The Prometheus Mk.II is the worst capital ship in the game. This isn't very surprising since it's a converted civilian ship, and exclusive to the Luddic Path who are known for their crappy low tech fleets riddled with d-mods. If you're not familiar with this ship I don't blame you. It's extremely hard to find, I vaguely recall seeing it once or twice in a Pather fleet, and I forget why there was a Pather fleet that large in the first place.
The only reliable means of obtaining a Prometheus is to be on friendly terms with the Luddic Path and have a commission with them so you can buy one from a Pather military world. But wait, it gets even better! Neither of the Luddic Path's two starting planets, Chalcedon and Epiphany, are military worlds. So if you want to buy one you'll have to conquer a military world for them. I'm currently attempting a Pather playthrough ("Osama bin Ludden" needs your prayers!), so I'm going to be using them to go along with the faction theme.
In this thread I will give an overview of the Prometheus Mk.II's stats, and propose what I feel are reasonable buffs that make it a fun and viable choice, while still keeping it in line with its theme of a fuel tanker that's been haphazardly converted into a battleship by a bunch of desperado space terrorists.
First let's talk about the statline of the Prometheus.
Speed: Burn speed 6, top speed 50.
Defenses: 11,000 hull integrity and 1,300 armor, and a 180 degree shield with 225 flux upkeep and 1.2 flux per shield damage.
Weapons: 1x large missile turret, 2x large hybrid turrets (ballistic and energy), 2x medium ballistic turrets, 8x small ballistics turrets, and 2x fighter bays.
System/Hullmods: Burn Drive, and Civilian-grade hull.
Logistics: 32 deployment points, 20% CR per deployment, 720 peak performance.
The only clear advantage the Prometheus has over other capital ships is its top speed of 50. The Prometheus is quite fast in combat especially with its Burn Drive. But as many others have pointed out the Burn Drive cannot be cancelled mid-burn, both the player and the AI can easily misuse it and wind up surrounded. On the map, its pathetic burn speed of 6 requires you to take the Augmented Drive Field and Militarized Subsystems hullmods and take the Navigation skill in order to reach 20/20 burn speed.
The Prometheus only manages to beat the Atlas Mk.II in terms of defenses. Due to its low flux stats and crappy shield it should be armor-modded.
The weapons are OK. Two fighter bays is always nice to have. The forward-facing large missile hardpoint is clearly meant for the thematic Hammer Barrage. The two large hybrid turrets (ballistic and energy) are in the middle of the ship, limiting their range a bit, and since you only have 220 ordnance points you'll have trouble balancing your build to allow for pricier weapons. It also has two diagonal-facing medium ballistics, which can intersect across the front of the ship. It has 5 small ballistics on the left side and 3 on the right, all of them facing outward, clearly meant for PD.
Its deployment cost of 32 is clearly unjustified. The Prometheus is inferior even to the Atlas Mk.II which, in spite of its pathetic stats, can still be useful as a cheap gunboat due to its Accelerated Ammo Feeder system, and the Atlas Mk.II only costs 24 deployment points. The CR per deployment of 20% is slightly high compared to other capitals, and the peak performance of 720 is average.
I've done some simulations and fought a few real battles with the Prometheus. Here's the build I've come up with:
Flux: 31 capacitors, 60 vents
Hullmods: Augmented Drive Field (built-in), Heavy Armor (built-in), Militarized Subsystems (built-in), and Integrated Targeting Unit.
Weapons: 1x Locust SRM Launcher, 2x Mark IX Autocannon, 2x Heavy Autocannon, 2x Light Dual Machine Gun, and 2x Piranha Bomber.
The idea is to bring down shields with my ballistic turrets, provide some PD, bomber cover and finishing damage with the locust, and deal most of my damage with the Piranhas. It's not horrible but you could easily do better with ships of a similar or lesser deployment point cost. Against frontline capitals like the Onslaught and the Paragon it melts like butter, but that's hardly surprising since the Prometheus is a hybrid ship and not a dedicated brawler.
Here are my recommendations for buffing for the Prometheus, while staying true to its origin as a converted fuel tanker:
1) Change the 2x large hybrids into large universals, so you can turn the Prometheus into a dedicated missile boat. You can't make it a passable frontline brawler without transforming it into a completely different ship, so you might as well make it a missile boat. Plus having 3x locusts on a single ship would be fun.
2) Change the ship's system from Burn Drive to something that won't get it killed within the first minute of a fight. I'm thinking either Fast Missile Racks or Flare Launcher.
However, a recent dev diary from Alex provides another potential option in the future:
https://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/05/28/a-tale-of-two-tech-levels/Introducing: Termination Sequence. When activated, it supercharges one of the drones and sends it off after the selected target, like a missile. It deals massive energy and EMP damage – and since the drone itself is the missile, it’s quite tough compared to most other missiles. Uniquely among missiles, it can also shoot at the target (or anything else it pleases) while on approach.Alex proposed this new ship system for the Tempest. It sounds like a high tech system since it causes the Tempest to "supercharge" one of its drones and deal EMP damage, so in order to keep with the theme of the Prometheus, it would require a low tech equivalent. Something that deals high explosive damage instead of energy and EMP damage, causing the fighters to suicide into an enemy ship without the high tech energy mumbo-jumbo. Flavor-wise, this would be no problem for a fanatical Pather pilot who is eager to die for the cause. We could call it "Kamikaze" or "Suicide Run", something like that. It would make cheap interceptors like the Talon Interceptor Wing quite useful and add more flavor to the Luddic Path.
Although it's not really a ship system, more of a tactical choice by the fighter pilots, but whatever.
3) Give the Prometheus a free hullmod to make up for its low ordnance points. Before you think "Safety Overrides!" because the other Pather ships have it built-in, no, that's not available for capital ships. I recommend Heavy Armor. The flavor text for the Prometheus Mk.II mentions that it has been fitted with "huge armour plates" so it makes sense, and Heavy Armor is an expensive hullmod that you'll probably want to take anyway. And besides, the armor difference between the regular Prometheus (1200 armor) and the Mk.II (1300 armor) is only 100. It's not much of an upgrade. Counting the free hullmod, the total ordnance points of the Prometheus Mk.II will increase from 220 to a much more workable 260.
That's all I've got to say. I'll continue with my Pather playthrough and continue experimenting with the Prometheus Mk.II. What do you guys think?