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News:

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

Poll

What would you like to see in Blackrock?

More ships
- 755 (23.7%)
More weapons
- 481 (15.1%)
More campaign features
- 478 (15%)
Space monsters
- 705 (22.1%)
More lore
- 207 (6.5%)
More music
- 131 (4.1%)
More portraits
- 157 (4.9%)
Subfactions
- 277 (8.7%)

Total Members Voted: 1425


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Author Topic: [0.9.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards  (Read 1791051 times)

Taverius

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1170 on: May 26, 2014, 11:33:59 AM »

I'll post anything I notice abut the Scorpion, but it looks pretty well balanced as it is.

I did notice the Gonny is somewhat less useful in SS+ due to how hard it is to get a hold of burn-speed enhancements at the stage of the game where a sturdy, low-upkeep destroyer with a decent cargo is so attractive - I found burn 4 to be a little crippling on the map. I want a BRDY tug :P
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Taverius

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1171 on: May 27, 2014, 02:55:52 AM »

English isn't my first language, but in the Hammerclaw description, shouldn't it say 'is a useful shock weapon' instead of 'is an useful shock weapon'?

Also, Large Gale Battery plox :D
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Mazuo

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1172 on: May 27, 2014, 03:07:47 AM »

You're correct, though I can't say I ever noticed it.  "It's is not undergoing repairs" in the base game I've found grating though, heh.  As for the large gale, I want one and fear it at the same time.
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Taverius

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1173 on: May 28, 2014, 07:39:38 AM »

"It's is not undergoing repairs" in the base game I've found grating though, heh.  As for the large gale, I want one and fear it at the same time.
It might be better if it was some gatling array thingy to prevent distant triple gale alpha ... maybe?

In other news, I found a setup the AI is pretty happy with on the Gonny. Its still not very good with the HClaw or the burn jet, but those are issues with comparable vanilla functionality too. The Scorp is overall a better ship for the AI to fly, I think.

Finally found a Stenos setup I'm happy with, and I'm very happy with it indeed. 2 sunjets, a squall battery and 2 scalaron blasters make short work of pretty much anything ... took a while to 'see' the arcs to ensure I had good enough PD coverage to protect the wet napkins it calls armor.

Now if only I can find another 50 or so OP so I can slap in bulkheads - because I always take some hull damage with it - engine and thruster mods - because it handles like a stricken oil tanker with a broken rudder ...

Still, a much more interesting ship compared to the old one with the drone, and I'd be hard pressed to decide if I'd rather fly a Nevermore or a Stenos now, so well done Cycerin :D

I am still failing at finding a use for the Ironweaver. I haven't found a ship where I'm not better served by putting a Squall Battery in there instead and using Ferroguns or Scalarons to burst shields, since the effective range is the same. Any suggestions?
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Shield

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1174 on: May 28, 2014, 11:43:02 AM »

Ironweaver on a Onslaught is beautiful
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Taverius

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1175 on: May 29, 2014, 10:16:22 AM »

Ironweaver on a Onslaught is beautiful
Maybe, I like to fly 'faction' fleets using only 'faction' weapons where possible, so I've only tried it on BRDY ships.

@Cycerin: Something is slightly off with the Asura sprite; whenever I fly it - which is often - my eye is drawn to the engine flames coming right out of the rear phase coils.

I think I'm starting to 'see' the Kurmaraja, but I'm also starting to think the shield damage conversion is unnecessarily punishing on it. As it is both caps are pretty awful at being shot at and require subsystem use for active avoidance, they could stand being differentiated some in that respect.
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Ishman

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1176 on: May 29, 2014, 12:28:54 PM »

Technically the karkinos had been tankier than an Onslaught for quite awhile (I don't remember the exact stat differentiation since cycerin's last balance pass though) but the positioning of it's weapons has always resulted in rolling blackouts across most any area it takes damage - for me at least.

And I've always found the ironweaver to be REALLY strong in knife fights with a manuverable vessel when you don't feel you can spare the flux spikes that come with scalarons, or you want to be able to disassemble more ships with it (also the ironweaver uses cycerin's on hit-effects so it's listed dps is a lot lower than it actually is). Of course my favoring of it might just be because I often just use it to swat annoying bomber groups or fighters. Man I hate being the victim of a well-aimed bombing run :U
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Mazuo

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1177 on: May 29, 2014, 10:19:10 PM »

I've only been using it a while, but mounted on an Asura the burst damage of the Ironweaver can really catch ships off-guard.  Followed by some Scalaron Blaster fire, very unhappy enemies.  I think I'd prefer the Ferrocannon with its lower OP cost, but it lacks the excellent shard damage and its fire rate is nearly 3 times slower with only a little more kinetic damage to compensate.  It's a tough balancing act, but I think it could use a little more love even with its sniping potential.  I need to use it a lot more though to really see.

It's a goofy build, and I'm not really sure how effective it is, but I've been using the Scorpion with triple Scalaron Repeaters.  Something does seem off with its listed numbers though as it really doesn't seem possible it's generating as much flux as it says it does.  The damage numbers on the weapon itself may be a touch low as even with the AI holding down the trigger on 3 of them and most shots connecting, shield systems do not seem to be as under as much pressure as I'd think they should be.  It appears to be a lesser version of the Rift Cannon, so a little more punch would be nice.
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Taverius

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1178 on: May 29, 2014, 10:39:37 PM »

I've only been using it a while, but mounted on an Asura the burst damage of the Ironweaver can really catch ships off-guard.  Followed by some Scalaron Blaster fire, very unhappy enemies.  I think I'd prefer the Ferrocannon with its lower OP cost, but it lacks the excellent shard damage and its fire rate is nearly 3 times slower with only a little more kinetic damage to compensate.  It's a tough balancing act, but I think it could use a little more love even with its sniping potential.  I need to use it a lot more though to really see.

I tried it out, but found double Ferrocannons and Squall Battery gave me marginally better shield popping with much better killshots on armor, plus more flux efficiency, plus 10 OP to play with for extra Flux/Mods.

Its pretty much the only (applicable) ship where I don't use Scalaron Blasters as main weapons.

It's a goofy build, and I'm not really sure how effective it is, but I've been using the Scorpion with triple Scalaron Repeaters.  Something does seem off with its listed numbers though as it really doesn't seem possible it's generating as much flux as it says it does.  The damage numbers on the weapon itself may be a touch low as even with the AI holding down the trigger on 3 of them and most shots connecting, shield systems do not seem to be as under as much pressure as I'd think they should be.  It appears to be a lesser version of the Rift Cannon, so a little more punch would be nice.
I've found it a little underwhelming too.

I too tried it out on my scorpions, but ended up with a shredder battery in the middle, 2 scalaron blaster, and 2 voidspears.

The RoF is a bit painful at times but even the AI can keep pretty much anything destroyer-sized or small in perma-overload with it.
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Mazuo

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1179 on: May 29, 2014, 11:31:20 PM »

It gets me back to wondering if blasters are simply too wonderful or the others need improvement.  Fury torps seem just about perfect now where they're scary but not capable of vaporizing targets by themselves.  Things like the Antimatter Lance and the blasters though are so powerful that shields up or down, you're in trouble when they fire at you.

I'll have to try the ferrocannons paired with a squall battery.  I neglect both weapons far too often.
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Taverius

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1180 on: May 30, 2014, 02:18:01 AM »

More of an issue with your other energy options being underwhelming, I think.

Sunfires are nice in theory nice, except you pay as much as a Gale to mount something with 250 less range and less dps. Lets not even compare them to Squalls. Sunjets compare about as well to INMs.

Repeaters don't give the shield pressure you expect, and against most subcapitals Dual Shards have more DPS at the same effective range for less OP and much better flux. Against armor they're also pretty meh because you can't aim for that chunk of armor you've blown off.

Blasters, on the other hand, are a perfectly viable competitor to Ferroguns and Squalls and Dual Shards - compared against each they're rather finely balanced in pros and cons, and since you so often have to split between energy and ballistic, its just so attractive to:
  • Mount Ferroguns and Blasters, with the blasters on Autofire. Fire the Ferroguns manually (with Blasters autofiring) till the shields pop, then switch to Blasters for the killshots.
  • Mount Squalls and Blasters, with the Blaster on autofire. Fire the blasters till the shields pop, switch to Squalls for armor (with Blasters autofiring) for the killshots.
  • Mount Dual Shards and Blasters, FIRE ALL THE THINGS, ALL THE TIME! :D

End result, when I'm looking at ballistic/ballistic or ballistic/universal I go squalls/ferroguns (Asura), but since the option is so often energy/universal or energy/ballistic, Blasters is it, because they're the only ones on parity with the ballistic weapons they share a ship with.
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Cycerin

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1181 on: May 31, 2014, 03:29:02 PM »

Hmm, the blasters might be a tiny bit too powerful after I made them fire more shots per minute. Will have to think about that one. This is really useful feedback. :)

Ferroguns are generally worth the OP now?

The Repeater will probably get tweaked a bit more. I'm considering lowering the range on it and increasing the damage.

Here's a fun little snippet of the new Deracinator distortion shaders. Going to be tweaked more in the future.
http://gfycat.com/MadKindChimneyswift
« Last Edit: May 31, 2014, 03:30:51 PM by Cycerin »
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HELMUT

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1182 on: May 31, 2014, 03:38:05 PM »

Balloon Karkinos!

Honestly i don't know about the charge-up, seems a bit silly. The pop up however looks good.
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Cycerin

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1183 on: May 31, 2014, 04:04:15 PM »

The chargeup is a bit weird at the moment, so it'll probably be changed. I like the impact a lot, though.
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Taverius

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Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.5 - With ShaderLib Dynamic Lighting
« Reply #1184 on: June 01, 2014, 02:09:08 AM »

Ferroguns are generally worth the OP now?
I'd say so.

They're somewhat less attractive on BRDY ships themselves because their advantage cards compared to Dual Shards or Blasters for shield popping is flux efficiency while doing it, and BRDY ships aren't generally suited to the kind of drag-out fight where that matters very much, but as far as weapon-to-weapon comparison yeah. Ferrocannons not so much.

On the Asura, where I find being able to stay submerged for longer is a big plus, they're my anti-shield weapon of choice.

Most missiles are pretty good too ...

I don't like giving Quills to AI ships because unlike Annihilators they'll get shot at live, active ships still able to move and generally miss a whole lot, but that's not an issue with the weapon itself.

The Ajax is not quite there yet - the turn rate is too low to reliably hit the engine on anything small that's facing you, and they're too slow to catch up to fleeing frigates at a greater range than Voidspears can. Against anything larger, you're better off unloading Furys on them.

I do want medium-mount Dart and Fury launchers :)
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