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Author Topic: Beam Stuff  (Read 40703 times)

Megas

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #75 on: March 25, 2018, 06:30:37 AM »

Re: HIL
Every time I tried HIL vs. Tachyon Lance against enemies, time-to-kill with Tachyon Lance is always faster than with HIL, or even HIL and Ion Beam combo.  The conclusion I reached is HIL would be okay as a common Open Market weapon much like Heavy Mortar is to Heavy Mauler.  But unlike Heavy Mortar, HIL is semi-rare.  I do not find very many HIL either, but more than Tachyon Lances.

How is HIL useful on Odyssey without support from other ships?  Even if player wants to rely on AI faults with shield for free hits, the beam does not reach the enemy instantly, and if it manages to score a hit before enemy shields fully raise, it is not long enough before shields are fully up and the HIL blocked before it can do significant damage.

With Tachyon Lance, at least Odyssey can sometimes cheese the AI and get free hits, and maybe overload a few weak ships.  That makes it viable for Odyssey.  HIL can do neither and (assuming solo) Odyssey must rely totally on its fighters for hard-flux.  But two wings of fighters is not much against bigger ships that will eat them up.  If I use any other weapon for hard flux (e.g., autopulse, plasma cannon, or tons of IR pulse lasers), I run into the problem of getting badly outranged by capitals and losing the flux war before Odyssey can get close enough to attack because fragile shield with no capacitors (and not enough OP to fix that) means near full bar of hard flux before Odyssey is in range to fire its weapons (or at least enough that Odyssey cannot afford to fire its heavy weapon flux hogs), and it cannot rely on armor and hull to take hits because enemy capital has more of it than Odyssey.  (Claw wings can sometimes disable the enemy, so that Odyssey can approach safely, but that is not reliable.)

As for Sunder and Paragon, HIL is useful enough to use if player does not have any Tachyon Lances to use, thanks to backup from needlers or HVDs, but if I have Lances, the HILs will be left to rust.  Tachyon Lance alone is cheaper (OP cost) and more effective than HIL and Ion Beam combo (as Tachyon Lance substitute).  In case of Paragon, with Lances, I can fill my medium slots with Heavy Blasters instead of Ion Beams so it can dump flux pool and kill enemies that get too close fast.

I do not bother with Apogee - too slow and too short ranged to force fights, but if I must use it, I use plasma cannon (and almost nothing else; thanks to flares, I do not need beam pd badly) because it desperately needs the shot range that can hit for hard flux.  Apogee is bad enough that there are better and more common options, like Eagle.  Plasma cannon is rare until player can farm them from Brilliants at endgame.  One more thing about Apogee, change the heavy energy into a hybrid, so it can have more shot range and be a bit like the Brilliant.  Brilliant is similar to Apogee, weird and stuff, except it trades capacity for flight deck, and it can use ballistics.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2018, 07:03:40 AM by Megas »
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Grievous69

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #76 on: March 25, 2018, 11:34:11 AM »

To the OP: I feel like beams are supposed to be support weapons in a way that they complement your build, not like assault weapons as you said since then you could just put all beams on a ship and go ham. Tachyon Lance is a different story of course. Imo the main problem is a lack of energy weapons which put hard flux on shields and have similar range as beams. As it is now, you either have to build a speedy ship with pulse weapons and blasters, or rely on your allied ships and fighters to deal hard flux.

About the Odyssey, why the hell does it even have missiles? Seriously, if one person puts anything in missiles slots, please let me now. You already have barely enough OP to put decent-ish weapons and hullmods, and if you need zero-flux weapons you have 2 fighter bays. Honestly the whole ship is a mess, I really loved it before because of the cool design but in reality it has a weird loadout of weapon types and sizes and not to forget the frustration of trying to allign all 3 turrets on the same target. Sure it's fast for a big boy but with weaker shields and an absurd cost to deploy in combat, I could use any other ship(s) in the game and still do the job for the lower price and less deployment points.
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Megas

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #77 on: March 25, 2018, 12:26:15 PM »

To the OP: I feel like beams are supposed to be support weapons in a way that they complement your build.
True... for midline ships (Sunder, Falcon, and Eagle) and Paragon, because those ships can use long-range kinetics to back up their beams with hard flux.  For typical high-tech ships like Wolf and Aurora, not so much; for them, beams are mostly good for PD and little else, and only because they cannot use superior Vulcan and Flak.  Long-range assault beams and short-ranged flux hogs usually do not mix very well.  (EDIT:  Almost, I find heavy blaster and tactical laser combo superior to two pulse lasers for near equal performance for 4 less OP, but not many ships can take advantage of that; mainly good for Tempest.)  Ion beam is a special case in that you use it to pierce shields and knock out weapons or engines.

About the Odyssey, why the hell does it even have missiles? Seriously, if one person puts anything in missiles slots, please let me now. You already have barely enough OP to put decent-ish weapons and hullmods, and if you need zero-flux weapons you have 2 fighter bays. Honestly the whole ship is a mess, I really loved it before because of the cool design but in reality it has a weird loadout of weapon types and sizes and not to forget the frustration of trying to allign all 3 turrets on the same target. Sure it's fast for a big boy but with weaker shields and an absurd cost to deploy in combat, I could use any other ship(s) in the game and still do the job for the lower price and less deployment points.
I used to put small Salamanders or Pilums, but now, I only use 1 OP missiles, if any.  Odyssey in 0.8 was short on OP before it gained its second bay.  Now, it is extremely OP starved.  It is the joke ship of 0.8, like pre-0.8 Hammerhead and 0.7.2 Aurora.  If I put heavies, all (LR) PD lasers, two fighters, and the hullmods it needs, I have about 30 OP left for vents.  Not enough for max vents, let alone extra for capacitors or Hardened Shields... or missiles.

I would like to see the Odyssey's mediums changed from missile to synergy.  Then at least Odyssey can attempt the HIL and Ion Beam combo if fighters put hard flux on shield.  Or it can do heavy blaster spam and do a ton of damage in a moment.

For Legion, I might need to leave a few smalls empty, but Vulcans are not too critical when Legion has three or four dual flak defending it.  Legion barely has enough OP to get everything it needs, although it might need to skimp on a few small weapons.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2018, 12:45:49 PM by Megas »
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Grievous69

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #78 on: March 25, 2018, 01:00:48 PM »

And that's what I'm trying to say, high-tech ships are in a weird spot because you can't really do much with them. For example an Eagle, midline ship that you see everywhere has so much different builds which all work in their own way. Then you have ships such as Apogee, Aurora, Odyssey... with mostly energy weapon mounts and they have one build that you can actually use decently(maybe 2 depending on the ship). Kinda sad that most high-tech ships need special treatment (Paragon with crazy range, Aurora with jets and so on) to make them worthwile. Hmmm what could that mean?

You and me both man, when Pilums were much faster than now, I pretty much had it on every ship that could support it since they regenerate. Even Salamanders I have a hard time justifying it on something since fighters are now in every fight.

I would like to see the Odyssey's mediums changed from missile to synergy.  Then at least Odyssey can attempt the HIL and Ion Beam combo if fighters put hard flux on shield.  Or it can do heavy blaster spam and do a ton of damage in a moment.

Edit: While making it basically a mega Aurora with fighters sound good to me, I still think that won't make a huge difference. Idk actually, it's hard to say like this without testing.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2018, 01:13:43 PM by Grievous69 »
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Megas

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #79 on: March 25, 2018, 03:15:35 PM »

Edit: While making it basically a mega Aurora with fighters sound good to me, I still think that won't make a huge difference. Idk actually, it's hard to say like this without testing.
Without an OP raise, I agree.  Odyssey is seriously OP starved.  I leave missiles empty and still do not have OP to get everything I need like Legion can, although Legion has advantage of cheap and effective heavy guns like Hellbore or Mark IX and super effective dual flak.  Nothing energy has comes close.  Without more OP, changing missiles to synergy only means that player can leave the rear and/or small mounts empty and focus everything up front.
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Schwartz

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #80 on: March 25, 2018, 06:21:46 PM »

I like the Odyssey with dedicated missile slots, but would like to see OP increased.

HIL is a fine large mount weapon. Use it all the time on Sunder in conjunction with 2x Gravitons. For steady pressure it works better, and pairing Tachyon with two medium beams is more awkward because there aren't any that do burst at that range. I don't see it as a junk option but a viable large mount for Sunder and Odyssey.
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Goumindong

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #81 on: March 25, 2018, 07:14:52 PM »

Edit: While making it basically a mega Aurora with fighters sound good to me, I still think that won't make a huge difference. Idk actually, it's hard to say like this without testing.
Without an OP raise, I agree.  Odyssey is seriously OP starved.  I leave missiles empty and still do not have OP to get everything I need like Legion can, although Legion has advantage of cheap and effective heavy guns like Hellbore or Mark IX and super effective dual flak.  Nothing energy has comes close.  Without more OP, changing missiles to synergy only means that player can leave the rear and/or small mounts empty and focus everything up front.

You really shouldn’t have much in the small mounts anyway in an Oddesy. The ones you want to fill first will all be on the soft side as well.
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Megas

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #82 on: March 25, 2018, 07:58:12 PM »

What soft side?  I guess that is the nose of the ship because that is what get pointed at enemies to get all three heavies aimed at a target at the same time, not to mention that is where shield first appears when Front Shield Emitter is installed (which I do not think I use now).  (I am fairly good at aiming all three heavy turrets on target thanks to lots of practice in earlier versions when Odyssey was decent.)

Having lots of cheaper PD lasers make up for their weakness somewhat.  Most energy PD is not like Vulcan or Flak where one might be enough.  Ship needs at least two or three to stop missiles before they hit.

With old skills and when LR PD was terrible, I often used Tac Laser + IPDAI + Gyros for PD.  Now, I use LR PD Lasers (which are good now) as an alternate.  (Burst PD is too rare and costs too much OP even if some mounts are left empty.)

IR Pulse Lasers used to be fun when shields were not terrible and enemies charged in.  Now, IR Pulse Laser spam gets Odyssey killed.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2018, 07:59:53 PM by Megas »
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Goumindong

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #83 on: March 25, 2018, 10:25:53 PM »

You fly the Oddesy like you fly the conquest. Circling around the enemy. The rear large turret is your soft side, there primarily to fend off enemies that get behind you. You still want a hard flux gun back there so you can turn it to the enemy when you need it, and range isn’t that important because if you ever get a capital behind you you’re running from them anyway.

PD is pointless except maybe one or two burst at the engines.. You have two fighters so sparks will give you 5 burst PDs per wing or Xyphos will give you 2 plus 2 ion beams for low shield punishment.  You don’t engage with your fighters, they’re free slots for you effectively.
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Megas

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #84 on: March 26, 2018, 09:57:22 AM »

@ Goumindong:  I see what you did.  You outsource PD on fighters and use them as escorts, which may let you skimp on light weapons and squeeze more OP on the side that matters most.  I tried it your way and while effective enough to be viable, is not significantly better than the other loadouts I tried against capitals (and others).  Unskilled, Onslaught will maul Odyssey just as easily and very hard to solo.  Conquest is a difficult fight, and Paragon is virtually impossible.  With Helmsmanship 3 and the other must-haves (like Loadout Design 3), winning against SIM Onslaught is about 50/50, Conquest is at least 50/50 or better.  Astral is still difficult, and Paragon is still nearly impossible.  Helmsmanship 3 on Odyssey is not always enough to flank Onslaught.  (Meanwhile, if I use a similarly skilled battleship against a lone SIM capital, it utterly crushes it without much of a fight.)

If I am forced to stay close to the enemy because of fighter escorts and making it harder for an enemy ship to pillbox Odyssey, then I noticed that a pair of blasters and several IR pulse lasers is more efficient than two plasma cannons (and more sustainable than two autopulse), and costs less OP, meaning more OP for capacitors and better flux stats for shield tanking.  Plasma cannon is a real hog.  Autopulse is kind of piggy on OP too if the ship needs Expanded Magazines for more shots.

Loadout Design 3 is a big help for Odyssey (and for everything else, especially carriers).  If it leaves most weapons empty, it might have enough OP to afford Hardened Shields and high capacitors, which lets it shield tank somewhat like it used to, but that is a huge sacrifice that other capitals do not need to make.  If I skimp that much, then smaller enemy ships have an easier time flanking Odyssey, because everything significant is on one side.

The main reason to use fighters is mostly to sic them against cowardly small ships that most ships cannot catch, although keeping bombers as escorts for unlimited missiles can be useful too.  If I need to keep non-bombers as personal escorts, that defeats the point of using fighters.  Might as well use a dedicated warship better at defending itself.

I still have no practical reason to use Odyssey instead of any other capital or a pair of cruisers.  Odyssey needs its 0.8 shield back and some OP relief (either more OP or free builtin ITU).
« Last Edit: March 26, 2018, 10:01:24 AM by Megas »
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TaLaR

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #85 on: March 26, 2018, 11:21:31 AM »

@ Goumindong:  I see what you did.  You outsource PD on fighters and use them as escorts, which may let you skimp on light weapons and squeeze more OP on the side that matters most.  I tried it your way and while effective enough to be viable, is not significantly better than the other loadouts I tried against capitals (and others).  Unskilled, Onslaught will maul Odyssey just as easily and very hard to solo.  Conquest is a difficult fight, and Paragon is virtually impossible.  With Helmsmanship 3 and the other must-haves (like Loadout Design 3), winning against SIM Onslaught is about 50/50, Conquest is at least 50/50 or better.  Astral is still difficult, and Paragon is still nearly impossible.  Helmsmanship 3 on Odyssey is not always enough to flank Onslaught.  (Meanwhile, if I use a similarly skilled battleship against a lone SIM capital, it utterly crushes it without much of a fight.)

Skill-less 3xTL, rest Tac Lasers beats sim Onslaught fairly reliably and almost without taking damage. Not even that long fight, assuming Longbows perform well enough. No need to flank it either.
Funnily enough, sim Conquest might be a more difficult target (or at least time-consuming), because you need to drain it's Squalls before being able to attack properly. Plus there is minor, but real threat of being cornered before this happens (since Conquest pushes quite aggressively in this scenario).
Sim Paragon is only kill-able by cheesing shield drop behavior and firing off-center. Process that takes a lot of time and leaves almost no margin for errors.

With that said, I just don't enjoy piloting it. Keeping enemy within 3xTL sweetspot is quite tiring.
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Megas

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #86 on: March 26, 2018, 11:40:05 AM »

@ TaLaR:  I was trying it with Goumindong's way, with Sparks and Xyphos as support fighters and hard flux weapons (two plasma cannons at first, then two heavy blasters and four IR pulse lasers).  As for Tachyon Lances, it is doable as you wrote, but it is a pain to do.

Quote
Sim Paragon is only kill-able by cheesing shield drop behavior and firing off-center. Process that takes a lot of time and leaves almost no margin for errors.
I noticed that once hull gets extremely low, AI never drop shields and shield drop cheese no longer works.  For attacking ships unlucky enough to not quite finish off a ship and hull gets to that point, defender never drops shields and beams alone do not work.  This is what makes four Lance and two HVD Paragon effective.  HVDs puts hard flux on shield, and the lances pierce and remove the last remaining hull.  Odyssey needs its fighters (or other ships) to put the hard flux on the shield.
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Goumindong

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #87 on: March 26, 2018, 02:39:40 PM »

Tachyon lances on the hard side, hard flux on the soft side. The tachyon lances are necessary and valuable in real fights because you almost never ever solo an enemy BS in normal play. You need to be able to hit and kill small targets before closing on the caps because.

1) the enemy almost never fields BS without an apropriate support fleet

2) I almost never field capitals before I am at least capable of fielding multiple cruisers.

3) you will have to kill the small ships before the large as they run interference and also provide significant supporting fire.

—?—

The entire point of an asymmetric design is using it asymmetrically. The Oddssy is maneuverable enough that you can swing the soft side around to provide hard flux when necessary. Otherwise the HEF and tachyons provide the perfect frequency of fire to ruin smaller ships as you make your maneuvers against the enemy fleet.

The best rear slot weapon is probably the auto-pulse laser. A heavy blaster will overcome the initial Autopulse burst in about 15 seconds of pure fire but I tend to swap to the front two before that and the Auto lets me store up that DPS. Thermal Pulse will start ahead and never falter from the Autopulse but you’re paying a lot of cap for that and you don’t want to lose your flux speed boost when you’re swapping sides.

Anti-Matter/IR work OK in small slots for this same purpose. IR is generally best against the threats you have behind as well as you don’t have to worry about AI fire flux dump as you do with AM.

Additionally it’s worth it to moderate your flux dissapators to be able to fire your front weapons only. You don’t need cap to fire everything at once and you’re less concerned about capping out when you turn. This frees up a lot of OP on the ship because the base dissapation is nearly high enough to fire your TLs indefinitely. You can save 30-50 OP here iirc.

—?

The paragon is great and especially great the bigger the target. But against larger fleets the inability to keep the two front guns on target (compared to two 180 deg HEF capable turrets on the same arc), the inability to keep two guns on the same target unless they’re in front, and the much lower speed make it considerably less effective. I almost prefer it with full Autopulse or TPC or Heavy Blaster in order to be better at its primary use case of wrecking stations and then it would sit unused consuming fuel and supplies until needed.

The Astral is better at killing ships than the paragon simply because it has a much higher range but still suffers when trying to strike multiple small ships. Simply because it has to fly those strike craft all the way out there. Once it and it’s fighters are there though nothing survives (I prefer 4/2 or 3/3 longbow/trident, daggers are right out because they will fire their payloads before the longbows in 90% of cases, impacting uselessly off shields)

With huge fleet sizes fielding both an Oddesy and Paragon tends to yield the Oddesy destroying the majority of the enemy fleet before the Paragon gets in range. With an astral the clean up arrives much faster and more powerfully. But it’s still generally clean up. Hilarious overkill cleanup. But cleanup none the less.


—?-

Like, I understand that you all want to use the Oddesy to kill capital ships. But it’s not that ship and not every ship can be that ship. There are four distinct Capital size gunships and two distinct capital size carriers. One of them has to be best at killing enemy capitals one on one. One of them has to be the worst. So long as the worst does something else valuable it’s fine.

The Oddssy is the worst. And that is fine. Don’t put longbows on it and try to kill capitals. You cannot afford the crew losses this creates. Do not put TPCs on it and run it nose first into the enemy. You will cap out long before you kill anything.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2018, 02:43:09 PM by Goumindong »
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Megas

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #88 on: March 26, 2018, 03:06:32 PM »

Quote
Like, I understand that you all want to use the Oddesy to kill capital ships. But it’s not that ship and not every ship can be that ship.
In that case, Odyssey truly is useless.  It is overpriced and underpowered.  It must stand up to capitals or else there is no point to use it instead of a capital that can do its job and more, or two or more smaller ships for less cost.  Destroyers warships are fairly balanced.  Cruiser warships are mostly balanced.  Capitals... Odyssey is the odd ship out.

I will not give extremely rare lances to Odyssey when Paragon can use them better than everyone else (due to range bonus and backup from HVDs).  Paragon can destroy everything except frigates that run away.  But frigates are able to run away from almost everything, including stuff like Medusa.  For anti-frigate, nothing beats fighters.  Even if I do not want to use Paragon, the other capitals can pull their weight... except Odyssey.

Quote
The Oddssy is the worst. And that is fine.
No, it is not as long as it is more expensive than most capitals.  Odyssey is an order of magnitude worse than every other capital, just like Hammerhead was for destroyers before 0.8.  Conquest was relatively weak before 0.8, too (though probably comparable to Odyssey at the time), but it got some nice buffs, more armor and hull, and that OP discount with heavy weapons.  Now the gap between Conquest and proper battleships is narrow.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2018, 03:13:01 PM by Megas »
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Goumindong

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Re: Beam Stuff
« Reply #89 on: March 26, 2018, 04:05:51 PM »

An order of magnitude is 10 Times. Other capitals are not 10 times better at killing capitals than the Odyssey. Plus the 8 burn speed is nice.

No two cruisers can do the job the odyssey does. The odyssey is faster than any cruiser save the Aurora and maybe the Falcon* but these two ships have significant fitting and cap and range downsides that prevent them from being as effective. Additionally the fact that the Odyssey will be traveling on the same line as it’s main engines when engaging the main fleet gives it significant effective maneuverability and speed advantage.

Plus the Aurora costs 30, so you’re at 60 with two. The Aurora is probably slightly better at swatting frigates and destroyers by just flux dumping them with AM blasters but it will not provide a hammer or anvil to pressure an enemy fleet without tachyon lances and capital sized range boosts. The Odyssey provides as much cap as three Falcons plus better slots for putting that cap down effectively.

Either way, you cannot have two of these effectively working the way the Odyssey does because you can only pilot one ship at a time.

The speed of smaller ships when facing an Odyssey doesn’t much matter because the optimal method of play negates those issues. You push enemy ships into a smaller region where they don’t have room to maneuver. Things you cannot do with comparatively under gunned Auroras and Falcons or Eagles. A few frigates behind you is NBD for an Oddyssey because they cannot hurt you with your 700x1.6 and 500x1.6 wrecking crew back there.  Nor can they push you out of optimal pathing because your pathing is tangential rather than parallel with the enemy fleet. Following you will drag them into the arc of your tachyon lances with a slight course correction.

I don’t understand how you think the Odyssey is so bad when you yourself claim that the primarily limiter is Tachyon Lances. Yet you want 4 rare tachyon lances for your Paragon as opposed to only two for your Odyssey. You get to bring two Odyssesy for every Paragon you can field. You can fit a single Odyssey twice as easily as you can fit a Paragon!

*the Falcon cannot easily keeep cap minimum and if it loses out on Helmsmanship it’s done.
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