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[Pappus]

Just went in to see if anything changed in that regard and felt disappointed so far.

The best PD is still lasers that are constantly on the ship that is sending the missiles so that they vaporize as they spawn. Or needlers.

Also a quick question: Story points are infinite right? Because I am leisurely spending them and the bonus xp is actually a tad too high for my taste.

I got into raiding and I think the beloved dev might have made a very big mistake there. I went with like 600 random marines to an undefended outpost and selected ore for giggles.

It felt like a minute until the ore was finally shown. It was 25.000 ore. Who is supposed to grab this much and is there even a limit on it? To me it seems like I can grab infinite resources since more soldiers = more dots to place = more loot.

[Lorebot]

Tactical Lasers work really well if combined with the Integrated Point Defense AI hull mod too since it makes all small turret weapons to prioritize targeting missiles over enemy ships, but allows them to target ships and fighters when there are no missiles in range. The mod also gives all your PD weapons, including all small turrets that the mod is turning into PD weapons, the best possible target tracking against all targets so it can improve their ability to hit fighters and frigates too when there are no missiles in range. And the mod increases all damage to missiles by 50% even for non PD weapons, so missiles that happen to get in the way of non PD weapons are more likely to be destroyed. And it stacks with the 50% increased damage to missiles from the Point Defense skill it can turn ships with lots of small turrets into amazing anti-missile/fighter platforms.

Flak cannons and Dual Flak cannons are really great for anti missile defenses too since they're aoe weapons and can hit multiple missiles per shot but require medium ballistic mounts and are kinda flux intensive at 50 flux per shot.

Burst PD Lasers and Heavy Burst Laser are both great against intermittent missile fire, but are less effective against a constant barrage. Both burst pd weapons benefit from the Extended Magazines hull mod because it allows them to hold more charges, but it doesn't increase the charge rate so it doesn't increase their effectiveness against a constant barrage situation. Burst PD are amazing for Phase Ships since the charges regen while they're phased which allows them to deal with missiles when they unphase and then phase when they're out of charges.

[Goumindong]

Vulcan Cannons and Flack are... hilariously good anti-missile. With the skill or IPDAI they're obscene more or less able to shoot down any and all missiles before they hit you, regardless of the skills or equipment of the enemy.

A wall of Vulcan Cannons and IPDAI is one of the things that really makes an Onslaught shine, since these more or less allow it to ignore missiles.

[Pappus]

Vulcan Cannons and Flack are... hilariously good anti-missile. With the skill or IPDAI they're obscene more or less able to shoot down any and all missiles before they hit you, regardless of the skills or equipment of the enemy.

A wall of Vulcan Cannons and IPDAI is one of the things that really makes an Onslaught shine, since these more or less allow it to ignore missiles.

3 flaks on the nose of the legion will not stop the rockets of the onslaught before impact captainless. That is how hilarious they indeed are. I can double check for the vulcan cannons, but unless something flies straight at them they don't perform that great either.

Maybe you don't distinguish between captain skills being good and weapons?

[TaLaR]

Low tech can have impenetrable PD by stacking enough Flak/Vulcans, IPDAI and PD skill. Doesn't need all of that combined to have good enough PD in practice either.

Mid and high tech can have decent PD by stacking multiple IR Pulse and IPDAI. Very flux expensive and not quite as reliable vs missiles, but doubles up as good close combat setup vs smaller ships and fighters.

If you can't do proper PD as in examples above, you may want minimalist PD setup strictly to counter salamanders - a pair (Burst) PD lasers or so in rear arcs.

Other options don't make much sense. Any energy PD except stacked IR Pulse doesn't produce enough volume of fire to stop more than a handful missiles, which could be handled by average high tech shield just as well. Or in case of Paladin takes too important slots.

[Lorebot]

Low tech can have impenetrable PD by stacking enough Flak/Vulcans, IPDAI and PD skill. Doesn't need all of that combined to have good enough PD in practice either.

Mid and high tech can have decent PD by stacking multiple IR Pulse and IPDAI. Very flux expensive and not quite as reliable vs missiles, but doubles up as good close combat setup vs smaller ships and fighters.

If you can't do proper PD as in examples above, you may want minimalist PD setup strictly to counter salamanders - a pair (Burst) PD lasers or so in rear arcs.

Other options don't make much sense. Any energy PD except stacked IR Pulse doesn't produce enough volume of fire to stop more than a handful missiles, which could be handled by average high tech shield just as well. Or in case of Paladin takes too important slots.

I don't know, my Conquest with IPDAI and a ton of tactical lasers do pretty well against missile heavy engagements since they can start targeting missiles 1000+ units out and do 50% increased damage against missiles from the IPDAI. Combined with a couple flak cannons it does extremely well against all but the heaviest of missile barrages. It's essentially immune to missiles if I put an officer with Point Defense in it.

[SCC]

I didn't think about it at first, but getting rid of Ordnance Expertise means that the only skill that boosts PD, without outright bring PD skill, is Energy Weapon Mastery, when energy PD isn't really worth boosting in the first place.

[KDR_11k]

On the ship you're piloting you can use an HIL to sweep across any missile barrage or fighter wing and obliterate it all. Energy PD certainly has an issue with large missile numbers, vulcans pretty much turn into a wall of lead that stops almost everything.

[Lorebot]

I didn't think about it at first, but getting rid of Ordnance Expertise means that the only skill that boosts PD, without outright bring PD skill, is Energy Weapon Mastery, when energy PD isn't really worth boosting in the first place.

The 100% bonus to target leading accuracy and 50% bonus to recoil from Gunnery Implants helps a lot with PD. It's not increasing you damage output, but if you're not hitting the missiles your damage isn't being applied anyhow.

Edit: the 15% extra range lets your PD weapons start firing sooner too

[Pappus]

Low tech can have impenetrable PD by stacking enough Flak/Vulcans, IPDAI and PD skill. Doesn't need all of that combined to have good enough PD in practice either.

Mid and high tech can have decent PD by stacking multiple IR Pulse and IPDAI. Very flux expensive and not quite as reliable vs missiles, but doubles up as good close combat setup vs smaller ships and fighters.

If you can't do proper PD as in examples above, you may want minimalist PD setup strictly to counter salamanders - a pair (Burst) PD lasers or so in rear arcs.

Other options don't make much sense. Any energy PD except stacked IR Pulse doesn't produce enough volume of fire to stop more than a handful missiles, which could be handled by average high tech shield just as well. Or in case of Paladin takes too important slots.

Just saying you quoted me, when I pointed out that 3 flaks cannot stop the simulation onslaught double? annihilator setup without skills and that is with light needlers x4 assisting. I don't have IPDAI in my campaign yet, but it shouldn't be necessary in the first place so that the FLAK can perform.

And if your answer to !salamanders! is DOUBLE rear facing burst PD (14 OP vs 5 or 10), then that supports my argument more than anything else.

I will keep checking to see if something reasonable shows up along the way.

[WeiTuLo]

On Hammerhead, I use extended shields nowadays, but when that was not available, I always found spinning a good trick.

[Lorebot]

Just saying you quoted me, when I pointed out that 3 flaks cannot stop the simulation onslaught double? annihilator setup without skills and that is with light needlers x4 assisting. I don't have IPDAI in my campaign yet, but it shouldn't be necessary in the first place so that the FLAK can perform.

And if your answer to !salamanders! is DOUBLE rear facing burst PD (14 OP vs 5 or 10), then that supports my argument more than anything else.

I will keep checking to see if something reasonable shows up along the way.

Regular Flak cannons or Dual Flak cannons? 3 Dual Flak cannons should stop anything with or without IPDAI or the Point Defense skill. My Conquest with with 2 Dual Flak, the 3 side facing tactical lasers, with the IPDAI and no Point Defense skill is virtually immune to missiles. The only ship in the Simulator that it can't solo is the Paragon. It can take on an Onslaught and an Astral at the same time and come out ready for more...

[WeiTuLo]

I tried making a shieldless IPDAI flak ship with enforcer in the sim. 3-5 dual flaks, 4x swarmers. It survives a long time against the three sim condors while taking some damage. Against the sim Astral, it lives through a couple attack runs, but eventually dies. It dies much faster if it has a shield due to flux.

[TaLaR]

My Conquest with with 2 Dual Flak, the 3 side facing tactical lasers, with the IPDAI and no Point Defense skill is virtually immune to missiles. The only ship in the Simulator that it can't solo is the Paragon.

Which is exactly the problem with Tacs(negative flux efficiency vs high tech) and Flaks (occupies important offensive slots) on Conquest. A properly built Conquest with 2xGauss + 2xMauler side wins vs Paragon. If you add 2xSqualls, it even wins on autopilot.

[Lorebot]

My Conquest with with 2 Dual Flak, the 3 side facing tactical lasers, with the IPDAI and no Point Defense skill is virtually immune to missiles. The only ship in the Simulator that it can't solo is the Paragon.

Which is exactly the problem with Tacs(negative flux efficiency vs high tech) and Flaks (occupies important offensive slots) on Conquest. A properly built Conquest with 2xGauss + 2xMauler side wins vs Paragon. If you add 2xSqualls, it even wins on autopilot.

If I manually pilot the Conquest I can kill the Paragon by just face tanking all the lasers till I get close enough that it can't get away and then turning on my shields and tearing it apart. It can't solo the paragon under AI control is what I meant. I don't usually manually pilot things in the simulator because the whole point for me is to see what the AI is going to do with it. The Paragon outranges the Conquest and that's the only reason it loses the fight, the AI isn't smart enough to just dive into the Paragon with hold fire on and using only missiles to get the zero flux speed boost and close the distance. If I charge in to like 300 range and then turn on the AI it kills the Paragon before it can escape, but it does take a lot of damage on the rush in so it doesn't really hold up as well if I send in other ships after the Paragon is dead.

Putting Gauss and Mauler on the Conquest is nice, but it seriously impacts its point defenses by losing the Flak/Dual Flak cannons and makes it much weaker in a standoff with most other capital ships. If I know i'm going to be fighting a Paragon I'll gladly refit the ship, but in most situations the PD is more valuable.