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[zeves]

So got the game afther the video, great game wish ive found it earlier, i have a few questions i hope some of you can answer.
Recently salvaged an Elite battlecruiser and and a balanced cruiser, im not happy with them.

The battlecruiser has this whole side split armament to the sides problem witch makes it quite terrible in 1v1 and bad shields, i decided that only arming one side prob would be best and high armor but does the AI understand how to deal with that and are there other choices?
Balanced cruiser is also not to great with all those energy hardpoints, energy seems quite terrible in general.

Other questions, is it possible to have a full neutral start unaffiliated, and possibly in a random civilized system?
Can you get your own systems self sufficient enough to not get screwd over by a horde of pirates and enemies?
I feel i got lucky with my first playtrough to some degree with a unoccupied star system with one 100% planet with good mining prospects and a few other decent planets yet they struggle with constant raids and enemies.

sorry i mean the conquest class elite battlecruiser, and eagle class balanced cruiser.

[SCC]

There is more than one battlecruiser and more than one cruiser in the game. You have to be more specific.
You can't spawn in a random system, and even though Hegemony likes you a bit by default, it doesn't prevent you from doing whatever you want.
Yes, you can eventually get your colonies fortified enough.

[pedro1_1]

the 'Elite' and 'Balanced' are ways the game uses to tell what every ship does in game, theoreticaly. You can ingnore those names.

Comquest has one thing going for it: speed it is realy light just like Odyssey which are the lightest capital ships of the game;
Both are broadsiders, which means they go lateraly to strike, you shoud give both sides weapons mostily because if the armor is deplited on one side you can turn it to the other side and continue fighting;

Eagle is a suport ship, use long range weapons on it's energy and balistic slots two burst PD lasers on the slots on the back and forget the small missiles, then you but in Integrated Targeting Unit or Dedicatet Targeting Core, ITU is beter.

[Wyvern]

The Conquest is a bit of an awkward beast, but the AI is capable of using one-sided builds.  Not as well as the player can, but it's not completely incompetent.

The Eagle, by contrast, is a pretty solid line cruiser.  Lots of decent builds; focus on what you want from the three ballistic hardpoints, and use the rest of its slots to support that.

For example, the AI will be decent with a 2x HVD, 1x heavy mauler, 1x ion beam build.  (What goes in the rest of the energy slots?  Doesn't really matter, just don't put anything too flux-heavy in them.  Graviton beams, or just down-size the medium energies to mount more ER PD Lasers.)  That's not really a setup that's designed to kill things - but it will stall and shut enemy ships down quite well, leaving openings for more aggressive variants (or for the player ship).

Or, if you want to use it as your flagship, you can try out an SO build with 2x heavy machine gun, 1x assault chaingun, and a heavy blaster.  Should have decent mobility and plenty of ability to kill things once it gets close.

[zeves]

ah i see, i have to pay more attention to what the AI is doing, i noticed mostly my legion will just stay back as a carrier even though it has good armaments thats slightly annoying, but as long as they can form a line i dont mind,
i bought a few more ships im going to test out and see how they do in military trials. but im not convinced they fit my doctrine.

[Wyvern]

Ah, that reminds me, I should bug-report that behavior for the Legion; it's tagged as a battlecarrier and really shouldn't be trying to hide behind other ships the way regular carriers will.  Let me go do that.

Edited Addendum: If you've only got the one Legion, you can just pilot it yourself.  If you've got multiple, careful use of eliminate orders can get them to actually engage like they ought to.

[Alex]

Hmm, odd - it's got the NO_AUTO_ESCORT hint so it shouldn't be hiding behind other ships, iirc this is in the .9.1a release.

[zeves]

Well what i mean is mostly it just stands in the line like the rest of the ai, rarely does it go out of its way to use use its armament and tank some damage.
it also has trouble using its burn drive same with the dominator, id like if there was some more customization to how they act. but maby im just not using the right pilot for the job. i mostly use steady, but have agressive on the Legion.

Its fine i gues id like if the ai reacted to the flagship going in on attack with the burn drive. Onslaught is very fun still and can kill pretty much everything alone.

[Wyvern]

Hmm, odd - it's got the NO_AUTO_ESCORT hint so it shouldn't be hiding behind other ships, iirc this is in the .9.1a release.

Ah, my apologies then - I haven't actually flown a Legion in .9.1, I just assumed it was still an issue because of seeing it with certain mod ships - well, that, and Zeves' comment about the Legion 'staying back as a carrier'.

Presumably those mod ships have the combat carrier tag but not the NO_AUTO_ESCORT one.

[Thaago]

Re: The Conquest. Its a hard ship to get a really good build on, but it has significant power potential even for the AI.

In my opinion it absolutely requires both Hardened Shields and Heavy Blaster in the front mediums (and stabilized shields and ITU)... but most people don't agree with me on that, so I might be crazy. Locusts are an excellent choice for the large missiles in most fleets: fighters are annoying and dangerous, good thing there are no more enemy fighters. I sometimes leave the side medium missile mounts empty because of their awkward placement, but when I don't I prefer Sabots for bursting down enemy capitals.

Large ballistic choices depend on the target and expected engagement range. Its one of the few ships that can mount a Gauss Cannon and really not mind the flux inefficiency, but I'll be honest I love brawling with a Storm Needler, HAG, and Heavy Blaster. I usually put flaks in the medium ballistic for defense, but I've been reconsidering recently... maybe I should go 2x Heavy Needler in the mediums for a little less DPS but more range, and swap my Storm Needler for another armor crusher? Could do something crazy[/] like dual Heavy Needler, Dual Hellbore, but those hellbore shots are never going to hit destroyers or smaller....

Now I need to play around with the Conquest in the sim, you monsters!

[zeves]

sorry when i meant staying back i mean staying passive on the battle line. what would be nice to have was some general commands like selecting frigates and saying flank the left/ right or push on the flagships command. or retreat,  for selected ships. also rotate line would be an interesting command for advanced tactics, where the front line ship swaps space with the one behind it.

[zeves]

Re: The Conquest. Its a hard ship to get a really good build on, but it has significant power potential even for the AI.

In my opinion it absolutely requires both Hardened Shields and Heavy Blaster in the front mediums (and stabilized shields and ITU)... but most people don't agree with me on that, so I might be crazy. Locusts are an excellent choice for the large missiles in most fleets: fighters are annoying and dangerous, good thing there are no more enemy fighters. I sometimes leave the side medium missile mounts empty because of their awkward placement, but when I don't I prefer Sabots for bursting down enemy capitals.

Large ballistic choices depend on the target and expected engagement range. Its one of the few ships that can mount a Gauss Cannon and really not mind the flux inefficiency, but I'll be honest I love brawling with a Storm Needler, HAG, and Heavy Blaster. I usually put flaks in the medium ballistic for defense, but I've been reconsidering recently... maybe I should go 2x Heavy Needler in the mediums for a little less DPS but more range, and swap my Storm Needler for another armor crusher? Could do something crazy[/] like dual Heavy Needler, Dual Hellbore, but those hellbore shots are never going to hit destroyers or smaller....

Now I need to play around with the Conquest in the sim, you monsters!

interresting ideas there, and im sorry i made you use that ship. right now ive specced it into a more nimble long range onslaught with 1720 armor and extreme range well see how it goes.

[intrinsic_parity]

I've noticed slow ships have a really hard time getting to the frontline sometimes. Even ships like the dominator will sometimes languish in the back doing nothing because they cannot get past smaller faster ships. I sometimes use eliminate orders just to try and encourage ships to push up and then cancel them when the ships get in a better position.

It would be nice if smaller faster ships recognized that they need to get out of the way more often. I also see this against stations where small ships will block lines of fire from big ships who could do much more damage than them.

@Thaago I like to do 1 flak and 1 kinetic in the mediums and then mjolnir and empty energy mounts (mjolnir is basically a better heavy blaster and you can dump all your flux with it easily enough). I also like the storm + hag combo a lot although I usually also have a medium kinetic and 1 flak so I don't have to depend on the storm needler all the time since it costs so much flux.

[Megas]

Re: Conquest
I agree Hardened Shields is nearly a must on it.

I would only use Heavy Blasters if I plan to mount Hammer Barrage or Cyclone Reaper in the large missiles.  In which case, I use Conquest primarily as a forward-facing brawler and use blasters then finish off with large missiles.  (Sort of like a bigger and more sluggish pre-0.7.2 Aurora.)

If I want to use Storm Needlers, I would go all the way and mount two Storm Needlers and two Heavy Mortars on one side.

Conquest can get by with just burst lasers for PD.  Flak helps, but I will dump the flak if I need more firepower.