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Author Topic: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?  (Read 4555 times)

Warnoise

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Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« on: October 19, 2020, 02:18:38 AM »

Currently, I have a feeling that overall, High-tech and mid-line ships are better than low tech. Not only they have the best ships (doom, astral, paragon) they have also better fighters, better dp and also better survivability (shield+speed).

Meanwhile low tech ships feel like playing the game at a harder difficulty. Anything below destroyer struggles against mass salamander. Fast fighters like the thunder are a bane for low tech ships. Sabots also are 1 way ticket to overflux city whenever they target a low tech ship since it outranges most of the ballistic PD's.

What I want to say is, low tech ships are designed in a way that makes them have tons of weaknesses. Very few low tech ships standout compared to mid tech and high tech.

Is this by design?
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Grievous69

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2020, 04:06:37 AM »

Nah they should all be equally viable on average. The good news is, low tech ships are getting quite a few nice buffs in the upcoming update, even indirect ones like armour hullmod getting better.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2020, 04:33:41 AM »

Onslaughts are great. Dominators are great. Enforcers are great. Ballistics are better than energy. Etc.

Low-tech has ships that are great and ships that are awful, just like High-tech.
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Igncom1

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2020, 04:47:26 AM »

Honestly the only high-tech ships I tend to prefer over the alternatives are the Paragon, Astral, and Doom. All the rest are kinda mediocre.

Midline ships are specialists so tend to be great at the one thing they are supposed to be doing, but otherwise fail at being much else. Lowtech are beefy ballistic barges that are easy to acquire and outfit, often besting anything sitting directly in front of them.

High tech has great shields and mobility but is often let down by it's poor energy weapons that it rarely get to supplement with ballistic guns. They have great abilities, mobility is good, shields and flux stats, all to make up for their inefficient weapons.

See the doom without it's mine layer ability isn't all that much better then any other phase ship. It's just bigger is all. A paragon is less of a slow battlership but rather a really fast space station that does better at killing lesser targets then facing anything in it's own weight class other then just as a shield tank. And the astral is all about that recall ability, as otherwise it's not doing anything all that much better they anything else.

That's my take from it at least. (also did you compare hightech capitals vs low tech frigates in your examples? bruh.)
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Arcagnello

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2020, 03:42:22 PM »

Honestly the only high-tech ships I tend to prefer over the alternatives are the Paragon, Astral, and Doom. All the rest are kinda mediocre.

Midline ships are specialists so tend to be great at the one thing they are supposed to be doing, but otherwise fail at being much else. Lowtech are beefy ballistic barges that are easy to acquire and outfit, often besting anything sitting directly in front of them.

High tech has great shields and mobility but is often let down by it's poor energy weapons that it rarely get to supplement with ballistic guns. They have great abilities, mobility is good, shields and flux stats, all to make up for their inefficient weapons.

See the doom without it's mine layer ability isn't all that much better then any other phase ship. It's just bigger is all. A paragon is less of a slow battlership but rather a really fast space station that does better at killing lesser targets then facing anything in it's own weight class other then just as a shield tank. And the astral is all about that recall ability, as otherwise it's not doing anything all that much better they anything else.

That's my take from it at least. (also did you compare hightech capitals vs low tech frigates in your examples? bruh.)

I might be a heretic, but I find some high tech ships on the small side to be absolutely devastating when overridden, allowing them to field disgustingly high DPS weapons that generate hard flux like blasters and whatnot, not to mention most of these small ships usually also have convenient slots for sabots, easily making them able to abuse even the bigger low tech ships with their pathetic 1,2 shield ratios.

The primary Overridden ship I used to play with when I did a high tech campaign was the Medusa, but every other high tech ship with either good mobility or teleport abilities also turns into a Meth-Addicted squirrel on cocaine named Stacy with Safety Overrides.

Edit: Oh, also Apogee with Plasma Cannon and Squall. I'm that insane.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2020, 03:45:14 PM by Arcagnello »
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Igncom1

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2020, 04:04:00 PM »

Safety overrides are their own thing that I've not much experience with. But I'm going to assume there is a damn good reason why you can't put it on capitals in the base game. SO Hammerheads are also have legendary status for their devastating effect, so if anything SO makes anything 'better'...... for limited periods of time. It used to be similar with Unstable Injector as you could just pick your engagements faster then any enemy could reliably react. High tech does this by default but I've never considered that to be too much of an advantage in the kinds of "line battle" that I usually play.

And Apogee's are fine, better then Aurora's for me but honestly it's the starship enterprise of the setting. The best out on the rim but more of a shield tank that gets replaced by a proper capital later into the campaign. Not my choice for a line ship that needs to be dealing damage as well as taking it, not that it can't but against other hightech shields one large energy of any type just isn't cutting it. Which is the main issue with high tech and energy weapons. Shields.

It's VERY easy to conclude that low tech is poor (or high tech is great) because you sent most of a game tachyon lancing pirate clackers with terrible shields, only to fight a remnant ordo fleet and find your shots harmlessly bouncing off their shields for basically no effect. That's when you need something decent to deal that damage for you (and who can't equip sabots?)
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2020, 04:12:18 PM »

For player ships, I will almost always take High tech over alternatives. Aurora with a decent missile build has way more burst and kill potential than other cruisers in a good pilots hands IMO (and with expanded missile racks, you won't run out except in the most extreme fights in my experience). Right now the SO hammerhead kind of rules the destroyer class, but once AC gets nerfed, I think medusa might make a decent case again. SO tempest is by far my favorite player frigate (I do not fly phase frigates because I don't find the cheesy play style enjoyable, but it is probably the strongest). For AI, low and mid tech generally to do better since they can play safely at range with efficient damage. On exception: the Apogee is one of the better AI ships IMO as long as it has a plasma cannon. It's amazingly tanky and a single plasma cannon is definitely sufficient firepower IMO.
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Nick XR

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2020, 05:26:09 PM »

I think it speaks to the health of general balance that we've so far described a few viable play styles and examples of why each doctrine is good.

Megas

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2020, 06:09:44 PM »

Enforcer is fragile and not very good, but they are common and disposable, and can bootstrap a starter fleet until player gets better ships.
Dominator has firepower.
Onslaught with missiles and lots of kinetics is a quasi-SO ship.  Risky, but can gun down enemies fast if things go right.

Condor is clearly an entry-level carrier or pirate ship.
Mora is a tough carrier, and more OP than Heron.  Good for dumping exploration hullmods on.
Legion is a carrier that can also brawl with guns.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #9 on: October 19, 2020, 06:24:08 PM »

The main reason I don't use low tech ships is that they usually cost ~2/3 more fuel compared to similar ships, and I like to fly around and explore a lot.
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Kpop

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #10 on: October 19, 2020, 06:42:18 PM »

I'd echo the sentiment there is a spread of trash and amazing ships among all techs. I'd say low-tech does however have more objectively bad ships than the rest though.

Seriously though how does anyone get enough mileage out of a dominator to actually WANT to use one? Can't maneuver and gets danced around by just about every other ship. Just don't fight it head on and it does nothing.

Moras too. With a tailor made fleet comp I can possibly see the value in having a tanky carrier that can frontline, but if you put decent weapons on it you lose out on hullmods and fighters, if you put decent fighters on it you lose out on weapons and hullmods. It just tries to do everything at once and like the dominator just ends up being a tanky brick that can be ignored.

At least enforcers are good fodder.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #11 on: October 19, 2020, 06:47:18 PM »

It is amazing what a ship can do simply by existing. And those ships you are dissing can do more than that.
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pairedeciseaux

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #12 on: October 19, 2020, 07:29:34 PM »

Currently, I have a feeling that overall, High-tech and mid-line ships are better than low tech.

I suspect you have played too much modded and not enough vanilla.  ;)

One example not mentioned in this thread yet: the Lasher. It is one of the best ship to learn load-out design and piloting basics. 360 degrees turret coverage, excellent front facing fire power, and an amazing ship system. And one should never underestimate an AI Lasher in battle.

Seriously though how does anyone get enough mileage out of a dominator to actually WANT to use one?

Put its strength to good use?

Capital-level front-facing firepower, 360 degrees turret coverage, heavy armor, only 25 DP. It plays an important role in player fleet progression.

Can't maneuver and gets danced around by just about every other ship. Just don't fight it head on and it does nothing.

Sure, these are real downsides. But,

It's ship system lets it jump on it's prey (AI shall hopefully be upgraded in next release to improve situation awareness IIRC). Auxiliary thrusters helps with slow turn, and in a grouped fleet situation in does not always matter. And when it matters, you may design a load-out that leverage its small guns, providing the 360 coverage.
 
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Kpop

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #13 on: October 19, 2020, 08:29:11 PM »

Important role in fleet progression? Since when? I'd take an eagle or falcon over it any day. Besides, just saying it has "capital level firepower" doesn't really tell the whole story when it still has weak flux stats meaning it can't sustain that firepower if it actually gets into trouble. When it does get into trouble it has no escape and eats a few reapers or some more hammers and goes down.

It does have its strengths but from my decent amount of time playing I have rarely seen them ever be used to good effect.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2020, 08:32:46 PM by Kpop »
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Nafensoriel

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Re: Are low tech ships supposed to be the "lowest"?
« Reply #14 on: October 19, 2020, 09:06:27 PM »

Dominators are great hammers but mostly terrible anvils.
Condors are awesome earlier carriers. Cheap and that medium missile mount more useful than drovers early game imo.
Someone already mentioned lashers. Lashers are fun.

Low tech ships trade overall effectiveness for up front performance. They also tend to survive being overloaded more... at least the first time.
High tech ships trade endurance for ridiculous defense and/or offense potential... Just don't flux out.
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