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Author Topic: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong  (Read 7223 times)

Schwartz

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #15 on: July 29, 2019, 10:22:06 AM »

Look at it this way. Sabots are dangerous, but at least you have the ability handle them. They're super slow. If they get to you AND you can't handle them AND they hit shields, then they are trouble. Their ideal target is a ship with its shields up, which leaves you with some choices.

When Harpoons are incoming, they come at you fast and it's usually during an overload. So you can kiss your ship bye-bye.
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Arakasi

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #16 on: July 29, 2019, 11:51:18 AM »

Look at it this way. Sabots are dangerous, but at least you have the ability handle them. They're super slow. If they get to you AND you can't handle them AND they hit shields, then they are trouble. Their ideal target is a ship with its shields up, which leaves you with some choices.

When Harpoons are incoming, they come at you fast and it's usually during an overload. So you can kiss your ship bye-bye.

They're slow, but on anything but the most well defended ships (by fighters that are not otherwise occupied, multiple burst PD lasers, or Paladins) their flak usually initiates before the missile is destroyed. They get their most value when they hit shields, but they are also quite devastating regardless. The thing is with Harpoons or Atropos or even Reapers is that they are finishers - you have to do some amount of work (getting a ship to overload given roughly equal matchups is rather difficult), Sabots are good all the time.

Again, i must re-emphasise that in my personal games I have nerfed a whopping 25% of the damage that they do, from 200 to 150 damage, and from 400 to 300 emp damage. They are still quite strong in my campaign despite the nerf, but I no longer feel the need to mass spam them with hordes of Longbows, which is roughly where I think they should be balance-wise. When your ship needs to tip the scales, to push the enemy over the edge of flux, or to just increase their average flux to get an edge (as achieved with Longbows) they are a wonderful tool.
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Thaago

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #17 on: July 29, 2019, 12:09:22 PM »

Well Aurora's don't need sabots, they just help it in its best role as a burst killer.
No, that's Afflictor. Reaper variant + skilled character one-shots any non-omni Capital (or brings omni Capital close to death, to be finished off by AM variant). AM variant one-shots frigates/DEs and two-shots cruisers.

I didn't say it was the best burst killer, I said that is the strongest role of an Aurora. Word order.
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Megas

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #18 on: July 29, 2019, 12:22:23 PM »

Anti sabot-PD requires LRPD, IPDAI Tac lasers, IPDAI Railguns, or Heavy Burst Lasers.  Anything else probably lacks range.

If I spam all of my Sabots on one ship, that ship had better die.  Otherwise, I am better off leaving the mount empty and putting OP in more useful stat like flux stats to support bigger guns or Hardened Shields.  (Better yet, bring few quad Reaper Afflictors and kill one or two ships or battlestation sections per ship painlessly.)

Whenever I dump a ton of Sabots, enemy tends to drop shields and armor tank.  Single slug sabots would have wrecked the enemy, but this version may or may not, depending if the spreads work out.

The only time Sabots may feel overwhelming is Longbow spam from a skilled carrier.  (Last version had Hammer spam from three-wing Perditions that killed everything.)  Even then, I do not use only Longbows for bombers.  They get mixed up with Dagger/Cobra/Perdition/Khopesh.

Fighter spam from carriers can make some missiles more powerful than from ships.  If Dagger spam was not so effective, Atropos might have done 1200 damage instead of 1000 after its OP costs were slashed after 0.7.2.  Similarly, proxy bombs are awful, except on Flash wings.

I think Harpoons are underwhelming.  Too slow without Missile Specialization, too easy to shoot down, and AI wastes most or all of them on the first vulnerable target (especially if an insignificant unshielded enemy ship approaches first).  No good in an endgame fight against ten capitals and more big ships.

Well Aurora's don't need sabots, they just help it in its best role as a burst killer.
No, that's Afflictor. Reaper variant + skilled character one-shots any non-omni Capital (or brings omni Capital close to death, to be finished off by AM variant). AM variant one-shots frigates/DEs and two-shots cruisers.

I didn't say it was the best burst killer, I said that is the strongest role of an Aurora. Word order.
This is my biggest complaint with Aurora, given its cost.  If I try to use it as an endurance brawler like other cruisers and capitals, it is underwhelming.  If I use it as a burst attacker, I feel like I pay too much DP (not to mention supplies and fuel) to do what a cheaper ship can do (especially Afflictor).  If Aurora did not cost more than 25 DP, I probably would be fine with it.  At 30 DP, I feel like I should spend a bit more to get Doom or a real capital that can wreck fleets until PPT times out.
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TaLaR

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #19 on: July 29, 2019, 12:34:31 PM »

Well Aurora's don't need sabots, they just help it in its best role as a burst killer.
No, that's Afflictor. Reaper variant + skilled character one-shots any non-omni Capital (or brings omni Capital close to death, to be finished off by AM variant). AM variant one-shots frigates/DEs and two-shots cruisers.

I didn't say it was the best burst killer, I said that is the strongest role of an Aurora. Word order.
Touché.
Though I'd rather use full hard-flux optimized Aurora without any missiles, if at all. Exactly because SO or Sabot just can't hold a candle to much cheaper Afflictor, which also happens to be more fun to pilot.
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Thaago

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #20 on: July 29, 2019, 12:42:34 PM »

Confession: I can't stand piloting phase ships so I don't know how this version's Afflictor compares. They are certainly powerful, but its just sooo boooring to slowly toddle around the battlefield while phased, with nothing moving or threatening me.
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TaLaR

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #21 on: July 29, 2019, 01:36:46 PM »

Confession: I can't stand piloting phase ships so I don't know how this version's Afflictor compares. They are certainly powerful, but its just sooo boooring to slowly toddle around the battlefield while phased, with nothing moving or threatening me.

Phased Afflictor with player skills has above 200 subjective speed. Still faster than most ships using zero flux boost.

And you could use speedup mod http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0 or cheat engine speedhack to skip the boring approach.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #22 on: July 29, 2019, 01:52:15 PM »

I also find the aurora way more fun to pilot than phase ships so that's definitely subjective.

If the afflictor can compare to the aurora in power, that's evidence that it ought to be nerfed (a lot) IMO, not that the aurora is not balanced (although the aurora could also use a little help imo). At the very least, the aurora can tank damage to protect allies, and peak performance is also nice. It can at least kill anything an afflictor can kill except maybe a top tier battle station or a few optimized capitals in 1v1s (so I would object to the phrase 'can't hold a candle to'), but obviously the deployment cost of a frigate is much cheaper so if you care about supplies a lot, afflictor is much better. I would rather have a challenge piloting than a simple repetitive win button though, so I just don't use phase ships except the doom occasionally.
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Avanitia

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #23 on: July 29, 2019, 03:13:40 PM »

From my experience sabots are very... binary to fight - either you manage to shot them down (if you have good PD weapons), avoid them (if you're fast enough / have mobility system) or you get hit by devastating strike of Kinetic + EMP mix which punishes you doesn't matter if you get hit on shields or on hull.

I think sabots could use a bit of nerf, lowering amount of EMP damage dealt and decrease chance of arcs happening (ever so slightly) - so even when you manage to turn off your shield and get hit on hull, you're not suffering that much.

Look at it this way. Sabots are dangerous, but at least you have the ability handle them. They're super slow. If they get to you AND you can't handle them AND they hit shields, then they are trouble. Their ideal target is a ship with its shields up, which leaves you with some choices.

When Harpoons are incoming, they come at you fast and it's usually during an overload. So you can kiss your ship bye-bye.

The part about sabots would be true if you could reliably kill at least some of them when you're a target of Sabot barrage. There's also a part that Sabots have 1.2k range, so both AI and player tend to fire them in small distance from the enemy - which more often than not makes them impossible to shot down.

I also find the aurora way more fun to pilot than phase ships so that's definitely subjective.

If the afflictor can compare to the aurora in power, that's evidence that it ought to be nerfed (a lot) IMO, not that the aurora is not balanced (although the aurora could also use a little help imo). At the very least, the aurora can tank damage to protect allies, and peak performance is also nice. It can at least kill anything an afflictor can kill except maybe a top tier battle station or a few optimized capitals in 1v1s (so I would object to the phrase 'can't hold a candle to'), but obviously the deployment cost of a frigate is much cheaper so if you care about supplies a lot, afflictor is much better. I would rather have a challenge piloting than a simple repetitive win button though, so I just don't use phase ships except the doom occasionally.

Phase ships are quite often stronger than their non-phase counterparts. Afflictor can use its system to support allies to deal with very dangerous / heavily armored target (entropy amplifier is really good in support-ish role from my experience). IMO - Doom is actually more of a win button than other phase ships - mines are way too powerful, especially when you fight more than one Doom and you can put together very kite-y loadout which abuses the system massively.
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Megas

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #24 on: July 29, 2019, 03:19:01 PM »

Afflictor is up there with Reaper Harbinger.  If you do not need Quantum Disruptor to drop shields, Afflictor can output even more burst than Harbinger due to four Reapers plus its system.  Against battlestations, think Quake deathmatch.  You do not aim at target, you aim at the wall or floor (rocket at the guy's feet) for easy frag via splash damage.  Reaper Afflictor plays almost identically to Reaper Harbinger except it has much less ammo (which is why I bring from three to five Afflictors instead of two Reaper Harbinger).  Want to weaken Afflictor?  Change two of the mounts to hybrid, or change Entropy Amplifier to maybe... Active Flares like it used to have.  Since Harbinger lost missiles, I now use it for AM Blaster duty for anti-small ship.

I do not like Aurora because its shot range is crap, and it lost even more flux stats in 0.9.  Without missiles, I find it hard to win flux wars because of terrible shot range and inefficient weapons.  At the very least, Aurora needs its 0.8 flux stats or even pre-0.8 (when cap was 15k, instead 12k then 11k), if it keeps 30 DP cost.  11k is only 1k over Eagle, but Eagle can use more efficient and effective weapons.

Aurora was fun when it had its large missile like in 0.7.1 and earlier.  Now, all Aurora is, is an oversized fist-fighter.  Aurora is probably the only ship I can justify mounting Ion Pulser on.

@ intrinsic_parity: If I want a ship for burst damage, I want something very good at it, and Afflictor is great against one or two big things.  If Aurora is out of missiles after the third or so opponent before being reduced to two heavy blasters and not enough flux stats to support them, why did I pay 30 DP when 8 DP (Afflictor) or 10 DP (SO Hammerhead) or 15 DP (Hyperion) or 20 DP (Harbinger) or even 25 DP (SO Dominator) could have done the job?  If I need a cruiser-sized brawler, Apogee or Eagle seem more useful for their price.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #25 on: July 29, 2019, 04:31:39 PM »

Mines don't one shot capitals and cruisers though. Don't get me wrong the doom is very strong, but it's not even close to the same value per dp as afflictor with torpedos. I just find that play style incredibly unfun to play. Doom needs support from other ships and it generally is harder to utilize and it also costs as much as a capital to use. It's at least close to balanced for its (capital sized) deployment/upkeep. I don't think it does much more work than an onslaught would.

@ Megas
An aurora with two sabot pods and expanded missile racks has 48 sabots. I struggle to use all of those in many fights, even if I spam them. You don't need them to kill anything less than a cruiser but you can use them to kill destroyers very fast if you aren't expecting to need them all for cruisers. It also can have 8 reapers in the small forward hybrids. I see the offensive capability as 2 or 4 sabots and then heavy blasters to finish and occasionally reapers for the big stuff. You have enough to kill up to 12 cruisers (if you use 4 sabots per cruiser) and as many destroyers/frigates as you want. That's enough for a lot of fights. If I need to kill more with just my flagship, I pilot a different ship.

I would agree it's pretty overpriced for its usefulness, but I have a lot of fun piloting it so I don't really care. I agree it's a bit underpowered at the moment but I just like the play style.

I find it useful as a flagship for any fight that doesn't have multiple capitals. If I have an odyssey, I often fly that instead though, it's generally better at the same job and also can fight capitals decently in a fleet.
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Thaago

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #26 on: July 29, 2019, 05:28:50 PM »

For phase vs Aurora in terms of cost: I think this has more to do with the power of a phase ship in player hands than the cost of the Aurora: Afflictors and Harbingers are stupid powerful for their cost.

Compared to other cruisers I think the price is about right in player hands: the thing is an absolute murder machine, and I would rank it as 20% more powerful than a dominator, 36% more powerful than an Eagle - or more to be honest. Shot range doesn't matter on such a fast ship when piloted by the player - the AI is more vulnerable to long range because of its rudimentary threat assessment and its penchant (bug?) for just kind of hanging out in enemy ship's weapon arcs.

Blech, now I want to do a tritach run... but I'm not done with Enforcers yet! Ya'll keep getting me excited about other playstyles.
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Megas

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #27 on: July 30, 2019, 08:04:33 AM »

That is another reason why I do not like Aurora.  AI does not use them very well, at least not for their cost.  AI probably needs to be Aggressive just to get close enough to use Aurora effectively.  (Steady is too cowardly for Aurora.)  Same thing with Odyssey.  Player does alright with Odyssey, while AI uses it like an Onslaught and dies quickly due to careless use of Plasma Burn combined with less firepower (without plasma cannons) and defenses.  I want to pilot a killer capital that can wipe fleets, not an overpriced and overclocked fist-fighter.  Phase ships not Doom are also effectively player-only, but at least they are cheaper.  By endgame, if a small ship is not powerful enough, it gets passed in favor of a capital.

Quote
Afflictors and Harbingers are stupid powerful for their cost.
Afflictor is probably unbalanced (like a glass sword is) for its cost.  It probably needs either two of its mounts or its system changed.  Harbinger costs as much as a cruiser, it better be powerful.  With only AM Blasters, Harbinger is not that scary.  It can wipe several small ships that other destroyers have trouble doing, but it does not dominate big endgame fleets like other ships.  I bring Harbinger as a convenience option, something to pilot and clean out riff-raff while leaving my best ships under AI control or left undeployed to conserve CR.  Afflictor is a glass sword, something to use to eliminate a highly dangerous capital or battlestation section.  Harbinger used to do this, but without Reapers, either not anymore or much less efficiently than before (less than Afflictor, which is why I use mostly Afflictor for cheese kills).
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SCC

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #28 on: July 30, 2019, 09:18:51 AM »

Why does the sabot have EMP effect at all? If the target lowers its shields to soak it with armour, then well done. Smart move. Against all other missiles (save for squalls), you can just rise shields and massively decrease the threat it poses to you. If you get overloaded by a reaper or harpoons, you were overextended, overwhelmed, or otherwise losing the fight, but it might still be better than dying. Sabots, on the other hand, are good to use whether in sync with high explosive ordnance or just so. Additionally it hurts low tech ships more, since high tech ships have point defence better suited for dealing with sabots, better shields so that taking sabots on them is less hurtful, and almost all still have enough armour for sabots to barely scratch them.

xenoargh

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #29 on: July 30, 2019, 11:07:03 AM »

I don't have EMP on my Sabots.  They're only doing 250 a fragment.  They're still totally fine.  They do regenerate, so they're not just one-and-done, though the timer's so long they may as well be.
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