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[TaLaR]

Conquest's ability to kite an Onslaught with Gauss Cannons significantly relies on Onslaught's AI flaw.
Onslaught is too easily cowed with weapon pressure to not use BD (as long as you maintain lower flux than Onslaught). If you were to start a duel by holding fire against an Onslaught at max Gauss range (to provoke it into using BD), trying to win the fight from that point is quite difficult (skill-less, against better than sim build of Onslaught). Now imagine if Onslaught was massively buffed on top of that.

[Grievous69]

Yeah but isn't that the whole point? Going toe to toe in a battlecruiser vs a battleship should be hard. You ideally want distractions and wait for the right time to go in, or just do a wide flank. At least that's my understanding.

[intrinsic_parity]

It's very easy for the player to defeat an overly aggressive onslaught (BD on cool down) flying a conquest without abusing range (assuming a 1v1):

Just wait for it to burn drive, then activate maneuvering jets, fly to the side, let it pass you and then go behind it. Conquest has a shorter cool down so you're guaranteed to be able to do that every time it burn drives. Of course the AI will not do that, but that's another AI flaw. With the right timing of maneuvering jets, I'm pretty sure you can always avoid being directly in front of the onslaught (and thus avoid the TPC's and maybe a significant amount of the forward facing turrets as well)..

[TaLaR]

It is possible to get behind an overly aggressive Onslaught, but without skills advantage margins are quite thin. A buffed Onslaught might do too much damage even at side. You also have to commit to either kiting or getting behind it as soon a Onslaught activates BD, you won't be able to effectively switch tactics later.

This also relies on easily fixable vulnerability, which can be solved with Augmented Thrusters + EA1 + Helm1 on Onslaught.

[Megas]

I like that in the current version, Conquest can brawl Onslaught with middle-of-the-road weapons (Mark IX and HAG) and have roughly 50-50 chance of winning.  (More if Conquest has skill advantage.)  If Conquest will be the only midline capital warship, I like for it to keep its fast battleship performance.

[Thaago]

I was playing the last hurrah recently and Conquest without hardened shields has a really rough time trying to fight the Onslaught from the front. With HS and a capacitor heavy load it can do it against a not very kinetic heavy Onslaught, but its not super effective.

Which I think is ok - the ship is much more nimble and can fire the really flux hungry stuff with ease. And if it gets behind the Onslaught all it takes is a bit of ion and 4x reapers from the front to crack it wide open in seconds (default variant).

[intrinsic_parity]

The fact that the onslaught is compared to the conquest rather than the paragon is evidence that it is not a true battleship as suggested by the thread. No one complains that the conquest cannot brawl with a paragon, so why should the conquest be able to brawl with an onslaught. If the onslaught was buffed to be a proper battleship, the conquest would be just as good against other ships, and I don't see any reason it would need to be buffed to stay competitive with the onslaught in a straight up fight. IMO, the conquest should be compared to the odyssey not the onslaught and maybe it could use a small maneuverability or speed buff to cement its role as a battle cruiser a bit more if the onslaught was buffed, but it definitely doesn't need firepower or defensive buffs to 'keep up' with the onslaught if the onslaught were buffed.

I've nothing against having a proper midline battleship (like the victory) in vanilla, but the conquest is not supposed to be that IMO.

[TaLaR]

The fact that the onslaught is compared to the conquest rather than the paragon is evidence that it is not a true battleship as suggested by the thread. No one complains that the conquest cannot brawl with a paragon, so why should the conquest be able to brawl with an onslaught. If the onslaught was buffed to be a proper battleship, the conquest would be just as good against other ships, and I don't see any reason it would need to be buffed to stay competitive with the onslaught in a straight up fight. IMO, the conquest should be compared to the odyssey not the onslaught and maybe it could use a small maneuverability or speed buff to cement its role as a battle cruiser a bit more if the onslaught was buffed, but it definitely doesn't need firepower or defensive buffs to 'keep up' with the onslaught if the onslaught were buffed.

I've nothing against having a proper midline battleship (like the victory) in vanilla, but the conquest is not supposed to be that IMO.

Conquest doesn't need to be able to brawl a Paragon, because Paragon is a sitting duck waiting to be sniped. Even with 4xTL + 2x Grav + 2x HVD  loadout it's only a moderate challenge for a Gauss Conquest, anything less isn't even a threat.

Odyssey can defeat Paragon in a brawl while taking no-to-minimal damage (no skills). It's fast enough to stick to Paragon's side, ignoring most of the latter's guns.

Odyssey is the superior brawler by far, Conquest is kite and snipe.

A speed/maneuverability buff for Conquest would help to preserve it's usefulness in face of buffed Onslaught, but would obsolete all smaller ships even further. How are DE/Cruisers expected to survive that?

Imo, what really needs buffing are smaller ships, not capitals (and not necessarily direct stat buffs, AI improvements + some solution for officer limit could probably fix most issues).

[SCC]

I don't think Onslaught needs to be buffed. It's pretty good, but it has its weaknesses. The only buff I really want is the return of burn drive cancelling and to make AI capable of using it. And if you need an even bigger low-tech ship, Paragon plays almost the same, just with good shields.
Though I'm not a fan of TPCs. They're nice for burst, range and being free, but if I could, I would choose the old reliable kinetics+high explosives combo. Gauss Cannon is the only kinetic ballistic weapon less efficient against shields than TPC and against armour it's probably worse than all medium and large high-explosive ballistic weapons. It's nice for opening combat, before your other weapons come into range, or for finishing fights quickly so that overfluxing yourself doesn't matter of the enemy is dead, but most of the time it's best to avoid shooting it. Onslaught doesn't have the flux for that.

Yeah you're right about TPCs, nothing else the Onslaught can mount can compare to them. I disagree on low tech being cost efficient tho, their ships eventually start costing more than other techs in the long run, especially if you tend to take armor or hull damage. The only thing that makes them seem cheaper is the lower credit cost upfront.

Eventually? Conquest and Odyssey are cheaper at 300k and 330k credits respectively. Fuel costs and crew salaries are the real killer.

The changes would make Onslaught a terrifying sniper platform - with 3 converging Gauss Cannons and flux buffs what would be the point of Conquest? So getting close to enemy with Burn Drive wouldn't even be that much of priority.

Running away. Slow ships can be overwhelmed, even the Paragon. On the other hand, Conquest can easily run away and keep shooting you while at it.
Onslaught is stronger than Conquest, but Conquest is faster than it overall. It's Onslaught's job to fight Conquest directly and it's Conquest's job to avoid a straight fight.

(I think it's actually pretty close if we uses zero flux boost because that stacks with maneuvering jets while it doesn't stack with burn drive)

You need Helmsmanship 3 to get zero flux boost with burn drive, which is one of the rare instances where the skill gives the player an actual benefit, instead of being just a patch for AI.

[Grievous69]

Ok maybe I shouldn't have said the word buff since some people got the wrong idea. It's more of a rework if anything, buffing it would just mean making it stronger and keeping everything else the same, which is not what I proposed. The only thing I can see being improved without nerfs in other areas is as you said, Burn drive cancelling. Also holy *** I didn't know Odyssey is cheaper than the Onslaught. I mean I always knew crew and fuel were making a difference in the end but it's been so long since I've bought these in markets I completely forgot what the costs were. And the high tech ships are the ones that were supposed to be more expensive to buy haha.

[Titann]

what onslaught need is little bit more flux dissipation and special hull mod that reduces EMP damage or increases turret/engine durability without spending op for it

though ill be happy with little flux dissipation buff because if you reach max flux and under pressure there is no way to keep firing unless you vent lol. Currently Onslaught is dead if it reaches to max flux.

[Megas]

Paragon is the outlier worth 60 DP.  All other capitals (that are not civilian mods) are in the 40 to 45 DP range.  Conquest was called battlecruiser long ago when it was still a battlecruiser.  It is not that anymore, it is a full-blown battleship... that is also fast.

Odyssey is the superior brawler by far, Conquest is kite and snipe.

Only for the playership.  AI will burn into a mob and die.

Not a big fan of Gauss Conquest.  Gauss is inefficient, and seems to struggle against a group of nimble attackers.  Also, AI seems to have problems with it no matter what officer I use.  Cautious kites beyond Gauss range and takes itself out of the fight, Steady cannot seem to get into optimal position to aim and fire Gauss consistently, and Aggressive gets too close and defeats the point of Gauss.  Also, Gauss Conquest means I cannot use the best missile, Locusts, due to lack of range.  I have to use the gross and overpriced MIRV and ECCM (and Expanded Missile Racks) combo if I want to use missiles with Gauss Conquest.

Imo, what really needs buffing are smaller ships, not capitals (and not necessarily direct stat buffs, AI improvements + some solution for officer limit could probably fix most issues).

They need more PPT!  That is the biggest reason why I do not use them.  They do not last long enough to fight a big battle.

[Yunru]

Either more PPT, or a slower CR decay.

[Grievous69]

In what way is Conquest a full-blown battleship? Sure it's got firepower but also a 90 degree arc 1.4 efficiency shield. And for its shields, the armor is not that crazy. I mean you could call it a glass cannon battleship but I don't know if that would be an oxymoron.

[Megas]

In what way is Conquest a full-blown battleship? Sure it's got firepower but also a 90 degree arc 1.4 efficiency shield. And for its shields, the armor is not that crazy. I mean you could call it a glass cannon battleship but I don't know if that would be an oxymoron.

Because unskilled AI Conquest outfitted for medium-range brawling has a 50-50 shot at killing a sim or unskilled Onslaught, the sort that appears in the campaign if it does not have an officer on board.

Also, midline tends to be faster (in combat) and less armored than low-tech.  Not just Conquest vs. Onslaught, but also Eagle vs. Dominator, and so on.

Either Conquest is a battleship (except in the Codex) or Onslaught underperforms too much to be worthy of the battleship.

Conquest shields has poor efficiency but it has great flux stats, enough that either Hardened Shields or max caps will let it absorb enough.  (Odyssey has a similar problem, given low flux capacity and energy weapons, plus low OP.  Odyssey needs Hardened Shields too, and it wants max caps too if it goes double plasma.)  I need to give up too many mounts to make Odyssey a good brawler that only I can use because AI will plasma burn into a mob and die.