Exactly my point that I forgot to put. It's kinda ridiculous to have these big ships and they need a specific weapon out of a whole bunch just to be viable.Either that or able to perform at its cost. Apogee and Odyssey would have remained mediocre if plasma cannon was not buffed so much since 0.8.x. Similarly, the loss of 800 range needlers has hurt Medusa.
P.S. One highly overrated ship today: Hyperion. It has difficulty killing a medium-sized ship before peak performance times out, under player control. AI is hopeless with Hyperion. I have no use for Hyperion in the 0.9.x era. As it is, Hyperion is worth no more than 10, maybe 12 DP.
Why bring a Aurora when you can deploy 3 Atlas MkII's!atlas mk 3 is currently misspriced. Its got its DP swapped with the current Atlas. It should be 24 Deployment points.
But yeah, it's my opinion that due to high tech's set of weapons they are better served as escorts for atlas carriers rather then as true damage dealers. Assuming you aren't using anything else for that role.
atlas mk 3 is currently misspriced. Its got its DP swapped with the current Atlas. It should be 24 Deployment points.
Why are you hating the odyssey. I made a ship showcase to show off some of it feats and actually improved on it. In AI hands it can solo well over 100 DP by now - an onslaught being part of that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ1H74wyHq8
Sabot Aurora is good under player control, but AI could not overpower a lone Eagle (and eventually died).I just run simulation a fleet, sub-optimised frigate hunter, Aurora (3 pulse lasers, 1 heavy Blaster, 5 IR Pulse Laser, ITU, IPDAI, IEA, SS, 19 capacitors 34 vents) vs the sim Eagle and it killed the sim Eagle with ease. It didn't even use most of its weapons.
Why bring a Aurora when you can deploy 3 Atlas MkII's!Because you cannot? 1 Aurora is 30 Deployment Points and 3 Atlas MkII is 72 Deployment Points. You can deploy 2.4 Auroras for 3 Atlas MkII. It's like asking why bring a Dominator when you can deploy a Paragon.
Why are you hating the odyssey. I made a ship showcase to show off some of it feats and actually improved on it. In AI hands it can solo well over 100 DP by now - an onslaught being part of that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ1H74wyHq8
Wow, this is by far the most successful ship config under AI control. I can't believe it, Odyssey destroying Onslaught under AI control. Although, a nitpick, maybe swap those PD lasers and the rear Sabot for something else? With 4 Xyphos covering the ship, I doubt anything serious would get through, that PD lasers can do anything about, but you can free up 28 OP to put into Capacitors and Vents, allowing it to stay for longer under fire or spend less time venting.
Why are you hating the odyssey. I made a ship showcase to show off some of it feats and actually improved on it. In AI hands it can solo well over 100 DP by now - an onslaught being part of that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ1H74wyHq8
Wow, this is by far the most successful ship config under AI control. I can't believe it, Odyssey destroying Onslaught under AI control. How did you come up with this combination with all these mixed armament?
Although, a nitpick, maybe swap those PD lasers and the rear Sabot for something else? With 4 Xyphos covering the ship, I doubt anything serious would get through, that PD lasers can do anything about, but you can free up 28 OP to put into Capacitors and Vents, allowing it to stay for longer under fire or spend less time venting.
Aurora definitly fill a niche that needs filling, it just interact poorly with the AI.
Aurora is made to run around hunting carrier/destroyer/frigate. That cruiser is really damn fast compared to most other ship. The plasma burst ability it has makes it out speed all destroyer except the medusa and all cruisers/capitals. Since the AI pretty much only know how to go straight ahead and shoot, the aurora MUST be weaker than other equivalent ships in AI hand right now if we want it to be balanced.
Safety overdrive on the cruisers kinda break the balance on speed because of the ludicruous boost it gives. So I would be wary of using it as we compare ship
The Odyssey shotgun build posted is commendable for being effective enough for AI. Did three fights against Onslaught, with Odyssey winning two out of three. First fight, Odyssey barely won. Second fight, Onslaught barely won. Third fight, Onslaught overloaded and Odyssey won by a good margin. Since Conquest is a much more common fight, I tried that, and Odyssey won (after taking some damage). Next was a fight against 80 something DP against destroyers and frigates (two Enforcers, two Sunders, Hammerhead, Mule, Vigilance, two Lashers, Hound, and Brawler). It won the first two attempts with some difficulty, but then got humiliated and destroyed in the next four or so attempts.
Noticed the Odyssey rarely used the rear Sabots, but it has saved it from getting flanked by frigates a few times. Removing them for something else can be an option.
What makes the build work better is the Steady AI stands off at longer range. It does not try to burn into a mob, and it does not try to get close enough to overwhelm the enemy with the a bunch of guns. Instead, it constantly kites like triple lance Odyssey from 0.8.x. (A different loadout with plasma cannons or a bunch of IR Pulse Lasers, Steady AI will get closer.)
Aurora is only good if it is loaded with lots of Sabots (all synergies stuffed with Sabots plus Expanded Missile Racks), and I am not sure the AI can use it well. Sabot Aurora is good under player control, but AI could not overpower a lone Eagle (and eventually died).I'm actually loving the Odyssey right now. Using it more as an ultra-cruiser than a capital, with multiple Odysseys supporting a player Paragon. They have great speed and tankyness, so they naturally keep up a lot of interference preventing the enemy from being able to overwhelm my paragon. They also chase down Radiants pretty well. I keep them very lightly armed, with only 2 autopulse lasers and some anti-shield missiles, focusing mostly on maximizing their shielding.
Odyssey is another. It needs plasma cannons to be competitive against serious opposition. If it is limited to autopulse, it is subpar. AI just burns to its death.
I will add more later.
If I want a high tech tanky ship I can just get an Apogee that's ONLY 18 DP, has also decent firepower but lacks the mobility system of Odyssey. But I don't care for mobility on big ships, there are others suited for that role. Sure, flanking is fun but I can just cut through the enemy fleet with other capitals and laugh. My opinion on good cruisers for player piloting changed a lot over the years, and in the end I've had most success with just a simple Dominator. There's not a thing I can't kill with it, who needs fancy systems phh.
After Doom of course, but it costs as much as a capital so not really counting it here.
If I want a high tech tanky ship I can just get an Apogee that's ONLY 18 DP, has also decent firepower but lacks the mobility system of Odyssey. But I don't care for mobility on big ships, there are others suited for that role. Sure, flanking is fun but I can just cut through the enemy fleet with other capitals and laugh. My opinion on good cruisers for player piloting changed a lot over the years, and in the end I've had most success with just a simple Dominator. There's not a thing I can't kill with it, who needs fancy systems phh.Mobility is THE reason to go for Odyssey, and you are severely underrating having mobility on big ships.
After Doom of course, but it costs as much as a capital so not really counting it here.
Is there anything going for the Condor to make it worthwhile? Ever since the fighter change I have never used the Condor. The limited ranges of fighters plus the slowness of Condors means that enemies will often be beyond the Condor's reach. Condors are slower than some cruisers, and can't escape if pushed by enemy warships. How is Fast Missile Racks suppose to help a carrier?
The Aurora looks good on paper, but I haven't found a build for it that I like. I tried a bunch of different things and couldn't get the AI to beat a single Eagle in decent time. Any recommendations? I'm not really too fond of beams and missiles...
Aurora really needs Aggressive or Reckless AI to do well with hard flux loadouts. With Steady AI, Aurora will hang back and let SIM Eagle or equivalent kill it. With Aggressive AI, Aurora will make an effort to attack Eagle and will win eventually.
Two frigates or a capital will beat it quickly, the Frigates might need an eliminate order (otherwise they might never go near it), but that's all. The problem I have is that Cruisers in general are utterly useless. My end-game fleets end up as Frigates+Capitals only with Odyssey being my cruiser stand-in.The Aurora looks good on paper, but I haven't found a build for it that I like. I tried a bunch of different things and couldn't get the AI to beat a single Eagle in decent time. Any recommendations? I'm not really too fond of beams and missiles...
Nothing, besides SO, will beat a sim eagle in a "decent time" when the AI uses it. The sim Eagle is full "worthless but it doesn't die" mode with 3 gravitons, 2 sabots, and the incessent need to back off using its active ability. Even SO ships can have some trouble with eliminate orders/aggressive AI.Aurora really needs Aggressive or Reckless AI to do well with hard flux loadouts. With Steady AI, Aurora will hang back and let SIM Eagle or equivalent kill it. With Aggressive AI, Aurora will make an effort to attack Eagle and will win eventually.
I cannot get an officer-less Aurora to lose to a sim eagle. Well i mean, i can. But i can't get it to happen from a build i might actually field.
What? Cruisers are the majority of my fleets... I have at least 4 apogees in my fleet at all times. Capitals are fun but they require so many resources that it's rarely worth having more than 2 in a fleet. Any more and you will spend most of your time searching for fuel and you can't deploy more than 2 in 90% of battles. Dominators are decent, tanky and with good damage but unable to escape. I don't love eagles tbh, and the aurora is a player missile boat with ok brawling ability. The heron and mora are both great and i tend to have 3-4 cruiser sized carriers in my fleets. The astral is also god tier, but for interceptors I would rather have cruiser sized carriers that can distribute their fighters more. Frigates are way less useful in late game, then last like 1 minute and then you have to retreat them. I just keep a few tempests and omens (mostly for pursuits), and otherwise never use frigates.In order to be useful a ship needs to win on at least 4 to 1 odds and basically never die. Remember that the enemy has infinite ships and fleets multiple times the size of yours, and you do not. A couple of frigates like Tempests do the job admirably. Carriers fail at the "never die" but they are great for killing things. Cruisers however can't manage either aspect, they die easily compared to both capitals and frigates, and they don't kill anything.
Obviously cruisers can't solo capitals though... I have no idea why you would expect a ship that costs a fraction of the supplies and deployment points to beat onslaughts or Conquests when piloted by the AI. I can easily set up aurora builds that can nuke an onslaught or conquest with missiles, but the AI will not be able to execute that. Ships don't have to be able to solo every other ship in the game to be useful, they just have to fill role in the fleet (tank damage, deal damage, control the airspace etc..)
Eagle with level 20 officer can solo some officer-less capitals (I mean proper ones, not Atlas mk2). And you get almost 2 instead of each Conquest, exactly 2 instead of Odyssey, etc.I find that 2 Astrals on bombing duty is more efficient than 1. You need a critical mass of bombers to accomplish anything with them and I find that 2 Astrals gives that critical mass. The Odyssey can solo a freaking Paragon, it's arguably the best ship ton for ton in the game being (much) faster than the Eagle with more firepower than the Dominator.
With battle size 500 (max default) and 10 officers there is no strict need to use many larger ships. Maybe 1 capital under AI control and 1 for player.
What I like about Eagles is that they are very simple to use, both for player/AI and efficient. I think AI is least error-prone with Eagles compared to any other direct combat ships.
Capitals are fun but they require so many resources that it's rarely worth having more than 2 in a fleet. Any more and you will spend most of your time searching for fuelHow? Most capitals have similar fuel efficiency as most other ships. One on one, of course they use up more fuel, same way that a cruiser generally use more fuel than a destroyer which use more fuel than a frigate. To get the same combat power, you will need a similar amount of fuel.
I had an aggressive officier, but I'm pretty sure it was still being treated as my flagship on autopilot. I have 17 points of piloted ship combat skills (including power grid modulation), so less effective than a maxed out officer would be. Fleet Doctrine is also aggressive if that helps.Your fleet commander (if you set on autopilot and let AI take over) is treated as a Steady officer, even if fleet doctrine is different. (Another reason why I prefer Steady as default AI.) The ship you are in is treated as Steady after you set it to autopilot.
It's possible to design a missile-less Aurora variant that can, with no officer on it & under AI control, take on all three sim Dominators at once. (Admittedly, this is with various fleet-wide skills in play, including 85% CR and +10% OP.)
If that's not sufficient to make a cruiser count as a "good fleet ship", I'm not really sure what is.
Capitals are fun but they require so many resources that it's rarely worth having more than 2 in a fleet. Any more and you will spend most of your time searching for fuelHow? Most capitals have similar fuel efficiency as most other ships. One on one, of course they use up more fuel, same way that a cruiser generally use more fuel than a destroyer which use more fuel than a frigate. To get the same combat power, you will need a similar amount of fuel.
...
The only real place that cruisers start to falter is when fighting stations.
An eagle with 7.3 DP per fuel and Paragon with 6 fuel efficiency isn't really that much of a difference. The Dominator, and Falcon and Mora all have worse fuel efficiency than a Paragon. It's more of a case that the Eagle is particularily fuel efficient per DP. As is the Apogee and Aurora, but I suppose it's rare that someone would consider making a fleet purely out of these.Capitals are fun but they require so many resources that it's rarely worth having more than 2 in a fleet. Any more and you will spend most of your time searching for fuelHow? Most capitals have similar fuel efficiency as most other ships. One on one, of course they use up more fuel, same way that a cruiser generally use more fuel than a destroyer which use more fuel than a frigate. To get the same combat power, you will need a similar amount of fuel.
An Eagle is 22 DP per 3 fuel. A Paragon is 60 for 10. So 3 Eagles is 66 for 9. All capitals are fuel inefficient, even the Odyssey. (16 DP per 3 fuel). Only some frigates and destroyers have worse DP/Fuel use ratios than capitals. Cruisers are generally the most fuel efficient ships in the game. They're also generally OP/Deployment point efficient. (60 DP worth of eagles, as an example, has 422 Deployment points. A paragon has 370)
Eagles are really good. And they just keep getting better the larger your fleet gets due to their high range and significant ability to stack HVD while also not dying. Plus there is the wide line effect that prevents them from being surrounded and killed.
The only real place that cruisers start to falter is when fighting stations.
Another way of thinking about it is capitals condense a lot firepower into one fleet slot but also a lot supply/fuel consumption. You don't have the option to deploy 1/3 of a paragon but you can deploy 1 of your 3 eagles. You also can't leave 1/3 of your paragon at home but you can take 2 out of 3 eagles. My goal is to spend the least number of supplies per combat, and cruisers IMO are the best way of achieving that for most battles. The two important considerations are supply cost to deploy and peak performance time. Frigates and destroyers do not last long enough in combat because of PPT and so you spend many extra supplies on recovering lost CR. Capitals do not have the granularity to minimize supply cost to deploy.I disagree. A single capital will outperform half a dozen cruisers. It might die to the same half-dozen cruisers at once, but in the general pace of battle it will do more killing and take less damage/casualties. Now, if you happen to be going into a battle where only a single cruiser is sufficient, that might be a different story. I don't think that's likely to happen, but you will EASILY find battles where a single Paragon or Odyssey is sufficient.
There are also skills that decrease enemy range and increase your speed based on the number of ships you have deployed, so deploying more ships is directly beneficial. I also find that having more ships decreases the chances of getting surrounded which can be a big problem for capitals.
In mainline battle, yeah cruisers are as useful in capital ship fights as they were in real life (not.) But for long range expeditions against anything but the strongest opponents, cruisers serve that nice role as tactical capital ships or as stronger escorts then destroyers.Ok I understand your point. I don't really agree because I consider Cruisers to be woefully underpowered for their weight class, but I definitely know the value of fielding a smaller force for an appropriate task. I recommend the Odyssey still though as a cruiser-capital hybrid. It fills every role a cruiser can, while also bringing more firepower and defense, and a pretty good logistical profile as well especially when you consider its cargo/fuel/crew capacity. The Odyssey is arguably the best one-ship fleet you can have.
Bang for buck, a battleship is the best (Or super carrier) but for affordable flexibility or cost effectiveness on the rim anything bigger then an Eagle is simply a waste of supplies and fuel. Which is kind of the purpose of cruisers, to cruise.
Another way of thinking about it is capitals condense a lot firepower into one fleet slot but also a lot supply/fuel consumption. You don't have the option to deploy 1/3 of a paragon but you can deploy 1 of your 3 eagles. You also can't leave 1/3 of your paragon at home but you can take 2 out of 3 eagles. My goal is to spend the least number of supplies per combat, and cruisers IMO are the best way of achieving that for most battles. The two important considerations are supply cost to deploy and peak performance time. Frigates and destroyers do not last long enough in combat because of PPT and so you spend many extra supplies on recovering lost CR. Capitals do not have the granularity to minimize supply cost to deploy.I now see what you mean thanks. With 80-120 deployment limit a single Paragon will cause that granularity problem you just described. So it is worthless to have more than 2 Paragons, at least if you are always able to recover CR before redeploying again. That said, you still shouldn't run into problems getting fuel.
There are also skills that decrease enemy range and increase your speed based on the number of ships you have deployed, so deploying more ships is directly beneficial. I also find that having more ships decreases the chances of getting surrounded which can be a big problem for capitals.
In mainline battle, yeah cruisers are as useful in capital ship fights as they were in real life (not.) But for long range expeditions against anything but the strongest opponents, cruisers serve that nice role as tactical capital ships or as stronger escorts then destroyers.The game doesn't work that way. The ship classes don't have anything specific delineating them, but that they tend to be bigger. Some have burn speed higher than the rest. Some have different fuel costs. Some have weaker hulls than the class below.
Bang for buck, a battleship is the best (Or super carrier) but for affordable flexibility or cost effectiveness on the rim anything bigger then an Eagle is simply a waste of supplies and fuel. Which is kind of the purpose of cruisers, to cruise.
For combat with cruiser-capital hybrid, I prefer Doom over Odyssey. Dooms are a bit cheaper and tend to stay alive longer. Also, it is a pain to outfit Odyssey. A good offensive loadout for player will probably get AI killed, and a good support loadout for AI will be underpowered for player use.I run 2x autopulse, 1x squall, 2x sabot on the Odyssey (no other weapons). I found the MIRV just gets wasted on shields, especially against remnants. Squall isn't THAT much better, but at least it's intended vs shields. In human hands it's not that impressive. It's basically 2 autopulse lasers and a really strong shield attached to the fastest ship in the game to sport a large mount. That 70 base speed with a ship system to go even faster is what makes it. An Eagle has 0 firepower (anything less than a large mount is literally a frigate weapon), and only 50 speed with the much slower manuvering jets system. A Conquest has high firepower, but tissue paper defense and incredibly slow speed (45 base, again with maneuvering). The slow speed makes them utterly useless at chasing down destroyers and frigates, which as a "small fleet" it's doubly important because nobody else is gonna do it.
Also, Conquest is cheaper than Odyssey and is powerful enough to fight as a battleship.
Speaking of Odyssey, I experimented with a variation of the shotgun build posted pages back. Replaced lance with HIL and MIRV with Squalls. Seems to function decently. Works well against (smaller?) human fleets. Not very good against a big Ordos fleet.
What's your opinion on the dominator? I can see your opinion on non-capitals for proper battle, but that is the biggest big-gun cruiser available.Too slow, never reaches the enemy, gets surrounded by frigates and fighters and dies. Weapons are pretty good for fire support especially if you load it up for long range, but it's overpriced for what little it actually accomplishes.
A Conquest has high firepower, but tissue paper defense and incredibly slow speed (45 base, again with maneuvering). The slow speed makes them utterly useless at chasing down destroyers and frigates, which as a "small fleet" it's doubly important because nobody else is gonna do it.Conquest is not that fragile. (Not since 0.8a.) It is actually quite tough, or at least not frail. Not the toughest like Onslaught or Paragon, but it is no slouch. As for chasing down destroyers and frigates, that is not much of a problem (let them run). A bigger problem is avoiding or surviving them when they decide to swarm en masse to kill your ships, especially when bigger enemies are threatening at the same time.
The game doesn't work that way. The ship classes don't have anything specific delineating them, but that they tend to be bigger. Some have burn speed higher than the rest. Some have different fuel costs. Some have weaker hulls than the class below.
Tempests can do that anyway without the beams. I load my tempests with Pulse Lasers and Unstable Injector. They do what you described just fine and manage to kill a few frigates by themselves in the process.The game doesn't work that way. The ship classes don't have anything specific delineating them, but that they tend to be bigger. Some have burn speed higher than the rest. Some have different fuel costs. Some have weaker hulls than the class below.
I agree with that but on one specific point : Range. Because of the way ITU works, the ship class dictate its max engagement range which I find to be a very important factor in deciding who will win an engagement, both in simulation and actual fleet battles.
As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships. My current fleet it built on long range engagement, with most ships using beam and missile weapons to soften the enemy from afar, a strong ECM game (most battles the enemy's range is cut by 25%) and carriers to deliver the killing blow. It's not unusual with that configuration that my beam Tempests will outrange cruisers and capitals that don't use ITU+Advanced Optics and, being Tempests, they don't care about missiles the enemy might throw at them. They don't do a lot damage-wise except for heating up the enemy's shield a bit but quite often they manage to get the attention of a few of the bigger enemy ships and lead them in a wild chase accross the map where they're being utterly useless and not helping the rest of their fleet.
As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships.
There is literally no reason for DTC to exist. ITU does exactly what it does, better, for the same cost, and can be used on smaller ships, and they don't stack. ITU provides 40/60 percent range for cruisers and capitals for 15/25 OP, while DTC provides 35/50 percent range for 15/25 OP. You never ever have a reason to use DTC, unless you simply don't own the ITU hull mod.As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships.
ITU/DTC is mandatory on cruisers/capitals by design, that's the reason DTC exists at all. Any build without these aside from SO cruisers, dedicated carriers and maybe all-missile gryphon is pretty much invalid.
You never ever have a reason to use DTC, unless you simply don't own the ITU hull mod.
Aside from that, I'm not sure I really agree that extended range is that necessary. It's good for a standoff playstyle that takes forever, but not all that helpful for a direct assault playstyle intended to rush down enemy targets as quickly as possible, which is how I play. I use it sometimes, but not always. In fact I'd consider Unstable Injector, which is almost exact opposite of ITU/DTC, to be the more mandatory hull mod in most cases.
In terms of percent speed bonus, UI gets more efficient with size. A Tempest with 180 base speed gets +25, which amounts to a 13.8% gain at the cost of 10% of its OP. A Paragon with 30 base speed gets +15, which is a 50% boost at the cost of 6.8% of its OP. So in percentage terms, UI is over 5 times as efficient on a Paragon as on a Tempest.You never ever have a reason to use DTC, unless you simply don't own the ITU hull mod.
Which is exactly the point. DTC is a stand-in.Aside from that, I'm not sure I really agree that extended range is that necessary. It's good for a standoff playstyle that takes forever, but not all that helpful for a direct assault playstyle intended to rush down enemy targets as quickly as possible, which is how I play. I use it sometimes, but not always. In fact I'd consider Unstable Injector, which is almost exact opposite of ITU/DTC, to be the more mandatory hull mod in most cases.
On frigates, DEs - sure. Cruisers/Capitals are just never fast enough to face hug enemies, unless SO. And a ITU/DTC-less cruiser often has less effective range than DE, since it's large itself and many slots are not on the very front of it.
ITU gets more efficient with size, UI - less. UI is mandatory for frigates (except maybe opticc Wolf of Tempest), good for DEs (but less so for AI piloted ones), dubious for cruisers (on Eagle/Falcon or Aurora UI doesn't even increase your average speed that much, since a lot of it comes from ship system). Paragon, Conquest and Odyssey can consider UI, but I still find more range better for them.
In terms of percent speed bonus, UI gets more efficient with size. A Tempest with 180 base speed gets +25, which amounts to a 13.8% gain at the cost of 10% of its OP. A Paragon with 30 base speed gets +15, which is a 50% boost at the cost of 6.8% of its OP. So in percentage terms, UI is over 5 times as efficient on a Paragon as on a Tempest.
I pretty much always run UI on my Paragon. Coupled with aggressive use of zero flux boosts, I can chase down most cruisers and destroyers (the enemy will never have 0 flux boost unless they are in full retreat). When I'm fighting Remnants in particular I like to hold fire until I can touch shields with the Radiant, then let loose. Even after it teleports away, I have enough speed and range (range does matter, it's a question of how much) to keep up and kill it.
In terms of percent speed bonus, UI gets more efficient with size. A Tempest with 180 base speed gets +25, which amounts to a 13.8% gain at the cost of 10% of its OP. A Paragon with 30 base speed gets +15, which is a 50% boost at the cost of 6.8% of its OP. So in percentage terms, UI is over 5 times as efficient on a Paragon as on a Tempest.You never ever have a reason to use DTC, unless you simply don't own the ITU hull mod.
Which is exactly the point. DTC is a stand-in.Aside from that, I'm not sure I really agree that extended range is that necessary. It's good for a standoff playstyle that takes forever, but not all that helpful for a direct assault playstyle intended to rush down enemy targets as quickly as possible, which is how I play. I use it sometimes, but not always. In fact I'd consider Unstable Injector, which is almost exact opposite of ITU/DTC, to be the more mandatory hull mod in most cases.
On frigates, DEs - sure. Cruisers/Capitals are just never fast enough to face hug enemies, unless SO. And a ITU/DTC-less cruiser often has less effective range than DE, since it's large itself and many slots are not on the very front of it.
ITU gets more efficient with size, UI - less. UI is mandatory for frigates (except maybe opticc Wolf of Tempest), good for DEs (but less so for AI piloted ones), dubious for cruisers (on Eagle/Falcon or Aurora UI doesn't even increase your average speed that much, since a lot of it comes from ship system). Paragon, Conquest and Odyssey can consider UI, but I still find more range better for them.
I pretty much always run UI on my Paragon. Coupled with aggressive use of zero flux boosts, I can chase down most cruisers and destroyers (the enemy will never have 0 flux boost unless they are in full retreat). When I'm fighting Remnants in particular I like to hold fire until I can touch shields with the Radiant, then let loose. Even after it teleports away, I have enough speed and range (range does matter, it's a question of how much) to keep up and kill it.
Even if I can't fully outspeed something, more speed relative to their speed means that I can push forward and hold them in firing range for longer. That's how you end up killing cruisers and destroyers, especially faster ones like Falcons, with the Paragon, where otherwise they would simply run away as soon as their shield gets low and never take real damage. Get as close to them as possible before they get scared, and then have as much speed as possible to chase after them while they try to turn and run. You won't beat them in speed, but it means extra time to do damage.
There is literally no reason for DTC to exist. ITU does exactly what it does, better, for the same cost, and can be used on smaller ships, and they don't stack. ITU provides 40/60 percent range for cruisers and capitals for 15/25 OP, while DTC provides 35/50 percent range for 15/25 OP. You never ever have a reason to use DTC, unless you simply don't own the ITU hull mod.As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships.
ITU/DTC is mandatory on cruisers/capitals by design, that's the reason DTC exists at all. Any build without these aside from SO cruisers, dedicated carriers and maybe all-missile gryphon is pretty much invalid.
Aside from that, I'm not sure I really agree that extended range is that necessary. It's good for a standoff playstyle that takes forever, but not all that helpful for a direct assault playstyle intended to rush down enemy targets as quickly as possible, which is how I play. I use it sometimes, but not always. In fact I'd consider Unstable Injector, which is almost exact opposite of ITU/DTC, to be the more mandatory hull mod in most cases.
The game doesn't work that way. The ship classes don't have anything specific delineating them, but that they tend to be bigger. Some have burn speed higher than the rest. Some have different fuel costs. Some have weaker hulls than the class below.
I agree with that but on one specific point : Range. Because of the way ITU works, the ship class dictate its max engagement range which I find to be a very important factor in deciding who will win an engagement, both in simulation and actual fleet battles.
As an aside, I kind of don't like the way ITU works because it's pretty much mandatory on capital ships. My current fleet it built on long range engagement, with most ships using beam and missile weapons to soften the enemy from afar, a strong ECM game (most battles the enemy's range is cut by 25%) and carriers to deliver the killing blow. It's not unusual with that configuration that my beam Tempests will outrange cruisers and capitals that don't use ITU+Advanced Optics and, being Tempests, they don't care about missiles the enemy might throw at them. They don't do a lot damage-wise except for heating up the enemy's shield a bit but quite often they manage to get the attention of a few of the bigger enemy ships and lead them in a wild chase accross the map where they're being utterly useless and not helping the rest of their fleet.
and capital ships don't adhere to the limits of the 1922 Washington naval treaty.
and capital ships don't adhere to the limits of the 1922 Washington naval treaty.
Paragon intensifies!
Although I suppose the Vigilance (or a bunch) armed with a torp launcher might count as a torpedo boat, assuming the AI could ever really play the role.
I was talking about ship roles specifically. Destroyers don't destroy torpedo boats, cruisers don't cruise and capital ships don't adhere to the limits of the 1922 Washington naval treaty.
But since I wasn't clear, you are correct. Add to that, the number of capacitors and vents are strictly delineated by hull type, as are hullmod costs and any hullmods that change according to hull type.
Condor is much worse than Drover, but it's still a carrier. It can even solo other DEs in AI vs AI (because they totally can't handle Talons/Sparks).A Drover can solo a lot more than that with the right fighters.
Without increased range destroyers reign supreme(well them and SO cruisers). Larger ships are too slow to be competitive without them and would me, more or less floating hulks.
But apparently the current different weapon ranges for 2 different types of range extending Hullmods dependent on ship hull type,No, because it's expected and bonuses are fairly similar. It means HVD either has 1350 or 1400 range for all cruiser, not some number that depends on the ship's innate stat, hullmods and weapon's innate stat.
and then another 2 hullmods for 2 range reducing hullmods, on top of the normal weapon range, isn't too confusing or inconsistent?Not really in the case of SO, since it makes the ship visually different from normal ships. In the case of UI it wouldn't hurt to have it pronounced better, but then you'd have consistency issues: most hullmods don't have any indicators they are there at all.
Either case, you express no disagreement that the range increase is too big, nor that there is a particular reason for both to exist.First part is true. As for the second, one is the basic kit, and the other is a hullmod that's not found by default and it's supposed to increase your ship's performance above the baseline (the baseline being DTC).
Why are you hating the odyssey. I made a ship showcase to show off some of it feats and actually improved on it. In AI hands it can solo well over 100 DP by now - an onslaught being part of that.I have to chime in on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ1H74wyHq8
I'm saying I don't like that both hullmods exist. Just one or the otheris enough. There's no need for a hullmod that makes the other redundant. Especially when just the DTC itself is worth having. As everyone likes to write ad nauseam, range is king. 5%/10%/15%/20% would be a bonus enough for the ITC cost that would be worth buying for. 10%/20%/40%/60% seems so excessive.
Also, that DTU doesn't have to be found, DTC is for when you haven't found ITU yet, ITU is not found by default, all do not matter to my opinion that there is no need for both to exist. Stop typing it. We all know that. It is irrelevant. It doesn't need to be said. It just obscurates.
SCC, you cannot argue, logically, that somebody's proposed system is too complicated when the current system is more complicated
Why are you hating the odyssey. I made a ship showcase to show off some of it feats and actually improved on it. In AI hands it can solo well over 100 DP by now - an onslaught being part of that.
It's a dumb argument, because I don't see a reason why DTC and ITU should coexist. It shouldn't be a reward. You aren't rewarded with different version of every single hullmod. There is no better Safety overides. There is no better hardened shield. there is no better Additional berthing hull mods as rewards. It's just out of place. It doesn't even feel like a reward.
Why are you hating the odyssey. I made a ship showcase to show off some of it feats and actually improved on it. In AI hands it can solo well over 100 DP by now - an onslaught being part of that.
Nice video. I'd never really seen the point of hardened shields but your shrike viseo really changed my mind. I'm using one of those as a flagship right now and its great (solo killed two pirate bases ising a pair)-- going to build an oddessey once I know I can afford to lose it when it dies.
Has anyone had any luck with the scarab?
It's a dumb argument, because I don't see a reason why DTC and ITU should coexist. It shouldn't be a reward. You aren't rewarded with different version of every single hullmod. There is no better Safety overides. There is no better hardened shield. there is no better Additional berthing hull mods as rewards. It's just out of place. It doesn't even feel like a reward.
But it is a reward. Why should it not be a reward? Because you don't want it to be? Because there isn't a loot equivalent to everything in the game? Why should there be a loot equivalent to everything in the game?
You're right in that its partially arbitrary. It is. But plenty of things are arbitrary. Why are there XIV battlegroup ships with special hull mods? Why are there LP ships which are effectively drop only. Why are there drop only [redacted] fighters, why are they so much better than wasps? Well because there ought to be some loot in a game like this and so we're going to need some things to loot. And sometimes those things will be upgrades over the current.
As it stands ITU is just a hullmod like any other. You have to find all of them (except the ones you can get from skills). The only difference is that DTU exists because if it did not then ITU would be a required find before you could field capital ships.
And yea, man ITU feels like a reward. I love finding ITU. Its not quite as nice as the first Pristine Nanoforge or Synchroton or Odyssey Blueprint... But its still a really really nice reward.
But back on the topic, all energy weapon ships. Energy weapons are just not that great and they bring all high tech ships down with them. The Paragon is good in SPITE of their energy mounts.
I can do things with it
EDIT: Lemme just share a story I already said on the subreddit: ''In a huge fight vs a low tech battlestation and some ludd ships, guess which ship died first. Bingo bango bongo it was an Aurora with a steady lvl 20 officer, given no eliminate orders and wasn't close to the battlestation. My fleet was a Conquest, Onslaught, Legion, Dominator, Aurora, Heron, Apogee, Falcon and 2 Shrikes. Even the *** Shrikes lasted longer. It's just sad seeing that since it takes an effort to acquire one without a blueprint.''
I mean it has Hardened front shields with a lot of caps and vents. What am I supposed to do? Only deploy when I need to clean up weak fleets?Yes! I guess that is why Aurora is worth 30 DP. Player can wipe the floor against a fleet of mooks… which is not what the player fights at endgame, usually. They fight ten capital deathballs or Ordos with tough shields.
EDIT: Lemme just share a story I already said on the subreddit: ''In a huge fight vs a low tech battlestation and some ludd ships, guess which ship died first. Bingo bango bongo it was an Aurora with a steady lvl 20 officer, given no eliminate orders and wasn't close to the battlestation. My fleet was a Conquest, Onslaught, Legion, Dominator, Aurora, Heron, Apogee, Falcon and 2 Shrikes. Even the *** Shrikes lasted longer. It's just sad seeing that since it takes an effort to acquire one without a blueprint.''Steady officer cannot use Aurora armed with hard-flux energy weapons competently (because it cowers too much). Aurora needs an Aggressive officer to get close enough to attack effectively with short-ranged weapons.
Most of the ships are overrated and suck simply because the AI sucks.Carriers without a fleet in front of them aren't good enough at "being a coward" to survive. You yourself being good, or at least setting yourself up with a strong enough ship that you can utilize effectively compared to the AI, makes a HUGE difference ESPECIALLY in the big later game battles. I usually fly a paragon in vanilla, mainly because not even a reckless AI is aggressive enough to turn the tide, while I certainly can.
In the hands of a good player, a lot of the ships can take on a entire ship class or two.
This is why I stopped using most ships and simply went carrier heavy. After that, I have yet to lose a fight, or at least significantly, simply because fighter AI doesn't have to be good (especially when you get the better fighters like sparks). And the AI is specifically good at being a coward, which is exactly what carriers have to be in order to be effective.
Hence even the worst carriers are better than most ships, which is kinda sad, since I like playing around with the ships. But you yourself being good, unless your piloting a very good ship that your comfortable with, usually isn't going to turn the tides of battle significantly enough later game to matter.
Most of the ships are overrated and suck simply because the AI sucks.
In the hands of a good player, a lot of the ships can take on a entire ship class or two.
This is why I stopped using most ships and simply went carrier heavy. After that, I have yet to lose a fight, or at least significantly, simply because fighter AI doesn't have to be good (especially when you get the better fighters like sparks). And the AI is specifically good at being a coward, which is exactly what carriers have to be in order to be effective.
Hence even the worst carriers are better than most ships, which is kinda sad, since I like playing around with the ships. But you yourself being good, unless your piloting a very good ship that your comfortable with, usually isn't going to turn the tides of battle significantly enough later game to matter.
I mean, ive never lost by spamming carriers with Sparks or Spark / Claw combo except against high tech Star Fortresses, and thats about it.
Ive never really seen the benefit of one good ship piloted by the player vs more carriers, considering the fact that the AI is really bad in sticking together and fighting optimal opponents; they either face roll into an opponent and die, or stay as far as possible and only take a few pot shots.
The only times the AI does anything is when I force them to via orders or when you are so hopelessly outmatching your opponent that you don't really need to do anything. Sometimes your forced into fights with the AI where you clearly have a much, MUCH better fleet but it doesn't give you an option to fast forward it; thats when the AI is effective essentially.
Maybe im just not getting it, but I haven't seen a setup used by a player in a actual non-simmed battle where they mattered in a big fight. Not talking the scrap fights early game; you matter then. But later game? When your faced with capital / carrier spam by the AI? I haven't really seen a need for individual skill at that level.
I mean, ive never lost by spamming carriers with Sparks or Spark / Claw combo except against high tech Star Fortresses, and thats about it.It depends on how you equip your fleet. You have to build with the AI in mind, test with the AI in mind, deploy with the AI in mind. Usually it ends up being a very capital-heavy fleet, because the AI can't do much of anything with vanilla destroyers or cruisers, but they are pretty freaking good with Odyssey for some reason (don't bother arguing stats or anything, the proof is in the results)
Ive never really seen the benefit of one good ship piloted by the player vs more carriers, considering the fact that the AI is really bad in sticking together and fighting optimal opponents; they either face roll into an opponent and die, or stay as far as possible and only take a few pot shots.
The only times the AI does anything is when I force them to via orders or when you are so hopelessly outmatching your opponent that you don't really need to do anything. Sometimes your forced into fights with the AI where you clearly have a much, MUCH better fleet but it doesn't give you an option to fast forward it; thats when the AI is effective essentially.
Maybe im just not getting it, but I haven't seen a setup used by a player in a actual non-simmed battle where they mattered in a big fight. Not talking the scrap fights early game; you matter then. But later game? When your faced with capital / carrier spam by the AI? I haven't really seen a need for individual skill at that level.
How exactly is AI good with Odyssey? The only build that gets anywhere is Sabot + Mirv spam, which is pretty much is SO-build-equivalent in terms of lack of longevity. Any other type of build just folds when it tries to go against sim Conquest (both skill-less). And even that only because sim Conquest has somewhat weak build (no ballistic kinetics on brawl side, no gauss side), particularly unsuitable to countering Sabots.I run Squall instead of MIRV, and dual AutoPulse. The AI does reasonably well using the autopulse to get kills in fleet battles. The missiles only exist to soften up the first wave of targets. The main purpose of the Odysseys is to be simultaneously tanky and fast, so that they can trade out damage and then recover flux instead of getting overwhelmed, while my Astrals do most of the heavy lifting in damage safely behind the lines of other capital ships. The Odysseys DO score kills though, even after they run out of missiles they have absolutely no trouble killing Brilliants solo or ganging up on Radiants.
Said Conquest is very easy to win against by making it waste missiles first, then rolling over it with classic Plasma melee Odyssey. That is what I'd call good piloting. AI is nowhere near.
In fact the only thing that prevents Conquest from being trampled right away is that due to Squall launcher placement it's impossible to align Plasma Cannons to both clear Squalls and hit the Conquest.
Do you mean with 20 level officer? Because no-skills it fails miserably even against sim Conquest (well, stalls mostly, since it's too afraid to attack). Paragon obviously overpowers it too.Have you even tried it? With NO officier (which would be dumb in practice, why the hell wouldn't you put an officer on all your capital ships?) it beats the Sim Conquest IMMEDIATELY. It just rushes in, unloads autopulse, and then the sim conquest is max flux and mostly helpless. The Sim onslaught takes a lot longer, with the onslaught overloading twice and still surviving a while longer thanks to its high armor, but the Odyssey still eventually wins with 0 hull damage. It does lose to sim paragon with no officer. It's extremely close in the flux game though, and when the odyssey does win (with officer) it's all in the flux game, having taken 0 hull damage.
I mean if it has 20 level officer, it would have to match a Radiant with 20 level officer. Which I guess is not going to happen, since I doubt this matchup is doable even for best players (it certainly isn't in no skills fight).
No ITU? But this means it only occasionally blunders into attacking with Autopulses, most of the time it's dissipation rate is simply wasted because it doesn't commit to attack and doesn't drop shield to dissipate hard flux.
If you have to build this badly sub-optimal Odysseys to make them do anything under AI control, isn't it better to just spam Eagles? AI can use their best builds without any significant issues.
I was under the impression fleet doctrine does nothing to how your AI ships act.
Have you even tried it? With NO officier (which would be dumb in practice, why the hell wouldn't you put an officer on all your capital ships?) it beats the Sim Conquest IMMEDIATELY. It just rushes in, unloads autopulse, and then the sim conquest is max flux and mostly helpless. The Sim onslaught takes a lot longer, with the onslaught overloading twice and still surviving a while longer thanks to its high armor, but the Odyssey still eventually wins with 0 hull damage. It does lose to sim paragon with no officer. It's extremely close in the flux game though, and when the odyssey does win (with officer) it's all in the flux game, having taken 0 hull damage.
Make sure your fleet doctrine is aggressive of course.
This is anything but sub-optimal. Sub-optimal is wasting 30+ OP on useless point defenses, or running beams that do absolutely nothing, or putting ITU on a ship that's intended to out-speed its enemy. All those choices are sub-optimal. This ship build is the definition of optimized for its role.
Video evidence:Have you even tried it? With NO officier (which would be dumb in practice, why the hell wouldn't you put an officer on all your capital ships?) it beats the Sim Conquest IMMEDIATELY. It just rushes in, unloads autopulse, and then the sim conquest is max flux and mostly helpless. The Sim onslaught takes a lot longer, with the onslaught overloading twice and still surviving a while longer thanks to its high armor, but the Odyssey still eventually wins with 0 hull damage. It does lose to sim paragon with no officer. It's extremely close in the flux game though, and when the odyssey does win (with officer) it's all in the flux game, having taken 0 hull damage.
Make sure your fleet doctrine is aggressive of course.
This is anything but sub-optimal. Sub-optimal is wasting 30+ OP on useless point defenses, or running beams that do absolutely nothing, or putting ITU on a ship that's intended to out-speed its enemy. All those choices are sub-optimal. This ship build is the definition of optimized for its role.
The reason to use no officer is because the Conquest doesn't have an officer. In typical enemy fleets, the capitals will have some form of enemy officer boosting its stats as well.
I just tried this in using the random mission on the mission list, getting an Odyssey, and then trying to fit it to your specifications, then running against the sim Conquest. Due to the lack of the extra 10% OP, I had to use 40 capacitors and 50 vents. Obviously neither side had an officer.
The conquest won decisively the first time, with just armor damage, no hull damage. The Odyssey was engaging for me, and didn't really cower.
Then I tried it with the Full Assault option, and it was even more aggressive. However the Odyssey still lost. The conquest's flux went up, but then it dropped its shields and started to armor tank. Perhaps with a few more runs it might get an overload if the timing is right. How many test runs did you do with this without an officer?
I guess my comment is you have no dedicated anti-armor weapon on this build. 150 autopulse damage pretty much gets dropped down to the minimum 85% on Conquest armor initially. Its got plenty of kinetic and EMP, but no immediate knockout blow. If the conquest armor tanks some of the squalls and sabots (which it did in the test runs I just tried), you've got nothing to punish it with.
Here's a variation that does better in this particular match up and also demonstrates the use of point defense. Swap a plasma cannon in for one autopulse. Drop the accelerated shields, auxiliary thrusters and expanded magazines. Remove the 2 tactical lasers and throw on 6 small burst pd in the front left facing small mounts. Throw on in integrated point defense AI. Drop capacitors to 26.
I ran it again with that variation, and the Odyssey wins in that case. About half the squalls don't actually impact its shields. When the conquest armor tanks, it actually is punched through by the plasma cannon, which in turns lets the autopulse rip up the hull.
Anyways, just my 2 cents.
lol Oh that Conquest AI was just awful! I'm not disputing the victory at all because its often like that, but yeesh!Here's one of the Odyssey vs Onslaught. Same setup, but the Onslaught AI doesn't go full-***. It takes MUCH longer, but the result is the same: Odyssey wins with only superficial damage. I think this video does a much better job of demonstrating the Odyssey's AI, how it can back off and vent. The high number of vents installed is very key to this victory because the Odyssey does an active vent while the Onslaught is venting and finishes first.
I usually see it kill with 100% hull, this time it took some scratches and ended up on 98% hull. AI can be funny sometimes with how it uses shields, but that's to be expected. The conquest absolutely didn't stand a chance. This is no officer. Plenty of fleetwide player skills though. Better to test with those than without, because you are absolutely going to have them.
So as with Aurora I tried playing a bit with the Odyssey in my current run, and I still can't find a justification for its cost (and rarity tbh). Yes, it's super fast for a capital and has nice campaign stats, but that's it. I replaced the Conquest in my fleet for it as a capital I fly when Paragon is overkill and ehhhh. Sure it gets to the action faster but it kills things slower and is just as fragile. And it has the same problem as the Shrike, tight OP even with LD3 which means I have to leave out hullmods that it needs just to have enough flux to fire my weapons. I even put basic PD lasers all around and yet still had barely enough OP left for fighters. All these ships that have to have mandatory sabots on them have the same problem, they cost way too much just to be a win more ship, or should I say win faster. The more I play with the big energy boys, the more I appreciate the Shrike since its cost is not that absurd like the others (could use a bit more OP still).
I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.
I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.A good Conquest is good for player and AI alike.
A lot of these Oddy builds seem to rely on some kind of kinetic fighter support or missiles.Like other high-tech ships without kinetics, modern Odyssey (at least for AI) works best stuffed with missiles. It needs Expanded Missile Racks to have enough to last a while. Trying an energy only loadout is frustrating, especially for AI use.
I was wondering, does anybody actually ever use or buy the Gremlin and the Pirate Phase ships? Playing a recent "salvage only" playthrough, I found that those are actually fairly rare as pirate ships, negating their worth as an introduction to phase ships, and vastly over-represented in markets, relatively many being available to buy. What are people's opinions on them?
A lot of these Oddy builds seem to rely on some kind of kinetic fighter support or missiles.Odyssey works reasonably well as a beam platform with HIL + Tac. But it really struggles against cruiser/capital shields without either Sabot pods or Longbows.
Which is tricky for me, personally, as in my current game my best weapons are the pulse laser and HE beam. So I can't really build a lot of these for my fleet.
<Endurance Odyssey>This is a neat build. If you took this down the beam route and used Tachyons instead, that might make the flux a little easier to manage, and give you a few extra OP for use elsewhere. But you'd lose hard flux damage from your guns.
@TaLaR
Why the hell are there Pilums tho? Are you just memeing? Also funny you say it doesn't have to rely on Sabots while you have 2 Longbows... I find their survivability questionable and good ol' Sabot pods give me better results.
You'd also lose the weird interaction the plasma bolts have with the drive system that flings them really hard in the direction of travel. Whether this is a gain or a loss is down to your preference. I imagine someone somewhere will have perfected aiming these things like sniper bolts.
Enforcer/Dominator/Onslaught all seem to have the same AI control issue. The devs need to revisit how these ship react to events around them. I can't help but think the Onslaught would perform well if it had 3 times it's combat speed/turning. Not that the speed would make it overpowered but rather that the things those ships try to do in combat suit faster ships.Most ships act better with better manoeuvrability. Especially wolf.
Ships like the Lasher try to drift and shoot, those slow ships look very much like they are trying to do the same thing but only getting themselves destroyed because they can't do it right.
edit:
A good example is when the Onslaught literally moves to expose it's unshielded back. It's trying to do an acceleration and drift fire, all it ends up doing is making the enemies job of getting behind it easier. Because it's acceleration sucks as much as it's turning.
I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.I have and it sucks. The Conquest is the worst non-civillian capital in the game regardless of whether you give it to the AI or pilot it yourself.
and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsidesWell there's your problem mate, don't try to put best possible weapons in both broadsides, use one for PD. It's how I make every single loadout for it, don't know how well AI would pilot that since I never trust it enough to test. Btw if you're already criticizing shields, Odyssey also has awful ones for a high tech ship that needs to get close to put hard flux on enemies. If I'm not mistaken it has worst shields out of all high tech ships.
I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.I have and it sucks. The Conquest is the worst non-civillian capital in the game regardless of whether you give it to the AI or pilot it yourself.
It's slow, it has AWFUL shields, it does not focus firepower properly, and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsides. The AI cannot handle it because of the poor shields, and frankly broadside ships feel terrible to pilot normally but the Conquest deserves a special place in hell for that shield.
Odyssey is literally everything conquest should be, but isn't. It only has the one broadside, so it doesn't have to waste OP on unusable firepower, it has a great shield, great speed, and its own fighter support.Odyssey shield is not very good: it has 1:1 damage to flux which is on par with low tech shields (onslaught has 1:1) compared to high techs like paragon with 3:5 (.6) and apogee with 7:10 (.7) damage to flux but it still has the very high shield upkeep of most high tech ships. The odysseys shield is its weakest part by far IMO (assuming you have plasma cannons for firepower). I consider odyssey to be more OP starved than conquest since it really needs all the mounts it has to put out any decent firepower while conquest can easily do good damage with partially filled slots.
Still difficult-to-impossible to player-pilot, but the AI makes good use of it as a high-speed tank.
What are your other options though? Paragon and Astral are way too slow. I tried a setup with 3 Paragons once, but they were simply too slow to cover each other. Swapping the two AI paragons for 2 AI Odysseys turned battles I could not win into ones that I won without effort or losses. Astrals obviously aren't going to cover anybody, but they technically do have better shields.and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsidesWell there's your problem mate, don't try to put best possible weapons in both broadsides, use one for PD. It's how I make every single loadout for it, don't know how well AI would pilot that since I never trust it enough to test. Btw if you're already criticizing shields, Odyssey also has awful ones for a high tech ship that needs to get close to put hard flux on enemies. If I'm not mistaken it has worst shields out of all high tech ships.
Odyssey shield upkeep is half of what high tech cruiser shield upkeep is. The Aurora is 425/sec, the Apogee is 420/sec, the Odyssey is only 250/sec, Onslaught is 240/sec and Conquest is 480/sec. Not that it makes all that much difference at that level, but keep that in mind.I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.I have and it sucks. The Conquest is the worst non-civillian capital in the game regardless of whether you give it to the AI or pilot it yourself.
It's slow, it has AWFUL shields, it does not focus firepower properly, and it lacks the OP necessary to properly equip both broadsides. The AI cannot handle it because of the poor shields, and frankly broadside ships feel terrible to pilot normally but the Conquest deserves a special place in hell for that shield.
You know you can leave mounts empty right? I usually outfit my conquests asymmetrically and put some downsized stuff in the weak broadside to fend off small ships and then I put heavy hitters on the other side. I also often leave the medium missile and medium energy slots empty to save OP for other stuff. You're right that the shields are a big problem, but if you either max capacitors or put hardened shields on it (or possible heavy armor and avoid using shields), you can solve that problem without too much trouble.Odyssey is literally everything conquest should be, but isn't. It only has the one broadside, so it doesn't have to waste OP on unusable firepower, it has a great shield, great speed, and its own fighter support.Odyssey shield is not very good: it has 1:1 damage to flux which is on par with low tech shields (onslaught has 1:1) compared to high techs like paragon with 3:5 (.6) and apogee with 7:10 (.7) damage to flux but it still has the very high shield upkeep of most high tech ships. The odysseys shield is its weakest part by far IMO (assuming you have plasma cannons for firepower). I consider odyssey to be more OP starved than conquest since it really needs all the mounts it has to put out any decent firepower while conquest can easily do good damage with partially filled slots.
AlsoStill difficult-to-impossible to player-pilot, but the AI makes good use of it as a high-speed tank.
What? The odyssey is primarily useful as a player piloted ship, the AI just burns straight into the enemy fleet and explodes 50% of the time when against significant opposition. I love flying it, but I would never even think of giving it to the AI against any serious opposition. I remember the conquest AI being significantly better on this patch, but I still consider both ships primarily player ships that are wasted potential (and possibly a major loss) in AI hands. TBH I slightly prefer odyssey as a player piloted ship, but I usually just fly a doom so I end up using neither most of the time. Conquest is better than odyssey vs. ships with good shields because it can equip kinetics, but odyssey is better for smashing ships with bad shields.
What are your other options though? Paragon and Astral are way too slow.
Fast in, slow out, and even with paragon-tier shields that's a death sentence. Any other suggestions? 70 speed is nothing to laugh at, it outspeeds almost every cruiser and comes close to most destroyers. Simply backing away is all it takes to shake the most threatening enemy ships.What are your other options though? Paragon and Astral are way too slow.
You forgot low tech gang with burn drives. Both Onslaught and Legion can quickly get into fights despite being slow bricks otherwise. I actually consider them very well balanced, unless you're doing some weird builds. If you REALLY want speed, just grab a Doom.
@intristic_parity
It's a rarity that someone writes a lot of sentences, and I agree with every single one. Spooky.
Any other suggestions? 70 speed is nothing to laugh at, it outspeeds almost every cruiser and comes close to most destroyers. Simply backing away is all it takes to shake the most threatening enemy ships.
Fine. Give me 20 minutes and I'll set up 3 of those and go find a Remnant Ordo. Replace the 3 Odysseys with 3 conquests while keeping the fleets the same, and see how both fleets fair in AI only battle.Any other suggestions? 70 speed is nothing to laugh at, it outspeeds almost every cruiser and comes close to most destroyers. Simply backing away is all it takes to shake the most threatening enemy ships.Try this and tell me it's bad.Spoiler(https://i.imgur.com/1UriCFV.png)[close]
I meant try as pilot it yourself, why test things with AI since it's obvious it can't perform well with either of the battlecruisers.The AI performs EXCEPTIONALLY well with the Odyssey. In my fleet, I can fight any single remnant ordo and not lose a single ship, just sitting back and watching. If your Conquest is good, it will replace the Odyssey 1 for 1 and I still won't lose ships. If I lose ships, then it isn't successfully filling the role that my Odysseys fill. Obviously I'll test with both ships, just to be sure I actually can win automatically.
Not bad, not bad at all, still prefer my own loadout though.
Try this and tell me it's bad.
EDIT: I already said speed is very nice, but in the end doesn't make that much of a difference. It's almost as Odyssey is meant to be a glass cannon, but lacks the cannon part.
Hmmmm that seems oddly familiar...Not bad, not bad at all, still prefer my own loadout though.
Try this and tell me it's bad.
EDIT: I already said speed is very nice, but in the end doesn't make that much of a difference. It's almost as Odyssey is meant to be a glass cannon, but lacks the cannon part.Spoiler(https://i.imgur.com/ByuyLPE.png)[close]
[...]First time poster, long time lurker, but I just had to come out and say something. This quote seems to be the popular opinion on the Odyssey right now and I just cannot, for the life of me, understand why.
What? The odyssey is primarily useful as a player piloted ship, the AI just burns straight into the enemy fleet and explodes 50% of the time when against significant opposition. I love flying it, but I would never even think of giving it to the AI against any serious opposition. I remember the conquest AI being significantly better on this patch, but I still consider both ships primarily player ships that are wasted potential (and possibly a major loss) in AI hands. TBH I slightly prefer odyssey as a player piloted ship, but I usually just fly a doom so I end up using neither most of the time. Conquest is better than odyssey vs. ships with good shields because it can equip kinetics, but odyssey is better for smashing ships with bad shields.
Initial testing is promising on your Conquest. While they are incapable of interception like the Odyssey do (coming between the Paragon and its main threat whenever the Paragon's flux is high), their general fire support still serves well enough to win against some fleets. I'm looking for the breaking point now, where one fleet can win/win without losses and the other can't.Glad I was able to open your eyes a little bit, yup it's not great, but it makes up for its weaknesses.
It works. I won't say it works better than the Odysseys, but the conquest fleet is able to hold a similar level of performance somehow. I guess I was wrong and the Conquest is good enough as is, despite its very glaring weaknesses.
Especially if you use a Paragon as your flagship. Only once Paragon is properly engaged can the Odyssey, and by extension your cruisers, safely strike.
I truly wonder if all those who say Odyssey has the best potential as a player ship ever piloted a Conquest.
Ughh what? A capital needs to wait for another capital to distract everything so it can engage enemies without dying horribly? Why would I pay 45 DP for that when a frigate can do exactly that, and faster... I don't get these arguments for AI Odysseys being good when people use them as cleanup ships or to flank already overloaded enemies. No wonder it seems ''good'' that way.I think you misunderstand my post. Maybe I should have clarified that your fleet needs to work in concert. If you send your fastest ships to engage the enemy alone, while your slower ships aren't in range, you're playing a dangerous game of catch up.
I think you misunderstand my post. Maybe I should have clarified that your fleet needs to work in concert.
[...]First time poster, long time lurker, but I just had to come out and say something. This quote seems to be the popular opinion on the Odyssey right now and I just cannot, for the life of me, understand why...
What? The odyssey is primarily useful as a player piloted ship, the AI just burns straight into the enemy fleet and explodes 50% of the time when against significant opposition.
Gauss Cannon > every other cannon in vanilla. Thank you, you've all been great, plenty of good discussions all around.Gauss Cannon is the best? I do not agree with that. It is a gigantic flux hog that does not have enough DPS, not to mention small ships dodge it like crazy. It is good for its niche, but for general-purpose assault, other guns are better.
EDIT:Cavalry Charge™I think you misunderstand my post. Maybe I should have clarified that your fleet needs to work in concert.
Ahh, I see where the misunderstanding is, my musical education isn't really the best. Only tactic I know is the Cavalry Charge™
This is the perception, not the result. The result is that the Odyssey actually gets close enough to do damage (or even just bully the enemy away from your actual damage ships), rather than getting scared as soon as the enemy starts hitting it with beams and other long range weapons. However, due to being faster than every high-damage ship in the game and with a strong (if not necessarily the strongest) shield, it can easily charge in, unload damage, and then back away at 70 until it gets out of enemy range again. As a capital ship itself, if the enemy chases with faster ships like frigates and destroyers, the Odyssey simply kills those or chases them off with higher firepower, now that they are separated from the more dangerous cruisers and capitals.[...]First time poster, long time lurker, but I just had to come out and say something. This quote seems to be the popular opinion on the Odyssey right now and I just cannot, for the life of me, understand why...
What? The odyssey is primarily useful as a player piloted ship, the AI just burns straight into the enemy fleet and explodes 50% of the time when against significant opposition.
It because of the odyssey ship system. It can only go forward and does so in one quick burst. The AI is not good at recognizing that it will be in danger after it does something and the nature of the ship system is that it cannot escape easily once it has made a bad decision. The result is that odyssey burns towards stuff it can't handle because of mediocre shields and armor, and then dies when it is unable to escape. Even if your fleet is even or more powerful than the enemy, the odyssey will put itself in situations where it is locally in a 3:1 battle by isolating itself (the aurora also does this). If you are fighting a fleet that doesn't have any enemies that can legitimately threaten the odyssey, then it may not be a problem, but then IMO you are wasting supplies deploying a capital in the first place.
How would the Aurora have low firepower, if the Odyssey does not? In terms of purely shield dps, for the Deployment Points, an Aurora with 3 pulse lasers is the same as an Odyssey with 2 Plasma Cannons. If you are worried about defeating high armour values, 2 Heavy Blaster would be the DP equivalent firepower. The Aurora, just like an Odyssey should be able to dissapitate those weapons flux. Of course, the Aurora needs to be closer and so will get itself closer into more danger, but in theory Plasma Jets will also get it out of more danger too.The Odyssey has 2 large energy slots it can actually use, a large missile slot, and 2 fighter wings, plus medium missiles.. The Aurora has 4 medium slots that the AI is more or less incapable of using short of maybe beams and medium missiles. In practice, the Odyssey has firepower about equivalent to a Dominator (super heavy cruiser), whereas the Aurora's firepower is closer to that of a frigate (usually only firing a single medium slot and maybe some medium missiles).
How would the Aurora have low firepower, if the Odyssey does not? In terms of purely shield dps, for the Deployment Points, an Aurora with 3 pulse lasers is the same as an Odyssey with 2 Plasma Cannons. If you are worried about defeating high armour values, 2 Heavy Blaster would be the DP equivalent firepower. The Aurora, just like an Odyssey should be able to dissapitate those weapons flux. Of course, the Aurora needs to be closer and so will get itself closer into more danger, but in theory Plasma Jets will also get it out of more danger too.Because it has a lot less dps? Like... A whole hell of a lot less. Like... how could you even confuse the two?
@Goumindong
Don't want to quote all that. I just want to point out that Longbows are one of the most effective things you can put on an Odyssey in practice. Bombers in general are pretty good on Odyssey. Because the odyssey fights in close quarters (still close relative to dedicated carriers even if running long-range weapons), the bombers don't have very far to fly and are relatively protected by the Odyssey's presence (either inside its shield, or else the enemy is distracted attacking the Odyssey). That changes a bit if you run something like Tachyon+ITU, but alone it's a strong argument for skipping ITU.
I can't afford to take any skills that give extra orders because there are so many more important skills. I spend most of my orders on escorts to keep my carriers safe and then ordering bombing runs at critical points in the battle and saving a few for priority retreat orders leaves little to micro manage other ships. Why would I do that when I can just use ships that don't require it and perform just as well?That of course changes everything. If you are not willing do direct the Odyssey, it doesn't perform that well.
Aurora is all about missiles (usually lots of sabots and reapers and some heavy blasters for anything that doesn't require a reaper). That's the only loadout that really is worth its cost in terms of output in player hands, but there are other things the player would rather pilot so it just doesn't have much of a role in the fleet. The aurora does not do sustained dps well, it nukes big things instantly with missiles and chases down smaller stuff with respectable but certainly not impressive damage.Do the maths again, but this time taking into account of DP.
Also 3 pulse lasers = 900 dps, 2 plasma cannons = 1500 dps
900 is not equal to 1500, not sure how that math works.
Aurora is all about missiles (usually lots of sabots and reapers and some heavy blasters for anything that doesn't require a reaper). That's the only loadout that really is worth its cost in terms of output in player hands, but there are other things the player would rather pilot so it just doesn't have much of a role in the fleet. The aurora does not do sustained dps well, it nukes big things instantly with missiles and chases down smaller stuff with respectable but certainly not impressive damage.Do the maths again, but this time taking into account of DP.
Also 3 pulse lasers = 900 dps, 2 plasma cannons = 1500 dps
900 is not equal to 1500, not sure how that math works.
Stabalized shields isnt too bad a comparison. Aurora should probably have it, even over hardened shields. Aurora pays 9 OP for 212 effective dissipation when your shields are up. That is twice the value of vents! Its better than vents even if you have safety overrides! If you arent fitting that you should absolutely be fitting a front shield conversion which gives the same cost reduction for 1 more OP. You could even fit both and each one would still be better price than vents(unless you were SO) at 106 for 10 or 9 for the second mod.Word of advice: I find that front shields interfere with the AI's ability to use broadside weapons. They tend to waffle back and forth between aiming directly at the opponent and turning towards the broadside, which reduces DPS substantially. That's why I end up fitting Accelerated Shields on the Odyssey. The AI likes to raise and lower shields a lot, so accelerated prevents a pretty substantial amount of damage that would otherwise go around the slowly-raising shield.
Odyssey in comparison pays 15 for 125 effective dissipation. Worse than vents (still better than flux distributor but not by a whole lot). And you would almost certainly much prefer to go for the front shield conversion. Which is 125 for 18.(worse than a flux distributor but the ability to have rear shields is worth)
Hell i probably should have done a run for both on the Aurora. That gives the Aurora 1053 effective dissipation with its shields up! Which is enough to run a pulse laser and heavy blaster... almost exactly with .75 flux/second to spare. Which puts it at 803 DPS with decent (but not Odyssey) penetration at loadout design 2. The Odyssey does 57% more damage with shields up before considering fighters or the DP difference or the penetration difference. Which gives it a 5% damage per DP advantage. Still good but i think it changes my estimation of the Aurora to “actuallly it does a LOT of damage” rather than “yea it does pretty good damage”
Exactly my point that I forgot to put. It's kinda ridiculous to have these big ships and they need a specific weapon out of a whole bunch just to be viable. And almost always they're high-tech ships which is a shame.It might just be me, but High Tech being highly specific feels on point, thematically.
High tech (ie energy) weapons simply don't offer much choice. Once you've eliminated the beams and the emp weapons that don't do anything at all, you are left with only 2 options for a large slot, 3 for medium, and 2 for small. The Mining Blaster and Antimatter Blaster are niche options, so really it's 2 large, 2 medium and 1 small.Exactly my point that I forgot to put. It's kinda ridiculous to have these big ships and they need a specific weapon out of a whole bunch just to be viable. And almost always they're high-tech ships which is a shame.It might just be me, but High Tech being highly specific feels on point, thematically.
Once you've eliminated the beams and the emp weapons that don't do anything at all...Lol? I mean, seriously, have you tried ion cannons? Put four in the front hardpoints of an Aurora, and once you drive your enemy's flux up once they just stop being able to fight back effectively, capable of only sporadic return fire that your shield can easily absorb. Or there's the HIL that, sure, doesn't do much against shields, but eats armor. Or the Tachyon Lance that does all of the above (and is actually decent at forcing overloads on frigates/destroyers/high-flux-targets-of-any-size, too).
You outplayed yourself mate. We have enough energy weapons to punish ships with downed shields, any decent weapon can capitalize on that. The problem is breaking shields, which only Autopulse is decent at. Why spend 24 OP for weapons that only do something when you already won the fight, you're just taking more time to kill something. I'm not saying Ion Cannons are useless, but they're far from being that amazing.Once you've eliminated the beams and the emp weapons that don't do anything at alland once you drive your enemy's flux up
Have to agree. 90% of the fight is breaking the shield, the remaining 10% is just waiting for the enemy to die. Once his flux is high he can't shoot much anyway, because he's doing everything he can to flicker shields and survive a few more seconds.You outplayed yourself mate. We have enough energy weapons to punish ships with downed shields, any decent weapon can capitalize on that. The problem is breaking shields, which only Autopulse is decent at. Why spend 24 OP for weapons that only do something when you already won the fight, you're just taking more time to kill something. I'm not saying Ion Cannons are useless, but they're far from being that amazing.Once you've eliminated the beams and the emp weapons that don't do anything at alland once you drive your enemy's flux up
Have to agree. 90% of the fight is breaking the shield, the remaining 10% is just waiting for the enemy to die. Once his flux is high he can't shoot much anyway, because he's doing everything he can to flicker shields and survive a few more seconds.Lolnope. I mean, sure, that's how it plays out against lightly armored pirate clunkers, but try that philosophy against anything with heavy armor and you're going to get owned.
Works just as well against Onslaughts and Dominators. Once their flux is up, they barely fight back as long as you don't let them run away to vent, which is kind of hard to do when they only move at 30Have to agree. 90% of the fight is breaking the shield, the remaining 10% is just waiting for the enemy to die. Once his flux is high he can't shoot much anyway, because he's doing everything he can to flicker shields and survive a few more seconds.Lolnope. I mean, sure, that's how it plays out against lightly armored pirate clunkers, but try that philosophy against anything with heavy armor and you're going to get owned.
Works just as well against Onslaughts and Dominators. Once their flux is up, they barely fight back as long as you don't let them run away to vent, which is kind of hard to do when they only move at 30Have to agree. 90% of the fight is breaking the shield, the remaining 10% is just waiting for the enemy to die. Once his flux is high he can't shoot much anyway, because he's doing everything he can to flicker shields and survive a few more seconds.Lolnope. I mean, sure, that's how it plays out against lightly armored pirate clunkers, but try that philosophy against anything with heavy armor and you're going to get owned.
Yeah, it really boils down to "the AI isn't smart enough".The Onslaught only has 250 more armor and 2000 more hull than the Paragon, at the cost of 8000 less flux capacity, 650 less dissipation and worse shield efficiency. While a player Onslaught might be able to leverage armor to take out an AI paragon, I think that in a player vs player situation (or AI vs AI where the AI was programmed to do that), the Paragon will win, because the Paragon can armor tank too. But then, the Paragon costs 15 more DP, so it should win obviously.
The player can take an Onslaught and destroy a Paragon by armor tanking, but the AI won't think of that; not even as a Reckless officer. Sometimes they do it out of sheer luck; they pull off a kamikaze run without being owned by torpedos and win the flux fight simply cause they can fire without shielding while their opponent is shielding and firing, but thats a "once in a blue moon AI moments" type deal.
But then, the Paragon costs 15 more DP, so it should win obviously.20 more DP (Onslaught's 40, Paragon's 60) and 4 medium missiles, not 3.
The Onslaughts biggest advantage is not armor/hull, but weapon types. 3 Medium Missiles in particular make for a lot of flux-free damage to bring the effective damage closer compared to the Paragons 4 small missiles that usually aren't even worth equipping.
i think all this is a little too unfair on the AI. The AI does flicker shields. It seems to depend on the weaponry and it's own armour. The AI doesn't seem to aim shields properly though, or take into account that it takes time to extend the shield. The AI also vent flux aggressively, but only when it thinks it is winning.Flickering shields is dumb. It causes the AI to stay near max flux, which means they don't fight back because they turn off weapons the higher their flux gets, which means they just die. In practice nearly any situation where you would consider flickering shields, you are better off just hitting active vent and hoping for the best. Either you die, or you get back into combat with 0 flux and a lot less armor/hull, but that's better than a guaranteed death on a shield flicker. The main exception is if you can escape, shield flickering can buy faster ships a little more time to get outside of enemy range, but the AI could easily compare speeds and say "if my speed < enemy speed +X, vent, else flicker"
Shield breaking being 90% of a fight is a bit of an exaggeration. More like 80%. It's more of that we, the players tend to make sure that there are some armour destroying weaponry, so we never really see armour being tanked, at least on the opponent side.
i think all this is a little too unfair on the AI. The AI does flicker shields. It seems to depend on the weaponry and it's own armour. The AI doesn't seem to aim shields properly though, or take into account that it takes time to extend the shield. The AI also vent flux aggressively, but only when it thinks it is winning.Flickering shields is dumb. It causes the AI to stay near max flux, which means they don't fight back because they turn off weapons the higher their flux gets, which means they just die. In practice nearly any situation where you would consider flickering shields, you are better off just hitting active vent and hoping for the best. Either you die, or you get back into combat with 0 flux and a lot less armor/hull, but that's better than a guaranteed death on a shield flicker. The main exception is if you can escape, shield flickering can buy faster ships a little more time to get outside of enemy range, but the AI could easily compare speeds and say "if my speed < enemy speed +X, vent, else flicker"
Shield breaking being 90% of a fight is a bit of an exaggeration. More like 80%. It's more of that we, the players tend to make sure that there are some armour destroying weaponry, so we never really see armour being tanked, at least on the opponent side.
Also I wonder what are people's opinion on the Prometheus II? I've never gained the opportunity to play around with them and the incentives around combating Pathers being what it is, I've never really fought them in a proper battle or scavenged one either.32 DP is about right. Its stats are sub-par, but it can have some nasty loadouts comparable to a Blackrock ship.
Also I wonder what are people's opinion on the Prometheus II? I've never gained the opportunity to play around with them and the incentives around combating Pathers being what it is, I've never really fought them in a proper battle or scavenged one either.As Megas said it's stats are decent for a low DP capital, although I'd like both MkII capitals to have better campaign stats. They're just way too bad even for a converted piece of metal.
QuoteExactly my point that I forgot to put. It's kinda ridiculous to have these big ships and they need a specific weapon out of a whole bunch just to be viable.Either that or able to perform at its cost. Apogee and Odyssey would have remained mediocre if plasma cannon was not buffed so much since 0.8.x. Similarly, the loss of 800 range needlers has hurt Medusa.
Normal Shrike compared to Shrike (P). Standard Shrike is better than (P) for few specific loadouts (Sabots plus Expanded Missile Racks, or all beams). For anything else, (P) version is superior. At least Shrike is cheap compared to other ships, so it can get away with mediocrity. All I want is for both Shrikes to have at least 80 OP and light hybrid. Pirates have few ships that are identical to standard versions. Shrike itself is probably worth its price. My main gripes is Shrike (P) has so little OP (meaning mounts get left empty), but still generally better than normal Shrike.
Medusa needs Railguns in the universals. Even with a good loadout, it is roughly on par with Hammerhead. Medusa is probably fine, except its DP cost (12 is too much). OP budget is a bit tight.
Apogee is fine, until it gets plasma cannon and Locusts. Then it punches above its worth of 18 DP. Not overrated as per OP, but underrated if anything. Similarly, Astral is also a bit underrated. With unlimited Recall Device and a skilled bomber captain, it is probably worth 50 DP. I do not think Recall Device is overpowered, just the lone playable ship with it may be underpriced.
Paragon can be very powerful, but only worth 60 DP if it has long range beams to exploit its range advantage. With pulse lasers, it is still powerful, but does not perform better than cheaper 40 DP battleships. Probably a bit worse because it has no mobility system to catch enemies, and not enough range if armed with short-range weapons. I think 50 DP from before was a better price.
P.S. One highly overrated ship today: Hyperion. It has difficulty killing a medium-sized ship before peak performance times out, under player control. AI is hopeless with Hyperion. I have no use for Hyperion in the 0.9.x era. As it is, Hyperion is worth no more than 10, maybe 12 DP.
You are going to have to tell me how to do it rather than telling me to do it, as I aren't familiar with programming. "Just" put it in a mission you say. If only it was so easy for me, I would had done it already.
I've been asking for the sim to be much more options for a while now so that it is easier to test out builds.
<FMmbr z="138215" o="1" sid="buffalo2_FS" sN="1122334455" t="SHIP" iF="false" id="1e92cf" sUN="false" civ="false" cCiv="false">5.Change the hId="hermes" or whatever, to hId="prometheus2"
<savedVariant z="138216" hId="hermes" v="0" c="0" hVId="buffalo2_FS" vDN="Support" s="REFIT" mAAW="true" gV="true">
Thanks, I'll give it a go.You are going to have to tell me how to do it rather than telling me to do it, as I aren't familiar with programming. "Just" put it in a mission you say. If only it was so easy for me, I would had done it already.
I've been asking for the sim to be much more options for a while now so that it is easier to test out builds.
Ok man, let's get you in a Prometheus in the simplest way, take you less than 2 minutes:
1.Run Starsector with any save,
2.Open your fleet and pick a ship you don't want any more, strip it and rename it something funny, like "1122334455", and then save game
3.Go to your save folder and open campaign.xml with a word pad
4. Press Ctrl+F and search for that funny ship name, "1122334455" in this case. You should find the funny name in a block of text like this, with the ship type defined with hId one or two lines below the ship name:Quote<FMmbr z="138215" o="1" sid="buffalo2_FS" sN="1122334455" t="SHIP" iF="false" id="1e92cf" sUN="false" civ="false" cCiv="false">5.Change the hId="hermes" or whatever, to hId="prometheus2"
<savedVariant z="138216" hId="hermes" v="0" c="0" hVId="buffalo2_FS" vDN="Support" s="REFIT" mAAW="true" gV="true">
6. Save the campaign file, and load it up in game, and the ship you didn't want any more will turn into a Prometheus Mk2
He has interesting opinions. It's best not to take his opinions as facts. Anyhow Goudmindong, I assume you mean prometheus MKII, not Atlas MKII. Have you used it though? I know it has a large from missile mount and two overlapping large ballistic mounts becuase I've fought it, but I've never really been able to buy of recover one for use. So I have no idea how wide the arcs are, how manoeuvrable the Prometheus MKII is, and what the rest of the mounts are like, unlike the Atlas MKII, where we can give layouts and proper opinions on its usage. I don't even know if its small mounts can even cover its own engines from Salamanders. I suppose it'll forever be just an opponent ship. I just find it hard to compare. It might have relatively low dissapitation rate compared with an Onslaught, but it does have 2 fighter bays so part of its ability to fight isn't reliant on dissapitation rate directly. Compared with the Legion, it's flux dissapitation is reasonable.
Too bad it's very hard to acquire, in comparison to ubiquitous Atlas Mk II.
Pilum missiles have extremely low hp, they are among very few missile types that can actually be stopped by token PD lasers. Trying to seriously base tactics on them is too easily counter-able.Try using more. The same principal as fighters applies to them: Too many targets to effectively counter.
Plus, Pilums have about the worst compatibility with FMR system. Can't spam like Salamanders due to clip based nature, and dumping like Sabots/Harpoons is nowhere near as threatening.Thankfully, Pilums have about the best compatibility with FMR system. Because it helps to achieve the weight of numbers above when each launcher gives 6 missiles 'per shot'.
It may kind of work against AI shipsIt doesn't kind of work. It does work. They can absolutely achieve critical mass.
ECCM is a tremendous boost to their effectiveness, but it also negates their low OP cost to a certain extent.Not wrong. But I prefer to think of it as the low cost allows me to more freely use that boost. And all the ships that you're likely to use as missile platforms have quite a lot of 'spare' OP when you're not using the more expensive missiles.
Though it's actually questionable, how important Pilums actually are in yours. You do have a lot of converted hangar Sparks after all.And all of those are on Falcons, which are waypointed off into a corner so they get infinite peak time, which is something that I've found is really nescessary when you can't do large battle sizes and have to take the long haul through all the reinforcements.
ECCM also reduces enemy ECM bonuses right? So that's another nice little bonus from using them!
I thought MK III is the premier choice for early carrier support, since they get 3 fighter bays, no?
I thought MK III is the premier choice for early carrier support, since they get 3 fighter bays, no?
Did I get the names wrong? I meant the worst Colossus is the LP one with SO. The carrier one has only 2 bays, imo not as good as the condor, but maybe it can work with Talons, railguns and ITU?
Colossus Mk XIV is from Vayra's ship pack.
Aha! I found out how to use Pilums, and Condors for that matter. They need Thunders. The Thunders disable the engines so the enemies cannot dodge, overload their shields so they can't shield tank, and disable the PD so Pilums don't get shot down. It overcomes all of Pilums' weaknesses, and is the most effective way to use Pilums and Condors yet.So in other words, just use something else to do everything and forget about the pilums.
Aha! I found out how to use Pilums, and Condors for that matter. They need Thunders. The Thunders disable the engines so the enemies cannot dodge, overload their shields so they can't shield tank, and disable the PD so Pilums don't get shot down. It overcomes all of Pilums' weaknesses, and is the most effective way to use Pilums and Condors yet.So in other words, just use something else to do everything and forget about the pilums.
But then, the Paragon costs 15 more DP, so it should win obviously.20 more DP (Onslaught's 40, Paragon's 60) and 4 medium missiles, not 3.
The Onslaughts biggest advantage is not armor/hull, but weapon types. 3 Medium Missiles in particular make for a lot of flux-free damage to bring the effective damage closer compared to the Paragons 4 small missiles that usually aren't even worth equipping.
I think that currently the biggest issue with armour-tanking ships is that they don't shield flicker aggressively enough. They often keep shields up, even if only kinetic projectiles are coming in.
Why not both (aside from annoying potshots at insignificant targets)? Electronic Warfare 1 is probably the most important skill in the game for everyone, mainly to prevent range penalty if the enemy has ECM. If anything, more EW beyond first level is dubious since the enemy may have ECM as well and, being evenly matched or superior to your fleet, will offset your ECM unless you put ECM Package on multiple ships to ensure range advantage despite two evenly matched (or disadvantage for the player) having EW.
If enemy does not have EW, you have an advantage. If enemy has EW, and enough ships to match yours, you will probably be more-or-less at zero regardless of ECM maximum, unless you kill their ships, which by that point, the fight is decided and just a matter of time before you win.