I finally found the time to play a full campaign with Tyrador, and i liked it. The faction felt a bit like a mix of low and high-tech, slow and tough (with some exceptions), with a focus on energy weapons. They're pretty well rounded for all parts of the campaign. Their frigates bring a decent amount of pain in early game, carriers and fast destroyers are very strong after that, and they have plenty of front-liners to survive late game.
Before starting, let's get done with the boring stuff. The Javelin's description makes mention of reapers torpedoes, but now have Lotus instead. The station's music sounds weird, there's definitely an issue with the sound quality on this one. Fleet server hullmod efficiency should scale depending on the hull size rather than the current reduced fire rate scale, moreover, it doesn't works on "continuous" beam weapons. Deployed drones counts in the battle deployment points, which i think isn't supposed to happen. Another thing, the mod add a loooot of ship skins, i'd be curious to know what is the VRAM cost of Tyradir, i did crash once during the campaign, can't certify this is the reason though.
Now that we've dealt with this, let's start with the fun part.
The Koncerz was my starter for this campaign, a nearly identical variant of the Wolf, except for its larger mounts. Despite being very similar to the Wolf, i think the Koncerz is noticeably superior. Two med energy hardpoints and one synergy turret tends to be allow for a wider variety of weapons and roles. I outfitted mine with a pair of phase lances and a sabot pod, which allowed me to tear through both shields and armor during early game bounties. Even later on, when the Wolf tend to fall off, the Koncerz can still fill the role of missile support similar to the Vigilance, which keep a place for it even in larger battles. Even when fighting late game IBBs, i still had a pack of graviton/missile Koncerz going with me.
While i'm not against a ship that can fulfil two roles, i think some of its stats should be nerfed in some way. A lower PPT would make it inferior to a dedicated support frigate for late game, and a slightly lower speed would keep the Wolf competitive for early skirmishes.
The Adarga is supposed to be a point defense frigate, but is sadly overshadowed by its vanilla counterparts in that role (Centurion, Monitor). Not having Damper field or Fortress shield prevent it from surviving larger engagements. It's otherwise a pretty solid attack frigate, with reasonable armor and heavy frontal firepower. Sadly very slow at 80, even most destroyers will outrun it. Still, i managed to make a very decent Safety Override variant thanks to its numerous mounts. 3 IR pulses, 1 ion cannon and 1 phase lance to brute force through most opponents early on. There's still the issue of catching them, even with SO.
The Ranseur is a better combat frigate in that regard. Reasonably fast, with the ability to mount a pretty large amount of small missiles. While not exceptional, it'll perform well enough during early game. It still suffer from the presence of the Koncerz that is a flat out better in every roles except anti-fighter.
The Tessen was like an unicorn, i only found one in my entire campaign. An extremely fast, but barely armed support ship, quite similar to the Omen in some way. Its sole purpose is to buff carriers with the Fleet Server hullmod and de-buff enemies with Entropy Amplifier, there's no reasons not to have at least one of those in the fleet. It's very fragile though, its very narrow shield arc differentiate it from the Omen, definitely not an escorter. Better leave it alone doing its thing far away from the main brawl.
In the destroyer category, the Sabre felt very strong. Basically a Sundusa, or Meduser, something fast with a big gun. Just like the Koncerz, the Sabre can perform both a role of attacker or fire-support throughout the campaign. A long range beam harasser? Naturally. An all around skirmisher? Of course. A SO brawler? You bet. It combines both very good stats and exceptional weapon layout (one large energy turret, two medium missiles hardpoints), this makes the Sabre an arguably superior alternative to both the Medusa and Sunder. Not by a massive amount, but still noticeable. I think a 0.8 shield efficiency would be a good start to nerf the beast. Even then, it would still stays very strong.
The Aspis is a luxury Omen. Tougher, stronger, and more than twice as expensive to field. Unlike the Omen however, the Aspsis is not just a mobile EMP emitter. With one medium energy hardpoint and two synergy, the Aspsis also makes for a pretty good fire-support. The kind of ship you need to swat fighters and missiles, while firing at the enemy. Is also endowed with some pretty epic flux stats for some reasons.
The Sagaris is the dedicated missile boat of the faction. A strange and unwieldy thing with a large missile hardpoint and awkward turrets arcs. A poor front-liner, but otherwise a fairly good PD/support craft. Surprisingly, i would have usually considered a destroyer with a large missile impossible to balance. Way too strong, way too easy to exploit. But after trying to field a large amount of those, and getting inferior results to an equivalent carrier fleet, i'm not sure what to think. Perhaps 0.8 changed the balance more than i expected. So... Innocent until proven guilty for the Sagaris i guess?
The Labrys is the little brother of the Sagaris, with its design philosophy taken even further. Capable of lobbing a ludicrous amount of missile for its size, but also stupidly expensive to field, and otherwise a very crappy destroyer in all regards. The kind of weirdo you get out of its padded cell when you really need a lot of lrms (because you're certainly not going to risk putting torpedoes on that thing, hmm?) and not much else. A niche pick for a normal campaign, although i expect some cheesy strats to be possible with this one.
The first cruiser i got was the Lance, a curious mix of awesome and awful. Awful because of its tendency to use its ram drive to dive deep in the enemy fleet by itself. Awesome because of its tendency to use its ram drive to dive deep in the enemy fleet by itself. Because it can't stay in place, an agressive loadout tends to work best, with a lot of EMP weapons to improve its survivability in the inevitable brawls it'll find itself into. A whole fleet of agressive Lances tends to be quite spectacular and effective, until they are outnumbered and surrounded. Narrow front shield, long profile and light armor tends to make them easy preys to flankers. I didn't had to retire my Lances as they all eventually died in battle, now i had to find a proper front-liner that wouldn't go full Pather in every battle.
By the way, the Angon, the civilian alternative of the Lance, cost the same for barely improved freighting stats, and obviously much worse combat capabilities. I liked the hullmods changing the ship sprite though.
I found that front-liner in the Kestros. Actually more fragile than the Lance, but with a better profile, wider shield and a safer system. Also comes with a pair of phase fighter wings. The Misericordes aren't really good at killing thing, thanks to their tendencies to stay cloaked most of the time, but will still distract the AI for a while. The Kestros relatively low fire-power is kinda offset by high energy focus, i outfitted mine with a graviton/tachyon loadout which makes for a pretty tricky ship to approach, especially in fleet battle.
At some point, i encountered ships that even a bunch of Kestros couldn't quite stop. Fortunately, it was also the moment i decided to buy a Trollvise Pavise. An extremely cheap, schadenfreude powered cruiser with the tendency of never dying, ever. Fortress shield tends to do that. Just like the Tessen, it's always a good idea to have at least one of those available. Just give it an eliminate order on that big, scary battleship, not to take it down, but to keep it distracted from the rest of your fleet. I like giving my Pavise Safety Override for better mobility and dissipation, as well as a pair of Ion Pulser and Reapers to keep the "tagged" enemy ship on its toes. Converted hangar isn't a bad idea either if you're looking for a more combat focused variant rather than pure tanking.
I'm not looking forward to the day i'll face one of those though. I'm not sure it should stay the way it currently is, probably extremely un-fun to fight against. Reducing its shield arc wouldn't work that well since it'll just make extended shield, or even front shield emitter, a necessary OP "tax" to keep the full coverage. So... Nerfing the overall OPs? Not a very interesting way of doing things though. I'm not sure how to do it, but the Pavise definitely need something to make it less heinous to destroy.
For the capital ships, the Halberd was the first big one i got. Basically a bigger Lance cruiser, fulfilling a similar role on the battlefield. Fortunately, the Halberd doesn't quite share the Lance's vulnerability to flanking, it's tougher, with better PDs on the sides and rear, and a powerful omni-shield. Like its little brother, the Halberd is better outfitted with an agressive loadout to combo with the ram drive. I found Accelerated Shield to be a very important hullmod for this ship. Since the Ram drive's shield shut down once the ship reaches its destination, usually right on top to the target it was charging, raising it back up quickly is imperative to avoid a surprise alpha strike to the face.
Quite an important addition to the fleet since Tyrador's desperately needs a reliable attack ship for late game battles. Not my favourite flagship though, i kinda struggled to find a reliable "in your face" loadout for that one. On the other hand, a Tachyon lance/Sabot boat works very well for the AI. If Safety Override could be mounted on capital ships, i think the Halberd would like it very much.
The Atlatl sits somewhere in between the Astral and the Legion on the battlefield, with the disadvantage of being more fragile than both. Its heavy armament gives it quite a punch for a carrier, more than the Astral, but maybe slightly less than the Legion. Mine had a pair of Squalls and Tachyon lances for poking, as i never felt very confortable letting it come too close to the frontline because of its relative vulnerability. I admittedly didn't played that much with this one, as it was a very late addition to my fleet. And while the Atlatl could make for a decent flagship, another one already caught my heart.
The Claymore battlecruiser, or what if a Conquest and an Olympus had a child. Unlike its mid-tech counterpart, the Claymore is blessed with an extremely strong shield emitter, making it a much tougher alternative broadside ship. Speaking of broadside, the Claymore is armed to the teeth, 4 medium energy turrets and 1 large per side (with arguably more punishing arcs than the Conquest), plus a rear medium turret that can reach the sides. Add on top of that 4 front medium missile hardpoints, and the built-in Judgement super-torpedo, the Claymore knows how to deliver the pain. Which is why is used it as my flagship for most of the late game.
My Claymore filled an important role in the fleet, the role of finding and destroying the enemy's flagship as quickly as possible. For this purpose, i went for an asymmetrical broadside loadout, with a wall of Heavy Blasters (and one Ion Blaster) on its left, and simple LRPDs on its right, with Sabots on the front. The Blasters were more backup weapons than anything, used to clear a path to my main target which would have the privilege of taking the 12K HE torpedo to the face. Needless to say, this is a strong ship, very strong. Too strong? A powerful shield on a very mobile ship tends to be a winning combo in most situations, even more so when it's backed up by overwhelming firepower. Just like what i suggested with the Sabre, perhaps a slightly less efficient shield should do the trick. Although i would personally go a bit further and downgrade at least two of the missiles hardpoints to small, no one should have that many sabots.
That's all for the ships! A few things about the weapons now, haven't thoroughly tested them all, but i at least took some time to check on those cool little drones launcher.
The drones are at their strongest early game, where one or two "fighter wings" can drastically change the outcome of the battle. The Kulbeda are serviceable in that regard, they can deal a reasonnable amount of damage to frigates while offering decent PD coverage around them. The Corvo felt much stronger though, IR pulse drill through armor much faster than PD lasers, and most importantly, the Corvo comes with shields, which makes them surprisingly durable. The Caltrop mines are... Weirder. Basically flying torpedoes, as such the AI won't use them against frigates. They also have strange behaviour where they'll stay phased on top of a target until they reach their limit, then launch a point blank attack.
While drone launcher are very strong early on, they fall off really hard in larger battle, where heavy fire will rapidly swat them out of the sky before they can contribute. And unlike fighters, there's no replacement for drones. I've been thinking about "infinite ammo" launchers, similar to Salamanders, that would periodically send out smaller waves of drones, self-destructing the previous ones to avoid drone hoarding on the edge of the map. Smaller swarms would nerf the drones for early game, but constant stream of death-bots would keep them relevant for late game. The idea would require some testing though.
I tried a bit the Disruptor beam cannon, which is pretty much an energy based HIL that can deals some hardlfux when used on enemy shields (hardflux beams? Preposterous!). I wasn't really a fan of them though, more expensive than HILs, lower range, less killy, and waiting for the enemy's flux bar to raise tends to be anathema to my playstyle. So i can't really pronounce myself on that.
I can definitely pronounce myself about the Monsoon launcher however, it sucks. Make no mistakes, i really like the Lotus torpedoes, but more than twice the OPs for just a few more ammo? Come on, at least give me an improved auto loader on that thing! (it would probably need more to be honest).
As for the Plasma Lance, this is basically a Plasma cannon for reasonable people. Less killy, but much more flux friendly, the AI loves it. Also a tiny bit more range.
Finally! Writing those always take a while. So in the end, how is TSC? I personally think it's a very good mod, a defensive oriented faction with only a few attacker ships, not groundbreaking by itself, but the execution is good. Top notch sprites too. Add a vanilla friendly lore on top of it, and i think i'll try to lobby TSC Dynasector's integration to Dark Revenant.
tl;dr : Defensive high-tech faction with a few scary killer ships. Really good kitbashed sprites that fit with vanilla, both in appearance and lore. It's a good mod, get it.