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[TaLaR]

Pirates in starsector are a space zombie horde. There is nothing 'pirate' about them except name. This may not be Alex's intention, but it is how they in fact function.

[Igncom1]

How are they zombies?

They have heavy industry for their toaster ships, and attack pointlessly rather then to steal and pillage.

A horde is an apt descriptor though.

[SCC]

What is the point of all those empty weapon slots? I mean ffs, why were they even added to the ship. Better yet, was this intended functional build for it? When this ship was added did the Dev say I expect none of the small ballistic slots to be used.

What's the point of a turret or a hardpoint, if you can't afford to fire the gun placed in it? All those mounts are optional, so if it's better to get more hullmods/flux stats, instead of another gun, you just don't get another gun.

How are they zombies?

They have heavy industry for their toaster ships, and attack pointlessly rather then to steal and pillage.

A horde is an apt descriptor though.

Endless, brainless, hellbent on destroying everything.

[SafariJohn]

Pirates in starsector are a space zombie horde. There is nothing 'pirate' about them except name. This may not be Alex's intention, but it is how they in fact function.

As you know, but others may not: in the beginning, there was the Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, and the pirates (and the independents, but they had no ports). The Hegemony had the big bad System Defense Fleet and Tri-Tachyon had all the elite ships. So the only faction left for new players to fight were pirates.

And that's why pirates are continually shoehorned in as early game enemies/threats.

[Megas]

How are they zombies?

Destroyed pirate base respawns almost immediately.  If core worlds are all dead, and you have colonies, what happens is you remove pirate activity from your colonies after you destroy a pirate base, and a day later, -3/-50% pirate activity is back on your colonies.

Also, if you do not stop pirate fleets as they raid a core system, they usually succeed.  If player does nothing to stop pirates from successfully raiding systems over and over again, worlds will decivilize eventually.

Relentless pirates that self-resurrect almost immediately when killed, and stop at nothing at attacking their prey until said prey is dead?  They are like zombies or liches or the Terminator.

And that's why pirates are continually shoehorned in as early game enemies/threats.

Back then, they had pristine ships.  There were no (D) mods.

[Locklave]

What's the point of a turret or a hardpoint, if you can't afford to fire the gun placed in it? All those mounts are optional, so if it's better to get more hullmods/flux stats, instead of another gun, you just don't get another gun.

Please don't generalize specific issues to justify them.

Abandoning 10 ballistic hardpoints for only 2 on an Atlas Mk II is not the same thing as leaving some hardpoints empty on other ships. Simply saying it's "optional" doesn't justify it. Address the Atlas Mk II specifically as that is the specific topic of this post chain or don't bother. The ship is OP starved and you need to make counter intuitive build choices like leaving 10/12 gun hardpoints empty because it lacks the required flux if those OP are spent on weapon slots.

[Grievous69]

Even IF what SCC said was true, it would still be a silly argument since then you're stuck with one build for a capital!! That's just *** design in a game where customization is so damn good and versatile.

[TaLaR]

At 24DP Atlas mk2 is not meant to be a full capital. It can only squeeze artillery platform role by using up all OP on that.
Or it can try to fill all these slots and end up useless like a typical pirate build.

Leaving slots empty is not usual either. If you don't need them for ship's intended role, then you leave slots empty and pack more dissipation/capacity/hullmods.
In most situations where close range weapons have something to fire at, Atlas mk2 is already in process of losing the fight, so there is no point to fuss over them.

Filling slots 'just because' is inefficient variant design strategy.

[Locklave]

Isn't that just bad design then? It brings me back to why it even has those hardpoints relative to OP in the first place.

They are there to use if you want to make your ship weaker lol.

[Grievous69]

Filling slots 'just because' is inefficient variant design strategy.

Please read what Locklave said up top. You can't compare putting small weapons just for the sake of not leaving anything empty and leaving FOUR medium ballistics and six smalls just to have two bloody guns. There isn't a ship in vanilla with such wonky design. Obviously it's the only thing that kinda works, so my suggestion was to scrap those useless mounts and buff it. But if everyone wants a big slow ship where you have 4 weapons out of 14 then ok by me. And this DP talk is also funny. I'm honestly more afraid of facing 5 Promethuses Mk II than 10 Atlases Mk II. Where's your math now?

EDIT: Ughhh by up top I meant the one before now. Damn you slow fingers

[TaLaR]

All these slots are broadside. On a ship with crappy armor, shield, dissipation and no mobility. There is no situation when you'd potentially want to use them for more than swatting a few fighters and even that is better delegated to escorts with how OP starved Atlas mk2 is.

I'm honestly more afraid of facing 5 Promethuses Mk II than 10 Atlases Mk II. Where's your math now?

Standard AI builds for both of these are horrible. Atlas mk2 out of optimal Gauss build is useless. Prometheus can at least Burn at smaller ships (and has surprisingly decent 50 base speed).

[SCC]

Again: what's the point of equipping guns, if it's better not to fire them most of the time? You are just crippling it more, than helping. Though I personally would have gotten 2 flaks instead of flux distributor. It's not a big difference, either way, since an Atlas Mk II that's being shot at is a dead one in either case.
If you want to know what other ships can get by without equipping many mounts, that would be Paragon (though it's more for flagship ones, rather than AI), Conquest (if you don't go for asymmetry), Legion, Apogee (you don't really need those smalls), Aurora (if you don't want to go full missile), Dominator (same as Legion and Apogee, save for rear smalls), Tempest (does undergunning count?), Omen, Scarab, Monitor and, finally, borderline every carrier.

[Grievous69]

If you want to know what other ships can get by without equipping many mounts, that would be Paragon (though it's more for flagship ones, rather than AI), Conquest (if you don't go for asymmetry), Legion, Apogee (you don't really need those smalls), Aurora (if you don't want to go full missile), Dominator (same as Legion and Apogee, save for rear smalls), Tempest (does undergunning count?), Omen, Scarab, Monitor and, finally, borderline every carrier.

MY DUDE, you're now just making fun of me and Locklave. All you listed was examples where you leave a few small mounts empty. I don't have a problem with those, understand that please.

And the more I think about this wreck of a ship, the more I have a feeling that a 24 DP capital shouldn't really exist. Either it's gonna be a joke, or too strong (although I'd love to see that). Just make it 28 DP and actually give it ok-ish stats.

[Locklave]

SSC I'm at a loss as to how you see secondary/specific builds for these other ships are comparable to Atlas Mk II and it's 1 build that requires giving them nearly all hardpoints up or how giving up some rear point defense on a Apogee/Legion/Dominator is somehow the same thing.

Atlas Mk II stands alone in this regard and not in a good way. It's apples to oranges.

edit:
No one is arguing all hardpoints need/should to be filled.

[SCC]

Correct for Legion, Apogee, Dominator and, via technicality, Omen, Scarab and Monitor. For Paragon, you can go by just fine with 4 plasma cannons and 2 heavy needlers (and maybe 2 ion pulsers or ion beams). Conquest can abandon small energies, half of ballistics or medium missiles quite easily (though not all at the same time, obviously). Aurora that relies on heavy blasters, instead of missiles, can't handle more than 2 of them, so the other 2 mediums kinda don't really have anything to do, especially the rear one. Tempest can go for 1 HB, 1 ion cannon, instead of 2 more manageable mediums and still kick ass. Omen has a criminal, multi-purpose weapon of a ship system, so it can get on that sweet strike action with a single anti-matter blaster (everything else goes to shields). Scarab has a hard time making use of all of its mounts, but, to be fair, it's kind of a joke in the first place.
The difference between those and Atlas Mk II is that a cheap ship. When others want to do something really good, they need to forgo just some of the (good) guns. Atlas, on the other hand, has to cast most of them aside. It's not an exception, it's a logical extreme of Starsector mechanics. If Atlas Mk II didn't have to leave everything out to snipe really well, then it wouldn't have been a 24 DP ship.

No one is arguing all hardpoints need/should to be filled.

Why is it so much of an issue that that one variant doesn't have all mounts filled, then?