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[Arcagnello]

Both builds appear to be quasi-missile boats and heavily rely on their triple Sabot Pods, Hurricane launchers, and EMRs.  Nearly no guns in the small slots.
 The twin Autopulse build doesn't even have vents, which makes me irrationally sad.

I wouldn't be sad considering the base Odissey dissipation is high enough to reasonably field them anyway if you've invested in flux capacity instead. The ship will comfortably be able to take the flux generated by both Autopulses dumping their while 45 shot clips due to its amazing flux capacity and steadily dissipate it once they're empty or the ship itself backs off to vent, also allowing the missile weapons to be ready again when it goes back on the offensive.

That's not really surprising, it's well known Autopulses aren't great vs armour. This is why most builds either have HIL or a Tach lance, or just good ol' double Plasma. Honestly with that build, I'd scrap the Hurricane and get some torpedoes, and might even swap out that back Sabot for a Harpoon pod.

As for relying on missiles, yeah. That's what capitals with 3 medium and one large missile slot usually boil down to. I don't really consider it as a malus considering the ship will have 12 6-sabot salvos and 20 Hurricane MIRV salvos and they're going to take quite a while to run out. The second version even has twin longbow wings to keep spamming sabots even after the ones on the pods run out.

Regarding Autopulse Lasers:

First: any Starsector player worth their salt uses Autopulses in combination with Extended magazines.

Second: The role of autopulses on a very missile/fighter heavy Odissey is to fill those two large energy slots with the cheapest, most efficient weapon that also generates hard flux. They're just a bonus, which is why the AI is so good at using the ship since it can just spam all weapons as soon as they're in range of the enemy and basically get the same result as a more tactical approach in the long run would.
Litterally all of the weapons on the ship actually work just fine by themselves (sabots are actually surprisingly high damaging against low-medium armor ships, even after the well deserved nerfs they got) and having a ship able to fit and use all of them at once makes for a devastatingly effective asset.

Third:Autopulses are not only cheap and flux efficent, they also double as a pretty nifty anti-fighter weapon to make up for the lack of dedicated point defence on the ship. Installing either HIL or Tach lances implies heavily investing in both vents and considerably more ordinance points to even install them on the ship, not to mention install PD to not leave the ship naked against fighters. Then there's also the additional problem of both HIL and Tach lance being nearly useless (against big targets) when the sabots run out since they don't generate hard flux and take they sweet old time against shielded targets.

I do not comprehend why anyone would axe a Hurricane Mirv out of a ship that's capable of fielding it alongside Expanded Missile Racks(unless it's for a Squall MLRS on some ships or peculiar cases like the Gryphon). It's probably the best anti-armor weapon in Vanilla Starsector, not to mention its damage potential AND ammo capacity makes it a more than competent pressure tool and hull deleter.

[Grievous69]

I do not comprehend why anyone would axe a Hurricane Mirv out of a ship that's capable of fielding it alongside Expanded Missile Racks(unless it's for a Squall MLRS on some ships or peculiar cases like the Gryphon). It's probably the best anti-armor weapon in Vanilla Starsector, not to mention its damage potential AND ammo capacity makes it a more than competent pressure tool and hull deleter.

Because AI is horrendous with it, attacks random small ships it can't ever hope to hit. AI just spams it like it's a suppression weapon, and wastes half of its ammo. It's a good weapon otherwise, with one thing that bothers me a bit and that's the uselessness without ECCM.

[Arcagnello]

I do not comprehend why anyone would axe a Hurricane Mirv out of a ship that's capable of fielding it alongside Expanded Missile Racks(unless it's for a Squall MLRS on some ships or peculiar cases like the Gryphon). It's probably the best anti-armor weapon in Vanilla Starsector, not to mention its damage potential AND ammo capacity makes it a more than competent pressure tool and hull deleter.

Because AI is horrendous with it, attacks random small ships it can't ever hope to hit. AI just spams it like it's a suppression weapon, and wastes half of its ammo. It's a good weapon otherwise, with one thing that bothers me a bit and that's the uselessness without ECCM.

Oh it's even worse than that. Swarm a dual Hurricane Conquest with fighters and it will actually shoot the Hurricanes at the fighters if nothing else is in range.

I tend to solve this issue with a fleet composition built around getting rid of small threats so that my heavier units properly engage the right targets.

I'm also currently playing with no commander skills/no officers/no extra Ordinance Points and I'm quite happy with the level of accuracy the Hurricane MIRV provides on the correct target (destroyer ship size and above) even without ECCM (wich you should always use along Expanded Missile Racks if you've got the OP for it).

If the Hurricane MIRV is missing the target, then it's not shooting at the right target. Another way to try to make sure your hurricane MIRV ships are shooting at the right stuff is to set most small ship on Search And Destroy but at the same time give "Engage" orders on all targets feasible for some Hurricane loving. This will incentivize your non-Search-and-Destroy units on the field to engage those targets first. It's a kind of "soft-Eliminate" order wich I've barely used before this campaign but that I am now widely employing. Try it out and see if it helps

[Igncom1]

These days I value putting ECCM on any ship with decent missile mounts. Sometimes even if it means not having a range booster if the ship is a bad gunboat otherwise.

ECCM missiles are great, but with a pilot with the missile skills? They are almost broken!

[Arcagnello]

These days I value putting ECCM on any ship with decent missile mounts. Sometimes even if it means not having a range booster if the ship is a bad gunboat otherwise.

ECCM missiles are great, but with a pilot with the missile skills? They are almost broken!

What's the total missile speed boost when combining both ECCM and the level 3 missile skill by the way? It honestly feels like it more or less doubles missile speed. ECCM Hurricanes, Reapers or even simply harpoons or Pilums are nasty to shoot down or evade. Definetly a must if a ship's worth is only proportional to the amount of accurate missile vomit it can put down range.

I don't think there's any vanilla weapon types that gets as massively more effective as missiles with the right skills/retrofits as missiles, the closest I remember getting to that is using shell speed retrofits from two different mods (+70% projectile speed, improved tracking) plus commander skills.

[oorek]

I have tried to build a playthrough entirely around Conquests.

My playstyle revolved around putting as much DPS on both sides of the ship as possible - Storm Needlers, Heavy Needlers and Assault Chainguns - wading into the middle of multiple enemy ships (armor hullmods help) and in this way abusing the stellar overall DPS of the Conquest by exposing both sides to enemies. If you're only using one side at a time, it's worthless.

If you use both sides, it's... just OK. It works well as a player ship. At the fleet scale, like if you use ten of these and put them on escort, it doesn't work because you split the enemy fleet and then, at any given time, your Conquests are only firing with one side (at the now-independent front lines.) You can at most use one or two or these and have to literally wedge them in the middle of the enemy fleet.

With the huge Assault Chaingun nerf coming in .95A this will not work well anymore though.

[Retry]

I wouldn't be sad considering the base Odissey dissipation is high enough to reasonably field them anyway if you've invested in flux capacity instead. The ship will comfortably be able to take the flux generated by both Autopulses dumping their while 45 shot clips due to its amazing flux capacity and steadily dissipate it once they're empty or the ship itself backs off to vent, also allowing the missile weapons to be ready again when it goes back on the offensive.

It makes me sad because it's a waste of the Odyssey's potential.

In the first video it has a bunch of hullmods not actually providing any real benefits: Solar Shielding (slight resistance vs energy damage, but only on hull/armor), Efficiency Overhaul (no real combat benefit), Expanded Deck Crew (It's a BC that happens to have 2 fighter slots, not a carrier) is sapping up important OP for marginal combat benefits, if any.  Those 3 themselves could easily be swapped for a bunch of vents + one gun upgraded to Plasma Cannon, which AI Odyssey seems to handle better than Autopulses for whatever reason.  Scrapping E-Mags and maybe a few caps, and you can easily get and sustain 2 Plasma Cannons.

Also, vents are just as much a defensive tool as much as an offensive one.  More vents means you can shed built-up hard-flux much faster when shields are off, and also resist the impact of soft-flux damage when you're in an offensive situation from Tactical Lasers, Graviton Beams, and Tachyon Lances.

In both cases, the build is clearly being carried by the Sabots + Hurricane MIRV + EMR (and a tiny contribution from its Sparks to prevent it from being, well, Sparked).  The Autopulses and about half the hullmods are just along for the ride.

[intrinsic_parity]

My AI odyssey build is plasma cannon + auto pulse. Two plasmas is a bit too much for an unskilled AI, or even captained one sometimes. IMO, capacitors are better defensively for the AI because they give it time to react and more cushion for mistakes. They also make it more aggressive since it will evaluate itself as being further ahead on flux. I would not spend lots of OP on vents beyond weapon and shield flux costs personally. I would rather have caps. Vent speed from that one hullmod is probably still more valuable than vents defensively in addition to providing employment resistance.