Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5

Author Topic: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?  (Read 8334 times)

Grievous69

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2980
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2020, 08:33:02 AM »

Typically I find the Gryphon sadly better leaving the large missile slot empty XD
I threw up in my mouth a bit after reading this.
Logged
Please don't take me too seriously.

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2020, 08:37:06 AM »

In the most recent tournament Gryphons did very well, possibly one of the strongest ships available for their cost, though that format favors missiles because it allowed for (partial) reloads between waves. In campaign missiles are much better than people give them credit for, but not as good as in tournament settings with more numerical parity.

The ship ranges from medium-bad to good in campaign, depending on their build and the fleet that they are part of. The AI does well with a well built Gryphon, and poorly with a badly built one, just like any other ship. Falcon (P)'s outclass them because they are tanky and fast and can "brawl" with their missiles, but in terms of the amount of missiles brought to the field Gryphons are better per ship and per cost.

Missiles are not the same thing as fighters. I don't feel the need to re-litigate this again, but its just obviously not true and its horrible advice to give to someone to treat them the same.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2020, 08:39:38 AM by Thaago »
Logged

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #17 on: July 19, 2020, 08:45:14 AM »

Bombers are essentially superior missile platforms. But not fighters/interceptors as they usually use guns and so are more like corvettes of a sort.
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Yunru

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1560
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #18 on: July 19, 2020, 08:50:12 AM »

I threw up in my mouth a bit after reading this.
I splash out the equivalent of Safety Overrides for Missile Autoforge (Hullmod), without the large, I can load up the mediums with finishers and the smalls with Sabots.

SonnaBanana

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 867
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #19 on: July 19, 2020, 09:02:54 AM »

In your opinion, what can be done to make Squalls better?
Logged
I'm not going to check but you should feel bad :( - Alex

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #21 on: July 19, 2020, 09:11:06 AM »

Squalls already do 2 things rather well though:
- Defensive stalling as demonstrated by sim Astral.
- Beating a slower ship into submission. AI Conquest with Squalls can solo any build of Paragon in skill-less sim duel (or any other vanilla capital, except overpowered Radiant and Guardian).

Problem is, AI simply spams Squalls as long as there is anything to shoot at, without any sort of planning or target prioritization. So in fleet setting Squalls are almost guaranteed to be uselessly wasted. Same problem with Annihilators and Hammers.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #22 on: July 19, 2020, 09:20:12 AM »

To add to TaLaR's point: Squalls are great at driving up the flux of targets they can hit. Unfortunately that is only capitals and slow cruisers. Any shots fired at nimble cruisers or below simply forces an easy dodge: not totally useless and it can disrupt the enemy, but not worth a large missile slot or the OP. Squalls that could reliably hit small ships would be excessively deadly, so I don't think they should have tracking good enough to hit frigates, but they could use a moderate tracking boost and really need an AI tweak to not fire at destroyers or frigates except in "panic fire" mode.

Logged

Grievous69

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2980
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #23 on: July 19, 2020, 09:25:43 AM »

I just wish for them to have more ammo, it would make it less painful putting them on AI ships. In return maybe reduce the salvo size, or just increase the refire delay idk. Currenly it runs before doing anything meaningful (which a large missile should do).
Logged
Please don't take me too seriously.

intrinsic_parity

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3071
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #24 on: July 19, 2020, 11:23:34 AM »

Bombers are essentially superior missile platforms.

Bomber would be like missiles that fire off randomly but have infinite ammo. Proper missiles can be withheld until there is a good opportunity to do damage. There's definitely some questions about how the AI actually uses missiles, and also possibly ways the player can manage bomber timings with recall/engage, but bombers just have nowhere near the same level of control or impact that proper missiles have. They trade that for sustained damage in long fights. Two different things.
Logged

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #25 on: July 19, 2020, 11:32:31 AM »

You can control bombers, no? When they are sent out to attack? (I literally don't know as I never pilot.)

So you don't have fine level of control, no, but you do have some.
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #26 on: July 19, 2020, 11:43:31 AM »

I consider most fighters too similar to missiles.  Bombers are obvious, but even interceptors like Talons feel too similar to missiles for my tastes, even if they do not suicidally ram enemy ships or explode for big damage like a Reaper.  This is something I probably will never see eye-to-eye with the likes of Thaago.  The only fighters that do not behave like missiles are the escort-only ones, namely mining pods and Xyphos (and Terminator drones on Tempest); those feel more like Gradius options or Chmmr Zapsats.  Carriers behave like a missile ship should (by avoiding enemies).  Of course, carriers cowering like they should burns AI Legion built to brawl like an Onslaught.

Every time I tried various loadouts with Gryphon in serious late-game battles, it was always the first to die.  (I give long-range missile loadouts, and it, with Steady AI, still manages to approach enemies thinking it is a tanky warship and get itself killed.)  I probably need to dedicate a Cautious officer with missile skills and no carrier skills - yuck!  I do not like to build officers that are only good for a single ship type, especially if I do not bring ten officers.  The only time Gryphon was mildly useful to me was when I loot one early around the start of midgame (while I still use clunkers I loot from pirates) when it was outfitted like a bigger Enforcer (with Hammer Barrage instead of Annihilators) to be cheap and disposable, where dying would not be a problem (because I would just recover it and re-use it with cheap stuff until I no longer need it).
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #27 on: July 19, 2020, 01:41:33 PM »

You can control bombers, no? When they are sent out to attack? (I literally don't know as I never pilot.)

So you don't have fine level of control, no, but you do have some.

Somewhat, yes. Bombers hanging back behind the ship in recall mode will still fire off their payloads at opportunity targets more or less at random (its quite nice with Longbows, because they then rearm very quickly, while also acting as extra side point defense. For battle carriers, a wing that is identical to the Longbow but was locked to the parent ships so the AI couldn't set it to engage would be better than the normal one). In terms of AI control, we can set strike orders which will (partially) coordinate fighters to hit a target, but this does not synchronize timing. There is no AI awareness, AFAIK, for bombers to prioritize firing at overloaded or even high flux targets.
Logged

Goumindong

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1889
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #28 on: July 19, 2020, 02:20:28 PM »

and don't use Gryphons, at the moment they are consider some of the worst ships in the game.
gryphons are great

They’re different than falcon P but theyre still really good.

As an example in my most recent game where I ran mainly onslaughts my backups were

Mods and Gryphon.

And the AI gryphon did as much ship damage as the AI onslaughts and twice as much as the Mora on average 
Logged

Null Ganymede

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 274
    • View Profile
Re: How the hell do Squalls work, if they work, do they?
« Reply #29 on: July 19, 2020, 09:50:53 PM »

Gyphon flagships are broken in experienced player hands.

The joy of this game is most ships have been called "worst" by people who haven't discovered their niches yet.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5