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General Discussion / Re: What's Your Ideal Salvage Fleet?
« on: December 10, 2019, 01:40:06 PM »
There's several ideal salvage fleet concepts, depending on what you want to do. But generally speaking you want four things:
- A fair bit of surveying equipment
- Good sensors (remember that only your best five ships count)
- Enough fuel to get you there and back again
- A lot of cargo capacity
- Finally, enough combat capabilities to fight anything that can catch you, or sufficient ship speed to run away.
Early on you may want a high-speed, burn 10 fleet that can easily disengage from any battle it finds itself in. Some good ships here are:
Shepherd: A staple hull for the purpose, you'll want at least four or five in any serious surveying fleet. Put unstable injector on it if you're not interested in fighting. If you are interested in fighting, they can do a surprisingly decent support job with a salamander launcher and their built-in drone wing, but expect to lose them as their defenses are negligible.
Tempest: An excellent frigate that packs a serious punch. With good piloting, you can take down a LOT of pirates or automated defense drones in a single player-controlled Tempest. A handful of these can take on medium-sized fleets, but be aware that the AI will get itself blown up from time to time. Also, the Tempest remains useful in a support role even in bigger fleets, especially with a safety-overriden loadout to hunt fleeing enemies in pursuit battles.
Omen: A very good support frigate with built-in high-res sensors. Not very useful in combat on its own, though.
Dram: The only sensible way to get enough fuel capacity for deep-space expeditions at this burn level. Very fast with safety overrides and unstable injector, will never be caught in pursuit.
Your main problem with the smallest crafts is that there are no good cargo hauler options. You'll probably have to rely on the cargo hold of your Shepherd fleet to carry whatever valuables you scrounge up.
If you have the navigation skills to make burn 9 equivalent to burn 10, a lot of new options emerge. Many of these have more trouble running away from frigate-sized enemies, though, so you might need to screen them in a disengagement battle or otherwise be ready to fight the enemy at least to a clean disengage.
Buffalo: This is a pretty decent hauler, particularly the Hegemony Auxiliary variant that gets militarized by default, which allows it an extra logistics hullmod. Use these with expanded cargo holds + surveying equipment or high-res sensors as needed.
Phaeton: A slightly more efficient Dram.
Colossus: A slightly awkward fit at burn 9. You'll need to slap on an augmented drive field, which means it can't do serious sensor work or fit expanded cargo hold without penalties. You could use them for hosting surveying equipment, and they get good cargo capacity even without hullmods.
Atlas or Prometheus: If you can get hold of one, consider taking the opportunity. Both can be militarized and given augmented drive field to make them burn 9. They're very efficient in terms of fleet slots as well as cargo or fuel capacity respectively, and on top of that you get capital-grade sensors. Main downside is that neither of these are quick enough to flee in a pursuit battle, so you need to be able to avoid unwanted fights. Also, only bigger fleets should need the fuel capacity of a Prometheus.
Salvage Rig: The 25% salvage bonus stacks fully with whatever bonus you have from your Shepherds. Bringing one of these along is typically worthwhile.
Drover: These light carriers add a lot of fighter punch for their cost, and there's enough OP that you can run two logistics hullmods if you want to. These are great ships all around. Go wild with acquisitions.
Falcon: A very nice cruiser-sized combat ship to support your Drovers. Very fast and low-maintenance for a cruiser. Use them as pure combat vessels, or put on some logistics hullmods for a hybrid- they make excellent sensor/survey monkeys on the side.
If you go down to burn 8, you open up a lot of good combat cruisers, and notably the Apogee, which doubles as an excellent sensor/survey ship. At this stage you probably want to plan your expeditions around taking out bounty targets. Admittedly this is also possible with a burn 9 fleet if you include enough combat ships (eg Drovers and Falcons).
Final pro tip: If you have enough combat ships in your fleet to bully away smaller groups of pirates and luddites, you can use their deep space stations as staging points for your expeditions instead of destroying them for the bounty. Just approach with transponder off. This can make the back and forth trips to resupply significantly shorter.
- A fair bit of surveying equipment
- Good sensors (remember that only your best five ships count)
- Enough fuel to get you there and back again
- A lot of cargo capacity
- Finally, enough combat capabilities to fight anything that can catch you, or sufficient ship speed to run away.
Early on you may want a high-speed, burn 10 fleet that can easily disengage from any battle it finds itself in. Some good ships here are:
Shepherd: A staple hull for the purpose, you'll want at least four or five in any serious surveying fleet. Put unstable injector on it if you're not interested in fighting. If you are interested in fighting, they can do a surprisingly decent support job with a salamander launcher and their built-in drone wing, but expect to lose them as their defenses are negligible.
Tempest: An excellent frigate that packs a serious punch. With good piloting, you can take down a LOT of pirates or automated defense drones in a single player-controlled Tempest. A handful of these can take on medium-sized fleets, but be aware that the AI will get itself blown up from time to time. Also, the Tempest remains useful in a support role even in bigger fleets, especially with a safety-overriden loadout to hunt fleeing enemies in pursuit battles.
Omen: A very good support frigate with built-in high-res sensors. Not very useful in combat on its own, though.
Dram: The only sensible way to get enough fuel capacity for deep-space expeditions at this burn level. Very fast with safety overrides and unstable injector, will never be caught in pursuit.
Your main problem with the smallest crafts is that there are no good cargo hauler options. You'll probably have to rely on the cargo hold of your Shepherd fleet to carry whatever valuables you scrounge up.
If you have the navigation skills to make burn 9 equivalent to burn 10, a lot of new options emerge. Many of these have more trouble running away from frigate-sized enemies, though, so you might need to screen them in a disengagement battle or otherwise be ready to fight the enemy at least to a clean disengage.
Buffalo: This is a pretty decent hauler, particularly the Hegemony Auxiliary variant that gets militarized by default, which allows it an extra logistics hullmod. Use these with expanded cargo holds + surveying equipment or high-res sensors as needed.
Phaeton: A slightly more efficient Dram.
Colossus: A slightly awkward fit at burn 9. You'll need to slap on an augmented drive field, which means it can't do serious sensor work or fit expanded cargo hold without penalties. You could use them for hosting surveying equipment, and they get good cargo capacity even without hullmods.
Atlas or Prometheus: If you can get hold of one, consider taking the opportunity. Both can be militarized and given augmented drive field to make them burn 9. They're very efficient in terms of fleet slots as well as cargo or fuel capacity respectively, and on top of that you get capital-grade sensors. Main downside is that neither of these are quick enough to flee in a pursuit battle, so you need to be able to avoid unwanted fights. Also, only bigger fleets should need the fuel capacity of a Prometheus.
Salvage Rig: The 25% salvage bonus stacks fully with whatever bonus you have from your Shepherds. Bringing one of these along is typically worthwhile.
Drover: These light carriers add a lot of fighter punch for their cost, and there's enough OP that you can run two logistics hullmods if you want to. These are great ships all around. Go wild with acquisitions.
Falcon: A very nice cruiser-sized combat ship to support your Drovers. Very fast and low-maintenance for a cruiser. Use them as pure combat vessels, or put on some logistics hullmods for a hybrid- they make excellent sensor/survey monkeys on the side.
If you go down to burn 8, you open up a lot of good combat cruisers, and notably the Apogee, which doubles as an excellent sensor/survey ship. At this stage you probably want to plan your expeditions around taking out bounty targets. Admittedly this is also possible with a burn 9 fleet if you include enough combat ships (eg Drovers and Falcons).
Final pro tip: If you have enough combat ships in your fleet to bully away smaller groups of pirates and luddites, you can use their deep space stations as staging points for your expeditions instead of destroying them for the bounty. Just approach with transponder off. This can make the back and forth trips to resupply significantly shorter.
