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Author Topic: Overrated (overpriced) ships  (Read 43043 times)

sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #60 on: August 24, 2019, 05:53:24 AM »

In mainline battle, yeah cruisers are as useful in capital ship fights as they were in real life (not.) But for long range expeditions against anything but the strongest opponents, cruisers serve that nice role as tactical capital ships or as stronger escorts then destroyers.

Bang for buck, a battleship is the best (Or super carrier) but for affordable flexibility or cost effectiveness on the rim anything bigger then an Eagle is simply a waste of supplies and fuel. Which is kind of the purpose of cruisers, to cruise.
Ok I understand your point.  I don't really agree because I consider Cruisers to be woefully underpowered for their weight class, but I definitely know the value of fielding a smaller force for an appropriate task.  I recommend the Odyssey still though as a cruiser-capital hybrid.  It fills every role a cruiser can, while also bringing more firepower and defense, and a pretty good logistical profile as well especially when you consider its cargo/fuel/crew capacity.  The Odyssey is arguably the best one-ship fleet you can have.


Just to put this in terms of the original topic: Overrated/overpriced ships?  Every non-carrier, non-phase cruiser in the game
« Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 05:55:30 AM by sotanaht »
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Megas

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #61 on: August 24, 2019, 06:03:46 AM »

For combat with cruiser-capital hybrid, I prefer Doom over Odyssey.  Dooms are a bit cheaper and tend to stay alive longer.  Also, it is a pain to outfit Odyssey.  A good offensive loadout for player will probably get AI killed, and a good support loadout for AI will be underpowered for player use.

Also, Conquest is cheaper than Odyssey and is powerful enough to fight as a battleship.

Speaking of Odyssey, I experimented with a variation of the shotgun build posted pages back.  Replaced lance with HIL and MIRV with Squalls.  Seems to function decently.  Works well against (smaller?) human fleets.  Not very good against a big Ordos fleet.
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Plantissue

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #62 on: August 24, 2019, 06:12:23 AM »

Another way of thinking about it is capitals condense a lot firepower into one fleet slot but also a lot supply/fuel consumption. You don't have the option to deploy 1/3 of a paragon but you can deploy 1 of your 3 eagles. You also can't leave 1/3 of your paragon at home but you can take 2 out of 3 eagles. My goal is to spend the least number of supplies per combat, and cruisers IMO are the best way of achieving that for most battles. The two important considerations are supply cost to deploy and peak performance time. Frigates and destroyers do not last long enough in combat because of PPT and so you spend many extra supplies on recovering lost CR. Capitals do not have the granularity to minimize supply cost to deploy.

There are also skills that decrease enemy range and increase your speed based on the number of ships you have deployed, so deploying more ships is directly beneficial. I also find that having more ships decreases the chances of getting surrounded which can be a big problem for capitals.
I now see what you mean thanks. With 80-120 deployment limit a single Paragon will cause that granularity problem you just described. So it is worthless to have more than 2 Paragons, at least if you are always able to recover CR before redeploying again. That said, you still shouldn't run into problems getting fuel.

In mainline battle, yeah cruisers are as useful in capital ship fights as they were in real life (not.) But for long range expeditions against anything but the strongest opponents, cruisers serve that nice role as tactical capital ships or as stronger escorts then destroyers.

Bang for buck, a battleship is the best (Or super carrier) but for affordable flexibility or cost effectiveness on the rim anything bigger then an Eagle is simply a waste of supplies and fuel. Which is kind of the purpose of cruisers, to cruise.
The game doesn't work that way. The ship classes don't have anything specific delineating them, but that they tend to be bigger. Some have burn speed higher than the rest. Some have different fuel costs. Some have weaker hulls than the class below.

Cruisers are useful in capital ship fights. Cruisers don't cruise in this game (except maybe Apogee, but that's because it's supposed to partly be a logistical ship).

What you think crusiers did in real life has no bearing on what they were used for in real life anyways.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 06:33:16 AM by Plantissue »
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #63 on: August 24, 2019, 06:50:44 AM »

For combat with cruiser-capital hybrid, I prefer Doom over Odyssey.  Dooms are a bit cheaper and tend to stay alive longer.  Also, it is a pain to outfit Odyssey.  A good offensive loadout for player will probably get AI killed, and a good support loadout for AI will be underpowered for player use.

Also, Conquest is cheaper than Odyssey and is powerful enough to fight as a battleship.

Speaking of Odyssey, I experimented with a variation of the shotgun build posted pages back.  Replaced lance with HIL and MIRV with Squalls.  Seems to function decently.  Works well against (smaller?) human fleets.  Not very good against a big Ordos fleet.
I run 2x autopulse, 1x squall, 2x sabot on the Odyssey (no other weapons). I found the MIRV just gets wasted on shields, especially against remnants.  Squall isn't THAT much better, but at least it's intended vs shields.  In human hands it's not that impressive.  It's basically 2 autopulse lasers and a really strong shield attached to the fastest ship in the game to sport a large mount.  That 70 base speed with a ship system to go even faster is what makes it.  An Eagle has 0 firepower (anything less than a large mount is literally a frigate weapon), and only 50 speed with the much slower manuvering jets system.  A Conquest has high firepower, but tissue paper defense and incredibly slow speed (45 base, again with maneuvering).  The slow speed makes them utterly useless at chasing down destroyers and frigates, which as a "small fleet" it's doubly important because nobody else is gonna do it.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 06:52:15 AM by sotanaht »
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Igncom1

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #64 on: August 24, 2019, 07:03:40 AM »

What's your opinion on the dominator? I can see your opinion on non-capitals for proper battle, but that is the biggest big-gun cruiser available.
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Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Plantissue

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #65 on: August 24, 2019, 07:07:13 AM »

Most people seem to think it's great. Primarily because it has 2 frontal large ballistic mounts. The bigger your battle size, the better the Dominator is.
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #66 on: August 24, 2019, 07:18:54 AM »

What's your opinion on the dominator? I can see your opinion on non-capitals for proper battle, but that is the biggest big-gun cruiser available.
Too slow, never reaches the enemy, gets surrounded by frigates and fighters and dies.  Weapons are pretty good for fire support especially if you load it up for long range, but it's overpriced for what little it actually accomplishes.

The main issue is it's absolutely incapable of killing anything solo due to its speed.  Enemies will either dance in and out of range forcing it to waste time forever, or it will engage something it can't beat like a capital ship or larger fleet and just get utterly destroyed.  It's an AI only ship that the AI can't use effectively.

If speed didn't matter I'd just run 5 paragons.  They have the best firepower and best defenses of any ship, no question (4x front facing large slots, flux for days and nearly unbreakable shields).  I'm pretty sure you already know that doesn't work.  You get 2 dominators plus a frigate for the cost of a Paragon, but gain nothing.  They have the same or less firepower, the same or less speed, and WAY less defense.  So if the Paragon is already insufficient, the Dominators will be much worse.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 07:28:55 AM by sotanaht »
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Plantissue

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #67 on: August 24, 2019, 03:37:44 PM »

Dominator has the Burn Ship System, so it's a much faster at catching retreating ships than would be expected from its speed. It is worth +100 speed. If anything it's burn needs to be more frequent and less lengthy so it's less likely to put itself in a dangerous situation. I prefer the Eagle myself, but too slow, never reaches the enemy just means that the rest of your fleet is faster than it.
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Megas

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #68 on: August 24, 2019, 04:20:18 PM »

A Conquest has high firepower, but tissue paper defense and incredibly slow speed (45 base, again with maneuvering).  The slow speed makes them utterly useless at chasing down destroyers and frigates, which as a "small fleet" it's doubly important because nobody else is gonna do it.
Conquest is not that fragile.  (Not since 0.8a.)  It is actually quite tough, or at least not frail.  Not the toughest like Onslaught or Paragon, but it is no slouch.  As for chasing down destroyers and frigates, that is not much of a problem (let them run).  A bigger problem is avoiding or surviving them when they decide to swarm en masse to kill your ships, especially when bigger enemies are threatening at the same time.
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Thaago

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #69 on: August 24, 2019, 05:44:49 PM »

... uhhh, anything less than a large mount counts as 0 firepower? Thats not right.
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Dov85

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #70 on: August 25, 2019, 06:22:06 AM »

The game doesn't work that way. The ship classes don't have anything specific delineating them, but that they tend to be bigger. Some have burn speed higher than the rest. Some have different fuel costs. Some have weaker hulls than the class below.

I agree with that but on one specific point : Range. Because of the way ITU works, the ship class dictate its max engagement range which I find to be a very important factor in deciding who will win an engagement, both in simulation and actual fleet battles.

As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships. My current fleet it built on long range engagement, with most ships using beam and missile weapons to soften the enemy from afar, a strong ECM game (most battles the enemy's range is cut by 25%) and carriers to deliver the killing blow. It's not unusual with that configuration that my beam Tempests will outrange cruisers and capitals that don't use ITU+Advanced Optics and, being Tempests, they don't care about missiles the enemy might throw at them. They don't do a lot damage-wise except for heating up the enemy's shield a bit but quite often they manage to get the attention of a few of the bigger enemy ships and lead them in a wild chase accross the map where they're being utterly useless and not helping the rest of their fleet.
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #71 on: August 25, 2019, 06:47:18 AM »

The game doesn't work that way. The ship classes don't have anything specific delineating them, but that they tend to be bigger. Some have burn speed higher than the rest. Some have different fuel costs. Some have weaker hulls than the class below.

I agree with that but on one specific point : Range. Because of the way ITU works, the ship class dictate its max engagement range which I find to be a very important factor in deciding who will win an engagement, both in simulation and actual fleet battles.

As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships. My current fleet it built on long range engagement, with most ships using beam and missile weapons to soften the enemy from afar, a strong ECM game (most battles the enemy's range is cut by 25%) and carriers to deliver the killing blow. It's not unusual with that configuration that my beam Tempests will outrange cruisers and capitals that don't use ITU+Advanced Optics and, being Tempests, they don't care about missiles the enemy might throw at them. They don't do a lot damage-wise except for heating up the enemy's shield a bit but quite often they manage to get the attention of a few of the bigger enemy ships and lead them in a wild chase accross the map where they're being utterly useless and not helping the rest of their fleet.
Tempests can do that anyway without the beams.  I load my tempests with Pulse Lasers and Unstable Injector.  They do what you described just fine and manage to kill a few frigates by themselves in the process.
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TaLaR

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #72 on: August 25, 2019, 07:52:42 AM »

As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships.

ITU/DTC is mandatory on cruisers/capitals by design, that's the reason DTC exists at all. Any build without these aside from SO cruisers,  dedicated carriers and maybe all-missile gryphon is pretty much invalid.
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #73 on: August 25, 2019, 08:57:36 AM »

As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships.

ITU/DTC is mandatory on cruisers/capitals by design, that's the reason DTC exists at all. Any build without these aside from SO cruisers,  dedicated carriers and maybe all-missile gryphon is pretty much invalid.
There is literally no reason for DTC to exist.  ITU does exactly what it does, better, for the same cost, and can be used on smaller ships, and they don't stack.  ITU provides 40/60 percent range for cruisers and capitals for 15/25 OP, while DTC provides 35/50 percent range for 15/25 OP.  You never ever have a reason to use DTC, unless you simply don't own the ITU hull mod.

Aside from that, I'm not sure I really agree that extended range is that necessary.  It's good for a standoff playstyle that takes forever, but not all that helpful for a direct assault playstyle intended to rush down enemy targets as quickly as possible, which is how I play.  I use it sometimes, but not always.  In fact I'd consider Unstable Injector, which is almost exact opposite of ITU/DTC, to be the more mandatory hull mod in most cases.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 09:00:21 AM by sotanaht »
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TaLaR

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #74 on: August 25, 2019, 09:29:42 AM »

You never ever have a reason to use DTC, unless you simply don't own the ITU hull mod.

Which is exactly the point. DTC is a stand-in.

Aside from that, I'm not sure I really agree that extended range is that necessary.  It's good for a standoff playstyle that takes forever, but not all that helpful for a direct assault playstyle intended to rush down enemy targets as quickly as possible, which is how I play.  I use it sometimes, but not always.  In fact I'd consider Unstable Injector, which is almost exact opposite of ITU/DTC, to be the more mandatory hull mod in most cases.

On frigates, DEs - sure. Cruisers/Capitals are just never fast enough to face hug enemies, unless SO. And a ITU/DTC-less cruiser often has less effective range than DE, since it's large itself and many slots are not on the very front of it.

ITU gets more efficient with size, UI - less. UI is mandatory for frigates (except maybe opticc Wolf of Tempest), good for DEs (but less so for AI piloted ones), dubious for cruisers (on Eagle/Falcon or Aurora UI doesn't even increase your average speed that much, since a lot of it comes from ship system). Paragon, Conquest and Odyssey can consider UI, but I still find more range better for them.
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