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[Megas]

@ TaLaR:  All ships can have CR problems against endgame fleets when player's fleet is not quite endgame strong, especially if some ships have Degraded Subsystems and/or lack Hardened Subsystems... or if map size is small like the default of 300.  Due to how AI fleets like bounties scale, player may need to fight endgame battles before he is fully ready.

In my last game, before I produced my endgame fleet, I made do with Conquest (D) and a variety of cruisers.  (I also had map size 300 for some of the fights.)  Every fight was a multi-round slog until I stole blueprints from Culann and finally built my endgame fleet.

P.S.  Drover with Hardened Subsystems has as much PPT as Heron or Mora without it.  It is not hard to run out of PPT for carriers if the fight is big enough.

[Plantissue]

I've noticed that carrier cruisers tend to run out of PPT first over other cruisers, but only because they tend to enter first and stay "in combat" for longer.

CR does seem to tick down disproportionately fast after PPT when compared to the amount of PPT time you normally have when deploying and the supply costs you pay for it. Does anybody know how fast CR depletes? I think it is about 1% every 3 seconds. Does it change for ship classes?

[intrinsic_parity]

The heron actually has the worst ppt in the cruiser class and the mora has significantly lower ppt than other low tech cruisers:

Heron: 360
Aurora/Apogee/Mora/Doom: 420
Eagle/Falcon/Gryphon/Colossus(all variants)/starliner: 480
Dominator/Venture: 540

Interestingly, some good destroyers (hammer head and drover most prominently) have 360 ppt so the Heron ppt is actually more comparable to a destroyer than a cruiser. It seems like most destroyers have 300-360 ppt with the exception of the enforcer which has 420.

I've definitely noticed that the heron needs to retreat well before other cruisers. I also find it interesting that destroyer sized carriers don't have reduced ppt compared to other destroyers AFAIK like the cruiser sized ones do.

[Megas]

Carriers will probably tick down sooner because their fighters engage the enemy long distance away, and that ticks down PPT.  Also, wings that are destroyed always tick down PPT until one fighter gets rebuilt.

Heron is a bit OP starved, and I cannot afford Hardened Subsystems for it.  Mora might be able to (although the main reason for me to bring Mora, instead of more Heron, in the first place is partly for campaign mods like Surveying Equipment).  Drover, being able to avoid close combat with decent speed and a good 360 shield, can ignore weapons and pour almost all OP into hullmods, including Hardened Subsystems.

[Plantissue]

Thanks for writing the PPT info intrinsic_parity. Do you know the rate at which CR depletes?

@Megas, you cannot afford Hardened Subsystem for Heron? Though it does not have a 360 shield, it is a tad faster than the Drover. I suppose the difference is that the Drover is likely armed with fighters instead of bombers and so is more likely to be able to defend itself.

[Megas]

I would like the Heron to be able to fire a gun or PD.  It seems Heron only has enough OP if it complete ignores guns like Drover.  With Drover, I can see ignoring guns because it cannot mount enough useful guns, and it is small, cheap, and not hard to get 360 shields.  At cruiser size, I expect carriers to fight like a mini-Legion.  It is a real shame if Heron is only good as a poor-man's fat Drover.  Heron used to be a decent brawler before 0.7.  I like to put a medium weapon and some beam PD on Heron.

The thing I dislike most about carriers (except maybe Legion) since 0.8 is they need to spend most if not all OP on fighters and hullmods to be competent at their job of being a carrier.  They could not do that, nor needed to, before 0.7.  (Officers and no fighter skills made carriers pointless during 0.7.x.)  Carriers should be able to use some weapons without sacrificing their effectiveness at being a carrier.

P.S.  For Heron, weapons are something like medium ballistic or heavy blaster, three or four burst PD, few capacitors, about 15 vents.  Fighters are probably Sparks or other 8 OP fighters.  May have one or two hullmods.  No more OP after that.

[bobucles]

A quick test for CR decay is to mod in a ship with 10 seconds of PPT, then see what happens. If CR decay depends on PPT, it'll definitely show.

[Lucky33]

P.S.  For Heron, weapons are something like medium ballistic or heavy blaster, three or four burst PD, few capacitors, about 15 vents.  Fighters are probably Sparks or other 8 OP fighters.  May have one or two hullmods.  No more OP after that.

No wonder you run out of CR with that.

Heron is a blitzkrieg machine. Ship poper. Deploy, push your way toward the big guys, call for Herons. Strike Herons.

[intrinsic_parity]

Heavy blaster on a heron seems absurd to me? It's like the least efficient and most flux expensive gun you could put on a ship that's never supposed to see the front line. I usually do graviton or ion beam with more beam pd, that way I can minimize OP spent on supporting the weapon compliment with vents and hull mods and also try to maintain a safe range. HVD is also nice, but I usually don't want to spend the vents and OP to fit it. Sometimes I do 2x burst pd in the back and 2x tac + grav in the front, just enough vents to stay flux neutral and then top quality bombers and fighter hull mods.

[Megas]

Heavy blaster on a heron seems absurd to me? It's like the least efficient and most flux expensive gun you could put on a ship that's never supposed to see the front line.

It is also an all-purpose weapon for only one weapon slot.  Heavy Blaster is Mjolnir-lite.

Heavy Blaster is not always for front-line use.  It is to blast things that get past the front-line and attack the Heron.  If Heron had hybrid smalls, I would use Heavy Mortar and Railguns.  But with only a single mount for attacking things, I might consider heavy blaster.

Also, if I have few ships, there is not much of a line.  It is three or five of me vs. likewise or the mob.

During later 0.6.x, Heron could be at the front-line against weaker enemies.  Heron was practically super Wolf (when Wolf could solo Onslaught) that trades Skimmer for fighters.

Heron is a blitzkrieg machine. Ship poper. Deploy, push your way toward the big guys, call for Herons. Strike Herons.

I use Astral for strike needs.  If I do not have Astral yet (due to being too early in the game), then I probably will distribute Piranhas or Khopesh among all of the carriers.

Late in the game, Capitals are the heavy hitters.  Carriers with interceptors are substitutes for frigates and destroyer warships.

[Lucky33]

I use Astral for strike needs.  If I do not have Astral yet (due to being too early in the game), then I probably will distribute Piranhas or Khopesh among all of the carriers.

Late in the game, Capitals are the heavy hitters.  Carriers with interceptors are substitutes for frigates and destroyer warships.

45 DP for the Astral. 20 DP for the frigate substitute. 120 DP - low bracket of the default battle size.

Nice.

[SCC]

What's the difference between a 12/20 DP carrier and a 4 DP frigate? The carrier doesn't die immediately in the late game.

[Megas]

What's the difference between a 12/20 DP carrier and a 4 DP frigate? The carrier doesn't die immediately in the late game.

Peak performance too.  Bringing small ships that run out of PPT too quickly does not seem useful.  Their PPTs were set around the 0.6.x era, when the biggest fight at the time was Hegemony System Defense Fleet, or the equivalent of modern 200k bounty.  Modern endgame fights make those look small, and PPT has not kept up.

120 DP - low bracket of the default battle size.

For 300 map size, which I played at first then abandoned it when it became clear game became like Mortal Kombat endurance fights with multi-round combat with two or three of my ships vs. whatever they threw at me.  For this current release with oversized endgame fights, 500 map size or bust.

[Lucky33]

For 300 map size, which I played at first then abandoned it when it became clear game became like Mortal Kombat endurance fights with multi-round combat with two or three of my ships vs. whatever they threw at me.  For this current release with oversized endgame fights, 500 map size or bust.

No-no-no. You have to enlarge the map size so that you can squeeze your suboptimal fleet in. Its a circular fallacy. First you decide that you need frigates in your fleet. Second you decide that you need to substitute them with a certain 20 DP strike carrier. Third you decide that you need to put Sparks in your freshly substitued frigate although AI is bugged and will never use damage boost system which is the core of that poor ship. Than you realize that you missing the actual damage dealers and here you go - you cant fit your fleet into 300 map size with all yours 20 DP carrier-frigates. Who would have thought it!

[Megas]

I raise map size because I want to use a fleet in a game that wants to be a fleet game.  Instead, with 300 map size, I am stuck with two or three capitals, and I slog through multi-round combat because AI cowers too much (or has too many big ships that slowly trickle in) and fights drag on for too long.  They are not fun.  What is the point of a fleet if I can only deploy few ships?  500 map size fights finish faster.

In earlier releases, 500 map size was enough to fit everything on both sides in.  Not today.

If I want a fleet battle, I want all ships to fight.  I do not want Star Control SuperMelee.  I might as well play Ur-Quan Masters if I want to play that kind of game.

I want something that can take out those cowardly enemy small ships.  It can be frigates or it can be anything else with speed.  If I do not have ships that can take out fast cowards, then the fight drags out until the enemy gets cornered or runs out of PPT and flames out.  I only use frigates if that is all that I have (early game) or if they are overpowered (Afflictor).  Frigates (and most destroyers) are generally too fragile, have too short PPT, and clog fleet slots better used by more powerful ship.

I do not use carriers that are not Astral as strike, unless I have no other choice.  Earlier in the game, I will use bombers on smaller carriers to chew through battlestations (I probably do not have Afflictor yet).  By late game, once I have Astral and/or several Afflictor, they are sufficient for all of my strike needs.  Other carriers I bring - Drover, Heron, Mora - generally have interceptors to pick off small fry or help distract other enemies.

I tried Spark Drover spam.  While very effective, it kills the frame rate on my computer.  I do not want to use fleets that do not play nice with my hardware.