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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Vayra surfaces briefly from the depths to comment on every Starsector ship  (Read 5440 times)

Vayra

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that other thread got me thinking

but i don't wanna respond to it bc i have so many opinions so here are my hot takes all on their own instead

Fighters
Talon - perfect, now
Dagger - good, Atroposes are kinda crap on ships but on bombers they do great as an all-purpose strike weapon with infinite ammo
Wasp - idk i never play with Wasps. probably good
Xyphos - Too strong. Jesus, why do these things have shields and PD and come in a two-pack? A single respawning flux-free ion beam that fires over ships would be mean enough, even on a fragile body - though not at that OP cost, I guess. Still, Xyphos could bear a bit of a nerf.
Broadsword - why are these things "low tech" they're midline to a T. my beautiful perfect babies. broadswords are never a bad choice. strong but I think they're probably fine since bombers exist and every Broadsword wing you field is a bomber wing you don't.
Piranha - perfect.
Trident - idk if anyone uses these but they're pretty good. fill their niche of ultra-survivable bomber well.
Longbow - good
Mining Drone - still sucks but hey it's 0 OP. would be cool if they leaned into their niche of free ablative armor at the cost of a fighter bay a little harder. Make them a wing of 6? give them custom AI to fly into missiles? idk.
Gladius - weirdo. goes fast, shoots things alright, has single flares, does a little bit of everything. doesn't really know what it wants to be. still good though.
Warthog - why are these things "midline" they're low tech to a T. (EDIT: removed other comments, warthog is fine besides confusing tech level)
Thunder - i love thunder. so fast. so strong. so ion cannon. maybe too much ion cannon? Give it a single decoy flare or a high delay light mortar or something else wacky and make its ion cannon high delay IMO. Claws are kind of useless while Thunders have swarmers and LMGs and 8000 range and 400 speed and only 0.5 less ion cannon.
Claw - All it does is stay alive slightly better than a Thunder wing does while being a lot slower and not killing anything. Probably fine on its own but either Thunders need high delay ion cannons too or Claws need a little love.
Hoplon/Khopesh - got nerfed. still strong. still one of the better bombers. probably good.
Perdition - got nerfed. still strong. still one of the better bombers. probably good.
Cobra - fills its niche well. good.

Frigates
Wolf - perfect. my second favorite frigate after the Lasher.
Hound - hggggg i never fly a hound since we got hyperspace. but that might be okay. these things are the face of Starsector to the world and I feel like it'd be a mistake to change it. plus ACG buff loves them.
Hyperion - phase teleport would be cooler if it used less flux but had charges so the AI would be a little smarter with it, maybe. one charge to get in, one charge to get out. long enough reload time that you can chase it down in another fast frigate and punish it for its insolence.
Mercury -  you know where i stand on the mercury. give it ALWAYS_PANIC and increase the price by 2000cr to differentiate it from the much-worse-and-also-uncomfortable Hermes that currently sits at the same price point. my lovely earlygame missile boy.
Hermes - increase crew capacity a touch and make it cost 1 supply to maintain/deploy. maybe lower price by 500-1000cr. also give it all Hybrid mounts come on its allegedly midline. just do it. trust me. nobody flies a Hermes but i feel like that's kind of the point. i don't think they carry enough crew or are cheap enough given their description. why would you pay 4000cr for a Hermes when you can buy a shiny new Mercury for the same price, and pay the same in maintenance?! this is another one that i keep thinking is low-tech based on the sprite - and description.
Lasher - literally perfect. i love flying a lasher so much sometimes i don't deploy any of my other ships just to achieve maximum Lasher-to-hapless-enemy-that-Lasher-is-about-to-murder ratio. i usually also blow up but that's okay because lashers are so cheap and common. nothing compares to the rush of pressing F and staring down a destroyer with my 3 LDMGs and 2 LAGs and sometimes (usually) winning.
Omen - so mean. so strong. not too strong. just good.
Tempest - got nerfed, still strong, still real good, costs nearly as much as a destroyer so that seems okay though.
Brawler - god i hate that this has damper field. The LP and TT ones are excellent though. I guess damper field fits into the Midline frigate ethos of "here's a good fleet frigate but not one you'd ever want to fly". I'd feel better about this if Midline had a frigate i do want to fly but it doesn't and i feel like the Brawler with its angry weapon layout wants to be that but it's just not. most of it i think is that it's too slow to catch anything that it wants to kill. that's why the LP and TT ones are good, i guess. or you could go the other way and give the stock one a 20% weapon range boost and AAF or something, which would also be pretty cool.
Vigilance - Entirely outclassed in its niche. You could have a vigilance with a harpoon podmedium missile or you could pay one less supply and have a Buffalo Mk.II with a harpoon podmedium missile and a talon wing and two salamanders and an extra harpoon racksmall missile and an extra DP to do something with. and yeah buffalo mk.iis are too cheap but the Vigilance also needs a buff. EMR for free? ECCM? Super ECCM? drop it 1 supply/DP and nerf the Buffalo Mk.II? dunno, just throwing some ideas out.
Dram - i wish we had more tankers but yeah this is good
Afflictor - mhm mhm mhm. nice.
Shade - the Omen is a way cooler and less grief-y High Tech EMP frigate and the Afflictor is a way cooler High Tech phase frigate. god Shades are so mean. so mean. EMP on a phase ship. jesus. it's probably still okay but i'm on the fence about it.
Ox - it tugs.
Cerberus - not a combat freighter don't let it lie to you. also needs more differentiation. it could be faster? it could be tougher? it's already "the 100 cargo frigate that's faster than a shepherd and cheaper than a wayfarer" but that's not quite enough imo.
Monitor - Military Midline is weird at the frigate level, it has 3 frigates that all do the same thing (be slow and tank hits) in slightly different ways but only one of them is really good at it and it's this one. that's not a criticism of the monitor though, it's a criticism of the Centurion and (stock) Brawler. Also I keep thinking this thing is low tech - i guess it can't be because it has fortress shield and a bit of tan on it but something about the sprite just screams low tech to me.
Shepherd - so strong. not too strong. so good. perfect
Kite - why is this thing low-tech and the hermes midline. cool as hell besides that though. feels kinda weird that it's 9 burn when it's so fast in combat but i guess all the shuttles are 9 burn because civilian, right?
Mudskipper - secret OP logistics ship
Mudskipper Mk.2 - too weak okay i know the point is they're useless pirate crap for the player to kill but i can't help but wish they could be put to use. dunno what they'd need for that to happen without being too annoying to fight though.
Centurion - what does it do? I think it wants 10 more speed and Maneuvering Jets. you can outfit it with small guns and fly it into a fighter swarm, i guess, but you could do that with a Lasher and have more fun doing it, or a Scarab for style points. as mentioned in the Brawler and Monitor bits Midline has three tanky frigates but only one tanky frigate that's actually good at being tanky. it feels weird that Midline has all the slow tanky frigates and Low Tech has all the aggressive maneuverable fast shooty frigates, compared to how that's reversed in the larger ship classes.
Scarab - not very good. it's classy to have a prototype design in your game that is actually not very good as opposed to a video game trope "prototype" that just means "excellent" though. That said, I don't know what it needs to make it better - a single medium? better stats? it needs something though, for sure.
Wayfarer - wayfarers are cool. the description is one of my favorite pieces of writing in SS.
Gremlin - hahaha i love it. it's stupid. i love it.

Destroyers
Hammerhead - so good. so strong. but so good.
Sunder - perfect
Condor - are Condors garbage, or are they one of the best-balanced carriers in Starsector? nerf every other carrier and maybe make Condors cost 1 or 2 less supplies or something
Enforcer - not holding up to the standards of its Midline competitors. don't think it needs a huge buff though. maybe the slightest nudge - 50 more dissipation or 1.0 shields or something.
Buffalo - it's a buffalo you aren't supposed to like it. the myriad paint jobs are a nice touch. needs some reason why you'd take it over a Tarsus when it's strictly worse. 50 more cargo? 100? 1 less supply?
Gemini - the other best-balanced carrier in Starsector. Reserve Deployment is so strong that putting it on a relatively expensive combat freighter with a single bay is a stroke of genius. it just makes me wish i had a superfighter to put in it.
Tarsus - It's a low tech buffalo with more survivability, but it doesn't give up anything for it except for requiring 20 more crew and I guess it's in the low tech BP instead of the base one. It needs some reason for the player to not take it over a Buffalo. Efficiency of some sort would seem like the natural place, or you could buff the buffalo. Honestly I think buffing the buffalo is the better choice there. Also this is kind of an aside but I really, really want to see a Tarsus Mk.II, like a real pirate hackjob, not the semi-standardized Condor.
Valkyrie - the secret strength of the Valkyrie is that you can put Converted Hangar on it and it becomes an entirely viable cheapo carrier.
Buffalo Mk.II - oh god i don't want to say it but i gotta say it. the Buffalo Mk.II is too strongtoo cheap. 4 DP is just way too little for something with that many missile mounts AND a destroyer body that you can put a Talon wing on. 5 would probably still be too little. 6 feels closer to right.
Medusa - the Medusa doesn't need a buff it just needs to be seen more often than once every 300 cycles when the moon phases align correctly but okay maybe also a few more OP to drive home that "elite" vibe its description and current rarity give off. Or make it show up in TT and Persean fleets with some regularity and drop its supply costs a point, either or.
Mule - Mules are so good. feels weird that the Pirate version is strictly better than the stock one when it's not even rare and hotrodded like the Falcon (P).
Phaeton - I wish we had more tankers that didn't look like the three we already have that all look the same, but yeah this is good too
crig - it's a crig. does anyone ever actually buy these? I'd rather have 3 shepherds or whatever and pay the supply premium but i guess there's a use case.
Nebula - it's a liner, it lines. nice. the range and cargo is a nice bonus. as a modder the sight of a nebula strikes fear into my bones so i wish you'd do something weirder with missing variants, personally - though this is better for the casual player i suppose.
Harbinger - misses its typhoons but they needed to be taken away from it for its own damn good
Drover - Too strong. RD is so strong and on a fast, survivable destroyer carrier with two decks it verges on ridiculous. make it cost light cruiser supplies or something IMO - right now you pay a token amount more than a Condor and get way more carrier for your DP.
Shrike - Shrikes are so cool and good. The token OP drop on the (P) version almost balances out the ballistic weapon, but not quite. that's probably okay though.

Cruisers
Falcon - pretty damn good at what it does. i think it's in a good place.
Eagle - see above
Venture - ventures are nice. I feel like the Mining Drone wing is just window dressing, but that's more a Mining Drone problem than it is a Venture problem.
Apogee - cool and good. nice Paragon stand-in for the discerning tri-tachyon stoogeindependent AI war researcher
Dominator - Dominators are hard to fly but they're fun too imo
Aurora - Auroras are scary good, but their cost balances it out pretty well imo. need to exist more but i know you know that, heh
Doom - MINES M INES MINES MINES
Heron - I think carriers are too strong in general but I'm not certain the Heron is the place to do something about it.
Gryphon - excellent
Starliner - it's a colony ship in disguise as a cruise liner. kind of makes me wish we had a real colony ship.
Mora - oppressive. Damper Field on a carrier is super mean. If I had my way it'd have another turret or two, more OP, and Burn Drive and just be a baby Legion, but there's probably a bunch of other ways you could attack it. One interesting thing is that according to the desc, most (or all) Moras in the sector were once demilitarized salvage ships -- it'd be cool to see a Mora (S) or something (i guess not S, since that'd be military again, but yeah) that's outfitted as a salvage ship.
Colossus - we needed a cruiser-scale dedicated freighter and we got a cruiser-scale dedicated freighter. no complaints here.
Colossus Mk.II - I love these things. I love hammers.
Colossus Mk.III - it needs... something. what it needs, tbh, is an OP-cheap long-range support fighter with a tac laser or an AO LR PD laser. and a third stock deck and the ability to put Converted Hangar on it for even more, even shittier fighters, again

Capitals
Onslaught - it's big, it's angry, it's real good
Astral - I hate recall device. Give it charges or a cooldown or something, I'm begging you. Good besides that.
Atlas - shrug
Atlas Mk.II - this thing is excellent
Conquest - mhm real good
Paragon - it's broken but it's supposed to be broken. if you fight a Paragon you have only yourself to blame give it 6 burn lol
Odyssey - i wish i saw more of these
Prometheus - i wish we had more different tankers but i love the prometheus. its dark secret is that you never need that much fuel unless you're about to seed some poor planet's atmosphere with antimatter.
Prometheus Mk.II - you know, i've yet to actually have to fight one of these. that's kinda my fault though
Legion - Legion is the one of best balanced capital ships in SS IMO. Fitting one is a lot of fun because you have to decide if you want it to be more fighty than it is fighter, or more fighter than it is fighty.

[REDACTED]
not gonna talk about the SECRETS too much but

1) starsector needs an ancient domain mining drone with medium energies for that sweet mining blaster action
2) can you imagine how mean a [REDACTED] Xyphos-alike would be

if you put converted hangar on a ship, where does the shuttle pod come from?
« Last Edit: July 11, 2019, 07:28:16 PM by Vayra »
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im gonna push jangala into the sun i swear to god im gonna do it

SCC

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I knew having your mod moved to megamods section would make your ego skyrocket...

   Warthogs — my guess is that low-tech armour was too strong for fighters (not bombers) like that, so it was only after ships with lighter armour were out Warthog could come to be. I believe they already have full flares.
   Thunders — I think their biggest advantage is that they're fast, unlike Claws, so they can uncontrollably flail past the shields.

   Brawler — I will defend it with all my power and I'm going to say that Damper Field is a good system for this ship. It's supposed to go toe to toe with destroyers and perhaps not win, at least not alone, but put up a good fight at least. For Brawler, Damper Field is half about tanking, half free venting.
   Kite — It's one of the first space shuttles in Starsector universe. It's low-tech purely by age.
   Monitor — what, it's midline? I could swear it was high tech previously.
   Centurion — It's an escort ship, and damper field is okay on it. I think that it's supposed to be a ship that's useful to have, not to fly.
   
   Buffalo mk 2 — playing the actual game and participating in the tournament are two very different environments and you should not care too much about tournaments in balancing. It's cheap, but it's also very vulnerable to just about anything. If there isn't a wall of steel between them and the enemy, they are going to die.
   Shrike — I would not say pirate version is balanced. With another 5 OP less, then it probably would be worse, but as it is now, it's better.
   Mora — I dislike it both for its stupidity in 0.9 and for leading to a (temporary) nerf of Damper Field.

2) can you imagine how mean a [REDACTED] Xyphos-alike would be
Leave.

stormbringer951

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Hyperion - phase teleport would be cooler if it used less flux but had charges

But that's the thing that differentiates the Hyperion's unique playstyle from just being a ship with a souped-up phase skimmer, and makes it actually good and fun to pilot. You could argue it's bad design that the AI doesn't fly it very well, but I think it's a worthwhile trade-off to let players play around with the Hyperion and its spiritual brethren, the rule-breaking mod superfrigates.

Scarab - not very good. it's classy to have a prototype design in your game that is actually not very good as opposed to a video game trope "prototype" that just means "excellent" though. That said, I don't know what it needs to make it better - a single medium? better stats? it needs something though, for sure.

The Starlight Scarab from Underworld lets you mount a ballistic small on the centre small turret, which gives it a bit of a nudge, I think.
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Weapons Group Controls mod - deselect all weapon groups, hold-down hold-fire mode, toggle alternating/linked fire
Captain's Log - throw away your notepad: custom notes, ruins and salvageable reminders
Old Hyperion - for your dose of nostalgia
Adjustable Skill Thresholds - set fleet DP and fighter bay thresholds

Serenitis

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Hot takes on hot takes.

Quote
Wasp - idk i never play with Wasps. probably good
Wasp is cool. They're a cheapo self-reparing PD screen, that also leaves tiny mines all over the place.
Their main benefit is not using any crew, so they make an excellent choice for auxilliary/converted carriers where you almost certainly won't have the room for recovery shuttles.
Also good for swarms as losses don't really matter. IF you can find enough LPCs.

Quote
Trident - idk if anyone uses these but they're pretty good. fill their niche of ultra-survivable bomber well.
They are quite good. But on the flipside, they are really hard to use because they are just so expensive and difficult to justify having to strip out other things in order to fit them.
They can only really be used by capital carriers without giving up too much, and even then you might only be able to use one wing per carrier.

Quote
Vigilance - Entirely outclassed in its niche.
Its niche is uncatchable and annoying medium missile spammer. What else is doing this well enough that the Vigilance is useless?
I like these things, even though they really don't handle past the early/mid game all that well.
Wouldn't be opposed to having something like ECCM built-in. But wouldn't say its useless without.

Quote
crig - it's a crig. does anyone ever actually buy these?
Buy; no. Salvage; yes.
They're useful if you're leaning heavily into scavenging or doing long-range missions and running your fleet mostly/entirely off salvage.
Also useful if you want a recovery bonus but also want more fleet slots than using Sheps.
Otherwise they're just ornamental.
They're not in a bad place tbh. Just situational.

Quote
Mule - Mules are so good.
Yes. They really are.
Quote
feels weird that the Pirate version is strictly better than the stock one
Not as true as it used to be.
ALL Mules can now carry medium missiles since the main mount got changed to composite, which closed that gap well enough.
On the other hand, Pirate Mules are red and therefore intrinsically better.

Quote
Venture - ventures are nice. I feel like the Mining Drone wing is just window dressing, but that's more a Mining Drone problem than it is a Venture problem.
Venture was way better, and actually occaisionally attractive when the fighter bay could be used for whatever you wanted.
Even if it got converted hangar as a built-in so you can't really use bombers, that would make it a bit more tempting imo.

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Eji1700

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I think that some of these problems (less OP, more OP, less logistics, more logistics) can be solved by adjusting how ships are seen/acquired.

There's this inherent issue in that every fleet by mid game is made up of a mixture of roulette and if you chose a commission or not.  There's ships you WILL see (hammerhead) and then ships you almost never see (dusa) and I think there should be a lot more elegance to that system besides "are they stocked up/can my colony just make these"

This would allow the drover to exist as is (which it still probably shouldn't, but for the sake of argument) but be behind another gate of sorts.  You must have a commission to get a drover (and maybe a specific fleets commission rather than having it be a standard ship of the line) or you can spend a story point/hope to salvage one.
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Alex

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(Just wanted to say thank you; looked through the OP and made a few notes.)
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Megas

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Quote
Colossus Mk.III - it needs... something. what it needs, tbh, is an OP-cheap long-range support fighter with a tac laser or an AO LR PD laser. and a third stock deck and the ability to put Converted Hangar on it for even more, even shittier fighters, again
It has something:  Ground Support Package.  Good for raiding.  It is a campaign ship, part hauler, part raider.  It may stink at combat, but it is still useful as a stat stick.  Colossus 3 is much easier to come by than Valkyrie early in the game.

Re: Mora
Its best advantage is 15 or so more OP than Heron.  I often use it as a hybrid carrier/survey ship.  If Apogees and Shepherds are not enough, I bring Mora (instead of more Heron) with campaign mods to slash planet survey costs even more.
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Cycerin

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Good post. Echo that midline frigate options are a bit weird 'cause they are the only tech that without an appealing player ship in that size range. Kind of an issue of a lack of mobility and playmaking capabilities.
I would say a combat frigate with maneuvering jets is a good fit for midline, which is what I recall I hoped the Centurion would be when it first appeared in the patch notes. If anything, I feel like the Brawler and Centurion overlap too much. One has firepower but no PD, the other has PD but less firepower. Having no effective way to get PD is such a giant drawback for a ship that it needs a correspondingly huge advantage in other areas, which I feel the Brawler lacks - its survivabilty and strength is too greatly offset by the giant sucker punch of folding to stray Salamanders or fighter attacks.
However, I am of the (seemingly uncommon) opinion that the Centurion is not a bad ship, just not an exciting one. It could stand to be a tiny bit faster, I guess.

Vigilance: One of the hardest ships to get work done with, unless you are spamming them to get maximum Pilum saturation or something. I feel like the design could recieve a built in missile hullmod and still not be overpowered - it's a ship that always has one or more major weaknesses no matter how you outfit it, because even if you commit the medium turret to point defense, it still has a grand total of one turret to play with, and the missile carrying capacity isnt all that impressive.
If you compare it to the Wolf, you quickly begin to realize how outclassed it truly is, even just pound-for-pound without considering the insane utility of phase skimmers.
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Vayra

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(Just wanted to say thank you; looked through the OP and made a few notes.)

All I could hope for! I'm probably wrong about some of this but I figured I should probably post my thoughts so you could combine them with others, since I had a lot of thoughts.  ;D

Good post. Echo that midline frigate options are a bit weird 'cause they are the only tech that without an appealing player ship in that size range. Kind of an issue of a lack of mobility and playmaking capabilities.
I would say a combat frigate with maneuvering jets is a good fit for midline, which is what I recall I hoped the Centurion would be when it first appeared in the patch notes. If anything, I feel like the Brawler and Centurion overlap too much. One has firepower but no PD, the other has PD but less firepower. Having no effective way to get PD is such a giant drawback for a ship that it needs a correspondingly huge advantage in other areas, which I feel the Brawler lacks - its survivabilty and strength is too greatly offset by the giant sucker punch of folding to stray Salamanders or fighter attacks.
However, I am of the (seemingly uncommon) opinion that the Centurion is not a bad ship, just not an exciting one. It could stand to be a tiny bit faster, I guess.

Vigilance: One of the hardest ships to get work done with, unless you are spamming them to get maximum Pilum saturation or something. I feel like the design could recieve a built in missile hullmod and still not be overpowered - it's a ship that always has one or more major weaknesses no matter how you outfit it, because even if you commit the medium turret to point defense, it still has a grand total of one turret to play with, and the missile carrying capacity isnt all that impressive.
If you compare it to the Wolf, you quickly begin to realize how outclassed it truly is, even just pound-for-pound without considering the insane utility of phase skimmers.

I agree with you on the Centurion -- I don't think it's necessarily weak. It just lacks anything really appealing about it.
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im gonna push jangala into the sun i swear to god im gonna do it

Baqar79

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Just some opinions on some of the ships I've used, mostly about the ones I like:

FIGHTERS:
Spoiler
Wasps:
I quite like them despite their fragility, and actually prefer them over the Sparks for their faster replacement time and more constant PD damage.

Xyphos:
I never felt they were overpowered in my usage of them, but I mostly use them with Converted Hangar.  They don't contribute all that much to damage, but they do help mitigate ship damage a little when their EMP successfully disables an enemy ships weapon and their PD isn't too bad for the occasional incoming missile.  They're also very expensive (23 OP with Converted Hangar). I like them because they tend to keep crew casualties to a minimum on account of their durability, long range weapon, and that they must be within close range of a carrier. I would in fact prefer it if the Xyphos didn't migrate at all to other carriers. 
[close]

FRIGATES:
Spoiler
Wolf:
Good not great, would be nice if they were useful all through the game, but this will hopefully change with the new skill system changes.

Omen:
I originally thought these were too cheap for how good they were when first playing 0.9a but have since changed my mind in 0.9.1a.  They are still however excellent, and I still made use of them during my last play through.  I'm I always impressed at how much damage these little frigates can take with their superb 360 degree shields and their EMP attack is reasonably effective against exposed hulls.

Tempest:
Didn't like the changes that were made to the ship at first, nor the increased cost initially, but grew to really enjoy this ship in my last game.  I normally give AI full control of my fleet only occasionally taking control; but I had so much fun piloting this ship that I found myself taking a more active part in battle.  Even invested precious Character points in Helmsmanship & Evasive action to further improve my experience with this ship. Without a doubt my favourite frigate.

Ox:
I found it too expensive and slow for what it is meant to do.  In the End I just build in Augmented Drives into my Capitals if their speed was slower than 8 burn (Paragon or Onslaught).  I think the base maximum burn speed of the Ox should be increased to 9.  With the ability to build in a couple of hull-mods in the future it should become pretty nice with the Augmented Drive Field hull-mod.
[close]

DESTROYERS:
Spoiler
Medusa:
Have never found a place for this ship, as I've don't seem to be able to put together a load out that I felt did well in the AI's hands.  Visually it is a very nice looking ship, but I would like to see it get a massive buff to it's overall OP so that I could experiment more with several different hull-mod combinations.  As it is, I don't have much breathing room to try out even a couple of hull-mods without sacrificing Capacitors or Vents.

Tarsus:
Yep agree that the buffalo isn't currently a worthwhile consideration when placed against the Tarsus.  The old version of the Buffalo had a base speed of 9 while the Tarsus was 8 which meant you could choose a more vulnerable Buffalo for better campaign map burn speed or a sturdy Tarsus to have a better chance of escaping when caught by a hostile fleet (Although I just realized that with the Tarsus's 12 additional OP, you can squeeze on Augmented Drive Field for 16 OP, only coming out 4 OP less than the Buffalo, so perhaps that wasn't really so much as an advantage as me completely overlooking that with the Tarsus!).
[close]

CRUISERS:
Spoiler
Falcon(P):
Absolutely fantastic missile boat in the AI's hands with an appropriately skilled officer.  I'm pretty hopeless with switching missile groups, but the AI seems to be very competent with this ship, and I find it pretty satisfying just to watch the AI pilot this ship.  On top of the base Falcon it has two expensive hull-mods built in making it the fastest Cruiser in the game unless you are using the Aurora's Plasma Jets (Although it must be said that while Plasma Jets have a higher top speed then Maneuvering Jets, they don't stay active as long).

Apogee:
My favourite ship in the game (although I'm quite fond of the insanely powerful Paragon as well); Low OP cost, great shields, fuel efficient, good amount of cargo space, a decent sized fuel tank and built in Surveying Equipment; the perfect ship for the intrepid explorer.
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CAPITAL:
Spoiler
Onslaught:
Mostly I keep with high-tech ships, but where before I had an outright aversion to them prior to 0.9a I'm slowly warming up to them.  Much prefer the XIV version; not just because of the stat buffs, but also because the Orange and Black colour scheme looks really good on it.  Currently I feel a little bit OP starved and wouldn't mind a buff to the amount of OP (I install all of the hull and armour reinforcing hull-mods), but being able to integrate a couple of hull-mods in a future version will help here.

Conquest:
Yesterday: "Why are the shields so crap and why does it have such pitiful armour!", I never gave this ship a fair try, completely ignoring it since I was so focused on how fragile it appeared on paper.  It was only on taking a second look, that  I noticed it's Paragon level Flux Dissipation, went "hmmm..." and wondered what I could do with that. Several hours later after coming up with a configuration that worked well in the AI's hands, I think I'm beginning to understand why it is liked despite it's weaknesses. 

Paragon:
Seems to be the most powerful capital ship in the game. Incredible durability and range.  Under AI control and in tough battles (remnants or fully upgraded starbases) it can be a little nerve racking to watch, although while I'm not much better than the AI, piloting the Paragon definitely makes me feel powerful.  I can easily imagine many a Paragon captain succumbing to hubris while commanding this technological marvel.
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« Last Edit: July 12, 2019, 02:45:04 AM by Baqar79 »
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Megas

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Centurion is good, at least as an AI ship early.  It does not have the flux stats to support a bunch of autocannons, LAGs, and railguns.  This is a case where the upgrade to Light Mortar's range (to 600) has made the weapon good.  Instead of mounting a single LAG, Centurion can mount two Light Mortars (on the side mounts) for near LAG performance for less OP and flux cost.  Centurion is also quite tanky for early game.  As for player use, I do not care because I already have a better ship to pilot (if I use fast starts).

If only Scarab had an energy weapon similar to Light Mortar.  (Not Mining Laser, that needs a ton of hullmods and/or skill support to be made useful.)  Hmmm, maybe make some of the mounts synergy, then Scarab can use those extra mounts for more Hammers.
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Schwartz

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Mostly I agree with these, especially those ships that we want to see more of.. Aurora, Odyssey, Medusa.

It seems we all decided Enforcers are bad now, which I don't understand. They're fine, bordering on very good. Where else are you gonna get nice armor, 5 mediums and 4 small missile slots - all usable?

Damper field is weird. It just makes stuff die slower, which is no good for player fleets but will give the impression that some ships in AI hands are way better than others. Mora in player fleets isn't that much better than Heron, but on the enemy team they're a pain to deal with. Brawler is a brick but does very little on the battlespace. I almost never see these putting pressure on bigger ships - what they're supposed to do. Usually they're busy dying slowly.

Centurion is quite good. It stays alive and it deals damage better than a Brawler.
Yeah, Heron is definitely not the high water mark for carriers. It's just about okay.
Drover took up the mantle of destroyer carrier when Condor and Gemini became worse. It's quite vulnerable actually, but the OP, hangars & ship system combo just makes it the smallest common denominator for overpowered carrier fleets. If I had to fix carriers, I'd start by fixing fighters.
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MesoTroniK

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The issue is less that the Enforcer is not good enough... And more than the Hammerhead is too good.

A subtle way to nudge it back to a more reasonable state would be to make two of its small hybrid turrets energy instead.

Vayra

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The issue is less that the Enforcer is not good enough... And more than the Hammerhead is too good.

A subtle way to nudge it back to a more reasonable state would be to make two of its small hybrid turrets energy instead.

Hmm yeah, fair. Hell, swap the front smalls to Energy and make the rears no longer converge forward. I've never really understood why they do in the first place -- it's a bit silly and just adds more power to a ship that doesn't need to be any stronger, heh.
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Kadur Remnant: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649
Vayra's Sector: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16058
Vayra's Ship Pack: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16059

im gonna push jangala into the sun i swear to god im gonna do it

MesoTroniK

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Also sensible Vayra.

But in the end, a number of SS ships got power creeped... And in an ideal world you don't fix power creep with more power creep heh.
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