Thoughts on a Heavy Blaster/Gravaton combo? Because I notice a lot of high tech ships have two medium energy slots so it seems like that could be a reasonable combo for mainline combat.Unless the ship (or your fleet) can stack enough Graviton beams to outpace dissipation, it is more efficient to use Tactical Laser instead of Graviton Beam, if the mount is a medium energy. Heavy Blaster and Tac Laser is my go-to Tempest loadout.
I presume it will be faster...maybe 80-85 speed (with Plasma Jets).Plasma burn. No backwards gear, glory or death.
I mean a gravitons 200 dps vs shields vs a tacs 75 isn't that bad right? You might not bypass the venting but losing 200 flux venting from a single ship does help give the heavy blaster a chance to compete.Only if it overcomes dissipation. One graviton will not do it against most ships. If you plan to have multiple beam ships gang up on one ship, then fine, graviton may get the job done. But, if ships wander around and get into their separate duels, I do not see them stacking enough beams to be effective, barring exceptions like Eagle or Paragon.
It also has a 180 degree Omni Shield which means the Front Shield Conversion will give it 360+half cost. It's kind of an OP tax but I'm ok with that.If I plan to spam blasters, I want it anyway for the shield upkeep discount, although I will not say no to 360 shields. Even with Aurora today, if I pass on missiles and leave most mounts empty aside from blasters, Front Shields are a must for two blaster only Aurora to keep it cool.
Yeah there's no way it could support 2 Heavy Blasters (maybe with SO), I think even one is going to be pretty much close to its dissipation since Alex said it doesn't have enough flux for all potential forward weapons (2 medium and 2 small energies). And with 4 total small energies that can't even shoot all at one point, guess what they'll always be used for. Build I have in my head is a Pulse laser with Phase lance and a Typhoon maybe, but I'll probably end up with Sabots in the end.I doubt I would even fill the small mounts with anything except some form of PD. Maybe IR Pulse Lasers for anti-fighter or anti-frigate if those medium mounts do not swivel enough.
Balance parameters aside, I'm thinking that high tech doesn't need a Big Shrike, when it already has Shrike (and for that matter Medusa) on one end and Aurora on the other.
In short, PB is a system for apex predator, not for prey.With the way AI uses it, Odyssey becomes a prey ship if I try to use loadouts I want to use if I pilot it. Plasma Burn makes AI Odyssey with two plasma cannons more suicidal than Onslaught. Unlike Shrike, Odyssey is not cheap and disposable.
Seems like yet another high-tech ship that can only punch down in a game that entirely revolves around player punching up.This is my problem with Aurora, with its high 30 DP cost. It seems to work best at hunting and killing small fry, but not very good at killing big ships without Sabot spam, and AI is not very good at using Sabots. I can pilot Aurora and kill some ships, but at its cost, I rather spend a little more DP and pilot either Doom or Onslaught/Conquest/Legion. Even more so for an AI ship.
Temporal Shell is probably a very bad idea (tm) because of how it interacts with beams. You can mount 2 phase lances on Fury, imagine THAT with time acceleration.It is also bad because venting breaks it, and player cannot use flux-intensive loadouts before the shell times out. Hard-flux, energy loadouts are flux hogs.
Temporal Shell is probably a very bad idea (tm) because of how it interacts with beams.Link(s) to relevant discussion threads/posts? I am morbidly curious...
I can't see where this ship fits.Functional, non-elite high-tech warship in a
Well the problem with it supporting 2 HB comfortably would mean that it has the flux stats of a lesser capital. This ship isn't likely to have anything above the aurora.I do not expect Fury to have flux stats equal to Aurora, but it should be comparable to Apogee or at least better than the best conventional destroyer (Sunder?). I am hoping at least Eagle flux stats, since Fury is high-tech. Since Aurora LOST flux stats in the v0.9 releases, Apogee may have better flux stats in either capacity or vents (not both). Apogee seems underpriced, and Aurora seems overpriced.
Fury(P) with three medium missile mounts and a missile re-loader for pure pirate missile massacre.I prefer to see a hybrid or universal so I have a high-tech ship that can brawl properly. Energy-only hurts without Sabot spam (or massive flux stats some cannot obtain), barring outliers like Paragon.
@MegasAurora is good, but it's hard for AI Aurora to justify its expenses.
Man, I swear we are the only ones saying Aurora is not that good. Wherever I look I see people praising it for being the best player ship in the game (maybe behind the Odyssey) and how it's a total beast of a ship.
Temporal Shell is probably a very bad idea (tm) because of how it interacts with beams. You can mount 2 phase lances on Fury, imagine THAT with time acceleration.Considering Fury can use only PD lasers, taclaser and graviton beam, I wouldn't worry about this.
Also why exactly do pirates have access to every missile weapon? Even the really complicated systems that they probably shouldn't own by default. Like the luddites have to make do with makeshift torpedoes but the pirates can field MLRS kinetic warhead launchers and MIRV capital killer systems like it's nothing. Seems a little unbelievable for them to possess such weapons by default.Because them spamming Locusts would be boring. Unguided munitions are out of the question, Atlas Mk II can't use them easily enough.
I prefer to see a hybrid or universal so I have a high-tech ship that can brawl properly. Energy-only hurts without Sabot spam (or massive flux stats some cannot obtain), barring outliers like Paragon.I understand the sentiment, but rather than band-aiding energy-weapon-using ships with access to ballistics, energy weapons or energy-weapon-using ships should become better.
I understand the sentiment, but rather than band-aiding energy-weapon-using ships with access to ballistics, energy weapons or energy-weapon-using ships should become better.Precisely, worst example of this is Shrike(P) with one small ballistic AND less OP making a big difference between the two variants. I wouldn't expect energy weapons having something as good as Needlers or Railguns, but maybe a mini Autopulse? Something that's gonna be really bad vs armor, but efficient enough so it's not a waste shooting at shields.
Something that's gonna be really bad vs armor, but efficient enough so it's not a waste shooting at shields.Pulse laser and IR pulse both fit the description. That's actually the problem - they do no damage to armor so they are effectively anti-shield weapons. Except they have 1.0 and 1.1 flux/damage while dedicated ballistic anti-shield is 0.5 or better.
Also why exactly do pirates have access to every missile weapon? Even the really complicated systems that they probably shouldn't own by default. Like the luddites have to make do with makeshift torpedoes but the pirates can field MLRS kinetic warhead launchers and MIRV capital killer systems like it's nothing. Seems a little unbelievable for them to possess such weapons by default.Because them spamming Locusts would be boring. Unguided munitions are out of the question, Atlas Mk II can't use them easily enough.
I think in the next release we are getting hard-flux-on-graviton-beams hullmod, but I'm not sure it's going to be enough.The problem is the player is spending more OP to get a weapon that is probably worse or no better than Light Mortar that costs 2 OP! 500 range (or a little more with Advanced Optics and MORE OP SPENT), and player gets a weapon with DPS on par or worse than Light Mortar, for far more OP spent.
Light Mortar is a HE weapon. You probably meant Light Autocannon.No, I mean Light Mortar! You cannot mount Graviton in small energy mounts.
Light Autocannon has the same DPS as Graviton Beam (100 kinetic), better range (600 vs 500), worse accuracy (very poor vs perfect!), has no special effect on missiles and fighters, and worse flux effficiency (1.1 vs 0.75).
So with high-tech you are paying extra OP and an extra hullmod to get a medium weapon that is at best a sidegrade to a weak small ballistic. That's the high-tech design philosophy (tm) for you. :D
Did gravitons get nerfed when I wasn't looking because otherwise they are 1000 range last I checked?Range is normally 1000, but the hard flux beam mod will cut range by half.
Agreed so very much.Something that's gonna be really bad vs armor, but efficient enough so it's not a waste shooting at shields.Pulse laser and IR pulse both fit the description. That's actually the problem - they do no damage to armor so they are effectively anti-shield weapons. Except they have 1.0 and 1.1 flux/damage while dedicated ballistic anti-shield is 0.5 or better.
Looking at this ship more closely, it appears to have two empty small side mounts. I need to ask WHY Alex keeps making so many ships with these pretty much useless side mounts. Now both of the new ships have, and several of the new ships from the last batch of ships, have these nearly useless mounts...
And since this ship has a 180 degree omni shield, they are even MORE worthless!
All in all, this ship looks to be another Shrike, yet even worse somehow
Looking at this ship more closely, it appears to have two empty small side mounts. I need to ask WHY Alex keeps making so many ships with these pretty much useless side mounts. Now both of the new ships have, and several of the new ships from the last batch of ships, have these nearly useless mounts...
Maybe I don't understand the complain here, but... IMO those are anything but useless.
Isolated small kinetic/energy mounts are supposedly for pd coverage, however fighters (along the fleet's frontal barrage) are infinitely more effective at it than those will ever be while still retaining offensive power.
Each pd is 3-5 points that could have went in vents/caps, conclusion: if it can't point in the main direction, it's a useless bump on the hull.
PS: Shielded fighters could not care less in the world when a single small pd of any kind fires at them.
they're adding 10 valuable ordnance points to the ship's OP budgetThis was about the new heavy midline cruiser which also has 2 side turrets. So with that I don't really hate them, but I'd still like them to either point front a bit or to the rear.
Looking at this ship more closely, it appears to have two empty small side mounts. I need to ask WHY Alex keeps making so many ships with these pretty much useless side mounts. Now both of the new ships have, and several of the new ships from the last batch of ships, have these nearly useless mounts...
Maybe I don't understand the complain here, but... IMO those are anything but useless.
The rear turrets presumably cover the sides as well, making the side turrets redundant. The wide omni shield on the Fury makes the side turrets even less useful since it can cover the front and sides at the same time.
IR pulse is pretty decent anti-fighter but its so much OP for that job when it doesn't do other things like rails (and other small kinetics) do
A larger Shrike coming in the next Starsector release is exiting news from my perspective! Although reading the forum it seems pretty obvious Shrike-type gameplay does not appeal to every player. ;)It's less the playstyle, more the capabilities of the ship itself. Though, arguably, as a light cruiser, it should be looked at as a big destroyer. I probably will still prefer Medusa for that, though right now I don't really have the choice to use Medusa, anyway.
it can get cruiser ITU which is super niceWhat are you going to boost with ITU, heavy blasters? It's not a Falcon which can mount heavy maulers / HVDs.
it can get cruiser ITU which is super niceWhat are you going to boost with ITU, heavy blasters? It's not a Falcon which can mount heavy maulers / HVDs.
Yes. The extra 240 range on pulse/HB and 200 range on IR pulse is super useful. Do you not put ITU on non SO Aurora?
The thing I don't like about the double medium missile and single medium energy weapon loadout of this ship, is the Pirate Falcon is just going to make you ask, under which situations do you take this instead of a Pirate Falcon? The Pirate Falcon doesn't even need the extra 2 small energy mounts to have the extra 10 OP for its 125 OP. It has ballistic damage efficiency if you want it, can double down on medium missiles, plus free hull mods. Unless this is bringing something to the table the Pirate Falcon isn't in that configuration?
Since the discussion has moved a bit to the side mounts, I'll just add what Alex said to me in another thread when I asked him the same:Those side-mounts that are so-called 'adding 10 valuable ordnance points' make the ship look uglier. Empty mounts are an eyesore, and should be filled. It is a crying shame that the game encourages player to skimp mounts and use highly unbalanced loadouts on some ships (e.g., unarmed carriers with good fighters, high-tech ships with only one or two big guns and as much flux and shield hullmods to support those one or two guns).Quotethey're adding 10 valuable ordnance points to the ship's OP budgetThis was about the new heavy midline cruiser which also has 2 side turrets. So with that I don't really hate them, but I'd still like them to either point front a bit or to the rear.
Thats true, but often times you can't face the targets with the main guns consistently. Hammerheads and Sunders don't have the maneuverability to track either fighters or even fast frigates that are strafing it. There also the scenario of the fast main target getting out of gun range and the side target sill firing: it can take a very long time to turn to the new target, and being able to drive that ship's flux up and chase it away before the first frigate vents and comes back in is the difference between taking no damage and being pecked to death.
However, that doesn't really apply to the Shrike or the Fury because its main guns are turreted and will swivel to face the secondary target (hopefully!). If these were light ballistics I'd put vulcans/dlmgs happily on them but I'm not sure I'd put pd lasers on these.
Yes, although few ships can handle multiple ships at once, even smaller ones. The way this game handles flux makes it impossible to defend with a shield and attack at the same time without using the most flux efficient weapons possible.Hence, some faster high-tech ships that cannot use kinetics (and do not want to spam Sabots) have only one or two big guns and everything else in max capacitor and vents, and ITU (or SO), Flux Distributor, and all of the shield efficiency hullmods (Hardened Shields, Stabilized Shields, and maybe Shield Conversion: Front). Only then do they have a chance to brawl other ships and win flux wars with enough to spare to finish ships. If I do not use Sabots on Aurora, all of the hardpoints, along with the medium synergy (and maybe some smalls too), are empty just so Aurora can fight its weight class with two blasters and win (and not get double KO'ed from stalemate to PPT/CR exhaustion). Similarly, if I use Odyssey with two plasma cannons, the only other armaments are two fighter wings (likely Xyphos and Longbows) and maybe a few burst PD, with all other mounts (including the large synergy at the right) empty, just so it can slug it out against a battleship and win. (I cannot give such an Odyssey to AI, because it will plasma burn into the middle of a mob and die.)
Weapons cost flux which is a limited resource, so there definitely is a cost to 0 OP weapons (assuming you put them on auto fire/ fire them at all). There is also the opportunity cost of not using a different weapon since slots are limited. I can easily imagine weapons that I would not use over an empty slot at 0 OP, but that's not really adding any interesting choices either. If you have spare dissipation, it's almost always going to be worth dropping a few caps to fit a better weapon, and if you don't, then you're probably not going to add more weapons unless they are sufficiently efficient.I thought of that, but not soon enough to bring that up. Even if the weapon costs nothing to mount, if the ship was already struggling to keep dissipation low enough, then no weapon would still be better than a free weapon (that is no better than others).
LRPD is slow to kill but has the range necessary to support your ship and allies nearby. Good for missiles but not that great vs fighters.
frigates can ignore lrpd for a few seconds, but I think its the correct behavior to raise the shield about 90% of the time
Yeah thats fair :D. Dominators will also raise their shields against enemies behind them instead of keeping the 0 flux bonus to turn faster. Huh, maybe I should get a video/reproducible scenario for that one and report it, as its close to a bug.
Yeah thats fair :D. Dominators will also raise their shields against enemies behind them instead of keeping the 0 flux bonus to turn faster. Huh, maybe I should get a video/reproducible scenario for that one and report it, as its close to a bug.I found this behaviour somewhat inconsistent, and that AI would do it when it was doomed anyway.
Actually thinking about free SO with story points, SO might need to get nerfed. Or just restricted to not be made free with story points (or some other way of reducing the effectiveness of making free SO ships). Making an entire fleet of free-SO ships could be a borderline dominant strategy considering just how much free OP you get by doing that. I doubt you would be using this ship with SO when you could have free SO hammerheads/eagle/falcons. Heavy blaster is a good SO weapon but the assault chain gun is a better one. Loadout design is ~15-20 free OP on most cruisers and most people consider it to be one of, if not the best skill in the game, so having a strategy that gives 2-3 times the free OP (and you still get a second free hullmod) seems kinda nuts.This is my concern, too. You have to pick cheap hullmods to actually come out worse than with LD3. For most hullmods, this is fine, since you need to spend story points. However, SO is already the preferred playstyle for some players, and with it being build-in-able with a single story point (or at all), it would be too much of a boost. We're going to see if Alex prepared for this or not.
That's ridiculous, free weapons don't make sense as you're not giving up on anything, absolutely no downsides.
I never said they'd be too good, simply that you would never leave mounts empty.That's ridiculous, free weapons don't make sense as you're not giving up on anything, absolutely no downsides.
Yes that's the point. I dare you to point out a vanilla ship that 0 OP mining lasers would make too good.
That if probably an offtopic, but am I the only one here, who dislike SO?
To be clear: I do not deny it's crude efficiency, just do not like to use.
That if probably an offtopic, but am I the only one here, who dislike SO?I dislike SO because 1) the cut to PPT is too much, 2) AI is too cowardly to get in and fight with short-ranged loadouts if I do not use at least aggressive AI across the board and 3) I usually drop shields by venting, but I cannot do that after SO disables venting. It takes too long for me to remember I cannot vent as a shortcut to drop shields, and I waste time remembering to drop shields the same way I raise them. If I plan to use SO, Defensive Systems 3 for hard flux dissipation is a must for me.
To be clear: I do not deny it's crude efficiency, just do not like to use.
Actually thinking about free SO with story points, SO might need to get nerfed. Or just restricted to not be made free with story points (or some other way of reducing the effectiveness of making free SO ships). Making an entire fleet of free-SO ships could be a borderline dominant strategy considering just how much free OP you get by doing that. I doubt you would be using this ship with SO when you could have free SO hammerheads/eagle/falcons. Heavy blaster is a good SO weapon but the assault chain gun is a better one. Loadout design is ~15-20 free OP on most cruisers and most people consider it to be one of, if not the best skill in the game, so having a strategy that gives 2-3 times the free OP (and you still get a second free hullmod) seems kinda nuts.You can already do that
The only thing I'd worry about with free SO with story points is that it reduces the incentive to recover Luddic Path hulls and keep them around in your fleet for a while.LP ships get intrinsic SO for free and still have two slots for additional permamods. Putting SO for other hulls take one of the two permamod slots (and a story point to add permamod in the first place).
Ill-Advised Modifications gets removed on restore just like any other D-mod, and is just about the only thing that stops those ships from being nightmarish SO murder-machines, because they're not terribly threatening when their guns permanently short out 2 seconds into a volley.
SO is expensive, but so is Augmented Drive Field and Heavy Armor. I probably will burn Augmented Drive Field as a permamod for my battleships.
ADF on capital is expensive, and I want it so I do not need to haul two more tugs (and possibly a tanker for extra fuel due to two tugs and extra tanker slurping about as much fuel as a capital) in my fleet. Since it is probably the most expensive hullmod I pay for, and probably one that I will leave on the ship at all times, it makes sense to permamod it so I have more OP for combat stuff, instead of permamodding combat stuff and paying more OP for Augmented Drive Field that I will probably leave on the ship, and have less OP for the other combat stuff I want.
If babysitting remains as insane as it is now, I will settle for nothing less than burn 20, and I do not want a bunch of tugs to do it, especially if I do not have Navigation.
I guess I can care less about burn speed if I plan on total core kill by any means necessary and befriend pirates to eliminate all babysitting. Then again, the Pather bug will be fixed, so player may need to babysit if he wants to alpha spam colonies.
Didn't Alex say that variant-specific hullmods will count towards the limit? I.e. LP ships have built-in SO but can only support one story point upgrade, not two.I do not remember, but if that is true, it would royally hurt ships like Odyssey, who gets intrinsic High-Resolution Sensors and ECCM for free.
LP is still fine this way, but some other ships with built-in mods, like Hound(A) or Brawler(TT) will become even less desireable.
Ill-Advised Modifications gets removed on restore just like any other D-mod, and is just about the only thing that stops those ships from being nightmarish SO murder-machines, because they're not terribly threatening when their guns permanently short out 2 seconds into a volley.
Didn't Alex say that variant-specific hullmods will count towards the limit? I.e. LP ships have built-in SO but can only support one story point upgrade, not two.I do not remember, but if that is true, it would royally hurt ships like Odyssey, who gets intrinsic High-Resolution Sensors and ECCM for free.
LP is still fine this way, but some other ships with built-in mods, like Hound(A) or Brawler(TT) will become even less desireable.
I.e. LP ships have built-in SO but can only support one story point upgrade, not two.
(Negative.)
If it's built into the hull, they don't. If it's built into the variant (and is a "normal" hullmod), then it would. (No way to remove perma mods at the moment, though, say, removing d-mods piecemeal could be a decent use of a story point.)
(Negative.)
Now I'm royally confused. What's the "normal hullmod built into the variant" means then:If it's built into the hull, they don't. If it's built into the variant (and is a "normal" hullmod), then it would. (No way to remove perma mods at the moment, though, say, removing d-mods piecemeal could be a decent use of a story point.)
Or is it because LP ships aren't "really" variants?