Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TaLaR]

Paragon: Onslaught loses. The only direct combat capital that can win against Paragon in AI vs AI is Conquest. Even then this covers only Paragon builds that are weaker at long range (not 4xTL or 2xTL+2xHVD) and requires full specialization from Conquest.

Slightly off-topic, but do you have an example Conquest loadout that can do this or a video that shows this happening? I've always found the AI Conquest to be rather lackluster, so seeing it beat a Paragon heads up would be very enlightening.

Spoiler

[close]

Squalls need to be in separate groups, this way AI will alternate them to produce constant stream. Tested against sim Paragon.
Basically, points are:
- to trick AI into properly using Gauss range by not having any shorter range weapons.
- defeat Fortress Shield with Squall stream (whether Paragon activates system or not, it builds up a lot of hard flux).
- use Harpoons to hasten the process (because running out of Squalls before Paragon dies would be very bad).

AI can't figure out that correct answer to Squall stream is to armor tank the Squalls (they don't do much armor damage, and Paragon can keep blocking Gauss shots with precise shield flicker), so this is pretty much a guaranteed victory.

[Lucky33]

Onslaught is the weakest Capital. But I say that of lots of capitals, so take that with a pinch of salt. The Onslaught does one thing extremely well, and that's to mount a lot of flak cannons. A pair of Squalls? No problem. A mass of piranha bombs? Who needs to dodge? Not the Onslaught, because it cannot. The paragon can't dodge either, though I guess the Paragon can just turn fortress shield on. I guess the Onslaught fulfills the role of an interesting ship to fight against. Frontal burst damage, tough against low damage weapons, weak rear.

Playing with a fleet of them, compared to Conquests, they are much more likely to get into trouble and not be able to withdraw behind another ship in time, but conversely, they are much more able to survive long enough for help to arrive. Compared to Paragon, they are terrible, but can chase down withdrawing ships, even destroyers, that the Paragon cannot kill in time. Compared with Odyssey, they got longer range and so can ward away frigates and destroyers much more easily. Then again odyssey can chase and retreat and just kill them. I suppose the best you can say of the Onslaught is that it is a good place for your other ships to retreat behind. That's not really high praise though.

Just some notes from an actual Onslaught driver.

Most of the missile/fighters are destroyed by the big guns. Even Astral will run out of fighters after 2-3 runs.
You dont need to counter Squalls since you are The Onslaught and your shield is turned off for the most part of the battle.
Best PD are Vulcans since they are dirt cheap. You cant use Flaks as a fleet support system anyway.
Your only trouble is what you have to refit into very exotic variant to fight full phase fleets.

[Lucky33]

AI will not always fire both TPCs if they are separated in two groups.  It helps a bit.

I use Combat Endurance too!  It is not enough with a small map size where enemy uses ten capitals and rest mostly cruisers, tricking them in over a long period of time, while I can only use few ships (if they survive until PPT times out).

Yes. Not always. Just almost every time. No. This not helps.

"Ten capital fleets" is some Atlas MK2 spam. You dont need much PPT to fight it. Just casually drive through them toward spawn zone.

[RustyCabbage]

Paragon: Onslaught loses. The only direct combat capital that can win against Paragon in AI vs AI is Conquest. Even then this covers only Paragon builds that are weaker at long range (not 4xTL or 2xTL+2xHVD) and requires full specialization from Conquest.

Slightly off-topic, but do you have an example Conquest loadout that can do this or a video that shows this happening? I've always found the AI Conquest to be rather lackluster, so seeing it beat a Paragon heads up would be very enlightening.

Spoiler

Spoiler

[close]

Squalls need to be in separate groups, this way AI will alternate them to produce constant stream. Tested against sim Paragon.
Basically, points are:
- to trick AI into properly using Gauss range by not having any shorter range weapons.
- defeat Fortress Shield with Squall stream (whether Paragon activates system or not, it builds up a lot of hard flux).
- use Harpoons to hasten the process (because running out of Squalls before Paragon dies would be very bad).

AI can't figure out that correct answer to Squall stream is to armor tank the Squalls (they don't do much armor damage, and Paragon can keep blocking Gauss shots with precise shield flicker), so this is pretty much a guaranteed victory.

[close]

Thank you, that is very cool to see. Setting the Squalls on separate weapon groups is excellent and was a huge difference-maker.

[Lucky33]

It's hard to design decent loadouts for it that aren't terribly overfluxed

You can trade Hellbore for Devastator if enemy is fighter spammy.

[Megas]

"Ten capital fleets" is some Atlas MK2 spam. You dont need much PPT to fight it. Just casually drive through them toward spawn zone.

Atlas 2 is the most common, but I have seen ten Conquest or ten Onslaught/Legion combos, plus cruisers before, either in named bounties or high-powered expeditions.  While uncommon, it is not so rare to be unheard of.  Also, even Atlas 2 spam is not to be underestimated if player's fleet is not at full endgame power.

[Lucky33]

Checked the 387K bounty right now. It was only six Onslaughts. To make it ten, RNG should go full capital and it will be some caps+frigates fleet. What is actually easier.

[Thaago]

TaLaR, about that loadout: is the purpose of the extremely high dissipation tricking the AI in some way in terms of the anti-Paragon behavior? Or extra defense against Tachyon Lances? I'd usually say that the dissipation is way too high, but it is a very specialized build so I'm wondering.

[Hiruma Kai]

Upon inspection of the codex, the one campaign stat where Onslaughts (and Legions) have it the best is CR per deployment.  Assuming officer and fleets skills so you're starting at 100%,  20% for Paragons and Odysseys means after 4 deployments in quick succession, you're suffering malfunctions.  15% for Conquests and Astrals means after 5 deployments in quick succession, you're suffering malfunctions.  Onslaughts and legions can go a full 6 deployments before starting to suffer malfunctions.  In addition, Onslaughts and Legions recover a single deployment's worth of CR in only 4 days instead of 5 for the other capitals.

Or in other words, they're reliable and don't break down as fast as high tech ships in stressful campaign situations.  It admittedly rarely comes up, but there are situations where its handy, such as raiding a heavily defended system like Askonia.  Or taking 4 Ordos one at a time.

And while people always complain about the flux dissipation of Onslaughts, their flux stats are not that bad, especially with fleet skills in a campaign.  A paragon costs 60 DP, and assuming Loadout Design 3 and no officer, caps out at 2000 flux/second (1250+150 flux distributor+600 vents), or 33.33 flux dissipation per DP.  An Onslaught caps out at 600+150+600=1350, or 33.75 flux dissipation per DP.

A conquest admittedly clocks in at 1950, or 48.75 per DP, but at the cost of taking 40% more shield damage than an Onslaught, or 133% more damage than a Paragon.  Odysseys are actually in an interesting place at 1750, or 38.88 with Onslaught quality shields.

So in a typical campaign build, Onslaughts bring just a smidgen more flux dissipation to the table than Paragons in equal DP numbers.  Given that Onslaughts have 360 OP, and Onslaught XIVs have 370 OP, there is no reason to not spend 80 OP on max vents and grab a flux distributor.  So for most player characters fleets, Onslaughts don't seem to have terrible flux stats to me.

The problem with Onslaughts is they have so many mounts it is way too easy to over gun them.  Think of it this way:  Odysseys have three large gun mounts (for 45 DP), Conquests have four large gun mounts (for 40 DP), and Paragons have four large gun mounts (for 60 DP).  Onslaughts have five large gun mounts (3 ballistic, 2 thermal pulse cannons).  If you equip Onslaughts like they should only have 3 large gun mounts (2 thermal pulse cannons and 1 large ballistic), you're equipping it like a paragon in terms of large weapons to flux dissipation ratio.  2000/4 = 500 flux per weapon.  1350/3 = 450 flux per large weapon

You can also consider the smaller mounts.  Value small mounts as 1, medium mounts as 2, and large as 4.  With this valuation, Odysseys have 24 units of gun mounts, Conquests have 36 units of guns, Paragons have 37 units of guns, while Onslaughts have 44 units of guns.  I'm ignoring missiles since they don't produce flux.  And in the Onslaught's case, all but 2 guns face somewhere in the forward 90 degrees.  So in a typical engagements, they can bring 40 units of those guns to bear.  A Conquest in a battle line only brings to bear 20 units worth of guns in comparison. 

Given Onslaughts are way over weapon mounted means you typically want less damaging but higher flux efficient weapons, or want to equip smaller weapons (small in a medium, or medium in a large), or even just leave them empty.  This is why Onslaughts are the king of point defense.  Ballistic PD tends to be flux efficient, and the Onslaught has more mounts than any other capital.

Although, I think the simplest answer is they work well enough at vanilla end game and they're easy to  get.  Given its a single player game, that seems fine to me.  They're not the best capital (mobility system only goes forward, slowest capital going in reverse, no fortress shield).  However, when outfitted properly, they put out respectable damage, and can absorb amazing amounts of punishment over the short term, second only to a Paragon.  And in fighter or missile heavy situations, potentially more.

[RustyCabbage]

It's hard to design decent loadouts for it that aren't terribly overfluxed

Spoiler

You can trade Hellbore for Devastator if enemy is fighter spammy.

[close]

I mean, I guess? On the other hand you're losing 150 degrees of large weapon coverage, not to mention that single vulcans can hardly stop harpoons without player skills, let alone more dangerous targets. Is that a reasonable sacrifice to expect?

To Thaago: having tested it, the extra dissipation helps a little with the soft flux generated by gravitons/tachyon lances, but you can definitely get away with less. I modified the Conquest loadout a little and came up with this:

Spoiler

[close]

The four caps could also be on vents to help with dealing with soft flux weapons, but eh. The heavy mauler may seem strange since it messes with the max range, but the Conquest still stays out of needler/autopulse range until the Paragon is fluxxed out, at which point there's no serious downside to throwing in the mauler. More importantly, it helps when simulating other capital ships, since the Conquest will then hover closer to ~1100 range and the Gauss Cannons can fire non-stop, instead of sometimes moving out of range of the Gauss and losing DPS. In any case, you can see from the hull mods there's a lot of OP left over after the core build.

Fair enough re: flux dissipation / mount/DP. I'll admit that I don't spend much time thinking about Loadout Design, without which the Onslaught performs slightly worse vis a vis the Paragon. In the end the main problem AI builds face with the Onslaught is unreliable Burn Drive usage.

[Null Ganymede]

Something to keep in mind for low tech in general: the 2nd level industry skill that grants free repairs is huuuuge. It turns low tech from a supply liability into an efficient wrecking ball that can trade hull with enemy fleets and still win the long-term logistic battle.

If you're used to retreating at the first sign of armor damage or think Reapers are scary, try it out.

By the time a Paragon slowboats into firing range the Onslaught will have killed a bunch of stuff, soaked up several missile hits other ships can't, and pushed the enemy fleet into their side of the map.

[TaLaR]

TaLaR, about that loadout: is the purpose of the extremely high dissipation tricking the AI in some way in terms of the anti-Paragon behavior? Or extra defense against Tachyon Lances? I'd usually say that the dissipation is way too high, but it is a very specialized build so I'm wondering.

Extra dissipation definitely does help to counter TLs, which can be important against 4xTL+2xGrav Paragon. Though also is leftover from more proper build - there isn't much else to add since I don't want any short range or soft flux weapons.
It's important for this build to doggedly follow it's target until dead. Breaking contact to vent is very bad (waste of Squalls), and AI can easily get stuck in approach-retreat cycle if it builds up enough flux from initial TL firing.

Build isn't meant for general use, it's really more of a demo of how ridiculous lengths you have to go to convince Conquest to make proper use of it's range advantage. Obviously it simply won't pick right target or fail to stay on it in fleet combat. Plus it uses most missiles to kill single Paragon, and has only 2 Gauss after that - not worth it even if successful.

[Lucky33]

It's hard to design decent loadouts for it that aren't terribly overfluxed

Spoiler

You can trade Hellbore for Devastator if enemy is fighter spammy.

[close]

I mean, I guess? On the other hand you're losing 150 degrees of large weapon coverage, not to mention that single vulcans can hardly stop harpoons without player skills, let alone more dangerous targets. Is that a reasonable sacrifice to expect?

There are two wingmans for large weapon coverage. Its all about TPCs anyway.
Its dedicated campaign ship for player use. Why wouldnt there be skills?

[Plantissue]

Checked the 387K bounty right now. It was only six Onslaughts. To make it ten, RNG should go full capital and it will be some caps+frigates fleet. What is actually easier.

I frequently see 8 capitals on 380k - 395k bounties, which is as high bounties seem to go. I've seen 9 Capitals in a bounty a few times. An real example is 388.5K bounty that has 7 Onslaughts, 2 Legions, 2 Dominators, 3 Moras, 2 Gryphons, 6 Falcons, 3 Destroyers, 5 frigates. With default 300 Battle Size, you will probably need combat endurance if you "only" have a 300 DP fleet with the original ships, whilst with battles size set to 500, you might just manage to finish the fight before you start getting disabled weapons and engines.

__________

It's hard to design decent loadouts for it that aren't terribly overfluxed

Spoiler

You can trade Hellbore for Devastator if enemy is fighter spammy.

[close]

I mean, I guess? On the other hand you're losing 150 degrees of large weapon coverage, not to mention that single vulcans can hardly stop harpoons without player skills, let alone more dangerous targets. Is that a reasonable sacrifice to expect?

There are two wingmans for large weapon coverage. Its all about TPCs anyway.
Its dedicated campaign ship for player use. Why wouldnt there be skills?

Why assume skills? The default is to assume no skills otherwise there is no basis for comparison as skills taken will vary widly. For instance, if a player takes no combat or personal piloting skill, then no matter which ship the player uses, it will have no skills.

It's like when someone posts a video of X ship beating 100 ships, but then you look at the vid and it's obviously modded and the player as all the skills, it's not impressive at all, because the  normal assumption is that it is done without skills.

[Thaago]

Skills vs no skills: Well, its kind of tricky, because on the one hand not including skills gives a uniform and easily reproduced baselines.

On the other hand, skills are in game, extremely powerful, and used by both the player and the AI.

And on the third hand (this has gotten away from me a bit), some ships benefit a lot more from skills than others because the skills patch up weak points. The Onslaught is one of those ships because +50% maneuverability and -50% damage to engines is a really big deal for combating mobile enemies. Then there is the relative balance between armor and shield skills: armor/hull benefits a lot more than shields do, changing the relative value of the defenses.

So on balance, I think its valuable to talk about both no skills, for reliable comparison, and with skills, for actual in game performance.