Hmm - I'd suggest switching gears slightly and fighting REDACTED in warning-beacon systems, if you haven't done that already. By the time you're able to take down the "boss" level <stuff I won't go into detail by spoiling>, you should also be in good shape to take on faction patrols, though being able to take down said boss-level stuff is more or less the current "endgame goal" anyway. And the fights are easy to find there.
(A tip, if you haven't figured it out already: the type of warning beacon indicates the danger level of a REDACTED system.)
- High tech ships aren't really any better than mid-line or low tech, but they cost a LOT more to deploy, and heaven forbid repair
- Burst DPS kills
For me, I enjoy playing this game without save-loading at all, as a result, I always go towards owning only high-tech ships with bare minimum med-tech ships.
The reason behind this is
1) High-speed travel with relatively low fuel consumption
My main revenue comes from taking bounty jobs and cleaning them with said elite squad of ships. From this, you may see how I find the AI Wolf teammates to fit my playstyle perfectly (they don't die, barely at all with the right equipment) and absolutely kill (lightweight ships) in packs.
From your descriptions, I still think you're in "mid-game" territory for 0.8. I usually start to lose interest in a particular playthrough when I have a million or more credits banked, most of the ships I "want" or at least an end-game flagship (for me, Aurora is king) plus a few capitals. At that point, no fleets outside of huge faction patrols or REDACTED encounters pose much of a threat. Oh, and I've level capped myself and most of my officers.
Farm the red beacon systems by not destroying the battle stations. Bring two or three Prometheus and a Atlas. Their ships drop alot of supply and fuel.
Farm the red beacon systems by not destroying the battle stations. Bring two or three Prometheus and a Atlas. Their ships drop alot of supply and fuel.I've been thinking about doing this. Misread you as 'bring an Astral' and I thought 'of course, why would you bring anything else'. ;)
Phase ships? Fuhgeddaboudit. I bought the one Shade I've ever seen for sale, and I passed over a Doom because it was on the black market of a world I didn't want to risk destabilizing. Guess I'll have to recover some of those from faction fleets if I ever want to use any.That kind of conscience will come off fast, don't worry. Doom is a fantastic flagship. Grab the next one for sure!
It's almost certainly not worth lugging around two onslaughts. Ask yourself how often you deploy both at once, and if so, whether or not you really needed to. Filling your fleet out with cruisers is much more fuel efficient. Standard eagles and falcons will hold their own just fine and add as much firepower.
(The fuel situation is indeed much improved in 0.9. For example, Jangala has about 2500 fuel for sale, between the Open, Black, and Military markets, and this is a reliable state of affairs, unless, say, its Spaceport got nuked or some such. Sindria has around 4000; smaller colonies will naturally have considerably less.)
I guess we just have differences in play style, but the only battles I've ever needed more than one capital ship for are the battle stations. Otherwise, cruisers hold up just fine and cost dramatically less.
Phase ships, even the Shade, are so OP that you can easily use one to pick off a capital ship and some cruisers at the beginning of the battle. I've turned several impossible fights into easy wins that way.
@ Blaine: Have you played Street Fighter II or other fighting games and/or familiar with the concept of invulnerability frames, such as Ryu timing a Dragon Punch (or Akuma timing Raging Demon) to pass through an incoming punch, kick, or fireball from the enemy and smack the enemy down for big damage?
The secret to (smaller) phase ships' power is they have invulnerability frames immediately after decloaking. If the phase ship fires a big damage weapon with minimal or no windup, like antimatter blaster, the phase ship can decloak, fire, and if the enemy dies, the explosion will not harm the phase ship due to invulnerability frames. If the enemy lives after the attack, hopefully the phase ship flees from attacker's shot range before invulnerability frames wear out.
AI is not aware of invulnerability frames and cannot abuse it like a player who is aware of them can.
I quickly learned to max out the battle size slider, because the battle size limitation doesn't limit the enemy's massive deployment numbers at all, only whittles your own down, to almost nothing if need be.
The real problem is that once a market is cleaned out, it doesn't recover or replenish for an extremely long time. Considering that these are entire colonized planets, I find it odd that they behave more like the last lonely gas station before a 150-mile stretch of desert highway, except the shady dude lurking around back by the public restrooms is selling most of the station's snacks and half the gas.
I just don't understand why you don't let people have enough fuel to run large fleets without massive amounts of fuel grinding. You can still run large fleets, it just requires tedious grinding.
Wait, did Jangala get a synclotron core? Or are they nerfed so that it doesn't really matter after all? Because that is what it sounds like to me
As for grinding - I'm not sure *why* you'd really do it. That you're able to do it this way is more of an unintended consequence of some mechanics and I imagine I'll deal with it at some point. In the meantime, alright, I get that you want to keep your large fleet going, but if you need to grind to keep it going, what are the goals you need to accomplish with said fleet, aside from the grinding? Since you're already at/past the endgame, there probably aren't many. But if there are, there are also other ways of accomplishing them.
Having said all that I've said in this thread, it's understandable that things can break at the extreme and at the endgame, especially when the game isn't finished yet. Still, it's obvious that the decision to keep fuel fairly limited was deliberate; and that limitation only becomes an issue at the endgame. I guess what I'm saying is that I figure you designed fuel scarcity with the endgame specifically in mind.
If we're being honest, it's more of an "I didn't really look too hard at balancing it past that point" :) As you note, colonies and such hook up to the game in ways the impact this a lot, so what you're really seeing here is a rough edge due to major mechanical pieces not being in place.
That's not to say that running a 150 fuel/day fleet would necessarily be viable, but rather that you should be able to accomplish what you need to on the fuel budget that *would* be available. But 0.8a kind of lends itself to wanting to scale up the fleet as much as possible just because that's about all there is to it as far as goals, so, yeah, I do see where you're coming from.
Another hint: if you pilot the Onslaught yourself those enemy fleets suddenly become a looot easier. It may not seem like much, but aggressive flux management and good burn drive timing make a world of difference.
And speaking of skills... maybe its time to start a new game and try a new build :) If you've beat the fully functioning Remnant station, thats pretty much it in the base game in terms of content.
Oh boy, what have we here? ;D
(http://puu.sh/BUYWG/c2defd6a82.png)
This was from one bounty battle. Needless to say, they cost a fortune to restore. This is why I keep playing this campaign... there are so many more ships and even some weapons I haven't seen/acquired to mess around with.
Whenever outfitting an Aurora, my chief goal is to come to near-parity with weapon flux and flux dissipation. The Aurora has such a deep flux pool that if I'm firing with little-to-no flux build up, I can tank hits with the shield and still vastly outperform the enemy in a flux war. AM Blasters are a plus for burst damage or just a single Heavy Blaster. If I go with SO and max vents, there's little an Aurora can't equip (3x Heavy Blaster isn't out of the question) and that gives it a ton of power. I also don't tend to fill the medium synergy in the back, which is kind of a trap slot for anything not a guided missile. I like a Medium Sabot back there but I find myself rarely using it even when I have it.
It'll change in 0.9 but it's been my favorite frigate even before the Terminator drone was turned into a murder-bot. Just a jack-of-all-trades with superior speed. Even with the changes, I think it'll be an above-average frigate that can fill about any role.
I like Paragon because it can really snipe with long-range guns. The only other ships with comparable range are carriers, due to their fighters.
I have no idea how anyone can handle REDACTED without 20 max burn, doesn't seem as though it'd even be possible.Burn 20 is not necessary as long as player is faster than them. The fleets should be lured away and dodged if you want to kill the battlestation because slain fleets are almost immediately replaced. (I leave battlestation alone because I do not want to kill the golden goose that lays unlimited golden eggs or loot pinatas.)
I have no idea how anyone can handle REDACTED without 20 max burn, doesn't seem as though it'd even be possible.
Go dark. You can avoid most of the fleets while dark and so long as you’re able to handle a single engagement drawing a fleet to you isn’t devastating because, so long as you’re stopped when combat happens you will be stopped when the combat burst goes out... which will he muted by “go dark” and additionally by being stationary inside a debris field
I find it fairly balanced actually, since it has the overall strongest offense and defense and the longest non-fighter weapon range, but only the Atlas is slower overall.
The Paragon's more than a match for the Onslaught in a joust, as is the Doom, which can simply casually fly behind it and give it a torpedo suppository.
The one capital that is really weak in 0.8 in Odyssey. It cannot slug it out against other capitals, even other battlecruisers. Odyssey's only way to stay competitive is to constantly backpedal and use Longbows and triple lances. Odyssey will change significantly in 0.9.
Even without max skills, in my campaign the Paragon is essentially Moses parting the Red Sea during most fleet battles. Of course, it's almost never absolutely, totally solo. I find it fairly balanced actually, since it has the overall strongest offense and defense and the longest non-fighter weapon range, but only the Atlas is slower overall.
The Conquest feels the weakest to me so far, although its overall mobility is similar to the Odyssey's, which is probably why. The Odyssey is the last vanilla capital ship I don't have and haven't tried (none recoverable in 5-6 battles I've fought that included one), so I don't know how it plays.
I ended up not modding in magic fuel-for-credits, and that turned out fine after dumping a capital and changing my habits. I now have over 15,000 fuel stocked up.
If you're wondering why I'm continuing this campaign way past its expiration date, it helps me continue to learn the game mechanics and familiarize myself with the various ships. My next playthrough will likely be with Nexerelin, DynaSector, and some of those cool ship mods, but diving into those before knowing how the actual game works seemed like a bad idea.
Paragon is top dog. With top equipment (2x TL on the turrets, 2x HIL in the front, 2 graviton in the front turret, tactical lasers in the rest of the small slots) it will slaughter everything before it gets close enough to fire.
Conquest is next. It can fit each side to do specific jobs and it’s they strongest missile boat in the game.
Then the Odyssey. It’s similar to the conquest except that it’s much faster and can put localized power where it’s needed. An HIL/Tac Laser set is super strong too. It has a hardish time soloing an onslaught but will beat it in a fleet situation easier because it can kill chaff faster.
Then the Onslaught.
This is also why you stack tac lasers. (Additionally stacked tac lasers will kill bombers before they can launch.).
I'm not sure if you're aware but beams actually deal only soft flux to enemies, so they will be able to dissipate all flux you deal without dropping shields. Other weapons like kinetics/blasters deal hard flux which will not dissipate unless the enemy drops shields or vents. Your only hard flux is the HVD, which probably works well enough because the paragon is so strong, but as Goumindong said, 4x HIL is mad overkill, you really don't want to be shooting HIL into shields, it's flux inefficient and only dealing soft flux and 2x HIL is more than enough anti armor damage for anything in the game. 2x auto pulse would go a long way if you have no tach lance.
You should definitely not put your most aggressive officer in a carrier, you want carriers to hide way in the back, since they massively outrange everything with their fighters. Aggressiveness corresponds to positioning more than 'firing weapons' a cautions officer in a carrier will still attack things, he will just hang back which is much safer. There is no reason for a carrier to intentionally go into enemy weapon range.
Oh I agree, but the fact is that in this campaign, I'm stuck with one level 20 aggressive carrier officer. The other three are two cautious and one steady, which I use on my Mora (steady) and two Herons (cautious). Searching for ideal officer personality/skill combinations is a huge time-wasting pain in the keester (let alone officers who begin with carrier skills), so I guess at some point I just threw up my hands and took an aggressive carrier officer.
I'm not sure if you're aware but beams actually deal only soft flux to enemies, so they will be able to dissipate all flux you deal without dropping shields
If you’re in a paragon(and you have tac lasers and graviton beams).. it isn’t. There is no ship that can dissipate enough flux except another paragon and maybe an SO aurora. And once their shields drop two HIL will eat the armor on a heavy armor’d XIV onslaught in about 5 seconds*
Which is the reason to not hire aggressive/reckless/timid officers in the first place, or at least replace early. They have too limited uses and no place in endgame fleet.
Steady/Cautious are the only two usable long term... If only we could just switch disposition at will.
Re: PD AI. Unnecessary and counter productive. PD AI lets you target missiles which you do not want your tac lasers doing. You want them targeting your main target or fighters. Any missiles that do get launched you can shield tank and pop your active if it’s a marginally dangerous salvo.
You forgot to take "fun" into account. That's a very important stat!For me, fun is usually the one that is self-sufficient and can destroy the enemy most efficiently. Currently, that award goes to Paragon. (In 0.7.x, that award went to Onslaught. In early 0.8, Astral.) Also, I like Paragon because it is the only ship that feels like it has guns. All other ships except carriers and maybe capitals with Gauss Cannon have knives and chainsaws - their shot range feels much too short to be proper guns. If I want to play a melee game, I would play a fighting or hack-and-slash game.
Ships without officers will try to close in with PD weapons if it is all that they have. I tried that with Heron with only dual flak (and all other mounts empty). Instead of running away while fighters do their job, Heron tries to kiss the enemy with dual flak.
Re: Tactical Laser and IPDAI
Tactical Laser is slowish. Advanced Turret Gyros is a must, and even then, it is still not quite as fast as it should be, unlike (LR) PD Laser. That costs too much OP in 0.8.x. Tactical Laser can also be somewhat flux intensive. Before 0.8, it was better because ships had more OP via skills and LR PD Laser had flux cost of 100 instead of 40. (If PD Laser was not an option, the only other viable alternate back then was Tac Laser+IPDAI). Tac Laser plus IPDAI is for long-range prevent PD, not for close-range and high-powered defense.
Problem with Astral is that you are either locked into piloting it (or Legion) by your skill picks, or you can't make reasonable use of it.
Tac laser IS fast enough to hit torpedoes and bombers, however, even without AT Gyros, although I typically use AT Gyros when I can. That said, if there's a huge barrage from one direction and they all need to turn, yeah, I've noticed the sluggishness without AT Gyros.Tac laser is too slow to zap fast moving targets like Salamanders and some fighters. I worry about those more than torpedoes. AI rarely launches torpedoes at my ship unless it is already incapacitated or nearly so.
Yeah, well, the unfortunate fact is that specializing in carrier pilot skills limits you to a tiny portion of ships in the game, and carriers don't make amazing player ships without at least some of the pilot-specific carrier skills. In fact, since carriers are some of the most automation-centered ships in the game, it's very effective to leave carriers to officers and just take Fighter Doctrine instead. Of course, then you can't pretend to be flying the Tiger's Claw from Wing Commander.That is one of my biggest gripes with the skill system. You are married to a ship like a fighter that takes sword specialization is married to his long sword. You can respec officers (by firing and replacing them) but you cannot respec yourself.
If you’re in a paragon(and you have tac lasers and graviton beams).. it isn’t. There is no ship that can dissipate enough flux except another paragon and maybe an SO aurora. And once their shields drop two HIL will eat the armor on a heavy armor’d XIV onslaught in about 5 seconds*
4 TLs get through the shield faster and are still deadly enough against armor due to burst nature. Most things that aren't Onslaught won't notice difference in how fast their armor is stripped, and even for Onslaught it's not too big.
Mobility and range provide a similar benefit, I do not need to reposition if I can shoot the enemy from where I am. My experience is that most ships the onslaught wants to burn drive towards, the paragon can already shoot from the same position, or by moving for a similar amount of time, and with less risk. This is also somewhat dependent on the AI being stupid and wandering into range. If the AI was more careful to stay out of range, mobility would be much more important.Enemies will hover beyond range of a solo Paragon, and that is when wall cheese and possibly fighters from Converted Hangar come in to cheese the AI. In fleet battles, ships will get distracted and blunder into Paragon's shot range. If not, well... there is always fighter spam from the rest of your fleet to give those cowards a miserable death.
Mobility and range provide a similar benefit, I do not need to reposition if I can shoot the enemy from where I am. My experience is that most ships the onslaught wants to burn drive towards, the paragon can already shoot from the same position, or by moving for a similar amount of time, and with less risk. This is also somewhat dependent on the AI being stupid and wandering into range. If the AI was more careful to stay out of range, mobility would be much more important.Enemies will hover beyond range of a solo Paragon, and that is when wall cheese and possibly fighters from Converted Hangar come in to cheese the AI. In fleet battles, ships will get distracted and blunder into Paragon's shot range. If not, well... there is always fighter spam from the rest of your fleet to give those cowards a miserable death.