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What would you like to see in Blackrock?

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Author Topic: [0.9.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards  (Read 1791059 times)

Megas

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1560 on: March 29, 2015, 07:12:00 PM »

Some incomplete feedback:

I did not examine Blackrock as much as I did the Templars, since Blackrock is a bigger mod, and I have memory problems when I run this with Nexerelin, but here goes...

Out of all of the faction mods available, Blackrock is probably the best overall long-standing quality mod.  It has a distinct style, has plenty of quality custom content, is reasonably balanced, and it has not died (yet).

Weapons:
The biggest winner are the Argus beam series.  Burst PD on a budget, and excellent missile defense, especially with Advanced Optics.  Micro PD is even available in Open Market, and a great buy for those with Advanced Optics.

The other standout is Scalaron repeater, which is destructive and fills a niche none of the standard weapons do - a high-performance, high DPS medium weapon.  Its lesser cousin, the blaster, would be lackluster if it did not behave like an unlimited antimatter blaster.  Good when you need spike damage, but not as much as standard blasters for general brawling.

Most of the weapons, whatever they are, are slightly inferior alternatives of standard weapons.  Either they underperform in some way (range or DPS) or cost more OP than necessary.  If I have a choice between standard or Blackrock, I choose standard.  However, many Blackrock weapons are acceptable alternatives when standard weapons are unavailable.  For example, I want railgun but have none, I use shard cannon.  I want light assault gun, but have none, I use INM.

None of the Blackrock missiles stand out, and since none of them regenerate or outperform Reapers, I have no reason to use them over standard missiles, ever.

Some Blackrock weapons are real losers:
  • Shredder MG is generally rubbish.  It is a Vulcan without the continuous firing, making it unreliable as missile-defense.  Higher OP cost than the superior Vulcan makes the Shredder even worse.  Its only saving grace is it is sold in open market.
  • Shard Gun (not Shard Cannon) has terrible range.  I prefer Light (Dual) AC over this for more range and cheaper OP cost, despite awful accuracy.
  • The shotguns (Volley Gun and Ironweaver) have terrible range.  If I spend top OP for weapons, I better get something good out of it, but was... disappointed with the results.
  • Sunfire is outclassed by Phase Lance.  I tried both on a Nevermore, and Phase Lance outperformed for less.

Ships:
Aside from performance, the ships have a distinct style.  They appear as enemy bug ships you expect to see from Namco's Galaxian/Galaga series.

I did not play with every one since I did not have enough weapons for all, and did not spend much time grinding for goodies.  The Blackrock ships I like to play with most so far are Nevermore and (especially) Asura.

Asura has excellent stats and mounts.  I was skeptical about its ship system (Flux Ejector), but after a few fights, it proved its worth.  it is very powerful if you need to remove flux at a critical time but cannot waste time to vent.  Pop off some tanks, and it is ready to fight some more.

Nevermore feels fast and strong for a cruiser, but not too overpowered, and is surprisingly fragile if I am not careful.  It feels like an Aurora that does not need Reapers to devastate fleets.

Gonodactylus is strange but effective.  Feels like an alternative Enforcer or Hammerhead.  Give it light assault guns on its left, railguns in the front and back, and Salamanders on its right, and it can brutalize ships.

I thought I might have fun piloting an Imaginos, but discovered that ship is a pain to pilot.  Its main weapon is slow, short-ranged, and an overall pain to use.  Not much can be done to customize the Imaginos.  I just mount a railgun and the usual best standard hullmods (Augmented Engines, ITU, the usual suspects) and call it a day.  It may seem like a Hyperion clone, but it is not.  The rejector special is novel (and cutting-edge when introduced), but not very useful as a trump card.

Question:  Why do the capitals have unlimited peak performance?  Ships like Karkinos can guarantee a win by fleeing and outlasting any ship it cannot outgun until the enemy rots from CR decay.

I read things about Desdinova, but did not get a chance to test drive it due to lack of weapons.  No more comments on ships for now.

Hullmods:
I have little use for the custom hullmods that can be bought.  Targeting Suite guts shot range, a big no-no (except maybe if I use standard long-ranged ballistics like HVD or Gauss).  Assault Fitting seems okay, but I need the OP more than its benefits.

I generally stick with Augmented Engines, Hardened Subsystems, ITU, and Resistant Flux Conduits for just about anything with OP to spare.
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Cycerin

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1561 on: March 29, 2015, 09:32:42 PM »

Thanks for the praise n feedback. I appreciate it. A lot of the concerns you bring up have already been looked at for the upcoming patch, other things not so much, but you should take a look at this changelog:

Spoiler
0.7.4
- Added Megaceras-class Combat Freighter and Shredder Drones system
- Added Scalaron Pulse Launcher, a weapon that fires homing energy pulses.
- New Impossible-difficulty Mission: Awaking the Beast. Save a station from an attacking fleet with your lone Karkinos. How gneiss of you!

\\\Imaginos changes:
- Rift Cannon revamp: prefire delay to 0.05 seconds (from 0.95 seconds) and lowered damage per shot drastically. Now operates like the Autopulse laser on a charge-limited system - this is mainly to make the ship better in AI hands and less clunky to pilot.
- Reduced the EMP damage done by the Rift Cannon
- Built-in beams are now called S-Beams and deal energy + EMP damage + different look/sfx. Good for knife fighting.
- Increased overall damage done by the Imaginos' Scalar Rejector, especially when you get a massive explosion, but lowered emp damage
- Slightly lowered Scalar Deracinator (small) damage and emp damage
- Increased Imaginos supplies/day by 0.5
\\\Hullmod changes:
- Added new Blackrock-only Hullmod: Blackrock Drive Conversion. Increases 0-flux Boost by 30, max. speed by 10% and max. burn by 1. Lowers turn rate and deceleration by 10%. Does not stack with aug. engines, unstable injector, etc
- Changed Blackrock Assault Fitting. Bonuses are now 50% EMP resist, 15% extra hull integrity, and 25% faster weapon/engine repair speed. Fixed a bug that made the original hullmod not actually lower repair speeds. OP cost adjusted down to 5/10/15/25.
- Blackrock Sensor Suite renamed to Blackrock Strike Suite. Now gives 15% damage boost to all weapons, 10% less flux cost for all weapons, 15% range reduction on ballistic/energy.
- New icons for all BRDY hullmods
\\\ Weapon balance changes:
- Removed ammo from all BRDY ballistic weapons. Tooltips are ultra confusing and bugged with regards to the regenerating ammo, and it was an irrelevant balancing mechanic all in all.
- Increased buckshot projectile count from 18 to 20 for Volley Gun and Ironweaver ADC
- Lowered Volley Gun per-volley damage to 500 total, decreased cooldown between shots to 3 seconds.
- Lowered Ironweaver ADC cooldown to 2 seconds, decreased crit chance by 5%. Overall much higher DPS and suppression factor.
- Voidspear SRM: Missile HP to 200 from 180, Flux/missile to 200 from 170, flight time from 5 to 6, added DO_NOT_AIM AI Hint (will autofire from offset mounts now)
- Ferrocannon: New shot damage: 750 \ New shot cooldown: 4 seconds \ New flux/shot: 1200 \ New range: 900 (This is to make it less powerful when you have 4 of them on the Karkinos, and more powerful if you have one or two, overall, the weapon does more DPS)
- Ferrogun damage to 300 from 320 and range to 800 from 750, this is to differentiate it from the Dual Shard and make it better at close support
- Rewrote Shard weapon tooltips to include specific by-the-numbers information on the crit mechanic
- Increased DPS of Shard Cannon and Dual Shard Cannon. Increased range by 50 for both weapons. Increased proj speed slightly. Adjusted flux/dps ratio. Now slightly less efficient but just as damaging as AC vs shields, with the added bonus of the anti armor crit mechanic.
- Damage of Shard Cannon/Dual Shard Cannon crit from 250 max to 200 max.
- Increased DPS of Shard Gun, but lowered the range to 500. Roughly on par with IR Pulse for overall performance now, but more responsive and probably better vs. armor.
- Nerfed Achilles MRM ammo to 5 for 6op version and 12 for 12op version, fragmentation damage to 350 per MIRV from 400, and MIRV health down to 160 from 240. Increased refire delay to 10
seconds. Small Achilles now regenerates 1 missile per minute and medium one regenerates 2 missiles per minute.
- Added regenerating ammo to 8OP Dart SRM launcher, but not to the 4OP one. Also boosted ammo on the 4OP Dart SRM
- Antimatter Lance: Now does 2500 Energy damage and zero EMP damage. New bullet sprite, slightly adjusted impact effect.
- Fury-class Torpedo: Launch speed increased by 20 and damage increased by 250
- PDE weapons (All): Longer burst length to make it more likely to catch a ship lowering shields. Better flux efficiency. Slightly improved turn speed.
\\\ Other changes:
- Added on-hit effect to Scalaron Blaster (same as Scalaron Pulse) with new sfx
- Shard Cannon / Dual Shard Cannon sprite + barrel + muzzle flash fixups
- Kurmaraja flux dissipation increased by 150 and flux capacity increased by 500.
- Lowered charge replenish rate for Stenos Autoloader system to 0.1 from 0.2 ( 10 seconds per charge)
- Increased Stenos flux dissipation by 10, lowered flux capacity by 400
- Increased Stenos hull strength by 500
- Increased Knight flux cap by 100
- Lowered Karkinos flux dissipation by 50 and lowered shield arc to 160 from 180. Reduced maneuverability slightly.
- Increased Nevermore flux dissipation by 20
- Increased Kurmaraja flux dissipation by 50
- Krait fighter: Changed formation type to make sure both fighters fire at the same target more often
- Made BRDY engines slightly warmer in color
- Added CR timers to BRDY capital ships
- Changed Cetonia stats to be a more clean cut freighter now that Megaceras exists
- Adjusted Convergence sprite
- New INM Assault Gun sfx
- Edited Gale Cannon sfx
- Adjusted some Imaginos sound/hullstyle things
- Adjusted ship variants to account for new content and changes
- Adjusted some ship mass values that were erroneously high for the ship's class
- PDE beams are now a more yellow-green color like the other BRDY plasma weapons
- Fixed interactions with TwigLib content, courtesy of DarkRevenant
- Fixed some descriptions in Rama
[close]

I only really disagree with two things in your post:
- I really think the Imaginos needs to be piloted like an Imaginos and not a Hyperion, which sounds vague, but the ships really are extremely different despite superficial similarities. The right click only becomes a trump card once you are in the thick of a fight, where you never want to be in a Hyperion. My WIP changes should make it feel a lot better to pilot.
- Shredders are amazing PD weapons, especially when you have several covering the same arc. Better than the Vulcan in numbers, worse when covering a ship's flank on its own due to the reload. Also great anti-fighter/anti-hull.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2015, 09:37:02 PM by Cycerin »
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Histidine

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1562 on: March 30, 2015, 05:24:40 AM »

Aren't the big selling points of the Shredder longer range + the spread and the faster projectiles meaning it can hit a missile or fighter flying perpendicular to the line of fire (unlike the LMGs, which really love to create a stream trailing the target uselessly)? Although I think the Vulcan doesn't suffer from the latter problem as much as MGs do.
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Megas

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1563 on: March 30, 2015, 06:46:36 AM »

When I need reliable ballistic PD to stop Salamanders and the like, I need it!  Shredder's intermittent bursts kill it for missile defense.  I do not care if it has better range or other stats if it costs more than Vulcan but cannot stop missiles reliably.  I have seen multiple times when the Shredder did not shoot (i.e., fired its burst but failed to stop the missile), and Salamanders struck my ship.  It is about as reliable as standard machine guns in missile defense.  Vulcan is more reliable (it is not perfect, but I had better results with Vulcan than either Shredder or standard LMGs), and costs less OP.  As for multiple Shredders, most frigates can only use one or two guns for PD, so more than two covering each other is often not an option.  Even if it had more mounts, I still prefer Vulcan because of cheaper OP cost.  If I want a multipurpose weapon instead of dedicated PD, I will use LMG which is even cheaper than Vulcan!

I am aware Imaginos is not like the Hyperion.  I tried to pilot the Imaginos as it is, but I do not like it.  It is built as a melee fighter in a game where ships should try to outrange or outgun (or escape) the enemy, but Imaginos is poor at both.  The biggest problem with Imaginos is its awkward main gun.  Its shot speed is about as slow as a Hellbore Cannon, and its range is atrocious.  I need to hug my target to do significant damage, with a fragile ship with no shield or phase cloak.  No shield makes it very squishy despite armor regeneration.  I suppose I could use its rejector as a temporary fortress shield as I flee.  Imaginos does not feel like a Hyperion competitor despite similar costs.
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Mazuo

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1564 on: March 30, 2015, 10:21:49 AM »

While I'm not extremely impressed with Shredders, I've had the opposite experience with missile defense.  Vulcans have more reliably connected at times, but the missile can still make it through.  Seems more often than not when a Shredder hits incoming missiles they're actually stopped.

As for the Imaginos, I think you're simply looking for a style that isn't what Blackrock is going for.  They mostly want to dive in, land some hits and get out and not sit back with long-range weapons.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2015, 10:25:28 AM by Mazuo »
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Megas

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1565 on: March 30, 2015, 11:18:06 AM »

As for the Imaginos, I think you're simply looking for a style that isn't what Blackrock is going for.  They mostly want to dive in, land some hits and get out and not sit back with long-range weapons.
No, most of the Blackrock warships can be fitted and worked as standard ships.  Actually, even better - Blackrock ships tend to have better mobility and more universal slots than standard ships, and backed up by good stats.  I can load up on the very best weapons and have nasty Blackrock kiting machines.  Asura is practically a phase Dominator in a destroyer chassis, with nearly the mobility of a Medusa.  Nevermore is like an strange Aurora/Eagle hybrid that can snipe with maulers and beams (Aurora is stuck with missiles and short-ranged blasters), and can blast ships with renewable main gun instead of limited Reapers.

I do not want to think what kind of damage Blackrock ships can do with Templar weapons, especially with Rhons, Sentenias, and Galatines.

Imaginos is a weird beast.  Most of its weapons are built-in, and its main gun has horribly short range and also difficult to aim (slow shots, mediocre accuracy).  With only one small mount, it cannot be customized much.
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Doogie

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1566 on: March 30, 2015, 11:48:38 AM »

The Imaginos is the most MLG pro ship there is though. Because it isn't easy to pilot doesn't mean its not effective. A skilled Imaginos pilot can destroy a virtually unlimited amount of enemy vessels, restrained only by its CR timer.
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Mazuo

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1567 on: March 30, 2015, 02:07:23 PM »

I'm not saying you can't be very effective with standard tactics with Blackrock ships, Megas.  I do that a lot myself.  I'm saying you can't judge the Imaginos to be flawed because it's not designed to stand and take a beating or be mobile artillery.

I mostly fly battles with even just the AI and while it surely gets itself blown up from time to time, when it does things right it is a scary ship even without a human driving it.
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Nanao-kun

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1568 on: March 30, 2015, 04:12:47 PM »

Maybe Megas is simply incompatible with the Imaginos. Can't be a hardcore, top 0.1% player at everything. :P
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Cycerin

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1569 on: March 30, 2015, 05:24:22 PM »

The Hyperion is going to be better than the Imaginos 99% of the time if you're looking for a flagship that can do a ton of heavy lifting in a 20-logistics fleet. It does however have a role in bigger fleets, you can for instance build a fleet entirely around your Imaginos by making sure you are spamming LRMs and have reliable AI-piloted line ships that can distract the enemy for you. It's going to be easier to get used to in the next patch, though, as I'm making its abilities less "on rails" and more responsive.
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Megas

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1570 on: March 30, 2015, 05:26:57 PM »

Re: Shredder
I tried the Shredders again, on a Lasher.  Shredder is to Tactical Laser plus IPDAI as Vulcan is to PD Laser.  Shredder's spread is a double-edged sword.  It can catch things others can miss, but it can miss enough and fail to stop something directly infront of it that more focused weapons can shoot down.  Shredder is better long range PD, but unreliable against looping Salamanders at short range, just like Tactical Laser vs. PD Laser.

Re: Imaginos
It is powerful, and can wreak some serious damage, but it is unforgiving to use.  It is not as powerful as Hyperion, and needs to rely on the enemy's firepower to catch up to the Hyperion.  It cannot solo as much as the Hyperion because it cannot carry as much firepower.  Unless Imaginos gets some lucky absorbs with the rejector, Imaginos can probably kill two ships in the time it takes Hyperion to kill three, and that does not count Reapers (which Hyperion can carry more of).  One Hyperion cannot solo the largest fleets by itself.  I do not see Imaginos soloing fleets that a Hyperion cannot.

Imaginos has an advantage against ships with low firepower or mostly kinetics, which regenerating armor is powerful against.  It is weak against enemies that fire high-damage, non-kinetic shots (such as heavy blasters).  While the Imaginos can teleport, its main gun has a long windup, making it impossible to teleport to some unshielded enemy and smite it before its shields are raised.

The rejector is cute, and looks ferocious after it absorbs lots of stuff... but it seems to do little more than mass EMP ships.  Rejector can destroy tons of fighters, but other ships seem to take little or no damage even after I absorb more than a dozen Pilums, several Hellbore or HAG shots, and what not and unleash a gigantic light show.  It is definitely no Templar Priwen Burst.

Quote
Megas, try the Linear Pulse Gun in the Imaginos.  You want to get in and mix it up with the Imaginos, it's not a ship for plinking away at range.
I did, and I still prefer Railgun over Linear Pulse Gun because Railgun has more range and it is more effective against shields.  Linear Pulse Gun is better if the enemy is a Dominator or Onslaught, but not an enemy with an omni shield.

I am still not fond of piloting the Imaginos.  It is a pain to use, and unforgiving with mistakes.
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orost

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1571 on: March 30, 2015, 05:45:00 PM »

Imaginos is poor as a solo ship because it's supposed to be a support ship that keeps enemy ships disabled and distracted so that the rest of your fleet can easily sweep them up. It's not a direct competitor to the Hyperion in solo combat.

I agree that it's rather obnoxious to use, though.
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Cycerin

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1572 on: March 30, 2015, 06:48:35 PM »

Re: Imaginos
The rejector is cute, and looks ferocious after it absorbs lots of stuff... but it seems to do little more than mass EMP ships.  Rejector can destroy tons of fighters, but other ships seem to take little or no damage even after I absorb more than a dozen Pilums, several Hellbore or HAG shots, and what not and unleash a gigantic light show.  It is definitely no Templar Priwen Burst.

A consequence of overnerfing. It's been changed with the recent update, the Rejector now does more damage and less EMP, similar to when it was first introduced. The Rift Cannon is now also like the Autopulse Laser mechanics-wise, instantly shoots when you press the button and is limited by regenerating charges. I did a lot of work this patch to make the ship less flimsy in AI hands, which as a bonus effect makes it more fluid and forgiving to pilot in the player's hands.
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Megas

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1573 on: March 30, 2015, 07:34:46 PM »

Some more comments:

Just noticed Asura gains +75 or so speed while phased.  This makes the Asura really fast - and deadly.

Finally tried a Desdinova, and it plays much like a Medusa if it had ballistics instead of energy weapons and jets instead of the skimmer.  Give the Desdinova some Needlers, Maulers, Salamanders, and Burst PD and it can simply kite and kill, often without getting shot back.
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: [0.65.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.7.3 - New star system!
« Reply #1574 on: March 31, 2015, 02:26:45 AM »

Re: Volley Guns... I didn't get the Volley Gun until I tried mounting one coaxially with a Squall and linking them in the same fire group. The flechettes are just a bit faster than the Squall round, so they whack the shield and then you have a nice followup wad of HE damage. It's a bit specialist, but the evil little hate-sprayer does have a valid and extremely satisfying role.
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