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[muffalo]

I've just purchased my very first battlecruiser and it's been a bit underwhelming. The weapon layout is strange, the shields are tiny, it's slow and I am just not getting that much of bang for the buck out of it. It takes a lot of work to get it in the position and once you do it, there is no flexibility - if it gets overwhelmed, it pretty much goes down (and with that tiny shield, it's not that hard to outmaneuver it). Am I doing something wrong? I am considering just selling it and getting two cruisers instead.

[Grievous69]

Oh boy this thread's gonna get huge. I'll explain how the ship works and show some builds when I get home

[Igncom1]

It's a controversial and not very straightforward design, that's for sure.

To put in one way, it's labelled as a battlecruiser for a good reason. It has defences are that of a heavy cruiser, with the weapon slots and size of a battleship.

It's certainly better then any cruiser, and better then not having any capital ship at all, but it struggles to compete in any category that isn't simply providing massive fire-power. And even then it's only really matching it's broadside fire-power with that of a dominator heavy cruiser.

It doesn't make for a great front-line.

[Plantissue]

Conquest is not a straight forward direct combat ship. For personally piloting it: The weapon layout is strange, so you have to mostly shoot sideways or otherwise shoot at funny angles. Most people seem to have the large missile mounts as guided missiles so they don't have to rotate to aim those. Coordinating your ship heading and shield facing and weapon aim all at the same time is impossible, so you have to automate one of those or divide attention appropriately. How most people seem to do it is put weapons on autofire and concentrate on moving the ship and shield control. You can also learn to fly without using shift but no matter what happens your mouse will always control the shield direction. The Conquest is very reliant on its ship system Maneuvering Jets to make it good. It is essentially akin to +25 speed over a long distance, except you can choose to have burst speed.

As an AI controlled ship it's pretty much the only Capital ship that can withdraw from danger and hide behind another ship relatively quickly, so it becomes the most survivable AI ship in that respect. Is it worth more than 2 Eagles? Yes, but only by a little bit I think. Say about 20% better. It isn't a Paragon, but nothing is.

The worth of a Conquest, along with the Odyssey is probably this forums favourite ship topic.

[Yunru]

For a first capital ship, the Paragon has the best layout.
It's also one of the best ships though, so unlikely to be a first capital.

[muffalo]

Haha sorry, yeah, I suspected this topic might have been discussed before. Also offtopic but - you can control its shield? I just assumed it was automatic and it's normal for it to get overwhelmed when threats come from random directions. Which controls do you use to point the direction of the shield? And yeah, I did notice that when I gave control to AI, it performed better than my pathetic attempts at doing it.

I don't know, I have very mixed feeling about it. I kind of expected it to be a tank that I can stick to absorb damage while other ships do the work. I'll give it some more tries but if I stumble on a good pair of cruisers for sale, I might sell it. Glad to know that it is in fact a non-straightforward ship and it's not just me.

[Lucky33]

I've just purchased my very first battlecruiser and it's been a bit underwhelming. The weapon layout is strange, the shields are tiny, it's slow and I am just not getting that much of bang for the buck out of it. It takes a lot of work to get it in the position and once you do it, there is no flexibility - if it gets overwhelmed, it pretty much goes down (and with that tiny shield, it's not that hard to outmaneuver it). Am I doing something wrong? I am considering just selling it and getting two cruisers instead.

Yes, from the looks of it, you are doing everything wrong. Dont use it as a brawler tank. You are supposed to provide cover for your carrier herd and focus fire most dangerous targets. Build it around dual MIRVs in front and Harpoons amidships with ECCM and Expanded Missile Racks (also you need all the missile skills). MIRVs are for the cruisers and above. Harpoons are for the small stuff. Guns are situational. However the most important part is to pick all the Electronic Warfare skills and fill your carriers with ECM mods. You need to get to full 20% range reduction. With everything done right you only need to methodically pop blinded and stunlocked enemy ships.

[Sharp]

Also offtopic but - you can control its shield? I just assumed it was automatic and it's normal for it to get overwhelmed when threats come from random directions. Which controls do you use to point the direction of the shield?

You control omni shields with your mouse pointer, activate then move the mouse pointer around your ship and it will follow it. It does mean you can't manually fire and shield in different directions but when you are flying capitals most of the time what you want to be doing is selecting targets (mouse over a ship and press R) and then let the AI do the shooting while you manoeuvre and manage shields.

I would love to be able to do the reverse, let the AI pilot and manage shields while I do the aiming and shooting for a weapon group but that isn't possible....

[Lucky33]

you can control its shield?

Yes. Its facing your mouse cursor.

[muffalo]

Thanks everyone! I am experimenting with it and running simulations right now - I gave it an extended shield arc and can reliably beat a Dominator or two Eagles so I guess I'll be keeping it. I still need to do a lot of experimenting to see what works. Next time I want to play with may be keeping only one side with legitimate weapons to clear up ordinance points and either bump up range or hull points. Assuming AI is smart enough to pilot that because I really don't want to pilot this nightmare into battle. I actually think a lot of pain could alleviated if I could configure it's "primary" side and have it face that side when I am holding "shift" (especially now that I've learnt that cursor is controlling shield).

[Plantissue]

When I was directly controlling a Conquest I gave them Accelerated Shields, but I suppose extended shields might be better. Especially since for some forsaken reason when AI-controlled, the doesn't know how to point its shield properly against the multiple warheads of Hurricane MIRV, always choosing to point it at the end warhead instead of in the middle.

Personally I don't like to have an assymetrical Conquest layout. I like to turn the Conquest around and use the other side when the armour on one side is depleted. But other people have different opinions.

[Grievous69]

Alright my time to shine again since I'd say I spent the most time flying this ship out of all capitals. In essence it's a glass cannon sniper. You can do many things with it but this works best in my experience. You have the worst possible shields in the game so forget about tanking with this thing or flying into ''melee'' range of other capitals. That said you should still always put Hardened shields on it when bombers eventually get to you. Configure it so that the one side is your ''main'' side with long range powerful weapons, and the other one is PD and Anti-fighter. I usually put 1x Gauss Cannon, 1x Mjolnir, 1x HVD and 1x Heavy Mauler on the main side, 2x Devastators, 1x Heavy Autocannon and 1x Dual Flak (regular is fine as well). Put PD in all smalls except the 2 rear ones, you don't really need to waste OP there. 2 energy mediums can be left empty since there's really no compatible energy weapon with the rest of your loadout. 2x Locusts in the front and I usually leave 2 medium missile mounts on the side empty. Only mandatory hullmods are ITU and Hardened shields. RFC and Advanced turret gyros are nice if you have extra OP. Max out your vents and everything else in caps. Now you can modify this a lot to suit your taste but the general idea should be the same.

I've heard some people like Storm Needler on Conquest but it's the worst ship for that playstyle.

EDIT: You really don't need Extended or any other shields mods except for Hardened. That's only so you can survive a salvo of missiles or shots. You should never be taking all enemy fire with it. Your speed is the key, get away from anything coming at you that's bigger than a cruiser and kite them till they die.

[Megas]

Conquest is worth its DP of 40.  It is roughly comparable to Onslaught.

My favored loadout for it is symmetrical, with 2 Locusts, 2 Mjolnirs, 2 Heavy Needlers, 2 Mark IXs, 8 burst PD.  Hullmods are Expanded Missile Racks, Hardened Shields, ITU, and maybe one or two others.  Designed for mid-range brawling, and AI can use it decently.

I've heard some people like Storm Needler on Conquest but it's the worst ship for that playstyle.

It can work, but the Conquest needs to constantly push forward, not unlike AI Aurora reliant on energy weapons.  Steady AI does not work for it.  It must be at least Aggressive.  Due to Conquest's mobility and flux stats, it is probably the best ship for Storm Needler.  What are the other options?  Dominator?  Onslaught?  Whatever clunkers pirates and pathers use?  If anything, it just exposes Storm Needler being a bad general-purpose weapon, or at least difficult to work with.  700 range is crappy for a heavy ballistic weapon.

[Grievous69]

What are the other options?  Dominator?  Onslaught?  Whatever clunkers pirates and pathers use?  If anything, it just exposes Storm Needler being a bad general-purpose weapon, or at least difficult to work with.  700 range is crappy for a heavy ballistic weapon.

Honestly, only Onslaught and Prometheus Mk II make sense with a Storm needler to me. Burn drive in > massive kinetic dmg > finish with the rest > move on to next target. And yeah in general I'm not a fan of it, constant low dmg per shot kinetic dmg with a stupidly short range for a heavy weapon, also high flux cost. It feels really weird to me, at least on vanilla ships. Conquest with Storm needlers is just asking for trouble.

[Thaago]

For player piloting I'm a fan of putting the large slot reapers in the front missiles. They have enough ammo that they don't need extended racks, and swinging around to fire 4 reapers into a high flux target is a very good move. Its player piloting only though, as the present of large direct fire missiles on the front of the ship skews its broadside logic, and will lead to the Conquest just pointing at the enemy not firing anything.