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[Megas]

Problem with small ships is peak performance.  They do not have enough by the end of the game now that fights in 0.9 are bigger, not to mention occasional battlestation fights in corona or event horizon.  The closest I come to small ships now are Falcons.  Even cruisers can sometimes run out, especially if I use a smaller map size and have a trickle of cowardly enemies for Mortal Kombat style endurance matches.

However, I do use an Enforcer and Mule swarm during late bounty hunting and early colony game.  They get slowly phased out as I acquire bigger ships and better weapons.

Honestly, due to how big the bonuses are, I almost never deploy ships without officers now. In my opinion, the armour skill, as well as the shield skill, are way too good, and ships without them seem like wet noodles in comparison.

Nothing compared to 0.7 era.  Ships without officers are viable since 0.8, if not necessarily optimal.

Also, Impact Mitigation 1 is bugged, increasing armor more than it should.  I think 50% more on top of +150.

[Cosmitz]

Unsure how that's calculated while bugged to be fair. But i'd rather have the 150 straight up armor boost.

[SCC]

As The Wet Fish found out, Impact Mitigation 1 increases armour value 2,5 times for damage reduction calculation, instead of adding flat 150 armour.

[FooF]

As The Wet Fish found out, Impact Mitigation 1 increases armour value 2,5 times for damage reduction calculation, instead of adding flat 150 armour.

lolwut

Wow. I use IM anyway but that's...funny...to me.

To contribute:

I tried a "Hammerhead Swarm" in my last playthrough. I have about 10 Hammerheads, 2 Drovers, and a few Tempests (in addition to logistical ships). All ships are officere'd and 8 are outfitted with ITU Heavy Maulers or HVDs, Tac Lasers in all four small slots (with IPDAI), and Reapers in the missiles. I have two medium-range ships with ITU Autocannons and Heavy Mortars, EMP/LAG in front slots and LRPD in the back.

I was very surprised how well they punch above their weight. I lose some every once awhile but repairing them isn't that hard and finding new ones isn't hard either. When they group together, the combined Tac Laser spam is fun to watch and they really don't have a hard time with fighters/missiles. It also helps that they're all near flux parity so they win flux wars one-on-one. I've taken down capitals and stations with this setup and they're not logistically heavy or slow on the campaign map either.

[Serenitis]

• No creating colonies until you have explored everything
• No renting storage
• No leaving things in abandoned places

There's a weird tension between exploring something now while you're there to save on fuel & supplies, vs. offloading your loot somewhere for cash to keep you going. And a constant pressure to acquire more transport ships.

• All your combat ships must have a weapon mount capable of fitting a medium missile
• All your combat ships must fit pilum launchers in any mount that can accomodate them

Can you stand the crushing disappointment of sub-optimal play long enough to achieve critical mass?

[Euphytose]

Makes me sad for the Pilums. Not sure how to buff them though.

[Morgan Rue]

Entirely combat freighters. Fielding a fleet of Mules made me have much more respect for combat freighters.

Or Hound and Wolf pack. Hounds can act as both combat ships and logistic support ships with Expanded Holds and Extended Tanks. Wolves work well with other frigates. A pack with both ends up swarming and overwhelming early game enemies.

[Megas]

Entirely combat freighters. Fielding a fleet of Mules made me have much more respect for combat freighters.

My last two or three games, about half of my fleet are Mules I recover from pirates, with most of the rest Enforcers.  I slowly phase them out as I get bigger and better ships.

[Euphytose]

The pirate Mule is very good, I like to fit a Mining Blaster on it. Is it intended for the pirate Mule variant to be better in every way? Once restored it has the same stats, except that universal mount, as well as shielded cargo hold.

[Megas]

The pirate Mule is very good, I like to fit a Mining Blaster on it. Is it intended for the pirate Mule variant to be better in every way? Once restored it has the same stats, except that universal mount, as well as shielded cargo hold.

Pirate Mule used to be classic Starfarer Mule without the Shielded Cargo Holds and pirate paint job.  Modern Mule kept only the paint job from its Starfarer self, but not the mounts.

Now that Mule traded Energy mount for composite (which uses superior ballistics), pirate and normal are interchangeable, unless you really want an energy weapon (that probably does not have flux stats for).  I do not smuggle so Shielded Holds do not help me.

[Null Ganymede]

Makes me sad for the Pilums. Not sure how to buff them though.

Mix in Salamanders with ECCM and an officer's missile skill. Or Claw wings, or enough Ion Beams and kinetic damage, etc.

Disabled engines make Pilums shine against everything but flak.

[TaLaR]

Pilums have low hp and speed at the same time. You don't need flak against them. Literally any PD is good enough. Plus, it's not like they do much shield damage, intentionally catching them with shield works too (to clear up arena).

Even worse, there is no single ship system that would have good synergy with Pilums (and regenerator missiles in general). Fast missile racks do not help you regenerate Pilums any faster. Missile autoforge is wasted on them as well.

[Megas]

Pilums are weak and slow enough that even stock Mining Lasers are effective against them.

@ TaLaR:  Fast Missile Racks are good with unlimited missiles (like Salamander) if the missile is good, which is probably why both Salamanders went from 500 damage to 100 damage, and Fast Missile Racks going from unlimited to three charges.  When Salamander first because unlimited, ships with fast missile racks became overpowered because they could spam Salamanders and kill ships from beyond fog-of-war.  That is why Salamanders are weak as they are, and Fast Missile Racks has regenerating charges instead of unlimited.  Those that regenerate ammo like Pilums are not so useful, but during the time when Pilums were almost as fast as Harpoons, pumping out a ton of them was useful back then.

[Null Ganymede]

Have you... Tried this? In-game? Recently?


There's a critical mass of Pilums where the enemy fighter screens and PD can't clear them out. The exact count depends on your own interceptors, flare-equipped fighters, long-range kinetic suppression, etc.

Once there's a Macross-tier Pilum field deployed, several things happen:

- AI ships are intimidated and less likely to push forward. It doesn't feel like the AI can differentiate between an incoming Harpoon swarm and low-threat Pilums, so it treats both with the same respect. (This is also what makes Diable Avionics micromissiles so useful.)
- Enemy ships with disabled engines and high-flux are suddenly in great danger. Pilums are very effective at stripping armor, you just need to build your fleet around kinetic+fragmentation damage with some EMP for disabling engines.
- All of this happens in your back line. Your front line ships are free to do whatever, be whatever - the Pilum/Salamander/Broadsword hell-curtain is coming exclusively from support ships and escort frigates. (Although you can do it with front line ships too. Try a Legion with kinetic large guns, Pilums, and some mix of flare-equipped kinetic fighters/claws/interceptors.) Your front line can now bring more fragmentation damage to destroy ships faster, or carry additional PD/spend points on logistics hullmods.
- This concentrated fire is less mobile and far-reaching than what carrier-heavy fleets can do, but looks extremely cool. It's also more point-effective than stacking fighters and bombers, so the enemy is eager to engage the fleet and you don't have to inefficiently over-deploy then cry about "coward AI" evading your obviously superior force.

The 30-clip (60 with EMR) limit just means Fast Missile Rack ships fire in an initial burst then level off. That many Pilum volleys is a ton of threat from a very safe range. This won't work on a Flak-covered Onslaught without a ton of EMP, but it grinds through most ships in the game.

Unusual strategies aren't as effective as the current fighter/bomber dominance, but everything posted so far is viable with a bit of creativity in your fleet composition.

[Euphytose]

Unusual strategies aren't as effective as the current fighter/bomber dominance.

I mean, it's really hard to top a 6 Tridents Astral launching 24 Atropos and then teleporting the bombers back to safety to do it all over again.