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Total Members Voted: 1430

[Schwartz]

Might as well put down my impressions on this mod since I've been playing with it a while.

Design: Best in class. Love the ships, guns, weapon effects. Pretty much all of it. The Knight and Eschaton aren't quite as crisp; you notice in some spots that they've been drawn.

Balance: Pretty well-balanced, though not as 'conservative' as vanilla. BRDY seems to have a thing for nasty surprises and burst damage. I never feel quite at ease fighting these guys, which makes them my favourite opponents.

Weapons: I disagree with Megas here, Scalaron Blaster is amazing. Burst damage is almost impossible to counter and the Blaster shines here. Could probably be balanced with higher flux, it's too easy right now slapping these bad boys on phase ships. They take exactly as long to reload as Mayorate's Flux Torpedo and the combo is just as nasty as it gets. Squall and Gale Cannons are fun to use on sniper frigates. For some reason I've never been too interested in the PD, except for situations where OP was at a premium and I used Micro Argus PD.

Ships: Yep, Asura is a bit too good. With the flux speed bonus, it just breezes through nebulae and tends to get to the enemy even before all but the fastest fighter wings. I prefer it to Shadowyards' Scylla for the speed and generous weapons loadout. Could probably do with a 'High Maintenance' like the Desdinova, considering it feels equally over-tuned. In Uomoz I started out with a Scarab frigate once and it's always kept me alive. NPC Kurma and Gonodactylus are a pain in the ass to fight.

[Megas]

Scalaron Blaster is only good because it works as an unlimited antimatter blaster, and the AI flux management is bad enough that it is vulnerable to overloads from high-damage burst attacks, such as antimatter blaster, 3x mining blaster (from Sunder), 2x gauss cannon (from Dominator), or... scalaron blaster.

Scalaron Blaster's DPS is poor enough that it is not very good for killing things quickly.  Its fire rate is slow and you cannot afford to miss much.  Its main use is to exploit AI faults.  Also possibly useful to enable vent spam if your dissipation is slow enough that it cannot use higher DPS weapons to full effectiveness.

I agree that Asura is very powerful, maybe more than Desdinova.  At least Asura feels like an upgraded Desdinova to me.  Asura is probably my favorite Blackrock ship to pilot.

[Cycerin]

The other bonus of the Scalaron Blaster compared to the AM Blaster is its longer range, which can add up to a pretty respectable range on a larger ship. It gives you AM Blaster-type burst damage on ships that would never mount one.

Huh, I straight up FORGOT to add High Maintenance to the Asura when I added it to the other elite ships. That's dumb, adding it to the changelog...

What do you feel about the way Blackrock ships are balanced, Megas, Schwartz? W/r/t bad shields being made up for by inherently better vent rates?

[Midnight Kitsune]

Ever since you added High Maintenance to the the Desinova and the Nevermore, I've flat out stopped using them as they are NOT Hyperion tier powerful and thus are not worth the constant drain of supplies. I will also do the same with the Asura next update as well. The Desi, Asura and Nevermore are not worth 1.375, 1.875, and 2.5 supplies per day they drain from me. Most of the time these ships would DOUBLE my daily supply drain and as someone that lives off of combat drops, that is not acceptable especially when there are alternative ships that DON'T have such daily costs

[OOZ662]

On the other hand, my fleet is generally a Nevermore with a carrier and fighter support. I wouldn't dream of living off drops, but punching people in the face with a ball of antimatter makes it worth it to me. Just means I have two Cetonia in the fleet instead of one.

[orost]

Well, if you live off nothing but drops, that's a choice you make and I think then you have to accept that you will have to give up the most expensive options in favor of something more efficient.

[Midnight Kitsune]

but punching people in the face with a ball of antimatter makes it worth it to me.

My Reaper Aurora says hi.

Well, if you live off nothing but drops, that a choice you make and I think then you have to accept that you will have to give up the most expensive options in favor of something more efficient.

And yet I fly mostly high tech ships, the most expensive option in game to use, and refuse to use most low tech PoS
And the Reaper Aurora is very similar in terms of how it fights compared to the Nevermore

[OOZ662]

but punching people in the face with a ball of antimatter makes it worth it to me.

My reaper aurora says hi.

If you don't mind looking at it, I suppose expanded racks are enough to get through a battle if one doesn't heave the torps around like I do antimatter shots.

[Midnight Kitsune]

but punching people in the face with a ball of antimatter makes it worth it to me.

My reaper aurora says hi.

If you don't mind looking at it, I suppose expanded racks are enough to get through a battle if one doesn't heave the torps around like I do antimatter shots.

Yeah, I do agree that the Aurora is ugly...

[Megas]

Re: Blackrock balance
I have not played Blackrock enough to know.  The only ship I noticed (so far) that seems to vent faster than standard is the Desdinova, but that is because I put no capacitors on it, and it overloads easily if under fire.  This is why I put Needlers and Maulers on it so I can outrange the enemy and do not get shot at in the first place; something I cannot do with the Medusa.

Asura seems overpowered for a destroyer.  Extremely fast, better firepower than Sunder (because ballistics are better than most energy weapons; for example, Mjolnir outperforms all heavy energy weapons overall).


Re: Scalaron Blaster
The range is better, but the DPS is so bad for a medium non-beam energy weapon that if it is range I want, I will take something that uses ballistics instead.  +50 range over heavy blaster/pulse laser is nice, but not if I give up over 300+ DPS by not using Heavy Blaster, which also costs 12 OP.


Re: High Maintenance on Blackrock ships.
I can understand it on Imaginos for fluff reasons, despite being inferior to Hyperion.  That said, Imaginos should not cost as much DP (and possibly other stats) as Hyperion.  15 DP is a big deal when hunting small fleets and trying to stay 40 DP or less to avoid objectives.

Not sure about Desdinova.  It is basically a ballistics version of the Medusa, and it seems stronger only because ballistics are generally superior to energy weapons.  While it vents quickly, it has a weak shield, and it is prone to overloads if it has no capacitors.  It also has short peak performance (180 seconds) akin to a high-tech frigate.  Even Medusa has 300 seconds.

I can understand Asura getting High Maintenance, if its Logistics cost gets lowered to 6 or 7.  It is extremely fast while phased, and can focus almost Dominator-level firepower at the enemy.  Asura is very powerful and can solo fleets.  However, if it gets High Maintenance, consider lowering Logistics a bit.  I thought its 7.5 Logistics cost (and 30% CR deployment cost) was because it lacked High Maintenance.  Asura also has short peak performance, 210 seconds.

Nevermore may not be strong enough to deserve High Maintenance although I can see why.  It is very fast for a cruiser, with burn 4 and high top speed plus mobility system to make it even faster.  It has a deadly main gun, and flexible weapon options.  It can hit hard like an Aurora at times, and kite like an Eagle.

High Maintenance is a big deal once ships exceed destroyer size, especially if you cannot buy tons of supplies due to factions hating you (e.g., you try to play as a Templar).


Re: Other
Living off of drops is useful if too many factions hate you, or if you are struggling with low cash or supplies.

Assuming Missile Specialization 10, 44 Reapers (requires Expanded Missile Racks) for an Aurora is enough to nuke most, if not all, fleets in the campaign, though not enough to kill all ships in the simulator.  Aurora has enough Reapers that it can use Cyclone Reaper as a primary weapon - just point and shoot like any other gun.

[Cycerin]

Megas: every single Blackrock ship gets a substantial venting boost that stacks with Resistant Flux Conduits from the Blackrock Flux Core built-in hullmod. Synergizes so well with mobility.

The Asura is not really a destroyer in Starsector terms. A closer comparison would be the Heavy Destroyer ship class from Ares, a large ship that uses overwhelming firepower to dominate the opposition. The reason it is a destroyer is because I don't want the player to use cruiser-grade ITU with it. Logistics, size and power-wise, it's like a light cruiser, or at least that's the intention.

After much deliberation, l'm gonna remove High Maintenance from the Nevermore and Desdinova. Realizing how equally broken the Aurora can be does make me feel like it's silly to add such a steep penalty for using the ship, and I did some close comparisons piloting a Medusa and Desdinova and decided it wasn't worth the tradeoff there either.

- Added High Maintenance to Asura, lowered Asura supply/day to 7
- Removed High Maintenance from Nevermore, lowered peak performance time back down to 360 seconds, increased CR per deployment to 25%
- Removed High Maintenance from Desdinova

But the Asura is going to be stuck with High Maintenance. Its the biggest glass cannon in the game, a ship that can kill practically anything provided it doesn't take the brunt of enemy retaliation - you can stick a completely ridiculous loadout on it like a Plasma Cannon and 3 Repeaters and still fire it for ages provided you chew through the Flux Ejector charges.

I'm leaving for Prague for a week tomorrow night so I'm going to try to get the new version up before then. Any last-minute suggestions would have to come now.

[Midnight Kitsune]

After much deliberation, l'm gonna remove High Maintenance from the Nevermore and Desdinova.

F*** YES! *does happy dance*

[Euqocelbbog]

Honestly I never really noticed the high maintenance on the Desdinova and Nevermore as it's mainly a penalty for having the ship in your fleet and not deploying it constantly. If you're not fighting strong fleets fighting constantly then there's not much reason to bring ships like the Desdinova and Nevermore along.

[Megas]

I know of the Blackrock Core builtin, but so far, I have not noticed it much, except on Desdinova.  I optimize venting speed for many ships, and many vent fast when I vent thanks to Power Grid Modulation 5, max vents, and (often) Resistant Flux Conduits.

Asura is a monster.  High Maintenance seems justified.

[Cycerin]

Honestly I never really noticed the high maintenance on the Desdinova and Nevermore as it's mainly a penalty for having the ship in your fleet and not deploying it constantly. If you're not fighting strong fleets fighting constantly then there's not much reason to bring ships like the Desdinova and Nevermore along.

That's also part of why I'm removing it, it wasn't a super big deal in the first place, but it was annoying, cluttered the UI slightly, and for a lot of players the exact opportunity cost of using High Maintenance ships is a bit unclear.