Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Histidine]

On alpha striking with missiles:

A fleet with one a ship that has just used up all its small/medium missiles is basically a fleet with one ship operating on a 2-24 OP penalty, depending on what the mounts were and what was put in them.

A fleet with one ship that got alpha-struck out of the battle is a fleet that's down 40 - 140 OP worth of combat ability. And unlike the missile ammo, the lost crew and the hull damage aren't replaced for free. If the ship gets disabled instead of merely being forced to retreat, you lose any number of weapons and more often that not a hull that's likely to be hard, possibly near-impossible to replace.

[Megas]

@ Xenoargh:  It would be nice if all beams did hard flux, but I doubt that will happen.  I still think Phase Beam range is too short.  When it has less range than Pulse Laser, and deals less damage than Pulse Laser and only soft flux; Phase Lance is a lemon compared to its competitors.  If I want short-range yet efficient, I will take IR Pulse Laser - that weapon got the most damage boost out of all energy weapons.

Also, AI cannot deal with continuous hard flux buildup.  I tried a mod that made beams hit for hard flux, and I loved it, except the AI was completely locked down because it did not know what to do to defend against it.  It tried to flicker shields, but overloaded then died.  Similiarly, this is why Monitor flagship can shield-ram heavy ships to death with ease, because AI cannot deal with taking continuous hard flux buildup from attacks.  If AI stays unchanged, any hard flux beam cannot be continuous and must be a burst, like tachyon lance or the new phase lance.

[Unfolder]

On alpha striking with missiles:

A fleet with one a ship that has just used up all its small/medium missiles is basically a fleet with one ship operating on a 2-24 OP penalty, depending on what the mounts were and what was put in them.

A fleet with one ship that got alpha-struck out of the battle is a fleet that's down 40 - 140 OP worth of combat ability. And unlike the missile ammo, the lost crew and the hull damage aren't replaced for free. If the ship gets disabled instead of merely being forced to retreat, you lose any number of weapons and more often that not a hull that's likely to be hard, possibly near-impossible to replace.

Other than the boorish sarcasm, which frankly just undermines everything you say, this just tells me you really just never used them right. You fire them when the enemy is vulnerable, or you fire them in overwhelming force and get a straight up kill.  Frigates can sometimes dodge, but destroyers and up can't. People were complaining about skilled enemy Dominators evaporating a destroyer with every volley of 12 Harpoons, at 0 flux cost.

Why is it that hard hitting, alpha striking, fast moving, PD-proof anti-matter blasters regen, but hard hitting, alpha striking, slow moving, PD vulnerable Reapers do not regen? Oh right, because non regen alpha missiles are a complete worthless waste of OP compared to completely overpowered energy builds (more flux, more capacity, more energy weapons) and I guess with the new version regen missiles.

For the record I think alpha missiles are by far the coolest weapons in the game, I would really like to use them, I just can't in good conscious gimp my fleet of 10-15% of its OP on a one shot attack that usually ends up missing or just getting eaten by shields. I mean, do you all really think Repear torpedo's or harpoons are really so devastatingly effective? They are pretty good against low tech fleets but energy fleets will chaos blast them with PD without much difficulty. The AI is smart but not smart enough, they will fire their gimp missiles at the wrong time 50%-75% of the time, depending on the battle intensity, and the gimp missiles get eaten. Goodbye OP. My fighter wing is nothing but Repear fighter bombers, 5-7 wings of them, launching wave after wave of repears, and in that regard, they are effective. Backed by proper fire support, they can pop a destroyer or a cruiser, every few minutes or so, because you know, they get more than one reaper over a 5 minute fleet engagment...regenerating repear wings are a very good balance, non regenerating repears, gimp city. Same thing with harpoons, thunders get new harpoons every few minutes. But other ships can't? Because of balance? Ridiculous and overly complicating double standards...that add nothing to gameplay...

[ahrenjb]

Are you seriously advocating the introduction of regenerating reapers and other torpedos? Do you genuinely have difficulty getting reapers to connect on a regular basis, or making effective use of harpoons?

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that you might just be really bad at the game. It happens, but you might want to take that into consideration.

[Dark.Revenant]

The Antimatter Blaster costs 9 OP, while a single-shot Reaper is 2 OP.  3111 Hull/Armor/Shields damage (over several minutes) per OP vs. 2000 Hull/4000 Armor/1000 Shields damage (all at once) per OP.  It's pretty comparable.

All in all, missiles favor shorter engagements, ballistic weapons favor medium-length engagements, and energy weapons favor long engagements -- but are tempered by the fact that ships with lots of energy mounts have a shorter CR period.

[Unfolder]

Are you seriously advocating the introduction of regenerating reapers and other torpedos? Do you genuinely have difficulty getting reapers to connect on a regular basis, or making effective use of harpoons?

I don't use missiles at all, only my AI ships do, and the enemy. I don't equip my fleet with nonregens, because its better to use that OP on permanent benefits, and to just kite the enemy until they run out of nonregens, or just kill them outright and dodge/ignore nonregens, while bombarding them with torpedo bombers.

Personal attack removed - LW

[Tartiflette]

Why is it that hard hitting, alpha striking, fast moving, PD-proof anti-matter blasters regen, but hard hitting, alpha striking, slow moving, PD vulnerable Reapers do not regen? Oh right, because non regen alpha missiles are a complete worthless waste of OP compared to completely overpowered energy builds (more flux, more capacity, more energy weapons) and I guess with the new version regen missiles.

AM blasters don't regen.

[LazyWizard]

Alright, that's enough of that. Remember rule 1.

[Wyvern]

There's an interesting disconnect here; limited munition things like missiles work much better when used directly by the player.  Argh is speaking from the perspective of putting torpedos on AI-piloted vessels where, indeed, they are not all that great.  Ahrenjb is speaking from the perspective of putting torpedos on the flagship where - especially with the skill to boost ammo count and damage and speed - it's easy to spend just a few ordnance points to be able to take an entire enemy ship out of the equation.

[ahrenjb]

Personal attack removed.

Now now, no need to resort to base name calling. Graham wouldn't approve.

There's an interesting disconnect here; limited munition things like missiles work much better when used directly by the player.  Argh is speaking from the perspective of putting torpedos on AI-piloted vessels where, indeed, they are not all that great.  Ahrenjb is speaking from the perspective of putting torpedos on the flagship where - especially with the skill to boost ammo count and damage and speed - it's easy to spend just a few ordnance points to be able to take an entire enemy ship out of the equation.

Agreed. I definitely speak primarily from experience using missiles on my own flagship, however I'm not at all shy about using them on my fleet vessels as well. When on my own ship, I use them to either eliminate high value targets, or as a finisher on vessels that I don't want to waste any more time on. Harpoons and reapers are both great in this regard. If timed right, meaning forcing the enemy to overload or vent before firing, you can almost guarantee solid hits.

Obviously the AI isn't smart enough to utilize these types of strategies as effectively as the player, but I've still had a lot of success mounting harpoons on my fleet ships. While not being as good as a player piloted vessel, I've found that the AI is still surprisingly good at firing missiles at the right time. When I field lashers, falcons, hammerheads, etc, I nearly always have two harpoons in the small missile slots, and they use them pretty effectively as finishing weapons. I view most missiles less as support weapons, more as situational weapons. They can be a phenomenal force multiplier with smart ship fittings and fleet compositions. I readily admit the AI is somewhat less effective at using torpedos, but as another poster stated they have a very low OP cost and fill slots that wouldn't be particularly useful for other things. I can't tell you the number of times that one of my AI piloted fleet vessels has fired a reaper at just the right time and helped to take an enemy out of the fight in short order. Just as often they detonate harmlessly against shields, but my point stands.

Edit: Personal attack removed from quote to keep consistency with LazyWizards moderation.

[Tartiflette]

Missiles weapons have repeatedly been proven ridiculously powerful when used en masse. Making them all regen ammo would completely break the game balance to the point that nobody would even consider using anything else...

[Lucian Greymark]

I've run around a bit in the early game and some of the mid game, can't comment on the end game yet, of the new patch, and I've come to the conclusion that the changes to missiles actually hasn't changed much. If anything it's actually placed an emphasis on finishing fights with a great deal of care, rather than swiftly. I've found that running into a fight with a ship that can regen it's missiles, and attempting to beat it quickly, often ends up with my ship overloaded, vulnerable, and waiting for their next salvo.

That said I have to say, I love that the buffalo mk2 isn't an absolute beast against frigates anymore. I used to be terrified of those things in my wolf class because of the six salamander spam they could put out, in a firefight with other ships that would often cripple my chances of victory. Now though, I can happily kite one of the salvos away and catch them on my shields before going back in with a reaper to finish the damn thing off.

Just my two cents

[Megas]

With 1000 range beams and unlimited ballistics, Conquest is very powerful now... as a long-range skirmisher.

Conquest
Weapons:  2x Hurricane MIRV, 2x Pilum LRM, 4x Gauss Cannon, 4x Heavy Mauler, 2x Graviton Beam, 8x Tactical Laser
Hullmods:  Advanced Turret Gyros, Augmented Engines, Hardened Shields (optional), Integrated Point Defense AI, Integrated Targeting Unit, Resistant Flux Conduits
Capacitors:  0
Vents:  49

Every weapon is unlimited and has at least 1000 range, and Gauss Cannon pair will make short work of shields.  The Graviton Beams can be replaced by Tactical Lasers for more anti-missile PD and/or spare OP.

Advanced Turret Gyros and IPDAI to make Tactical Lasers effective PD (and pile on more damage from afar when not zapping missiles), Augmented Engines for more top speed (and +2 burn), ITU for more range, Resistant Flux Conduits for faster venting.  Hardened Shields is filler and optional, and it probably does not need so many vents.  There is some room for variation of hullmods and flux stats.  The only hullmod it should not get is Advanced Optics because that will kill Tactical Laser as a viable PD option.  EDIT:  Advanced Optics seems to work okay.

This configuration is designed to kite and snipe at everything from afar, and it has the speed to stay away from the biggest threats.

I nickname this configuration "Dhalsim" (from Street Fighter II).

[Megas]

For the record I think alpha missiles are by far the coolest weapons in the game, I would really like to use them, I just can't in good conscious gimp my fleet of 10-15% of its OP on a one shot attack that usually ends up missing or just getting eaten by shields. I mean, do you all really think Repear torpedo's or harpoons are really so devastatingly effective?

For some ships, with Missile Specialization 10, yes!  Hyperion flagship with max Missile Specialization can kill almost any enemy flagship (with armor that takes only half damage and can regenerate hull damage) instantly with four Reapers.  Without them, it will take minutes to kill such a ship with Heavy Blasters alone.  Minutes lost means peak performance is gone and CR is decaying.  When fighting a fleet with chain-flagships, burst damage is important to kill endgame bounty fleets quickly.  Reapers allow the Hyperion to solo fleets it otherwise could not.

[SafariJohn]

I put Reapers on all my ships (excluding my Pilum-armed Vigilances) and from what I've seen the AI uses them alright. Not as well as I can, but well enough to be worth it.

IMO Reapers > Harpoons even for AI, although I haven't tested Harpoons all that much. I think I'll go do that, cause why not.