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Author Topic: Conquest is bad - change my mind  (Read 18056 times)

Grievous69

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #60 on: November 21, 2020, 01:30:00 AM »

A forum tradition truly.

And at this point, I'm convinced Alex did some mumbo jumbo where half of the keys used for the game make the Conquest weaker and that's the only difference between the two versions. This is the only logical explanation.
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Arcagnello

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #61 on: November 21, 2020, 02:52:47 AM »

I think only the "Onslaught>Paragon" thread tops this one really. It's a doozie.
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Igncom1

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #62 on: November 21, 2020, 04:00:01 AM »

I know, it's CRAZY that people think the paragon can best the onslaught!  ;D

Nah I do believe these conquest ones, topped off with an impossible challenge to change the mind of someone who has their mind ENTIRELY made up, are the top tier of the forums threads.

That there isn't a decisive thought one way or the other like with many other ships is a good sign to me that it's largely 'balanced' assuming there is such a thing.
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Agalyon

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #63 on: November 25, 2020, 01:59:34 PM »

If this has devolved into a forum tradition its time to spice things up some more. The Conquests biggest problem is that its Midline, because the Midline doctrine's statline is terrible.

Memes aside (that is what I truly think though) I think the idea of "Conquest apologists" saying its a player ship being purely a negative thing is only half right. I do consider whether the AI can handle a ship to be an important factor, but thats a problem with lots of things. You know why the Paragon fairs so much better in AI hands? While it is worth more DP, consider how slow and tanky it is. Its essentially mistake proof. The AI can't "stage dive" with it and die instantly. The Onslaught is less so but its MUCH larger pool of armor and health help there too. Also you won't catch me dead unironically flying a Paragon myself, its too boring.

So I would go so far as to say Midline in AI hands is the real issue. Thats (maybe?) a spicy opinion, but to counter balance it out I've also seen the AI do some nearly savant level plays with broadside ships (far better than I can control) if it manages to stay at the appropriate range. Im going to reiterate here what I said before, I think the conquest is powerful but inconsistent, and MASSIVELY dependent on how its built and the rest of your fleet. I'm sure a lot of people will consider that purely negative, which is fine. Thats the beauty of choices.

One final consideration because I'm sure someone is thinking it right now. If Midline is bad, why is the Eagle so good? Honestly I think Midline ships are little confused about their identity sometimes, the biggest problem being shields.

If LowT is slowish with linear movement abilities and good armor, and HighT is fastish with precise agile movement abilities and good shields, does that mean Midline has medium speed, a mix of armor and shields, and movement abilities that are mixed too?

Well no it doesn't. It seems to often be more glass cannon like support ships with good speed, bad shields AND questionable armor, low hull, and way too many guns for their flux. While their flux stats are admittedly (usually?) better, they don't keep up with higher cost loadouts with lots of guns. But then you have stuff like the Eagle, the quintessential icon of a sticky skirmisher in vanilla. It actually does have decent armor AND shields, good flux for its weapons, is fantastic in the AI's hands, doesn't need a slew of hullmods to work, and fits in nearly any fleet. So what went wrong with the Conquest?

Honestly I'm not sure. I'd bet just making good and interesting ships is more important than following a doctrine perfectly, but at the end of the day I feel like I don't know what Midline is supposed to be. My biggest immediate problem with the Conquest is its hilariously bad shields. Like why? Would it be be overpowered with better shields? I'm not sure, but I know I consider it unusable without Hardened Shields. But its also missing around a third of the armor and hull Onslaughts AND Paragons have. Now you're paying for Hardened Shields which certainly isn't cheap when OP is already tight just to get to a usable baseline.

That combined with a tendency to overgun and thus overload is a deadly flaw. If nothing else, the Conquest taught me that more guns is typically a liability rather than a bonus, especially in AI hands.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2020, 02:07:48 PM by HeartofDiscord »
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Grievous69

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #64 on: November 25, 2020, 02:20:06 PM »

Well, no, being midline has nothing to do with its "problems". In fact, the majority of midline ships perform well under AI control (except maybe Gryphon) since their systems are very forgiving and they have decent flux stats. I don't know what are you on about midline being bad, it's the one tech type which doesn't have many weak ships. Their shields are supposed to be mediocre, if they weren't, they'd just be better high tech.

Quote
If LowT is slowish with linear movement abilities and good armor, and HighT is fastish with precise agile movement abilities and good shields, does that mean Midline has medium speed, a mix of armor and shields, and movement abilities that are mixed too?
Sure this is a general idea but obviously exceptions exist. Also midline is hardest to describe clearly since they're somewhere in the middle, duh. If every ship followed the doctrine faithfully, it would make for a very boring roster of ships.

Conquest having bad shields is the whole idea behind it, it's not made to go in and brawl like a battleship. Not even mentioning that the combo of speed + firepower + defense would be hilariously broken.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2020, 02:21:39 PM by Grievous69 »
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SCC

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #65 on: November 25, 2020, 02:36:28 PM »

I got *** logged out as I was typing a post.
My biggest immediate problem with the Conquest is its hilariously bad shields. Like why? Would it be be overpowered with better shields?
Conquest has second best flux stats in the game (excluding ships you can't use). It's similar to Sunder, in that better shields would make it too good at tanking, in addition to being excellent at dealing damage.
One final consideration because I'm sure someone is thinking it right now. If Midline is bad, why is the Eagle so good? Honestly I think Midline ships are little confused about their identity sometimes, the biggest problem being shields.
I think of midline as mostly specialists. Brawler — anti-big ship frigate. Centurion — brick. Vigilance — there to give you that medium missile. Hammerhead? I'd say it's a generalist, actually, but that's because shooting things is so handy. Sunder — glass cannon. Drover, Heron — dedicated carriers (though this is cheating a bit, since you don't have much of a choice when it comes to carriers). Gryphon spews missiles. Conquest combines good flux stats, good mobility, good weapons with bad shields. It's just Falcon and Eagle that are straightforward generalists (and Hammerhead, as I mentioned).
Their shields are supposed to be mediocre, if they weren't, they'd just be better high tech.
Midline and high-tech have many ships with the same 0.8 efficiency shields, but high-tech can tank more due to superior flux stats (or not so superior, as is the case with Aurora).

Agalyon

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #66 on: November 25, 2020, 02:57:19 PM »

Well, no, being midline has nothing to do with its "problems". In fact, the majority of midline ships perform well under AI control (except maybe Gryphon) since their systems are very forgiving and they have decent flux stats. I don't know what are you on about midline being bad, it's the one tech type which doesn't have many weak ships. Their shields are supposed to be mediocre, if they weren't, they'd just be better high tech.
I really don't agree with that, the ONLY thing forgiving about Midlines is their systems. Notice how the Sunder is one of the worst ships in vanilla, backed by tier lists of the forums and most players. It lacks a mobility system, and like the conquest has bad shields and paper thin armor. The actually good Midline ships either have forgiving systems and/or 0.8 shields.

Sure this is a general idea but obviously exceptions exist. Also midline is hardest to describe clearly since they're somewhere in the middle, duh. If every ship followed the doctrine faithfully, it would make for a very boring roster of ships.
This just feels like a cop out to me honestly. Most of the good Midline ships follow a doctrine, and the most questionable ones don't, like the Sunder and Conquest. Nearly every HighT and LowT ships follow their doctrine in the ways that matter.

Conquest having bad shields is the whole idea behind it, it's not made to go in and brawl like a battleship. Not even mentioning that the combo of speed + firepower + defense would be hilariously broken.
Again, this doesn't make much sense. You don't have to go in to get annihilated for having THAT bad of shields. If the average shield strength of Midline is either 0.8 or 1.0, the Conquest has nearly half the shield strength, and I'm pretty sure its actually the worst ratio in vanilla at 1.4. This isn't mechwarrior, you can't outrange by that wide of a margin for that to be acceptable especially with equally bad armor and hull. Not to mention the Paragon already has its own range mod built in. The built in mod for the Conquest facilities more guns not more range, which you HAVE to get close enough to actually use or there is no point mounting them all, hence all the people talking about asymmetric builds or it being player only because of the finesse required to do so without dying.

Also, if thats the idea behind it it doesn't even fit Midline well then. Like you said its an outlier, but what makes it an outlier also makes it so much worse.

Crap, SCC posted while I was typing lol.

It's similar to Sunder, in that better shields would make it too good at tanking, in addition to being excellent at dealing damage.
This is probably the crux of it. Like I speculated, the Conquest would probably go from bad to insane if it was buffed in the wrong way. Its probably one of those things that's always going to be on the razors edge (if it ever does get changed, which I doubt) between amazing and awful. I imagine it was nerfed during its creation into its current state to avoid being too good.

I think of midline as mostly specialists. Brawler %u2014 anti-big ship frigate. Centurion %u2014 brick. Vigilance %u2014 there to give you that medium missile. Hammerhead? I'd say it's a generalist, actually, but that's because shooting things is so handy. Sunder %u2014 glass cannon. Drover, Heron %u2014 dedicated carriers (though this is cheating a bit, since you don't have much of a choice when it comes to carriers). Gryphon spews missiles. Conquest combines good flux stats, good mobility, good weapons with bad shields. It's just Falcon and Eagle that are straightforward generalists (and Hammerhead, as I mentioned).
This is how I feel too, and its probably part of why Midline seems to be confusing to me. I've also wondered if it couldn't do with some more ships being added in vanilla to round it out a little. Probably unnecessary but its the category I'd like to see expanded on more. What I'm assuming the problem is is that because each ship is a generalist, the statline works better or worse differently in every case. It just so happens to be weird on some of them and great on others, and some of them even have to be tweaked quite a bit.

Regarding the shields and flux stats, I find that High and Low tech ships USUALLY (massive disclaimer here) dont need much in the way of hullmods or crazy loadouts while Midlines, due to each ship being somewhat its own beast, need to be fitted carefully or have their weaknesses covered with expensive hullmods. This takes away from their superior flux stats because those points could have been dumped into vents on a HighT for example, which narrows the advantage Midline is supposed to have with its doctrine.

After all, what good are guns if you can't use them? Just because it has good flux stats that offset its bad shields doesn't excuse it from also having to use that flux to fire, and if it CAN'T fire, it can't stop its shield from getting pushed by more defensive builds, creating a vicious circle.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2020, 03:04:11 PM by HeartofDiscord »
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #67 on: November 25, 2020, 03:42:46 PM »

Well, no, being midline has nothing to do with its "problems". In fact, the majority of midline ships perform well under AI control (except maybe Gryphon) since their systems are very forgiving and they have decent flux stats. I don't know what are you on about midline being bad, it's the one tech type which doesn't have many weak ships. Their shields are supposed to be mediocre, if they weren't, they'd just be better high tech.
Notice how the Sunder is one of the worst ships in vanilla, backed by tier lists of the forums and most players. It lacks a mobility system, and like the conquest has bad shields and paper thin armor.
Who has said this? I've never seen anyone rank sunder as one of the worst ships in vanilla. The only forum tier list on a recent patch that I'm aware of is this one: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18707.0. The OP had some questionable choices, but pretty much everyone in the thread who gave a tier list has sunder as either top tier or mid tier.

Sure this is a general idea but obviously exceptions exist. Also midline is hardest to describe clearly since they're somewhere in the middle, duh. If every ship followed the doctrine faithfully, it would make for a very boring roster of ships.
This just feels like a cop out to me honestly. Most of the good Midline ships follow a doctrine, and the most questionable ones don't, like the Sunder and Conquest. Nearly every HighT and LowT ships follow their doctrine in the ways that matter.
I don't understand the whole fixation on 'ship doctrine'. It's like 80% aesthetic. Themes are cute, but there's no law that ships have to follow rules, and variation away from a theme is what makes for interesting and diverse ships. Also the other techs definitely have ships that don't all of the trends. Lasher is not much of a low tech ship with average speed and armor and a damage boosting ships system, apogee and paragon are both slow, odyssey has a mediocre-bad shield off the top of my head.

Also, every ship can be massively improved with a good loadout, and very few ships perform well with somewhat random loadouts in my experience. The conquest can definitely perform well with a decent loadout, and I don't think that loadout has to be overly exotic.
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Agalyon

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #68 on: November 25, 2020, 04:05:53 PM »

I did a quick search and I can't find the one I'm thinking of. Granted it would be at least years old now, it wasn't new, so lets just say I was wrong because I dont want to dig anymore. And yeah, that list looks super questionable.

The fixation on ship doctrine is because they do follow a trend, not the other way around. Every doctrine has a couple ships that go against it, but its not about the exact number of flux ratio on the shield. Also I don't get your examples at all, the lasher is perfectly fine in LowT, its a brawler with a damage boost and well above average armor. HighT ships aren't supposed to be fast, isn't that Midlines thing? The odyssey I'll give you, and its weird because of its extreme speed.

This whole thing about "just use a good loadout" seems to go in circles in this thread, but you've misunderstood what I'm saying. Obviously hitting random is bad, that doesn't need to be said. My point is that any polarizing ship needs a polarizing loadout, and the Conquest is one of them, much like a lot of the Midline doctrine. I definitely don't think it works well with generic loadouts because it gets crushed in trades due to its terrible shield like I talked about. I guess like the rest of this thread, everyone is going to think something different from their own experiences.
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Retry

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #69 on: November 25, 2020, 04:56:39 PM »

Since the question of shields keeps popping up, I should mention that there's a mod that incidentally gives you a Conquest variant, with the only new things being a hullmod and a paintjob.  The Hullmod gives such a hefty bonus to shield efficiency that it puts it on par with typical Midline shielding (.84).  Admittedly, flux stats also receive a certain boost, but flux stats aren't really the Conquest's achilles heel.

Anyways, pitting such a "hardened" Conquest under AI control up against a Onslaught is, uh... ever see a fox get into a henhouse?  It ain't pretty.  Yeah, Onslaught has a mean initial bark, and then it flux-throttles itself before it drives the upgraded Conquest's flux pool even halfway up.  Then it's in a pitiable position, unable to bite harder than a poodle against an opponent with plenty of spare shield capacity that can also keep up the full brunt of its guns and missile barrages.  Oh, and the Conquest is the one largely dictating the engagement ranges.  The question is not if, but when the Onslaught falls.

Onslaughts are fine at bullying things that are more fragile than itself.  A Conquest w/ standard midline shield efficiencies is not that.  I don't think it's advisable to improve the vanilla Conquest's base shield efficiency.  Maybe 1.2 is the lowest I'd go if the Conquest was as bad as implied.  Any lower without any other changes is going to be a recipe for disaster.
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TaLaR

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #70 on: November 25, 2020, 05:08:14 PM »

You know why the Paragon fairs so much better in AI hands? While it is worth more DP, consider how slow and tanky it is. Its essentially mistake proof. The AI can't "stage dive" with it and die instantly.

While Paragon is less likely to commit common mistakes (well, being the strongest ship, fewer cases are considered mistakes to begin with), it has it's own unique AI flaw that gets it killed just as well.
Over-reliance on Fortress shields. It's possible to make enemy Paragon essentially kill itself by using either insufficient soft flux weaponry (that wouldn't be able to kill it if enemy Paragon just did nothing instead of activating fortress shield) or constant Squall stream (that's how even AI-piloted Conquest can kill a Paragon).
« Last Edit: November 25, 2020, 05:20:26 PM by TaLaR »
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Agalyon

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #71 on: November 25, 2020, 05:16:24 PM »

...
Definitely true. Stuff like this is probably why so many people are willing to throw down in favor of the Conquest, myself included. While it has a lot more pitfalls to get caught in, it avoids the common ones capitals have.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #72 on: November 25, 2020, 05:27:54 PM »

Also I don't get your examples at all, the lasher is perfectly fine in LowT, its a brawler with a damage boost and well above average armor. HighT ships aren't supposed to be fast, isn't that Midlines thing? The odyssey I'll give you, and its weird because of its extreme speed.
To me, low tech is slow and high armor with mediocre-bad flux stats and a weak shield (almost every ship fits that description except lasher), and high tech is fast/maneuverable, excellent flux stats and a good shield (most of the high tech ships ships follow like 2 out of 3 of these actually). Mid-tech is very nebulous, some people say its for specialized ships, some people say its for generalist ships. To me, it's just the 'miscellaneous' category for all the ships that don't quite fit. The fact that people don't even agree on these definitions demonstrates that the 'doctrine rules' aren't clearly defined and don't really mean anything. If something goes against them, that doesn't mean its bad, and if something follows them, that doesn't mean it's good. Doctrine is a just an aesthetic/fluff thing, not a serious set of rules for balance.

This whole thing about "just use a good loadout" seems to go in circles in this thread, but you've misunderstood what I'm saying. Obviously hitting random is bad, that doesn't need to be said. My point is that any polarizing ship needs a polarizing loadout, and the Conquest is one of them, much like a lot of the Midline doctrine. I definitely don't think it works well with generic loadouts because it gets crushed in trades due to its terrible shield like I talked about. I guess like the rest of this thread, everyone is going to think something different from their own experiences.
Spoiler
[close]
Is this loadout 'polarizing'? Because it reliably kills an onslaught 1v1 under AI control by walking up and punching it in the face. There's unspent OP because I didn't want the extra OP from loadout design being a factor.

A side note on this loadout:
Under agressive fleet doctrine, it vents in the onslaughts face and eats a ton of missiles for no reason (maybe a bug if alex has time to look at it), but it still wins after doing that lol.
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Agalyon

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #73 on: November 25, 2020, 05:51:11 PM »

Yes it absolutely is a polarizing loadout lol, thats exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. Thats what people have been saying to do to make it hold up for most of the thread. Its very similar to what I've used in the past, tailor made to fight other capitals. I'm not saying its a bad thing to make inventive builds but how many other ships in the game use less than half of their weapon mounts to invest everything in shield strength and max vents and caps.

Thats what polarizing means, its minmaxed to fit a specific purpose. You don't have to go that far with the other capitals or other Midlines.

Doctrine is a just an aesthetic/fluff thing, not a serious set of rules for balance.
Doctrine isn't just fluff and its not a set of balancing rules either, its a win condition. Also I don't understand whats so confusing about comparing a ship to its doctrine. If its not going to follow it why have it at all even if its only lore. Every vanilla doctrine and modded faction is based around some kind of idea, something specific their ships do better than others they rely on to win fights. Again, you are welcome to just hand wave it all if it makes you feel better but it sounds more like you don't think they should exist at all.

I KNOW there's exceptions, no need to reiterate this again. My point about the Conquest is that if you were to make a Midline ship right now, most people would compare it to other Midline ships, use their basic statline, then make changes. There have clearly been some serious changes made to make the Conquest not OP, and IMO the Midline ships are already pretty individualized as SCC mentioned so its harder to gauge.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2020, 06:01:06 PM by HeartofDiscord »
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Megas

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Re: Conquest is bad - change my mind
« Reply #74 on: November 25, 2020, 06:17:05 PM »

Paragon should be better in AI hands than other capitals.  It costs 60 DP.  If it was not better, I probably would use Onslaught/Conquest plus Eagle/Heron instead.  Paragon is not that much better other capitals.  They live longer, but perish like the rest when overwhelmed.

Conquest does not need specialist loadouts to function.  It can brawl like a generalist ship decently enough.  It does need Hardened Shields or max capacitors to have enough tanking power.  I consider Conquest the same style as Centurion, Hammerhead, and Eagle, which is a ballistic beatstick with some agility.  Just drive up to weapons range at the front line (or near it) and shoot guns until the enemy explodes.
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