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Author Topic: Overrated (overpriced) ships  (Read 43055 times)

Grievous69

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #150 on: September 03, 2019, 09:47:51 AM »

I was wondering, does anybody actually ever use or buy the Gremlin and the Pirate Phase ships? Playing a recent "salvage only" playthrough, I found that those are actually fairly rare as pirate ships, negating their worth as an introduction to phase ships, and vastly over-represented in markets, relatively many being available to buy. What are people's opinions on them?

Was also curios so went ahead and salvaged one. Nothing noterworthy about it, it dies super quick, sometimes manages to actually hit something with a missile. That's it basically, as you said it's an introduction to phase ships so it's just an annoyance more than anything.
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Serenitis

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #151 on: September 03, 2019, 09:53:19 AM »

A lot of these Oddy builds seem to rely on some kind of kinetic fighter support or missiles.

Which is tricky for me, personally, as in my current game my best weapons are the pulse laser and HE beam. So I can't really build a lot of these for my fleet.
Odyssey works reasonably well as a beam platform with HIL + Tac. But it really struggles against cruiser/capital shields without either Sabot pods or Longbows.
If you have them, Sabot pods are preferable since that allows you to fit 2x Xyphos for more beams and PD.
Without Sabot, you could use Salamander.
The AI loves protecting it's engines from heatseekers, which provides a convenient opportunity for shooting unshielded things. The Starsector equivalent of shouting "look! behind you!" at someone, and then hitting them when they turn round.

<Endurance Odyssey>
This is a neat build. If you took this down the beam route and used Tachyons instead, that might make the flux a little easier to manage, and give you a few extra OP for use elsewhere. But you'd lose hard flux damage from your guns.
You'd also lose the weird interaction the plasma bolts have with the drive system that flings them really hard in the direction of travel. Whether this is a gain or a loss is down to your preference. I imagine someone somewhere will have perfected aiming these things like sniper bolts.
You could also swap the Pila for Salamanders for the same reason as above.
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Megas

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #152 on: September 03, 2019, 10:08:16 AM »

I tried Gremlin yesterday to see if it can do the same Reaper cheese as Afflictor.  It can, but it needs Unstable Injector and Defensive Systems 3 (for x4 time shift) to be fast enough to do it.  Still, the results of two unboosted Reapers is not that impressive.  Four Reapers is enough to take down a cruiser, then your glass sword is broke and needs to retreat.

I might use pirate Afflictor if it was all I had, but it gets discarded once I get the real thing.
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TaLaR

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #153 on: September 03, 2019, 10:11:20 AM »

@TaLaR
Why the hell are there Pilums tho? Are you just memeing? Also funny you say it doesn't have to rely on Sabots while you have 2 Longbows... I find their survivability questionable and good ol' Sabot pods give me better results.

Pilums make it harder for AI to vent and provide opportunities to waste zero flux boost (making it harder for AI ships to surround me, among other things). Yes, they are usually intercepted by PD or shields - but that means that enemy often won't vent right away even if I'm out of range. Ody has free ECCM, might as well wring some use out of it.

Longbows don't run out, that's good enough for me.

You'd also lose the weird interaction the plasma bolts have with the drive system that flings them really hard in the direction of travel. Whether this is a gain or a loss is down to your preference. I imagine someone somewhere will have perfected aiming these things like sniper bolts.

Not exactly perfected, but it makes decent opening volley vs Capitals (big enough targets).
« Last Edit: September 03, 2019, 10:16:46 AM by TaLaR »
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Megas

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #154 on: September 03, 2019, 10:15:16 AM »

Mining Pods are not a bad idea for Odyssey with short-ranged weapons and needs to get close to kill things.  The Pods are free and act like mini-meat shields, even without fighter skills.  I use them if I cannot afford Xyphos or Longbows.
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Plantissue

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #155 on: September 03, 2019, 10:33:45 AM »

Enforcer/Dominator/Onslaught all seem to have the same AI control issue. The devs need to revisit how these ship react to events around them. I can't help but think the Onslaught would perform well if it had 3 times it's combat speed/turning. Not that the speed would make it overpowered but rather that the things those ships try to do in combat suit faster ships.

Ships like the Lasher try to drift and shoot, those slow ships look very much like they are trying to do the same thing but only getting themselves destroyed because they can't do it right.

edit:

A good example is when the Onslaught literally moves to expose it's unshielded back. It's trying to do an acceleration and drift fire, all it ends up doing is making the enemies job of getting behind it easier. Because it's acceleration sucks as much as it's turning.
Most ships act better with better manoeuvrability. Especially wolf.

A while ago I played around trying to make AI piloted "endurance" Odyssey. It was something like ignore most of the small mounts, Plasma Cannons, no missiles, Xyphos. I gave up and went back to Sabots.

Nice to see that nobody else really find a good use for those pirate phase frigates either.
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #156 on: September 03, 2019, 11:38:22 AM »

I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.
I have and it sucks.  The Conquest is the worst non-civillian capital in the game regardless of whether you give it to the AI or pilot it yourself.

It's slow, it has AWFUL shields, it does not focus firepower properly, and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsides.  The AI cannot handle it because of the poor shields, and frankly broadside ships feel terrible to pilot normally but the Conquest deserves a special place in hell for that shield.

Odyssey is literally everything conquest should be, but isn't.  It only has the one broadside, so it doesn't have to waste OP on unusable firepower, it has a great shield, great speed, and its own fighter support.  Still difficult-to-impossible to player-pilot, but the AI makes good use of it as a high-speed tank.  It does lack in killing power though, which is why it serves best in a tanking/support role, and why I don't bother to put finishing-type damages on it.
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Grievous69

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #157 on: September 03, 2019, 11:56:06 AM »

and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsides
Well there's your problem mate, don't try to put best possible weapons in both broadsides, use one for PD. It's how I make every single loadout for it, don't know how well AI would pilot that since I never trust it enough to test. Btw if you're already criticizing shields, Odyssey also has awful ones for a high tech ship that needs to get close to put hard flux on enemies. If I'm not mistaken it has worst shields out of all high tech ships.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #158 on: September 03, 2019, 12:03:48 PM »

I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.
I have and it sucks.  The Conquest is the worst non-civillian capital in the game regardless of whether you give it to the AI or pilot it yourself.

It's slow, it has AWFUL shields, it does not focus firepower properly, and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsides.  The AI cannot handle it because of the poor shields, and frankly broadside ships feel terrible to pilot normally but the Conquest deserves a special place in hell for that shield.

You know you can leave mounts empty right? I usually outfit my conquests asymmetrically and put some downsized stuff in the weak broadside to fend off small ships and then I put heavy hitters on the other side. I also often leave the medium missile and medium energy slots empty to save OP for other stuff. You're right that the shields are a big problem, but if you either max capacitors or put hardened shields on it (or possible heavy armor and avoid using shields), you can solve that problem without too much trouble.

Odyssey is literally everything conquest should be, but isn't.  It only has the one broadside, so it doesn't have to waste OP on unusable firepower, it has a great shield, great speed, and its own fighter support.
Odyssey shield is not very good: it has 1:1 damage to flux which is on par with low tech shields (onslaught has 1:1) compared to high techs like paragon with 3:5 (.6) and apogee with 7:10 (.7) damage to flux but it still has the very high shield upkeep of most high tech ships. The odysseys shield is its weakest part by far IMO (assuming you have plasma cannons for firepower). I consider odyssey to be more OP starved than conquest since it really needs all the mounts it has to put out any decent firepower while conquest can easily do good damage with partially filled slots.

Also

Still difficult-to-impossible to player-pilot, but the AI makes good use of it as a high-speed tank.

What? The odyssey is primarily useful as a player piloted ship, the AI just burns straight into the enemy fleet and explodes 50% of the time when against significant opposition. I love flying it, but I would never even think of giving it to the AI against any serious opposition. I remember the conquest AI being significantly better on this patch, but I still consider both ships primarily player ships that are wasted potential (and possibly a major loss) in AI hands. TBH I slightly prefer odyssey as a player piloted ship, but I usually just fly a doom so I end up using neither most of the time. Conquest is better than odyssey vs. ships with good shields because it can equip kinetics, but odyssey is better for smashing ships with bad shields.
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #159 on: September 03, 2019, 12:08:50 PM »

and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsides
Well there's your problem mate, don't try to put best possible weapons in both broadsides, use one for PD. It's how I make every single loadout for it, don't know how well AI would pilot that since I never trust it enough to test. Btw if you're already criticizing shields, Odyssey also has awful ones for a high tech ship that needs to get close to put hard flux on enemies. If I'm not mistaken it has worst shields out of all high tech ships.
What are your other options though?  Paragon and Astral are way too slow.  I tried a setup with 3 Paragons once, but they were simply too slow to cover each other.  Swapping the two AI paragons for 2 AI Odysseys turned battles I could not win into ones that I won without effort or losses.  Astrals obviously aren't going to cover anybody, but they technically do have better shields.

Dropping down to the Cruiser level, the Apogee and Aurora technically have better stats.  The Apogee is slower than the Odyssey and lacks a movement system, which makes it easier to overwhelm.  It doesn't really have much firepower either.  Ultimately when the Apogee gets into combat it becomes a stationary shield bubble, whereas the Odyssey can fight free and back off.  The Aurora looks great on paper, but we all know how it goes in practice.  The AI simply can't use the ship no matter what, and it's just not strong enough to be worth piloting as a player (you'd need multiple anyway).  Theoretically if you don't care about damage, the Aurora might be your best bet as off-tank for the paragon, but while the Odyssey lacks in killing power (as I said earlier), it still does do substantial damage in fleet, more than enough to justify its cost.

I would however take any one of the ships I mentioned over a conquest, even the no-damage AI aurora.  It's just that bad.
I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.
I have and it sucks.  The Conquest is the worst non-civillian capital in the game regardless of whether you give it to the AI or pilot it yourself.

It's slow, it has AWFUL shields, it does not focus firepower properly, and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsides.  The AI cannot handle it because of the poor shields, and frankly broadside ships feel terrible to pilot normally but the Conquest deserves a special place in hell for that shield.

You know you can leave mounts empty right? I usually outfit my conquests asymmetrically and put some downsized stuff in the weak broadside to fend off small ships and then I put heavy hitters on the other side. I also often leave the medium missile and medium energy slots empty to save OP for other stuff. You're right that the shields are a big problem, but if you either max capacitors or put hardened shields on it (or possible heavy armor and avoid using shields), you can solve that problem without too much trouble.

Odyssey is literally everything conquest should be, but isn't.  It only has the one broadside, so it doesn't have to waste OP on unusable firepower, it has a great shield, great speed, and its own fighter support.
Odyssey shield is not very good: it has 1:1 damage to flux which is on par with low tech shields (onslaught has 1:1) compared to high techs like paragon with 3:5 (.6) and apogee with 7:10 (.7) damage to flux but it still has the very high shield upkeep of most high tech ships. The odysseys shield is its weakest part by far IMO (assuming you have plasma cannons for firepower). I consider odyssey to be more OP starved than conquest since it really needs all the mounts it has to put out any decent firepower while conquest can easily do good damage with partially filled slots.

Also

Still difficult-to-impossible to player-pilot, but the AI makes good use of it as a high-speed tank.

What? The odyssey is primarily useful as a player piloted ship, the AI just burns straight into the enemy fleet and explodes 50% of the time when against significant opposition. I love flying it, but I would never even think of giving it to the AI against any serious opposition. I remember the conquest AI being significantly better on this patch, but I still consider both ships primarily player ships that are wasted potential (and possibly a major loss) in AI hands. TBH I slightly prefer odyssey as a player piloted ship, but I usually just fly a doom so I end up using neither most of the time. Conquest is better than odyssey vs. ships with good shields because it can equip kinetics, but odyssey is better for smashing ships with bad shields.
Odyssey shield upkeep is half of what high tech cruiser shield upkeep is.  The Aurora is 425/sec, the Apogee is 420/sec, the Odyssey is only 250/sec, Onslaught is 240/sec and Conquest is 480/sec.  Not that it makes all that much difference at that level, but keep that in mind.

Also, one would expect that you max capacitors and put hardened shields on EVERY ship.  So you can't say the "conquest is good with those upgrades" because compared to better ships that also have those upgrades, it's just as flimsy as it ever was.

While one might think the Odyssey just charges ahead and explodes, in practice that's not what happens at all against large enemy fleets.  It DOES charge ahead, but it DOESN'T explode.  As long as you have a fleet to support it.  Ultimately the Odyssey is an overgrown Cruiser, not a true capital.  You use it to support other capitals (ie the paragon) because the base game cruisers are all severely lacking in one area or another whereas the Odyssey has no such weaknesses, it simply doesn't have the raw might of a capital (ie paragon)
« Last Edit: September 03, 2019, 12:21:40 PM by sotanaht »
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Grievous69

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #160 on: September 03, 2019, 12:15:03 PM »

What are your other options though?  Paragon and Astral are way too slow.

You forgot low tech gang with burn drives. Both Onslaught and Legion can quickly get into fights despite being slow bricks otherwise. I actually consider them very well balanced, unless you're doing some weird builds. If you REALLY want speed, just grab a Doom.

@intrinsic_parity
It's a rarity that someone writes a lot of sentences, and I agree with every single one. Spooky.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2019, 11:40:52 PM by Grievous69 »
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #161 on: September 03, 2019, 12:17:42 PM »

What are your other options though?  Paragon and Astral are way too slow.

You forgot low tech gang with burn drives. Both Onslaught and Legion can quickly get into fights despite being slow bricks otherwise. I actually consider them very well balanced, unless you're doing some weird builds. If you REALLY want speed, just grab a Doom.

@intristic_parity
It's a rarity that someone writes a lot of sentences, and I agree with every single one. Spooky.
Fast in, slow out, and even with paragon-tier shields that's a death sentence.  Any other suggestions?  70 speed is nothing to laugh at, it outspeeds almost every cruiser and comes close to most destroyers.  Simply backing away is all it takes to shake the most threatening enemy ships.
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Grievous69

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #162 on: September 03, 2019, 12:21:34 PM »

Any other suggestions?  70 speed is nothing to laugh at, it outspeeds almost every cruiser and comes close to most destroyers.  Simply backing away is all it takes to shake the most threatening enemy ships.
Spoiler
[close]
Try this and tell me it's bad.

EDIT: I already said speed is very nice, but in the end doesn't make that much of a difference. It's almost as Odyssey is meant to be a glass cannon, but lacks the cannon part.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2019, 12:23:06 PM by Grievous69 »
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #163 on: September 03, 2019, 12:23:31 PM »

Any other suggestions?  70 speed is nothing to laugh at, it outspeeds almost every cruiser and comes close to most destroyers.  Simply backing away is all it takes to shake the most threatening enemy ships.
Spoiler
[close]
Try this and tell me it's bad.
Fine.  Give me 20 minutes and I'll set up 3 of those and go find a Remnant Ordo.  Replace the 3 Odysseys with 3 conquests while keeping the fleets the same, and see how both fleets fair in AI only battle.
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Grievous69

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #164 on: September 03, 2019, 12:26:35 PM »

I meant try as pilot it yourself, why test things with AI since it's obvious it can't perform well with either of the battlecruisers.
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