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Author Topic: Overrated (overpriced) ships  (Read 43071 times)

TaLaR

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #45 on: August 22, 2019, 01:51:59 AM »

Eagle with level 20 officer can solo some officer-less capitals (I mean proper ones, not Atlas mk2). And you get almost 2 instead of each Conquest, exactly 2 instead of Odyssey, etc.
With battle size 500 (max default) and 10 officers there is no strict need to use many larger ships. Maybe 1 capital under AI control and 1 for player.
What I like about Eagles is that they are very simple to use, both for player/AI and efficient. I think AI is least error-prone with Eagles compared to any other direct combat ships.
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #46 on: August 22, 2019, 01:57:46 AM »

Eagle with level 20 officer can solo some officer-less capitals (I mean proper ones, not Atlas mk2). And you get almost 2 instead of each Conquest, exactly 2 instead of Odyssey, etc.
With battle size 500 (max default) and 10 officers there is no strict need to use many larger ships. Maybe 1 capital under AI control and 1 for player.
What I like about Eagles is that they are very simple to use, both for player/AI and efficient. I think AI is least error-prone with Eagles compared to any other direct combat ships.
I find that 2 Astrals on bombing duty is more efficient than 1.  You need a critical mass of bombers to accomplish anything with them and I find that 2 Astrals gives that critical mass.  The Odyssey can solo a freaking Paragon, it's arguably the best ship ton for ton in the game being (much) faster than the Eagle with more firepower than the Dominator.

Eagles, like Auroras, don't really do anything at all.  A mass of enemy Eagles is something of a minor threat, but one or two allied Eagles is at-best a distraction.  They can MAYBE kill Destroyers, but the capitals all kill destroyers in seconds so that's never an issue.  Tempests make a pretty decent distraction anyway, and unlike Eagles they don't tend to get surrounded and murdered.

Every ship in my fleet uses a level 20 officer.  There's a reason I have exactly 11 ships.  I do my testing with either officers or player skills, so that's another reason I expect every ship to punch above its weight in sim or else consider it trash, sim enemies have no officer stats.  Sim ships also use default loadouts which have tons of wasted OP and garbage flux stats.  Basically consider every Sim ship to be one weight class lower than it actually is, while every officer player ship is one weight class higher.  Aurora vs Sim Eagle is therefor a capital vs destroyer battle in practice, and the Aurora manages to not win quickly enough so into the trash it goes.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2019, 02:02:29 AM by sotanaht »
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Sebenko

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #47 on: August 22, 2019, 02:21:43 AM »

I told you guys. I told you about Odysseys.
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Plantissue

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #48 on: August 22, 2019, 03:41:56 AM »

Capitals are fun but they require so many resources that it's rarely worth having more than 2 in a fleet. Any more and you will spend most of your time searching for fuel
How? Most capitals have similar fuel efficiency as most other ships. One on one, of course they use up more fuel, same way that a cruiser generally use more fuel than a destroyer which use more fuel than a frigate. To get the same combat power, you will need a similar amount of fuel.
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Megas

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #49 on: August 22, 2019, 10:48:42 AM »

I had an aggressive officier, but I'm pretty sure it was still being treated as my flagship on autopilot.  I have 17 points of piloted ship combat skills (including power grid modulation), so less effective than a maxed out officer would be.  Fleet Doctrine is also aggressive if that helps.
Your fleet commander (if you set on autopilot and let AI take over) is treated as a Steady officer, even if fleet doctrine is different.  (Another reason why I prefer Steady as default AI.)  The ship you are in is treated as Steady after you set it to autopilot.

It would be nice to change the AI behavior of you if you want to set it to autopilot.  Your character is locked at Steady.
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Plantissue

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #50 on: August 22, 2019, 01:48:44 PM »

Does fleet doctrine actually do anything to your Fleet? I always assumed it only affects the colony patrols and fleets.

Anyways I've been playign around with the Aurora. Still not a good fleet ship. I can configure a frigate/destroyer killing loadout, helped significantly by it's speed and ship system. I suppose the plethora of synergy mounts and its ship system makes it a good player ship, but it a fleet, it is certainly not worth the 30 DP, unless all your other ships are specialised against cruisers and/or capital ships.
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Wyvern

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #51 on: August 22, 2019, 02:01:17 PM »

It's possible to design a missile-less Aurora variant that can, with no officer on it & under AI control, take on all three sim Dominators at once.  (Admittedly, this is with various fleet-wide skills in play, including 85% CR and +10% OP.)

If that's not sufficient to make a cruiser count as a "good fleet ship", I'm not really sure what is.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Grievous69

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #52 on: August 22, 2019, 02:11:23 PM »

It's possible to design a missile-less Aurora variant that can, with no officer on it & under AI control, take on all three sim Dominators at once.  (Admittedly, this is with various fleet-wide skills in play, including 85% CR and +10% OP.)

If that's not sufficient to make a cruiser count as a "good fleet ship", I'm not really sure what is.

Yes because fighting 3 slowest cruisers with the fastest cruiser is exactly the same as being in a real fight with real dangerous deathballs and tons of fighters. You could probably kill 3 Onslaughts with an SO Hammerhead or something, and what does that prove? Absolutely nothing.
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TaLaR

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #53 on: August 22, 2019, 02:16:44 PM »

Dominators are too slow, 3 of them test ability to kill, but not ability to survive. Which is the more important part, imo.

Imo better test would be fighting sim Eagle + sim Falcon, skill-less.
Player piloted missile-less Aurora can easily clear it by focusing Falcon while avoiding the Eagle, then usual 1v1. AI Aurora always fails from what I've seen.
AI Odyssey also gets tag-teamed by cruisers and fails, despite being able to delete Falcon quite fast.

Which is why I like Eagles/Falcons. They may not be strongest ships overall, but they don't brain fart (or at least nowhere near as badly as other ships).
« Last Edit: August 22, 2019, 02:27:30 PM by TaLaR »
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Goumindong

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #54 on: August 22, 2019, 04:45:31 PM »

Capitals are fun but they require so many resources that it's rarely worth having more than 2 in a fleet. Any more and you will spend most of your time searching for fuel
How? Most capitals have similar fuel efficiency as most other ships. One on one, of course they use up more fuel, same way that a cruiser generally use more fuel than a destroyer which use more fuel than a frigate. To get the same combat power, you will need a similar amount of fuel.

An Eagle is 22 DP per 3 fuel. A Paragon is 60 for 10. So 3 Eagles is 66 for 9. All capitals are fuel inefficient, even the Odyssey. (16 DP per 3 fuel). Only some frigates and destroyers have worse DP/Fuel use ratios than capitals. Cruisers are generally the most fuel efficient ships in the game. They're also generally OP/Deployment point efficient. (60 DP worth of eagles, as an example, has 422 Deployment points. A paragon has 370)

Eagles are really good. And they just keep getting better the larger your fleet gets due to their high range and significant ability to stack HVD while also not dying. Plus there is the wide line effect that prevents them from being surrounded and killed.

The only real place that cruisers start to falter is when fighting stations.
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Thaago

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #55 on: August 22, 2019, 06:46:34 PM »

...

The only real place that cruisers start to falter is when fighting stations.

This is how I feel about destroyers. They tend to survive quite well even in capital slugfests (unless they get focused by a capital with no other ships around, which is bad fleet management more than bad AI), but the concentrated firepower of a station is just plain nasty.
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Plantissue

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #56 on: August 23, 2019, 02:10:01 PM »

Capitals are fun but they require so many resources that it's rarely worth having more than 2 in a fleet. Any more and you will spend most of your time searching for fuel
How? Most capitals have similar fuel efficiency as most other ships. One on one, of course they use up more fuel, same way that a cruiser generally use more fuel than a destroyer which use more fuel than a frigate. To get the same combat power, you will need a similar amount of fuel.

An Eagle is 22 DP per 3 fuel. A Paragon is 60 for 10. So 3 Eagles is 66 for 9. All capitals are fuel inefficient, even the Odyssey. (16 DP per 3 fuel). Only some frigates and destroyers have worse DP/Fuel use ratios than capitals. Cruisers are generally the most fuel efficient ships in the game. They're also generally OP/Deployment point efficient. (60 DP worth of eagles, as an example, has 422 Deployment points. A paragon has 370)

Eagles are really good. And they just keep getting better the larger your fleet gets due to their high range and significant ability to stack HVD while also not dying. Plus there is the wide line effect that prevents them from being surrounded and killed.

The only real place that cruisers start to falter is when fighting stations.
An eagle with 7.3 DP per fuel and Paragon with 6 fuel efficiency isn't really that much of a difference. The Dominator, and Falcon and Mora all have worse fuel efficiency than a Paragon. It's more of a case that the Eagle is particularily fuel efficient per DP. As is the Apogee and Aurora, but I suppose it's rare that someone would consider making a fleet purely out of these.

The difference between cruisers and capitals isn't so much that suddenly you have difficulty finding fuel for more than 2 capital ships. Afterall, they should be considered to replace cruiser ships, not adding to them. And presumably by the time you can wield more than 2 capital ships, you should have either colonies, or military markets to obtain fuel from anyways.

As a base of comparison, people make pure destroyer class fleets. 60 fuel a lightyear. No trouble fueling that. Surely you can fit 3 capital ships into that?
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #57 on: August 23, 2019, 02:28:39 PM »

Another way of thinking about it is capitals condense a lot firepower into one fleet slot but also a lot supply/fuel consumption. You don't have the option to deploy 1/3 of a paragon but you can deploy 1 of your 3 eagles. You also can't leave 1/3 of your paragon at home but you can take 2 out of 3 eagles. My goal is to spend the least number of supplies per combat, and cruisers IMO are the best way of achieving that for most battles. The two important considerations are supply cost to deploy and peak performance time. Frigates and destroyers do not last long enough in combat because of PPT and so you spend many extra supplies on recovering lost CR. Capitals do not have the granularity to minimize supply cost to deploy.

There are also skills that decrease enemy range and increase your speed based on the number of ships you have deployed, so deploying more ships is directly beneficial. I also find that having more ships decreases the chances of getting surrounded which can be a big problem for capitals.
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sotanaht

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #58 on: August 24, 2019, 03:38:04 AM »

Another way of thinking about it is capitals condense a lot firepower into one fleet slot but also a lot supply/fuel consumption. You don't have the option to deploy 1/3 of a paragon but you can deploy 1 of your 3 eagles. You also can't leave 1/3 of your paragon at home but you can take 2 out of 3 eagles. My goal is to spend the least number of supplies per combat, and cruisers IMO are the best way of achieving that for most battles. The two important considerations are supply cost to deploy and peak performance time. Frigates and destroyers do not last long enough in combat because of PPT and so you spend many extra supplies on recovering lost CR. Capitals do not have the granularity to minimize supply cost to deploy.

There are also skills that decrease enemy range and increase your speed based on the number of ships you have deployed, so deploying more ships is directly beneficial. I also find that having more ships decreases the chances of getting surrounded which can be a big problem for capitals.
I disagree.  A single capital will outperform half a dozen cruisers.  It might die to the same half-dozen cruisers at once, but in the general pace of battle it will do more killing and take less damage/casualties.  Now, if you happen to be going into a battle where only a single cruiser is sufficient, that might be a different story.  I don't think that's likely to happen, but you will EASILY find battles where a single Paragon or Odyssey is sufficient.

For the rest, yes Capitals are at risk for being surrounded.  For the Paragon especially, that's pretty much the only way it dies short of engaging 10 cruisers at once.  Having 2 or 3 cruisers in place of a capital doesn't really help that, because they die without needing to be surrounded.  Using them in addition to a capital mitigates that.  Using a second capital (particularly a fast one like Odyssey), or even a number of Frigates also helps.  Cruisers are pretty much completely obsolete in base game.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2019, 03:40:41 AM by sotanaht »
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Igncom1

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Re: Overrated (overpriced) ships
« Reply #59 on: August 24, 2019, 05:15:36 AM »

In mainline battle, yeah cruisers are as useful in capital ship fights as they were in real life (not.) But for long range expeditions against anything but the strongest opponents, cruisers serve that nice role as tactical capital ships or as stronger escorts then destroyers.

Bang for buck, a battleship is the best (Or super carrier) but for affordable flexibility or cost effectiveness on the rim anything bigger then an Eagle is simply a waste of supplies and fuel. Which is kind of the purpose of cruisers, to cruise.
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Sunders are the best ship in the game.
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