you. Either one completely changes the battlefield but the Paragon is in a class of its own.

High-tech fleets frequently has phase ships, Tempests, and Wolves so that means your fleet tends to get strung out and picked off one-by-one. Medusas do the same thing but to a lesser degree. If the AI had better command of the Aurora, it would also be a terror but fortunately, the AI tends to overextend itself when piloting one. Aurora is still pound-for-pound the best ship in the game, IMO, and it's my flagship whenever I get one. AI also doesn't do well with the Hyperion, which is also a super-ship.

So, Tri-Tach I guess. TT also has access to the best hull mods without having to salvage research stations.

[Kohlenstoff]

Either one completely changes the battlefield but the Paragon is in a class of its own.

The paragon is not so extremely strong. When you equip the onslaught correctly, it can almost take one single paragon out... almost!!! If you use it as flagship while having some skills, you can take a paragon without officer out. And its not that hard.



The difference, which makes the paragon too hard for a single onslaught is the fortress shield. But it makes the paragon not invincible. The lack of burn drive makes the paragon more vulnerable against swarming. Just one other destroyer on your onslaughts side makes the paragon beatable.

[FooF]

You have to specifically gear an Onslaught to take out a Paragon, focusing primarily on Kinetics to overload the shield. If you have a more "standard" variant of an Onslaught, it's possible for the Paragon (with tactical use of the Fortress Shield) to win without even taking a single hit to armor. I'm not saying that the Paragon is invincible but its defensive capacities are leagues ahead of anything else. Anything it can't crush outright it can outlast and win flux-wars against.

It's glaring weakness is lack of speed, which means you can avoid it for the most part, or at least save it until last. A whole fleet pounding on it will get job the done.

[Igncom1]

I don't find high explosive weapons to be worth equipping at all at the moment. Using kinetics to overload stun the enemy is a hundred times better then having HE with less kinetics.

This is especially true of high tech opponents, they are all shields and no armour and so die immediately after their shields go down.

HE missiles are nice, if simply due to the burst damage when you do slip one past a shield and point defence.

[TaLaR]

Either one completely changes the battlefield but the Paragon is in a class of its own.

The paragon is not so extremely strong. When you equip the onslaught correctly, it can almost take one single paragon out... almost!!! If you use it as flagship while having some skills, you can take a paragon without officer out. And its not that hard.

Any player-piloted combat-Capital can defeat sim Paragon (or any other sim Capital) without character skills. It takes proper outfit and tactic(sometimes cheesy by necessity).
Paragon can defeat any other sim Capital on auto-pilot (which means it's acting far from optimal) while taking minor-to-no armor damage. Clear difference in raw power levels.

[Megas]

I don't find high explosive weapons to be worth equipping at all at the moment. Using kinetics to overload stun the enemy is a hundred times better then having HE with less kinetics.

That may be true before 0.8, but today, AI manages flux and shields better.  Also, there is that one perk, in Advanced Countermeasures I think, that halves kinetic damage on armor, effectively turning kinetic to fragmentation damage.  Armor can be a significant defense, and blowing it away fast is good, especially with AI that is too eager to run away and stall until CR hits zero.  Killing speed is more important now.

[FooF]

That may be true before 0.8, but today, AI manages flux and shields better.  Also, there is that one perk, in Advanced Countermeasures I think, that halves kinetic damage on armor, effectively turning kinetic to fragmentation damage.  Armor can be a significant defense, and blowing it away fast is good, especially with AI that is too eager to run away and stall until CR hits zero.  Killing speed is more important now.

Right. The AI really likes to retreat hard when it hits high flux levels and if there are allied ships nearby, they'll maneuver in front to take hits. It can be difficult to get kills in large fleet engagements if you don't have armor-penetrating power because the window of opportunity to get clean shots on armor/hull can be pretty small.

[Igncom1]

Which I would agree with, is flux only mattered for defence.

Having yourself fluxed out means that you can't attack, use point defence our defend with shields, only armour. And a lot of good high armour does when you have close to maxed out flux and are being battered down by kinetics.

Even in the fleet engagements all it means is that the side with better kinetics just slowly beats down the opposition as they can barely get more then a couple of shots of before they are put on the defensive.

Having a few reapers is really sweet, I'll give on that one, but a HE gun can't be relied to do any damage without kinetic weapons to open the way. Where as kinetics can do damage on their own and will easily stun lock opposing ships into uselessness.

In my mind, the safer choice is a long kinetic brawl, even if you have to batter away on the armour it's still better if the enemy can't afford to fire back without just keeping their shields off throughout. Which only the heavy low tech ships can afford to do in the meantime. No high tech, low armour ship is surviving with their pitiful armour, even against kinetics.

Maybe it's just my strategy, but I prefer the slower safer all kinetics battle over the chance to cut through armour in a flash if I can get shields down at all. Carriers are essential these days anyway, otherwise you simply don't catch fast frigates anyway and enemy fighters jam up your AI allies into uselessness.

[Megas]

While true that high flux interferes with offense, AI drops its shield more now and will take hits on armor.  AI also vents more.  It is not so easy to stunlock AI as before.  If player relies on kinetics alone, it will take a long time to kill some ships, and time is not a luxury some ships have.  One time, I tried all kinetic Hammerhead against SIM Dominator, and barely won before CR degraded to critical.  Another test, with mixed arms, and the fight finished much faster.

Because AI is also cowardly, it is a good idea to finish off the AI when they leave themselves open before they recover and kite-and-turtle again.

Similarly, if you are forced to trade shots with a dangerous enemy bruiser, you may want to finish off the enemy before it does the same to you.

Also, Warthogs are armed with Mortars, and they wreck targets they swarm (due to poor shield coverage and/or dumb AI that lowers shields).  Broadswords are similar to Warthogs except they use LMGs instead, and they do not kill targets very quickly.

Yes, relying on HE alone is not a good idea, especially since the skill that has the perk that lets armor shrug off kinetics better also has the perk that lets shields shrug off HE better, but relying on kinetic alone is not as good as it used to be, given AI improvements and skill perks.

Personally, if my ship can use ballistics, I favor kinetics to HE by 2-to-1, although in 0.8, I sometimes go half-and-half.  Before 0.8, single HE and the rest kinetics would be fine.  Today?  Probably not as useful.

As for missiles, I only mount them if I can afford them or have nothing better to spend OP on.  If my ship is starved for OP, missiles are the first to go to free up OP.  For most of my large ships, Converted Hangar and a wing of fighters take the place of missiles.

That said, at least half of my ships are carriers because fighters force fights.  Other ships play keep away and stall until CR decays to zero.  Does not matter too much what ships are armed with if they avoid fighting when they cannot swarm a target.  All the more reason for non-carriers to use mixed arms to kill targets fast when AI makes a mistake and provides an opening.

[Zibywan]

The most fun I ever have is playing Pirate. Their ships aren't very powerful, but they're amusing.

Make enemies with a few major factions, and just keep one or two friends to buy bulk supplies and fuel from. People are talking about buying powerful ships, buy why buy them when you can loot them from your enemies destroyed fleets!

You want some good high tech stuff? Go raid the Tri-tac sector for a while. Need a few bruisers to armour up your fleet? Pick on the silly Ludites for a bit.

Everyone talks about the benefits of having a high tech, mid-line, or armour heavy fleet; what I say is "why can't I have it all?"

The challenge of trying to take down stronger targets with a fleet of rubbish ships is a lot of fun, and it really makes you aware of the tactical advantages of a mixed fleet. Pairing up ships and fleet building becomes important, and working with scraps makes losing ships less of a kill-joy. It also lets you experiment with ship and fleet builds you never would have imagined before.

Long story short, my vote is try playing Pirate. It's hard, but it's fun.

[Botaragno]

So if Tri Tach have all the fancy blue ships, Hegemony has all the dull orange ships, and Sindria has... Conquest and something else...

Where does that leave Luddic Church? And the Persean Leauge?; who I can only see as "Sindrian Diktat 2: Straight Outta Askonia Boogaloo"

[Igncom1]

Luddic church has a more 'official' military version of the luddic path having a few green lashers and cargo ships but mostly just having low tech hegemony craft.

The Persean League is predominantly a mid tech fleet, much more then the Diktat. The Diktat has high tech and low-mid tech fleets divided between their common troops and their elites.

More faction specific variants would be cool however.

[Megas]

Luddic Church includes more hybrid ships like Mules in their fleets than other major factions, and some ships may have (D) mods (but not as many as pirates).

Persean League favors midline and includes high-tech.  Sindrians, if excluding the Lion's Guard high-tech sub-faction, is simply a Hegemony clone without the XIV ships, but can sell or use Conquest.

[AN7AG0NIS7]

New player here! Had the game for about 2 weeks.

I can't say which is the best faction to fight for. But I can tell you which one is the best to steal ships from.

Bought with my own money:
1 Medusa, 1 Gemini, 1 Heron, 1 Buffalo, 1 Dram, 1 Colossus, 1 Prometheus

Lost: (Yes, these are the only ships I lost in battles, scuttled ships don't count)
Starter Kite, Tutorial Hammerhead (goodnight sweet prince)

Salvaged:
(TT) 2 Astrals
(Hegemony) 1 Onslaught
(Independent) 2 Dooms, 1 Aurora, 4 Apogees, 2 Dominators, 1 Eagle, 1 Falcon, 6 Herons, 2 Moras and countless random destroyers, frigates and civvy ships
(Pirates) 1 Dominator, 1 Afflictor (P)

Apparently the Independents have better fleets than the pirates if you disregard the bounties.