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Author Topic: Conquest is bad - change my mind  (Read 18054 times)

Orochi

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #45 on: November 19, 2020, 08:43:47 PM »

The problem I've always had with Conquest apologists is that they inevitably defend it by insisting it's a playership that is hard to use and must be built right to be effective.

Like, I'm sorry but those are all points against it.

Ease of use is not something that can be ignored. Being harder to use makes a thing worse, regardless of how good you are with it. Why? Because if it was easier to use you would be better with it. Being 'hard to master' doesn't make something immune to criticism as so many people seem to think. It is precisely because of the difficulty involved in piloting it that makes it bad. Every bit of effort that you have to spend carefully managing the flux buildup is less effort you can put into managing your fleet. Every second it takes to properly position the ship so that it can both fire and not get immediately destroyed is another second it spends being dead weight.

The fact that it needs to be 'built right' to take on an Onslaught tells you all that you need to know about it. The default loadouts are always trash to mediocre, so if you have to 'build it right' to take on it's equivalent in dp, that means it is limited specifically to its role and/or 1v1ing against the specific loadout you built against in sims.

And if you call it a playership, that makes it even worse. You get 200 dp but only one playership, making it one of the most valuable ships in your fleet. What's more, the most valuable position for the player to take is a flexible opportunistic one. While the player can certainly see some success with long-range fire support, that's honestly better left up to the AI in the form of a carrier. If you absolutely must have ballistic support, the Dominator has plenty and is lower-dp.

So the role is set as a flexible opportunist. So what do you need? Bursty dps, enough flux to bail out a ship that's made some grave mistake, and rapid relocation. While the Conquest may fulfil this role in theory, in reality it does so very poorly.

The terrible shield and mediocre flux stats combined with broadside firing-arcs means if you don't have god-like positioning you will always be choosing between positioning yourself to tank hits and retreat or do damage and retreat, and you will rarely have the option of switching. This means that if something goes wrong, you always have to retreat. If you're positioned for firing, then no you can't save that dumb cruiser that didn't retreat in time. And if you position yourself for tanking, then you can't take advantage of that capital's unexpected overload. You can rarely salvage the situation because you must be positioned properly before taking action, and that means giving up quite a bit of flexibility.

And even if you do want to use it for tanking, you have to be extremely careful. The ai is very prone to retreating behind you despite having empty flux when you have nearly-full-flux, especially if you are a non-carrier capital ship. I've lost quite a few battlecruisers to my allies leaving me to die like ungrateful cowards, so I value speed on my battlecruisers, and the Conquest just isn't fast enough considering the speeds of most cruisers or burn drives.

In fact, the Conquest is so bad, that the Onslaught is better at it's role for the sheer fact that it's armor is so thick it can kill-confirm whenever it wants and has equivalent or better firepower. Though the Onslaught may only have one forward facing large ballistic, it's easy enough to just turn it slightly to get one of the other two on board, and the bevy of medium ballistics is honestly plenty otherwise, plus the TPCs. The Onslaught is the more valuable player ship because the burn drive allows for rapid-repositioning with about as much planning as a Conquest, and it doesn't matter if stuff abandons you to die because they can't kill you anyway. With one ship you can also fulfil the role of fire-support with the TPC's, and mainline battleship.

But that's not because the Onslaught is somehow a really good vulture, it's just that filling the same role with the Conquest is more risky and demanding and it can't do anything else worthwhile unless you gimp that role.

Honestly, the Oddyssey is a better playership in the same role, as despite it's lower firepower, the insane maneuverability and sufficient defense means it still wins out. And that's not even counting it's fighters. If you don't want to spend the extra 5 dp (which is worth what, a wolf?) then you can just use a damn Aurora, which still does the job better than a Conquest despite it's (mostly) inferior stats and firepower simply because it's firepower is on demand and the maneuverability and speed are more forgiving. Not to mention that an Aurora is also a good AI ship.
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Retry

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #46 on: November 19, 2020, 09:09:41 PM »

In a 1v1 scenario:
vs Paragon: Paragon using Tachyon lances outranges Conquest because of Advanced Targetting Core, even if Conquest is using the Gauss Cannon build. Conquest gets outranged, outgunned and outsustained.
vs Onslaught: Onslaught can easily catch up to Conquest using the Burn Drive ability. Conquest's Manuevering Jets aren't enough to maintain distance. Forced to a close range fight conquest has no chance of winning against Onslaught's superior everything.
A paragon is 60 DP to the Conquest's 40 DP, so I'd certainly hope that engagement would be in favor of the Paragon.  In this case, the comparison should really be a Conquest + 20 DP of whatever vs Paragon, or 3 Conquests vs 2 Paragons.

vs Onslaught, yeah it's a bit of an uphill battle here.  Much of the main advantages of maneuverability don't crop up very well when the Onslaught fights a Battleship like the Onslaught because of the Burn Drive.  In this 1v1 scenario, the Onslaught benefits from its advantages but doesn't suffer from its disadvantages; Burn Drive is a system that makes it very easy to get into trouble but is also completely incapable of getting itself out of it.  If the Onslaught meets opposition that it can't just overpower quickly, it's up a creek if it's being pursued by ships that are faster than it (which is all of them).  Conquest's system allows for improved ability to fall back if the oncoming volume of fire is too high, though this advantage doesn't show itself very well in a theoretical 1v1 vs an Onslaught for obvious reasons.

Overall, a strict 1v1 comparison isn't particularly useful in this case, as you're (presumably) not actually fighting in 1v1 gladiator cage matches.

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In a tactical scenario:
Conquest is sporting 4 large ballistic slots, but can never get to use more than 2 at once without getting in the middle of a fight - which it mustn't do due to it's weak armor and 90* shield with the worst flux/dmg ratio in the game. Resigned to a long-range support role it can never use more than half of it's weapon slots. An Onslaught would provide far more firepower and another body to tank the damage for the same Deployment Point cost while the Conquest is sitting 1000 miles away doing comparatively little.
The Onslaught's big gun arrays is deceiving, as it doesn't actually have the flux to operate them.  The Onslaught's flux throttling issues essentially force the vast majority of the guns to be less effective flux-sipping versions, and even then it falters in sustained fights if more than one firing arc is active.  Conquests on the other hand have far more flux and make great and sustainable fire-support platforms with advanced weapons like Mjolnirs.  This doesn't even get into the utility of the 2 Large missile mounts that can be trained on either broadside.

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In a strategic scenario:
I can't confirm this rn but I believe the conquest has a comparable or even higher price than the Onslaught. Also has the same maintenance of 40 supplies/mo. It has the same fuel consumption as a Paragon at 10 fuel/ly. It has 1 more maximum burn so there's at least that going for it.
Paragon is something of an anomaly as it has Battlecruiser-grade fuel consumption, despite being a Battleship.  The Legion battlecarrier and Onslaught battleship both eat 15 fuel/LY, so I wouldn't be surprised if Tri-Tachyon's pet project eventually gets its logistical stats hammered to match accordingly.

Conquest's +1 maximum burn is a big boon.  When using sustained burn (and an 8-burn fleet) while skill-less, that translates to a 14% increase in speed, which is also a 14% reduction in transit time.  That 14% less time getting from Point A to Point B effectively means that you're spending less in-game time on your workload, and less time spent effectively means less supplies consumed, which means more money.  Conquest makes for a much better exploration flagship than the low-tech Capital Warships for this reason, and it can blast Pirates, Pathers, Salvagers, and anything except perhaps red-level Remnant systems just fine.

The only better combat exploration cruiser is the Odyssey, due to good cargo and fuel capacity on top of an amazing 8 fuel/LY and High-resolution sensors.  Of course, the main problem with acquiring an Odyssey is finding an Odyssey, so you'll probably be stuck with a Conquest as your best bet, anyways.
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All in all there seems to be no reason to buy a Conquest over Paragon/Onslaught right now.
I'm curious, let's flip this on its head.  Let's say you're right and the Conquest is bad.  What changes, specifically, would you make to the Conquest that would make it be a worthwhile option in your opinion?  (Specific numbers would be preferred, if possible)
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SCC

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #47 on: November 20, 2020, 12:02:20 AM »

Odyssey is a better flagship, if you don't intend to fight other capitals. Against those, Conquest brings more guns and missiles, better guns and more flux to fire the guns.
I consider the remark that you have to build Conquest well for it to do anything, unlike Onslaught, is pretty funny, since I have the opposite issue, of Onslaught performing poorly except for really good loadouts. Must be the TPCs.
Well there ya go, it's not my video btw. I could also post my usual build here if you want but I don't think that alone would prove much as you said.
Unless you want to see how to solo ordos, this video is boring more than anything else.

Grievous69

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #48 on: November 20, 2020, 12:22:03 AM »

I mean people asked for Conquest piloting skills, I showed them an example, it doesn't matter if it's boring.

@Orochi
> Conquest has mediocre flux stats
> Aurora is better both as a playership and AI ship
> Onslaught fills the same role as Conquest and does it better

This is literally all I can remember from your post because it's so blatantly wrong. I mean obviously you're a new player but how did you not notice that Conquest has DOUBLE the dissipation of Onslaught, how that is mediocre is beyond me. You're not trying to fly in and shoot both sides at once? That would explain the confusion and your opinion that they have the same role.

Ok ok ok, you're free to say that AI Conquests are lackluster, but to say that Aurora AI is good in the same paragraph is insanity. Please post your Conquest build so the supreme council may evaluate it.

Oh yeah and about ships being good only in player hands. This applies to like half of the ships in the whole game, it's just more obvious on battlecruisers since they're big and cost a lot. You probably won't care much if AI Shrikes do some silly stuff, but when the AI Odyssey starts the ram party, things get tricky. I'd rather have hard to pilot capitals than small ships because most of the time you will be piloting cruisers/capitals. What's the point of a playership frigate or destroyer that becomes obsolete after you pass early game? What I'm saying is, if I have a Conquest in my fleet, I'm definitely the one piloting it.
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ubuntufreakdragon

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #49 on: November 20, 2020, 04:15:55 AM »

Any decent ship can be impressive in player hands. But even if only Paragons are deployed there is one Playership and 5 AI ships, so balancing should be based on AI Performance and only care for Player Performance if it's quite a spike.
More interesting is how a well designed Conquest in AI Hands is in Comparison to a well designed Onslaught in AI Hands, not necessary against each other.
Given how quickly AI wastes an Odyssey it fells more like 40 than 45.
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Megas

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #50 on: November 20, 2020, 06:47:35 AM »

If anything, Onslaught can be trickier to outfit and use than Conquest for various reasons.  Onslaught is sluggish and cannot disengage from a losing battle easily, its dissipation is terrible, AI dumps TPCs to max flux bar fast and TPCs cannot be removed, and it needs missiles to punch harder than other capitals, but missiles run out too quickly.

Onslaught has some advantages.  It can armor tank, it can brutalize opponents - even Radiants - fast while its missiles last, and it can charge and keep up with fleeing Radiants when Onslaught has the advantage.  Onslaught that relies on missiles is a quasi-SO ship.  Lastly, Onslaught has huge personnel capacity, which makes it good troop carrier for raiding (or crew for more colony building) if you do not want to bring a bunch of Starliners for that job.

Onslaught and Conquest are roughly equivalent in power in AI hands.
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bobucles

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #51 on: November 20, 2020, 08:00:31 AM »

Conquest has good flux, squishy shields and okay armor. Where it really excels is having amazing mobility for a capital ship, thanks to its skill. I've had really good success using it with gauss cannons. Don't let the inefficiency of gauss fool you. The Conquest doesn't need shield power at gauss range, and it can safely vent at range for extra shooting. Gauss cannons can punch holes through moderate armor, even despite being a KE weapon. This lets the Conquest do pretty well as long range ship, punishing opponents while denying them the ability to advance or withdraw.

The main weakness of gauss cannons is due to talents. The combination of Advanced Countermeasures 1 (-50% KEpwr/dmg), impact mitigation (+150armor, 90% DR, -20% armor dmg) and evasive action 3 (+50% armor 'weight') is a triple threat of armor bonuses vs. a gun weak against armor. It is several times more difficult to punch through talents, and HE weapons don't suffer half as badly. That makes it a rough against high level enemy officers, but their talent choices tend to be more random and it's not too common to see all the defense talents stacked up.

Igncom1

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #52 on: November 20, 2020, 08:44:00 AM »

Ultimately even if the conquest is bad. So?

Not like it's worse then the pirate and luddite freighters.
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Goumindong

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #53 on: November 20, 2020, 11:52:38 AM »


The main weakness of gauss cannons is due to talents. The combination of Advanced Countermeasures 1 (-50% KEpwr/dmg), impact mitigation (+150armor, 90% DR, -20% armor dmg) and evasive action 3 (+50% armor 'weight') is a triple threat of armor bonuses vs. a gun weak against armor. It is several times more difficult to punch through talents, and HE weapons don't suffer half as badly. That makes it a rough against high level enemy officers, but their talent choices tend to be more random and it's not too common to see all the defense talents stacked up.

A gauss vs all of those talents has a hit strength of 175. This is almost as much as a Heavy Mortar (220). Without AC1 its got one of the higher hit strengths in the game, at 350 almost as much as the Heavy Mauler (400... which we have discussed is a good weapon). If we add this to its 480 range advantage over other large mounted weapons should find that its weakness is not that.

Its efficiency (7/6 vs shields!), raw flux cost(600, its hard to shoot more than one on most ships and any other weapons), and fitting cost (25!)
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #54 on: November 20, 2020, 01:43:22 PM »


The main weakness of gauss cannons is due to talents. The combination of Advanced Countermeasures 1 (-50% KEpwr/dmg), impact mitigation (+150armor, 90% DR, -20% armor dmg) and evasive action 3 (+50% armor 'weight') is a triple threat of armor bonuses vs. a gun weak against armor. It is several times more difficult to punch through talents, and HE weapons don't suffer half as badly. That makes it a rough against high level enemy officers, but their talent choices tend to be more random and it's not too common to see all the defense talents stacked up.

A gauss vs all of those talents has a hit strength of 175. This is almost as much as a Heavy Mortar (220). Without AC1 its got one of the higher hit strengths in the game, at 350 almost as much as the Heavy Mauler (400... which we have discussed is a good weapon). If we add this to its 480 range advantage over other large mounted weapons should find that its weakness is not that.

Its efficiency (7/6 vs shields!), raw flux cost(600, its hard to shoot more than one on most ships and any other weapons), and fitting cost (25!)

While its penetration power is maybe 80% of a heavy mortar, it has 25% of the fire rate though.

Let us see how that works against a fully skilled dominator.  1500 armor base.  175 vs 2250 is 7%, minimum 10%, so 17.5 per shot then another -20%, so 14 armor damage per hit against said dominator. It reaches 10% at 1575 effective armor, or 1050 real armor.  This is approximately 32 gauss shots, or 64 seconds.  To actually get through the rest of the armor, I need to run a script.

That spits out 97 shots to penetrate armor (assuming same spot is hit each time), and 138 to kill.  Since it takes 2 seconds to fire 1 shot, it takes about 194 seconds to get through armor, or 97 seconds if its a dual Gauss setup.

A single heavy mortar takes 70 shots to eliminate armor, and a total of 234 to kill.  On the other hand, it fires twice a second.  So it only takes 35 seconds to get through armor (again assuming all hit the same spot).

Dunno, seems like a Dominator with skills will stall a dual gauss setup for quite awhile.  Especially if it has heavy armor, that just bumps it to 122 shots to get through armor.  I recommend packing some MIRVs, reapers or a hellbore.
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Thaago

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #55 on: November 20, 2020, 02:08:14 PM »

I can confirm - while the shot size makes Gauss decently effective vs bare hull its still a kinetic and ineffective against armor. For a 'sniper' Conquest I pair it with 2 heavy maulers to provide ranged armor cracking (and missiles tailored to the enemy, so if fighting armor bricks I'll add on 2 Hurricanes, mopping up a swarm of small enemies Locusts, Remnants get either mixed hurricane/squall or dual squalls, etc). Without missiles it is certainly a slower killer than a more close ranged build, which makes sense because it is the sniper ranged build.
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TaLaR

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #56 on: November 20, 2020, 05:01:30 PM »

Or just go asymmetric. Gauss + Heavy Maulers on long range side, Hellbores + Heavy Needlers on short range side. Dominator isn't a real threat for a Conquest and is safe to approach. As is a distracted Onslaught that isn't facing you (or simply doesn't have high level officer vs your maxed character).
Also have some Cobra Herons/Astrals in fleet, so that even if your Conquest mostly just drives flux up, armored+skilled enemies aren't safe anyway.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2020, 05:03:04 PM by TaLaR »
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FooF

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #57 on: November 20, 2020, 06:54:33 PM »

This is a funny thread.

The Conquest fits squarely in the Midline doctrine: Good flux stats, maneuverable, mix of Ballistic/Energy/Missile, and good all-rounder. The Conquest is a bit specialized because of the broadside component and shield that is a definite liability. In theory, it has a ton of firepower available to it but you would have to severely downgrade its guns in order to have all guns fire simultaneously and not flux out quickly.

Comparing it to the Onslaught is like comparing a knife to a hammer: both are tools but they are hardly comparable and have vastly different use-cases. I don't consider one to be necessarily better than the other, though I find the Odyssey to be better than either of them. The same could be said of the Paragon but it's also 60 DP.

Once you get used to piloting a broadside ship, I don't find that style of play to be necessarily better/worse than traditional (i.e. its a wash in my book). What you do get with the Conquest is pretty good firepower on one side. I tend to go asymmetric because if I can focus most/all my flux on one side, I can necessarily put more DPS out on that side. It leaves me more vulnerable but token PD on the other side is usually enough.

I like Dual HAGs with Heavy Needlers. The Medium Energy can be about anything except a Heavy Blaster. I tend to put Gravitons or Phase Lances in there. I typically downgrade the Large Missiles for 4x Medium Sabots. MIRVs and Locusts are good but I'd rather just crack shields and let the HAGs get to work. I think this is one of the few ships I routinely put Extended/Stabilized Shields on. 90 degrees is just tiny and the 480 shield upkeep is insane.
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Modo44

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #58 on: November 21, 2020, 12:16:17 AM »

Congrats on the powerful troll, OP.
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Igncom1

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #59 on: November 21, 2020, 01:27:27 AM »

Congrats on the powerful troll, OP.

Pllllllllllease.

We love this. we do it every week.  ;D
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