Xyphos is okay on Odyssey that use fighters as Gradius options or Chmmr zapsats. Odyssey is primarily a close-range brawler (plasma burn and short-ranged energy weapons), and does not have enough OP to get both Expanded Deck Crew and a viable weapons package, so it needs to focus on guns and treat fighters as a bonus.
Odyssey is one of the few ships where it makes sense to use Mining Pods on. Xyphos is deluxe pod with burst PD (and ion beam). May be a bit overpriced compared to other fighters.
Chmmr? From the ur-quan masters? I vaguely remember them when I watched playthroug of that game. And what is zapsat?Yes, from Star Control 2, a.k.a. Ur-Quan Masters. ZapSats are the three laser satellites that orbit the Chmmr Avatar.
First of all, it doesn't benefit from ITU or DTC. If you're using a ship that relies on range the ion beam is probably going to sit idle most of the time.
Another reason why it's bad is due to they're not controllable in any degree. Even if set to engage they won't engage the carrier's target. Instead they will just happily shoot anything that is closest to the fighter itself.
Last but not least, ion beam is not an instant beam. It takes time to extend the beam to full range which means due to the behavior previously described, it may constantly switch target and resulting in more downtime than it should because the beam takes so much extra time to re-extend on target switch.
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You’re over focused on ordo farming which due to enemy AI is forced to do CQC and remnants have terrible fighter support that can’t distract the ion beams.
On top of that you’re using fury which most people agree is OP for its cost. With 3 S mods it can easily be over 180 OP in a fit - 50% more than intended.
The fury wouldn’t have enough OP to support a converted hangar without S mods and if you really have that much OP to spare why not just use a long bow? It costs merely 1 more OP but is effectively infinite sabot, allowing you to fit things like harpoon.
If you really need that emp, just use an ion pulser.
I really don’t want to bring up long bow in fear of them getting nerfed but tbh long bow simply outperforms Xyphos in nearly all circumstances. Sabot has more range, deals more damage and long bows come with burst pd as well. I find in any given fit long bow would outperform Xyphos.
Xyphos let you vent flux while stopping small threats like a bomber wing or a frigate. It is PD that can fire when venting flux.If you only want PD wouldn’t wasp or talon work better?
That's very very useful.
And I just gave you the fit: replace your HB with IP, replace your Xyphos with long bow and replace your sabot pod with harpoon pod (or reaper if you trust AI using it - I don’t).
IP is short range because you’re already fighting short range, so the “extra” range on xyphos is not needed. It’s not even a counter argument.
And btw an officer can has both tech skills, idk why you would mention it.
Have you tried one sabot pod, one harpoon pod and one ion pulser with long bow?
Edit: your setups are not fair at all, as the role distribution is not the same.
A HB represents finisher/A Xyphos represents emp source and a sabot pod represents a shield breaker.
In that regard, none of your proposed fit was giving the same role distribution.
I would expect two HB against two harpoon;
Two sabot fit against a long bow and a sabot.
I would admit it’s partially my fault not specifying the three medium slots but a generic “replace sabot pod(no s) with harpoon pod(no s).
Edit 2: in fact, let’s just host a “best fury fit contest” and I’d put my bet on a fury not even using converted hangar.
Um, why 39 vent using single ion pulser? Shouldn’t it go 39 cap instead?
It only has 200 sustained flux usage - much lower than a single HB
Your fit is no different from 0 cap 0 vent as it can rarely build any soft flux unless you’re also using amb or some other flux intensive small energy.
Converted hangar favors support fighters since they nearly never take losses.
However, they lose out to non-converted hangar fits most of the time thus voiding the comparison to long bows in the first place. Ah, I took the bait.
Edit: Can AI war set AI behavior? Ion pulser almost requires aggressive+ officers to make them not be cringe and get flux locked from beams.
First of all, it doesn't benefit from ITU or DTC.Do you want 1800 range Xyphos Swarm shenanigans? Because that's how you get 1800 range Xyphos Swarm shenanigans.
First of all, it doesn't benefit from ITU or DTC.Do you want 1800 range Xyphos Swarm shenanigans? Because that's how you get 1800 range Xyphos Swarm shenanigans.
Honestly I don’t know what we’re discussing about anymore.
The original statement was about Xyphos not good in any scenarios as there’s always something better.
So far there are two challengers: Xyphos Odyssey and C_Xyphos Fury, the later is dedicated for Remnant farming.
I have not commented on the former atm. Uh, not until this reply.
For the latter I think all I need to do is use a non-converted hangar fit in campaign that do better to beat the argument. A fury vs fury fit proves nothing as it’s not the same as the use case the challenger is arguing for. The reason I brought up long bow is due to Odyssey - I tried making a good Xyphos Odyssey fit but always find long bow with the exact same fit superior to Xyphos, thus made the bold assumption that converted hangar will be the same - it’s not the same due to the loss of speed and increased damage taken. I also did not account for shield sizes - Odyssey obviously has a much better coverage to protect long bows.
All I need to do now is prove that converted hangar cringe?
it's Xyphos + sabot pods as a combination that works so well. So it already has anti-shield, what it lacks is anti-weapon (which is what Xyphos provides)
Maybe a better way to phrase the question is to phrase it in terms of an action. Do you want to see something changed in the game to make the Xyphos balanced with something else? I would not doubt you if you said that a safety override setup is going to do better than a converted hangar setup, for example. But I think that's probably true of many wings you might put into that converted hangar, and speaks more towards the balance of safety overrides.Then it would become a suggestion thread not a GD.
So I find something interestingQuote from: Hiruma
The Xypohs can deter even reckless AI from closing in - the non-Xyphos side would simply get ganged on regardless of AI assigned.
However, if you simply assign a full assault on the non-Xyphos side and just aggressive officer:
So do I get to claim mining pod is the best fighter?
I agree.So I find something interestingQuote from: Hiruma
The Xypohs can deter even reckless AI from closing in - the non-Xyphos side would simply get ganged on regardless of AI assigned.
However, if you simply assign a full assault on the non-Xyphos side and just aggressive officer:
So do I get to claim mining pod is the best fighter?
Well, that tells us that reckless and full assault AI with mining pods is better than aggressive AI with Xyphos.
So I used your POG file, and stuck it into AI battles, and set the timeout to 10 seconds (at timeout all ships are set to reckless and orders are changed to full assault for both sides)."I edited the last line of round_data.csv to be"1,TRUE,13,1,FALSE,FALSE,TRUE,TRUE,FALSE,TRUE,FALSE,TRUE,10,FALSE,TRUE,TRUE,400000,200000,FALSE,1000,5,FALSE,15,5,4,3,2,1,2,2,1,1,0[close]
Ran the fight three times. One time the POG Mining Pods won with 6 losses, and the other two the Xyphos won with 4 losses and 7 losses.
So what I think that shows is that the AI aggression level and orders is more important than the fitting differences between Mining Pods and Xyphos, and that when using the same level of AI aggression Mining Pods and Xyphos are pretty close to balanced. The extra vents and caps the Mining Pods allow for is counter balanced by the shield piercing Ion beams shutting down weapons and engines before the shields actually flux out.
The way it breaks one way or the other looks highly dependent on who gets the first kill and starts to snowball.
Ion pulser range is 500 and anyone who has used it knows it.
And I just gave you the fit: replace your HB with IP, replace your Xyphos with long bow and replace your sabot pod with harpoon pod (or reaper if you trust AI using it - I don’t).
IP is short range because you’re already fighting short range, so the “extra” range on xyphos is not needed. It’s not even a counter argument.
As OP stated, it’s not good for kiting, so your use of it in a CQC ship is somewhat legit. But again, in such scenarios a long bow can safely launch its payload without even leaving the mothership shield range, rendering long bow a superior choice.
And btw an officer can has both tech skills, idk why you would mention it.
I admit it is hard to intuit what people are doing with incomplete loadout descriptions. I'm for example assuming ITU and shield conversion, but people could arguably skip those. Also, linked or unlinked Harpoons + Sabots? These all can have fairly substantial impacts.
Converted hangar favors support fighters since they nearly never take losses.
However, they lose out to non-converted hangar fits most of the time thus voiding the comparison to long bows in the first place. Ah, I took the bait.
Honestly I don’t know what we’re discussing about anymore.
The original statement was about Xyphos not good in any scenarios as there’s always something better.
So far there are two challengers: Xyphos Odyssey and C_Xyphos Fury, the later is dedicated for Remnant farming.
I have not commented on the former atm. Uh, not until this reply.
For the latter I think all I need to do is use a non-converted hangar fit in campaign that do better to beat the argument. A fury vs fury fit proves nothing as it’s not the same as the use case the challenger is arguing for. The reason I brought up long bow is due to Odyssey - I tried making a good Xyphos Odyssey fit but always find long bow with the exact same fit superior to Xyphos, thus made the bold assumption that converted hangar will be the same - it’s not the same due to the loss of speed and increased damage taken. I also did not account for shield sizes - Odyssey obviously has a much better coverage to protect long bows.
All I need to do now is prove that converted hangar cringe?
If you're doing it via Officer Training, then you're giving up at least one of Systems Expertise/Missile Spec (very important for flagship depending on which it is)Sorry but no, the officer skills are the single least important for a player to take when dealing with AI vs. AI.
Have you tried to implement your Xyphos setup on the Eagles?
Sorry but no, the officer skills are the single least important for a player to take when dealing with AI vs. AI.
I agree.
The long bow fit with both sides reckless (no full assault) result in 50-50 and the outcome is solely determined by the initial engagement.
However, playing with long bow reckless and Xypohs aggressive results in long bow winning 3/3.
Reckless officer best officer?
If you're doing it via Officer Training, then you're giving up at least one of Systems Expertise/Missile Spec (very important for flagship depending on which it is)Sorry but no, the officer skills are the single least important for a player to take when dealing with AI vs. AI.
Outside of player control, you just use an officer.
It is not about Xyphos really. Fury has one of the best flux density per DP. It is like small Radiant. Sabots provide flux free anti shield damage, boosting ship's efficiency even further. It also has anti-weapon capabilities since it has EMP damage component.
Xyphos does not provide much to the mix. Not for their cost.
I suppose if you compared a setup with Xyphos to without Xyphos (and leaving those OP unused) could prove that they're worse than nothing, but I'm pretty sure the Xyphos win that fight every time (perhaps with losses due to localized missile saturation in these particular setups) but eventually the Ion shield piercing would matter. Similarly if Vanshilar took the Xyphos off the Furies (and no other changes) and found the same level of success against Ordos, you might be able to say the fleet is already strong enough without the fighters, but given the Xyphos are the major source of ion damage for that setup, I'm fairly certain it would in fact perform significantly worse.
It is not about Xyphos really. Fury has one of the best flux density per DP. It is like small Radiant. Sabots provide flux free anti shield damage, boosting ship's efficiency even further. It also has anti-weapon capabilities since it has EMP damage component.
Partially, but the strongest thing about the Fury in this case is that it can get 360 shields, thus it dies less from AI stupidity (less error-prone).
Xyphos does not provide much to the mix. Not for their cost.
Again, if anybody can provide a better build for handling 2 full Ordos fleets at once, I'm all ears.
It is not about Xyphos really. Fury has one of the best flux density per DP. It is like small Radiant. Sabots provide flux free anti shield damage, boosting ship's efficiency even further. It also has anti-weapon capabilities since it has EMP damage component.
Partially, but the strongest thing about the Fury in this case is that it can get 360 shields, thus it dies less from AI stupidity (less error-prone). Falcon (P) with Xyphos/sabot can also work as well (in fact, offensively Falcon (P) works better, because it can use up to 4 sabot pods), but the problem is that the AI tends to leave its engines exposed and die from getting hit in the rear, which would have been completely avoidable with more competent AI. (I'm not talking about from Salamanders etc., since each Fury has 2 Xyphos protecting it; I'm talking about it'll try to strafe a target, thus maneuvering its engines toward another enemy ship, and then die to that other enemy ship.) See attached screenshot of this in action. Thus I spend a lot of time trying to rescue whichever Falcon (P) is sticking its engines toward the enemy ships, and at some point I'm not able to get to them all. I can save them all while piloting Doom (since I can phase and avoid ships in the way, plus it's way faster and can use mines as a distraction), but it's much harder with Aurora. Fury with front shield conversion means its engines stay protected, so I don't need to do as much babysitting. Its failure mode instead is that it tends to plasma burn straight into hulks etc., which flames it out, usually while spinning helplessly straight into the enemy fleet, leading to its death. I don't think the AI considers whether or not hulks are in the way for plasma burns, at least based on how often I see this happening.Xyphos does not provide much to the mix. Not for their cost.
Again, if anybody can provide a better build for handling 2 full Ordos fleets at once, I'm all ears.I suppose if you compared a setup with Xyphos to without Xyphos (and leaving those OP unused) could prove that they're worse than nothing, but I'm pretty sure the Xyphos win that fight every time (perhaps with losses due to localized missile saturation in these particular setups) but eventually the Ion shield piercing would matter. Similarly if Vanshilar took the Xyphos off the Furies (and no other changes) and found the same level of success against Ordos, you might be able to say the fleet is already strong enough without the fighters, but given the Xyphos are the major source of ion damage for that setup, I'm fairly certain it would in fact perform significantly worse.
Yes I tested various builds with Xyphos for a while before using it, so that comparison has already been made (namely, "before I tried out Xyphos"). It was basically the key to where my fleet could go from handling 2 Ordos fleets to handling 3 Ordos fleets, by switching to Xyphos from non-Xyphos Furies.
Although different players have different amounts of skill, human players are not capricious in battle; they are generally following a set of rules as well (in terms of evaluating which target to go after, when to engage or disengage, etc.). In many ways the human player is actually easier to account for than the AI, because how the AI operates is pretty "opaque" for most players. Any time you give a ship a command, it is essentially because the ship's AI is not behaving the way you'd like it to; any time the ship does something else despite the player giving it a command (such as when you tell it to capture an objective but it runs off chasing a target, or you tell it to gather somewhere and it runs off chasing a target, etc.), it is essentially because the ship's AI is disregarding the player's intent for its own reasons, or the player doesn't understand how the commands work. In either case, the AI is opaque -- the player can't directly determine why it behaves the way it does. The player, by contrast, knows exactly why he is taking an action, regardless of whether or not the outcome is the one he wanted. Thus it's easier to account for and analyze -- and improve upon.
Success methodology is pretty straightforward. Whether or not the player fleet wins the battle, or, since each battle has randomized elements, the probability of the player fleet winning the battle. Since I'm actually playing the battle, I can observe AI behavior, but that's basically for failure mode analysis, i.e. why the AI messed up.
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As an aside, if Xyphos is the key to handling multiple Ordos fleets simultaneously, does this mean that Xyphos might actually be overpowered? I don't think so. The 38 OP used to equip the Xyphos is a big sacrifice (and as it should be for a warship to get fighter capability). Relying on sabot pods, and having them last the entire battle, means getting officers with Missile Specialization as well as taking expanded missile racks as a hullmod. So the Furies have very little OP remaining for caps/vents, and is somewhat overfluxed. It doesn't have any PD of its own. Basically, the fit is extremely tight. It probably wouldn't have the OP had I gone the Radiant route instead. So like all good game design, it forces the player to make some hard choices -- the player is forced to give up some good things in order to use this build.
Nor am I claiming that this is somehow the "best" build. Just that I haven't found any that are better. Again, I'm all ears if somebody comes up with a better build! There are plenty of possible builds that I haven't tested. For example, back when I tested Dominators, regular Falcons, etc., was before I started using Xyphos. I also haven't tested Apogee, which like the Fury has 360 shields. Onslaught (XIV) with Xyphos works very well as a wrecking ball, and provides good long-range artillery as well as close-range fighting and tanking with its mjolnirs and sabot pods, although I think people usually recommend other missiles for its medium missile slots. When fighting with the Furies, the Onslaught (XIV) needs unstable injector just to keep up, plus the Furies usually end up in the front or on either side so it's okay to leave the Onslaught's rear exposed (and the Xyphos will take care of any stray missiles), and forgo any armor/hull hullmods -- just rely on shields basically. So there are plenty of possibilities out there.
Edit: Forgot screenshot again. Here you can see Falcon 7 strafing to the left to surround a Fulgent that's about to die, completely oblivious to the fact that it's getting pummeled in its engines by a 5-autopulse Radiant and about to die. This happens quite often even when the Falcon (P) has extended shields, even though it doesn't have it here.
The main problem of the Remnant fights is the sheer amount of firepower and mobility in the Radiant. It is capable of quickly overfluxing any kind of cruiser that happened to attract its attention.
If you want stability you need Monitors as a skirmish force. That's all.
My point was that it will not work on anything without over the top stats. Hence it is the flux/sabot density that gets the job done and not the Xyphos.
Anyone off hand know what the shield piercing chance for an EMP arc from an Ion beam is, and how much EMP an arc is? Is it straight up hard flux percent at a fixed interval or the like? I'm curious what the EMP per second is when a target ship is at, say, 25%, 50% and 75% hard flux per Ion beam.
The main problem of the Remnant fights is the sheer amount of firepower and mobility in the Radiant. It is capable of quickly overfluxing any kind of cruiser that happened to attract its attention.
Yes, that's what the Xyphos is for -- the ion beams start disabling their weapons once they have hard flux (courtesy of the sabots and the Fury's other weapons), so that they don't get a chance to overwhelm a ship. That's their use case. They disable enemy weapons so that you get a chance to drive up their flux before they drive up yours. So if you're having an issue with Radiants overfluxing your ships, that's where Xyphos comes into play.
If you want stability you need Monitors as a skirmish force. That's all.
True, I haven't really tried Monitors. Mostly because they don't provide much offensive capability, whereas I tend to build a fleet in terms of kill rate per DP. But they might help relieve the pressure on the ships that are actually doing the killing, to tank for them.
My point was that it will not work on anything without over the top stats. Hence it is the flux/sabot density that gets the job done and not the Xyphos.
They both need each other. Xyphos doesn't do much damage on its own. You need other weapons to do the killing. But without Xyphos, the enemy fleet is also busy driving up your flux, so you're not going to outflux them if they're a more dangerous fleet. Xyphos is what enables you to win the flux war. This is very easy to see if you fit the Furies with the same build but without the Xyphos (put the points into cap/vent or whatever else you prefer), and then send it in against the same [REDACTED] fleet(s). They won't be able to kill the ships quickly enough because their flux gets driven up too quickly, and eventually they founder.
It is "single overextended ship" against "Radiant plus some support". Nobody will even notice the very Xyphos existence. Overextended ship will get overfluxed and destroyed in a matter of seconds. Only fortress shield make those seconds into something protracted enough to react to.
You need to rise the flux level for the Xyphos to be of any use in the first place. And since Remnants do use Ion beams of their own so you need to raise their flux level faster than they will do the same to you. Hence winning the flux war comes first.