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[FasterThanSleepyfish]

I use the elite variant of the Citadel Nova-class to offer support from behind the larger ships enemy. I always keep the Kinetic Chirped Pulse Laser, which is incredibly useful for every situation, even against armor.

If I have extra OP, it goes into flux and different weapons. By the end, I usually have a superfast beast capable of dealing serious damage to enemy backsides. Energy/Explosive weapons in the small mounts, Miniflak in four of the energy mounts, and antimatter blasters on the two sideways energys. Hullmods vary from Expanded Magazines to Advanced Optics, depending on the entire layout.

Other than that, its the Driver-class elite variant, which can be very powerful under player control. I don't use it much due to the slow speed.

[Tschudy]

Gonna have to change my answer now.  The nomad fleet decided to take a trip through the wrong system and ended up fighting my timber wolf fleet.  As I've found out, the sandstorm class is a friggin' house.  The 918 javelin missiles from the support frigates wipe out most threats while my 2 sandstorms crawl across the battlefield and mop up whatever is left.  The nomads had some kind of nice civilian ship with like 50 PD drones but i didn't get a blueprint for it

[zenstrata]

I play the game vanilla.  No mods.

I use an Aurora class Cruiser, that is always my go-to ship from start to finish.  I don't bother taking other ships with me, its just that one ship vs everything I run into.

Currently around level 45.  I currently outfit the ship with the following.
Augmented Engines, Integrated Targeting Unit, Front Shield Emitter, Hardened Shields, Advanced Optics, Expanded Magazines.
3 Heavy Burst Lasers
5 Antimatter Blasters
4 Swarmer SRM Launchers
1 Salamander SRM Pod

Its a pretty fast ship, not quite as fast as the speedy frigates but can keep up with most things.  The antimatter blasters and heavy shielding enables me to eat just about any big ships, while the heavy burst and launchers work well for fighters or that extra punch to quickly take down most other annoying ships.

Basically I concentrate on my movement and positioning and only manually target the missile weapons, I let the games AI handle the lasers and blasters.

I like playing with just 1 ship through the game.  The Cruisers seem to fit this roll best because they do not require any support ships to operate and can fight many battles sequentially without worrying too much about combat readiness depletion.

The other nice thing about this setup is it only keeps getting better as you level up your captain.  I hope it remains a viable playstyle in the later versions of the game.  I am not a big fan of micromanagement, and playing with just one ship makes things a lot more fun for me, instead of having to manage a whole fleet.

[Aereto]

Spoiler

I play the game vanilla.  No mods.

I use an Aurora class Cruiser, that is always my go-to ship from start to finish.  I don't bother taking other ships with me, its just that one ship vs everything I run into.

Currently around level 45.  I currently outfit the ship with the following.
Augmented Engines, Integrated Targeting Unit, Front Shield Emitter, Hardened Shields, Advanced Optics, Expanded Magazines.
3 Heavy Burst Lasers
5 Antimatter Blasters
4 Swarmer SRM Launchers
1 Salamander SRM Pod

Its a pretty fast ship, not quite as fast as the speedy frigates but can keep up with most things.  The antimatter blasters and heavy shielding enables me to eat just about any big ships, while the heavy burst and launchers work well for fighters or that extra punch to quickly take down most other annoying ships.

Basically I concentrate on my movement and positioning and only manually target the missile weapons, I let the games AI handle the lasers and blasters.

I like playing with just 1 ship through the game.  The Cruisers seem to fit this roll best because they do not require any support ships to operate and can fight many battles sequentially without worrying too much about combat readiness depletion.

The other nice thing about this setup is it only keeps getting better as you level up your captain.  I hope it remains a viable playstyle in the later versions of the game.  I am not a big fan of micromanagement, and playing with just one ship makes things a lot more fun for me, instead of having to manage a whole fleet.

[close]

A combat/technology build benefits most from this tactic, that, and one-vs-many piloting experience. Not sure why, but I feel like getting helm of that Aurora and try that out on a Pirate Armada.

[Doogie]

I revise what I said earlier, make it a Blackrock Desdinova, equipped with as many of those BRDY shotguns as possible, and then two BRDY cannons of your choice. The other slots should be dedicated point defenses.

This monstrosity allows you to burst jet right up into another ship's face, unload a single round (which is usually all it takes to force an overload) and then ***. I've also solo'd the Infernus (mesotronik's mod) with one by flying behind it and causing a flameout while kiting in and out of range with those sexy burst jets, taking chunks of its health as you go.

By far the most effective flagship I've used. Because I suck with an Imaginos

[ValkyriaL]

Nobody seems to have valk flagships =I gives me a slight sadface, although even i have blackrock and shadowyards as favorites, since they are just too awesome to not fly, I guess mine are either to slow or there is something better for the same cost or less.

[Megas]

I will admit I have not played Valkyrians or BRDYs much because they happened to be eliminated too quickly during the few Exerelin games I played.  (Gedune, IFed, and Nomads were the survivors I fought there.)  On the other hand, Valkyrians seem to be built for superior firepower at the cost of size and mobility.  Currently, my ships of choice are small lightning bruisers (such as Medusa in standard, Dahaki with Gedune) that try to re-enact the Doomguy vs. Cyberdemon fights.

[JDCollie]

Nobody seems to have valk flagships =I gives me a slight sadface, although even i have blackrock and shadowyards as favorites, since they are just too awesome to not fly, I guess mine are either to slow or there is something better for the same cost or less.

I've mostly been playing Uomoz, so I haven't had much contact with your mod :\ I'll have to load up Exerelin and give 'em a try.

[Doogie]

Nobody seems to have valk flagships =I gives me a slight sadface, although even i have blackrock and shadowyards as favorites, since they are just too awesome to not fly, I guess mine are either to slow or there is something better for the same cost or less.

Valk ships aren't terribly suitable as flagships, rather as a massive gunboat for AI's to control to have a presence. When a BRDY flagship forces an overload, it will be only a few seconds before the AI valk ships tear it to shreds.
So don't feel bad.

[Nanao-kun]

Nobody seems to have valk flagships =I gives me a slight sadface, although even i have blackrock and shadowyards as favorites, since they are just too awesome to not fly, I guess mine are either to slow or there is something better for the same cost or less.

I've never played long enough to make piloting a Vatican III viable.

[ValkyriaL]

Piloting a support ship is rarely viable. >.>

[sarducardun]

Mine is the neutrino unsung. Preferably with six hiigran (I think) singularity cannons on the front. It reaches the battle line as fast as most destroyers and alphas 90% of caps (damn fortress shield) plus it's a carrier. I think i only managed to buy it due to the trading done by the shipbuilders (weapons mod) but it's untouchable.

[ahrenjb]

I was debating making a new thread for this, but decided since this is a flagship thread, it would work ok here.

Over the course of my recent play-through, I've been buying and storing various ships in my outpost as a sort of "Collection". Recently picked up an Onslaught and played with it a bit in the sim. This is a ship with a presence. With character. It's quirky and weird, but fun.

So let's discuss Onslaught loadouts. I have a number of mods installed, but I'm trying not to mix weapons and ships from vanilla / different mods because mods tend to be... not quite balanced, if not usually straight OP.

I'm still experimenting quite a bit with mine. Current loadout uses Unstable Injector and Auxiliary Thursters to provide some much needed mobility. Also fitting expanded magazines.

- 3x Hypervelocity Drivers in forward facing Medium mounts.
- 6x Vulcan Cannons in forward facing Small mounts.
- 4x Pilum LRM Launchers in Large missile mounts.
- 4x Flak Cannons in Medium mounts around tower.
-

I've found the hypervelocity drivers do an excellent job of keeping pressure on the enemy at range, keeping their shields in place to drive flux up and doing heavy damage to frigates and destroyers. When they force shields down, the thermal pulse cannons can start to tear the craft apart. The Pilum LRM are another great support weapon when fired en-masse, frequently overwhelming destroyers shields, destroying freighters, and forcing shields up on larger vessels. Sometimes a volley at close range can land a heavy punch on a ship who has been overloaded by the hypervelocity drivers.

The vulcan cannons I'm still unsure about. They seem to provide effective frontal PD which is much needed on a vessel like the Onslaught, but I'm still not convinced there isn't a better solution. I wouldn't mind replacing a couple of them with railguns.

Now on to the flak cannons. This is another uncertain one. Again, they seem effective, but not particularly so versus fighters. I haven't had a chance to try duals yet, so that might be the key. I might drop the two front facing flaks to make room for a couple more hypervelocity drivers. Front PD should be handled effectively enough by the vulcans. I've also considered mounting heavy machine guns. Then you've got the rear medium mounts, which I'm also not sure what to do with. More flak / heavy machine guns? Maybe assault chainguns or thumpers to provide a little... discouragement to frigates.

And that leaves the large ballistic mounts. The only one that I consider useful is the forward facing one. The side facing just eat up OP for weapons that can't be brought to bear on enemies that I'm oriented directly towards. I could throw some smaller weapons in there, for additional small craft defense or PD. Undecided. The forward facing mount, however, presents options. With 3-5 hypervelocity drivers chewing away, enemy shielding won't last too long. Now the shielding is down and you're up against armor, which they are effectively useless against. So, do you rely on the TPC to cut through the armor AND hull? Seems like there might be a better way. I can either add some explosive damage with say, a Heph to expedite armor detruction, or I can mount something like a Storm Needler or Gauss Cannon to drop those shields even quicker.

It's a complex formula, and there are nearly unlimited options for configuring an Onslaught. I consider it one of the deepest ships in the game in terms of potential strategies.

So how do you use it?

[Megas]

My favorite Onslaught configuration with a max Combat/Technology character...

Onslaught
Weapons:  Storm Needler x3, Heavy Mauler x6, Dual Flak Cannon x3, Annihilator Pod x4, Vulcan Cannon x6
Hullmods:  Augmented Engines, Auxillary Thrusters, Blast Doors*, Expanded Magazines, Integrated Targeting Unit, Resistant Flux Conduits
Capacitors:  28
Vents:  50

* I would prefer Automated Repair Unit over Blast Doors, but +50% Logistics for ARU is so bad and crippling of a penalty in the campaign that I use Blast Doors as a substitute.

Storm Needlers for all-purpose assault.  Nothing in the standard game can overload shields faster than them, and they have good dps against armor even with resistance penalty.  Heavy Maulers are good against everything without their shields up, and has much more ammo than assault chaingun.  Dual flak cannons for anti-missile/anti-fighter; one is placed at the front, and the other two at the rear-sides.  Annihilators for those times I need to shoot while my flux is too high and too dangerous to vent.  Vulcans for flux-efficiency, point-defense and/or finishing off wounded targets.  If I try to use Light Assault Guns or Light Needlers in the small slots, I get flux problems.  Better leave the assault role to the heavier weapon mounts.

If I have fewer OP due to less Combat and Technology, I substitute Storm Needlers with Hellbore Cannons and Heavy Maulers with Heavy Needlers.

[Graidon]

I'm also a fan of the Desdinova-Class from the Blackrock mod. The thing handles like a frigate and punches like a cruiser.