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[Plantissue]

Strange, I cannot observe or replicate this dumping of the whole clip of TPC from the AI that you guys seem to be describing. the Ai is not perfect and it misses an awful lot when ever it chooses to fire at a frigate instead of something smaller and slower, but on the whole it fires the TPC when appropriate. TPC is flux efficient and has a reasonable damge per shot for its general stats and it is long range and frontally placed, so I would expect it to fire it in preference to most weapons.

[intrinsic_parity]

TPC is efficient for an energy weapon, but it's still quite a bit less efficient that the average kinetic weapon vs shields. AI should prefer kinetics for breaking shields. If it hit more often, that would be a big improvement though.

[Goumindong]

Strange, I cannot observe or replicate this dumping of the whole clip of TPC from the AI that you guys seem to be describing. the Ai is not perfect and it misses an awful lot when ever it chooses to fire at a frigate instead of something smaller and slower, but on the whole it fires the TPC when appropriate. TPC is flux efficient and has a reasonable damge per shot for its general stats and it is long range and frontally placed, so I would expect it to fire it in preference to most weapons.

Usually misses vs smaller targets. It also helps to have the TPC on their own weapon group as this will both conserve shots and increase accuracy (as rather than firing them both on auto they will fire one on auto and then the other)

Edit: what is happening is that when the TPC's are on the same group the AI will center the middle of the weapon group on the target. Then it will fire both weapons as the target is decently available for both. This puts the TPC firing on the either side of the target. Fine for a capital. But less fine for a cruiser or destroyer. If the TPCs are on their own group then the AI will select one TPC and then center the middle of the weapon group on the target. This brings TPC 1 to dead center and TPC 2 to far enough off center to not trigger auto fire. Thus increasing accuracy

[Thaago]

My issue with breaking TPC weapon groups up is that I'm already hurting on groups. My current "artillery" Onslaught that does well in AI hands has 1 group for TPC, 1 group for salamanders and gauss (linked), 1 group for front 2 heavy needlers, 1 group for back 2 heavy needlers, and 1 group for point defense. I need to split the heavy needler groups up or the AI doesn't fire them correctly, and I can only get away with linking the gauss and missiles because I want the salamanders firing at all times anyways: if I was using Annihilators, I'd need them in their own group.

TPCs miss far too many shots against anything but a capital... even cruisers can dodge a lot of them. The main issue is not so much the bullet spread as that both hardpoints point absolutely forward with no sway. They need to be slightly angled inwards, so that they converge at 1600 true range (or less!).

[Lucky33]

Checked the 387K bounty right now. It was only six Onslaughts. To make it ten, RNG should go full capital and it will be some caps+frigates fleet. What is actually easier.

I frequently see 8 capitals on 380k - 395k bounties, which is as high bounties seem to go. I've seen 9 Capitals in a bounty a few times. An real example is 388.5K bounty that has 7 Onslaughts, 2 Legions, 2 Dominators, 3 Moras, 2 Gryphons, 6 Falcons, 3 Destroyers, 5 frigates. With default 300 Battle Size, you will probably need combat endurance if you "only" have a 300 DP fleet with the original ships, whilst with battles size set to 500, you might just manage to finish the fight before you start getting disabled weapons and engines.

__________

It's hard to design decent loadouts for it that aren't terribly overfluxed

Spoiler

You can trade Hellbore for Devastator if enemy is fighter spammy.

[close]

I mean, I guess? On the other hand you're losing 150 degrees of large weapon coverage, not to mention that single vulcans can hardly stop harpoons without player skills, let alone more dangerous targets. Is that a reasonable sacrifice to expect?

There are two wingmans for large weapon coverage. Its all about TPCs anyway.
Its dedicated campaign ship for player use. Why wouldnt there be skills?

Why assume skills? The default is to assume no skills otherwise there is no basis for comparison as skills taken will vary widly. For instance, if a player takes no combat or personal piloting skill, then no matter which ship the player uses, it will have no skills.

It's like when someone posts a video of X ship beating 100 ships, but then you look at the vid and it's obviously modded and the player as all the skills, it's not impressive at all, because the  normal assumption is that it is done without skills.

I didnt say it was impossible to see many capitals. I said it makes thing easier due to relocation of DP from smaller to larger ships. What is exactly the case in your example. Less smaller ships - less MIRVs wasted on them - faster battles. In my case those extra 3 caps were traded for 6 extra Moras. Which were physically more difficult to destroy faster than less number of capitals.

I assume skills because Im talking about the ship for me to use in campaign. I dont care how it works without skills since early in the campaign I will not have a capital. But later in the game when you get all the needed materiel the only difference is the skills. And if a player decided not to take combat skills he will not be needing personal combat capital ship in the first place.

[Plantissue]

I've taken the opposite opinion. More capital ships in a fleet is a harder fleet to fight against. Afterall a Legion costs the same as 2 Moras. In your case, you are comparing the effects of MIRVs, so if you have a fleet of MIRVs completely geared up to fight Capitals, but is not so good against Cruisers, then of course, you may be slightly skewed towards favouring to fight capitals. But in the first place you made the comparison of MIRVs because you are afraid of Capitals and know that they are harder to fight against than Cruisers.

[Megas]

My issue with breaking TPC weapon groups up is that I'm already hurting on groups. My current "artillery" Onslaught that does well in AI hands has 1 group for TPC, 1 group for salamanders and gauss (linked), 1 group for front 2 heavy needlers, 1 group for back 2 heavy needlers, and 1 group for point defense. I need to split the heavy needler groups up or the AI doesn't fire them correctly, and I can only get away with linking the gauss and missiles because I want the salamanders firing at all times anyways: if I was using Annihilators, I'd need them in their own group.

That does hurt.  With two groups for TPCs, I want five groups if I use mostly needlers.  With a different weapon in the middle heavy, I want six groups.

With my needler loadout, left TPC is 1, right TPC is 2, missiles (annihilators) are 3, heavy needlers are 4, and everything else (flak and devastators) are on 5.  If I want to replace the middle heavy mount with something like Mjolnir, it gets lumped with the needlers, which is not ideal.

[Lucky33]

I've taken the opposite opinion. More capital ships in a fleet is a harder fleet to fight against. Afterall a Legion costs the same as 2 Moras. In your case, you are comparing the effects of MIRVs, so if you have a fleet of MIRVs completely geared up to fight Capitals, but is not so good against Cruisers, then of course, you may be slightly skewed towards favouring to fight capitals. But in the first place you made the comparison of MIRVs because you are afraid of Capitals and know that they are harder to fight against than Cruisers.

We are talking about killing off an enemy fleet faster than you run out of deployment time. And its not me who have problems with that. What Im telling is that killing off capitals is easier than more numerical superior cruiser forces. You have less focus points. And it was me who was told by Megas that it is the high number of capitals that is the problem.

[Plantissue]

You are quoting me in the first place, so I think I know what I am talking about best, not you. Why lie? Why do this?

[Thaago]

...
That does hurt.  With two groups for TPCs, I want five groups if I use mostly needlers.  With a different weapon in the middle heavy, I want six groups.

With my needler loadout, left TPC is 1, right TPC is 2, missiles (annihilators) are 3, heavy needlers are 4, and everything else (flak and devastators) are on 5.  If I want to replace the middle heavy mount with something like Mjolnir, it gets lumped with the needlers, which is not ideal.

That does sound solid! Side devastators I'm guessing, with the front large also having a heavy needler?

I tend to have a heavy needler in each of the front 'wing' mediums, and a heavy needler in the back side medium mounts - that gives 2 heavy needlers in every arc (front, sides, and back), while still having flaks in the rear to kill salamander (and if a brawling build I can put more up front, but this is an AI artillery config). If all 4 are together though, that pumps the weapon group flux up to 800, even though its really only 400 at any given time (at least if not surrounded), and then the ship uses the Gauss at close range and keeps the needlers off when high flux... not very efficient . With the heavy needlers split, it tends to keep the one facing the enemy on because it has less flux than the gauss. Its not the end of the world to have them grouped, but it does a little better split.

[Megas]

@ Thaago
It works even against Ordos if Onslaught has other ships supporting and taking heat off of it.  One time, I took a low-tech fleet plus one or two Dooms, sent it against an Ordos with at least two Radiants, and the only casualties were two Enforcers.  With smaller ships and Moras keeping pressure off of Onslaughts, it was a best case scenario for Onslaughts, and they tore up Remnants.

However, as a lone flagship or one of two tanking for a Astral and Drover carrier fleet, Onslaught is often a dead duck.  It has trouble when mobbed.

You are correct that Devastators are on the sides, and another heavy needler in the center.  They are anti-small ship, anything destroyer-sized or smaller, since the ships that will likely flank Onslaught are small fry, which Hellbore will have trouble hitting.  I tried less heavy needlers and one storm needler, but the storm needler lacks range.  The main advantage of heavy needlers is range (more than storm needler), but sometimes, having too many fire at once causes too much of a flux spike.  Advantage of storm needler is more steady flux use and less OP than three heavy needlers.

Relying on TPCs only for anti-armor is a bit of a pain.

[Thaago]

...
Relying on TPCs only for anti-armor is a bit of a pain.

Agreed - my artillery build has dual flaks on the sides instead of devastators because the devastators insist on firing at forward targets, wasting ~800 fps for very little gain - they were nice for punishing destroyers on the sides though.

To compensate, I put light mortars in the side small slots. I think you've pointed out before how 2 light mortars are better than a LAG, and their combination of efficiency and shot size is enough to beat destroyer armor.

[Megas]

I tried dual flak at the sides too.  A problem with that is I need Heavy Maulers (instead of flak) in the center mounts, which makes punishing even smaller targets (like frigates) at the sides annoying.  Also, I would need to replace some of the needlers up front with dual flak to have sufficient PD without relying totally on shield.  I guess that would be fine if I went with Storm Needler in the center heavy instead of filling every front mount with Heavy Needlers.

Actually, I wished Devastators overlapped the center more and fire at enemies straight ahead.  When I pilot the needler Onslaught, I often tilt the ship a bit so that Devastators (and three or four Heavy Needlers) spray at enemies.

[Thaago]

I want the side large mounts to either be more converging front or to be turned significantly more sideways. At present they are at juuust the wrong angle, to the AI will fire them forward at ships straight ahead and always miss because they don't reach, wasting a ton of flux.

[TaLaR]

I want the side large mounts to either be more converging front or to be turned significantly more sideways. At present they are at juuust the wrong angle, to the AI will fire them forward at ships straight ahead and always miss because they don't reach, wasting a ton of flux.

Yeah, I pretty much always leave them empty or undersized.