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1

General Discussion / New feature idea: Non-weapon equipment slots on ships?

« on: November 03, 2023, 04:42:40 PM »

This idea has probably been floated before, but imagine this:

You can equip modules related to armor/hull, shields, engines, etc in the same way we currently equip weapons. Each ship has certain slots, of certain varieties, in certain locations. The modules drop as loot, get sold at stations, and are produced at colonies with heavy industry just as weapons are.

But this would require a total rebalancing of the fleet meta. Imagine for example, a XIV Onslaught that's completely armor-maxxed. Heavy Armor, s-modded Shield Shunt, lvl 6/elite 4 officer, plus all of the armor modules it can fit that increase its armor value. It would become invincible.

Would this new feature add to the game by giving us more options, or would it just make things too complicated? Would it create a static meta where certain ships like the aforementioned XIV Onslaught totally dominate everything else?  What do you guys think?

2

General Discussion / Modeling your fleet after a faction fleet doctrine

« on: December 27, 2022, 02:04:52 PM »

Has anyone done this before? I'm looking for an interesting challenge while I wait for the next update.

I know that you can get a list of which ships/weapons/hullmods a specific faction has access to by using the console, but what about officer skills?

Also what faction-based ship/fleet builds have you guys had success with? I'm sure some factions have it a lot easier than others. As I recall the Luddic Church has a woefully limited repertoire of ships/weapons/hullmods to choose from, even less than the Luddic Path.

3

General Discussion / Converted Hangar builds? Does this hullmod need a buff?

« on: November 17, 2022, 12:16:33 PM »

https://starsector.fandom.com/wiki/Converted_Hangar

Converts the ship's standard shuttle hangar to house a fighter bay. The improvised manufactory that produces fighter chassis is unreliable, and most components have minor defects. Fighter speed reduced by 25%, and damage taken increased by 25%.

Increases the minimum crew required by 20 to account for pilots and bay crews. Increases the ordnance point cost of bombers by 100%, and of all other fighters by 50%.

Can not be installed on frigates, phase ships, or ships that already have proper fighter bays.

OP cost: -/10/15/20

I've thought about using Converted Hangar but the pricey OP cost always turns me off from it. You have to pay OP just to install the hullmod and then you have to pay 1.5x or 2.0x the usual price for a single LPC, which is 25% slower and takes 25% more damage. Are there any Converted Hangar builds that you guys consider good, or even optimal?

Perhaps the hullmod simply needs a buff? It causes a considerable change to any ship it's used on. You're diverting lots of OP from weapons, flux stats, etc in exchange for a fighter wing that the ship normally wouldn't have. Given the recent expansion in Luddic lore which states that they make frequent use of converted hangars with Perdition Bombers, maybe Luddic Church and Luddic Path ships should get some kind of OP discount on Converted Hangar?

4

General Discussion / Explaining the sheer power of [REDACTED]? (huge spoilers)

« on: September 26, 2022, 12:34:28 PM »

Anyone who has played Starsector all the way through knows the story of the Remnant. If you don't know then like I said in the title, "huge spoilers", you'll enjoy learning about this by playing the game much more than having us spoil it for you.

I have a few questions about all this:

1) How did the Remnant spread so far outside of the Core Systems? How do they have so many fleets in so many systems? Why isn't their economy explained?

2) Why aren't they more aggressive against the Core Systems? Does their programming cause them to act in a defensive manner? Are the Remnant not dedicated to wiping out some specified enemy, but rather, following some kind of colonization/parameter defense protocol programmed into them by Tri Tachyon?

3) If Tri Tachyon has/had the resources and expertise to create these monsters, why do they struggle so much against the Hegemony and its allies? Is it simply because they cannot control their own creations? They made Skynet and Skynet gave them the finger, and now Tri Tachyon is up ***'s Creek without a paddle?

4) This one is more than a simple question, I'm positing a theory here. What can you guys tell me about Omega? Admittedly I have not exhausted the Omega content yet. Are they simply a more advanced form of AI, created by the Remnant or Tri Tachyon? Are they non-human aliens? Are they some kind of spiritual being that has crossed into the material dimension and taken over ships?

At first glance, Omega seems like the next step in the Remnant's evolution. They are super-powerful AI ships with super-powerful AI cores, beyond even the Alpha Cores. But all of the lore surrounding them, talk about violating the laws of physics, equating Omega technology with magic, the verses from the Book of Ludd, etc, makes me wonder. Are they demons? Fallen angels? Luddism is said to have descended from "Abrahamic" religions, Christianity/Islam/Judaism, and they tell us that spiritual beings - intelligent non-human persons without physical bodies - do exist.

Having browsed these forums and the discord on and off for a few years it seems like most people are reluctant to explore the possibility that, in the Starsector universe, spirits exist. But maybe that is what the Omega are, malevolent spirits, immaterial persons with minds and emotions and wills of their own, exerting some kind of telepathic control over material ships and AI cores?

5

General Discussion / New/rebalanced ship variants?

« on: September 24, 2022, 01:40:02 PM »

Pirate, Luddic Path, Hegemony, Tri Tachyon, etc. Which new ship variants, or rebalances of existing variants would you like to see?

I would like to see faction-specific variants of every ship that a faction has in its fleet doctrine, with their own buffs/debuffs and reskins. But I remember reading a post from Alex a while back saying he doesn't have plans for that. It would also raise the question of which Luddic Path ships would receive built-in Safety Overrides or not, and what the generic faction buffs/debuffs would be. In the case of factions that use lots of improvised tech such as Pirates/Luddic Path/Luddic Church, I don't think it would fit the lore for them to have a standardized buff/debuff scheme that is constant for every ship class.

As for specific ships, I'd like to see a Pirate Lasher variant, Hegemony and/or XIV Mora variant, and some kind of rebalance for the Pirate Falcon. The Lasher is one of the cheapest and most common ships in the sector with high firepower for its size and cost. This makes it a natural pick for Pirates, although I'm not sure what kind of stat changes it should receive. At the very least it should get a Pirate reskin.

Regarding the Pirate Falcon, people have known for a while that it's overpowered. Built-in Augmented Field Drive and Unstable Injector and 4x medium missile slots. Technically 2 of them are composites but nobody uses those for ballistics. It costs 20 DP vs the vanilla Falcon's 14 DP but even with that nerf it's still overpowered. It needs to be nerfed but not in a way that detracts from its role. I think the Pirate Falcon should suffer a penalty to its flux stats in exchange for all of its buffs. It will still be fast and lethal, but it shouldn't be able to fit a powerful shield tank in addition to its speed and 4x medium missiles.

The Mora's in-game description said it was designed as an escort for the Onslaught so it's puzzling why it doesn't already have a Hegemony and/or XIV variant. Not much else to say about that one.

What do you guys think? What other ships need a variant or variants? Which existing variants need rebalancing? If there was going to be a faction-specific variant of every ship in a faction's fleet doctrine, with a generic buff/debuff scheme, what would that look like for the different factions?

6

General Discussion / Expanding upon ship crewmen

« on: August 14, 2022, 01:29:43 PM »

I was going to post the following in the thread about Blast Doors: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=25121.0 
But since it's all about crew rather than the hullmod in question it might as well get its own thread.
__________________

I agree with what's been said about crew. As it stands crewmen are a disposable commodity and there's no point in caring about them. Losing crew in a battle will, at worst, inconvenience you by putting your crew count below skeleton crew and making it necessary to go buy more. You can literally buy human beings in the hundreds or even thousands and then throw them away like it's nothing and nobody cares! Not even the people you're throwing away!

Crew experience would be nice but also crew morale. If your ships are getting blasted down to the hull and dozens of crewmen are being sucked into space every battle, then it would make sense that the survivors would be a little nervous about serving under you. Their nervousness would translate into lowered job performance, crewmen going AWOL or perhaps even mutiny. Next time you're docked at a market a bunch of them might jump ship because they're afraid of being on the next casualty list.

And if you lose enough crewmen on a consistent basis perhaps you could gain a reputation for being a careless commander who throws people's lives away, making it more difficult or expensive to find crewmen?

Another factor in crew morale could be the type of ship they're serving on. Take the Gremlin's flavor text for example:
...The Gremlin, as it became known, is hated by its crew who suffer not only the dubious honour of a close-in strike role but also the disturbing wash of the prototype phase coil. Substance abuse is ubiquitous. An awful little ship.
It would make sense that some ships would be easier and more comfortable to serve on than others. A ship like the Gremlin would suffer a constant morale penalty while more luxurious ships would give a morale bonus.

There should also be different types of crewmen. The skillset needed by an engines maintainer is not the same as the skillset of a computer maintainer, or a gunner, or a fighter pilot, or a chow hall chef or a helmsman. This could also translate into a new planetary industry. If you're going to have specially trained crewmen you will need some kind of technical school or academy where they're all trained, won't you?

Of course this would all be a lot to code into the game and if it ever does happen, I don't expect it to happen soon. If anything a modder would get to it first. It would also add another dimension of advantage/disadvantage that would need to be balanced to prevent certain ships and certain playstyles from being over/underpowered.

What do you guys think?

7

General Discussion / Should there be a culture system to better flesh out the various factions?

« on: August 12, 2022, 06:38:46 PM »

The impending expansion of Luddic lore brings to mind an idea I had for Starsector recently. Should/can there be a culture system introduced to go along with factions? I don't know the first thing about programming so I'm not sure how burdensome it would be to introduce such a feature. Also I am aware off Nexerelin and its introduction of faction alignments and that is similar to what I'm talking about.

But to my point - take the Pirate faction for instance. They're all the same faction as a means of representing the role they play in the sector, their means, etc. But when you read about the lore of various pirate hideouts you quickly realize they are not the same culture, ideology, etc as one another and the only reason they are all being referred to as "The Pirates" is because they all use piracy as a means to get pursue their goals.

Two examples of this would be the "Askonian Revolutionary Council" of Umbra, and Jorien Kanta of Kanta's Den. ARC are political ideologues who have found themselves on the losing end of a conflict and are doing what they have to in order to survive. Jorien Kanta on the other hand, is simply a bandit. She does not appear to have any guiding ethic, ideology, religion, etc. Only a cruel and selfish desire for power and wealth and mayhem which she makes no effort to disguise with some pretense of morality.

Introducing a culture system would allow more nuance in how the Pirates, Luddic Path (despite all of them being hardline Luddics they are said to be decentralized so I'm including them), and especially Independents are represented. They can be divided up into many different factions and their similarities can be represented by culture. ARC and Kanta both practice piracy and would thus have "Pirate" as their culture, but they're definitely not the same faction with the same goals or even the same means.

Regarding the means of various Pirate factions, the skill Wolfpack Tactics gives us a quote from Kanta stating that she prefers frigate gangs to larger ships. That is another distinction between Kanta and some other pirate groups (not implying Kanta has a monopoly on frigate gangs). Same thing would go for Pathers and especially Independents, not every LP or Indie world has the same fleet composition, officer personalities, etc.

But what should this culture system actually do in-game? And how should it be implemented - each faction has its own culture? Each planet has its own culture? Perhaps both in order to represent worlds like Mazalot, which is mostly inhabited by Luddics but is ruled by the non-Luddic Persean League?
The most obvious impact of culture would be its effects on diplomacy between factions and, if there are cultures for both factions and planets, the interactions between rulers and subjects. What else?

EDIT: Just dawned on me there's an entire board for this type of thread. Sorry!
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0

8

General Discussion / Do any damage bonuses affect EMP damage?

« on: August 06, 2022, 11:13:31 PM »

Certain weapons such as the ion cannon deal two types of damage. Normal damage that kills stuff and EMP damage that temporarily disables ship systems. Are there any damage bonuses that would affect the EMP damage of such weapons?

For example, the skill Energy Weapon Mastery and the ship system Targeting Feed. If I build a ship equipped with ion cannons and give it an officer who has EWM would that increase the EMP damage of the ion cannons along with the normal damage? If I equip a Heron with Claw fighters will their EMP damage be increased when the Heron uses Targeting Feed?

My question isn't just limited to those two things, I'd like to know if there is *any* way to boost EMP damage on ship weapons and fighter wings. Or perhaps some way to lengthen the disabling effect? Some way to buff it.

9

General Discussion / Trash to treasure - How to make use of 'those' ships?

« on: January 31, 2022, 10:44:15 AM »

You know, THOSE ships. The ones you always see but never use. The enemy loves to throw a screen of them at you in most battles and you always see a ton of them in shipyards.

There's a glut of them in the Frigate class, such as the various shuttles (Hermes, Kite, Mercury, etc). In the Destroyer class you have ships like the Buffalo Mk.II and the Gemini. Cruisers, the Colossus Mk.II and Mk.III. And in the Capital class you have the Prometheus Mk.II. I tried making the Prometheus Mk.II work before, and frankly it doesn't have anything going for it aside from a higher than average top speed for its class.

Starsector doesn't make it easy to use a quantity-over-quality strategy. Even if you take the Hull Restoration skill or install Reinforced Bulkheads on all of your ships to reduce the chance of them being destroyed (as opposed to disabled) in a battle, it's still very costly and inconvenient to constantly restock on supplies and crew to keep your fleet in shape.

The recent patch has taken a rather big step towards quantity-over-quality being viable (Hull Restoration and Support Doctrine skills, and built-in Rugged Construction hullmods on certain ships) but it's not quite there yet. Especially when it comes to fighting capital-heavy fleets and stations, you need large "elite" ships that can tank and dish out tons of damage to stand a chance in that sort of fight.

Since nearly all of 'those' ships full under the category of cheap, disposable cannon fodder, quantity-over-quality is really the only sort of playstyle in which they would be useful.

10

General Discussion / Maxing out Carrier Group & Fighter Uplink?

« on: January 28, 2022, 11:23:16 AM »

Is it worth limiting yourself to only 8 total fighter bays to max these skills out? What fighter wings and carriers are valuable enough to build your fleet around these two skills?

11

General Discussion / Builds for the new/updated ships introduced in 0.95.1a

« on: January 01, 2022, 09:30:51 PM »

I decided to wait a couple weeks until the hotfixes dropped, so I haven't completed a playthrough in 0.95.1a yet. But here's what I've got so far:

Eradicator
Weapons:
2x Assault Chainguns in the forward medium ballistic slots
1x Heavy Needler in the remaining medium ballistic
4x Vulcan Cannons - 2 in the forward small ballistics, 1 on each side slot
Hullmods:
Armored Weapon Mounts
Integrated Targeting Unit
Heavy Armor
Resistant Flux Conduits
Flux:
16 capacitors
30 vents

This is assuming you have no officer or built-in hullmods. The two forward-facing vulcans are enough to shoot down a reaper torpedo, assuming it is fired from a distance and they're focused solely on the reaper. The two assault chainguns combined with the 40% range boost from ITU and the Accelerated Ammo Feeder system are devastating to anything that gets within range. The heavy needler has much greater range than the chainguns and it pressures the enemy's shield before the Eradicator closes in with the chainguns.

I decided to go with armor hullmods because the Eradicator is a low tech ship with predictably weak shields, 1.0 damage/flux ratio, and strong armor. And I took Resistant Flux Conduits mainly for the EMP resistance. I always try to fit that into my ship builds.

This is a rudimentary build that I haven't put much time or experimentation into, but so far it has done very well for me. And I'm glad to see the assault chaingun finally putting in some work outside of my Luddic Path Brawler build.

What builds have you guys come up with so far? Eradicator, Manticore, any of the new or updated ships.

12

General Discussion / Fixing the Prometheus Mk.II

« on: September 08, 2021, 02:40:57 AM »

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?

13

General Discussion / Balancing High Tech ships against those other two?

« on: August 24, 2021, 06:26:25 PM »

If you've played Starsector for even a few hours you know about the tremendous power gap between High Tech ships and, uhh, the other two.
This isn't a uniform power gap. There are a few midline and low tech ships that are good, perhaps even optimal, when measured against high tech ships. Drover, Gryphon, Onslaught, and the Luddic Path variants of the Lasher and Brawler come to mind.

But generally speaking high tech ships take the cake by a wide margin. Unless you're doing some sort of challenge run you're going to roll with high tech ships.

I don't believe in balance through homogenization. I don't think high tech ships' combat stats should be nerfed until they're as weak as midline and low tech. Instead I think they should be nerfed in a logistic sense, relegating them to an elite role. A rare and expensive ship that outperforms most other ships, but is limited in numbers because of their rarity and cost.

It should be far more costly to purchase/build/maintain high tech ships and build high tech orbital stations. They should cost more in terms of both supplies and fuel. They should be much more difficult to acquire. And I think they should require special facilities to repair at dock.

If the player wants to field a fleet composed of nothing but high tech ships, they will have to pay through the nose. It would be virtually impossible to do without a developed empire providing a high monthly income.

And perhaps a diplomatic penalty? You already take heat from other factions for using AI cores, maybe if you have a disproportionate number of high tech stations and ships in your fleet(s), you should take heat from other factions for that? What do you guys think?

14

General Discussion / Dealing with endgame faction fleets?

« on: August 20, 2021, 04:27:15 PM »

It's been a while since I've played Starsector and .95a has come out since then. I've reached the endgame in my current playthrough. I don't know how much the ships and weapons have changed or if I've just forgotten how to command my fleet, but I'm having trouble with those giant doomstacks the AI sends to siege your planets.

Right now I'm up against two Luddic Church invasion fleets. They have a combined 6x Legions and 10x Dominators along with other various ships, and my fleet gets overwhelmed every time. I do well at first but they they eventually roll over me. I only have 160 deployment points because their fleet outnumbers mine by so much.

Here's what I have:

1x Paragon
Flux stats: 60 capacitor, 37 vents
Hullmods: Advanced Targeting Core (comes with the ship), Augmented Field Drive, ECM Package, Hardened Shields (built in), Auxiliary Thrusters, Expanded Magazine, Flux Coil Adjunct, Reinforced Bulkheads, Resistant Flux Conduits, Stabilized Shields.
Weapons: 4x Autopulse Laser, 2x Phase Lance, 2x Heavy Needler, 4x Burst Laser.

3x Astral (same build for all three)
Flux stats: 60 capacitor, 51 vents
Hullmods: Advanced Optics (comes with the ship), Augmented Field Drive, Expanded Missile Racks, Hardened Shields (built in), Expanded Deck Crew, Stabilized Shields
Weapons: 2x Locust SRM Launcher
Fighters: 2x Lux Heavy Fighter, 4x Flash Bomber

So what do you guys recommend? I experimented with my Paragon build a bit, using tachyons and plasma cannons instead of autopulses. I know most people build their Paragon like a sniper with 4x tachyons but in my experience autopulses work better, because the Paragon always ends up surrounded by ships.

The Astrals are great. Dual locusts make sure that any fighters or frigates that come near are destroyed, and the flash bombers deal tons of damage to large targets like capital ships and stations. I read somewhere that the Astral's ship system (teleportation for fighters) uses flux so I emphasized flux stats over weapons. Besides, the Astral's front-facing 2x medium energy and 3x small energy slots won't do much if an enemy capital ship gets up in its face.

In my experience anything smaller than a capital ship tends to just die in a huge battle like this. There are so much ships, so many fighters and projectiles flying around, that I just can't justify bringing cruisers or destroyers. Not to mention they have lower CR and will weaken much quicker than a capital ship in a lengthy fight like this.

If I expand my fleet too much I'll take a daily CR penalty. How do I get around that so I'm not limited to 160 deployment points every time I encounter a large enemy fleet? If I could bring all 4 of my capitals into this fight I could probably win without much trouble but I can't.

Any advice would be appreciated.

edit: I already have battle size turned up all the way to 400 in the settings.

15

General Discussion / Best interceptor frigate & loadout?

« on: September 17, 2019, 08:11:01 AM »

I'm looking for a frigate that can reliably chase down and finish off the remnants of a fleet that survive the initial battle and try to flee along with the civilian ships. I built myself some Wolves since they seem well-suited to chasing down survivors, but quickly realized that their AI sucks. They're very cowardly, they spend 90% of their time just dancing around enemy ships. They shield-tank a bunch of damage, run away to vent flux, zoom in to get 1-2 hits with their main weapon (I gave them phase lances), shield-tank a bunch of damage, run away to vent flux, so on and so forth.

I need a frigate that fits the following criteria: fast, lots of firepower, and above all it needs to be aggressive enough to actually use its firepower and get some kills. Like I said in the first paragraph I'm not looking for support frigates to assist larger ships. I'm looking for an interceptor that can quickly and effectively chase down and shred through fleeing civilian ships and damaged warships.