Snuck in some gaming during work today (ssssh):
1. Known bug? On my shiny new Revenant cruiser, I have built in "Advanced Targeting Core" that is supposed to disallow installation of an ITU...yet I was able to add an ITU.
More padawan-learner impressions:
1. Archean flux war:
a. a heavy missile loadout and a bit of excess flux budget worked great for general pirates swarms or working the edge of a mid-game sized battle line hunting and killing smaller ships. However this ship setup does poorly when stuck into the middle of a battle line (the above Revenant cruiser) and having to "hold"...way too long delays between salvos. Now moderating to solid beam with solid missile salvo...AND a fair amount of overhead to deal with the hard flux coming in from...let's see: a billion fighters, missiles, debris, beams, lasers, and kitchen sinks.
So back to the simulator...and: Gauss cannon, artillery blasters, max flux capacity/distributors, and some burst pd means I can duel an Onslaught (slowly). Sure great for duelist config...will have to see how it does in the "Archean mid-game threat environment"
b. It was horrifying when I booted up the simulator against a Paragon and the thing blasted me from outside visual range. And then proceeded to hound me off the field like a Man Mountain the Sumo wrestler. However since I have just joined the Archean Order, I shall pay back these Tri-Tachyon Paragon on the field of battle...eventually.
Yea, missile boats and other long-range support designs are horrifically effective in their role, but can't handle a melee. Paragon doesn't really count, given the whole, normal design is really more an assault with several TACHYON LANCES. The Support paragon is, while not horrible, is absolutely a support ship which without guards cannot handle much on it's own.
I generally think of it in rough D&D-ish RPG terms. With Support as Wizard, Assault as Warrior, and Strike as Assassin, with some overlap and a few other traits.
Support vessels, naturally. Long range, and hence ability to pick and chose targets and push them over the edge. Missiles or long range support weapons. But in melee combat, the shield's upkeep makes it lose half it's damage output, and it loses the other half from the tradeoff that long range support weapons make, of flux cost and lower damage for range.
Assault Vessel. Fast, tough, and they get in your face and prevent you from doing anything clever. The Low-Flux speed boost makes them great at interceptions. Assault weapons have the best DPS, and use no flux, so while they get barely any alpha potential, they DO have the ability to just make a target's shields remain under strain, and keep them slow. The lack of flux cost means stronger shields, and higher speed, but the lack of alpha potential means no real finishing power unless you have several teaming up, or, more likely, from support vessles or having assasin traits.
Strike Vessel. Has a powerful alpha strike, but needs opportunities to take advantage of. They are fast and great at obliterating targets in the opening volly, but they have no staying power to speak of. Zero-flux helps them get into position, but since they tend to spend easily half or more of their flux in their strike, they obviously won't maintain it afterwards. Best used as hiding behind Assaults, until the target's shields are weakened enough for you to tear through them. And then backoff, vent, and wait for ammunition to reload.
Carriers are weird, and are more an afterthought, even in this mod. Mostly it just makes them worse quality, while supporting fighters, so they are more strategic target. I really have no idea how to think about them, aside from them being really important and high priority targets.
Hybrids exist, but it has serious costs. Adding a few strikes to the assault helps it break stalemates on it's own, but the loss of DPS and survivability hurts. Adding support helps it intercept or maintain contact, but again, costs DPS and survivability.
Point defense is pretty universal. That said, dedicated PD vessels can work, although I have no idea if the AI really handles the correctly.
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Been using an Archean Order Frigate as my flagship. After my entire starting force kinda died horribly though the incompetent commander.
Not sure what it was called, but it has 6 small missile slots, 2 charges of missile forge, and 2 small energy slots.
I think I have 6 trebuchet missile launchers, extended racks, unstable injector, and safety overrides (Plus hardened subsystems). And two sorta-pd/assault guns.
It is horrifyingly effective as a support vessel. I can unload 3 vollies of 18 missiles from the start, although the second reforge has a longer cooldown. I can generally obliterate 2 frigates in an opening volly, from way, way out of range. That said, between the long restocking time and the saftey overrides, I can generally manage around 3 more full vollies, barely, before CR decay sets up.
But, the shield is tough, its fast enough to sorta evade fighters (at least get to support before the shield collapses) and is a horrifically effective support/assassin hybrid.
I tried using short range missiles, like Swarmer, or torpedoes, or rocketpods, or w.e., but nothing can match the sheer potential I got from 18 longrange missiles. I can't even really get a good shield breaker missile to work. Its just that there aren't any similarly FAST missiles. I don't have to get close either.
That said, its not OP enough. It takes a lot to even pound down a frigate's shield, and even two vollies doesn't do much to a destroyer. Hence I have to wait for vulnerable targets.
Point defense on frigates generally isn't enough to save them, but it certainly makes me spend more ammunition. Larger ships can pretty much ignore the huge waves though.
Past that, when ammunition is depleted I have a 10 second delay before I get 6 missiles back, and I can only kinda kill fighters, and mildly poke frigates with the secondary guns.
Overall, highly effective, but not even close to being able to, say, solo an enemy fleet.