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[Florian]

Hi.

After hours of plays with Diable avionics (in Nexerelin), i eventually got bored and tried a campaign with Black Rock Drive Yards... I felt like being very weak so, I tried some other mods (Dassault, Tahlan's pirate's...)... And not succeeding as easily as with Diable avionics. 

Usually my playstyle involve:
- no direct control of "my" ship. Lot, lot of orders on the tactical map instead.
- wanzer swarm of death (wanzers are slow and VERY tough fighters) + missiles everywhere = PD saturation, shield saturation, forward PD cover and anything smaller than a cruiser melting in seconds
- Diable capital ships with aggressive officiers + ECM + flux stable = constant pression and kill orders on primary targets

NOW
I tried fleets without involving tons of fighters: it's very difficult IMHO.
I tried ships with a lot of fire power, but for some reasons can't stand it's ground (because fragile and/or not flux stable): i'm having losses, wich slow me down a lot.
I tried to fly my flagship by myself: I understand that playing smart let you kill largers fleets than yours... But i can't; i'm flying like a drunk corsair captain.

So questions !
- is diable avionics considered as an Over Powered mod ? 
- is there viable tactics outside of drones ball of death + a couple of hard hitters ?

That could explain why i feel like playing in hard mode with other factions. Anyway, i'd like to hear your advices for playing differently.

Thanx and regards.

[Goumindong]

Diable is considered pretty strong IIRC however another reason why it can be hard to transition is just the shock of re-doing the learning curve. Its very easy to recycle into old habits (especially if they work) simply by way of how the brain works.

[Scorpixel]

Well there is two counters to saturation missile/fighter, saturation PD and itself. Npc fleets tend to be mostly balanced along the lines of a main combat doctrine.
So yes Diable ships are basically minmaxed and putting a human player on a fleet of this faction is nothing short of a steamroller.

Quite surprised however that you did not appreciate Dassault-Mikoyan/Blade-Breakers ship doctrine as it's basically battlecarriers with free PD/missile slots (with the Sparrowhawk being nothing short of a heroship in terms of range of capabilities and overall power).

[RedHellion]

DA is mostly vanilla-balanced under AI control, but in player hands can be extremely powerful as mentioned above.

Different factions have different strengths, where DA has very strong and a good variety of Wanzers/fighters, good missiles, and can have somewhat beefy capital ships. Whereas BRDY focuses on fragile and fairly specialized ships that have high maneuverability, decent flux management, and powerful ship special abilities. Very different learning curves between factions.

I think part of the reason you're having issues now is that your playstyle seems very tailored to relying on "wanzer swarm of death (wanzers are slow and VERY tough fighters) + missiles everywhere", so you were playing to the strengths of DA. Also fighters in general are quite powerful: they're essentially flying light weapon, PD, and missile platforms that can regenerate.

Since you weren't actually piloting any ships before (just giving them orders via the tactical map), you're probably not used to piloting so you need more practice there. You may also need to get more practice outfitting ships with a balance of firepower and defense and figuring out what loadouts and weapon mixes (and what kind of PD / how much PD) work well, rather than being able to throw a mix of missiles and fighters on ships so that the enemy is usually too busy fending them off to actually fight you.

Not every playstyle is for everyone. As you've seen on the forums, both flagship solo-ing with a minimal support fleet and running a larger fleet while piloting your flagship are viable tactics. E.g. just because I can't personally flagship solo enemy fleets doesn't mean it's not viable at all There's nothing wrong with playing only carrier-focused if you don't enjoy anything else, although that does mean you will be limited with what factions you can play as (some don't have as powerful fighters, or have very few fighters which mostly just fill support roles). As mentioned, DM is another very powerful fighter-based faction you may enjoy (however that one is generally agreed to be overpowered when used by the player, and can be a harder AI faction to fight against).

[Florian]

IMHO. The difference between DM and DA is that DM lacks of heavy-brutal-frontal assault capitals (but have much better missiles, for what i saw... I fact, i used DM missiles on some DA ships  ). 

Never played with Blade breakers...

I think part of the reason you're having issues now is that your playstyle seems very tailored to relying on "wanzer swarm of death (wanzers are slow and VERY tough fighters) + missiles everywhere", so you were playing to the strengths of DA. Also fighters in general are quite powerful: they're essentially flying light weapon, PD, and missile platforms that can regenerate.

Half of the fleet points is invested in "fractus" + 2 zephyr wing + LRM (basically, it's a drover). The other half deployment points are invested in Pandemoniums, with 5 medium rocket launchers and 4 large guns "Uhlan"=> heavy burst damage that "break" tanky ships before they pull back. 

I tought that black rocks were using this doctrine... But, they are way too fragile for a frontal-brutal assault. I guess they're meant for flanking... But i can't flank if i don't stabilize the front line (without mentioning ships that disobey direct orders  ).

[FAX]

In my opinion, the ships of Diable avionics are both flexible in strategy and tactics.( It's a waste of time to completely destroy them in the single combat)

For the second question, my answer is that carrier first mind might be weak for some fleets have enough AA firepower, It also require you own a stronger fleet than enemy or the battle would be hard for a port warfare which carriers are hard to stand. No matter how much fighters & missiles, PD system can still work well since the first wave of aircrafts been shot down, as for Wanzers, three waves, once the rate of fighter-fix slow down, a carrier first fleet will show its shortcoming.

I mean a carrier first fleet should always keep itself overrun to enemy, which may not as economically as other fleet, on the other word, they are expensive.

You should try to combine the firepower and heavy armor, if you choose to cut your carrier number, a well organized line-of-battle can extremely increase your power and, decrease the loss.

[FAX]

Since you weren't actually piloting any ships before (just giving them orders via the tactical map), you're probably not used to piloting so you need more practice there. You may also need to get more practice outfitting ships with a balance of firepower and defense and figuring out what loadouts and weapon mixes (and what kind of PD / how much PD) work well, rather than being able to throw a mix of missiles and fighters on ships so that the enemy is usually too busy fending them off to actually fight you.

That's really what I want to say, good guy! The battle are more complex for carrier fight, you can eventually armed your carrier with one or two fighters, and that is just what you should do, but you can't do the same thing in your battleships!

A smaller scale battle and small flagship are easier to control for practice. You can also avoid to be vexed by the weapon slots in a muddle like onslaught.

[Null Ganymede]

Fighters + map orders reliably work well together. Combat ships + map orders have some caveats, because the AI will second guess the hell out of your order if it doesn't think it can take it.

Building carrier-light fleets is tricky but rewarding. Perhaps start off with some easy winners, like kinetic artillery + explosive MRMs, or Safety Overrides with kinetic assault weapons + Reapers.

[isyourmojofly]

BRDY is probably my favourite mod faction. Their playstyle is based around manoeuvrability; they can't win slugging matches, but they can move and vent much faster than other ships. I think their ships also tend to pack a huge punch - Mantis and Desdinova for instance, can have a big alpha potential.

Because they're all based around darting attacks and seizing opportunities to do damage, it puts a lot of requirement on the player to affect battles. That means you need to be a decent pilot, and if you're not used to this I think you'll find BRDY a tricky faction.

Big thing for piloting Blackrock ships; you can usually out-vent enemy ships. If you and your opponent are high on flux, back off just a bit and vent. You'll be ready to re-engage while they're still venting, or while they're still high on flux.

[Florian]

Fighters + map orders reliably work well together. Combat ships + map orders have some caveats, because the AI will second guess the hell out of your order if it doesn't think it can take it.

Building carrier-light fleets is tricky but rewarding. Perhaps start off with some easy winners, like kinetic artillery + explosive MRMs, or Safety Overrides with kinetic assault weapons + Reapers.

That's why i like "agressive" officiers. You can put a kill order on a ship "behind", they will "pierce" everything on their way and the retreat when the target is destroyed. Works well with "flickering ships" like the pandemonium from DA + support from LRMs and fighters, imho.

[bobucles]

You can put a kill order on a ship "behind", they will "pierce" everything on their way and the retreat when the target is destroyed. Works well with "flickering ships" like the pandemonium from DA + support from LRMs and fighters, imho.

That sounds pretty close to how a phase ship should fight. Their exceptional speed and phasing system caters well to a "jousting" style of combat. Phase up, lunge in and unload. The only missing piece is knowing when to withdraw and remove hard flux before trying again.