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[Locklave]

So I've been watching the development over the last year and I'm seeing lots of Midline/High Tech. It feels and it's just a feeling that Low tech is slowly becoming less viable in terms of the next update. Although I'll point out that every test showing of the new weapons/ships is blowing a Low Tech ship to bits.

Or is low tech just terrible and people are fine with that?

[TaLaR]

Low tech is all about intentionally and efficiently trading away your armor and limited missiles for flux advantage. Player-piloted in sim low tech performs about as well as DP score suggests, even better in short duels.
But AI is not good at this kind of judgements, it's either Reckless or too skittish.

On the other hand, the currency better high tech ships (Plasma Odyssey, Paragon, Medusa, AM Afflictor/Shade) trade in is full PPT/CR. While less fortunate ships like Shrike and future Fury end up as worst of both worlds being limited by missile ammo. Aurora is somewhere in between - it can make do without missiles, but isn't really good at it unless SO (which has it's own massive drawbacks).

[AxleMC131]

If you compare the sizes of the Low, Mid and High-tech rosters, the low-tech catalogue actually has a lot of ships. Granted it includes a large number of logistics vessels, but actually I think the midline roster has even more. And high-tech has a much slimmer roster, only two destroyers and two cruisers (not counting phase ships), but with three capitals and the heaviest focus on frigates.

So, it's not that low-tech is being left behind, but rather midline and high-tech are being better fleshed-out to match it.

As far as demonstrating new mechanics against low-tech vessels (ie. Onslaught), that's probably because they don't move much so are easy to hit with things. Also because of their reliance on armour for defence, their AI is happy to drop shields and tank hits on the armour, which I presume is good for demonstrative purposes as it gives a much more impactful visual effect, as you see physical damage being dealt.

(It's also worth noting that the last few major updates we've often seen strong additions for low-tech, with things like the Shepherd, Legion, and Atlas Mk.II, so if anything a break is warranted.)

[Locklave]

It's not so much that there are more or less but rather that the best choice for everything already seems to be Midline/High tech. I see the twitter stuff and it looks like even more domination in those classes.

Are low tech more efficient? Fuel/supplies relative to class?

[Igncom1]

The Low Tech ships are get better the bigger they are, in my opinion.

They are very easy to out manoeuvre, and can't rely as much of their shields, but are otherwise very strong with VERY powerful ballistic slots, great small ballistic coverage for point defence, and long combat readiness timers.

Lashers are a frigate with the same ability as hammerhead destroyers, making them highly effective at blitzing enemy targets in a short amount of time. Enforcers are perhaps a little dodgy but it's all medium gun focus with four forward facing small missile mounts can make them decently good with a ton of load-outs even if they get beaten by more specialised ships. Dominator's will outshoot anything that sits in front of it with it's insane load out of two large ballistic mounts, two medium ballistic mounts, three medium missile mounts and a spread of small ballistic mounts. Out manoeuvring it is easy, but if you couldn't it would be one of the best ships in the game.
And the Onslaught is a deployment point cost efficient capital ship that comes with powerful built in energy blasters. Because what one Onslaught cannot kill, two or three certainly can!

[Scorpixel]

Low tech warships do have terrible flux stats, passable to mediocre shields and basic abilities.
Still, if we ignore the junk ships and combat freighters of that family, the remaining ones are pretty decent if not outright good. There's black sheeps like the Enforcer but the cruiser/capital side of things can get things done and hold their own for long enough to to dominate with superior CR.

And it somehow holds true with mods (from the official index at least). Lots of garbage frigates, decent skirmishers, trash destroyers and interesting if not outright impressive liners (special mention to the Subjugator, love that one).

[Grievous69]

I honestly think they're completely fine combat wise, but the logistics in campaign is what bugs me. They're supposed to be the cheap group, yet you end up spending more fuel and supplies than on equal high tech / midline ships. Seriously, 40 DP capital spending 50% more fuel than a 60 DP Paragon, it's crazy. Oh I almost forgot another thing, crew, yet another thing that brings the total cost higher.

Anyways I would like to see a low tech warship somewhere between a destroyer and a cruiser. A stronger low tech Fury if you will.

[dead_hand]

flux advantage.

Hold up... isn't out-fluxing them the most common way of defeating low-tech ships ?

[Grievous69]

Hold up... isn't out-fluxing them the most common way of defeating low-tech ships ?

It's the common way of defeating any ship? I mean that's the whole point of combat. Sure you can put torpedoes up someone's ass but that's not common.

[isyourmojofly]

Isn't the problem with the way AI handles shields?

Low-tech playstyle is to just take hits on your armour, preserving your limited flux pool to unleash your huge ballistic armament. The AI tries to use the shields a little too much, which it can't really afford to do, and ends up with no flux to shoot.

[TaLaR]

Well, yes, the way AI works is particularly bad for low tech armor-based ships.

Sometimes it looks like AI tries to armor tank, but without any rhyme or reason (like taking HE/high damage energy shots while flux is still low, AI Paragon fighting vs Autopulse Radiant is really prone to this). It's also never selective (flickering shield to catch HE, but letting kinetics pass) like player would do.

[Havoc]

is it possible to loadout a ship to AI use blink shields vs rockets/HE and tank with armor?

accelerated shields and stuff like that?
aggresive officer?

I like low tech ships, but AI can't use armor to tank dmg if there are several oponents

[dead_hand]

Hold up... isn't out-fluxing them the most common way of defeating low-tech ships ?

It's the common way of defeating any ship? I mean that's the whole point of combat. Sure you can put torpedoes up someone's ass but that's not common.

Depends on what you are facing. Some ships don't have large shield arcs to deploy, so their flux stats are of lesser importance. E.g. a Conquest can't surround itself with shields, so if it is distracted, bombers can fly in and possibly damage it enough to get the AI to retreat it.

But from my experience about Low-Tech ships, High Tech ships with Ion Pulsers are extremely effective because dropping their shields gets punished hard that way.

[Igncom1]

I find that due to the ease of acquiring highly effective HE weapons, and how shields are tired to flux like weapons, the two are hard to compare in effectiveness.

You turn your shields off and almost immediately get blasted by torpedoes, artillery cannons, missiles and more that burn through your finite armour in seconds.

I can get the AI being hesitant of energy weapons, as they are still far more effective then kinetic damage weapons against armour. And when you only have kinetic weapons the AI will just straight up turn their shields off and burn you with all their fire-power.

Put one light mortar on your ships and it just LOSES ITS MIND and will shield tank until it's full of flux, no matter what.

If anything I'd say it's the prevalence of HE guns that kills low tech style ships as they are built for mass kinetic guns, and for countering missile based HE like torpedoes and bombers with their usual amount of flak they can pack. But it's hard to say that doesn't also keep them balanced vs high tech that barely needs any HE at all to counter.

[Locklave]

I honestly think they're completely fine combat wise, but the logistics in campaign is what bugs me. They're supposed to be the cheap group, yet you end up spending more fuel and supplies than on equal high tech / midline ships. Seriously, 40 DP capital spending 50% more fuel than a 60 DP Paragon, it's crazy. Oh I almost forgot another thing, crew, yet another thing that brings the total cost higher.

Anyways I would like to see a low tech warship somewhere between a destroyer and a cruiser. A stronger low tech Fury if you will.

This is the kind of thing that confuses me. Fuel usage stands out on Low tech ships.

The way the game itself describes Low tech ships makes it sound like

- Armor and Ballistics over shields and energy weapons
- They are cheaper to buy and maintain because they lack specialty system

They should be using equivalent fuel to travel unless it's a junker or something pirates/LP build and modded to do things it shouldn't. Why are Low tech ships long range space travel system eating up so much more fuel? Why is it using a terrible drive system?

It's fine if they get outclassed 1v1 vs a midline/high tech ship, it's not okay that those midline/high tech ships cost less to maintain Fuel/Supplies. That is counter intuitive to the point of Low tech.

edit:
I'm glad other people with more knowledge then me are posting and I'm glad people take the subject matter seriously. Thank you all.