I have been writing some feedback in the Seeker thread after my campaign. Since i also used some Federation ships, it's natural that i write about those as well. I haven't tried as many ships as in my other post, however i do have quite a bit to say about those i used.
During this campaign, i had a few Centa carriers to back me up. They did their jobs very well, for a good reason, they are clearly too strong right now. Cheap, tiny skeleton crew, large cargo and fuel capacity. Logistic wise, the Centa is noticeably superior to its vanilla competitors. Combat wise, it got two flight decks plus a third one with a built-in pulse laser drone. Also good flux stats, top of the line shield efficiency and a very comfortable amount of OPs to fit expensive fighters, plus the required hullmods. Add on top of that some cruiser-level peak-performance time and very decent speed, the Centa is overpowered.
It's also quite heavily armed. While a Centa doesn't want to brawl, it's three missiles hardpoints allows it to support the rest of the fleet at a safe distance. The front energy turret makes for a good range-finder, while the two side ones tends to be fitted with point defense. There's only the rear turret with a strangely narrow arc that i can't really make good use of, so i always leave it empty.
While we're still talking about armament, i used the Leto SRM for my Centas. The Leto is a dirt cheap, ammoless weapon launching two missiles dealing 700 frag and EMP each. Slightly higher reload time than the Salamander (30 seconds vs 25), which isn't a problem given the Leto's Fast missile racks system. The tracking isn't that great, but again, the Centa have enough OPs for ECCM package to compensate this issue. This is not a weapon designed to take on large opponents, not enough damage to crack open shields and armor. Frigates and destroyer however, have much to fear from those. Hell, even bigger ships aren't completely immune due to the noticeable EMP effect.
The built-in Omnidrone is also pretty nasty. It's overall stats are fairly good without being outrageous, but it does have a very low base replacement time, as much as a Broadsword. A single drone with a pulse laser almost feels irrelevant in the late game. But early on, it's a terrifying fighter to face against. 300 DPS (not quite because of its limited flux) is no joke for a frigate or even a destroyer.
I expect the nerf bat to fall hard on this one. It's too good in every possible aspects. One suggestion : change the rear energy turret into a synergy, and one or two missiles into energy. That would somewhat nerf its overall missile spam capacity, as well as giving purpose to that weird rear turret. Although it would need more than that to fall in line with its vanilla counterparts.
Later on, i used a Kestral as my flagship. Comparatively, it seems fairly close to the Eagle both in stats and combat role. However, the Kestral is cheaper, faster, tougher, more endurant, and arguably better armed thanks to its built-in wing of two omnidrones. It's not completely better though, its shield arc is narrow, and can shrink further with hard flux. Its flux stats are also a bit weaker, and it requires a lot more CR to deploy. Regardless, i still think the Kestral is overtuned.
For some reason, it also got a built-in advanced turret gyro. Does it really needs it? It got more than enough OPs to afford it the normal way.
For my flagship, i went for a safety override build, with great results. With SO, Unstable injector and using the Divert Weapon Power system, the Kestral can do short dash around the map at ludcrious speed (faster than a Hound !). On top of that, the increased shield durability gained from using the system makes this ship extremely hard to pin down. The narrow shield emitter is one important thing to keep in mind when dealing with EMP though. As getting your engines flamed out in the middle of a brawl can get ugly really fast.
The last fed ship i got was the Nesasio phase cruiser. And oh boy. It was the flashiest and most efficient thing in my fleet. Its Starship legends rating after battle was always above 200%, and it would tear apart the majority of the enemy's fleet by itself. I remember during one battle, it was cornered against the side of the map by two VIC cruisers and three destroyers. Those got trounced, hard. No, i was not piloting it when it did so, the AI was. It is by far the most capable AI phase ship i used in Starsector. By the end of the campaign, i had assembled a squad of 4 Nesasios, and the game was pretty much done at this point. With a loadout of high-burst damage, it could drill through the heaviest armor and shielding in two or three volleys.
I had the feeling the Nesasio was a bit too strong. After looking more closely at the stats, it's for a good reason. The Nesasio is probably the fastest cruiser in the game, even more so with the Antimatter Injector that can be charged before cloaking. There's not much that cannot be flanked by a Nesasio, or chase it when it's disengaging. Mobility wise, it's on a whole new level compared to normal phase ships.
Not just its speed. It's also blessed with gigantic flux capacity, 17.000, as much as an Onslaught ! No wonder my Nesasios could wreck things so quickly, they had the capacity to sustain fire with even the most flux expensive weapons. Of course, a massive amount of ordnance points to mount these guns, max out flux capacity and vent, as well as an entire array of hullmods does help.
And it's a relatively cheap cruiser as well at 24 DPs only, a tiny bit less than a Dominator, yet vastly more deadly. Burn 9 too, because why not. The Nesasio is really in need of a severe nerf in my opinion. Another thing i noted : the description makes mention of a quicker cycling phase cloak. From my testing however, the cloak cooldown seems slower than vanilla ships. Around 4 seconds cooldown for the Nesasio, and 3 for standard phase ships. Is that a bug? Or am i interpreting "quick cycling cloak" wrong?
That's all for now. From what i experienced, Star Federation ships have a tendency to be overtuned, or at least those three. Despite this, i quite enjoyed having the faction in my game, and i think i'll keep the mod on for futures campaigns. I'm also eager to see what you have in store for us with the next update.
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Topic: [0.96a-RC10] The Star Federation v0.99-RC5 - Inspired by FTL (5/23/23) (Read 392095 times)