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It's a sad joke for masochists that like playing Lepers in Darkest Dungeon to make the game harder for themselves. Buff it hard or keep it as the joke it is for comedic value!

12 (19%)

A disappointing mess of ships the AI can't use that should be rebalanced to actually hold up in Endgame

18 (28.6%)

It's a slightly underperforming ship philosophy that is fine where it is because "flavour" and "who plays Low tech only anyway!".

8 (12.7%)

A decently performing array of situational ships that are fine where they are if properly combined.

21 (33.3%)

An annoying array of brick ships that take forever to kill and sometimes deal damage. They either don't work or are way too strong!

4 (6.3%)

Total Members Voted: 63

Voting closed: July 21, 2021, 03:08:08 AM

[Arcagnello]

Update: I've slightly redone the poll to act as an actual poll. The most pessimistic options asking for buffs are at the top, while the torn/optimistic ones asking for no major balance change or even slight nerfs are at the bottom!

Post Scriptum: sorry for anyone who voted on those 4 meme options, they're mostly all still there!

[Argentj]

Low Tech

Bad Worst special:  check
Horrible Logistics:  check
Shield shunt + armor mods + armor skills:  Check back with me tomorrow I'm starting up a hegemony game.

I feel low tech is under the curve a bit.  I haven't played with them in the .95 yet though to be certain they still feel weird.  They were definitely bad in the old version.  I have a itchy sensation that's telling me shield shunt and skills focusing on it will result in  roflstomp against the AI though.

[Mordodrukow]

I guess, there just must be some special requirement to restore non-low-tech hulls.

Something like:
Low tech needs only supplies to work and has cheap restore costs.
Midline needs only supplies, but has current restore costs.
High tech needs supplies and some expensive stuff, and also needs it for restoration (plus big money).

[Realm]

While I tend to have a very potent disdain for Burn Drive, the Legion is the one ship I'll defend it on. Burn Drive has the really potent use of letting to close the distance it's wings need to keep engaged, doubly so if you're using fighters like the Warthog  with a shorter engagement range (which works very, very nicely with a Legion due to how close the ship loves to be). Reserve Deployment is only useful if you're already at the rock bottom replacement rate of 30%, otherwise it's a button you have to avoid pressing not to *** on your replacement rate, even with stacking Fighter skills/hullmods.

The Legion is slow as molasses and serves best when it can keep up to support it's own fighters, and Burn Drive is perfect for that alone. The only other system I'd consider useful for it might be Targeting Feed, but that'd be notably harder to balance for a Combat Carrier like the Legion (as it so far only exists on one of the most defenseless Carriers).

[WeiTuLo]

Any Reserve Deployment Legion I get is going to be filled to the brim with Cobras. 8 Reapers is a great doorkicker.

[Warnoise]

The problem in these Burn drive arguments, many people mention burn drive in the most optimal situations. The kind of situations that happen in like 1 in 100 battles (considering the ship is used by the AI). In optimal situations any ship system can be good.

As a player who mainly uses low-tech ships, I notice my legions and other burn drive ships use their systems on average once per fight (mostly when combat ends which strangely triggers burn drive for all ships). They almost never use Burn drive in an effective way. They either use it and end up swarmed and die, or just fly away in some random direction contributing nothing to the battle.

Something else that I noticed, enemy AI is smart enough to counter burn drive by simply moving away from the trajectory. So if you are chasing a fast ship, there is a high chance that it jukes you matador style. When you burn drive on a high flux Radiant just so it teleports just by your side and smashes you, that's when you realize you just discovered the dark side of starsector.

[WeiTuLo]

If my XIV Legion used burn drive more often to get to the front, I would not have replaced it.

[BreenBB]

I agree what Low-Tech feels underwhelming, but my major opinion is what nerfing Mid/High-Tech is big no, I mean actual ship stats, problem are not with them.

Low-Tech ships have too many drawbacks, bad flux stats, its barely can support its own weapons, low shied arcs, low mobility and they are very vulnerable in the back and being surrounded, and AI can't properly use its strength and Burn Drive which misuse can put ship in bad situation. Also main offender is skills, most of skills are gives benefits mostly for Mid/High-Tech, new zero-flux boost bonus in Helmsmanship which AI can't properly utilize, which means what slow ship will be always kited, nerf of armor skill in RC15, way too many drawbacks.

Also about different subsystems, rather than burn drive, I liked how they made in Archean Order, instead of burn drive each ship have own subsystem, XIV Legion have damper field, Dominator and Onslaught combat capacitor which increases firerate, flux stats and speed, and XIV skills actually differs from not XIV versions, for example XIV Onslaught had laser beams instead of ballistic cannons on its arms. Also I liked from that mod idea of reloadable missiles too, I personally avoid them in vanilla game, because they are limited, and for myself seems more logical add some hullmod or vents/capacitors rather than have limited weapon which AI probable will waste anyway, only exception is Doom, where I can put Reapers for insta-kill variant.

[Amoebka]

reloadable missiles too, I personally avoid them in vanilla game, because they are limited, and for myself seems more logical add some hullmod or vents/capacitors rather than have limited weapon which AI probable will waste anyway

Not to dismiss everything you said, but you underusing missiles is the main reason you think low-tech is underwhelming. It relies very heavily on missile use, and is quite decent when done right. The problem is less that it's bad, stat-wise, and more that it's boring.

[KDR_11k]

To me the Burn Drive is more about lugging that ship from one battle to the next, allowing them to move across the battlefield at a decent rate without increasing their in-combat maneuverability. It can be quite frustrating to have a non-BD capital or heavy cruiser and being out in the middle of nowhere because you've finished your fight and now have to sloooowly slide towards the nearest enemy so you can continue fighting something. BD is definitely no good for closing the distance to an enemy you've already engaged.

It's for ships that are still slow as molasses when they have the zero flux boost active.

I'm definitely in favor of more interesting systems though. Outside of high-tech the systems tend to be burn drive, flares or short stat buffs. You don't get cool *** like mines, EMPs or teleports on low tech. I could also imagine some sort of range buff for the slowest low tech ships since they're not going to kite anything anyway. Or as other approaches something like flinging out mines in random directions to deny fast enemies some of their mobility or deploying metal blocks as cover.

One downside to low tech is that it's much more prone to attrition in long battles, unlike shields those armor plates don't recover between battles and missile ammo runs out.

[Thaago]

Thats one of the worst polls I've ever seen :p.

Of low tech, I'd say everything except the Lasher is in a good place, competitive with their high tech counterparts. Legion, Onslaught, Mora, Enforcer are all strong picks. Condors are acceptable budget picks. Dominator is acceptable as an anti-capital cruiser (surprisingly good against Radiants and large omegas), but with how deadly frigates are they suffer from lack of a clear role: if you have a Dominator, upgrading it to an Onslaught is just a good idea (except for logistics).

The only issue low tech has is not having any endgame frigates. But its not like mixing and matching is a problem other than for roleplay reasons...

[WeiTuLo]

Perhaps some of the flux could be rerouted into the engines or thrusters for enhanced maneuvering during the burn. Or it could explode horribly. Or both.

[HUcast]

My opinion is that low, mid, and high tech shouldn't be equivalents at all levels and all ship sizes. There's no reason to use only one tech, and the player using their keen eye to pick out the creme of every tech level fits the theme of the game more. We shouldn't have a low. Mid, and high tech 12 BP destroyers that are all equally good, that would be horrible bland. Just as all techs are good with certain aspects, they should be weak or better at some ship concepts and sizes.

[Thaago]

: reads OP more carefully and sees that the Onslaught in the OP doesn't have missiles :

Cmon, if you're going to complain about low tech being bad at least use the most powerful weapon slots! Every low tech ship should have at minimum its missiles filled, and are just better with expanded missiles racks + ECCM (maybe not ECCM on torpedo ships, but even then its still good). Missiles are really good, and low tech gets lots of them. A basic 50/50 split of sabots and harpoons will get plenty of kills, and the missile selection can be further tweaked from there for specific ships and roles.

Target Analysis works for any weapon and therefore does not favour Midline/High tech on the surface, but in reality it mostly benefits highly mobile Midline and High Tech ships.

I don't agree with this. A damage boost to all weapons is a damage boost to all weapons, it doesn't matter if the firing ship is mobile or not.


On the topic of burn drive, its definitely one of the weaker ship systems, but I find that it works ok with aggressive and reckless officers, especially with eliminate orders. It is a good system on Onslaughts and Legions for bullying smaller ships and getting to the action: the AI should use it a LOT more for these ships. Ok on Dominators for when they chase down enemy capitals and cruisers (its faster than a Radiant can teleport). Really not very good on Enforcers, though at least it lets them travel faster. In the best scenarios, it makes it so the enemy can never get away to vent, ever (which is how low tech wins fights). In the worst case, the ship suicides, though that almost never happens.

[Warnoise]

Mid-tech and high-tech also have missiles. In fact, mid-tech and high-tech use missiles more efficiently than low-tech since they have the capability to get in, throw torpedoes and get out. Meanwhile a low tech ship is slow so will automatically have more difficulty in properly landing a torpedo than a mid/high-tech ship. There are exceptions like the enforcer which can unload a nice wave of missiles at the target, but good luck with AI since it will most of the time empty it's missiles on fast nimble frigates and miss half of them.

In a fleet vs fleet battle, the way things are currently balanced, speed is above armor by faaar, in terms usefulness. Especially how the AI is now smart enough to isolate targets and gang up on them from all directions. So if a low-tech ship gets pressured, it is a 100% death for it while a ship of another tech has significantly more chance to survive thanks to its ship system.