Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Goumindong]

Two Mark IX auto cannons do 696 kinetic DPS for 800 flux/second and use 16 OP on a Conquest.

ONE Storm Needler does 750 DPS for 650 flux/second and uses 18 OP on a Conquest

The Storm Needler is more accurate, has a faster projectile, and has less recoil. It has less range.... but about the same effective range because the only thing that the Mark IX can hit at above 1100 units with ITU is a capital sized shield.

If you're really starved for OP its fine but a Storm Needler outperforms it like Woah.

Though i did try that thumper fit and was surprisingly happy with the value of the Thumper it performed leagues better with a Storm Needler against every conceivable set.

[Schwartz]

Speaking of stuff to put on a Conquest.. does anyone except for AI use Squalls? They always feel severely underwhelming compared to buffed Locusts, which are amazing finishers vs. wounded ships. How about the improved MIRV?

[Megas]

Storm Needler is good, but a bit too short-ranged unless I build for close-range brawling.

After all, Gauss appears to have lame stats for its costs unless player really needs the shot range against the likes of SIM Paragon to avoid dying.

Big shields are very common late.  Inaccuracy is not that big a deal at hitting things.  What is a problem with inaccuracy is hitting armor instead of exposed hull on the target.  Often, I have enemies with some holes of exposed hull, but plenty of armor.  With a more accurate weapon like Gauss Cannon, I hit the exposed hull instead of armor.  With stock Mark IX (and their smaller ilk), I usually hit armor and they take longer to die if I rely on Mark IX to damage hull instead of armor.

@ Schwartz: I do not use Squalls.  They track poorly, and run out of ammo too quickly.  I use Hurricane MIRV if I have it but no Locusts.  Hurricane may be better if I have Missile Specialization, but I do not use that skill.  The recent buff to Hurricane made it go from worthless to barely useful.  Could be amazing with Missile Spec and ECCM, but I have not tried that (opportunity cost is too high).  My large missile of choice is still Locusts unless I want to attempt a loadout friendly to dumb-fire missiles.

[Goumindong]

MIRVs are good if you have missile skills but the conquest doesn't really have the OP to put ECCM on it and MIRVS are a huge OP drain in and of themselves. Plus you ideally have both ECCM and missile skills to make MIRVs really good

I think that a missile support conquest is entirely valid. But its not so much better than a Gryphon that i would consider using it in that way unless you were starved for that kind of ship

Buuuuuut

Dual Gauss, Ion Beam(or whatever), 1 dual flack, 3 Tac Laser(forward side), 5 Burst PD(rearward side), 2 MIRV, 2 Harpoon, ECCM, EMR, ITU, ATG is a legit ship if you have missile skills

Its just a bit hard to put together because the Gauss are hard to come by and you NEED missile skills to make the MIRVS good.(when you have them though they're effectively 3000 range guided reapers)

Squalls are bad. They're a brawling support weapon that doesn't burst against enemies that like to run away and burn your missiles anyway. Sabots are superior. Only exception is on ships that WANT to keep enemies away rather than fight them. So its fine on the Astral

Re: Gauss and Mark IX. Yes but Gauss have perfect accuracy, no recoil, and 1200 range. Plus they do 700 damage/shot so even after kinetic damage reduction vs armor they have effective armor piercing.

You can say that Mark IX have more range than Storm Needlers but... i find that is not the case in the majority of situations. Just as Arbalests do not end up having less effective range than heavy auto-cannons.  If killing frigates ever stopped becoming valuable then maybe there would be a point to Mark IX's... but it doesn't stop being so AND storm needlers do so much more efficient dps anyway.

Its just a bit hard to put together because the Gauss are hard to come by

[intrinsic_parity]

I agree that the storm needler is a very good choice on the conquest, particularly for a player ship, and I would usually use one if I had it. The mark IX is a more reserved and consistent choice for the AI because it costs a lot less flux to fire and lets the AI have a bot more granularity with how much flux it is spending. I find slightly underpowered AI load outs are more consistently able to survive because the AI can't blow all of its flux capacity on one ship only to get attacked by another. Mark IX is like an arblest: a bit underpowered but low OP, widely available and low flux demand make it decent for AI loadouts, especially on ships that struggle with dissipation. Mark IX is also decent vs medium/light armor which the needlers aren't. It's not a big deal for the player ship since the player can manage weapon types well, but it makes a difference for the AI sometimes.

That being said, I would probably only use the Mark IX on a junker conquest I am giving to the AI, or if I didn't have something better. It's a pretty useful weapon, but definitely not optimal for the conquest.

I also don't spend a ton of time killing frigates with capitals, I see that as the job of the carriers mostly, so that's more of a play style/fleet composition difference. I kill them when I have the opportunity, but I don't consider it as a priority in my loadout design.

[Goumindong]

I generally find killing small ships to be the priority for any player ship unless i have tonnes of fighters(which i rarely do). Though to be fair this is never something that the conquest is particularly good at.

The reason for this is because small ships very easily put pressure on larger ships to force them into disadvantageous areas.  Once the small ships are cleared out then you get to easily put pressure on their larger ships thus negating their shields and flux advantages. (I.E. it makes getting behind them easier because they have nothing to prevent you from flanking, if they turn to face you they get flanked by their fleet)

Indeed the ability to kill small ships is the primary advantage of SO ships. You can just hunt down all the pesky things before you have to go kill the ones with the big guns that cant catch up to you.

[Megas]

You can say that Mark IX have more range than Storm Needlers but... i find that is not the case in the majority of situations. Just as Arbalests do not end up having less effective range than heavy auto-cannons.  If killing frigates ever stopped becoming valuable then maybe there would be a point to Mark IX's... but it doesn't stop being so AND storm needlers do so much more efficient dps anyway.

The thing that helps Arbalest is no 800 range HE medium weapon.  Old Heavy Mauler would have been fine, but not so much now.  Today, if I am stuck with Heavy Mortar as my HE weapon, I do not care about 800 range kinetics so much because the extra range tends to be wasted.

For heavy weapons, Mark IX has two or three range-matching weapons that compliment it:  Hellbore, HAG, or (maybe) Mjolnir.  I can hover around maximum range and pelt with both damage types.  That 900 range on Mark IX does not gets wasted.

[Thaago]

I don't personally think the difference of 700 vs 800 range is important for Arbalest vs Heavy Autocannon, exactly as Megas pointed out because there is no 800 range HE. What is important to me is the higher DPS the Heavy Autocannon brings, so I will always use it over the Arbalest. If I have to close in a little closer for the HE to land, fine. (I don't value hovering around max range very much - I prefer to enter brawling range for secondary weapons to help.)

I've made good Gauss variants for the Conquest for AI use, but except for a few niches 1200 + ITU is almost too much range. Its a bit rare to get open fire lanes that long in crowded battles. Good vs Paragons and stations, against as Megas pointed out.

Mk IX is surprisingly effective in general, almost in spite of its stats. Efficiency is a bit low, but its still kinetic and punishes shields. However the rounds are heavy enough to do decently against destroyer armor, and will get through heavier hull once the armor is stripped, making it an 'all around threat' type gun in addition to being 'ok' against shields. The cheap OP cost is a bonus. So I wouldn't say the Mk IX is a super good weapon, but its also absolutely not a bad weapon.

[TrashMan]

On an unrelated note, the more I look at it, the more I want to strangle whoever designed the Conquest. From a lore perspective its like stapling two battleships together; it looks awful and its impractical. From a lore perspective, there is little to be gained from having two battery's of guns on two different sides of the ship that can't support eachother. It would have been much more practical (and stylish) to just have guns mounted on a hull running down the middle of the ship that can be brought to bear port, starboard, and aft. This would cover all the areas it currently does while also cutting the cost of the ship almost in half.

From a gameplay perspective its also frustrating cause it means you have to spend OP on guns that will most likely be out of combat most of the time.

It just pains me that a ship I love the concept behind (a fast moving hard hitting capital ship just like the Iowa) could be more efficient and more stylish at the same time.

That holds true for many Sci-Fi ships.
Once you start designing functional ships (thinking about fields of fire, protection and the like, instead of interesting shapes)

http://orig12.deviantart.net/c4bb/f/2012/190/0/e/battleship_archangel_2_by_blackescaflowne-d56k7vd.jpg

[StarScum]

On an unrelated note, the more I look at it, the more I want to strangle whoever designed the Conquest. From a lore perspective its like stapling two battleships together; it looks awful and its impractical. From a lore perspective, there is little to be gained from having two battery's of guns on two different sides of the ship that can't support eachother. It would have been much more practical (and stylish) to just have guns mounted on a hull running down the middle of the ship that can be brought to bear port, starboard, and aft. This would cover all the areas it currently does while also cutting the cost of the ship almost in half.

From a gameplay perspective its also frustrating cause it means you have to spend OP on guns that will most likely be out of combat most of the time.

It just pains me that a ship I love the concept behind (a fast moving hard hitting capital ship just like the Iowa) could be more efficient and more stylish at the same time.

That holds true for many Sci-Fi ships.
Once you start designing functional ships (thinking about fields of fire, protection and the like, instead of interesting shapes)

http://orig12.deviantart.net/c4bb/f/2012/190/0/e/battleship_archangel_2_by_blackescaflowne-d56k7vd.jpg

I'm not saying that the ships should look realistic. I've seen what realistic space-battleships would look like and its awful. But what you've posted is a much better design that the one we currently have for the Conquest.

[Gotcha!]

Whatcha talkin' 'bout, Willis? The Conquest is the best-looking ship in the game!

[StarScum]

Whatcha talkin' 'bout, Willis? The Conquest is the best-looking ship in the game!

That's not really saying much tbh.

This game was on my radar for a while but I was put off by the style of the ships, which isn't to my tastes. Ironically I used to agree and believe the Conquest was the best looking, but as the rest of the ships grew on my more and more I've actually started to hate it for the reasons I stated. It's two battleships stabled together and pushed by an engine, I can't get that image out of my head.

I hope someone will make an EVE Online total conversion soon.

[Schwartz]

The Conquest's shape is sleek and stylish and very midline. I think it was one of the earliest ships in the game. You can see some of that old-style 'Giger'-esque greeble in its engine section and I personally love that. There are some ships that could do with a makeover but the Conquest ain't one of them. (Looking at you, Apogee & Doom)

[StarScum]

The Conquest's shape is sleek and stylish and very midline. I think it was one of the earliest ships in the game. You can see some of that old-style 'Giger'-esque greeble in its engine section and I personally love that. There are some ships that could do with a makeover but the Conquest ain't one of them. (Looking at you, Apogee & Doom)

The Conquest is unique in that its poor art design actually makes it a worse ship mechanically. Having two different struts with turrets that can't turn 180 degrees means you have to spend points arming both if you want 180 coverage, a flaw which could be rectified if they just merged together. I suppose you could argue that having two struts means you can engage enemies on either side, but I doubt you could keep up the fire with that many guns going off.

Many players have said that its optimal to have an asymmetrical gun layout with heavy guns only taking up one side of the ship, and that just hurts my soul to look at or even think about. The ship would be so much better if it was just one long hull.

[Schwartz]

Since we're talking about mechanics and design.. the Conquest is also perfect for kiting beam ships because it's got a canyon going right down the middle.