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[Wyvern]

So, some of you may notice I've made a mini-mod that improves the Hyperion. As with my previous mini-mod (Planetary Shield: Access Control), this is meant partly as a suggestion - just one that I'm backing up with a playable demonstration of what I think could stand to be improved.

The premise: The Hyperion is underpowered. It's a fancy high-cost ship... but for a similar number of supplies you could be fielding two Tempests. (Or for a similar logistical footprint, you could be carting around an Aurora.) And - aside from certain specific cheesy tactics that abuse the Hyperion's teleporter - even just one Tempest is an upgrade over the Hyperion. Why do I say that? Two main reasons: The Tempest features significantly stronger offensive capability, and the Tempest is vastly more survivable under AI control.

Offense: The Hyperion's usable flux dissipation is, at best, roughly even with the Tempest - sure, its base dissipation is a bit higher, but its shield upkeep is 168 to the Tempest's 45... and unlike the Tempest, it doesn't get flux-free point-defense from terminator drones. As both ships are severely flux-limited, dissipation determines how much power you can get out of its guns.  ...And then the Tempest has its High Energy Focus system, giving it a solid 50% advantage.

Defense: On paper, the Hyperion should win this contest; it's got more flux capacity and 0.6 shields rather than the Tempest's 0.8. In practice, however, the Tempest wins out for two reasons:

• One, it has terminator drones, which not just outperform any possible PD solution from the Hyperion's two small turrets - they also serve as extra targets, occasionally distracting enemy fire.
• And two, the Tempest doesn't have a teleportation system. Field a Hyperion, put it under AI control, and every two or three fights it'll teleport itself right on top of in transit enemy shots and die because teleporting turns its shield off.

There's also a third, not-so-main reason: the Hyperion is a hangar queen, costing 40% CR to deploy. That means that, before taking player/officer skills into account, you get one deployment of a Hyperion before malfunctions set in. A Tempest, by contrast, can be safely used in multiple back-to-back fights - and it recovers from a deployment in only two days, compared to the Hyperion's five.

I figure discussion of the specific changes I made in my mini-mod should probably go into the mod's thread rather than here, but I did want to post this separately in the suggestions forum; I wouldn't expect Alex to otherwise look at a mod in the context of "maybe this is something that vanilla Starsector can improve".

[Megas]

Biggest problem with Hyperion:  CR/PPT.  PPT is too short, and it costs a lot of CR after battle.  By the time Hyperion kills a cruiser, it is out of PPT.  I can do better with other ships for its cost or less.  Also, AI has gotten smarter defending against Hyperion in more recent versions than before (perhaps as a side effect of defending against phase ships).

It would be okay as it is if its DP cost is either lowered to about 10, PPT raised to about 180, and/or CR cost is better than -40%.

Currently, I use Afflictor when I want a cheese ship, or Falcon if I need a 15 DP fighter.

It definitely needs buffs if it is to be the super-ship it used to be instead of a wimp with a cheap gimmick.

[Grievous69]

I think this might be the 3rd Hyperion thread since the last patch so I'm just going to repeat myself from previous ones. Along with the very short PPT time it's biggest problem is its teleport system. Without it you can do sooo much more with the ship so it can be worth 15 DP. I don't see how it could be fixed while keeping its teleport, AI will always be either the most annoying thing ever or absolutely useless. And it's just awkward to fly on top of it.

[HELMUT]

I just looked at your mod Wyvern, and funnily enough, it seems Tartiflette had the exact same idea as you and made a temporal shell Hyperion for his Seeker mod, the Endymion.

To get back on the subject of the Hyperion. I too, have a problem with it. Though i don't think the ship is underpowered, i managed to make it perform pretty well in battle. I had tried quite a few builds, with various success, but i always came back to one in particular.

Spoiler

With a few adjustments depending on the situation, but that's the main idea.

[close]

Seems straightforward enough. Get in, shoot, get out, vent. Repeat until you run out of CR. Getting it to work is easy enough. Getting it to work very well is hard. The idea is to have as little downtime as possible. Get in, shoot, not necessarily to kill, or even to hamper a key target, just shoot and hit something, get out and vent. I realized i was wasting an incredible amount of time between two actions. Picking a target, getting into position, avoiding fighters... Precious time lost to CR degradation. Without that downtime, or at least with as little of it as possible, the Hyperion can pump out a whole lot of damage during a battle.

It took me a very long time to be somewhat good at it. Mainly because it feels incredibly unnatural to fly, or rather to teleport, that way. The lower the downtime, the better the Hyperion becomes. Of course, it's much easier to perform well with a proper fleet to keep the enemy somewhat busy. And if all goes well, the entire battle feels like a well timed metronome where you forget yourself in a murderous, mechanical routine. Get in, shoot, get out, vent, do it again. From my experience, the Hyperion requires a lot of efforts to be good, but it can be good.

My problem with it? It's boring.

Getting in that state of "Hyperion flow" isn't as cool as it sounds. Some modded super-frigates get it right, with tight, stressful and exiting piloting. But not the Hyperion, it's a grind. A tight, stressful and boring grind. Which isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things. I mean, i can still play a different style, right? Unfortunately, i haven't found anything that works as well. At least nothing that justify its high price tag in my eyes.

The Hyperion problem isn't a big one like, say, the 0.8 Harbinger. After all, everyone tried the Hyperion at some point, and the majority proceeded to ignore it after that. That's fine, there are other ships to play with. But then we have a ship in the game that people would rather scuttle for supplies than use in battle.

I don't have much to offer for a solution. I think the concept of a teleporting super frigate can work. I think it's just the phase teleporter that could probably have its stats tweaked a bit to emphasize a more exciting playstyle instead of the current metronome.

[Morrokain]

FWIW I also made the Hyperion use the Temporal Shell in my mod.

The teleport was too binary imo and had AI/unfun gameplay issues when not in the player's hands - as I think people have already mentioned. It kind of steps on the Scarab's toes a bit in vanilla but probably still worth it. The weapon size/arc set up on the Scarab is different enough to make it an interesting choice when deciding between the two options anyway.

[Megas]

Hyperion is a strike vessel.  Teleport in, pop off a shot, get out.  Very much like using the super shotgun in Doom - hide behind corner, pop out, fire SSG, run back behind corner, reload, repeat.  It is not so great as a conventional brawler with pulse lasers or the like.  Rather, it is too expensive to emulate a Tempest.  A problem with Hyperion is it has one or two optimal loadouts, and the best weapon it can use (at least with skills) is mining blaster.  (Phase lances require about a second to fire on target, which is too much time given to the enemy to fire back.)

I do not think Hyperion, as a playership, is boring.  If anything, it was fun soloing a fleet with it when it could do that when enemy AI was dumber and either CR was unlimited or with overpowered skills that let it kill everything before CR decayed to critical.  Today, Hyperion cannot do that anymore because of weak skills and smarter (and more cowardly) enemy AI.  Now, AI aims and fires before Hyperion fully jumps in (or sidesteps away from its line-of-fire), and Afflictor can kill things faster than Hyperion can.

The twitch piloting of Hyperion does not bother me.  I am used to piloting it at 2f or double speed.

The main problem with teleport (and some other systems) is AI incompetence.  In previous releases, it was useful for letting AI Hyperion capture points before anything else could, then run away to capture more (which was overpowered before 0.6a).  However, capturing points is not useful anymore.

Hyperion is underpowered when Afflictor can outperform it at less cost, or when other ships of similar cost (namely Falcon and Apogee) can kill an enemy cruiser and keep going.  I do not use Hyperion anymore because I rather use Afflictor to do its job faster for less (and by endgame, Afflictor is cheap enough to sacrifice in fights), or I use a real cruiser to get better performance.  I wonder if (unarmed) Drover with two good fighters can do a better job than Hyperion in some fights.  In a way, Aurora is like Hyperion.  For its 30 DP cost, I rather pay a little more and pilot either Doom (35 DP) or Onslaught/Conquest (40 DP) to brawl against everything instead of hit-and-run to bully small ships only.

[Megas]

Question:  How is Temporal Shell good on Hyperion (aside from dodging bullets)?  If my ship needs to vent after firing one or two dual shots, long before it expires, what good is it?  I do not like it on Scarab because it cannot load up with three or more guns and let loose for maximum firepower.  High-powered loadouts are discouraged because flux stats are insufficient.  On the other hand, Scarab kind of needs the shell because it makes dodging bullets easier and lets it pound away with 500 range weapons.  It is that Scarab cannot use more than one or two IR pulse lasers without collapsing the shell prematurely because of flux stats.  If I did not need the shell for dodging bullets, I rather load up with more guns and ignore the shell.  (I did something similar with Accelerated Ammo Feeder when it did not have a flux discount.)

Hmmm, I suppose, I can reduce game speed back down to 1f or a little slower so that I do not need the shell to react in time to dodge bullets.

[devurandom]

Question:  How is Temporal Shell good on Hyperion (aside from dodging bullets)?  If my ship needs to vent after firing one or two dual shots, long before it expires, what good is it?  I do not like it on Scarab because it cannot load up with three or more guns and let loose for maximum firepower.  High-powered loadouts are discouraged because flux stats are insufficient.  On the other hand, Scarab kind of needs the shell because it makes dodging bullets easier and lets it pound away with 500 range weapons.  It is that Scarab cannot use more than one or two IR pulse lasers without collapsing the shell prematurely because of flux stats.  If I did not need the shell for dodging bullets, I rather load up with more guns and ignore the shell.  (I did something similar with Accelerated Ammo Feeder when it did not have a flux discount.)

Hmmm, I suppose, I can reduce game speed back down to 1f or a little slower so that I do not need the shell to react in time to dodge bullets.

Maybe shell should become a toggle to double down on the bullet dodging. e.g. Scarab can turn it on and off instantly, but every second in the shell depletes 20% of the meter.

[Wyvern]

Question:  How is Temporal Shell good on Hyperion (aside from dodging bullets)?  If my ship needs to vent after firing one or two dual shots, long before it expires, what good is it?

Do keep in mind that if you're running at 3x time... you're also running at 3x dissipation relative to non-accelerated time. If the Temporal Shell is active, don't vent, just stop firing if you need to.

Edit: That said, I wouldn't be averse to adding a modest flux discount to the Temporal Shell system. Mathematically it doesn't need it - you're already (relative to an external time frame) dissipating flux faster than you would be while venting - but just in terms of feeling good to use, it'd be a help; Temporal Shell is simply more fun when you can actually just keep firing for the full duration.

[Thaago]

Right, venting during a temporal shell is always worse than just holding fire.

Re: HELMUT's Hyperion experience
I feel similarly for phase frigate play, though they are a lot easier to learn. Its fun for a little while, then tedious.

[SCC]

I don't like Hyperion much, because I found the way it works is mostly the same as phase frigates - get in, strike, get out. I don't like this playstyle and combined with logisitical footprint way bigger than that of phase frigates, who can do pretty much the same job, I dropped it quickly. I did try to make it work as a regular warship that lets me play hero and rescue my ships, if they get in a bad spot, but Hyperion was both underwhelming and too expensive in that role.

[Megas]

Do keep in mind that if you're running at 3x time... you're also running at 3x dissipation relative to non-accelerated time. If the Temporal Shell is active, don't vent, just stop firing if you need to.

So is PPT countdown/CR decay.  In that case, it is better to undergun the ship so it can fire for the full duration... or not if it takes too many hits on shield.  That is what I dislike about Scarab.  All of those mounts, but only enough juice to support little more than one IR Pulse Laser (while saving enough for one AM Blaster to overload shields).

As for Hyperion strike ship, I spend more time teleporting and venting than firing at enemies.  Missing shots really hurt.

[SafariJohn]

The problems with the Hyperion are that it is nigh-invincible thanks to its teleporter, can deal enormous damage with its missiles and medium energies, and costs a ton of time/money both to have and to replace.

Phase ships had/have similar problems, as would the Scarab if its weapon slots didn't suck. I think Alex's recent and upcoming changes to phase ships will solve their problems, and IMO the Roider Union's Roach is an example of a Temporal Shell ship "Done Right™". So the Hyperion's problems should not be insurmountable.

Like Wyvern, I think the solution lies in the Hyperion's ship system (and increasing its PPT). I have tried different systems in the past and none of them felt as fitting as the teleporter. So how could the teleporter be adjusted to add more risk and penalize alpha-striking?

I suggest giving the teleporter a long cooldown and a tapering penalty to energy weapon damage during the cooldown. Ganking vulnerable ships would still be effective, but against most enemies it would be better to keep the teleporter ready for a quick exit.

[Morrokain]

I suggest giving the teleporter a long cooldown and a tapering penalty to energy weapon damage during the cooldown. Ganking vulnerable ships would still be effective, but against most enemies it would be better to keep the teleporter ready for a quick exit.

I tried the long cooldown idea. I also made the teleport take a half second or second or something like that to charge so that there was a little more risk to it.

For the player this would be interesting, but the main issue is that the AI will often suicide from the system. I suppose the AI could be changed to only use it defensively, but then players will often complain about fighting them because the only real option is wearing down CR - hence the unfun gameplay issue.

Not that it's a deal breaker or anything, but just something to consider based upon my experiences playing around with potential solutions.

[Rnz]

I would also love some changes to it. Instead of a proper buff I would kill for a rework: much faster teleport animation (by the time it is able to fire after teleporting, the target usually has all the time it needs to move a shield between you and it, especially true with smaller ships), and trade all of its existing weapon mounts for 3 convergent fixed medium mounts. Would be my perfect ship