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Author Topic: An Opinion about Carriers  (Read 18816 times)

Thaago

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #30 on: May 25, 2018, 08:20:02 PM »

Most carriers do rely on line ships to defend them - I'd say Mora (toughness) and Heron (speed) can defend themselves alright, but Condors, Drovers, and Astrals will simply pop if attacked with their fighters away.
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Igncom1

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #31 on: May 26, 2018, 12:29:01 AM »

Not to mention investing on defences for the carrier means that less can be invested into it's strike craft, and vice versa.

An astral filled with talons is a very different opponent to a astral filled with tridents.
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Philder

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #32 on: May 26, 2018, 07:16:07 AM »

The overarching benefit of carriers is the stackability of fighters.

Most non-carrier ships require line-of-sight and much much shorter ranges to inflict their damage, but carriers can do so from comparitively absurd ranges. Combined with their AI behaviors, fighters tend to form swarms that can utterly swamp the vast majority of ships.

A mental expertiment: Although it's not an exact comparison, mentally convert ships into their deployment costs, and estimate how many deployment points you can have focusing on a single target simultaneously. Carrier ships obviously allow a much greater concentration of deployment points on a single target, and any damage they incure is simply replaced over time. Although carriers tend to have much less flux dissipation, their fighters are also part of their defenses too.

I agree that carriers present a neat dynamic to the game, although I also agree that they're a little too powerful in the current meta. (Personally I think their ranges are too big, and should be more comparable to the other offensive options. The stackability of fighters is their source of imbalance, so reducing range would reduce the overlap of multiple carriers. With the exception of the Heron, the reduced speed of carriers is a good balance IMO. Similar to lowtech ships, carriers have high alpha, high durability, and slow recovery.)

Balance issues aside, they can be countered, as previously discussed in this thread.

Something I forgot to mention, however, was hotswapping loadouts before your fleet comes into contact with the enemy fleet. It's not often that you don't have a chance to pause and enter the refitting screen before coming into direct contact with enemy fleets, so it's possible to make some changes to your fleet to counter the enemy fleet once you see their composition. IMO, the initial loss of CR is well worth it if you can minimize your losses in combat due to the enemy having the rock to smash your scissors. You can't completely revamp your ships, of course, but changing a couple weapons is doable and could have a huge impact on the battle. This is especially useful when you're going into an enemy faction's space and know you'll be fighting fleets with specific themes since you'll only need to pay the cost once for a bonus to your effectiveness in all the following battles.

I used to do this in WoW all the time. I carried 1 to 2 bags worth of extra gear, and had a mod that could swap all my gear instantly (out of combat). I would usually lose some HP and MP from swapping gear with different stats, but the difference in gear was well worth the change. I could instantly swap my gear so that I had enough regen to make even druids cry, or be tanky enough to make rogues whine OP. I did the same for all my characters and was always at the top of the lists in terms of effectiveness in battle.

In other games like Borderlands, it's pretty much necessary to have gear suitable for all targets. If not, you're gonna have a bad time.

Oh, and another useful tactic is to deploy only the most impactful ships when needed, and then retreat them once they're no longer needed. For example, when facing mid-game and end-game fleets, start battles by deploy ships specialized in evaporating frigates and then retreat them once that's mostly done with. When carriers show up, field your anti-fighter forces. When the enemy carrier force is no longer at critical mass and effectiveness, retreat your specialized anti-fighter force. Don't just field generalized ships and wait for them to blow up before replacing them. Retreating ships earlier and fielding more shipsoverall  is less expensive than blowing your ships up and recoveringthem afterwards...provided they pop up as recoverable.

These specialized 'forces' are usually just a couple ships, for me. Some ships and loadouts are even effective as a combination anti-fighter + anti-frigate. Anyway, just saying that trying to equip your whole fleet to be able to handle everything, anytime, with only a single loadout and fleet strat can often work against you. I'm usually against the "Jack-of-all-Trades = poo" bandwagon because there are plenty of effective JoaT specs in most games (even if there are even more useless JoaT specs), but IMO, your fleet will be more effective as a whole if you DON'T try making all your ships JoaT boats..
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Goumindong

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #33 on: May 26, 2018, 11:49:11 AM »

Additionally there is a wide discrepancy between what people think kills fighters and what actually kills fighters. Generally people think that PD kills fighters and it really doesn't. PD kills missiles and only gets fighters if you have a hilarious amount of it. Light DMG? Vulcan Cannons? Worthless vs fighters. Light Assault Gun? That is a lot better.

Thumpers are actually pretty good (despite my ragging on them earlier) as if Flack. And then of course there is the Devastator cannon. People don't fit these and then get swamped with fighters and wonder why. And the answer is mainly that you're set for defending against missiles and not for defending against fighters.

On the energy side its IR pulse lasers, Ion Cannons, Tactical lasers, Phase Lances, Pulse Lasers, and Heavy Blasters preferably in that order
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #34 on: May 27, 2018, 11:23:56 AM »

LRPD nets backed up by flak and a few ion cannons (everything is an anti-fighter weapon if the fighter can't maneuver) do a pretty good job of handling all but the nastiest shielded fighters in my experience. If you expect to fight a whole lot of shielded fighters, it's sometimes worth springing for a couple SO Enforcers with HMGs and chainguns.

Ultimately, the best anti-fighter defense is going to be fighters of your own, though. Fighters like Claws can serve as excellent screens for your fleet, disabling large numbers of enemy fighters to be cleaned up by heavier weapons.
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Linnis

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #35 on: May 28, 2018, 08:57:04 AM »

That's right, problem is PD don't work well against fighters.

Best anti fighter is minimal amounts of talons with some medium weapons supporting them. Things like heavy maulers and autocannon and the medium beams rip through fighters. They work together with the talons and the talons or w/e keep the target fighters at bay and the large ship and just shoot into the fighter group.

Stuff like flak cannons are only good against bomber's ordinance.

I personally have stopped using any small PD weapon that is not the DLMG or the blue pulse laser on ships like the conquest.
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Philder

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #36 on: May 28, 2018, 09:41:14 AM »

-TacL has too slow a turret speed and beam speed, and costs too much flux. It's really only good on Cruisers and Caps with some kind of range extention, and Advanced Turret Gyros, and not effective at all against fighters that are orbiting it.
-IR Pulse is okay, but it's very flux intensive, still misses even with perfect accuracy because fighters are constantly and quickly changing vectors, has comparatively shorter range, and can friendly fire. Pulse Laser has over twice as slow turn speed, but the range is good and it pierces armor better. Good at range but not when ship is being orbited.
-Ion Cannon is good, but not by itself. Also, shortish range and FF.
-Phase Lance is only good at range against slower fighters, and its slow ROF and turn speed mean your kill rate is 1 fighter per 6 seconds at best unless you're lucky.
-Heavy Blaster is just overkill, combined with an expensive flux cost, makes it even more costly. Also, very slow turn speed and very dangerous FF.

High dps alone doesn't translate to effective anti-fighter.

IMO:
LRPDL > PDL > BPD > IRPL are the most effective anti-fighter small energy weapons. LRPDL is best because great efficiency, highest turn speed possible, and very long range. I rank it higher than PDL because multiple ships will end up stacking their PD together, and higher than everything else because it's dependable, long range, shoots down missiles, and the flux efficiency + range make it a good flux pressure weapon against ships, and OP cost is affordable.
Graviton and Ion Beams are great as ranged supports but I otherwise wouldn't waste a medium slot on anti-fighter. Even Ion Beam is a tough sell. It's sooo much more effective to just field a single Xyphos wing. The fighters eat the crazy flux cost, but most importantly, the fighters can fire their BPD and IonB through friendly ships.
Guardian PD is king, though HIL is okay as very long range damage support (much more so in players hands).  Everything else is just way too wasteful.
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #37 on: May 31, 2018, 09:59:04 PM »

Agreed, LRPD really has to be a fleet-level and not a single-ship build choice. The stacking, especially on midtech ships with generous small energies (Eagle/Heron/Hammerhead/Centurion FCTs are LRPD beasts), turns them from ho-hum to fighter honeytraps.

Flak in combination with LRPD is where it really shines. Also flak will often take out a missile-armed fighter's missiles along with the fighter, which is extra nice.

From time to time it can be worthwhile to field Ion Pulser/SO Wolves as fighter mops against high-tech. The Ion Pulser is useful against other targets too, and even shielded fighters will suck a fat one against it most times.
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Megas

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #38 on: June 01, 2018, 05:33:38 AM »

LRPD is not just PD, but also a more flux-efficient and quicker (and more common) long-range poke like Tactical Laser.  On ships like Wolf or Eagle, three of them are good at picking off some missiles like a few Pilums or a Salamander or two.  Eagle can also use LR PD laser simply to supplement damage when attacking.  Even Wolf can use them to fry unshielded pirates early in the game.

Given how slow Tactical Laser turns and how rare IPDAI is, not to mention LR PD is more common than Tactical Laser, I simply use LR PDs for all-purpose use and be done with it.  Lowering flux use from 100 to 40 was a big help.
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Shuka

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #39 on: June 11, 2018, 10:08:23 AM »

Wow the LRPD tip is great, started switching them in and their accuracy and range are really effective. It seems to work really well with the AI's tendency to cover each other too, which is nice.
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sylva

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #40 on: June 26, 2018, 08:08:53 AM »

In my current playthrough I decided to go with a fleet consisting mainly carriers, with officers specialised just for that. I noticed aswell that even early-mid game with only condors equipped with wasps and mining drones I could easily win fights against the [redacted] so I could scavenge the outskirts easily.

So I was thinking.. What about a new mechanic for the fighters having to reload/rearm/cooldown at the main ship? Energy fighters could generate hardflux when using weapons so they are "overheating" and need to return to the carrier for cooldown, ballistic fighters could have ammo capacity and should reload after 1 or 2 runs depending on loadout. Bomber fighters could have even more rearm time. etc.

thoughts on this?
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Linnis

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #41 on: June 26, 2018, 09:56:20 AM »

In my current playthrough I decided to go with a fleet consisting mainly carriers, with officers specialised just for that. I noticed aswell that even early-mid game with only condors equipped with wasps and mining drones I could easily win fights against the [redacted] so I could scavenge the outskirts easily.

So I was thinking.. What about a new mechanic for the fighters having to reload/rearm/cooldown at the main ship? Energy fighters could generate hardflux when using weapons so they are "overheating" and need to return to the carrier for cooldown, ballistic fighters could have ammo capacity and should reload after 1 or 2 runs depending on loadout. Bomber fighters could have even more rearm time. etc.

thoughts on this?

Don't really solves the problem. It makes fighters weaker sure, but the initial engagement is still won, the fights become snow-bally. Also, this encourages even longer fights for almost all fleets. The real problem comes from a lot of ships have no way to deal with fighters and just look stupid when they engage them.

Personally, it feels fine to me for carriers to be such necessities. That is balanced by the fact that stacking on pure fighter carrier is also a bad move, as long as mixed fleet ship size is the strongest setups I am fine with that.

This current "meta" of Carrier + fire support ships is much better than the frigate swarm or solo battlecruiser phase before.
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Megas

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #42 on: June 26, 2018, 12:08:52 PM »

Pure carrier fleets do not work as well as they could due to some annoying bugs (chain escort) and AI quirks (fighters escort your flagship instead of fighting, carrier with PD approaching warships instead of hanging back).  If the bugs were fixed, and fighters (or skills affecting them) will not be weakened more, then pure carrier fleets might work.

A way to really nerf fighters is to limit carrier mobility, so that carriers cannot kite enemies easily while fighters kill everyone.  Give Unstable Injector a meaningful penalty to carriers (-15% to shot range is irrelevant if carrier does not use guns to attack) and remove Helmsmanship 3 perk from the game.  Part of what makes carriers good is they can be built for speed without suffering the drawbacks conventional warships do, and they can run away while fighters do all of the killing.

If limiting speed is not a good enough option, another idea is to remove Expended Deck Crew hullmod so that carriers cannot pump out fighters non-stop for long.  Or as an alternative, make Unstable Injector and Expanded Deck Crew hullmods mutually exclusive.  What makes Expanded Deck Crew so good is it not only speeds up rate recovery, but also, and more importantly, slows rate drain while wings are rebuilding.
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Linnis

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Re: An Opinion about Carriers
« Reply #43 on: June 27, 2018, 11:33:15 AM »

This ship is built for speed... And lots of people running around!
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