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

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Author Topic: [0.95.1a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - *hotfix* 4/14/22  (Read 722396 times)

basileus

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*EDIT* Didn't catch it when replying, but welcome to the forums! And thank you for your feedback. :)

Thanks!  I've actually had this thread on the bookmark bar of my gaming rig for like a year now.  I've just been lurking.  I check in periodically to look for new versions of this or SS.

--

I completely agree that Tyrants should be threatening.  I'm glad to hear that the AI will be getting tweaked soonish because currently it really is suitable for harassment and not much else.  The Tyrants weren't even particularly threatening to Auroras is what really made it frustrating.  They'd fire one salvo.  As soon as something shot at them, they'd phase, their flux would skyrocket, and they'd jump away.  They'd need pretty epic alpha strike potential to threaten cruisers with even half decent shielding.

If it had been a battle between the AC and me rather than the AI, I'd just anchor my fleet into a corner and they would become toothless.

Ideally, I think a good rock-paper-scissors balance for them would see them very dangerous to cruiser and smaller ships / reinforcements, too agile for things like the ubiquitous Tach Lance Paragons (or Megas, etc.) to deal with, too armored for Astrals to deal with effectively, but vulnerable to properly configured battlecruisers or pocket battleships that have just enough speed and durability to chase them and survive.  It would be kind of neat if Tyrants and Radiants defined a late game role for ships like the Revenant, Ody, Conquest, etc.  (The Nightreaver is already pretty OP on a DP basis as far as I'm concerned.)  Of course, I realize there are many considerations when it comes to balance.

Alex's latest blog post makes it sound like he, too, wants to get away from the late game fleet being 15 tach lance Paragons and a train.

--

As far as the Hivemind Orb Launcher, I don't think it really needs to be nerfed.  The BP seems quite rare, and it is legendary, as you say.  There are lots of RNG elements that can make particular playthroughs easier or harder.  Currently, it doesn't seem like BP seeds actually update, so you're not guaranteed to find it in any particular playthrough.  (Maybe by raiding AO?)  Moreover, there will always be gimmicky fleet compositions that players can exploit if they choose.  The way they are now, it's a big deal if I find a launcher much less the BP in early game exploration.  I'd say it's a good thing to have a few items like that that really incentivize exploration.

--

Oh, there is one other thing.  Is it possible to adjust the scolding about running with transponders off?  I feel like the system would work a lot better if there was only a rep loss for your commissioned faction in a contested system if you were within X distance of a friendly planet/station.  They should be perfectly happy about you contributing to the war effort with hit and run tactics, imo.

In particular, I have in mind AO starts where you have a small fleet and are in a system full of hostile Tri Tach.  You lose one of the big advantages of AO fleets if you have to run with transponders on.  Plus, it makes the early game a lot more fun if you can stalk with small fleets.  The way it currently works, I ended up spending nearly as much time dodging small AO patrols as huge Tri Tach fleets.
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Morrokain

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Thanks!  I've actually had this thread on the bookmark bar of my gaming rig for like a year now.  I've just been lurking.  I check in periodically to look for new versions of this or SS.

Oh nice! Hopefully I'll have an update out pretty soon. I was originally planning on this weekend, but it doesn't look like that will happen. Still some work/testing to do. I'm going to preview some of the new functionality a little bit later on today though.

Quote
I completely agree that Tyrants should be threatening.  I'm glad to hear that the AI will be getting tweaked soonish because currently it really is suitable for harassment and not much else.  The Tyrants weren't even particularly threatening to Auroras is what really made it frustrating.  They'd fire one salvo.  As soon as something shot at them, they'd phase, their flux would skyrocket, and they'd jump away.  They'd need pretty epic alpha strike potential to threaten cruisers with even half decent shielding.

If it had been a battle between the AC and me rather than the AI, I'd just anchor my fleet into a corner and they would become toothless.

Ideally, I think a good rock-paper-scissors balance for them would see them very dangerous to cruiser and smaller ships / reinforcements, too agile for things like the ubiquitous Tach Lance Paragons (or Megas, etc.) to deal with, too armored for Astrals to deal with effectively, but vulnerable to properly configured battlecruisers or pocket battleships that have just enough speed and durability to chase them and survive.  It would be kind of neat if Tyrants and Radiants defined a late game role for ships like the Revenant, Ody, Conquest, etc.  (The Nightreaver is already pretty OP on a DP basis as far as I'm concerned.)  Of course, I realize there are many considerations when it comes to balance.

Alex's latest blog post makes it sound like he, too, wants to get away from the late game fleet being 15 tach lance Paragons and a train.

100% agreed. Iirc, the difference between having the jump and not having the jump was the single salvo you talk about. Without that exit strategy this ship only really engages anything when the target is distracted. Otherwise, it moves in until the first counter shot goes off, phases, and backs off.

Thing is, the higher alpha strike potential I give it for the AI, the more broken it is when in the player's hands. And it's already very broken.  :D

The idea of it being sort of countered by pocket battleships and battlecruisers is interesting. I'll probably have to wait for the changes to really do anything, but I'll keep that in mind. The lower jump range might make this possible since those types of vessels typically are pretty fast themselves, and it already will annihilate anything below a cruiser.

Really it could annihilate most cruisers too... but the AI just doesn't lol. In a straight front to front engagement it can still beat an Onslaught, Executor, etc, but it would take significant damage doing so, which is intended. The ideal strategy is to jump behind and attack the vulnerable engines, so if the AI can ever reliably pull that off the Tyrant will become a really intimidating AI ship.

Quote
As far as the Hivemind Orb Launcher, I don't think it really needs to be nerfed.  The BP seems quite rare, and it is legendary, as you say.  There are lots of RNG elements that can make particular playthroughs easier or harder.  Currently, it doesn't seem like BP seeds actually update, so you're not guaranteed to find it in any particular playthrough.  (Maybe by raiding AO?)  Moreover, there will always be gimmicky fleet compositions that players can exploit if they choose.  The way they are now, it's a big deal if I find a launcher much less the BP in early game exploration.  I'd say it's a good thing to have a few items like that that really incentivize exploration.

Correct they don't update and there is a finite amount that can be found so it's possible it won't be obtainable outside of raiding either the AC or the AO.

That is generally my thought process when it comes to Legendary weapons. They should be rare/maybe unobtainable without raiding - depending on RNG - but when you get one you go: "Whoa! This thing packs a punch and looks pretty cool doing it!" I also want that to be a way to distinguish factions a little more in regards to commissions.

Quote
Oh, there is one other thing.  Is it possible to adjust the scolding about running with transponders off?  I feel like the system would work a lot better if there was only a rep loss for your commissioned faction in a contested system if you were within X distance of a friendly planet/station.  They should be perfectly happy about you contributing to the war effort with hit and run tactics, imo.

In particular, I have in mind AO starts where you have a small fleet and are in a system full of hostile Tri Tach.  You lose one of the big advantages of AO fleets if you have to run with transponders on.  Plus, it makes the early game a lot more fun if you can stalk with small fleets.  The way it currently works, I ended up spending nearly as much time dodging small AO patrols as huge Tri Tach fleets.

Hmm, interesting. I *think* that would be possible off the top of my head. I'm always a fan of more nuanced, contextual interactions with NPCs. Obviously these things can take a lot of work to get it to "feel right" and natural to the player, so I doubt I could squeeze it into the coming update. The next one I should be able to, though. This update is already huge, though it's admittedly a lot of "behind the scenes" code changes that will make things a lot easier and more things possible going forward.

It's not to say there aren't exciting things in it, but the bulk of the work is refactoring how things are done to be more extensible and efficient. The player will have a lot of customization options as far as the campaign is concerned too. To give an idea:

This is the W.I.P list of new settings:

Spoiler
   "archeusTCSettings":{
      "checkSettingsOnSaveLoad":false,
      "vanillaOverrides":{
         "overriddenHullmodsCanBeFound":false,
         "fightersInCodex":false,
         "fightersCanBeFound":false,
         "weaponsInCodex":false,
         "weaponsCanBeFound":false,
         "shipsInCodex":false,
         "shipsCanBeFound":false,
         "blueprintsCanBeFound":false,
         "campaignOverrides":{ # Anything within this section will be permanent once a new game is started.
            "weaponsInFactions":false,
            "fightersInFactions":false,
            "shipsInFactions":false, # Determines whether vanilla ship blueprints are obtainable through raiding.
            "shipsSpawnInFleets":false, # Only used if shipsInFactions is true. Factions will spawn vanilla ships if set to true.
            "overriddenHullmodsInFactions":false,
            "marketOverrides":{
               "adjustVanillaStations":true, # TC stations are set in place of vanilla equivalents. See: "*Archean Order Directory*/data/config/ArcheanOrderEcon/systems"
               "adjustVanillaIndustries":true, # Adds or removes industries based upon the TC balance. See: ^      ^
               "adjustVanillaConditions":true, # Adds or removes market conditions based upon the TC balance. See: ^
            },
         },
      },
      "nexerelinOverrides":{
         "preferVanillaStationsNex":false, # Currently unused - hoping to allow customizable Nex behavior regarding stations in the future.
         "removeNexStationAdditions":true, # Removes or replaces stations that Nex adds with TC friendly ones.
      },
      "logOverrideInfo":true, # Adds debugging info to the log on new game starts if enabled. Should be false by default.
   },
[close]

 - and all the market changes in the mod are now, for the most part, customize-able.

For instance, want to add a High Command to a vanilla market? Or give a market better resources? Now you can by adding the id to a spreadsheet. The mod reads a separate spreadsheet for each system to determine how to change the campaign's markets. A market actually has to exist for this to be possible, of course, so you can't add new markets to existing entities or anything.

The cool thing, at least to me, is that a lot of these settings are save-independent. So things like codex entries or whether vanilla ships can be found or recovered, etc, can be changed in the middle of the campaign. I'm planning on having all the settings work this way in the future, but for time reasons some of that has been cut for this update.

Anyway, sorry for the text wall and if you have any more feedback don't hesitate.  :)
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basileus

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Having more options to vary playthroughs is good in my opinion.  It helps keep things from getting stale.

I tend to get bored somewhere in the mid-game and restart with some new self-imposed limitations, so these sorts of toggles would be welcome.
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davissonlam

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Tried this mod before I did a vanilla run, decided to try vanilla with a bunch of other mods on, and realized this mod is still way better.

The factions are more unique and believable, AO's blackhole system is just amazing and fits the theme so well, tho I sided with Sci-corp cuz they are the only morally good faction in the entire modiverse. Everything about ships and combat just feels fun, balanced and just right. I honestly enjoy combat with AO way, way more than vanilla.

You have done a stellar job making this mod, I'm 50 hours in now and I throughoutly enjoyed all of it. It's damn near a perfect mod.

The one thing I wish could happen is more legendary weapons (or even hulls!) to find and maybe a remnant-like boss minor faction where you can defeat and get those precious legendary stuff. For legendary hulls, you can get rare intels in bars about derelict legendary ships, which will have d-mods on them but also extra beneficial 0 cost mods. For instance intel about a derelict ship named The Behemoth could have a +30% hull but -20% top speed mod on it, which you can recover and restore and get a somewhat unique ship. Or intels about derelict legendary weapons on probes/stations.

Still the mod is the best starsector mod by far imo.

« Last Edit: August 20, 2020, 06:02:21 PM by davissonlam »
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Morrokain

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Having more options to vary playthroughs is good in my opinion.  It helps keep things from getting stale.

I tend to get bored somewhere in the mid-game and restart with some new self-imposed limitations, so these sorts of toggles would be welcome.

Oh good I'm glad to hear these will be useful! It also will help easily compare values between vanilla and mod versions of weapons, ships, etc.

Tried this mod before I did a vanilla run, decided to try vanilla with a bunch of other mods on, and realized this mod is still way better.

The factions are more unique and believable, AO's blackhole system is just amazing and fits the theme so well, tho I sided with Sci-corp cuz they are the only morally good faction in the entire modiverse. Everything about ships and combat just feels fun, balanced and just right. I honestly enjoy combat with AO way, way more than vanilla.

You have done a stellar job making this mod, I'm 50 hours in now and I throughoutly enjoyed all of it. It's damn near a perfect mod.

The one thing I wish could happen is more legendary weapons (or even hulls!) to find and maybe a remnant-like boss minor faction where you can defeat and get those precious legendary stuff. For legendary hulls, you can get rare intels in bars about derelict legendary ships, which will have d-mods on them but also extra beneficial 0 cost mods. For instance intel about a derelict ship named The Behemoth could have a +30% hull but -20% top speed mod on it, which you can recover and restore and get a somewhat unique ship. Or intels about derelict legendary weapons on probes/stations.

Still the mod is the best starsector mod by far imo.

First, welcome to the forums and thank you very much for the compliment! I appreciate it and I'm glad you are having fun. :)

Regarding your suggestions, things like this are definitely planned. After the coming update, I will address some of those things (especially looking to further stabilize ship acquisition) and focus more upon adding some new content and further development of existing lore/descriptions, etc.

Some weapons may sneak into the coming release too, though likely not legendary ones just yet. Technically if you look at rarity, the Malevolent and the Megalith are legendary hulls, but they don't have that tech description since I wanted to tie that to their respective factions. I've actually gone back and forth between that a couple times in my head. I may change it later to give a little more "oomph" to the feeling of finding those blueprints.

In general, I definitely want to increase the variety of weapons and probably strike craft as well - that will certainly include other legendary ones. As far as hulls, there are several planned ones for existing factions that I haven't gotten around to, and eventually there will be another playable faction with their own tech line of ships/some unique weapons and strike craft, etc.

I also want to implement "legendary challenges" that will reward legendary blueprints at the expense of an extremely difficult task. For technical and feature reasons that may have to wait until the next Starsector update though.

Anyway, thanks again and let me know if you have any balance feedback or bugs to address if they come up in the future.
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Albreo

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Quote
100% agreed. Iirc, the difference between having the jump and not having the jump was the single salvo you talk about. Without that exit strategy this ship only really engages anything when the target is distracted. Otherwise, it moves in until the first counter shot goes off, phases, and backs off.

Thing is, the higher alpha strike potential I give it for the AI, the more broken it is when in the player's hands. And it's already very broken.  :D

The idea of it being sort of countered by pocket battleships and battlecruisers is interesting. I'll probably have to wait for the changes to really do anything, but I'll keep that in mind. The lower jump range might make this possible since those types of vessels typically are pretty fast themselves, and it already will annihilate anything below a cruiser.

Really it could annihilate most cruisers too... but the AI just doesn't lol. In a straight front to front engagement it can still beat an Onslaught, Executor, etc, but it would take significant damage doing so, which is intended. The ideal strategy is to jump behind and attack the vulnerable engines, so if the AI can ever reliably pull that off the Tyrant will become a really intimidating AI ship.

Well, I always let the AI fly my Tyrants. You would need an officer at lest Aggressive with proper skill set (missile/defensive/amour damage reduction) to make it strong. Phasing is actually good with weapons that have long reloading time, burst or generate large amout of soft flux since when phasing you can still vent soft flux and also reload 4 times faster. So, tyrant with proper loadout can almost go 1v1 with Radient. The problem with AI at the moment is that it doesn't know how to phase to the back of the enemy ship. You will see it wiggles on top of another ship a lot, maybe because this ship is far lager than the nomal vanilla phase ship and some parameter is incompatible but phase ship AI is being updated in the next patch. So, that's also good to hear.

I think, if you let AD fleet Tyrant come preinstalled with an Aggressive-Reckless officer with at lest defensive skill it will be more of a simple threat. Reapers on it have to be set to fire all at once. If you think it's not sadistic enough, you can put my loadouts on. A Tyrant with full Thunderbolts can kill Radient easily
« Last Edit: August 21, 2020, 01:09:26 AM by Albreo »
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Morrokain

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Well, I always let the AI fly my Tyrants. You would need an officer at lest Aggressive with proper skill set (missile/defensive/amour damage reduction) to make it strong. Phasing is actually good with weapons that have long reloading time, burst or generate large amout of soft flux since when phasing you can still vent soft flux and also reload 4 times faster. So, tyrant with proper loadout can almost go 1v1 with Radient. The problem with AI at the moment is that it doesn't know how to phase to the back of the enemy ship. You will see it wiggles on top of another ship a lot, maybe because this ship is far lager than the nomal vanilla phase ship and some parameter is incompatible but phase ship AI is being updated in the next patch. So, that's also good to hear.

I think, if you let AD fleet Tyrant come preinstalled with an Aggressive-Reckless officer with at lest defensive skill it will be more of a simple threat. Reapers on it have to be set to fire all at once. If you think it's not sadistic enough, you can put my loadouts on. A Tyrant with full Thunderbolts can kill Radient easily

You are probably right in regards to the Tyrant's size preventing it from maneuvering behind enemy ships as effectively. It wouldn't matter as much if it would armor tank more, but it does its best to avoid all damage if possible. I know from looking at the posted video that armor tanking should be more of a thing in the next update, so that will help immensely even if it still can't phase through ships. Armor tanking will let its burst weaponry shine more and deal more permanent damage to heavily shielded ships.

Feel free to link your loadouts! This will help me in two ways:

1) If the weapons make sense for the AC, I may just put the loadout as an option for them.

2) If the weapons don't make sense for the AC, it gives me an idea of what kind of weapon is optimal for the Tyrant, so I can design new AC weapons with that in mind.

(The Thunderbolt has been nerfed for the next release just fyi. It will still be very good, but not quite so overwhelming when massed.)

Patch notes entry:
 "- Reduced Thunderbolt emp, reduced second stage flight speed and slightly reduced second stage hitpoints."

As far as officers, the AC already prefers reckless or aggressive officers, but I don't think I can reliably force them to be that way for the Tyrant specifically. I could just try and make all AC officers aggressive or reckless with a large chance to focus on defensive skills. That would honestly make sense from a lore perspective.

The side effect of that change would be that ceasefire/aid request dialogues would be even less likely to succeed for AC fleets (officer personality in general matters) - which there is already a pretty low chance of success for them. I suppose if it was too much of a problem I could adjust the base chance on the faction level with the assumption that the officer will be aggressive or reckless.
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davissonlam

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Is it possible, coding wise, to put random buffs/debuffs as fixed mods on the same hull/weapon?

What i mean is that when you acquire say a legendary hull like the megalith, you could get the regular megalith if you purchase it, or you could acquire it through some special ways, and that megalith could have say an extra fixed mod on it. Kinda like acquiring a hull with d-mods, but have it be buffs. That way you can have a lot of variations every run, since the extra layer of randomness means every paragon or megalith is unique.

Btw Tyrants are easy to deal with because AC fleets does not have a tanky capital or battlecruiser to occupy players fleet. What happens most of the time is Tyrants ended up tanking everything and it just couldn't deal damage back since it has to keep phase up to survive. Maybe a tanky battlecruiser with emp loadouts to do some cc and free tyrants up to do damage?
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Morrokain

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Is it possible, coding wise, to put random buffs/debuffs as fixed mods on the same hull/weapon?

What i mean is that when you acquire say a legendary hull like the megalith, you could get the regular megalith if you purchase it, or you could acquire it through some special ways, and that megalith could have say an extra fixed mod on it. Kinda like acquiring a hull with d-mods, but have it be buffs. That way you can have a lot of variations every run, since the extra layer of randomness means every paragon or megalith is unique.

To my knowledge, the only real way to do that would be to define a different hull id that includes the built-in hullmods which provide the unique changes. The issue is that it would technically be a separate - yet mostly similar - ship that would then have its own chance to drop as a blueprint. Even with the same drop chance, it dilutes the chances for other drops. So at the very best that sort of thing would have to be applied equally across hulls of said rarity type in order for it to retain the overall drop chance. That would be a considerable amount of work, though that by itself isn't a deal breaker to me.

However, it would be pretty hard to balance and also wouldn't operate in the way I think was implied: So building a "Megalith" wouldn't result in a unique version every time. It would still result in whatever version you found, but the chance of that particular version dropping each playthrough (as a blueprint) would be variable. In that sense, you could of course also find more than one variant of the hull in any one particular playthrough. With that in mind, would it not be frustrating to find 3 minor Megalith variances and 0 Tyrant or Paragon blueprints, for instance?

Now, doing that sort of thing as a unique quest reward after the next Starsector update drops? Absolutely I could see myself doing something like that in the future.

Quote
Btw Tyrants are easy to deal with because AC fleets does not have a tanky capital or battlecruiser to occupy players fleet. What happens most of the time is Tyrants ended up tanking everything and it just couldn't deal damage back since it has to keep phase up to survive. Maybe a tanky battlecruiser with emp loadouts to do some cc and free tyrants up to do damage?

That was primarily what the role of the Nightreaver was supposed to be, but that ship also serves the dual purpose of fielding fighters whereas all phase ships don't. It was meant to fill both gaps, but there is definitely room for a more tanky light battlecruiser that supports the Malevolent and the Tyrant better.

I'll have to start thinking of designs. It will either be forward-firepower concentrated or simply have a lighter "general armament package" but either way it will have a tough shield and be very maneuverable for its class. I may even give it the mine launcher system to let it zone out enemy fleets.
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Hexadood

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Wow, this mod is impressive as all get-out!
One question though, is it compatible with SkilledUp, or would that cause a problem?
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Morrokain

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Wow, this mod is impressive as all get-out!
One question though, is it compatible with SkilledUp, or would that cause a problem?

Welcome to the forums and thank you! :)

I just tested Skilled Up with the dev version and yes it appears compatible. If you run into any issue with it after a prolonged game, let me know, but I'm not seeing any crashes and I don't think the code conflicts with anything I'm doing.

I'll go ahead and add it to the compatible list for utility/feature mods.
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davissonlam

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I'll have to start thinking of designs. It will either be forward-firepower concentrated or simply have a lighter "general armament package" but either way it will have a tough shield and be very maneuverable for its class. I may even give it the mine launcher system to let it zone out enemy fleets.


Tough shields, mines and close range assault/pd (600 or so) weapon loadout would fit AC theme and fill the gap. It should be less maneuverable than the tyrant but gets a non rechargeable speed boost skill like burn drive or sth so it can get to the thick of the fight quicker than tyrants, but cannot easily get out. Maybe more pds on medium/large turrents instead of stuff like atronach beams to differentiate its role. Just my 2 cents I'm sure I'll love whatever you ended up adding!

Can confirm skilled up is compatible, as well as a dozen mods:
Trailer moments, adjusted sector, combat analytics, combat chatter, common radar, disassemble reassemble, nexerelin, starship legends, supply forging, unknown skies, audio plus, and the usual libs.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2020, 03:55:30 PM by davissonlam »
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ThisShadeOfGreen

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I made an account just to post the fact I love this mod to death. I saw the discussion around the Tyrant and I wanted to give my two cents on it since it's my flagship, by far my favorite ship in the game out of any mod.

If kitted out with weapons that fire in bursts and/or Strike weapons, the Tyrant is almost a war crime that eats anything at or below the level of a Cruiser for breakfast. During my last session I went up against a carrier fleet composed mostly of Cruisers. Teleported right through the frontline fighting and wiped out their entire fighter support before they could react.
After seeing an Adamantium Consortium fleet get their Tyrants blown to pieces by a Hegemony Detachment I decided these things probably need support to function properly in an engagement against other Capital Ships.

After my time with it I recognized three things that make the Tyrant much more effective in combat:

1. There are very high armor/shield ships in my fleet providing supporting fire and more importantly distracting the enemy.
2. I am running the Tyrant with a build that increases armor and flux capacity with low flux cost weapons.
3. I intentionally avoid engaging other Capital Ships directly.

I agree with the suggested changes to AI along with a tanky frontline battleship for the AC, they'd go a long way to increasing their overall effectiveness.

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Albreo

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Tyrant Guide Updated

Tyrant guide in decimating everything in the mod. You're required to have basic understanding of phase tech and basic fleet composition. Tyrant is weak against fighters of all sorts, so, you will need to have at least 2-3 carriers capable of support in any given battle. Tyrant can't tank anything, it's not design to hold the ground. You will need additional ships to act as frontline and let loose your Tyrants to do their things. The preferable front line ship is Paragon or zero flux ship. Captain has to be Aggressive or Reckless. Must have skills for captain are Defensive System, Helmsmanship, Power Grid Modulation, and Combat Endurance.

::Loadout::

Spoiler

1) [Ultimate] set up with mostly zero flux weapons. You can go Optic in this one no problem. Very very very effective against fighters. All weapons should be linked to a single auto fire group. Has total damage higher than a Hightech Star Fotress.


2) High DPS, shield piercing EMP build. Lack of burst capability but stable. Can support large swat of combat zone with Thunderbolt.


3) Snipe mode. Quite unreliable in overwhelming battle. Very high burst capability, murder thing very quick.


4) Shield piercing point-blank rocket pots. Melts armor with Gatling guns afterward.
[close]

::Combat Report::



A combined report of 10 Large [REDACTED] fleets at the maximum battle size. Always on Autopilot. No ship lost in combat.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2020, 10:06:44 AM by Albreo »
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basileus

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We started with a problem whereby one group of factions cannot kill Tyrants, so battles of equal fleets would reproducibly run to unreasonable lengths of time.

Now we are addressing a problem that Tyrants are too easy to kill, so we need to give the AC an even more defensive focus.  The trouble is this is also reproducible.

It seems clear to me that this is a double-sided problem.  Phase ships are hard countered by L Ballistic Anti-Armor weapons--in particular the Devastator Cannon.  (This goes double for giant phase ships with a giant hit box.)

Some factions use them routinely.  Others never.  Trying to balance the Tyrant will prove to be a Sisyphean task.

It's also going to be perilous to attempt because it's quite obvious many players are using the Tyrant and invested in its fate.

The better option might be to let it be the Hyperion of Battleships.  Leave it for the player, and have the AI rarely field it in practice.

The Consortium's problem isn't only the Tyrant, in any event.  The Carriers are similar.  Cobra wings are deadly to smaller ships, but not particular effective at big game hunting given the AC's overall composition.  Currently, the AC lacks either a reliable means to overload large enemies or the shield-piercing EMP needed to render capitals vulnerable to cobra strikes.  The only other viable strategy is to simply flood the zone.

Why don't they use Hivemind Orb Launchers?  It's their Legendary weapon.  Carriers are ideal platforms.  A preponderance of orbs and things like hurricane missiles would go a long way.  These would provide reliable, sustained damage plus open the door to big strikes from cobras and the phase ships.

The Consortium probably does need a new capital ship to replace the Tyrant.  It could be defensive in nature; however, it could alternatively be a glass cannon focused on long-ranged, indirect fire with things like the HMOL.  Maybe the Consortium eschews traditional ships of the line in favor of a philosophy of overwhelm or be overwhelmed.  Battles that are short and brutal.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2020, 10:32:31 PM by basileus »
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