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Author Topic: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury  (Read 14919 times)

Megas

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #75 on: April 28, 2020, 07:24:46 AM »

Since the discussion has moved a bit to the side mounts, I'll just add what Alex said to me in another thread when I asked him the same:
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they're adding 10 valuable ordnance points to the ship's OP budget
This was about the new heavy midline cruiser which also has 2 side turrets. So with that I don't really hate them, but I'd still like them to either point front a bit or to the rear.
Those side-mounts that are so-called 'adding 10 valuable ordnance points' make the ship look uglier.  Empty mounts are an eyesore, and should be filled.  It is a crying shame that the game encourages player to skimp mounts and use highly unbalanced loadouts on some ships (e.g., unarmed carriers with good fighters, high-tech ships with only one or two big guns and as much flux and shield hullmods to support those one or two guns).
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Igncom1

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #76 on: April 28, 2020, 07:32:01 AM »

Side mounts are fine for PD or cheeky AM blasters, but turning or not using them is also just as viable.

If the AI could handle broadsiding better, and there was more then just the conquest built for it, and possibly if turning was much harder like with actual ships, then it would be more important to pack a decent armament there.

Otherwise no, sunders are the peak of ship design.
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Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Thaago

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #77 on: April 28, 2020, 08:05:01 AM »

Aren't Sunders somewhat famous for being able to handle 1 target extremely well, but are very weak to multiple enemies? They are frequently brought up as the best example of glass cannons in the game at present.
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Igncom1

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #78 on: April 28, 2020, 08:08:27 AM »

Yes, although few ships can handle multiple ships at once, even smaller ones. The way this game handles flux makes it impossible to defend with a shield and attack at the same time without using the most flux efficient weapons possible.

So even having rear or side facing turrets is kinda pointless if you can't use them while fighting something ahead of you.
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Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Thaago

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #79 on: April 28, 2020, 08:16:31 AM »

Thats true, but often times you can't face the targets with the main guns consistently. Hammerheads and Sunders don't have the maneuverability to track either fighters or even fast frigates that are strafing it. There also the scenario of the fast main target getting out of gun range and the side target sill firing: it can take a very long time to turn to the new target, and being able to drive that ship's flux up and chase it away before the first frigate vents and comes back in is the difference between taking no damage and being pecked to death.

However, that doesn't really apply to the Shrike or the Fury because its main guns are turreted and will swivel to face the secondary target (hopefully!). If these were light ballistics I'd put vulcans/dlmgs happily on them but I'm not sure I'd put pd lasers on these.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #80 on: April 28, 2020, 08:23:24 AM »

Weapons cost flux which is a limited resource, so there definitely is a cost to 0 OP weapons (assuming you put them on auto fire/ fire them at all). There is also the opportunity cost of not using a different weapon since slots are limited. I can easily imagine weapons that I would not use over an empty slot at 0 OP, but that's not really adding any interesting choices either. If you have spare dissipation, it's almost always going to be worth dropping a few caps to fit a better weapon, and if you don't, then you're probably not going to add more weapons unless they are sufficiently efficient.

I think the bigger problem with 0 OP weapons is that it seems like it's tough to find the space between 'always worth using' and 'never worth using'. I guess I feel like existing small weapons are already frequently not worth using over empty slots, so there's really not much room for a 0 OP weapon that is both clearly worse than existing weapons (in line with OP cost) and also worth using over an empty slot in a significant number of situations.

I don't really think there's a scaling issue with weapons though like there is for fighters, or at least there are already mechanics that work against numerous small weapons. Adding more fighters doesn't cost more flux like adding more weapons does which is the major difference (you can just overpower shields by having more fighters, while having more weapons can hurt your flux pool as much as the enemy). Also efficiency and damage per shot both don't scale with increasing numbers of weapons. So if the small weapons have poor efficiency or poor armor penetration, they will not be effective at shield cracking or armor cracking, regardless of how many you have. Once again though, the real challenge is finding the space between never and always worth using without stepping on the toes of existing weapons.
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Igncom1

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #81 on: April 28, 2020, 08:25:01 AM »

Thats true, but often times you can't face the targets with the main guns consistently. Hammerheads and Sunders don't have the maneuverability to track either fighters or even fast frigates that are strafing it. There also the scenario of the fast main target getting out of gun range and the side target sill firing: it can take a very long time to turn to the new target, and being able to drive that ship's flux up and chase it away before the first frigate vents and comes back in is the difference between taking no damage and being pecked to death.

However, that doesn't really apply to the Shrike or the Fury because its main guns are turreted and will swivel to face the secondary target (hopefully!). If these were light ballistics I'd put vulcans/dlmgs happily on them but I'm not sure I'd put pd lasers on these.

75 dps from a basic PD laser ain't so bad. If not for their range they can deal with missiles fairly well and any fighters that dwindle about. LRPD is slow to kill but has the range necessary to support your ship and allies nearby. Good for missiles but not that great vs fighters.

I compare them to machine-guns in being cheap largely 'effective' point defence for supporting your shield that also double as short range hellishly efficient damage dealers. A PD laser is just a short range tac laser after all.

I think for the 2-4? op cost that they take they are sufficient for any slot you don't want an actual weapon in. Even just to swat a few flies or bombs every now and again.
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Megas

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #82 on: April 28, 2020, 08:32:15 AM »

Yes, although few ships can handle multiple ships at once, even smaller ones. The way this game handles flux makes it impossible to defend with a shield and attack at the same time without using the most flux efficient weapons possible.
Hence, some faster high-tech ships that cannot use kinetics (and do not want to spam Sabots) have only one or two big guns and everything else in max capacitor and vents, and ITU (or SO), Flux Distributor, and all of the shield efficiency hullmods (Hardened Shields, Stabilized Shields, and maybe Shield Conversion: Front).  Only then do they have a chance to brawl other ships and win flux wars with enough to spare to finish ships.  If I do not use Sabots on Aurora, all of the hardpoints, along with the medium synergy (and maybe some smalls too), are empty just so Aurora can fight its weight class with two blasters and win (and not get double KO'ed from stalemate to PPT/CR exhaustion).  Similarly, if I use Odyssey with two plasma cannons, the only other armaments are two fighter wings (likely Xyphos and Longbows) and maybe a few burst PD, with all other mounts (including the large synergy at the right) empty, just so it can slug it out against a battleship and win.  (I cannot give such an Odyssey to AI, because it will plasma burn into the middle of a mob and die.)

Quote
Weapons cost flux which is a limited resource, so there definitely is a cost to 0 OP weapons (assuming you put them on auto fire/ fire them at all). There is also the opportunity cost of not using a different weapon since slots are limited. I can easily imagine weapons that I would not use over an empty slot at 0 OP, but that's not really adding any interesting choices either. If you have spare dissipation, it's almost always going to be worth dropping a few caps to fit a better weapon, and if you don't, then you're probably not going to add more weapons unless they are sufficiently efficient.
I thought of that, but not soon enough to bring that up.  Even if the weapon costs nothing to mount, if the ship was already struggling to keep dissipation low enough, then no weapon would still be better than a free weapon (that is no better than others).

I already fill ballistic mounts of smaller ships with more light mortars than LAGs because ships have more mounts than dissipation can support, and two light mortars are more efficient than one LAG.
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Mondaymonkey

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #83 on: April 28, 2020, 08:52:41 AM »

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LRPD is slow to kill but has the range necessary to support your ship and allies nearby. Good for missiles but not that great vs fighters.

LRPD really not good in their "PD" part. BUT i really love them because their "LR" part. I understand it is abusing of AI stupidity, but they able to suppress enemies, forcing them to rise a shield. This is stupid, cos' even frigate has enough armor to ignore that kind of "suppression". Risen shield means losing of speed boost, flux upkeep and makes AI turn off some of the guns not to overflux. And the funniest thing - most of the enemies tend not to vent while in energy-type weapon range, so they loose time to flee far and re-engage.

And all of this for non-that-hight DP cost at minor flux expense. Perfect side-target repeller. I wish, there was a way to make them not to target missiles.
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Igncom1

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #84 on: April 28, 2020, 08:55:47 AM »

So what you want is a tac laser then?
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Mondaymonkey

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #85 on: April 28, 2020, 09:04:39 AM »

Tac laser is more expensive in flux (75 vs 30) and does not do better at repelling. Yes, it is better DP, but extra 45 flux per second for weapon that does not do any damage is too much.

But you are correct in basic - I really like a "light" tac laser idea.
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Thaago

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #86 on: April 28, 2020, 09:35:18 AM »

Frigates can ignore lrpd for a few seconds, but I think its the correct behavior to raise the shield about 90% of the time, because the damage adds up. 200 armor fails in about... 18 seconds to a 50 damage beam? Its harder to calculate because it evaluates quickly and i don't have a calculator set up for beams, but I think its in the 15-20 second range (I really should just test). Thats a long time when there is 1 beam and the ship is otherwise blasting away at something and needs its flux, but if its just flying by or retreating it could easily accumulate that much time after a few passes, not to mention the effect of 2-4 beams converged.

I like LRPDs better than tactical lasers because of their higher extension speed and better efficiency. Tac lasers cannot switch targets at long range because of how long it takes the beam to actually get there, and if they lose tracking for even a fraction of a second they need to try and re-extend. IPDAI tac lasers are in my experience worse PD than lrpds despite their higher rated DPS, while also costing 2.5 times the flux.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #87 on: April 28, 2020, 09:44:30 AM »

I wonder how the new skills and story points will impact the effectiveness of this ship.  We are all used to the current release, I'm assuming, where safety overrides costs 45 OP on a cruiser, and everyone grabs loadout design 3.  Things are going to get weird when you can add safety overrides for a story point on a cruiser instead of 45 OP.  Its a completely different paradigm than simply getting +10% OP.   On a light cruiser like this, free safety overrides is nearly a 40% increase in OP, which means it probably can be effectively used in a 2 blaster setup.  The next closest hull mods are like 13 to 16% more OP for a story point (15 or 18 OP cost).  And safety overrides just magnifies the high tech design, namely fast, short range, high flux values.

I wonder if its going to be too much of a must have on a ship like this, and that any other build is going to fall short, simply because of that ~30 OP difference (effectively 26% more OP than other configurations, while simultaneously sinking all those effective OP into vents).

The thing about heavy blasters, when you consider OP cost and compare to plasma cannons, they're roughly as efficient in terms of damage per OP (to about 10%) if you are aiming for flux neutral. If one had the option to add unlimited vents.

Imagine you have a flux neutral setup, i.e. shield and weapons flux cost equals flux dissipation.

Now we spend 12 OP to add a heavy blaster, and 72 OP on additional vents to make it flux neutral again.  84 OP for 500 DPS.  Or roughly 5.92 damage per OP.

Now imagine we spend 30 OP to add a plasma cannon, and 82.5 additional vents.  112.5 OP for 750 DPS.  Or roughly 6.67 damage per OP.

Now imagine you've got "free" safety overrides.

Spend 12 OP on the heavy blaster, and 36 OP on 36 additional vents.  48 OP for 500 DPS. 10.41 dps per OP.
Spend 30 OP on a plasma cannon, and 41.25 OP on 41.25 additional vents.  71.25 OP for 750 DPS.  10.52 dps per OP.

Might not be the best for those late game dragged out matches, but early to mid game such a cruiser would probably pull its weight.  Of course, often times early to mid-game, you're not DP capped.  So I dunno if it matters.

I do wonder though if the story point for hull mods is going to make certain loadouts for high tech ships just so much better that you only see other setups when out of story points.
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Mondaymonkey

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #88 on: April 28, 2020, 09:47:00 AM »

Quote
frigates can ignore lrpd for a few seconds, but I think its the correct behavior to raise the shield about 90% of the time

Fine. Correct behavior for frigates.

Why would dominators sometimes (not always) rise their shield against single LRPD? There is something wrong with the algorithm.
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Thaago

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Re: The new high tech light cruiser - Fury
« Reply #89 on: April 28, 2020, 09:51:36 AM »

Yeah thats fair :D. Dominators will also raise their shields against enemies behind them instead of keeping the 0 flux bonus to turn faster. Huh, maybe I should get a video/reproducible scenario for that one and report it, as its close to a bug.
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