Hi there, lately i made a meme vid what showcase effectiveness of shieldless builds (ships with shield bypass hull mod from ship/weapon pack). They are actually quite balanced (it may look like they are op, but thats just because i wanted them to looks like it, just for show you know). However i also used a rhino (ludd path variant) in my adventure and this thing is terrifying me. It is literally destroyer sized boss killer, this machine is horribly OP. Not in 1vs1, but with just a small distraction it can dismantle almost every ship in this game, including some bosships. Problem in the AI which didn't consider them as more serious threat than some capital sized ships. In fact, AI always try to focuse most dangerous (in his opinion) target, which is usually the biggest ship, i didn't investigate AI code at all, but i assume this is based on some parameter, probably deployment cost.
So we have this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzBP6C_vm8U time 2:29 - i encounter abandoned base, most probably not from vanilla (i saw it for the second time in the same place - in pregenerated system, for the second time it spawned in left bottom corner of the map.). This base guarded by two (last time there was only one, i think it's because my character was lvl 103 this time) "Horrors" which are modular, very beefed up bosships. In combat they attack 1 by 1, second one spawns as soon as you beat the first. So you can briefly see (thanks for "intentional video editing") how rhino just slaughter one of them, rip it apart, like 1000C° knife through butter.
And i actually don't know what to suggest for solving that issue. Issue? I don't know. Seems a bit unintendent what common destroyer sized ship take down such beast that easy. If you take closer look you will see what i didn't use a single weapon mount in my loadout, this is rediculous. Maybe you should decreace drill's damage from 500x3 to 125x3 and change damage type from kinetic to high explosive. So this thing would slice through armor like it doing in it's current state, but at least can be stopped by shields. Same 3k dps vs armor, but 750 dps against shields (not 12000). So if you have frontal shield type and let this thing to close to your butt - bad luck then. Still 12k hull points, armor thicker than on Enfrocer... i don't know if that damage type changes is enough.
And i didn't even touch the cruiser version of this dild... sorry, of this ship. I'm afraid that even heavens, even Allah would not deal with this thing.
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On a side note. Using Pulveriser is very annoying, cause it cannot equip any of your "pulling" weapons. When you ram you will most probably overload target if hit it's shield, but can't benefit from it cause you launch it away to safety where it can fully recharge his flux conduits. Just saying, maybe i'm doing something wrong.
https://i.imgur.com/m8k9UJB.png (loadout screenshot, 514kb of 192kb limit on this forum)