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Author Topic: Ship Tier List  (Read 190522 times)

Dark.Revenant

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Ship Tier List
« on: March 31, 2018, 01:33:38 PM »

Here, I categorize the ships of Starsector in terms of their general usefulness.  For most cases, an unbiased player would choose a higher-tier ship over a lower one for the same role.  The purpose of this experiment is to illustrate how well the current set of ships stacks up in the grand scheme of things, which might be a resource for players, but also serves to give insight to modders pertaining to how powerful their ships ought to be in order to avoid being too weak or too strong.


Rubric
S: Powerful to the point that it breaks the game.  Extremely OP; clearly better than everything else.
A: Unambiguously powerful, enough that it can be considered best-in-class.  Typically the best option for a given role.
B: Generally competent; might be specialized, but remains useful outside of its specialty.  A solid choice throughout the game.
C: Either a jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none, or an ultra-specialized option that excels in one area but sucks at most everything else.  Generally serviceable, but not exceptional.
D: Mediocre, either by being sub-par at everything or by being overshadowed at its own specialty.  Best as a starter option or last resort.
F: Complete and utter trash.  Worthless.
EX: Unique entity that cannot be evaluated comparatively.

+: Modifier indicating that the rank can increase under certain circumstances.
-: Modifier indicating that the rank can decrease under certain circumstances.
*: Modifier indicating that the rank can fluctuate up or down depending on circumstances.


Capital Ships
Astral
Two Herons beat out an Astral for raw damage, two Moras beat it out for staying power, and both alternatives are still cheaper.  The Astral fires back with the welcome addition of two large missiles, but sacrifices the flexibility of having two independent targeting orders.  So, under normal circumstances, with a balanced fighter complement, the Astral is just competent, but not mindblowing.  However, if you happen to equip most of its bays with bombers and abuse its recall system, the Astral transforms into the best ship-deletion vehicle in the game.

Atlas
If you want to move cargo, the Atlas is simply the best option in the game.  It only takes up one fleet slot, it carries more cargo than anything else in the game, and is efficient in terms of supplies per month.  The only reason you might pick something else is to avoid the penalties to sensors and avoid slowing down your fleet, but both of those concerns are usually moot by the time you're purchasing one of these.  However, if you don't need more cargo, the Atlas is useless.

Conquest
The Conquest has tremendous firepower, but can't direct the majority of it onto a specific target.  The Conquest has great speed, but can easily over-commit and get blasted to bits for its trouble.  In the AI's hands, this ship is liable to engage in some suicidal blunder and/or waste its potential, limiting its overall usefulness.  With the right loadout in the hands of a skilled player, however, the Conquest comes alive as one of the better ships in the game.

Legion
The Legion is the gold standard by which capital ships should be designed.  It's got decks; it's got guns; it can bulk up either decks or guns at the cost of the other.  It's tough, but it goes down if you have the right tools or enough ships.  It's slow, but it can get to the fighting relatively quickly thanks to its burn drive.  The Legion is just all-around solid and works well in any configuration.

Odyssey
The main thing the Odyssey has going for it is speed, and yet the Conquest, Onslaught, and Legion all match or even beat it for (burst) speed due to their powerful mobility systems.  As a result, we're left with a fragile capital ship with good - but not great - firepower, good - but not great - speed, and an awkward layout that takes more skill to use than most other ships.  The Odyssey ends up being a somewhat overpriced jack-of-all-trades, but it is notably the only capital ship capable of reliably engaging in hit-and-run skirmishes.

Onslaught
In terms of pure full-out assaults, the Onslaught is the king of damage, unmatched by anything in the game.  An Onslaught burning towards you with all guns and missiles firing is terrifying dangerous for any victim.  Straightforward "point toward the enemy and make them die" behavior makes the Onslaught good in both player and AI hands.  Poor flux capability is outweighed by the best armor and hull stats for any ship in the game.  It's extremely strong, it's extremely tough, and it's even on the cheap side for a capital ship; the Onslaught does it all.  Well, except for a major weakness: the Onslaught is extremely vulnerable to being flanked.  As made famous by the "Sinking the not!Bismarck" mission, even a single persistent frigate can spell the Onslaught's doom.

Paragon
It should be no surprise to anyone that the Paragon is ranked very highly.  In most circumstances, the Paragon is an indisputable "A tier" ship, capable of covering all its bases, immune to flanking, extremely tough, and very powerful.  While specific ships might be able to beat the Paragon in a specific category, the Paragon as a whole is great at everything and has no noteworthy weaknesses to compensate, making it the best capital ship in the game by default.  If that wasn't enough, the Paragon has an actual niche that it excels at: range.  Anything slower and shorter-ranged, such as a pinned-down capital ship or some battlestations, is basically screwed if it has to fight a Paragon, making it conditionally even better than "A tier".

Prometheus
If you want to increase your fleet's range, the Prometheus is simply the best option in the game.  It only takes up one fleet slot, it carries more fuel than anything else in the game, and is efficient in terms of supplies per month.  Oddly, unlike other mainline civilian ships, it has actual defenses that might be able to fend off a couple frigates during a retreat, though this isn't enough to raise the rank.  The only reason you might pick something else is to avoid the penalties to sensors and avoid slowing down your fleet, but oftentimes the Prometheus is the only viable option for getting across the Sector.  However, if you don't need more fuel, the Prometheus is completely useless.


Cruisers
Apogee
The Apogee has had, throughout the entire release cycle of Starsector, the most bizarre weapon layout of any ship in the game.  This is primarily due to the fact that the Apogee was designed during a period of the game where refitting wasn't possible.  Later, when refits were made available and the slots were changed around, the Apogee remained one of the few ships to come out with no changes at all.  However, just about everything else about the ship has changed dramatically with each release, which should be a good indication of its role in the game.

Basically, the Apogee is the ultimate jack-of-all-trades.  It can do just about everything: tank, hit hard, help you explore, help you see further, escort smaller ships, hang back with long-ranged weapons; you name it.  The main drawback is that the Apogee isn't particularly good at doing any of these individual things, leaving it in an awkward middle spot; just about every other cruiser beats the Apogee in some major capacity, meaning it's very rarely the best choice for a given job.  Still, the Apogee has the rare distinction of being one of two flyable ships in the game (alongside the Conquest) to have both a large missile and a large non-missile slot, giving it unique loadout min-maxing flexibility.

Aurora
Some ships skirt the edge of being outright broken.  The Aurora is one of those ships.  It's faster than all the other cruisers, both in terms of burst speed and consistent speed.  It has a punishingly powerful array of forward guns and missiles.  It has a very strong shield, top-tier flux stats, and OP for days.  The only drawback is relatively poor range, but when you're riding around in a cruiser that can outpace most destroyers, the sub-par range doesn't matter as much.  Under normal circumstances, Aurora is among the best ships in the game, but certain builds can shore up the Aurora's few weaknesses and capitalize on its many strengths, throwing it straight into crazy town.

Brilliant
Despite not being a player-usable ship, the Brilliant manages to put the fear of death into late-game fleets.  While a single Brilliant isn't really anything special, they're surprisingly easy to mass and can cover for one another.  A decent layout, a very flexible loadout, and all-around competent stats leaves us with a solid ship with no notable weaknesses.

Colossus
Colossus is the rare civilian ship that can measure up to the capital-class civilian ships (Atlas).  Most players will find the Colossus to be the best bulk cargo option if they don't want to slow down their fleet as much.  As with other dedicated freighters, it's useless if you don't need more cargo space.

Colossus Mk.II
The only redeeming quality of this modification is the built-in hammer barrage and burn drive, making the Colossus Mk.II a decent kamikaze unit.  Aside from that, though, it's terrible.

Colossus Mk.III
The Colossus Mk.III is hot garbage.  Unlike the Mk. II, this verison doesn't have an useful niche.  If it had more OP, perhaps it could manage some modest capability, but alas.

Dominator
Unlike many "B rank" ships, the Dominator is not a generalist main-line ship.  It has one category of jobs that it does better than any other cruiser: facing the enemy and blasting them with all of its guns.  When placed in the right situation (such as having an anvil to hammer against), the Dominator is incredibly potent, capable of deploying capital-grade firepower whilst enjoying capital-grade durability.  When flanked by faster ships or left unprotected, however, the Dominator is hopelessly outmatched.  Moreso than perhaps any other ship, the Dominator is made or broken by how well it is utilized.

Doom
Yes, the Doom is a phase ship and is at least somewhat useful by default.  However, due to its cruiser designation, it's not quite fast enough to make good use of phasing; it's often more of a burden.  The Doom also has the worst of the ship systems installed on phase ships currently, and a generally anemic weapons package capable of making a small number of really powerful strikes via opportunistic use of torpedoes.  In the grand scheme of things, the Doom is far from a bad cruiser, but it really isn't worth the capital-class costs associated with operating it.

Eagle
The Mario of Starsector, the Eagle is perhaps the most well-rounded ship in the game.  A good mobility system to get out of trouble, good shields and armor, an exploitable weakness that the pilot can cover for, and plenty of guns in various configurations to deal with whatever threat may face it; this ship has it all.  Most notably, the Eagle can be configured for just about any purpose, which it will carry out reliably, even in AI hands.  There is a reason the Eagle has become basically the de-facto default pick for a cruiser; it's a jack-of-all-trades, but it's actually good at all of its roles.

Falcon
The Falcon is basically a scaled-down Eagle, almost crossing into destroyer territory.  What it has going for it is increased speed without sacrificing the range afforded by the cruiser class; otherwise, what is said about the Eagle generally applies to the Falcon, too... with a caveat.  The Falcon, unlike the Eagle, cannot afford to get in close and have a brawl, owing to its weaker shields, weaker armor, and lower hull.  As a result, the Falcon is especially dependent on long-range weapons and/or hullmods to work well.  If you don't have those available, the Falcon's usefulness sharply drops off.

Gryphon
Standard Gryphon builds are nothing special; they're serviceable, but have limited use, since the ship will fold quickly when thrown up against stiff resistance (such as a capital ship).  Most of the time, in AI hands, the Gryphon is best used as an anti-fighter screen, a LRM spammer, or a close support harpoon/sabot machine to punish enemy ships that make mistakes in a fleet engagement.  For most of these roles, you're probably better off picking some other ship in the late game.

In the player's hands, everything changes.  The right build and tactics turn the Gryphon into an overpowered auto-winning behemoth capable of deleting multiple capital ships by itself.

Heron
For cruiser-sized carriers, we have a nicely balanced pair of choices: toughness or strike power.  The Heron is the "strike power" side of that choice, featuring a ship system that supercharges fighter damage, making it a solid choice for assault fighters and bombers.  To compensate, the Heron is a fast bastard that likes to stay away from the action, forcing bombers to make longer attack runs.  In fact, with the right captain, the Heron is infuriatingly speedy, capable of slipping away from most other ships.  The Heron lacks notable weaknesses, but doesn't reach the heights of power that the top-end carriers can pull off, putting it right around the middle alongside the Mora.

Mora
The Mora is the "toughness" side of the aforementioned choice, featuring a ship system that makes the ship practically immortal for a short time.  The Mora's lack of a direct fighter-boosting system is offset by its crazy staying power and actually decent weapons package; replacement fighters and bombers rarely have to travel very far to reach the target.  With the right captain, the Mora is so tough that it basically can't die, making it the safer alternative to the Heron.  The Mora naturally synergizes with its fighters, making it just as viable a choice as its more tuned competitor.

Rampart
The Rampart is shockingly good for a Derelict ship.  It succeeds where all the others fail: having enough guns to offset the lack of shields.  The Rampart is especially helped by the fact that it's extremely similar to the Dominator, right down to the same hull, armor, flux stats, ship system, and nearly the same speed, turning, and acceleration.  It still gets a D, though, because it has built-in D mods.

Starliner
The Starliner is completely useless for any practical purpose, having recently lost the mere modicum of combat capability it once had, and crew quantity not being a problem by the time you can purchase it.

Venture
The Venture is a glorified starter ship that works best in a support role.  Given the rather crappy built-in mining drones and lack of brawling stats, it's best not to rely on this ship later in the game, except for a particular niche, where it works well as a makeshift Gryphon: missile spam.


Destroyers
Bastillon
x

Berserker
x

Buffalo
x
Buffalo (A)
x
Buffalo (P)
x

Buffalo Mk.II
x

Condor
x

Drover
x

Enforcer
x

Fulgent
x

Gemini
x

Hammerhead
x

Harbinger
x

Medusa
x

Mule
x
Mule (P)
x

Nebula
x

Phaeton
x

Salvage Rig
x

Scintilla
x

Sunder
x

Tarsus
x

Valkyrie
x

To be continued...
« Last Edit: April 02, 2018, 11:06:04 PM by Dark.Revenant »
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TJJ

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2018, 01:53:31 PM »

A fair and reasonable appraisal; nothing I can disagree with.

I like the definition you've gone with for +/- modifiers; removes the misplaced absoluteness that rankings often encourage.

Still love me some Conquest, even if it isn't anywhere near what it used to be in 0.7.
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TaLaR

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2018, 01:49:47 AM »

Maybe it's better to divide into 2 grades - for player and for AI?

Player piloted Afflictor is S or EX (it can kill a Paragon faster than another Paragon can). AI controlled one is A at best (if class is considered as phase frigates, but AI is just not good at piloting any of them) or B (if class is frigates in general).

Or Medusa - it's the best vanilla DE for player piloting, so A. Under AI control it's at best roughly equal to other DEs, if not worse considering higher supply cost.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2018, 02:44:01 AM »

That's what the +/- system is for.  Also, reclassified Atlas and Prometheus to fit the rubric better.
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HELMUT

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2018, 02:59:32 AM »

I would put the Odyssey at C+. Still situational, but unrivalled in some situations.

As for the Afflictor, the ship is good, but not that good. Even an Afflictor flagship is limited by CR and/or ammunition. As for an AI controlled one, they can be either too reckless or too cautious to properly work and deserve an A rank. In 0.9, i expect the AI Afflictor to be better (entropy amplifier have longer range), while a flagship one won't be able to pull off some of its "ninja" moves any more.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2018, 03:02:16 AM »

I would put the Odyssey at C+. Still situational, but unrivalled in some situations.

What are those situations?
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HELMUT

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2018, 03:29:47 AM »

Hit & run tactics.

The Odyssey can reliably bring two things : mobility and burst damage, thanks to its base 80 speed and HEF. The Conquest, one of its closest competitor in this regard, can do it as well, but isn't as reliable. Manoeuvring jets have a cooldown, and the two frontal missiles mounts can be clunky to use. Moreover, the Conquest is much more vulnerable to being intercepted, having a really crappy shield efficiency and narrow arc (1.4 and 90°). Odyssey is safer to use (1 shield efficiency, 180° arc). Granted, the Conquest have more armor, but in a hit & run situation, you don't want to be caught with high-flux at all, and 200 more armor probably won't save you.

Also, the Odyssey got two launch bays, giving it a lot of versatility and reach. I like to use Claws for said Hit & Run tactics, to catch things, or give the ship some time to escape when caught.

You probably did read that thread already, what i did there, i couldn't have done with a Conquest (i tried).

Granted, there's currently not many situation in vanilla that require that kind of tactics. But with the coming of bigger space stations in 0.9, as well as mines, i expect Hit & Runs tactics to be more common. Hence a C+ rank, Oddy is the best at that.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2018, 03:48:35 AM »

Adjusted the rank to be C+.  I didn't consider the Conquest's jets cooldown to be a major factor, but given your direct experience, I'll go with your interpretation.
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Linnis

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2018, 10:59:43 AM »

Adjusted the rank to be C+.  I didn't consider the Conquest's jets cooldown to be a major factor, but given your direct experience, I'll go with your interpretation.

The conquest's only two redeeming quality is its maneuverability and great PD/area. But it's overall speed is dwarfed by onslaught's burn drive.

Despite that, I would give it a B, while it dont kill as fast or tank as much as Onslaught, there is a distinct use in being maneuverable where you can shield friendly large ships from being destroyed by getting in front of them and letting them back off from incoming fire.
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SCC

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2018, 12:14:46 PM »

The conquest's only two redeeming quality is its maneuverability and great PD/area. But it's overall speed is dwarfed by onslaught's burn drive.
And 1200 flux dissipation coupled with ballistic weapons, which means it has great staying power if you don't have to tank everything.

Dark.Revenant

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #10 on: April 01, 2018, 12:51:52 PM »

It was the Odyssey’s rank I bumped to C+.  Conquest is still C++; a player can do amazing things with it.  An AI, not so much.
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Goumindong

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #11 on: April 01, 2018, 01:16:40 PM »

Adjusted the rank to be C+.  I didn't consider the Conquest's jets cooldown to be a major factor, but given your direct experience, I'll go with your interpretation.

The Jets cooldown is important because the minimum flux speed boost is more significant than the speed increase from the jets. If you get caught you will lose the minimum flux speed boost and be caught regardless of whether or not you have jets. You can sometimes use the jets to get away, but not if you’re using them on CD in order to achieve a better top speed.

This makes the Odyssey much safer and faster in practice compared to the conquest. Which is much safer than the onslaught for similar reasons.

The best use case for the conquest and Odyssey is not to shield allies but to flank the enemy fleet. This will push the enemy fleet into a bad position against your main force with no good way to place shields. You then crush them between the two points.
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FooF

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #12 on: April 01, 2018, 02:07:32 PM »

Good list and good discussion. I can't disagree with the current grades, either. I look forward to the next round of ships.

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Philder

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #13 on: April 01, 2018, 02:32:50 PM »

#DisappointedMeme

Just kidding  :D

But I do respectfully disagree on several points :3

I'm working on a big spreadsheet thing to properly describe many stats regarding balance and effectiveness, but it's not finished so for now I'll just bring up a couple general issues, with one exception.

First, the exception that called forth Kevin Sorbo:

The Odyssey. The ever misunderstood ship, and the one I'll always mispell with 2 d's because it is a rather 'Odd'ysey. The turret array is odd, the mount size and types array is odd, the combination of flux stats including shields, the capitol ship speed, the flight decks on a hightech ship, and of course the ship itself just looks odd.

Honestly, I suppose I'm not too surprised about the ranking. It just looks like a wonky POS. But after taking a look the meta of stats on all [vanilla] ships and weapons for so long, I'm finally able to see where it shines.

General issue #1: Flux and Shields

These stats are highly deceptive. Most people will look at and evaluate them on an individual basis, but IMO they're linked to such a significant degree that they can dictate the very role a ship plays. First thing to pay attention to is flux vs shields. Shield efficiency by itself is only half of the equation. To power that shield you need flux, and that can dictate the overall strength of it. For example, who has a stronger shield? An Omen or an Onslaught? An Omen may have a 0.6 efficiency factor, but when comparing EHP regen/capacity, the Onslaught wins heavily with a 600/17,000 shield vs the Omens 333/4,167. Yes it's an extreme example, but it's also a clear case study of the overall weight shield efficiency has on the situation.

Now, while shield and flux stats do play a role with shields, shield effiency does not play a role when it comes to firing weapons. Not directly, anyway. First, to be clear, one can fire weapons while the shields are down. But certain situations require shields to be up. Long range damage support? Shields down. Blindspot flanking? Shields down. Going into medium or close range? Shields up, weapons online! When shields are up, you now have to consider your overall flux venting. It isn't simply vents minus weapon flux. It's Vents - ShieldUpkeep - WeaponFlux. Why this is significant both in and of itself as well as in combination with your other shield-related stats is it determines how fast you'll be overloaded. And for a hit-and-run ship, hard flux usually plays a lesser role in being overloaded.

A ship like the Odyssey has a high high base flux dissipation of 1,000, and a low low shield upkeep factor of only 0.25. The next best capitol only has an upkeep factor of 0.4 (a near double increase), and the capitol ship with the second best shield efficiency factor, the Astral, has an upkeep factor of 0.7! And if we compare EHP regen (including upkeep) and cap, the Odyssey has 750/15,000 vs the Astral's 300/20,000. If we take into account adding addition vents and flux, the Astral will benefit more, but that's still a pretty significant deficit to make up for. Again, this is an extreme case, but again, it clearly demonstrates a case study. What this means is that certain ships do very well with staying in firing range with shields up while returning fire, while others benefit more from using shields more like large buffer before having to duck out of combat to reset it.

Devils advocate: lowtech is clearly built to march into battle with the flux bar perpetually full, but there are additional problems with that that I'll get into later. For now lets just conclude that defense wise, lowtech has utter *** shields and will only sparsely have shields up.


General Issue #2: Flux Dissipation(FD) and Weapons

Okay this one is a bit more complicated. First off, we've got two FD numbers to contend with; shields up, and shields down. Second, we have two dynamic situations to consider; firing while flux is building up, and firing while flux is near maxed. Shields up vs down is easy, and you can clearly see how hightech is balance vs lowtech in regards to flux and shields and weapons. Hightech is built for fighting with shields up, essentially eliminating some of that higher base FD available for firing. Lowtech is built for fighting with shields down and flickering situational, giving them plenty of their base FD for firing. To tackle flux build up vs fighting near max flux, I'll have to bring up a third general issue.



General Issue #3: Tech level and Weapon Flux Demands

First off, to simplify things, rather than counting weapon mounts and sizes, let's first use Ordinance Points(OP) as a rough the basis for the FD demands that a ship will due to its weapons. We can assume this because every ship is given a base OP depending on the ship size, and additional base OP for each weapon mount based on its mount size. I think it's 4/10/20 for mounts. Not all weapons are of equal efficiency in employing flux to deal damage, but lets leave that for later.

If you take a look at lowtech OP, you'll notice that they generally have the most OP (unless they have flight decks, in which case I posit that flight decks count as reserved and hidden OP). This means that lowtech will tend to have a higher base FD weapon demand, making them reach near max flux even faster in addition to their poor shields + flux stats. Their max flux doesn't suffer though, so you could say that they have very high burst. It's just their sustain that is terrible. This translates to the increased armor and hull stats, too. Shields are the more sustainable defense, they just have a lower overall 'burst' capacity.

Now, why do I hate low FD and the near-max flux situation so much? Because it means you don't have the flux reserves available to take advantage of opportunities, and most of all, it inhibits weapons with large flux/shot demands from firing in favor of smaller ones. And that's terrible because sometimes blowing up the enemy ship faster is better than having your PD or less effective weapons eating up all the flux. How many times have we seen the AI waste a ships potential by doing that?

This is the reason why I hate the Onslaught. It has way way way way way more guns than it can possibly power, and as soon as it hits near-max its dps drops off severely and can barely fire its bigger guns, if at all. Combine that with its crippling speed and accelerations and you've got a ship that has a hard time hitting anything with even moderate speed. It's so bad that the AI has been programmed NOT to flank it. The only way I can find to make proper use of it is turn it full tank, with Aux Thrusters, 2xHellbores for armor penetration when it isn't tanking, Railguns, and to load it with nothing but Flak and Thumpers in medium and large slots to maximize its tank potential, and just use it as a battering ram and bullet magnet. IMO it's uselessly expensive as a standalone vessel compared to what it can accomplish in anything but a tanking role. Railguns are to run up hardflux (small ballistic pd is useless IMO) so as to prevent future damage and not need a high flux/shot like needler. Frag weapons are mostly for efficient PD but also because their dmg against sields and hull aren't bad and are fast moving and damaging enough to wreck smaller craft. Only 2x Hellbore because Onslaught can't support anything else. Heph is pointless because 4x Anni Pods. Deva's high flux/shot makes it useless when it needs it most. lol at inefficient Gauss sniper on a close combat tank. etc etc..

Honestly, as a throwaway tank the Dominator is far more efficient. The only thing the Onslaught has over it is # of potential slots for medium PD. Otherwise, I'd rather just throw Dominators at the enemy, recover them after battle, and not give a swarmer about Dmods.


General Issue #4: Deceptive efficiencies

Raw dps and fps stats in tooltip are heavily unfavorable for many energy weapons, especially considering the weaknesses of beams, but I feel like most people vastly underestimate the difference that shot damage makes, and totally ignore effectiveness vs hull (including the inherent 5% armor of hull). I made some spreadsheet magic to calculate the numbers, and energy weapons are actually highly competitive. In fact, against overall armor and hull, Energy weapons like Blasters and the Plasma Cannon are distinctly superior to even HE. Why? Two things. Remember that even though HE gets a 2x bonus vs armor, energy tends to have distinctly higher base dps and shot damage, and HE weapons are usually either high dps and low shot dmg, or low dps and high shot dmg. Plasma Cannon and blasters, though? High dps and high shot damage. That means they can chew through both high armor and hull efficiently at higher dps. In fact, if you include shields, those energy weapon's efficiency is on par with HE.

Kinetic and Frag actually tends to be more efficient overall, but the time it takes to get through armor is just absurd. You MUST have an armor penetrator. Blaster energy weapons can perform all roles the best overall. No need for additional mounts or other damage types.

When my spreadsheet is ready, I'll publish it for all to peruse and see evidence of what I'm talking about.


Why the Odyssey? Because its shields are decent, it's speed is great for hit and runs for ships of its size, it's flux stats are near-OP with shields either up or down, it can easily aim TWO Plasmas at a target WITH HEF, it can festoon itself with Burst PD that is great vs missiles, fighters and even armor and hull, it has 3 medium slots to guarantee you land a Salamander which is great for targets faster than it, and it has 2 flight decks you can load with Claws and Gladius to also help chase down faster foes, soak some damage for the Odyssey, as well as generate hardflux at no flux cost to the Odyssey, which is perfect since although Plasma is perfect vs hull and armor, it's much less efficient vs shields, and you really don't need any other damage dealing weapon when you have Plasma Cannons. You can even give it Unstable Injectors without issue since range isn't too important for it. Minor bonus: Best cargo and burn speed of all capitols.

As far as piloting, I put 2x Plasma on the two left facing mounts, and Guardian PD on the right one. I keep the right side angled towards danger until I want to unload Plasma with HEF. Putting damage dealing missiles in the missile slots is pointless when you can just completely disable enemy ships with gratuitous amounts of Salamanders and a flight of Claw Fighters and then just enjoy your superior flux stats.

Simple as that.  :D
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #14 on: April 01, 2018, 03:18:24 PM »

As I said, a player can make good use of an Odyssey.  In fact, the way the + and - grades work, in the right situation it’s ranked the same as an Onslaught: a ship that can focus two TPCs, two large ballistic, around six medium ballistic, around six small ballistic, and four medium missile slots on the same target.

C+ is not a bad rank.  None of the capital ships are bad. 
« Last Edit: April 01, 2018, 03:22:09 PM by Dark.Revenant »
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