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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

[Thaago]

With a few exceptions (Gryphon, Shrike, Fury, and Conquest), low tech has more missiles per DP than other ships. They have no trouble landing consistent torpedo hits, and things like Harpoons don't care about hit and run.

Having now played a game with only low tech, and then a game with superfrigates, the low tech really wasn't that bad. In fights against heavy units (stations, capitals) low tech is significantly better than superfrigates. In fights against swarming light units, the superfrigates were better.

[Burvjradzite]

Saw this post. I'm gonna release the first thought that came to my mind then i first meet with starsector long ago. So, low-tech, mid-tech and high-tech. It's calling low-tech for a reason and there's a reason why hegemony, currently the most influential faction in the sector, have the most of it in its fleet. Low-tech is just on a whole different level of doctrine philosophy, the conservative, reliable one. Legions, Onslaughts, Dominators - they was designed for all-out war, for prolonged combat, for battles which just cannot be imagined without heavy casualties on both sides folloved by trench warfare. When in a sector were place for such war low-tech ships gave hegemony upper hand. For all the advantages above I believe low-tech also is easier to produce (despite in-game balances it what way the capitals more or less costs the same), and by easier to produce they just overwhelmed foes by number.

But now, since sector is in the state of fragile, but nonetheless peace (half a cycle open conflicts didn't count). There are new doctrine. A modern one. Ships that designed not for war in particular, but to be a strike force, spec ops force, conflict regulation and reconnaissance in force action. Phase-ships are clearly are not designed for open war, it's a spec ops type of ship. Frigates which meant to be use in small conflicts where just one fleet fighting one another. What's why there's no good low-tech frigate and never will be. And who is the player? I think the player is the definition of a spec ops in this game, player doing all sorts of jobs in the sector from exploration and colonization to fighing enemies that never been seen before, from taking bounties to defend against raids. So playing as low-tech is counter-intuitive. The player must be agile, fast and furious to complete their goals. So yea, playing as a low-tech is role-playing and artificial difficulty scaling, and I think it is meant to be that way.

[SCC]

1. High-tech and (with skills) frigates aren't really any worse at fighting huge battles. If anything, they seem to be better at it now.
2. All ships but Scarab and Harbinger are pre-collapse Domain of Man designs.

[Undead]

I would like to comment on the burn drive:

In my late runs i have tried out to use low tech mostly (and mostly 14th bg), and out of all burn drive ships i have used 3: enforcer, dominator and onslaught. Enforcer seems to have problems using his burn - never uses when he should, often uses when shouldnt, exposing himself. Dominator also has the same problems as enforcer (but i have dropped dominator entirely in favour of superior onslaught). And surprisingly onslaught actually uses his burn quite decently, at least in my experience.

P.s. please fix 14th dominator visuals - he kinda sticks out out of 14th bg aestetics, too much yellow, ant that yellowbess should be swapped to black/grey/dark red, to fit his 14th bg brethren aestetics

[Arcagnello]

My word, that's a lot of replies 

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.

Stick to the passable low tech ships and you're going to do a-ok. Low tech is indeed under the curve (I really like how that sounds, feels a lot more sophisticated than saying it's a masochistic trap) but you can still curbstomp the enemy with it without issues, at least until you get to the final story content and...a couple of things beyond which I highly suggest you to not even consider undertaking for the sake of your mental sanity.

Shield Shunt works amazingly well versus [redacted] and story missions, since the enemy is exeptionally tanky, does a lot of burst damage and more or less is going to ignore/destroy your shield if you have it. Having Shield Shunt basically means you degrade the game into a trading match, and in that trading match the XIV Onslaught wins most of the time. It just does not care, about anything really. It is going to struggle against long range weapons tough, as you'd expect.
It does amazing against fighter/bomber spam tough, there's very little ordnance that can actually get trough 6 Dual Flaks and 6 Railguns with point defence AI and advanced turret gyros. Having an officer with Elite Point Defence wold make it even more disgusting but there simply was no space for that extra skill.

...anyway, I personally suggest you to search for 3 ships in your Hegemony campaign, the first one is the XIV Onslaught (but you knew that already), the second is the XIV Enforcer (it's the best destroyer they have afterall, works amazing even without an officer) and the third one is the Mora. It does incredibly well with an Aggressive/Reckless officer having:

Spoiler

Systems Expertise
Strike Commander
Point Defence (elite)
Reliability Engineering
Impact Mitigation (elite)
Damage Control

[close]

The setup I really like is the one using double Sabot SRM pod, point defence and some light assault guns. It works just fine when Overridden aswell but that really puts it in a tight spot Ordinance Point wise now, so I'd avoid that. It's a very close-combat focused carrier so I'd suggest the following setup:
Hullmods

Spoiler

Integrated Heavy Armor
Integrated Reinforced Bulkheads
Integrated Expanded Missile racks
Expanded Deck Crew
Armored Weapon Mounts
INtegrated TArgeting UNit (don't know if you can actually fit this one tbh, the Mora is not so generous on OP)
Shield Shunt (for the memes, but it can also still keep the shield to be honest, I just don't like my moras getting overloaded and therefore have the enemy bypass the Damper Field)

[close]

Weapons and fighter LPCs

Spoiler

Dual Light Machineguns (which now have +100 range thanks to Elite Point Defence)
At least one Light Assault Gun/Dual Autocannon/Railgun so that the Mora approaches the enemy like a combat carrier
Triple Khopesh Wing (disgusting when the mora is at short range blasting the enemy)

[close]

There's also the XIV Dominator which is pretty damn effective with triple Sabot SRM pod and all the things making it chonky, give this thread a read and you'll see some pretty spicy setups for it from both myself and other tryhards veteran players! https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21300.msg323274#msg323274

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).

It would not need to be such a radical overhaul of how supplies work, we could just have Low Tech getting cheaper repairs and CR recovery considering they mostly all are very simple ships that supposedly are built from of cheap and plentiful materials.
You could do the opposite for High tech ships, but I'd rather talk about buffing the ships in pain rather than nerfing an array of ships which not all are overperforming.

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).

I would personally take fast Missile racks or Reserve Deployment over BD on the Legion, they'd both have the capital ship burn itself out of combat prowess faster (unless you have your Standard Legion using Penta Pilum LRM with both ECCM and Elite Missile Specialization, yummy) but it would also mean they would have A LOT more punch before that happens.

I feel you, I really do, I've used short range Legion setups before and I know how vital having Burn Drive is on, I don't know, a Penta Sabot SRM Legion with 4x Khopesh, 2 Devastators and Railguns with PDAI but I really feel like improved direct combat prowess could actually entice players to keep using the Standard Legion over the XIV variant, at least a little.

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

That does sound mighty enticing, I'll try it eventually 

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.

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

Amen to that. I usually tend to deploy my capitals first and the smaller ships a bit later as my capitals begin to shoot at the enemy to make sure their low mobility does not impair them when there's a lot of allies getting between them and the enemy they're supposed to be fighting. A seldomly used, long-distance-spanning repositioning ship system is pretty much never used unless you're already winning and need to chase stragglers anyway.

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.

The lack of interesting ship systems on Low tech is to me what makes them the most boring, really. Solve that one way or another and I'll find myself using low tech ship overall a lot more than I do now.

Good shoutout to Archean order, I'll have to play that mod eventually 

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.

I'm under more or less the same impression, the only Low Tech ship I usually skip installing missile weapons on is the Onslaught since I tend to shield shunt it as of late and having as much flux to fire guns and survivability is higher on my priority board than some 70+ Ordinance Points for some decent missiles and Expanded Missile Racks. Altough installing missiles is always a good idea on a more....standard variant of the Onslaught.

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.

Huh, I never thought of a ship system briafly buffing ballistic weapon range. That'd be cool!
Icing on the take would be to have the ship system disable shields as long as it stays active, so the ship would use all of its flux capacity and dissipation to feier all ze wepons!

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...

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.

It's to  keep the overall theme of this thread, really 

I agree the Lasher is down there in the pits. I'm really sad it just become utterly useless in the long run.
Despite really liking the milktoast Legion, I'd pick two Moras over it any time of the day. They're a lot tankier and have more fighter wings, which are pretty much the only to things you really want out of a low tech combat carrier, really.
Enforcer and Mora are really strong picks, I got no qualms against those!
Dominator has basically been relegated to being a stepping stone before getting yourself an Onslaught. It's more or less got the same mobility, the same ship system and what basically amounts to the same combinations of weapons, only that the Dominator is many times more susceptible to flanking due to a mugh higher amount of its fighting power staying on hardpoints, not to mention the much smaller amount of Ordinance Points avaiable to install truly good point defence. Giving it something like damper field would set it apart as its own thing instead of forever staying in the game as a Discount Onslaught.

This thread was mostly written on the player side of Starsector, but it also applies to Vanilla Factions. The Luddic Church for example barely uses anything that's not Low tech and is one of the most pathetic factions in the game in a real combat scenario as a result. I'm even under the opinion they have it worse than pirates (this is before you sell them Paragon Blueprints)! I got no more criticism to add if that's the intended game balance, but it's going to make me sad regardless!

If one faction and/or ship philosophy was indeed significantly better than the others lore-wise, then why are factions like the Luddic Church and (to a small degree) the Hegemony, Luddic Path and Pirates still around 206 years after the Collapse?

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.

There are indeed mod ships basically getting burn drive with enchanced handling instead of no handling. I would not imitate them. Between you and me, they're not exactly..uh..balanced.

: 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.

That onslaught setup is the only one I use where is has no missiles. There virtually is no space for 4 additional weapons that also require Missile racks on the Shield Shunt variant, without eroding the ship's flux stats, durability or point defence prowess that is. I'm really curious to see other Shield Shunt variants using those slots, but I've found that even 370 Ordinance Points are not enough to consider putting anything useful on those.

I usually go for either Harpoon pods or Breach missiles on the Onslaught, they generally allow to make my horseshoe battleships a lot more kinetic/point defence focused in general.

Target Analysis is, in a way, almost in the same spot as Ranged Specialization.
Yes, you can slap it on every officer (especially if it's made elite) at the helm of any ship using either energy or ballistic weapons, but only the ones having massive range using large ballistic/energy weapons truly benefit from it.

Spoiler

Now, if Ranged Spec increased damage dealt by weapons if they struck the enemy at 90-100%  weapon range instead of some arbitrary 1600 units of range, it would really be nice to have...

[close]

Put it this way: Low tech fleets are more or less funnelled into cruiser/capital ship spam late game (due to those being the best ships in the roster, aside from Enforcer). Midline and Low tech have a lot more endgame capable frigades, destroyers and cruisers. Which one of these three fleet archetypes do you think will recieve the most damage due to the presence of Target Analysis? That's right.

I'm glad we all agree on either Burn Drive needing some overhaul or the AI needing to become a lot more liberal in its use by the way 

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.

Can't say much about this quote aside from my complete agreement about everything that's in it.

Saw this post. I'm gonna release the first thought that came to my mind then i first meet with starsector long ago. So, low-tech, mid-tech and high-tech. It's calling low-tech for a reason and there's a reason why hegemony, currently the most influential faction in the sector, have the most of it in its fleet. Low-tech is just on a whole different level of doctrine philosophy, the conservative, reliable one. Legions, Onslaughts, Dominators - they was designed for all-out war, for prolonged combat, for battles which just cannot be imagined without heavy casualties on both sides folloved by trench warfare. When in a sector were place for such war low-tech ships gave hegemony upper hand. For all the advantages above I believe low-tech also is easier to produce (despite in-game balances it what way the capitals more or less costs the same), and by easier to produce they just overwhelmed foes by number.

But now, since sector is in the state of fragile, but nonetheless peace (half a cycle open conflicts didn't count). There are new doctrine. A modern one. Ships that designed not for war in particular, but to be a strike force, spec ops force, conflict regulation and reconnaissance in force action. Phase-ships are clearly are not designed for open war, it's a spec ops type of ship. Frigates which meant to be use in small conflicts where just one fleet fighting one another. What's why there's no good low-tech frigate and never will be. And who is the player? I think the player is the definition of a spec ops in this game, player doing all sorts of jobs in the sector from exploration and colonization to fighing enemies that never been seen before, from taking bounties to defend against raids. So playing as low-tech is counter-intuitive. The player must be agile, fast and furious to complete their goals. So yea, playing as a low-tech is role-playing and artificial difficulty scaling, and I think it is meant to be that way.

I'm under the opinion this is the best reply to showcase why Low tech should not be buffed and it's fine the way it is, as much as I'd love for it to be as viable as either Midline or High tech in end-game.

It needs to be said tough that:
Midline gets disgusting artillery ships (Conquest and the like) and amazing assault ships (Champion, rocket/sabot Griphon and so on) really helping with more "stationary" fights
High Tech has both Odissey and especially the Paragon, which effectively are as tanky as any low tech ships with their amazing shield and flux stats. Not to mention most high tech frigades, destroyers and cruisers can also be made extremely survivable with the correct setup, especially considering the best high tech ships get 360 shields avaiable as an option or already present on the ship.

Also, what SCC says here:

1. High-tech and (with skills) frigates aren't really any worse at fighting huge battles. If anything, they seem to be better at it now.
2. All ships but Scarab and Harbinger are pre-collapse Domain of Man designs.

I would like to comment on the burn drive:

In my late runs i have tried out to use low tech mostly (and mostly 14th bg), and out of all burn drive ships i have used 3: enforcer, dominator and onslaught. Enforcer seems to have problems using his burn - never uses when he should, often uses when shouldnt, exposing himself. Dominator also has the same problems as enforcer (but i have dropped dominator entirely in favour of superior onslaught). And surprisingly onslaught actually uses his burn quite decently, at least in my experience.

P.s. please fix 14th dominator visuals - he kinda sticks out out of 14th bg aestetics, too much yellow, ant that yellowbess should be swapped to black/grey/dark red, to fit his 14th bg brethren aestetics

Those ships plus the Mora are the only low tech ships you should be using right now tbh.

As for the XIV Dominator being too orange, can't you appreciate the ship finally showing us its true identity, at long last?

Spoiler

[close]

[Undead]

Replying to the commebt above -
"As for the XIV Dominator being too orange, .."

I should have phrased myself better. Right now it is orange and yellowish, and it would look better if it was orange and black or grey like onslaught or eagle

[KDR_11k]

I guess it might also help if we had more ability to use larger fleets, the low-tech doctrine seems to be in part about having a lot of these ships because you can afford it but players have caps to both their ship count and their officer count. If we could e.g. have officers switch to new ships if their ship has retreated and another one arrives as reinforcements then we'd have more ability to use extra ships and counteract the attrition/make use of potential cheaper logistics if they get added. Because as it is now we always want the latest and greatest to get the most out of our limited number of officers.

[Thaago]

For this bit in particular:

Despite really liking the milktoast Legion, I'd pick two Moras over it any time of the day. They're a lot tankier and have more fighter wings, which are pretty much the only to things you really want out of a low tech combat carrier, really.

I think the regular Legion is not a carrier:  its a gunship-carrier hybrid, and if the guns aren't getting used then its a wasted ship. In another thread WeiTuLo was having problems with their Legion XIV just not getting close enough to the enemy and using its guns, leading to it very underperforming. I've had similar problems, though I found that an aggressive officer helped a lot, as did pulling my forces back a bit in the area to wait for it to catch up, and giving eliminate orders frequently.

For the regular Legion: it has enough flux (with T4L 600 base, up to 500/600 more) to run 2 good large ballistics. I was running Mjolnir+Mk IX and didn't even need to max my vents! Backed up by capital grade ITU thats not bad firepower: a little light for a capital, but better than a heavy cruiser with the range and being turret mounted. Then 5 medium missiles, or 1 medium per 8 DP, which is quite good missile concentration. The 4 fighters can then cover the holes: I've been liking putting interceptors on them rather than bombers. Less, stress on replacement rate, much better against flankers, and honestly the ship has enough kill power without bombers and ion support is excellent. Legion XIV has lower gun DPS and relies more heavily on its missiles, but its kind of the same deal: get in close and engage all enemy ships (including capitals) with main guns and missiles. I think that the regular legion weapon layout is slightly better than the XIV legion, though the XIV bonuses themselves are good enough to compensate.

[Alliostra]

I really like the idea of being able to slightly maneuver the ship while burn driving. If you've ever used an SO enforcer, you know how clunkily it turns despite it's high speed, burn drive should have a similar, albeit more pronounced effect on maneuverability to allow for finer control (and more successful ramming). Bonus points if burn drive also increases ramming damage.
Besides, the ship just flying in a 100% straight during full burn doesn't really feel natural to me.

[FooF]

Strangely enough, I think Low-Tech should have the best straight-line speed in the game. "Charging bull"-type of a methodology. The problem is that Burn Drive really isn't all that fast. If anything, it needs to be faster. I'm not saying an Onslaught should be chasing down Tempests but for closing gaps, it should be a powerful option. As it is, it's still too slow. Alternatively, and this doesn't make a lot of sense I know, I think Burn Drive giving some kind of damage reduction while active would be helpful. If I had it my way, I'd force shields to open (not close) but act like a Fortress shield and take 10% damage as you burn in. A shield charge of sorts.

It would be a M.O. of being able to get into position quickly/safely but being slow and pondering once there. I don't know if any of you remember Planetside but the MAX suits were kind of this way. They were infantry/vehicle hybrids that were by far the toughest/slowest infantry in the game but had a mobility system to get them into position quickly. I see Low-Tech as cut from this cloth.

[Arcagnello]

Replying to the commebt above -
"As for the XIV Dominator being too orange, .."

I should have phrased myself better. Right now it is orange and yellowish, and it would look better if it was orange and black or grey like onslaught or eagle

It's as you say, really, I just like my crab memes. It's even more out of place with its color scheme with modded XIV battlegroup ships. Even the Aggressor here (which may also be a bit too orange) has the rest of the paintjob done right!

Spoiler

[close]

I guess it might also help if we had more ability to use larger fleets, the low-tech doctrine seems to be in part about having a lot of these ships because you can afford it but players have caps to both their ship count and their officer count. If we could e.g. have officers switch to new ships if their ship has retreated and another one arrives as reinforcements then we'd have more ability to use extra ships and counteract the attrition/make use of potential cheaper logistics if they get added. Because as it is now we always want the latest and greatest to get the most out of our limited number of officers.

Basically all other ship philosophies can end up deploying 10 (11, if we count yourself) officered ships when deploying 120, 180, 240 deployment points without much issue andwith a ton of variety of ships, some examples:

High Tech can get 3 Odisseys, 4 Hyperions (one of which with you at the helm) and three Harbingers, not to mention it thematically is also able to probably also spam Automated Frigades for more officers.

Midline Can Deploy 3 Conquests, 2 Herons, 3 Eagles and 3 Monitors (one of which you drive)

Low Tech basically has no endgame frigades and must resort to Enforcers. Dominators are worse performance than Onslaughts and Legions are situational, so if I were to build an endgame lowtech fleet I'd go with the following:
3 Shield Shunt XIV onslaughts, 3 Pilum/Broadword (or Khopesh) Moras, 5 Sabot Spam XIV Enforcers (one of which you drive) 

All these builds have unlocked the commander skill allowing for 10 officers (probably the one allowing them to get to level 6 and get two Elite skills aswell)

Having Officers that were commanding a ship that retreated come back (just like the Commander) and inhabit a brand new ship would be nice, altough I would make it possible if their ship got disabled/destroyed. No need to increase the officer count with Vanilla Battle Sizes as far as I'm concerned.

I really like the idea of being able to slightly maneuver the ship while burn driving. If you've ever used an SO enforcer, you know how clunkily it turns despite it's high speed, burn drive should have a similar, albeit more pronounced effect on maneuverability to allow for finer control (and more successful ramming). Bonus points if burn drive also increases ramming damage.
Besides, the ship just flying in a 100% straight during full burn doesn't really feel natural to me.

Strangely enough, I think Low-Tech should have the best straight-line speed in the game. "Charging bull"-type of a methodology. The problem is that Burn Drive really isn't all that fast. If anything, it needs to be faster. I'm not saying an Onslaught should be chasing down Tempests but for closing gaps, it should be a powerful option. As it is, it's still too slow. Alternatively, and this doesn't make a lot of sense I know, I think Burn Drive giving some kind of damage reduction while active would be helpful. If I had it my way, I'd force shields to open (not close) but act like a Fortress shield and take 10% damage as you burn in. A shield charge of sorts.

It would be a M.O. of being able to get into position quickly/safely but being slow and pondering once there. I don't know if any of you remember Planetside but the MAX suits were kind of this way. They were infantry/vehicle hybrids that were by far the toughest/slowest infantry in the game but had a mobility system to get them into position quickly. I see Low-Tech as cut from this cloth.

The Kadur Remnant by Vayra do it best really, what you both are describing is more or less the ship ability the Kadur's premium 50 Deployment Point battleship of choice, the Prophet, has. It's the Big Chungus on the right.

The Prophet is a true leviathan, bristling with heavy guns and well-protected behind thick armor plating but ponderous in its movements. Demands fleet escorts to keep its flanks clear, but can fight nearly any other ship in the sector when properly supported. An excellent anchor for a battle line, no matter the foe.

I don't exactly remember the ship system name (been a while since I played with Kadur) but It's basically a variation of Auxiliary thrusters that locks the ship into moving forward for the duration of the ability but that also improves handling and reduces incoming damage.

Burn Drive could take a page from this and maybe consider providing the ship using burn drive some sort of damage reduction (and not shield related, that's just not a low tech thing). I personally am afraid that giving ships using burn drive the ability to turn would make the AI use the skill even less. Giving it the chance to cut burn drive instead would see the ability being used a lot more often.

For this bit in particular:

Despite really liking the milktoast Legion, I'd pick two Moras over it any time of the day. They're a lot tankier and have more fighter wings, which are pretty much the only to things you really want out of a low tech combat carrier, really.

I think the regular Legion is not a carrier:  its a gunship-carrier hybrid, and if the guns aren't getting used then its a wasted ship. In another thread WeiTuLo was having problems with their Legion XIV just not getting close enough to the enemy and using its guns, leading to it very underperforming. I've had similar problems, though I found that an aggressive officer helped a lot, as did pulling my forces back a bit in the area to wait for it to catch up, and giving eliminate orders frequently.

For the regular Legion: it has enough flux (with T4L 600 base, up to 500/600 more) to run 2 good large ballistics. I was running Mjolnir+Mk IX and didn't even need to max my vents! Backed up by capital grade ITU thats not bad firepower: a little light for a capital, but better than a heavy cruiser with the range and being turret mounted. Then 5 medium missiles, or 1 medium per 8 DP, which is quite good missile concentration. The 4 fighters can then cover the holes: I've been liking putting interceptors on them rather than bombers. Less, stress on replacement rate, much better against flankers, and honestly the ship has enough kill power without bombers and ion support is excellent. Legion XIV has lower gun DPS and relies more heavily on its missiles, but its kind of the same deal: get in close and engage all enemy ships (including capitals) with main guns and missiles. I think that the regular legion weapon layout is slightly better than the XIV legion, though the XIV bonuses themselves are good enough to compensate.

I'd really like to have the same opinion, but the Legion has the worst amount of Ordinance Points across all the 40 Deployment Points Capitals.
Sure, Integrated Hullmods help, a lot, but the problem still persists.

You either go Fighters/Bombers&Expanded Deck Crew + Missiles&Expanded Missile Racks (or ECCM if you spam Pilums) or you actually forsake a sizeable chunk of both in order to be able to use those two large mounts properly.

Last time I remember using a Legion was back in 0.91 when I also had the Weapon/Ship pack by Dark.Revenant along with the Pilum Rebalance mod by SafariJohn (which is updated for 0.95 by the way, just throwing it out there) and I refit them with double Aegis Flak Cannons (basically the large ballistic version of the Dual Flak), Railguns, Penta Pilums and Heavy Fighters having it deal kinetic damage.
All these weapons and fighter LPCs were quite cheap as a whole, which allowed me to install a lot of hullmods turning it into a mighty good tank and a Point Defence Powerhouse with ITU, Point Defence AI, ECCM, Automated Repair Unit, Reinforced Flux Conduits and quite a lot of OP into vents/capacitors.

It was disgustingly effective in the past 0.91 meta where fighter spam was just disgusting and basically every capital had Point Defence AI.

I'm actually curious to see how you set up your Milktoast Legion in 0.95, if you got one in hand's reach Thaago!

[Drone_Fragger]

Give all low tech ships an extra 25 zero flux boost and give them all new ship systems.

Low tech needs some kind of speed boost but their gimmick is that they are meant to struggle to pick fights but have more effective and efficient weapons. So they can’t have a skill system that just gives them mobility in the same way plasma burn or phase skimmer do.

[KDR_11k]

Basically all other ship philosophies can end up deploying 10 (11, if we count yourself) officered ships when deploying 120, 180, 240 deployment points without much issue andwith a ton of variety of ships, some examples:

High Tech can get 3 Odisseys, 4 Hyperions (one of which with you at the helm) and three Harbingers, not to mention it thematically is also able to probably also spam Automated Frigades for more officers.

Midline Can Deploy 3 Conquests, 2 Herons, 3 Eagles and 3 Monitors (one of which you drive)

Low Tech basically has no endgame frigades and must resort to Enforcers. Dominators are worse performance than Onslaughts and Legions are situational, so if I were to build an endgame lowtech fleet I'd go with the following:
3 Shield Shunt XIV onslaughts, 3 Pilum/Broadword (or Khopesh) Moras, 5 Sabot Spam XIV Enforcers (one of which you drive) 

All these builds have unlocked the commander skill allowing for 10 officers (probably the one allowing them to get to level 6 and get two Elite skills aswell)

Having Officers that were commanding a ship that retreated come back (just like the Commander) and inhabit a brand new ship would be nice, altough I would make it possible if their ship got disabled/destroyed. No need to increase the officer count with Vanilla Battle Sizes as far as I'm concerned.

I'm thinking more about letting us bring a second wave of ships and allowing us to use some crappier ships like the mentioned Lasher or a Kite with the expectation that we will lose them but we got enough spares to send in. Look at your lineups, they're full of ships that should be rare or experimental. We're never going to bring in junkers like Buffalo Mk2s, we're always going to use an all-elite force because we can buy better ships but we can't buy more officers.

[SCC]

Strangely enough, I think Low-Tech should have the best straight-line speed in the game. "Charging bull"-type of a methodology.

It would be a M.O. of being able to get into position quickly/safely but being slow and pondering once there.

If you have long range, you don't really benefit from getting into the thick quickly. If anything, you want to fire at the enemy while the enemy can't fire at you for as long as possible.

[KDR_11k]

Strangely enough, I think Low-Tech should have the best straight-line speed in the game. "Charging bull"-type of a methodology.

It would be a M.O. of being able to get into position quickly/safely but being slow and pondering once there.

If you have long range, you don't really benefit from getting into the thick quickly. If anything, you want to fire at the enemy while the enemy can't fire at you for as long as possible.

Depends, if the enemy is using shields and has better mobility then you want to get deeply into range so they can't easily back out of your range and undo all the damage you did to them while everything they did to you sticks.