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16

Suggestions / Re: When shields are lowered, unventable flux should decrease before ventable flux?

« on: March 26, 2012, 03:44:54 AM »

their only means of discharging unventable flux is to perform a full purge mid-combat.

You could hold fire with X and just flicker you shield to vent.

You can actually overload a pure energy weapon ship using this method without even firing your weapons. Some of the energy weapons (Heavy Blaster I'm looking at you) are so flux inefficient that the ship firing the weapon builds up flux faster than the ship passively blocking them with shield, this is especially evident when the blocking ship have high flux/damage ratio like 0.5.

17

General Discussion / Re: Conquest Outfitting

« on: March 26, 2012, 03:35:59 AM »

a dual MIRV strike.

This, this is how you use the missiles on a Conquest. MIRV doesn't requite you to turn head on to use so it's perfect for broadside, they are also very difficult to intercept for stock ships even with flak cannons because they split up just about at flak cannon's max range. Only capital ships with integrated targeting unit and single flak (longer range than dual flak) can reliable stop MIRV missiles before their split. Since none of the stock variants have integrated targeting unit, as long as you can bring down their shield a MIRV strike can hit the hull with impunity flak or no flak. Hit from a pair of MIRV is enough to seriously damage cruisers and nuke even Onslaught armour, Once the section of armour facing you is gone your can then fire your shield killing kinetic weapons into the hole and do full damage to the hull underneath.

18

General Discussion / Re: Campaign Questions

« on: March 24, 2012, 08:41:26 AM »

In the previous 0.50a version cap all point does prevent enemy reinforcement, but it made the game crap because it became a race to field as many 200 speed interceptors as possible to cap out the enemy. It was removed in this version to stop fighters from having that kind of dominating impact in a battle.

19

General Discussion / Re: Apogee

« on: March 24, 2012, 12:37:14 AM »

Compared to Tactical Laser, IR Pulse Laser generates twice the flux/s for 1/3 more damage, 20% more OP and 20% less range. 75 more flux/s for 31 more DPS, 1 more OP and 100 SU less range is a pretty bad deal in my opinion. If DPS is what I need I'll much rather use that flux and OP to get a Heavy Blaster over Pulse Laser for Apogee's main weapon. Heavy blaster's big chunks of damage is much more likely to overload shield and for 2 more OP over Pulse Laser you get 173 more DPS, that's a lot more than 62 DPS you get upgrading two Tactical Lasers to IR Pulse Lasers, even if it does come at the cost of flux.

20

General Discussion / Re: Apogee

« on: March 23, 2012, 11:41:36 PM »

IR Pulse Laser is only 500SU range though, so they don't match up as well with the 600SU Pulse Laser and Heavy Blaster

21

General Discussion / Re: Apogee

« on: March 23, 2012, 11:32:50 PM »

But but, all i have is my apogee and two broadswords, and i normally take down pirate armadas. Wait for my HIL to force them to shut off their shield for a few to vent a little to keep from overloading, then hit them with ABs, normally 1-2 shot anything short of the heaviest cruiser doing that.

HIL is pretty crap. Aside from lance and plasma cannon none of the other large energy weapons are any good. If you don't have access to either you're better off putting tactical lasers and pulse laser/heavy blaster on the front and use MIRV and Harpoon for strike when shields are down.

22

General Discussion / Re: Freighters

« on: March 23, 2012, 09:09:10 PM »

I say we need a fast, blockade running destroyer class freighter. Something like a Medusa with less guns.

23

General Discussion / Re: Is Integrated Point Defence ever worth it?

« on: March 23, 2012, 07:12:21 PM »

Yes it's worth it, but only because of tactical laser.

See what this does it makes your point defense into a "dual purpose" battery. Tactical laser is a good small energy weapon in itself due to it's combination of small OP, long range and great flux efficiency. Having enough of those firing together on an enemy is a serious amount of damage. Integrated Point Defence allows you to devote all of your small energy slot for tactical laser rather than splitting them into two groups one for anti-ship and one for PD. Then with one stroke you turn your massive laser battery into a PD battery as well giving you fantastic amount of PD and so more use out of each tactical laser.

The catch is, this thing is only worth it for ships where a large amount of their OP is invested in small energy slot weapons, this is so the cost of this hull mod is spread out over more tactical lasers and thus the cost per tactical laser is lower. So that's basically Medusa, Odyssey, Paragon, Astral and a maybe for Wolf and Eagle. Not worth it on any other ship.


Here's my Odyssey, if you add up those broadsides

Port
75*5 + 227*2 = 829 DPS

Starboard
75*6 + 227 = 677 DPS

And I can afford to pay for Integrated Targeting Unit to boost the range of both the tactical lasers and pulse lasers to 900SU and get advance turret gyro to make the tactical lasers even better at catching missiles and fighters.

A plasma cannon is 562 DPS each for 899 flux/s. An Odyssey with 3 plasma cannon would be hard pressed to mount anything else worthwhile on the small energy slots due to high OP for the cannons themselves and all the vents and capacitors you need to support such power hungry weapons.  And then all you're getting is 1122 DPS for Port and 562 DPS for starboard, which isn't even that much more DPS than my all laser setup. Not to mention you'll have bad PD, bad flux/damage ratio and is even out ranged by all laser Odyessy since Plasma Cannons are 700SU range while range boosted lasers are 900SU

24

General Discussion / Re: Freighters

« on: March 23, 2012, 05:04:28 AM »

The Hound is the best "blockade runner" cargo ship by far -- it can outrun most ships in the game without difficulty.

Hound would be very good as a freighter for dangerous routes. It's fast enough to evade most ships and can defend itself well enough (particularly in groups) to dissuade small time pirates. In fact these very same quality would make it attractive to pirates so you'll expect them to take Hound as prize whenever possible.

That said a blockade running operation would be more complicated than all Hound. You really only need Hound's unique ability for the final leg of the run. For travel between systems it would be better to use a bigger ship, I can see Apogee fulfilling this role. It's fast, can carry plenty of cargo and can fight its way out if a destroyer tries to intercept it.

I could just picture it, Hegemony has placed Corvus III's floating sky cities under embargo. An Apogee, fully laden with contraband jumps in system and makes for the planetary ring, hidden from long range scanners and just outside of the blockade. All the Hounds from the Hidden Base then rendezvous with the Apogee to offload its cargo for the final burn through the blockade down to the atmosphere of the gas giant. Just as the ships are busy transferring cargo a Hegemony Revenue Protection Squadron shows up. Everyone yells "Crap, it's a raid!" and disperse with the Apogee captain having to pull a Han Solo through all the rocks to lose the tail.

All yes, "The Real MacKay", the finest whiskey brewed old fashion style by hard working Luddist farmers. It's so smooth, the Hegemony won't let anyone else have it. Accept no imitations.

25

General Discussion / Freighters

« on: March 22, 2012, 08:12:05 AM »

So, now that Alex is implementing accidents for going over limits, it got me into thinking about how best to carry cargo around the galaxy. Here's a cargo/FP chart I came up with for the list of potential freighters.

Hound - 75 cargo / 3 FP = 25 cargo/FP
Condor - 120 cargo / 9 FP = 13.33 cargo/FP
Gemini - 250 cargo / 9 FP = 27.78 cargo/FP
Buffalo - 300 cargo / 8 FP = 37.5 cargo/FP
Tarsus - 300 cargo / 8 FP = 37.5 cargo/FP
Apogee - 450 cargo / 16 FP = 28.13 cargo/FP
Venture - 500 cargo / 12 FP = 41.67 cargo/FP
Atlas - 2000 cargo / 15 FP = 133.33 cargo/FP

As expected, if you want to carry a lot of cargo for a given fleet size, the Atlas superfreighter gives you the best bang for your bucks. On the other hand semi-military ships generally have a low cargo/FP ratio to trade for their utility in combat. Venture is a big outlier, having an excellent cargo/FP ratio while also being useful in combat as a carrier with significant self defense and fire support capability.

So out of that list, what's everyone's favorite freighter? I really like the Gemini because it looks cool, is a carrier and carries significant firepower for a destroyer sized freighter.

26

Suggestions / Re: Couple suggestions regarding Supplies.

« on: March 22, 2012, 01:39:18 AM »

Energy weapon would need supplies too, you'll need things like piles of explosively pumped flux compression generator for burst weapons, chemical laser reagents for lasers, antimatter pallets for any kind of blasters and cryogenic coolants for anything that need superconductors.

27

General Discussion / Re: Apogee

« on: March 22, 2012, 01:29:11 AM »

Basically there are 3 worthwhile choices:
1. Tactical Laser
2. IR Pulse Laser
3. Antimatter Blaster

A simple breakdown:

Tactical Laser pro:

• best range, 600SU
• excellent flux efficiency
• lightest at 5 OP

Tactical laser con:

• worst dps
• beam does vent-able damage
• no burst damage, making it worse at overloading and requiring constant hitting to deal full dps

IR Pulse Laser pro:

• best dps
• energy projectile does non-ventable damage, will eventually force enemy to drop shield/vent/overload

IR Pulse Laser con:

• no burst damage, making it worse at overloading and requiring constant hitting to deal full dps
• poor flux efficiency

IR Pulse Laser have average range, 500SU and average weight at 6 OP, sitting firmly at a middle ground between Tactical Laser and Antimatter Blaster

Antimatter Blaster pro:

• excellent burst damage, making it more useful for overloading shields and easier to aim, does not require constant on target to achieve maximum DPS
• almost as good DPS as IR Pulse Laser
• energy projectile does non-ventable damage, will eventually force enemy to drop shield/vent/overload

Antimatter Blaster con:

• worst range, 400SU
• heaviest, 7OP each
• ammo limited
• poor flux efficiency

This is coupled with 2 viable main weapon choices:
Tachyon Lance
Plasma Cannon

So basically:
Plasma Cannon is like a super-sized Antimatter Blaster. Flux hungry and does powerful burst damage. You already have excellent DPS with this weapon and you'll have enough trouble as it is to keep your flux down and the Plasma Cannon firing, so always use the flux efficient Tactical Laser and use that OP for vents / hull mod. A trick with tactical laser is to group it with your PD group and keep it on auto-fire. As long as you can keep the enemy in front of you and you have a clear shot the AI will keep the Tactical Laser firing for you.

Lance Apogee is excellent support but lacks the DPS and burst damage to fight its way out of a sticky situation. You may want to consider Antimatter Blaster or IR Pulse Laser to beef up your close range firepower. Although to be fair, if a Lance Apogee has to break out its Antimatter Blaster, it means you're either not using the "Rally Fire Support" command properly or the battle has going seriously wrong. In a good game a Lance Apogee should never have to fire anything other than the lance and PD, so Tactical Laser is still viable since it saves you the OP to be use for other things that could benefit the ship for the entire battle (read: Integrated Target Unit to make the already broken range of the lance even longer).

28

General Discussion / Re: LEAST Favorite Ship

« on: March 21, 2012, 01:30:44 AM »

Buffalos lack shields, period, and are still technically a "Freighter".  However, they're about as threatening as a beached whale and go down to a single Reaper torpedo...

Buffalo does have shield, it's Buffalo Mk II that doesn't have shield.

Yes some genius took a look at a Buffalo and though to himself "You know what, I'm going to turn this tin can into a warship. And I'm going to make it battle-worthy by TAKING OFF its shield."

29

General Discussion / Re: LEAST Favorite Ship

« on: March 20, 2012, 06:27:52 PM »

And Gemini and Atlas both have flight decks

30

General Discussion / Re: Hammerhead thoughts

« on: March 20, 2012, 02:05:41 PM »

Enforcer and Hammerhead actually have the same max turn rate, only the turn acceleration is different. Turn rate is not as important for Enforcer as it is for Hammerhead since all of its ballistic weapons are turret mounted. Using the three forward turrets gives you a huge cone area where all three guns can train on one target. On top of this Enforcer has omni shield so it doesn't need to turn to reposition shield.

Plus you can always put thruster on and make Enforcer as agile as Medusa. That's only 10 OP for thrusters when it enjoys a 20 OP advantage over Hammerhead.