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Author Topic: Best Transport shuttle?  (Read 7199 times)

Grizzlyadamz

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Best Transport shuttle?
« on: March 24, 2019, 07:08:11 PM »

Looking for something to ferry me between widely-dispersed bases quickly/efficiently, which of these looks better?
Afflictor (P)
Spoiler
[close]
This has enough cargo to support 4 months between pit-stops, enough fuel to traverse more than half the galaxy, and not only can it easily escape any combat it stumbles into, (which the phase field might help avoid? Maybe?), it can probably solo a couple destroyers.
Only downside is a low crew cap which prevents snapping up bar-deals for marines, but that's chump change.
Is augmented drives worth it? Helps evade interdiction, (and run dark?), but max burn isn't impacted at all. Efficiency overhaul might be better- decreases supply/month & fuel consumption by 20% & increases recovery rate, plus it costs 5 fewer OP.

Mudskipper 'XIV'
Spoiler
[close]
This ones got 3x the storage, 10x the crew, and half the operating costs. Fuel is 20% lower but that still leaves a range of more than half the galaxy.
Only it's not the fastest vessel out there, and combat efficacy is a literal joke. (though the kind that could be surprisingly effective)
Again, augmented drives might be sub-optimal given the +1 burn skill.

What do you guys think? What do you use (if anything?)
« Last Edit: March 24, 2019, 07:13:14 PM by Grizzlyadamz »
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goduranus

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2019, 08:23:00 PM »

Dram? Cuz with that you don't have to worry about fuel range. I don't know what you need intend to use these ships for, but if it's just to ferry you around, IMO Dram is the best ship.

It's got Burn 12 and can evade everything except phase ships and Hyperion in combat.

Hull mods are:
Militarized subsystem
Augmented Drive fields
Unstable Injectors
(Possibly expanded cargo hold if you find yourself running out of supplies on these trips)
« Last Edit: March 24, 2019, 08:24:57 PM by goduranus »
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Grizzlyadamz

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2019, 09:22:25 PM »

snip Dram snip
I tried that first (the luddic path refit with a non-civilian hull as a matter of fact) as it comes highly recommended & I saw the logic BUT I did indeed run out of supplies far sooner than I ran out of fuel.
200-300 fuel is overkill by a factor of 4 or 5 for a single 1-burn frigate, while the 15 supplies ticked down pretty quick (especially if you are inclined to using the 3-supply transverse jump, or don't pack solar shielding).
I'm still worried about this for the Afflictor there, but the combat effectiveness, the ability to evade combat in the first place, and the option to up & flee combat whenever you feel like it are all top-notch.
Speaking of evading combat, augmented drive does indeed increase dark-running burn by 1 & e-burn by two.
So that Afflictor with augmented drive hums around at 7 burn even when it's running dark, and can e-burn away from interdiction at 20.

Also, if we sub out the Mudskipper's solar-shielding/augmented drive for the efficiency overhaul & SO, it becomes dramatically more capable of fleeing combat & the repairs following transverse-jump & cr damage goes from 4 days to 3 (vs the afflictor's 2)
But burn is a very middle-of-the-road
5 silent 10 normal 18 e-burn
vs
7 13 20(21) Afflictor

The price of transverse-jump & storm damage is still pretty hefty on the Afflictor though, (8 supplies) cutting its flight-time to ~2 months, about the same performance as an unshielded Dram I suspect.
But man is it safe. The mudskipper (239 base speed & 297 maneuvering jets) & the dram (flat 245-270 with a recon package) are still vulnerable to hunter-killer frigs & fast fighters, while the Afflictor can just...phase to the exit.
Hm..




Thinking criteria...
Cargo- 8x recovery/maintenance costs (5 recovery = 40 cargo) so you can transverse/storm-ride without eyeballing your supplies
Crew- 10-20 spare (5 min= 15 cap) so you can pick people up/pack extra 'just in case'
Fuel- 40+ lightyear range (2 burn= 80 fuel, 1.5 burn= 60) so you can cross the galaxy before you need to stop
Burn- 11-13 (min-8 with augmented drive & the +1 burn perk, 7 with militarized civilian hulls) so that going dark has 6-7 burn
Speed- 250+ (125 with SO & a speed active-ability, 175 with unstable, 200 otherwise) OR a phase-cloak so you don't die if something somehow catches you
Phase- see above
Sensor- Profile less than strength, more is better, just the sensor perks could cut it

Sound about right?
« Last Edit: March 24, 2019, 10:00:42 PM by Grizzlyadamz »
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TaLaR

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2019, 09:42:32 PM »

Does it make sense to hyper-optimize it?
By the time you have at least 2 colonies you are already paying tons of colony/crew/officer upkeep. Fuel/Supplies for a few frigates are chump change in comparison.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2019, 09:57:22 PM »

Talar pretty much summarized my thoughts. If you have multiple bases, you are making enough money where you can afford to fly multiple capitals from one side of the galaxy to the other without breaking a sweat. I usually fly a slightly smaller cruiser based fleet because I find it annoying to need to refuel excessively often, but I take a full combat fleet everywhere pretty much. No reason not to.
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Grizzlyadamz

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2019, 10:08:38 PM »

There's just one real reason NOT to use capitals- they're slow as sin.
Lower burn drives sure but there's something you might be forgetting: they get caught up in the nebulae.
A single frigate can cut straight lines across hyperspace with just a 3% loss (ie none) while large fleets slow to a crawl when they enter calm fog.

And that travel time is why I'm interested- I've got colonies to babysit but I'm not done exploring yet. Can't afford to linger in fringe hyperspace when there's 2 raids and an invasion coming in.
Would rather keep stationary fleets in storage and use the shuttle to quickly zip between them.
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Kohlenstoff

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2019, 10:35:35 PM »

I use single Apogees since they have a optimum mix of properties and low consumption for exploration at any place and can also be used for fighting small to medium pirate fleets. It actually is, what the description tells.

[attachment deleted by admin]
« Last Edit: March 24, 2019, 10:44:34 PM by Kohlenstoff »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #7 on: March 24, 2019, 11:19:48 PM »

If you get two large colonies in the same system, you will never need to worry about raids again. Even the max size faction raids won't get through the space defenses. Also, emergency burning through storms basically negates any speed penalties and supplies are cheap in end game. It's more or less worth the skill points to get rid of the supply cost on emergency burn (more of a QOL skill but I tend to use the console to keep giving myself levels after I hit max rank anyway). Larger fleets are a bit more inconvenient but nothing that endless streams of money and supplies can't fix. It's not worth he hassle of constantly taking ships in and out of storage tbh.

My fleet generally has 4-5 combat cruisers and 3-4 carriers (cruiser sized), a couple destroyers plus support ships. By super late game, I lug a capital around so that I can jump into red beacon systems. Apogees are amazing right now, the sensor bonus, the decent campaign stats and good combat performance make it a top choice, but I usually pilot an aurora because its just more fun. If I were primarily just fighting remnant/high tier bounties and clearing pirate bases, I would probably take multiple capitals everywhere but refueling gets tedious. I'd rather not have to fly all the way home and back every time I find something interesting to fight so I just bring a fleet powerful enough to fight whatever I expect to find. There's no reason to be efficient when you have infinite money and unbreakable defenses.
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goduranus

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2019, 11:37:09 PM »

If you get two large colonies in the same system, you will never need to worry about raids again. Even the max size faction raids won't get through the space defenses. Also, emergency burning through storms basically negates any speed penalties and supplies are cheap in end game. It's more or less worth the skill points to get rid of the supply cost on emergency burn (more of a QOL skill but I tend to use the console to keep giving myself levels after I hit max rank anyway). Larger fleets are a bit more inconvenient but nothing that endless streams of money and supplies can't fix. It's not worth he hassle of constantly taking ships in and out of storage tbh.

What's more overpowered is if you find a gas giant with 2 habitable moons. I got that one game, and space was choked full of warships and debris of destroyed enemies.

SCC

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2019, 11:03:55 AM »

I hope that Alex will add some mechanic for swapping fleets or fleet templates, or to somehow visit markets without a giant warfleet's expenses. It eventually becomes an issue late game and both of the solutions (either swap ships manually from storage, or just burn money) are either tedious or wasteful.

Grizzlyadamz

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2019, 04:31:50 PM »

So uh, I actually did an inordinate amount of testing and wrote up a wall of tierlist before actually taking a closer look at the nebula slowdown mechanics, and it turns out it is 100% based on fleet size & 0% based on ship size (not news to many of you I suspect).
So it is indeed best to use something like a suped-up Apogee or other cruiser (or two) of choice.

I'm still going to post that useless tower of text though.
Images & the A/B/C tiers would have been spoiler'd

Spoiler


"""Alright, so I did some testing on frigs & destroyers using the criteria above, and I've got something of a tierlist.

Testing was conducted by simming the craft & moving them to the top edge of the map and 1-1.3 of the large blocks away from the center, then telling the craft to retreat.
Like this:
They're offset so that the AI doesn't burn directly into the spawned foes.
The spawned foes included 1 Condor (talon interceptors @300 speed), 1 Snow Goose from dassault mikoyan (fast skimmer-destroyer), and 1 Afflictor (P) phase frigate.
These are particularly spooky enemies for a courier as they can catch & lock down most frigates, in my estimation.

S-tier: These two exceed the criteria and can survive direct contact with the enemy, able to retreat directly through the enemy formation without the offset
Spectacle Exploration Frigate

Mod: Dissassemble Reassemble
Hull Mods: Recon Package (BI), Surveying Equipment (BI), Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, High-Res Sensors, Shield-Conversion: Front, Augmented Drive
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 75/30/100
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 4/4/3days/1
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 205(280+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/30/90
Movement Ability: N/A

This guy is cheap, has extraordinary range, ample cargo, top-tier campaign evasion and in-combat it has an efficient 360* bubble-shield.
The 280+ base speed with SO & this shield allows it to survive & escape combat without an active movement ability.



Pigeon Courier Frigate

Mod: Arsenal Expansion
Hull Mods: Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, Augmented Drive, Efficiency Overhaul
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 75/42/60
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 3.2/4/1day/0.8
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 250(300+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: Courier Drive

Cheap, great range, ample cargo, great campaign evasion and in-combat it has a good shield and a great damage-reducing 400+ movement ability.
Where the spectacle has the edge in campaign evasion, this guy has the edge in combat evasion, flitting around at 300+ with the shield up and the ability to boost directly through the enemy line with the courier drive.





A-tier: These craft meet the criteria and can retreat easily with the offset. They're in no particular order.

Shalaika Scout-courier frigate
Mod: Dassault Mikoyan
Hull Mods: Monobloc Construction (BI), High Res Sensors (BI), Surveying Equipment (BI), Unstable Injector, Recon Package, Expanded Cargo, Efficiency Overhaul
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 60/22/60
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 2/4/2days/0.8
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 205(305+ w/flux-boost & skills)/11(12 with skill)/30/90
Movement Ability: Pulsed Skipjets
Cheap, great range, good cargo, great campaign evasion and in-combat it has a good shield & a 420+ speed ability. It has to stay at 0-flux or it loses 30% of its speed.


Clementine frigate
Mod: Junk Pirates
Hull Mods: Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, Augmented Drive, Efficiency Overhaul, Shield Conversion: Omni
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 40/10/40
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 2.4/3/2days/0.8
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 215(265+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: Booster Jets
Cheap, good range, decent cargo, great campaign evasion and in-combat it has a good shield and a 315+ speed ability.

Seski Corvette Courier frigate
Mod: Shadowyards
Hull Mods: Harmonic Shield Conduits (BI), Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, Auxiliary Fuel Tanks, Augmented Drive
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 65/11/70
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 3/4/2days/1.25
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 260(310+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: Phase Skimmer
Cheap, good range, good cargo, great campaign evasion and in-combat it has an acceptable shield and a phase-skimmer. However, it is fragile.

Ashnan freighter frigate
Mod: Shadowyards
Hull Mods: Harmonic Shield Conduits (BI), Safety Overrides, Augmented Drive, Efficiency Overhaul
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 100/20/50
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 1.6/2/1day/1.04
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 215(265+ w/flux-boost & skills)/11(12 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: Booster Jets
Extremely cheap, good range, ample cargo, good campaign evasion & in-combat it has drones, an acceptable shield, and a 360+ speed ability.

Diamondback combat-freighter frigate
Mod: Junk Pirates
Hull Mods: Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, Augmented Drive, Efficiency Overhaul
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 80/30/40
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 2.4/3/2days/0.8
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 270(320+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: N/A
Cheap, good range, ample cargo, great campaign evasion and in-combat it has a good shield and enough base speed to survive without a movement ability.

ASP-Cerberus combat freighter frigate
Mod: Junk Pirates
Hull Mods: ASP Syndicate Sponsored, Shielded Cargo Holds, Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, Augmented Drive, Efficiency Overhaul, Recon Package
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 50/34/40
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 3.2/4/1day/0.8
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 180(260+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: Burn Drive
Cheap, good range, good cargo, great campaign-evasion but in-combat survivability would be cutting it close if not for the 460+ movement ability.



B-tier: These craft fall short in at least one category, but are still capable couriers

Vapor frigate
Mod: Diable Avionics
Hull Mods: Advanced Avionics (BI), Cramped Hull (BI), Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, Augmented Drive, Efficiency Overhaul
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 35/14/30
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 4/5/2days/0.6
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 250(300+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: Evasive Roll
Cheap, good range, great campaign evasion & excellent in-combat survivability, but it has tight capacities. Very solid choice.

Torch gunboat frigate
Mod: Underworld
Hull Mods: Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, Augmented Drive, Recon Package, Expanded Cargo, Auxillary thrusters
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 48/15/30
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 4/4/2days/1
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 205(280+ w/flux-boost & skills)/13(14 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: Burst Drive
Cheap, Acceptable range, great campaign evasion & good in-combat survivability (with a 600+ speed ability), but it has tight capacities. No shield but it has enough ordnance points to mount one.


Star-Sylph combat courier frigate
Mod: Dassault Mikoyan
Hull Mods: Skipspace Reaction Furnace (BI), Shielded Cargo Holds (BI), Unstable Injector, Augmented Drive, Efficiency Overhaul
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 60/8/40
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 6.4/8/1day/0.8
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 205(255+ w/flux-boost & skills)/13(14 with skill)/23/30
Movement Ability: Mirage System
Good range, top-tier campaign evasion & good in-combat survivability, but marred by slightly-tight capacities & expensive upkeep.

Camel (P) heavy frigate
Mod: Kadur Remnant
Hull Mods: Forever War Engineering (BI), Shielded Cargo Holds, Safety Overrides, Unstable Injector, Augmented Drive, Efficiency Overhaul, Shield conversion: Omni
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 60/21/120
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 4.8/6/1day/1.6
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 195(245+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/30/30
Movement Ability: Flux injector
Exceptional range, good cargo, great campaign evasion, but it's not cheap and in-combat survivability cuts it close with the 305+ speed ability.

Centaur freighter frigate
Mod: SCY
Hull Mods: Scyan Engineering, Safety Overrides, Efficiency Overhaul, Recon Package, Insulated Engine Assembly
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 60/12/60
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 2/4/2days/1
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 215(290+ w/flux-boost & skills)/11(12 with skill)/15/30
Movement Ability: N/A
Cheap, good cargo, good range, good campaign evasion, decent combat survivability.


C-tier- These craft barely meet the criteria (if at all) or leave much to be desired in combat- they make for suboptimal/risky picks.
Most ships that did not meet a minimum range of 30+LY were NOT considered.

Afflictor (P)
Mod: Vanilla Starsector
Hull Mods: Phase Field (BI), Delicate Machinery (BI), Auxillary thrusters, Hardened Subsystems, Augmented Drive, Solar Shielding
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 25/5/50
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 8/8/2days/1
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 165(215+ w/flux-boost & skills)/12(13 with skill)/0/30
This guy is expensive and has too-small cargo & crew caps, but it has good range, top-tier campaign evasion & is frankly OP in combat. Deficient logistically, but utterly safe.

Manta (LP) fast destroyer
Mod: Disassemble Reassemble
Hull Mods: Safety Overrides (BI), Unstable Injector, Efficiency Overhaul, Solar Shielding, Shield Conversion: Omni
Cargo/Extra Crew/Fuel: 70/30/50
Maint/Recovery/RecTime/Burn Cost: 7.2/9/2days/1.6
Speed/Burn Level/SensorP/SensorS: 155(205+ w/flux-boost & skills)/10(11 with skill)/60/60
Movement Ability: Burn Drive
Decent Cargo, Acceptable range, Acceptable campaign evasion, but it's expensive & in-combat survivability only makes the grade thanks to a 405-speed ability, a fighter deck, and destroyer-grade shields/hp.
**Many combat-grade light destroyers can be turned into something closely resembling this when given a logistics mod (efficiency, expanded fuel/cargo), augmented drives, and SO**
Key properties of good destroyer candidates are a phase-cloak, a native fighter-bay, a native high speed (90+) & good movement abilities.
Usually they will be skirting both logistical requirements (due to expense & low relative-capacities), and combat survivability (since they CAN be caught & instead must rely on equipment to survive long enough to escape)
Still, most can serve as adequate couriers.

The hound & cerberus are both examples of vanilla frigates that almost made the cut but fell short because of that 30-LY range.

Other c-rank candidates:
Samoyed freighter frigate from Junk Pirates
Wirefox shuttle frigate from Junk Pirates
Bouclier courier frigate from Dassault Mikoyan
Flatmouse shuttle frigate from Dassault Mikoyan
Mudskipper XIV frigate from Kadur Remnant




Right now I think I'll take this Torch (christened "Home") out of storage and deck it out- not the most ideal on paper, but it's readily available and imo it's fun to fly around in a 'tomb for the criminally insane' that burns at 14 and has 600-topspeed capability.
Feels like a heavily armed/armored rocket, and has enough OP to really do some customization. """""
[close]

@intrinsic_parity, @goduranus, @Kohlenstuff
Just about all of that is good to know, thanks guys
I think I'll adopt something bigger afterall too- once my colonies (planet+moon) grew up from sizes 4/6 to sizes 6/8 (and I better-optimized them for fleet size) they stopped needing babysitting.
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Goumindong

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Re: Best Transport shuttle?
« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2019, 12:23:57 AM »

If 30 fuel is a problem just add expanded fuel tanks

Hound A with expanded fuel tanks and augmented drive field has burn 12. 25 months of supplies with 75 max, 12 burn, 60 ly range, and 30 spare crew.

The wayfarer is also a good option at 100/20, 25 spare, 40 range, and 10 burn (before any hull mods) though it is beaten by the cerberus at 100/4, 30, 40, 10 burn and burn drive for perfect retreats.
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