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Author Topic: How do you kill 150k+ bounty fleets?  (Read 5310 times)

Hiruma Kai

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Re: How do you kill 150k+ bounty fleets?
« Reply #15 on: April 03, 2021, 10:08:39 AM »

I was fighting 12-ish Conquest bounty fleets (300k-400k range) with the following deployment before I had my colonies up and running:

Paragon (2 Dmod, 1 story mod) + Legion XIV (3 dmod, 3 story mod) + Aurora (3 story mod) + 2 Herons (170 DP total)

I piloted the SO Aurora myself, and use it to grab one capture point at the beginning (letting me deploy 180 DP worst case), and then sweep frigates/destroyers - they often conveniently send 1 or 2 to the capture point for me to swat immediately.  Once smaller ships have all been eliminated (oddly easier with more capitals), I move on to flanking the enemy capitals, forcing them to endure fire from two sides (and usually turn their engines towards my allies).  If they won't turn, I'll make them turn with plasma burn + shield bumper cars.  Back off as needed to let flux drop.

I issue an order to each Heron to escort a different capital, which generally means they fly behind and plink at flanking frigates with a hypervelocity driver or Heavy Autocannon.  Their fighters are able to catch most frigates, although I'm usually configured with a generic fighter loadout: Broadsword/Longbow/Dagger, but do switch it up if I need different capabilities (Piranas are good against stationary stations for example).  You could probably optimize them better against small fast targets.

But yeah, I admit I have not flown a Paragon yet this edition despite having two in my end game fleet.  Paragons are fine in AI hands, simply because they're so slow, which makes it hard for them to over commit.  I use the fastest biggest ship (Odyssey eventually) I have, and use speed and size to crush frigates/destroyers quickly at the start of the fight.  As a human, I have a better idea of whether I can catch a given frigate and when I'm getting to far from the main fight, and can be aggressive enough with ship systems/missiles to do so.  Fighters are also good for driving off/killing flankers via command point orders to carriers.  On the other hand, I was often driving the Aurora well past peak time in those kinds of fights, so it was a bit harder on the supplies than one might expect.  On the other hand, an SO Aurora has capital flux stats (~2600 flux dissipation), capital DPS (1500 DPS from heavy blasters alone), with 24 sabots, and faster than frigate speed mobility system.  With an Odyssey that is less of an issue (although far less maneuverable and you need to watch your position and attitude much more - I've had to recover my Odyssey more of then my Aurora because of mistakes).  I consider the combat tier 5 systems skill a must have for that kind of play style - 3 faster recovering plasma burn charges or faster recovery of plasma jets means more kills in less time.
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Thaago

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Re: How do you kill 150k+ bounty fleets?
« Reply #16 on: April 03, 2021, 10:10:27 AM »

...

Forget about getting small ships, because by the time you get to late game against 20+ officers, you're just going to be trickling in your ship one by one.
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Thats just untrue Golde. The minimum a player can get is 40% of battlesize, then up to 60% with objectives. At 400 (where I play at and it seems a lot of others do) that means at least 160 at the start, and then every point is 20 or 40 more. Not really trickling in small ships one at a time.

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That will probably work well! One thing you might want to do in battle is deploy your paragon first, wait a bit, then deploy your destroyers.

So I don't think this is a good idea anymore. By doing this you give up capturables and allow enemies to deploy even more ships.

Oh hmmm thats a good point. Though if the player is at 160 at the start (don't know if thats the case) don't the points not give them anything more? I could be wrong there, but I thought that points only gave bonus deployment if the side was under 60%?

Not to mention if player does not have Wolfpack Tactics, frigates do not have enough PPT to stay in capital spam fights that have remained since 0.9.1.  (And if I have Automated Ships, I am not wasting it on three Lumens when I can deploy the overpowered Radiant instead.)  If I see 250k+ bounties today with as many capitals as last release, or nearly so, we still have capital spam; and it is worse now because they also spam level 6+ officers on most, if not every, ship.

Because I want Combat/Tech/Industry, Wolfpack Tactics is not an option for me.

On the other hand, with more offensive skills this version fights are significantly faster. I just did a 7 conquest fight (290k only, so not max officers, but a lot) fast enough that my two frigates only started to tick right at the end, with no hardened subsystems or wolfpack.
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Rap1d

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Re: How do you kill 150k+ bounty fleets?
« Reply #17 on: April 04, 2021, 08:40:24 AM »

There are plenty of strategies to handle those kinds of fleets, but the most consistent one in my opinion is to take the fight in multiple engagements.. Pilot a fast ship, and deploy a fleet that deals somewhat better with small targets first, play carefully and kite back, and kill of frigates and destroyers, then retreat. Then re-engage and kill the rest. I Play Ironman, and on the really big fights I sometimes fight over 3 or 4 engagements.


You can finish pretty much any fight in the game with just 120 deployment points if you play well and do it over multiple engagements.
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TaLaR

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Re: How do you kill 150k+ bounty fleets?
« Reply #18 on: April 04, 2021, 08:56:22 AM »

Oh hmmm thats a good point. Though if the player is at 160 at the start (don't know if thats the case) don't the points not give them anything more? I could be wrong there, but I thought that points only gave bonus deployment if the side was under 60%?

Yeah, didn't consider that. If 60% is the limit anyway, then giving up capturables doesn't matter DP-wise.
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Bob69Joe

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Re: How do you kill 150k+ bounty fleets?
« Reply #19 on: April 05, 2021, 12:01:44 PM »

I haven't even touched bounties, so there's that, but wouldn't it be viable to play cat and mouse, to reduce their CR, fight until you can cleanly disengage and repeat? Hunt them to exhaustion.
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