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Author Topic: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla  (Read 33536 times)

Aereto

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #15 on: April 18, 2014, 01:14:45 PM »

My flagship has changed several times while I try to find a sweet spot but right now, it is a wolf-class frigate with graviton beam, 3 tactical lasers, and 2 Harpoon MRM racks.  Interestingly enough, the other 24 ships in my fleet are the exact same thing.  It's nice flying around at 14 burn in normal space and warping to the other end of the battlefield so the enemy doesn't have time to retreat.
Now that's what I call a Wolf pack. I am not an agile captain, so I do not pilot frigates unless pursuing.
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Tschudy

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #16 on: April 18, 2014, 02:55:05 PM »

My flagship has changed several times while I try to find a sweet spot but right now, it is a wolf-class frigate with graviton beam, 3 tactical lasers, and 2 Harpoon MRM racks.  Interestingly enough, the other 24 ships in my fleet are the exact same thing.  It's nice flying around at 14 burn in normal space and warping to the other end of the battlefield so the enemy doesn't have time to retreat.
Now that's what I call a Wolf pack. I am not an agile captain, so I do not pilot frigates unless pursuing.
I don't even pilot due to the amount of crap to keep track of.  I just have all 25 ships move to the other side of the map.  The grand total of 250 harpoon missiles overwhelms pretty much all point defenses and takes out and big ships long before i eat any of their big guns.  Integrated PD systems combined with the 3 tac lasers puts down any fighters/missiles that might cause a problem.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #17 on: April 18, 2014, 10:38:15 PM »

For my flagship, in vanilla I use Medusa and the Paragon as my main ships.

But for mods though... Hehehe
My main ships are the Jneer until I can earn the 900K to buy the Sajuuk Khar! The Jneer is fast, powerful and CHEAP while the Khar is basically a "wall o' guns" as the OP put it.
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Tellaris

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #18 on: April 19, 2014, 02:46:15 AM »

I alternate between an Eagle and a Wolf, based on how I'm feeling and the situation of the battle.
I fly a fighter heavy fleet, so most of my force is made up of fighters, bombers and a handful of frigates. I have 2 cruisers for when I need to keep larger ships busy for the bombers to run in and kill.
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Linnis

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #19 on: April 19, 2014, 06:49:37 AM »

Omen.

I usually put a bomber and a few warhogs squads on the omen.

Tank first volley, EMP, surround, and watch warhogs rip it to shreds.


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Doogie

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #20 on: April 19, 2014, 07:02:59 AM »

BRDY Imaginos.
Although I shift to a Nevermore, Azura, or Desdinova frequently. All Blackrock ships are beautiful flagships.

Having Nomad ships for your AI back those up is a potent mix.
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ValkyriaL

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #21 on: April 19, 2014, 04:42:24 PM »

its not about creating a flagship, its about the ship you like to fly the most.
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Megas

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #22 on: April 20, 2014, 09:25:17 AM »

Quote
its not about creating a flagship, its about the ship you like to fly the most.
In my case, as a Combat/Technology junkie, capitals are not a viable option until after level 30.  Much as I like to fly a Paragon or Odyssey to stomp fleets, I do not have the Logistics to do so until endgame.  In the meantime, I use Medusa and/or frigates to fight stuff.
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Hotshot3434

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #23 on: April 20, 2014, 02:54:28 PM »

Early game:
I go for the Enforcer with 2 regular/dual flak cannons on either side for amazing PD, a single Mauler to punch through armor, and 2 Thumpers to shred anything left. Can easily tear through most low-tech ships with ease. Not very good against shields, but I usually stick to fighting pirates until I get a larger fleet.

Mid game:
Apogee. In my opinion the only viable flagship in the cruiser size category. It balances damage, both burst and sustained, with excellent shield coverage and respectable speed. Out of combat it is able to haul enough fuel and cargo to make freighters non-essential. I equip it with a single Autopulse laser, 2 anti-matter blasters, 2 heavy blasters, and 2 tactical lasers. Along with the Expanded Magazines hull mod, the Autopulse is a master of suppressing fire. 1-2 full barrages from this weapon can take down almost any shield generator, allowing you to sucker punch them with your dual Anti-Matter blasters. The heavy blasters are the epitome of high DPS in a small package, able to take on cruisers and even capitals. The high travel speed of the blaster round also makes it able to pick off fighters and bombers with ease. The tactical lasers could be swapped out for burst PD, but with your 360 degree shields, PD is almost obsolete.

Late game:
Onslaught. A ship that has so much armor you question if it actually has any hull behind it. Able to take an entire salvo of harpoon missile without scratching the paint, the Onslaught is the king of fighting without shields. Load it up with Heavy Autocannons, Railguns, Light Assault Guns, Dual Flak Cannons, and either Hephaestus or Mjolnir Cannons and nothing will be able to stand in your way. Burndrive right into the middle of the enemy fleet and watch them fall to your hail of bullets. The only downside to this ship isn't in combat, but in logistics. The Onslaught is a logistics black hole, taking massive amounts of supplies and fuel to cart it from battle to battle. In order to keep battle-ready you need a small fleet of tugs and cargo ships to back it up.
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Aereto

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #24 on: April 20, 2014, 04:53:46 PM »

Quote
its not about creating a flagship, its about the ship you like to fly the most.
In my case, as a Combat/Technology junkie, capitals are not a viable option until after level 30.  Much as I like to fly a Paragon or Odyssey to stomp fleets, I do not have the Logistics to do so until endgame.  In the meantime, I use Medusa and/or frigates to fight stuff.
Such method of growth implies that a captain needs to be resourceful and become one with each ship ever piloted... before being even worthy to be the admiral of a combat fleet.

Slightly venting hard flux and significant venting soft flux while shields are up, placing more weapons and modifications than factory-grade safety guidelines allow, and pull a turn as fast as the lower ship class size to deliver a battery of weapons tweaked to bring a bit more force and yield per shot... That kind of a captain? Such a captain may not be a tactician, but a captain of both engineers and helmsmen.
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Offensive_Name

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #25 on: April 20, 2014, 05:56:48 PM »

Mine is an Apogee modded or not Favorite Ship
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ahrenjb

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #26 on: May 05, 2014, 03:24:53 PM »

First off, I haven't gotten to a point where I can comfortably support a capital ship yet. So I'm sure my flagships will change as I have an opportunity to get into the heavyweights. When talking about flagships, I think it's important to take into consideration your overall fleet composition. Your flagship has to complement your fleet, and vice versa. The fleets I've been running typically utilize a cruiser size carrier for support, with another cruiser or a destroyer as my personal craft supported by frigates and fighters.

This ended up being a long post, so I've added some spoiler tags to break it up a bit and make scrolling past my long winded wall of text easier.

Playing vanilla:

Spoiler
For vanilla ships, I found that I really enjoyed piloting a Sunder. It's highly mobile and equips a fairly powerful shield. That combined with the three small ballistic mounts which I devote to PD (I almost prefer ballistic PD to energy options) allows for a pretty survivable destroyer in my hands. I don't don't how it fares with an AI pilot, haven't tried. The three energy mounts end up being my offensive weaponry, with an autopulse laser leading the way. By mounting a couple of flux-efficient weapons in the medium turret slots, you can keep constant light fire on the enemy, chipping away at armor or driving their hard flux up. By activating energy focus and dumping your magazine, the autopulse has incredible burst damage. I can pretty make quick work of any destroyer or frigate and pretty effectively engage cruisers in this manner.

If you support that with a Heron fast carrier, a couple decent fighter wings, and a good strike frigate or two you can dismantle fleets that largely outnumber you.

The Medusa is of course a great craft, and highly effective, but was always kind of dull to pilot in my opinion. I haven't had a chance to spend much time operating a Hammerhead, Falcon, or Eagle so I don't know if I'd like any of those more than the Sunder. I doubt it.
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When it comes to mods, there is a ton of content out there so I'm slowly sifting through what's available and finding what works for my playstyle without diluting the universe, balance, quality, or theme too much. I'm a little picky about my mods. Currently running just six... I've found a couple of favorites, and still testing things out.

- Bushi
- Higaran Descendants
- Tore up Plenty
- Nomads
- Mayorate
- Blackrock Driveyards

One ship I found that really worked with the way I like to fight was the Rover Class Carrier from TuP. I feel like it fits the universe very well and is extremely well balanced, while being a quirky but useful craft. It mounts effective, if not oddly placed (which is a good thing, it adds character) PD, combines it with a decent sized mount good for supporting other craft or defending against frigates, and high mobility which is enhanced by the burn drive. You can get it into place very quickly while your other ships and fighters do the rest. Very neat ship.

Other mod ships and opinions:

Spoiler
I recently stowed my Rover in favor of a Bushi Tanto. Simply awesome aesthetics. Slightly reduced PD is augmented by increased long range offensive support in the form of LRMs and its built in "shuttle" weapon. It sacrifices some mobility in favor of a built in fighter wing, which I'm on the fence about. It almost feels like cheating. Quick, powerful fighters with no fleet upkeep cost or logistic hit. It's essentially free heavy fighters, and you get 6 craft. That combined with their ultra high RoF blasters and a somewhat obnoxious sound effect leave me kind of on the fence about this otherwise great ship. Time will determine if it remains a component of my fleet.

I'd really like to give the Lance carrier from TuP a run, I just haven't found one for sale yet. Another concept I've been playing with for carriers is replacing my single cruiser size carrier with two of the Hiigaran Faal-Corum Drone Carriers. Two small, fast ships would offer more tactical flexibility, but also complicates micromanagement and potentially leaves my carrier support more vulnerable. These also have an inbuilt fighter wing, in the form of drones. You get like 15 of them, each armed with the equivalent of a burst PD laser. Again, this feels a little overpowered. With the drones deployed in a holding pattern, this destroyer sized ship is effectively invulnerable to any massed amount of missiles and most fighters. Great concept for a ship, might need a little balancing attention.

Now that I've covered carriers, I guess I should get back on topic. Flagships. After reaching New Hiigara and buying their friendship, I purchased a Skaal Ion Beam Cruiser. After a brief test period, it was an easy decision to mothball the Sunder and make this my new personal flagship. It has a fairly slow, mediocre shield and only two open weapon mounts, both light energy. So what use is a fragile, relatively slow cruiser that can only mount a bare minimum of PD? The built in large energy weapon is what makes this ship shine. With a range that can keep you well out of reach of anything but LRMs or the occasional tachyon lance, this beam weapon is capable of dispatching any frigate or destroyer sized ship in a single burst usually. Cruisers rarely stand up to more than three or four firings. All this power comes at a cost, however. The Skaal is slow and unwieldy, and the maneuvering thruster and unstable injector mods are almost necessary to ensure a baseline level of mobility. It also generates flux. A lot of it. While the beam itself has a fairly high rate of fire, even with maxed out vents and capacitors flux has to be manually vented after each firing. Still, the ship has a lot of room for hull mods, maybe more than it should. I can equip unstable injectors, thrusters, turret gyros, and two high level small PD turrets and still have enough points left for nearly maxed out vents and capacitors. You are vulnerable to fighters, bombers, and frigates that manage to get close, but most AI frigates are too stupid to properly orbit and stay out of the way of your main weapon, a little escort support easily alleviates the enemy fighter problem. This ship is a ton of fun to use, hands down. Even with its drawbacks though, it feels a little OP. I might end up replacing it to avoid feeling like I'm cheating. I do, however, think it could be balanced pretty easily by dropping the burst damage to a more reasonable level. Cruisers should be a bit more demanding, and destroyers should be able to take more than a single burn.

I briefly played with a Bushi Katana, but found it lacking for my playstyle. It would make an excellent picket cruiser for a larger fleet though, I might bring it back for that later on. There are still quite a few more cruisers I want to try out, so we'll see what future testing has in store. I haven't had a chance to play with any Blackrock or Mayorate ships yet, and the Nomads are more fun to fight than to fly for me.
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« Last Edit: May 06, 2014, 11:50:33 AM by ahrenjb »
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Piemanlives

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #27 on: May 05, 2014, 10:47:08 PM »

I'm a stickler for cruisers of varying types and factions, modded or unmodded for that matter so it really tends on what I can afford, however I can safely say that the sledgehammer destroyer of neutrino is a personal favorite, even considering it's a destroyer that thing is bloody terrifying with upgraded missile perks.
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This is called me throwing my missile swarm at you, and by swarm I mean massacre, and by missiles... I actually just mean missiles, there's actually not much to it really.

Nanao-kun

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #28 on: May 08, 2014, 07:16:40 PM »

Personally, I prefer a BRDY Imaginos, or a SHI Elysium. The new Elysium, I mean.
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Tschudy

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Re: What's YOUR flagship? Modded or Vanilla
« Reply #29 on: May 08, 2014, 09:31:55 PM »

im finding that even with mods, im still preferring a swarm of wolf-class frigates armed with torpedoes to wipe out anything bigger than a breadbox with small energy weapons to finish off any fighter or frigates with sheer numbers
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