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[StarScum]

Relative cost wise, how does a Brawler frigate with 2 Assault Chainguns and 2 Light Needlers compare with a Hammerhead with those plus Harpoons and 2 PD lasers?

I'm looking for ships to get up in the enemy's face and keep them away from my long range carriers.

I'm assuming the Hammerhead is going to be better due to its larger OP and Accelerated Ammo Feeder but I want your opinions.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm intending for these ships to be used by the AI.

[Megas]

Brawler has no rear defenses at all.  Salamanders are practically fatal to it, even with Damper Field up.  Brawler needs escorts to work.

At least Hammerhead can have some PD or spend some of its generous OP total for Extended Shields for full 360 coverage.

[Thaago]

Brawler is a decent ship once it has escorts, as Megas said.

Hammerhead is top tier - for general purpose "shoot stuff, don't die" work its fantastic, and can deal with a wide variety of threats.

[Goumindong]

Well, with your fit.. really poorly. The Hammerhead cannot fire 2 Assault Chainguns even with max vents and SO, let alone two Light Needlers on top of that. It can barely fire one. And it cant really fit 2 AC and 2 Light Needlers with max vents anyway. So the fact that it cannot fire them WITH the SO it cannot even come close to fitting with at the same time as those weapons and max vents is irrelevant. 2 AC's and LN is 1080 flux/second and max vents you've got 500 dissipation. You've got decent shields at .8 and so you're just chugging if you do that.

One Assault Chaingun. One Heavy Machine Gun (or 2 DLMG's), Safety Overrides, 10 Vents, 5 cap. If you want missiles you can drop the 5 cap for something but like... Eh. Sabots are OK/Nice though. If you fit 2 DLMG's then you can go to 7 vents and 8 cap. This gives you more raw oomph but you will fire a lot later with the LDMG's so the HMG might be better anyway.

Brawler is very good as a player SO ship and OK as an AI SO ship. Especially for its Deployment costs (you get 2.5 Brawler for each Hammerhead!)

Buuut

The Luddic Path Brawler is something else. It also costs 4 DP to use... but it gets SO for free... AND it has accelerated Ammo feeder. The LP brawler is amazing

[StarScum]

Well, with your fit.. really poorly. The Hammerhead cannot fire 2 Assault Chainguns even with max vents and SO, let alone two Light Needlers on top of that. It can barely fire one. And it cant really fit 2 AC and 2 Light Needlers with max vents anyway. So the fact that it cannot fire them WITH the SO it cannot even come close to fitting with at the same time as those weapons and max vents is irrelevant. 2 AC's and LN is 1080 flux/second and max vents you've got 500 dissipation. You've got decent shields at .8 and so you're just chugging if you do that.

One Assault Chaingun. One Heavy Machine Gun (or 2 DLMG's), Safety Overrides, 10 Vents, 5 cap. If you want missiles you can drop the 5 cap for something but like... Eh. Sabots are OK/Nice though. If you fit 2 DLMG's then you can go to 7 vents and 8 cap. This gives you more raw oomph but you will fire a lot later with the LDMG's so the HMG might be better anyway.

Brawler is very good as a player SO ship and OK as an AI SO ship. Especially for its Deployment costs (you get 2.5 Brawler for each Hammerhead!)

Buuut

The Luddic Path Brawler is something else. It also costs 4 DP to use... but it gets SO for free... AND it has accelerated Ammo feeder. The LP brawler is amazing

Right. I always forget about the flux. What about 1 Chain Gun, 1 Heavy Machine gun, 1 Harpoon MRM, and 4 Vulkans? Do you think it would be possible to swap the HMG for a H. autocannon? I'm worried it'll be underpowered compared to the chain gun.

[Goumindong]

Well, with your fit.. really poorly. The Hammerhead cannot fire 2 Assault Chainguns even with max vents and SO, let alone two Light Needlers on top of that. It can barely fire one. And it cant really fit 2 AC and 2 Light Needlers with max vents anyway. So the fact that it cannot fire them WITH the SO it cannot even come close to fitting with at the same time as those weapons and max vents is irrelevant. 2 AC's and LN is 1080 flux/second and max vents you've got 500 dissipation. You've got decent shields at .8 and so you're just chugging if you do that.

One Assault Chaingun. One Heavy Machine Gun (or 2 DLMG's), Safety Overrides, 10 Vents, 5 cap. If you want missiles you can drop the 5 cap for something but like... Eh. Sabots are OK/Nice though. If you fit 2 DLMG's then you can go to 7 vents and 8 cap. This gives you more raw oomph but you will fire a lot later with the LDMG's so the HMG might be better anyway.

Brawler is very good as a player SO ship and OK as an AI SO ship. Especially for its Deployment costs (you get 2.5 Brawler for each Hammerhead!)

Buuut

The Luddic Path Brawler is something else. It also costs 4 DP to use... but it gets SO for free... AND it has accelerated Ammo feeder. The LP brawler is amazing

Right. I always forget about the flux. What about 1 Chain Gun, 1 Heavy Machine gun, 1 Harpoon MRM, and 4 Vulkans? Do you think it would be possible to swap the HMG for a H. autocannon? I'm worried it'll be underpowered compared to the chain gun.

MRM and vulcans are pointless. Better to have torpedos.  The LP brawler is good for loads of stuff but even a regular SO brawler will have a tough time trading flux with a bigger combat ship. And because you have no turrets you can have a tough time with frigates as its hard to get your guns on them.

No reason to use an HAC over an HMG though its possible.

The default brawler fit is probably the best given its so hard to make an SO brawler work. It has 2 Arbalests, 2 annihilators, and enough cap to fire them. At a longer range it can avoid fire and also disengage to reset when it gets fluxed out. With the annihilators it can put rear pressure and kill pressure on plenty of ships. 

[Thaago]

2 Assault Chainguns works just fine with SO on a Hammerhead - I've got a 2 ACG, 4x DLMG setup that only has 15 vents and its works great. By which I mean it murders everything so hard its astonishing. It has the D mod for less PPT and I can still before PPT runs out destroy an entire mid sized fleet with multiple enemy cruisers with just it and a small support fleet (1 other non-SO Hammerhead, 1 Talon Condor, 2 Wolves).

The only enemies I'd recommend going HMG + ACG instead of 2 ACG against is Remnants and maaaaybe a high tech Apogee fleet. Otherwise 4x DLMG is sufficient shield breaking, and the extra kill power is astonishing.

[Goumindong]

I said hammerhead but i meant brawler. The Brawler cannot fit 2 AC's and 2 LN's. The Hammerhead can (though not sure it should)

[Thaago]

Ah ok, I was really confused there 

[Gotcha!]

A Hammerhead with two Assault Chain Guns is crazy fun. Hop in, accelerate ammo, unload, destroy, get out.

[Goumindong]

Hammerhead with SO is fast enough that you can run LDMG's and save yourself 8 OP. And like

1 HMG, 1 AC, 1 LDMG/LDAC, 1 HAG still kills things plenty quick (but is safer against bigger ships due to better kinetic DPS). Or 1 AC, 1 HMG, 2 LDMG's...

You don't need 2 AC's vs anything but like.. making it faster to kill a dominator. But you can use more kinetic damage against almost anything that might flux dump you out. Plus Burst is only good against smaller ships shields and you don't have a problem with smaller ships shields when you have DLMG's/HMGs.

[Thaago]

I'm sure that all of those combos will work! With the exception of Remnant cruisers who actually have tough shields and deep flux pools, I feel like 4xDLMG (~800 kinetic damage) is enough though. Apogees and Auroras (and Paragons but an SO Hammerhead probably can't get in range without getting popped) would probably also want a shift to ACG+HMG+4xDLMG, but I haven't really fought those this playthrough. As I think Megas has pointed out in the past, a lot of the most important enemies for the player to kill in the early and mid game have poor shields, so ships don't need too much kinetic.

What 2xACG gets you is kill times that are blazing fast, so as Gotcha! said, so you can hit and run just popping enemy ships and getting out. Destroyers are dead in one pass (against weak destroyers that are close together I can kill 2 enemy destroyers before the ship system deactivates). How fast I can maul a cruiser is important because they often have both escorts and decent weapons: if I can't get in a lot of hull damage in my window of opportunity, it might be a while before I have a good chance to dart in again.

(This is imo the principle difference between piloting an SO Hammerhead vs and SO Dominator: Hammerhead has, for its deployment cost, more firepower and is faster, but is only a medium destroyer in toughness and can get wrecked by ranged heavy fire. Dominators are so tough that you can push through almost any obstacle without worrying.)

[Goumindong]

The rear dlmg can barely reach the front of the ship. I leave em empty as often as not

[StarScum]

For the small front turrets on the Hammerhead would you recommend dual autocannons or dual light machine guns? I'd go with the machine guns but their range is lacking on paper, I want the anti-shield weapons firing ASAP while I close with the chain gun.

[goduranus]

Use railguns? More range and efficiency.