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1486

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 14, 2018, 01:50:30 PM »

I did not ignore shields and did not factor EMP damage in because that would be an advantage for the Mjolnir and not for the Mark IX. Even looking at a system weighted for the Mark IX(not counting the value of the EMP on the mjolnir) it has significant problems against armor.

Also... if you’re doing HE damage... no they cannot Armor tank that is the point of doing HE damage...


Re: snoowarc

Went to the fitter and came up with this for a pure support wolf (you will get more on with the fitting tech skill)

Ion Beam, 2 PD Laser, 2 Reaper
Hardened Shields, Reinforced Bulkheads, Resistant Flux Conduits
10 capacitors, 7 vents

You can add hardened subsystems over bulkheads if it’s unlikely to die. You can remove RFC and 2 vents for it as well

Core of the idea is that it keeps an enemies shields up with the ion beam and has 7083 effective shield hit points. It’s a bit flux negative when shooting the beam and having the shields up (40 flux/second) but that should not matter all that much.

Downsides is that it cannot do hard flux damage and won’t threaten even frigate besides it’s torpedos. So you have to kill them with your conquest.

You can swap the ion beam for a pulse laser and then swap a cap for a vent and you will be able to kill frigates but will still be hella flux negative. (250 Dissipation vs 393 flux/second with shields up)

Wolfs are pretty good at backing away when their flux is high so both of these should be very survivable.

1487

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 14, 2018, 01:12:36 PM »

There is typical misconception about shield bashing. "HE is bad against shields". If it doesnt work for you this means only that you dont have enough HE.

...But HE is bad against shields.  Or, perhaps more to the point, it is inefficient against shields.  Your Conquest, there, is getting all of around, what, 800-ish sustained hard flux DPS versus shields?  Half of which is from the Mjolnir.  Just replacing that with a Mk IX Autocannon wouldn't have any notable impact on how long it takes you to break through armor, but would give you an extra 200-ish DPS against shielded targets.  Oh, and would cost about 250 less flux per second, potentially freeing up another up-to-31 ordnance points; I'd suggest using that to add an ion beam.

1) if it does hard flux it’s generally OK against shields. All that matters is that it’s building and your target cannot vent. Speed is nice but building and can’t vent are key.

2) a mark IV autocannon does minimum damage against armor to all armor above 566...  which is 26.6 armor DPS.  A mjolnir does 79.9 minimum armor DPS... which it does at 2266 armor... so it’s going to slow you down versus armor and hull considerably. Against a 1000 armor target the Mark IX does 232 DPS vs hull while the mjolnir does 473 dps.



Re @snoowarc

The eagle and falcon can kind of kite tank. With steady officers they will attempt to stay at HVD range against big targets and then back off of three take too much shield damage. The phase lances should keep them from getting swarmed by bursting down frigates.

The downside here is that they don’t provide much to “push” against. An ideal anvil will be stiff enough that you can sandwhich their forces into. But eagles and falcons are great ships of the line as such. Rest of the fittings besides ITU/DTU are from preference. (But harpoons, Atropos, reapers, hardened shields/armor, and loads of capacity are ideal). The reapers/Atropos are for “threat”. Enemies don’t like being in range without shields up. The harpoons are for finishing long range, let’s your ships support one another. However the high range will tend to mean that everyone will support the first ship that loses shields and then overkill it.

Re: frigates.

Two minds on this

1) guns to kill other frigates (IR pulse/Pulse Laser) and then the standard “loads of capacity and dissipation”

2) hardened shields, support guns (ion beam and PD), and loads of capacity. Atropos/reapers/hammers in the missile slots. Resistant Flux Conduits are also nice. Not looking at the fitter right now so can’t say precisely what can or cannot fit.

For a support frigate like this missiles should always be a big HE missile for threat. (If an enemy pushes into you it must respect the two reapers that are now behind it which can be hard unless it has 360 deg shield). Harpoons are OK but you almost don’t want your frigates firing them so the extra range on them will be a problem.

1488

Suggestions / Re: Epic Games Store?

« on: December 14, 2018, 11:40:45 AM »

What's the incentive to go there anyways? The population there all just hug the fortnite. I don't think it has good enough community system to support thriving of indy game.

Developers get a much larger split of the sales price. It’s not like it’s exclusive anyway.

Buuut. Standard answer from Alex is usually “I will consider putting the game up on various platforms when it’s done and not before”. So he has a while before he has to make the decision

1489

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 14, 2018, 11:37:35 AM »

Let me change this topic to the 2nd part of my question.
What is in your fleet when you fly a conquest?
Right now I have 2 Herons,Gpyron ,14th battle group falcon, an eagle(i flew this before conquest) 3 hammerheads  and 4 wolves plus a shrike

Ok so this is an OK fleet in general. The conquest is a hammer and so needs some good anvils. And your fleet has two-ish (the falcon and the eagle) but they aren’t particularly DP efficient.

If you play on default battle size then things get a lot harder since many of the really good anvils are larger ships but the primary thing you want is something that will stop the fleet. Some of the best Anvils if you’re DP limited not are pirate ships like the venture and the enforcer(and the monitor). The eagle and falcon if you’re using them should be set with HVD and Phase Lances. (HVD will stand-off all but the largest ships and phase lances will punish whatever gets close)

I suggest taking the herons and giving them a single rally point. This ideally keeps them together and out of danger*, then have the anvils escort them. This should keep them in front of the carriers. Let the hammerheads roam or have them escort each other for semi-hammer group (depends on fitting)

Take two to four wolves and have them escort you. Their job is just to keep you from getting flanked too bad and to provide things to distract the enemy. So you want them full tank and anti-frigate or strike weapons (like Atropos). Wolf, Kite, Omen, and centurions are good for this. Tempests are good but expensive for the task

Scrap the Gryphon. It’s an Ok ship in the players hands but it’s not good in the AI. It’s slow and doesn’t have a lot of power and the AI cannot use the power that it does have all that well. Like... if you want it to toss support missiles then vigilances are faster and cheaper and safer. If you want to go HAM then the AI is not good enough with cap to utilize its active. It’s OK with squall and harpoons but... not 20 DP OK. Maybe on super large battle sizes where you’re not deployment limited and in super large battles where you’re not cost limited...

*herons have a tendency to just ignore what you tell them to do and go melee the enemy. Consider swapping to Mora if you can afford to. They’re more survivable and also less likely to attempt to face tank enemies.

1490

General Discussion / Re: where do all these people come from?

« on: December 13, 2018, 09:20:46 PM »

I found two sleepers in my first game, and they seem to be randomly generated.  They only apply to the system the sleeper is found in, and you need to build a special industry to harvest population from the sleeper.  Unfortunately for me, both systems had awful planets for colonization (due to +200% or more hazard), so I never did anything aside from a quick test to see the special industry.  Apparently, sleepers do not want to leave the system you find their ship in.

There is one on Nomios (Core world

1491

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 13, 2018, 04:16:57 PM »

No, i do not tweak armor values in settings. I do however, do field testing. And well, you don't generally win with a handful of HE. You have to actually do damage to armor. Otherwise the enemy will just back away and re-engage.

1492

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 13, 2018, 03:59:27 PM »

Assault chainguns are awful? 400 flux per second with 200 dps vs shields and 60 damage per shot vs armor and only 450 range. In the running for the worst medium ballistic.

Every gun does decent damage to hull you only need HE to help get past the initial high armor barrier and that initial barrier is best cracked with high damage per shot weapons. As you cut through armor, other weapons become more effective. Anything can provide hull dps it's not important to be effective vs hull, otherwise thumper would be great weapon. Damage per shot it the most important stat for HE damage. All HE is required for is destroying armor, and then other guns will do just fine to get through hull.

Certainly vs some ships, armor is a big challenge, but then I will specialize for armor cracking.

Bad means you are making a mistake by using, not worthwhile means there are better choices but it will get the job done.

There is also clearly a difference in general loadout philosophy here. I clearly don't value HE as much as you do.

Assault chainguns are amazing and no not every gun does decent damage to hull or armor. And yes this is important. And Hull DPS matters, the reason that frag weapons aren't good is because they don't actually do a lot of damage against hull(it used to be the case, before minimum armor that Vulcan Cannons were OP ship killers because they would just absolutely shred hull) even if they are marginally DPF efficient against hull.

As an example the Thumper against an Onslaught with no more armor left does about 92 DPS for 150 flux(.61 D/F). An Assault Chaingun does 208 DPS for 400 flux(.52 D/F). This is half the DPS for the slot and not a significant advantage on the flux, considering the Thumper cannot really contribute to damaging armor it also cannot force shields to be up.

More important than just "hull and armor DPS" (which are super important) is the consistency of the damage application. The last thing you want to have happen is the enemy to be able to block the damaging HE shots on shield and then armor tank all your kinetic damage. Because of this, burst HE damage has a significant disadvantage when in fighting the AI, its likely going to pop its shields to deal with the damage, then bring them back down in order to have the flux advantage. Being able to put down consistent HE damage means that the AI cannot ever drop its shields without getting smashed. This means that it will often acquire hard flux FASTER than if you were just dealing kinetic or bursty HE.

That is one of the reason why Tacyhon Lances and HIL are valuable despite not dealing hard flux because any hard flux that is applied cannot be dissipated as shields have to consistently be up to not have your armor and hull wrecked

1493

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 13, 2018, 03:11:29 PM »

But... they are... and it is.

Armor DPS is Hellbore/High Intensity Laser then Plasma Cannon then Haephestus Assault Gun

Hull DPs is Plasma Cannon then mjolnir then Heavy Blaster then Haephestus Assault Gun

Armor DPF is Hellbore then HIL then Haephestus Assault Gun.

Hull DPF is Plasma Cannon then HIL then Haephestus Assault Gun.

It capital level armor damage!  It’s capital level hull damage! It’s efficient capital level armor and hull damage! The only thing that is consistently better at it for capital level hull and armor dps and DPF only does soft flux and so can easily be shield tanked! The only things better at it at hull and armor dps are large energy weapons with significantly worse DPF and much lower range!

It’s like a longer range assault Chaingun... and assault chainguns are good! They’re really good! And if they hit three times as hard for armor cracking and had twice the range they would be amazing!

You know what happens if you shoot a capital ship with loads of KE damage? It armor tanks it.

EDIT:

TTK 2200 armor and then Hull DPS afterwards. Editing with Flux to Kill for armor and Hull Damage per Flux

Code

		TTK 	Hull DPS  Armor FTK  Hull DPF
HAG	        13 	329       6250      .6854
HIL		7.1     409       3350      .818
Plasma Cannon	9.24	620       6930      .826
Hellbore	6	232       1500      .928
Heavy Blaster	14      409       10080     .568
Mjolnir         15.75	418       10505     .663

That is clearly capital level armor and hull DPS!

1494

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 13, 2018, 02:38:19 PM »

Not sure why you’re trying to convince me that the HAG is bad by comparing it to two heavy mortars with more range when heavy mortars are good weapons and the HAG has better accuracy and armor cracking

2 HMortars do 440 DPS at 220 cracking to 900 range. They’re they only explosive guns in the game with better than 1 to 1 efficiency but they lose out slightly on effective efficiency because of their lowish shot damage. Additionally they’re exceptionally inaccurate and do not have a consistent shot profile.

1 HAG does 480 DPS at 240 cracking to 900 range with goodish accuracy and an amazingly consistent shot profile. That is good! That is really good!

You would do better to compare them to H Maulers (266 DPS at 400 cracking to 1000 range for 300f/s) where they also come out on top.

1495

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 13, 2018, 02:12:41 PM »

If you have he bonus speed mjolnirs are fine at hitting small targets. But other than that you’re right. HAGs are great

1496

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 13, 2018, 01:51:00 PM »

The Haephestus cracks all but the heaviest armor very quickly and it’s DPS is top notch. It’s not as good as a mjolnir at hull DPS but it cracks armor just as well. (Half the penetration but twice the DPS). It’s got 1 to 1 flux efficiency so it’s got one of if not the best combination of dps and DPF in the game against armor and hull.*. It also has an ideal damage/time profile. Many HE weapons are bursts and this means that the AI can raise its shields to take the hit and then drop shields while the HE damage is not incoming. You cannot do that against an Haephestus because the incoming damage is consistent.

The Haephestus is probably the best or second best overall large ballistic weapon in the game. You should put them in a lot of large ballistic slots. High DPS, good armor cracking, long range, 1 to 1 flux efficiency, consistent damage profile, low OP cost...

The devastator is... not good as an armor cracker. You lose way too much damage due to it’s bursting nature and it’s loads worse at killing anything but fighters as a result.

*it is beaten out individually in a lot of measures by other guns but maintains a consistent second or third place in armor DPS, DPF and hull DPS/DPF.

1497

General Discussion / Re: Conquest ship build/fleet Tips?

« on: December 13, 2018, 12:41:23 PM »

Asymmetric all the way. But first some notes

1) you have the best/easiest concentration of large ballistic guns in the sector. The onslaught can only being 2 to bear in a very specific position. Buut you don’t have the best concentration of guns in general. Your lack of small ballistic means that you’re going to be out performed in short ranged when enemies can bring railguns to bear.

2) you have the most missile slots in the sector. The Astral doesn’t have mediums and no one else has two larges.

3) you have the maneuverability to swap sides to deal with different threats. But not necessarily the maneuverability to go back and forth continually.

As such lets start with the missiles. There are three good large missile weapons which do not respect launcher alignment; the squall(with ECCM), the MIRV(with ECCM) and the locust. The squall is decent kinteitc pressure but only has five volleys. It really needs extended missile racks. The MIRV is a good to great finisher on large ships and it has 10. The locust has 15 volleys and is combination point defense/frigate murder. The mediums can either be extra finishers (Harpoons) or burst shield (Sabots) depending on what you feel you need.

If you take the squall you’re going to want to focus on HE guns in the large slot. If you take the MIRV then you want to focus on kinetic guns and if you take the locusts you want to focus on energy damage or HE. A note if you take the MIRV/Kin approach. You’re going to want at least one long range HE gun in the medium slot in order to keep shields up. Otherwise the AI is very good at getting shields up to stop MIRVs while not overloading and eating kinetic damage on armor. Another way to stop this is to put an ion beam in the primary side medium energy slot.


Now let’s talk about the mediums. I do not like the long range medium options. They’re fine really. But I think they are overmatched by their effectiveness in flack and short range anti-fighter/frigate. For the primary side against large targets heavy autocannons are your best bet followed by heavy maulers. Regular flack or HMGs are also good options and I like 2 regular flack on the primary side to knock down fighters and missiles as they come in. This is especially true since I want to keep a longer range than usual against most battleships  HVD is OK but you have to remember to turn them off.

On the secondary side I like one HMG and one Assault Chaingun. With ITU these have 700 ish range and will shred any frigate that gets behind you. The big gun slots can be one devastator and one Haephestus or two Haephestus.

This leaves me with three primary builds

2x squall, 2x Harpoon, ECCM, EMR, ITU
PRIMARY SIDE:
2 Haephestus, 2 Flack, 1 Ion Beam
SECONDARY SIDE:
1 devastator, 1 Haephestus,(or 2 Haephestus) 1 HMG, 1 Assault Chaingun (Or 2 HMG)

2x MIRV, 2 x Sabot, ECCM, ITU
PRIMARY SIDE:
2x Mark IX, 1 flack, 1 Heavy Mauler, 1 Ion Beam
SECONDARY SIDE:
2x Haephestus, 2 x HMG

2x Locusts, 2x Sabot, ITU (EMR and ECCM are luxury)
PRIMARY SIDE:
2 x Mjolnir (or 1 Mark IX and 1 Haephestus), 2 flack, 1 Ion Beam
SECONDARY SIDE:
2 x Haephestus, 2 x HMG or 2x Mark IX, 2x Assault Chaingun

Ideally you want a bit of spare OP for resistant flux conduits and some rear PD to clean salamanders

 Is this will seem like it’s going to eat a lot of flux, but the idea is that the back side isn’t firing a lot so you’re only using half the flux of your guns at any one time. If you get surrounded/flanked you want to dump as much flux into killing them as fast as possible and then vent to recover. Rather than letting them sit back there. That is why we go with the short range high damage options in the rear medium slots.

1498

General Discussion / Re: Noob needs advice. Colony, Fleet size and composition.

« on: December 12, 2018, 08:10:53 PM »

...

I do get the concept of flux, 3/6/9/15 OP just seems like a really bad trade to me.
The bonus isn't that significant unless you are flying something that really likes the EMP resist(~83.33% vent time on a player/officer ship, 80% on others).

So you vent flux at 2x the normal flux dissipation rate. RFC reduces the time it takes by 25% which is an effective increase in flux dissipation of 33%. (While venting). So you go from 2x to 2.66x flux dissipation while venting.

Since venting is so important for a lot of ships, shield and armor tanking alike, this makes it super valuable.  For a shield tanking ship it reduces the time you’re getting hit on armor. For an armor tanking ship you’re massively increasing your effective flux dissipation.

Salamanders are also the bane of like... all existences. It’s cheaper to put RFC on a ship than equip rear facing point defense to deal with salamanders.

Edit: an example from my favorite ship, the Odyssey. If you have RFC you can burn drive perpendicular to a significant ballistic damaging target, vent, and have your shield back up before they can retarget and put HE on target. If you do not you take armor damage every time you need to do this guaranteed.

1499

General Discussion / Re: Noob needs advice. Colony, Fleet size and composition.

« on: December 12, 2018, 11:01:59 AM »

Power Grid Modulation 2 is great because your ship vents significantly faster.  Resistant Flux Conduits alone (along with high vents) is required to not spend ages to vent, but it is not always fast enough.  With the 2 perk too, you can vent quickly.  Vent spam with flux hogs becomes a useful option.

Wait, you voluntarily use resistant flux conduits? RFD/reinforced bulkheads just seem like a waste of OP to me when used in fleets.
What ships are you usually flying/what fleet composition and agains what enemies? Gotta give that a spin.

Resistant Flux Conduits is a top quality mod on any ship that doesn’t fit Safety Overrides. It’s weakened somewhat on AI ships because they don’t like to vent as often but it’s still decent to good.

The primary advantage is that it allows you to more safely vent (and vent in combat).

Fundamentally the game is about putting your flux dissipation into their flux capacity. The fleet that does this the best wins. Many ships have enough weapon slots that firing all of them will use far more flux than they can dissipate. Or they might come under a combination of fire that puts their available capacity to fire at a low value. Venting flux increases your flux dissipation rate massively and so effectively multiplies your overall flux dissipation rate. This is dangerous because you cannot have your shield up when you do it but the faster you vent the less danger you’re in.

Which means that ships which are able to vent effectively can put out near Safety Overrides level flux dissipation without the downsides of low CR and range.

As such, RFC goes on basically all of my battleships and almost all player ships I have that don’t have SO

1500

Suggestions / Re: Some kind of Threat vs Toughness rating for AI target prioritization.

« on: December 12, 2018, 10:42:35 AM »

For the most part, the presence of torpedos and ion damage means that there aren’t many “through the cracks” ships that aren’t dangerous.

The reason that they’re ganging up on the monitor is because they can. The ships in the rear are not being directly threatened by any ship in your fleet