https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-H8PuweRVAAs you've
probably guessed by my latest threads, I'm playing a frigade-focused campaign and I've been integrating three hullmods into Scarabs and Hyperions with quite impressive results, but I've now finally managed to to reach peak meme:
Did you know Wolfpack Tactics also applies to any AI core as long as it controls an Explorarium/[Redacted] frigade?
Did you know you can have 6 overridden, souped-up Wolf frigades with High Energy Focus in your fleet commanded by a gamma core each?
Did you know (last one, I swear) AI Cores have all their skills Elite and that 6 of them can give your fleet 48% ECM for just 30FP?
I sure didn't until I started experimenting, and let me tell you it's
glorious! I will have to give you an overview of why it works first tough.
My skill treeI basically ignored both Combat and Industry skill trees (as you do, they're yucky, who even flies their ships nowadays
), double dipped into the technology tree and got myself more officers, more max CR, and a whole lot of frigade buffs from the technology tree.
My FleetI'll be the first one to admit I've been a bit too lax in vomiting story points over my ships, some of which I even stored on my main planet since they just did not feel right in the fleet. In order:
Conquest Artillery Battlecruiser:I wanted the most mobile capital I could get my hands on and that happened to be the Conquest. I really wished for an easy trio of Odissey battlecruisers until I realized the good thing about the Conquest is that it can kite backwards , can vomit double Gauss 2000 units away from the enemy and I've basically set it up to be the best possible Hurricane Delivery System it can be.
Heron Fast Strike CarrierAnd usually escorting the Conquest is some of these, depending on the mission. As you can see I've been quite the dumbdumb with integrating hullmods and the ship would work a lot better with Integrated Nav Relay, ECM Package and Expanded Deck Crew. I would've been able to also give the ship hardened subsystems that 3 way. I guess it will be for the next campaign. Just be glad I did not put Safety Overrides on it. Yes, it actually crossed my mind.
I have a Problem.
Gryphon Support Missile CruiserI will admit I got hyped up by Harpoon Affectionado, Thaago and decided to bring double gryphon along for the ride. I even managed to not Override these too if you can believe that, the even seem to manage to keep up with the Conquest they're supposed to be escorting! I could've given this bad boy ECM/Nav package too in retrospect, but I foolishly decided to make it more durable if it happens to come anywhere near the enemy. bad choice, learning experience for next campaign
Hyperion Advanced Assault GunshipNow, I know, I know I could've probably slapped 10 of these and the fleet would work better overall, but where's the fun in that? I've currently got two in the fleet (planning on getting 4) and they do their job very well, which is wrecking anything small and immobilizing the enemy for the remaining missile boats in my fleet to set their sights on them. You can read the various feats of both Hyperion and the next entry in my fleet in this thread (
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20871.0 )
Scarab Heavy Overridden FrigadeI honesty like this thing a lot more than the Hyperion, and I feel like it's only less
Overpowered than the Hyperion only because it's just worth 8DP and you can't really field an entire fleet of these like you can with the Hyperion. It's got great PD capabilities and that trio of AM blasters wich usually have their reload speed boosted by the Temporal Shell are not a joke either. I'm planning to eventually shelf these when I get 4 Hyperions.
Glimmer Assault DroneshipAnd here it is! I love this thing! It's great fun to watch it unload on everything without a care in the word and not having an existential crysis on every phase skimmer like the Radiant AI.
It's a very simple ship. All weapons point forward, there is only two damn weapon groups and
it just works.Kills a simulation Eagle too, what more can you ask for? The truly impresive things about these are:
-the 238 combat speed
-the flux capacity and 360 shield giving it quite the impressive survivability with something so small with Fearless AI
-the absolutely bonkers
254 seconds of Peak Performance Time, something you'd expect out of an Overridden
cruiser, not a frigade
This of course in addition to the Gamma Core heavily weighing in on the power balance and providing 8% ECM for each one of these puppies that gets deployed if you also have the Electronic Warfare Technology Skill.
They will actually chase ships down to the end of the sector and back, immobilize it and eventually kill it, including an Officered Doom if you just so happen to have trouble with those. 360 shields, minuscule hull and 200+ speed surely help!
I've actually wiped a 300k+ bounty consisting of 4 Dooms (not all of them were with an officer and the fleet as a whole was small, I'll admit that), 2 Astrals and a plethora of other phase ships with no losses thanks to these little buggers. The game gave me a
40ish percent bonus exp for the battle difficulty but the enemy could not even deploy over 130 DP due to my unholy mountain of human and artificial officers!
It works great against [Redacted] Ordos too, just spam all 6 of these at the start of the baattle to grab all the Buoys, then deploy your hard hitters and have them shave off enemies one by one while all the little itty bitty frigades drive the enemy crazy and divide its forces by costantly capturing and contesting buoys!
Edit: I'm currently exploring the sector and doing high payout bounties which resulted in an abdundance of story points leading me to do this:
Don't do it, I just wanted to fully weaponize my campaign meme to get it endgame ready but I'm
pretty sure there are better ways to spend 4 story points than roiding up a 5 Deployment Points frigade.
Sample fightsThis is a brief collection of difficult fights that showcase the utility of the various fleet's elements. I'll add the various spoilery fights when I eventually get to them.
Double 300k bountyI was in the middle of exploring when I got jumped by around 600k worth of bounties orbiting the same planet when I was not looking with a battle difficulty
exp multiplier of 257%. The sheer amount of stuff in the fleet in combination with the great amount of cruisers threwat me forced two consecutive engagements since even my Conquests, Griphons and Herons started to suffer from CR degradation at the end of the first fight. After the CR of my frigades was rock bottom I retreated them (fun sidenote: it takes the Hyperion around 20 seconds to retreat from anywhere on the map) and proceded to grind the enemy to nothingness thanks to a full 180 deployment points of Conquests, Griphons and Herons. I don't have any pretty battle screenshots to showcase for this fight sadly.
End of the first engament: my losses
and the enemy losses
End Of the Second engagement (I lost no ship here, only the enemy)
Recovery Screen (all the ships lost were fished back into the fleet)
Now that's some tasty exp, I think that earned me a whole story point by itself! Salvage screen of the battle 3xParagon 5x Doom meme bountyI had stuff to do this evenning so I'm going to do this the lazy way and
quote myselfWhat in Ludd's good name is that bounty ? And how is triple Paragon/quad Doom not even worth three times as much as a pirate fleet which doesn't field any capitals, insofar that the Atlas MK. II counts as such?
Beyond that I am looking at the OP and am in the process of taking notes...
So, uh, I went to see what the actual bounty fleet looked like:
And, spoiler alert, I actually beat it only losing (and then recovering) 3 frigades. I'm actually really surprised. I guess giving the enemy a bad case of extreme sensory overload works wonders against capital-class ships. They won't be firing their weapons or properly using the ship systems most of the time.
Initial Deployment
The Donut capital starting to feel really alone there in the middle of the map
The Donut capital REALLY wishing it had accellerated shields right now
Enemy can only deploy 135FP worth of stuff after the first Paragon got disabled. That's how disgusting Gamma Core officer stacking plus 10 normal officers can get
Glimmer actually managing to annoy a Doom long enough for it to overflux itself and get deleted by a double Hurricane from the Conquest
Spawncamping the filthy phase weebs
Bullying the second donut while the last doom is having a good old time being chased around by 360 shield frigades wasting its time
Second Donut being pelted by frigades while it's distracted by the artillery COnquest and carriers. This is why I always suggest giving Paragons Accellerated Shields, Front Shields AND stabilized shields even before considering Hardened Shields, this would not happen so easily.
Hyperion soloing an officered Doom by itself after it was done with giving the second donut capital the buisness
Fight result screen. Watching that Last paragon deploy just to immediatelt rout was hilarious.
Bounty completion and Exp value. Funny how two no-capital 300k bounty fleets paid out more than a single one with 3 paragons and 4 Dooms.
10 Questionable Conquest FleetI honestly expected this to be way more difficult than what It ended up being (especially considering it's nearly 400k in rewards), which is due to the horrid setups most of the 10 Conquests. And why in holy Ludd are they giving an
Enforcer the priviledge of an officer before all the Conquests? Can someone explain this to me?
Fleet Bounty
Actual Fleet Composition
Hyperion soloing one of the most pathetically autofitted Conquest designs I've ever seen
This Champion is not having a good time
The battle has now degraded into a spawncamping massacre
I've actually tried to pilot a scarab in this and got myself exploded within 20 seconds. Watching YT videos while driving a squishy frigade going at 500 units per second is
not advisable. The one Glimmer just exploded like Glimmers do and this is the first time I've actually lost a Hyperion in battle. It litterally teleported itself right in front of a Hurricane and did not raise the shield up in time. I guess shooting everything everywhere until something sticks is the one true counter for the doom equivalent in the frigade world.
Man you really do earn story points quite fast with the latest version of the game, this admittedly mediocre battle earned me a whole story point!
Big Hegemony Chungus FleetMy first high value Hegemony bounty consisting of 4 Onslaughts, 1 Legion, 3 Eagles and two Dominators as the main force. At least this one had all capital ships with an officer on it.
Actual fleet composition
There's not much to say here, the enemy fleet did actually beat me in the original Deployment Points
But they had way too little frigades to contest them against my roided up squirrel squad so the battle eventually because a spawncamp farm
And good news, I've finally managed to grow some restraint and not kill myself while driving a Scarab for more than 30 seconds.
And this is the exp reward. Getting a whole story point for these battles still seems crazy to me.