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Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: xyzeratul on September 29, 2019, 09:48:49 AM

Title: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: xyzeratul on September 29, 2019, 09:48:49 AM
I am in my 2nd round with some basic mods right now, running a fleet usually with 1 Onslaught, 1 Paragon and 2 Heron), I am mainly control the Paragon or Onslaught, but I am looking for some smaller(destroyer or frigate class) ships loadouts , can be a good assistant in the hand of AI officers, do some harassment or point defence for my main fleet.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: goduranus on September 29, 2019, 09:50:08 AM
-Herons with Thunder
-Drovers with Broadsword+Claw
Enemies will be stun locked and will not be able to fight back.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Agile on September 29, 2019, 09:52:28 AM
Omens.

They can EMP enemy fleets with shields down, and their emitter ability is excellent at PD. Stick PD exclusive weapons on it and escort duty it onto a bigger ship and its the premier way to keep your big ships free of missile and fighter attacks.

Bonus points being the fact that it has good speed and is very small so it can dodge most enemies.

The other one is the brawler, but only with a specific build. You need to give it double rail guns, integrated targeting unit, and keep it behind a SLOW capital or cruiser, otherwise if its caught alone it will get annihilated. Its not good at PD but its good at adding damage early to mid game. I don't recommend it at your current stage, however, as you already have several capitals.

Drovers and Herons are good, and you should continue to buy / manufacture them, as their fighters act as PD in of themselves, making it so you don't have to use up DP on other ships.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: xyzeratul on September 29, 2019, 09:53:06 AM
Herons with Thunder
Drovers with Broadsword+Claw

Enemies will be stun locked and will not be able to fight back.
thanks but is there any none carrier options?
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: goduranus on September 29, 2019, 09:57:00 AM
-Tempest with dual Ion Pulsers
Ion Pulsers are pretty potent with Tempest special ability, enemies will be disabled for a long long time.

-Tempest with Pulse Laser and AM Blaster
AM Blaster will one shot frigates and cripple destroyers with Tempest special ability to increase energy damage

-Afflictor with 4x Linked dual Atropos, Ion Cannon/ECCM/Expanded Missile Racks
This one is pretty devastating as long as you order it to engage ships with frontal shields from the tac map, it tends to harass the wrong enemies if you leave it to generic orders.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: SCC on September 29, 2019, 11:44:17 AM
Herons with Thunder
Drovers with Broadsword+Claw

Enemies will be stun locked and will not be able to fight back.
thanks but is there any none carrier options?
You can have Drovers with interceptors, but they won't stop bigger ships and they need escorts of their own, or more frontline ships they can hide behind.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Bradley_ on September 29, 2019, 11:55:28 AM
Medusa is objectively the best destroyer, both as flagship and as escort in larger fleet, as it has the advantage of ballistic mounts and armour of midline ships, but also the flux capacity and shields of a high-tech ship, and the mobility of its phase skimmer. It even has rear mounts wich will add you some PD without sacrificing frontal firepower.

About AM blaster on temptest, you should try ion pulser instead. IDK, why alpha damage is so popular, but if you install battle analytics mod, you'll see that the numbers for AM blaster are consistently 4-5 times lower, than PL or IP.  And I don't think having two of them is a good idea, as it also against sustained firepower and is very bad against armor, though I never looked into that, never thought two pulsers are a thing.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Maeleth on September 29, 2019, 12:36:47 PM
The cheapest option would be Centurion. Cheap, reliable, with decent speed and survivability. Slap any mix of Ions/TL/LR PD/LR Pulse/Railguns on it, max vents->caps and you're good to go. Add Hardened Subsystems for extra few minutes of operating time. Though it will not survive high burst damage from laserboats, so take care.

Omens are extremely good with double PD or Pulse + salamander, again HS and max flux. Extremely tanky with it's speed, size and shield. Just don't expect to it to kill anything more than 5 DP worth by itself.

Tempest is incredibly good at both distracting and killing stuff, my preferred option is Grav Beam+Tach Lance+Salamander/Hammer. Optics and/or HS are optional but welcome addition.

Drover with any mix of interceptors and fighters. Usual setup would be Talon/Broadsword early game, Lux/Spark later on. Consider any other options if you don't rely on missiles and don't really need flares.

Mule (P) is surprisingly good as a support boat with 1k range Ion beam and salamanders.

Medusa is OP as *** at crushing small ships, but struggles with bigger targets. I'd rather bring an extra XIV Falcon for (almost) the same DP cost and double damage potential. Or another Drover for that mindless carrier spam?

And let us not forget about Monitor. Unkillable chunk of cosmic steel that will float around and eat all enemy fire for eternity without blinking an eye, this is the only small ship that will actually survive lategame carnage on a battlefield (without constant babysitting).
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: goduranus on September 29, 2019, 02:12:36 PM
Yeah, second that with the Falcon, it's only slightly more DP than Medusa, but it is a cruiser, and can do most of medusa's loadouts.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: majorfreak on September 29, 2019, 02:53:20 PM
caveat: it's still just cycle 215 for my game
currently i run with a very complex set of officers all the way from reckless to timid. large amount of subcapitals since i juuuust picked up a beat up (D) conquest with cheap ass guns for low flux (mostly vanilla with most of my tinkering in the settings.json)

reckless are my shuttles for hunting down routers post game
aggressive are my centurions & lashers & i think it's a mod for the "shrike"?
steady is for all my cruisers (a dominator, apogee, falcons both xiv, standard and especially the pirate version) & a few enforcers i still find useful
cautious is for my missile cruiser (not really sure the efficacy of a griffon) and my horde of vigilants with no energy turret and a pilum...muahaha
timid is for my carrier cruiser (a heron), a pair of drovers and a horde of geminis.

i tend to set the aggressive to guard my flagship, when i was running with a pirate falcon (i went with no PD so it was dicey when facing fighters, damn those broadswords...makes you appreciate the cheap ass fighters when some are slowly killing u)
the steady i just let loose
the cautious i set to guard the heron
the timid just guard the heron and the heron i just let loose.

reckless and aggressive don't have the skill nor the hull mod for CP endurance
cautious-timid all have both skill and mod for endurance

i pretty much have a tonne of officers to fill my hands off approach. i still have the default battle sizes & AI fleet size. but those centurions...damn...they rock, dude. i was thinking of getting a monitor to see what they're like and definitely try out these suggestions by the others
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: xyzeratul on September 29, 2019, 07:14:13 PM

The cheapest option would be Centurion. Cheap, reliable, with decent speed and survivability. Slap any mix of Ions/TL/LR PD/LR Pulse/Railguns on it, max vents->caps and you're good to go. Add Hardened Subsystems for extra few minutes of operating time. Though it will not survive high burst damage from laserboats, so take care.

Omens are extremely good with double PD or Pulse + salamander, again HS and max flux. Extremely tanky with it's speed, size and shield. Just don't expect to it to kill anything more than 5 DP worth by itself.

Tempest is incredibly good at both distracting and killing stuff, my preferred option is Grav Beam+Tach Lance+Salamander/Hammer. Optics and/or HS are optional but welcome addition.

Drover with any mix of interceptors and fighters. Usual setup would be Talon/Broadsword early game, Lux/Spark later on. Consider any other options if you don't rely on missiles and don't really need flares.

Mule (P) is surprisingly good as a support boat with 1k range Ion beam and salamanders.

Medusa is OP as *** at crushing small ships, but struggles with bigger targets. I'd rather bring an extra XIV Falcon for (almost) the same DP cost and double damage potential. Or another Drover for that mindless carrier spam?

And let us not forget about Monitor. Unkillable chunk of cosmic steel that will float around and eat all enemy fire for eternity without blinking an eye, this is the only small ship that will actually survive lategame carnage on a battlefield (without constant babysitting).

I am using medusa right now, any loadout suggestions? I feel this thing is a bit struggles with enemy missile spam, maybe I should give Falcon a go, always got Eagle or better ships before it, so never really use it.

and I will try out other ships as well, Monitor and Omens seem like good choices for cap points.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Modo44 on September 29, 2019, 10:32:13 PM
If we're talking cheap, take a Wolf with full caps+vents, and extended shields (crucial to prevent it from eating missile damage). For super extra cheap, only use ones "found" in space, and never restore them.

Both the Medusa, and the Shike, really like to have dual burst PD lasers on the front side mounts (which have enough reach to cover their flanks), extended shields for protection when they inevitably dive between enemies, and no weapons in the rear mounts to give them maximum vents with ~half caps regardless of the build.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: goduranus on September 30, 2019, 12:06:22 AM
Imo the Medusa doesn't need PD, its shield is very efficient, might as well let it take the hits on the shield, and it'll use its phase skimmer to vent. Maybe throw in Hardened Shields so even sabots won't break through.

Also try this design
-Scarab with 2x AM Blaster or 4x IR Pulse lasers
Scarab's special let's it rapid fire and gain increased flux regeneration, it'll get a second shot of AMB in before the enemy can finish venting.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Bradley_ on September 30, 2019, 03:56:16 AM
Always surprised to hear that falcon is a good ship. Doesn't have the flux for its weapons, wich are just slightly better then medusas, weak shield, exposed rear, it can't sustain fire in a tight formation, it always gets caught out of position, despite its jets, it dies instantly is it's alone against more then two enemies, even if those are destroyer and a frigate, and in my experience it's the firs ship to go in a battle, from either side.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Igncom1 on September 30, 2019, 04:13:23 AM
The falcon only need to be able to mount 2 HVD's and it's good to kill anything smaller then it's self outright.

Anything larger isn't supposed to be killed by a single falcon, so no worries.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: TaLaR on September 30, 2019, 04:14:57 AM
Falcon(P) is the best player-piloted DE(-equivalent). Expanded Racks Reaper build lasts long enough for ammo-limit to only become a problem in multi-round combat.

Normal Falcon is somewhat low firepower for it's DP, but combination of high speed (slightly below 100 average with system), cruiser ITU range and medium ballistics allows to effectively kite enemies to death. It's one of relatively safe ships to give to AI.
I'd still prefer an AI Eagle if given choice though. AI just doesn't do as much as potentially possible with Falcon's extra 25 speed.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Plantissue on September 30, 2019, 05:20:04 AM
All this sounds confused by a very specific set of circumstances of a very specific rule laced tournament, with general good AI ships in the campaign. I suppose that's the problem when the title of the thread doesn't match what the opening poster writes.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Modo44 on September 30, 2019, 05:37:30 AM
Imo the Medusa doesn't need PD[...]
Correct, but Burst PD Lasers specifically have good burst damage, and under 1 flux/damage cost. If you are not going for range, they supplement the Medusa's main weapons nicely. Also, as an "assistant" ship, it needs to be able to take out threats to other friendlies.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Plantissue on September 30, 2019, 06:10:50 AM
The falcon only need to be able to mount 2 HVD's and it's good to kill anything smaller then it's self outright.

Anything larger isn't supposed to be killed by a single falcon, so no worries.
Most AI ship is supposed to be able to killing anything smaller than itself and isn't supposed to be able to fight singly with anything bigger than itself. Damned with faint praise indeed.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Igncom1 on September 30, 2019, 07:07:55 AM
Agree to disagree.  ;D
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: majorfreak on September 30, 2019, 07:40:13 AM
well, falcons are great in a group, especially enforcers because of the flak cannon support. they pair well off each other for a hegemony low rent team. remember, this is about assistance ships not "omg they suck solo"
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Thaago on September 30, 2019, 10:05:49 AM
Wait, people think the Falcon is bad? It is faster than every destroyer except the Medusa, but has cruiser grade range boosters so outranges them. It has burn 9 so doesn't slow down a destroyer fleet, but has better defenses than any destroyer. It has access to kinetic + phase beam/ion beam combo. The only downside of Falcons is low raw DPS compared to Hammerheads and Sunders because those ships have offense booster systems, so they are better at crippling cruisers/capitals than killing them, and should be paired alongside a ship with more Bang.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on September 30, 2019, 10:45:59 AM
Falcon is good early to mid game but it falls off late game along with every destroyer. They just die too easily against late game threats. Falcon might fall off a bit less but it's closer to a destroyer than a cruiser IMO.

I would say if a destroyers are still relevant in a fleet, then a falcon is probably better, but if a destroy is not good in a battle, the falcon is also not good.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Plantissue on September 30, 2019, 12:34:12 PM
I don't think Falcon is bad. I just think what Ingcom1 wrote makes it sound absolutely awful, needing a specific loadout with rare weapons so it can do what every ship in the game would do naturally.

I once made a fleet where the combat component was of mostly Falcons, as I was under the obsession that all ships in my fleet must have at least burn 9 (and with +1 burn with skill 3 Navigation) at the time. Falcons lack firepower for their DP, but they make up for that in survivability. The main thing about Falcons I find is they are weirdly survivable, despite their massive shield circle. People like to compare Falcons with Destroyers, but I think they should be compared with Cruisers. Compared to Destroyers they are actually really fast and vastly more survivable, but with lesser direct firepower, but with amazing support energy weapons, (if you can find Ion Beams!) The most important thing when outfitting a normal Falcon, is to avoid putting an Hullmod on it that isn't Dedicated Targeting Core or Integrated Targeting Unit. Make use of the higher limit than Destroyers on Flux Cap and Vents.

I did all sorts of funny stuff with Falcons including SO Falcons which were suprisingly good. A fleet of them would mix 2 KE ballistics with some 1KE and 1 HE ballistic weapons, otherwise you will have too many HE if you try for 1KE and 1 HE. I think 30% HE is about right. The awkward weapon layout means that the energy mounts should only be used for long range support. A fleet of Falcons is a fleet of grav beams. That's fine as it wards off fighter and frigates alike. Destroyers are outranged and outfought. Cruisers are slower and die from localised superiority. Eagles are a bit of a problem and Capitals are a bit of a problem, so you have to try to avoid fighting them and in my case with a burn 9 fleet you can.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: xyzeratul on October 01, 2019, 05:45:10 AM
All this sounds confused by a very specific set of circumstances of a very specific rule laced tournament, with general good AI ships in the campaign. I suppose that's the problem when the title of the thread doesn't match what the opening poster writes.
I guess I should clear my question:

 I am in the mid to late game, 3 plantes, building a fleet, trying to be a main player between other factions,  I can build really big, top tier capital ships, Conquest, Astral, Legion, Odyssey and Onslaught, or Cruisers like Doom, Eagle, Falcon, Heron and Mora.

I usually piloting big non carrier ship like Onslaught or Paragon, but big carriers can be good even driven by AI, so no problem for me.

But I feel like I need some small, fast ships to assist my fleet in PD, cap a point or do harassment, using big ships to do these feel like a waste and they are usually bad at these job(try watch a heron or Doom AI ship cap a point u will know), and I don't want to control it myself, so I need these small ship with some good loadout can be good in hands of AI.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 01, 2019, 08:01:22 AM
The AI is just generally bad at capturing points. In my experience it will not attempt to cap until all enemies in the area are dead, regardless of their threat.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Plantissue on October 01, 2019, 08:10:42 AM
In that case:

You never really need to cap a point. If your fleet is superior, it will end up taking those points anyways unless your entire fleet is nothing but slow ships. If it is inferior, it will end up losing those points anyways. There's barely any middle ground and if you have the skills which does the same thing, the effects of them are minimal in comparison.

The best ships for harrass and assist in PD is just another big ship you can build like your Conquest, Astral, Legion, Odyssey or Cruisers like Doom, Eagle, Falcon, Heron. They can be their own PD. All carriers are essentially range 4000 PD or harrass depending on configuration, with the bonus that they are replenishable in a way that frigates and destroyers are not. Though I suppose it would be the carriers that need the support. I guess Omen and Tempest and telling it to escort can be useful too. There's no real need to use them though, unless you happen to have less than 20 DP to use.

Actually that would make an interesting discussion. Which would be better? 6 Conquests, or 5 Conquests, each with a Tempest Escort? What about omens as escort? Orders?
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: xyzeratul on October 01, 2019, 09:01:14 AM
In that case:

You never really need to cap a point. If your fleet is superior, it will end up taking those points anyways unless your entire fleet is nothing but slow ships. If it is inferior, it will end up losing those points anyways. There's barely any middle ground and if you have the skills which does the same thing, the effects of them are minimal in comparison.

The best ships for harrass and assist in PD is just another big ship you can build like your Conquest, Astral, Legion, Odyssey or Cruisers like Doom, Eagle, Falcon, Heron. They can be their own PD. All carriers are essentially range 4000 PD or harrass depending on configuration, with the bonus that they are replenishable in a way that frigates and destroyers are not. Though I suppose it would be the carriers that need the support. I guess Omen and Tempest and telling it to escort can be useful too. There's no real need to use them though, unless you happen to have less than 20 DP to use.

Actually that would make an interesting discussion. Which would be better? 6 Conquests, or 5 Conquests, each with a Tempest Escort? What about omens as escort? Orders?

because in the later stage of this game, it feel more like a RTS game, the safe and boring way is carrier spam, at least AI carrier can do a decent job, if their number is up to some level, they can take care of anything, I guess I am looking for other option mostly because I don't like using carrier myself and would like see less carrier in my fleet. ::)
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: goduranus on October 01, 2019, 09:16:05 AM
I think objectively the best support ship is some sort of carrier with Thunder that keeps all the enemies disabled, and let your warships quickly finish them off.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Vind on October 01, 2019, 09:04:40 PM
Beam wolf with unstable injector and 300 flux dissipation. AI can run from everything in it and beams still got plenty of range.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Null Ganymede on October 02, 2019, 03:04:15 AM
Churning out disposable frigates with elite hullmods is pretty good support even late-game. Just expect to lose some.
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: Plantissue on October 02, 2019, 05:27:54 AM
In that case:

You never really need to cap a point. If your fleet is superior, it will end up taking those points anyways unless your entire fleet is nothing but slow ships. If it is inferior, it will end up losing those points anyways. There's barely any middle ground and if you have the skills which does the same thing, the effects of them are minimal in comparison.

The best ships for harrass and assist in PD is just another big ship you can build like your Conquest, Astral, Legion, Odyssey or Cruisers like Doom, Eagle, Falcon, Heron. They can be their own PD. All carriers are essentially range 4000 PD or harrass depending on configuration, with the bonus that they are replenishable in a way that frigates and destroyers are not. Though I suppose it would be the carriers that need the support. I guess Omen and Tempest and telling it to escort can be useful too. There's no real need to use them though, unless you happen to have less than 20 DP to use.

Actually that would make an interesting discussion. Which would be better? 6 Conquests, or 5 Conquests, each with a Tempest Escort? What about omens as escort? Orders?

because in the later stage of this game, it feel more like a RTS game, the safe and boring way is carrier spam, at least AI carrier can do a decent job, if their number is up to some level, they can take care of anything, I guess I am looking for other option mostly because I don't like using carrier myself and would like see less carrier in my fleet. ::)

Don't use carriers if you don't want to use carriers then. I've played fleets without a single carrier. The rest of the post is still completely valid. In theory an Omen (or perhaps even a shade!) would be great PD, but the best PD is really just another cruiser or capital ship as a threat that can be retreated behind and has it's own innate PD.  I'm not really sure why you need PD anyways. In vanilla starsector, hardly any opposing fleets will use proper bombers, so a pure combat ship fleet will never encounter any real problems against carriers. Some pather and pirate fleets might use lots of missiles, but since most of those are short ranged strike missiles, a dedicated escort frigate is of limited value. I do suppose that a frigate or destroyer can be used to escort a capital with a vulnerable rear, but that's not PD defence and more of just straight up killing any other frigate that may circle round the rear if otherwise isolated. I find that other cruisers and capitals do a good enough job of escorting each other to protect each other's rear in that respect. If you are using "harrass" in the RTS context, there is no economy to harrass and so no need for harrass.

___________

Churning out disposable frigates with elite hullmods is pretty good support even late-game. Just expect to lose some.
What decides what is disposable? Money lost will always be money lost. Wouldn't it be better to just simply not lose ships for greater gain by producing ships that kill faster and lose nothing in return?
Title: Re: Good AI controlled assistant ships?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on October 02, 2019, 11:24:30 AM
I think omens are clearly the best frigate for support because their EMP emitter is so good against fighters and missiles and they also give an ew bonus. With an anti matter blaster, they can also contribute decent damage.

The biggest threats to a cruiser/capital only fleet with no carriers are enemy fighters/bombers and fast enemy frigates (phase/high tech/remnant frigates). Fighters can still easily flux lock cruisers/capitals allowing for other ships to kill them. I think cruisers can sometimes struggle to deal with fighters and phase ships so that is where I would most want frigate escorts (although carriers are probably better in that case too). Tri-tachyon fleets are frequently phase + carrier, and Persean league fleets and remnant fleets are often very fighter heavy as well. Those are the main places where I want more than just capitals/cruiser warships. 

Also, I would be happy to deploy frigates as distractions (causing the enemy to turn around/be vulnerable to my main fleet) but they die too frequently and have such short ppt that I find the benefits of that strategy are outweighed by the cost. I have had some fun flying a SO tempest with a couple omen escorts for the first 1-2 minutes of a battle allowing me to kill small carriers and frigates behind the enemy and also causing the enemy to turn around and be vulnerable to my fleet. It's very fun to watch an onslaught turn to chase my frigate and take a full bombing run to the engines.