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[SupaMuffinMan]

Hello everyone!

So far i havent had a problem in customising with ships but this "Legion-class Battlecarrier" is for me extremely difficult to make it effective. I have no idea how to make it work. if it gets close combat it gets ***, if its in the distance the weapons dont feel impactful, I dont understand its role at all.
The ISS Terpsichore, HSS Space Raptor and the TTS Hlad Zero (that i have) I understand their roles and they do a really good job at what they do, were as the Legion-class Battlecarrier, i just dont understand what it can do that the other 3 ships carnt do? It feels like a jack of all trades and master of none ship?

Anyone come across this problem? If anyone knows what the Legion-class Battlecarrier is good at please let me know.

Thank you.

[Megas]

Legion is strong, but has mediocre flux stats, use flux efficient weapons.  It does not have lots of OP, so do not use more than one or two fighters more than 10 OP.  A basic loadout that is effective is two Hellbores for armor cracking, two Heavy Autocannons in two of the front composites (or possibly one Heavy Needler at the nose), and some flak in the rest of them for some PD.  I put Vulcans in six or all eight of the smalls.

Legion tends to use fighters to swarm a target while Legion pounds on it from medium range.

[Retry]

Base legion or XIV?

Base Legion, stuffing 2 Gauss Cannons in the large slots, 5 Pilum LRMs in the medium slots, some token MGs or Vulcans for PD in the small slots and some fighter craft as you please.  Maybe 2-4 Perditions and 0-2 Broadswords or something.  Good for putting consistent pressure at long range.

[SupaMuffinMan]

thanks guys, i'll put what you guys told me to work.

[CopperCoyote]

I use them nearly exclusively for breaking stations. They shine with mark 9 and all the reapers. I also really like using piranhas for stations too. they cant dodge and it is an obscene amount of ordinance. The 14 legions are super wonky though. i don't like them despite the better stats. If i pilot it it can work, but it is a similarly super focused build with 3 heavy autocannons and 2 dual flak with just broadswords and talons. It's missiles are locust with epanded missile racks. the purpose is to chase down and demolish fast pather ships when i assault pather stations. Also there are better ships to do that with as well, but i was flying around with only 5 capitals (and 4 officers) and a gaggle of destroyer sized tender ships (because i had no blueprints for atlas or prometheus)

[Thaago]

I'd say for a standard (not XIV) there are two ways to go:

Siege/Support: two Gauss's, bombers wings, and a targeting core. I dislike Pilums extremely, so would recommend a few flaks and a few torpedo launchers. Ideal use for this build is to engage targets at extreme range, keeping their flux high while bombers do their work, venting as needed to support the twin gauss's. Torpedoes are for any cheeky destroyers/cruisers that try to get too close. Ideal officer has all carrier, gunnery implants, ordinance expertise, target analysis. Last skill is up in the air, lots are good.

Brawling: two Mark IX's, or a devastator or even 2, 5 medium missiles, and extended missile racks (and a targeting core). If using devastators go 4 broadswords - else half broadsword half warthog is deadly. Keep the fighters close! (AI will probably not do this, which is a pity). If you find yourself short on OP, Talons can work as well but are a bit weak. The missiles are the key way to get kills. Harpoons can work well on cruisers/destroyers - for capitals a sudden barrage of 5 Reapers or a stream of 5 annihilators will mess *** up. Bonus points for firing your missiles while your broadsword's flares confuse enemy PD! Sabots are good but probably not a good choice - large ships can shoot them down on approach and broadswords are excellent at shield pressure. Missile skill is essential for this build (and ordinance expertise/targeting analysis and carrier skills...).

[UrbanGiraffe]

This is the setup I ultimately settled on for use by an AI officer:

Spoiler

[close]

If the officer in this case had missile spec, I would've used medium sabots, but here I wanted something that could survive sustained fights without missiles. If the officer had Ordinance Expertise (faster projectiles) I would've used autocannons and other cheap weapons instead of railguns. I used simulation fights against fleets with many fighters, frigates, and a few destroyers to gauge how well it does when totally overwhelmed, since the ship has a tendency to use the burn ability semi-suicidally. Ultimately, I used this to win a hopeless Red Planet fight alongside only 4 other ships.

The ship has poor flux dissipation that limits what sort of weapons can be used in the large slots. Those railguns in the back might seem weird, but they're there to fight off frigates that can very easily hang out behind the ship with impunity. The heavy mortar offers the bare minimum of high explosive damage necessary to kill things if given the chance, while the kinetic emphasis is there mostly to force ships to back off.

[Goumindong]

If you can find one you might want to consider pulling the Mark IXs and putting on a storm needler instead.

While you lose relatively greater weapons arc coverage and 320 range you gain 8 OP, 150 flux/second and a weapon that is harder to avoid.

Storm Needlers are more flux efficient than railguns and also provide more DPS per OP. The two railguns you have in the front plus the Mark IXs are a total of 25 OP 515 DPS, and 550 Flux/second.

For only 3 OP more a storm needler is 750 DPS and 650 Flux a second. Even if you can’t fire it all the time you’re coming out ahead.

I would use lower tech bombers and eschew the longbows. The legion tends to get to the front when it’s on your side and the large kinetic pressure you can put down with the storm needlers will negate the need for the longbows

If those are sparks then definitely drop them for something else. Claws are OK for the ion damage. But I think you might do better with perditions/khopeshs/piranhas and Thunders.

You also probably don’t need 4 flacks. You could drop to 2 and put IPDAI on to make them effectively 3 and save a bit of flux.

[SafariJohn]

2 Gauss + 4 Khopesh is the classic setup IMO

For the Legion XIV I switched the Gauss for Cyclone Reapers.

[Baxter]

I like the legion a bunch, because fighters are pretty important in this game atm and it's got like, 80% of the direct firepower of any other battleship (two large mounts and 5 medium) which is enough for my purposes. I go with two hellbore cannons and 5 heavy drivers for weapons so I can keep at range, and for fighters it varies but atm I run with one (REDACTED) burst pd drone, 1 longbow, and two daggers, and expanded crew+ITU for modules. It does what I want, between the fighter loadout and its weapon it can mulch just about anything and it's survivable enough that I don't feel the need to hide like with other carriers.

The problem is that I find personally piloting carriers boring and when in the hands of AI officers the ships tend to behave wrong. When set to escort they default to how carriers behave and will hide behind my ship and not contribute their long-range firepower to the fighting at all. I've used mixed escorts of Moras and Legions and the Moras were the ones who tended to float up onto the front line (and get punished for it, incidentally). When set to individually seek and destroy with steady AI officers they behave fine, stay at a decent range and use the burn drive when they can get away with being aggressive, but then the problem of the fleet getting split up arises.

The end result is that while a human player can ably use its design features to the best of its ability and end up with a really strong ship, the AI currently doesn't quite do what I want, so I'm better off either taking dedicated combat ships in escort or dedicated carriers staked to a rally waypoint. If the Legion was just a bit more sensible in escort mode and had some understanding that it doesn't need to cower behind me constantly I'd use em extensively, because it's a neat package for 40 deployment points.

Also as an aside the XIV variant nearly made me hate the ship entirely. I hate large missile mounts and was pretty frustrated to find that the base variant was much more in line with what I wanted and needed from a battlecarrier.

[Sutopia]

I usually go for 4 long bow, 2 devastater and 5 reapers. Once the target is near overload I charge and unleash everything I get.
Devastaters are great at CQC while also very effective to protect the hull from any enemy bomber. I can simply spare all the PD OP and put them into better flux status.
The Devastater itself is also very flux efficient nonetheless.

A similar build is switching two reaper to two HVD for further harassment and ensure the target cannot lower it's shield for whatever reason (bomber reloading/ bomber wiped etc).

Generally Legion is kind of jack-of-all-trades, can do any mission given correct armament setup.

[UrbanGiraffe]

Spoiler

If you can find one you might want to consider pulling the Mark IXs and putting on a storm needler instead.

While you lose relatively greater weapons arc coverage and 320 range you gain 8 OP, 150 flux/second and a weapon that is harder to avoid.

Storm Needlers are more flux efficient than railguns and also provide more DPS per OP. The two railguns you have in the front plus the Mark IXs are a total of 25 OP 515 DPS, and 550 Flux/second.

For only 3 OP more a storm needler is 750 DPS and 650 Flux a second. Even if you can’t fire it all the time you’re coming out ahead.

I would use lower tech bombers and eschew the longbows. The legion tends to get to the front when it’s on your side and the large kinetic pressure you can put down with the storm needlers will negate the need for the longbows

If those are sparks then definitely drop them for something else. Claws are OK for the ion damage. But I think you might do better with perditions/khopeshs/piranhas and Thunders.

You also probably don’t need 4 flacks. You could drop to 2 and put IPDAI on to make them effectively 3 and save a bit of flux.

[close]

Yeah, Claws are much better than Sparks, I think for that screenshot I had them switched out to save on pilot deaths and didn't notice. My main issue with the Thunder is the high replacement time, and that they tend to get obliterated by big groups of Remnants with their burst PD. The extra OP for Daggers over Perditions is usually worth it IMO, since Perditions are pretty useless against frigates. The longbows can definitely be dropped with the addition of the Storm Needler.

And one Storm Needler does make the ship way better. Since it also acts as anti-fighter PD, it's possible to drop the flaks (one dual flak in the other large turret seems like enough), and the freed-up OP can be better spent on more heavy maulers or luxurious hull mods.

[goduranus]

Biggest problem with me using combats carriers is that I can’ get enough skill points to spec into both combat and fighter skills. Especially with officers’ randomized skill development.

[Euphytose]

If an officer has a fighter related skill, he has much higher chances of learning another fighter related skill.

[cp252]

The ISS Terpsichore, HSS Space Raptor and the TTS Hlad Zero (that i have) I understand their roles and they do a really good job at what they do,

For future reference, those are just your ship's names. We can't tell what ships they are if you don't tell us the class.