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Messages - Maeleth

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1
General Discussion / Re: Atlas - Most useful ship in the game?
« on: January 18, 2022, 02:02:46 AM »
While I agree capital ships will have more terrain penalties, slowing you down, and the logistics capitals have a max burn speed of 9 without skills, I don't see how it puts a dent in your supply/fuel economy.  Can you give an example?

Sure thing.
Say you got hit by a storm or an asteroid. Due to CR restoration mechanic you're going to pay dozens of supplies for Atlas, while smaller ships are much more manageable. Your burn speed became 15 inside a nebula? Now your whole fleet is going to reach its destinations a bit later, consuming more supplies and spending more on crew wages (not to mention your own sanity, flying at those speeds is bad for your health). Doesn't really happen with pure frigate/destroyer 10 base burn fleet. A-and you've spent precious SP on a ship you simply might not want later in the game. A-and let us not forget the Salvage Gantry. Free loot, anyone?

So, what about eventual combat scenarios? Got caught with your pants down and forced to retreat? Smaller ships are no problem, Buffalo/Phaeton with UI might stand a decent chance. But Atlas? Yeah, that thing is dead and gone. Really early into a playthrough Shepherds provide Salamander spam and basic PD/distraction, while later on you can simply repurpose them with converted hangar or even scuttle without a second thought. You have options. Atlas provides none, it's there to haul stuff. Stuff you might not even find, depending on your luck (for example, in may latest game I've found exactly one pile of precious loot, 1k volatiles and 1,5k transplutonics, in about 2 years of exploration).

In the end I'd say it's only a matter of personal preference. If trading doesn't bore you to tears - go for it, Atlas is great for its intended purpose. Otherwise there are far better options to play with.

2
General Discussion / Re: Atlas - Most useful ship in the game?
« on: January 17, 2022, 03:12:48 AM »
Well, I have to disagree with you, OP.
It's a capital ship, which will considerably slow you down (even with burn 20 penalties do still apply to the difficult terrain movement) and put a dent in your supply/fuel economy. Early game you can't really afford it (both the price of a ship and its logistical profile), and you're not limited by the 30 ships cap. Destroyer sized haulers are good enough, while Shepherd is a top tier pick with Converted Fighter Bays+Expanded Cargo Holds combo.

Late game (or past the first few years if you're not a complete newbie) credits become practically worthless, thus there is no reason to pick up anything besides supplies and fuel. If you absolutely love to roam outside the Core with the full 300DP fleet for months and months then yeah, I can totally see the appeal. Otherwise there is absolutely no reason to haul around this slow, vulnerable, fuel guzzling monstrosity.

3
General Discussion / Re: Your favorite mod ship
« on: January 08, 2022, 01:09:28 AM »
I absolutely love Vesper frigate from Dassault-Mikoyan. It looks great, very fun to fly and safe to drive even with reckless officer.

2nd place would probably go to (LI) version of Hresvelgr. The design is top notch, and its combat capabilities are nothing to scoff at.

And lastly I'd like to mention the Doominator. Because, well, it's Dominator, but with phase coils! Might not be an optimal pick all around, but fits perfectly in the current phase meta. Also, did I mention it's a phase-capable Dominator?

4
2x Assault Chainguns in the forward medium ballistic slots
1x Heavy Needler in the remaining medium ballistic

Why? Just... why-y-y? Chaingun requires sustained kinetic support during AAF bursts, otherwise you're losing a good portion of hull/armor damage due to shield flickering.

Also, with this build you're basically paying premium for a Hammerhead with worse KE mounts and lower mobility. Plus, good ol' Hammer can dart in and out (or strafe with shift+movement) thanks to its high acceleration and low inertia, whereas Eradicator is forced to facetank all the incoming damage while packing low-ish destroyer level of firepower.

Maybe I'm totally wrong, but I just don't see it as being cost-efficient or, well, efficient at all.

5
General Discussion / Re: anybody using OP for ship modules?
« on: December 25, 2021, 11:58:41 PM »
Yep, I'm very reluctant with non-vital hullmods (ITU, HShields, HSubs, EMR, HA, RFC) for a given ship role. Better weapons/fighters/flux stats is my usual go-to.

6
Basically never, yeah. Most of the time I'd even ignore a double small/single medium missile slots (Hammerhead, Shrike, etc.) for the sake of better survivability, deeper flux pool, stronger weapons or whatever the ship in question requires to stay competent at its given role.

Most of the time your mentally challenged comrades would dump all available ordnance into the first thing they encounter, while the battle lines are still forming and slower, more dangerous ships taking their sweet time to arrive. If this does not happen for some reason, the following list of events usually happens:
1) Missiles miss their intended target
2) Missiles hit the intended target, cause it to overload and promptly retreat to a safe&secure position behind friendlies
3) Missiles get blown up by PD/interceptors/random shots/grav beams/what have you
4) In case of guided missiles, they tend to overkill their target and waste multiple racks of ammo on multiple ships just to deal with a single Mule or whatnot
5) Everything goes according to plan, target is crippled or dead

It all comes down to one simple question of "what is the probability of AI successfully using a missile and why would I gamble on this chance instead of getting a stronger, more reliable vessel?".

7
General Discussion / Re: Mining blaster vs heavy blaster which one to use?
« on: November 07, 2021, 12:53:07 AM »
... I'd also say not to use either of those weapons on a Shrike or Wolf unless your fleet has no other anti-armor... pretty much my number 1 pet peeve when it comes to Shrikes is people putting on blasters then complaining it doesn't do well vs shields!

I'd argue that this is true only for officerless Shrike, without Smods or any additional advantages. HB is the only weapon worth putting on a Shrike (aside from Ion Pulser+Unstable Injector support variant).

I've had a huge success going for 200k+ deserter bounties with a pure Shrike/frigates setup. Works like a charm every time, and they never ever die.

8
Just as a previous poster, I prefer to train a general archetype of officer for a certain composition of the fleet (tanks with every possible defensive skill, hybrids with missile+regular guns or fighter+missile, pure support PD/salamander boats, and so on).

The only type of ship I'd be willing to tailor an officer for would be a unique modded uberboat with unusual weapon mounts or active system.

9
General Discussion / Re: Is it the end of system override?
« on: March 24, 2021, 01:16:18 AM »
IMO the only hard nerf for AC is lowered armor penetration, which in turn means "popping heavy cruisers in one go" is going to be less probable.
Honestly I've never even used SO on any ship after a hour or two into the game due to a wide variety of downsides (huge OP cost, no vent, extremely limited PPT and range), so nothing is going to change in my tactics.

10
General Discussion / Re: Which missiles do you use for Drover
« on: March 23, 2021, 02:16:43 AM »
Depends on the fleet composition. Harpoons if I have lots of missiles already, and at least a few fighters with flares. Swarmers if we're really hurting in PD department. Salamanders+ECCM if there are enough fighters to not care about EDC and replacement rate, which is almost always true.

11
General Discussion / Re: Why does anyone like these ships?
« on: January 31, 2021, 01:39:58 AM »
Cannot tell you anything about Mora since I consider this ship a waste of supplies. I'd rather pick Condor than this pile of garbage. The only selling point of this ship is durability, although by the time you can afford lugging around a burn 8 bathtub with you, enemies would probably have capitals. Good luck surviving at front lines against big boys!

Lasher is a perfect pack of speed, firepower and durability for a low, low price both in credits and DP. Unlike Brawler it probably would not die to a random missile. Unlike Brawler it has an option of retreating due to having better speed and maneuverability. Definitely the best alternative to Omen/Tempest, I always have a couple of those bad boys under my command until late game.

Shrike is also extremely cheap, and highly versatile to boot. It can support you fleet with pilums/salamanders, fighters from CH and a nice array of PD. It can tank in a pinch with it's effective shield and huge flux pool. It can be aggressive and suicidal with a healty mix of sabots, HB and lasers. It can brawl, disable, pursue. Basically anything!
But the best thing about Shrike? You don't care if it actually blows up. 26k is a laughable price, and with an officer you can restore it over and over again, until you are ready to discard the old and purchase a new one.

12
General Discussion / Re: Ship tier list
« on: January 03, 2021, 03:32:04 AM »
So I was thinking about which ship is stronger

Stronger at doing what, exactly? And at what point of the game? AI controlled or in player's hands?

 Nothing beats Salvage Rig if your aim is self-sustaining fleet, same goes for Shepherd and early game exploration/looting. Gryphon/Pirate Falcon/Doom/etc is a mean beast, capable of deleting entire fleets in human hands, while being pretty meh support vessel under AIs. Dominator is a powerhouse that will plow through early game fleets without any effort, but at later stages it turns into punching bag with zero chances of survival. And so on, and so forth...

13
General Discussion / Re: Poll: Paragon with Large Synergy Turrets
« on: December 02, 2020, 01:38:33 AM »
Probably never. Paragon is a ship I'd bring to a long, drawn out fight with multiple rounds or while being heavily outnumbered. I need it to sit in a middle of my battle line and shoot at stuff for 20 minutes straight. Sustained damage is always better if you're fighting uphill, especially in hands of trigger happy AI.

14
What about all of the capital ships in the game?

They're also faster than Apogee, at least in one direction. Except for the obvious Paragon, a-and also Astral, with which you'd probably never want to reinforce anything.

15
Beam loadouts are not terrible either. Not as good but certainly good enough. A HIL coming in from the unshielded flank is dangerous as hell.

True, but why not field a Sunder instead? It's pretty common and costs less, has more mobility, plus twice (actually more, depending on actual weapons) the forward facing DPS, with enough hard flux damage to be a threat by itself.

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