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61

Suggestions / Re: Hypothetical Capital Phase-Ship

« on: February 25, 2020, 07:35:33 AM »

Discussion of capital phase ships keeps stalling out on questions of specific ship properties. The only way to move forward is for someone to actually make something, so I'm doing that. Then the argument can proceed from at least one working example as a data point.

Well, there's just not that much to say in the first place. It's not like we are brainstorming to create actual capital phase ship and it sounds like you aren't open to ideas either. Not sure why this is in the suggestions thread to be honest. I'm suprised that seemlingly no-one has  modded a capital phase ship, but I guess you already intended to create one.

Just taking the capital ships we have now and giving them phase cloak instead of shields we can see they would be excellent playerships. The two battlecruisers are relatively fast and tough with large weapons, so they can do amazing strike damage by unphasing vent and rephasing with near inpunity. Even the Onslaught can burn drive away before its phase flux runs out. Not sure how phase Legion or phase Astral would work out with fighter replacements, but being able to run away from just about anything that can possibly harm you with impunity is just powerful beyond words for carriers. The only one that might have problems is the Paragon as its immense shields and ship system is useless.

62

Suggestions / Re: Making the Hyperion Useful

« on: February 25, 2020, 07:23:07 AM »

You say that, but since AI Hyperion can take out Eagles and Dominators alone, it can't be as bad as you are making it out to be. Sure the behaviour of AI Hyperions aren't perfect, but no AI ships are.

63

General Discussion / Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla

« on: February 25, 2020, 07:17:01 AM »

Light Needler has a reasonable cost compared with Dual Light Autocannon. It's just that Railgun is underpriced.

Proximity Charge launcher, Bomb Bay, Atropos, those are all weapons primarily intended for fighters, so it isn't much of a problem they are weaker on ship hulls. You can also add Annihilator Rocket Launcher to the list of poor weapons. Personally I rather like using Atropos-class Torpedo Rack when in smaller fleets as they make for a more reliable and faster Reaper alternative.

As for standard bomb bay, I'm pretty sure at some point it was available. Don't know if it's been patched out or if it was produced from blueprint. Yeah sure posting pictures makes it looks great against a modded large, immobile, unshielded target that doesn't shoot back, but everything shoots back, so it's awful.

Thumper has a long history of being weak, probably because it was seemingly intended as a rubbish weapon to make pirates easier to kill. There really doesn't seem to be a design space for a general role fragmentation weapon as most of the time you will never shoot at an unarmoured hull, so it can only find good use on a player controlled ship. I suppose it can provide a spike in shield damage or as anti-fighter, but there are far better medium ballistic weapons for that.

If Storm Needler has greater range it will be absolutely deadly. To put its range in perspective, Plasma Cannon and Autopulse Laser have the exact same range. It's more of that other ballistic weapons have extremely long ranges.

64

Suggestions / Re: Hypothetical Capital Phase-Ship

« on: February 24, 2020, 09:30:42 AM »

Any hypothetical capital hullsized phase ship that matches the general trends will become the best player ship. Including reduced time and distance travelled when phased. I can't forsee any realistic alternative that will solve this problem.

65

Suggestions / Re: Making the Hyperion Useful

« on: February 24, 2020, 09:13:11 AM »

All AI controlled ships try to aim at the centre of the ship. But the AI controlled Hyperion does know to teleport to the rear of ships and fire so it will bypass any frontally fixed shields.

66

General Discussion / Re: Can I make the Apogee AI more aggressive?

« on: February 24, 2020, 08:40:03 AM »

Just to make sure I wasn't crazy I loaded up a save with apogees. Nope, they seem to fire just fine. Whether piloted by steady officers or officerless. Maybe a mod is interfering with the behaviour somehow? Most ships will either outrange or outspeed the Apogee. Directing them to elimate the ship also helps.

I'm talking the length of gun was often longer then space between ships.

I don't understand what you are trying to say here.

67

General Discussion / Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon

« on: February 24, 2020, 08:26:14 AM »

@ Plantissue:  I do not think I wrote MRLS for Squalls.  As for Locusts, sure they are not very good against heavy armor (or shields for that matter), but ships that have it also have a lot of hull to chew through, and Locusts will put a big dent in that.  That is why I call Locusts the anti-everything missile.  Fighters die.  Frigates die.  Destroyers will be hurt.  Cruisers and up will need some armor broken first, but after that, Locusts is a good finisher.  Locusts have shorter range, but unless I use Gauss cannons, they still have more range than my ship's main guns.  As for Hurricane, I tried them without boosts, and been frustrated or underwhelmed by the results.  Not reliable enough, not damaging enough (because insufficient converging makes too many submunitions miss), and not enough ammo for the expense.  Only with boosts (ECCM and/or Missle Spec.) do MIRVs perform adequately.

No, you didn't write MLRS for Squalls, which is exactly why writing MIRVs for Hurricanes is strange and confusing. Especially MIRVs imply that you are refering to more than one wepon. It's like writing LRM instead of pilums, it wasn't clear what you are talking about. Not sure why you think I wrote that you wrote MLRS for squalls when I wrote the opposite but whatever floats your boat, it isn't that important. Locusts are terrible at defeating armour. The difference in our opinions could be attributed to intended use. I see Hurricane as a harpoon replacement for large missile mount, whilst for whatever reason you view Hurricane as a Locust replacement. Well, of course a different weapon isn't going to be the same as another. You seem under the impression that if there is an option that can upgrade the power of a weapon, that weapon not worth fitting without without that option, but that simply isn't true. Fighter LPC are worthwhile without their expanded deck crew, PD weapons are worthwhile without APDAI, all missiles are worthwhile without expanded missile racks, all beams are worthwhile without advanced optics, Hurricane is worthwhile without ECCM.

________

Autopulse vs Plasma Cannon. Autopulse is better if you have more large weapon mounts relative to flux dissipation. Argument could be made that Autopulse is also better the faster the ship is to make best use of its charges as it otherwise has very low sustained damage. Plasma Cannon is the simplest as it is the only large energy weapon which can work very well alone.

68

Suggestions / Re: Gas giants and colonies

« on: February 23, 2020, 07:34:42 AM »

The top of the clouds of a gas giant shouldn't be turbulent, lacking in much of an atmosphere and is essentially not that much different from a lack of atmosphere. The force of turbulence would be proportional to the density of the atmosphere hitting it. Modern large airliners can travel through severe turbulence quite safely. I would imagine the colonies would be travelling with the wind and so wouldn't have much adverse forces acting on it anyways much like how pilots happily ride the transatlantic jet stream. I remember reading how a plane was riding in a 200 mph jet stream recently. There are manned submarines which can withstand 1000 atm pressure, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine the fantastical science of starsector to be able to have colonies in quite adverse conditions.

The "easiest" "fix" would just be to make gas giants non colonisable, and diffuse its volatile resource to one of its moons for the sake of placating those whose disbelief breaks.

69

Suggestions / Re: Making the Hyperion Useful

« on: February 23, 2020, 07:13:24 AM »

Hyperion is fine. It can deal a large amount of directed damage the players hands and in the AI hands can distract multiples of its DP cost. Sometimes the AI can drag out and destroy ships all by itself. It knows to teleport to the rear and fire. It lacks broader awareness, like all AI controlled ships. The PPT penalty isn't that much once you factor in that you can essentially teleport into and away from PPT range almost instantly. I think the PPT range is 3000, and the teleport range is 1500, so should be out of PPT range in 2 teleports. So about in 2 seconds

Comparing it with other player controlled ships places it in the power bracket of phase ships, which are basically the best player controlled ships, so it's not justifiable to say it is weak in that area. Unlike phase ships, it needs not fear fighters. It needs not fear beams. Hyperion can straight up fight frigates and whittle them down in the presence of larger ships thanks to its shields. The main problem with Hyperion is that you can't zoom out of the map enough to see what is happening.

70

Suggestions / Re: Unify fleet points and deployment points?

« on: February 23, 2020, 06:52:33 AM »

I don't really see a problem with the player using capitals. Why try to restrict what other players may want to do? Why restrict player choice to match a personal coneception of what your own fleet should be?

71

General Discussion / Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon

« on: February 23, 2020, 06:49:20 AM »

IF by MIRVS, megas is referring to Hurricane MIRV, I find they are extremely useful. They trend to be less susceptible to PD and not all have to hit to be useful. It's enough to do a wide spread of damage to the armour of a cruiser or capital.

Yes, I meant Hurricane, since it is the only MIRV in an unmodded game.  Unboosted MIRVs seem underwhelming.  They do some damage, but not enough to be worth using over Locusts.  A few hits (which is all I get when they do not converge) seem to merely tickle the enemies.  Now, if they converge and most hit, then they do hurt them bad.  Problem is that I need a booster.  I do not take Missile Spec. and adding ECCM means I need to sacrifice something I want more to get it.  Not to mention MIRVs cost 25(?) OP and ECCM costs yet more OP, which Locusts cost only 18 OP, and Locusts are good out-of-the-box with no further investment.  As for defeating PD, Locusts do an even better job because there are so many missiles and they track very well.  The only reason for me to use unboosted MIRVs is for Gauss ships because Locusts do not have enough range for Gauss users.

I just wasn't sure what you meant by MIRVs. Afterall you didn't call the Squall as MLRS. I find Locusts to not do well against armour and is shorter ranged than Hurricane. I use both, so I don't think one is particularily more useful than the other. Just because ECCM hullmod exists doesn't mean the Hurricane is weak without it.

72

General Discussion / Re: Can I make the Apogee AI more aggressive?

« on: February 23, 2020, 06:20:38 AM »

Having the weapon group all to itself didn't work? I am baffled that your plasma cannon apogee aren't firing.  Maybe post a pic or write down the config. It is possible that it is simply out of range but you don't notice that it is.

73

Suggestions / Re: Gas giants and colonies

« on: February 22, 2020, 10:18:09 AM »

I wonder what it is about building a colony on a gas giant that for some people it breaks the suspension of disbelief in a space game? If colonies can be built on an atmosphereless planet, for me it doesn't seem that much of a stretch that a colony can be built on the various depths of a gas planet's atmosphere. We literally have a space station in low earth orbit.

74

Suggestions / Re: Unify fleet points and deployment points?

« on: February 22, 2020, 10:06:26 AM »

It does look relatively much weaker. Not only are the ship DP about 70% of the biggest fleets, it is primarily composed of cruisers, so is weaker than a DP total. "Realistically" speaking, a fleet for battle would have the majority of its power in capital ships not cruisers.

75

General Discussion / Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon

« on: February 22, 2020, 10:00:01 AM »

Squalls are useful against capitals, but along with Annihilator Rocket Pod I don't like their weapon design. Disregarding their effectiveness, having a weapon where you have effectively fluxless damage for x amount of minutes and thereafter it has run out is an invitation for waiting till that ship has run out of missiles.

IF by MIRVS, megas is referring to Hurricane MIRV, I find they are extremely useful. They trend to be less susceptible to PD and not all have to hit to be useful. It's enough to do a wide spread of damage to the armour of a cruiser or capital.

tempest with 2x phase lance 1-pops almost every frigate besides the monitor, it's just a quick simulator example

This is just straight up misinformation. 2 phase lance with high energy focus will do 3750 damage. I don't see how that is possible when the two lashers already have 4100 and 3300 flux capacity and 1750+ hull. The only frigates it can "1-pop" are those without shields like the phase frigates. Which should phase anyways. Even the Shepherds will survive.