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[TaLaR]

@Lucky33
Why would expect such Enforcer variant to exist? Enforcer is one of weaker 9DP ships, I would be very surprised if it could do that much on auto-pilot.

Plus, "not taking hull damage" pretty much disqualifies Enforcer against all but weakest DE builds. Taking armor/hull damage in controlled manner is exactly how even a player piloted Enforcer would need to fight to defeat a decent opponent.

[Lucky33]

@Lucky33
Why would expect such Enforcer variant to exist? Enforcer is one of weaker 9DP ships, I would be very surprised if it could do that much on auto-pilot.

Plus, "not taking hull damage" pretty much disqualifies Enforcer against all but weakest DE builds. Taking armor/hull damage in controlled manner is exactly how even a player piloted Enforcer would need to fight to defeat a decent opponent.

It is not about DP. Try it yourself. The main reason for failure is the burn drive. And not because AI misjudges the distance, it is the opposite, distance and timings are perfect. For the Enforcer to take the whole burst on its shields. After that it is the whole downward spiral of doom. Overloads, disables and AI's inability to use Sabots while rotating. I somehow managed to make it win a fight but it all comes down to random.

On the other hand, Hammerhead with the HVDs is not even breaking the sweet. Disproporsion in capabilities is very dramatic,  have absolutely nothing to do with DPs but only with the design principles.

And the whole thing is completely rethoric.

Why do the low-tech users have to suffer in this manner?

[Arcagnello]

For anybody in the "it is fine" gang.

Would you be so kind as to provide the Enforcer variant capable of completely dominating this thing here:

Spoiler

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"Completely dominating" will be "winning three fights on autopilot in a row without taking hull damage".

No mods. No officers. No built-ins. No Weapon Drills. 70 % CR. Flux regulation and +10 caps/vents is OK.

Ok. First things first, unless every planet in the sector aligned properly and Ludd himself came down from the heavens to bestow Autofit with infinite wisdom, that Fulgent Variant is most likely from a mod editing the Vanilla "Assault" Variant of the Fulgent and making it significantly more decent. The Vanilla Assault Variant from the Fulgent Droneship Destroyer is the following:

Fulgent-class Droneship Destroyer

Codex Entry

Spoiler

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Fulgent's Stats (above) compared to a Sunder's (below)

Spoiler

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[...]
Assault     Personal Rating: Why Does This Exist
Armament: 1x Heavy Blaster, 2x Ion Pulser (Linked), 2x Sabot SRM (Alternating), 4x PD Laser (linked), 2x Tactical Laser (linked)
Hullmods: Auxiliary Thrusters, Integrated Targeting Unit
Capacitors: 12  Vents:4
I just can't with this variant. I don't know who I need to have their location forwarded to the nearest Pather Cell for this unholy heresy. Does Vanilla Starsector unironically field a ship with 300 base flux dissipation armed with the most flux intensive continuous fire medium energy in the game plus two Ion Pulsers, no vents to speak of and without even overriding it?
This is litterally like mashing a Space Coconut into a glass without adding water, giving an Asthmatic Luddite a straw and then telling him "Go ahead, it's for you, drink!". Don't even get me started on why it even has Aux Thrusters or I might space myself out the airlock and into the nearest Blue Giant.

This particular variant you show has full vents and hardened shields as opposed to the vanilla variant having 4 vents and no such hullmod, evvectively making it a somewhat minmaxed Remnant ship of sorts, which is something that does not exist in Vanilla. I can also assume this is a modded variant of the Fulgent because I can glimpse you're also looking at its stats from the Simulation Screen.

@Lucky33
Why would expect such Enforcer variant to exist? Enforcer is one of weaker 9DP ships, I would be very surprised if it could do that much on auto-pilot.

Plus, "not taking hull damage" pretty much disqualifies Enforcer against all but weakest DE builds. Taking armor/hull damage in controlled manner is exactly how even a player piloted Enforcer would need to fight to defeat a decent opponent.

As for the requirements you impose on the poor Enforcer assuming it's going to fight the Vanilla Assault Variant of the Fulgent, asking for it to not lose a single point of hull does it dirty, as TaLaR says. It's a Low Tech Destroyer whose entire purpose in combat is to eventually lower shields and start trading its own armor and hullpoints to deal damage to the enemy.

WIth that out of the way, I could perfectly see an Overridden Variant with Solar Shielding, Resistant Flux Conduits, Automated Repair Unit and 1x Assault Chaingun 4x Heavy Machineguns beating it, provided it has a Reckless personality. It may even win without taking much in the way of damage itself if you minmax the capacitors in a way that does not get the ship overloaded by the Fulgents's sabots. A build that's full of sabots SRMs also works just as well if not better, considering you can probably cut the four heavy machineguns for 4 Sabot SRMs anyway and get two Assault Chainguns going in their stead.

It is not about DP. Try it yourself. The main reason for failure is the burn drive. And not because AI misjudges the distance, it is the opposite, distance and timings are perfect. For the Enforcer to take the whole burst on its shields. After that it is the whole downward spiral of doom. Overloads, disables and AI's inability to use Sabots while rotating. I somehow managed to make it win a fight but it all comes down to random.

On the other hand, Hammerhead with the HVDs is not even breaking the sweet. Disproporsion in capabilities is very dramatic,  have absolutely nothing to do with DPs but only with the design principles.

And the whole thing is completely rethoric.

Why do the low-tech users have to suffer in this manner?

It is also about DP. The Fulgent may be one of the weakest Remnant ships (with one of the worst Vanilla Variants to boot) but it's still a Remnant ship nonetheless, and the Enforcer is even 2 Deployment Points cheaper than a ship that's also underpriced by design.

As I said before, this Fulgent variant is not good at all. I can more or less guarantee you no "normal" destroyer anywhere near the Fulgent's DP range would come even close to beating it if it was an overridden variant with 2 Sabot Pods, 2 Sabot Srms, 1 Heavy Blaster and 2 Ion Cannons (and cheap PD eerywhere else, maybe with enough ordinance points left to also install Expanded Missile racks which would be useless in this heavily situational 1v1 scenario you are proposing.

[Lucky33]

That Fulgent is just one of the things I shoot at in the Sim. And it is not the point. It being the whole mess you need to do with the Enforcer to make it win in the same clean manner as the very basic Hammerhead. Like really boringly basic. As I said it was rhetorical stuff.

[Draba]

That Fulgent is just one of the things I shoot at in the Sim. And it is not the point. It being the whole mess you need to do with the Enforcer to make it win in the same clean manner as the very basic Hammerhead. Like really boringly basic. As I said it was rhetorical stuff.

That Fulgent is 56 OP over the limit, and the player side is kneecapped by losing 27-39 OP (heavy armor-extended missile racks-hardened shields builtins).
Builtins are part of the game and a very important buff to player side.
Your example just says that against a massively inflated ball of stats having the speed+range advantage(+more DP) is more important.

Fleet doctrine to aggressive or reckless, toggle search&destroy on spawn, Enforcer still more often than not wins by just burning in and dumping 6+6 linked sabots+harpoons.
Little damage taken, ~10 sec total. It's not what happens in a real battle, but the setup isn't exactly realistic either
(IIRC S&D doesn't need doctrine, dunno I always use aggressive)

Again, low can use a buff but you did nothing to demonstrate why, or what.
2 sore spots for me are durability being a bit lower than what feels right, and missiles of all kinds being wasted too often.
For missiles I love the omega style, IMO a higher cooldown and a little extra ammo would make them much more AI-friendly.

[Arcagnello]

That Fulgent is just one of the things I shoot at in the Sim. And it is not the point. It being the whole mess you need to do with the Enforcer to make it win in the same clean manner as the very basic Hammerhead. Like really boringly basic. As I said it was rhetorical stuff.

That Fulgent is 56 OP over the limit, and the player side is kneecapped by losing 27-39 OP (heavy armor-extended missile racks-hardened shields builtins).
Builtins are part of the game and a very important buff to player side.
Your example just says that against a massively inflated ball of stats having the speed+range advantage(+more DP) is more important.

Fleet doctrine to aggressive or reckless, toggle search&destroy on spawn, Enforcer still more often than not wins by just burning in and dumping 6+6 linked sabots+harpoons.
Little damage taken, ~10 sec total. It's not what happens in a real battle, but the setup isn't exactly realistic either
(IIRC S&D doesn't need doctrine, dunno I always use aggressive)

Again, low can use a buff but you did nothing to demonstrate why, or what.
2 sore spots for me are durability being a bit lower than what feels right, and missiles of all kinds being wasted too often.
For missiles I love the omega style, IMO a higher cooldown and a little extra ammo would make them much more AI-friendly.

I did not notice that Fulgent was 56OP over the standard amount until I did the OP math. You're correct.

Extra sins and no hot tea with us on local bars for you Lucky33

Just kidding.To everyone its own!
What mod is actually adding Remnant Variants like that into the sim by the way? Did you add them yourself? I might want to get that too considering my future plans regarding writing up remnant content and possibly working on Remnant-focused mods in the future...

[Draba]

What mod is actually adding Remnant Variants like that into the sim by the way? Did you add them yourself? I might want to get that too considering my future plans regarding writing up remnant content and possibly working on Remnant-focused mods in the future...

Dunno if it's a mod, but you can just add a variant yourself:

• \starsector-core\data\variants has the stock ones, take a look and create one yourself
• \starsector-core\data\campaign\sim_opponents.csv add your variant's ID to this file

Very nice for testing, just don't read too much into it.

[Arcagnello]

What mod is actually adding Remnant Variants like that into the sim by the way? Did you add them yourself? I might want to get that too considering my future plans regarding writing up remnant content and possibly working on Remnant-focused mods in the future...

Dunno if it's a mod, but you can just add a variant yourself:

• \starsector-core\data\variants has the stock ones, take a look and create one yourself
• \starsector-core\data\campaign\sim_opponents.csv add your variant's ID to this file

Very nice for testing, just don't read too much into it.

Thank you for the incredibly useful information kind Luddite/Luddette

[Lucky33]

That Fulgent is just one of the things I shoot at in the Sim. And it is not the point. It being the whole mess you need to do with the Enforcer to make it win in the same clean manner as the very basic Hammerhead. Like really boringly basic. As I said it was rhetorical stuff.

That Fulgent is 56 OP over the limit, and the player side is kneecapped by losing 27-39 OP (heavy armor-extended missile racks-hardened shields builtins).
Builtins are part of the game and a very important buff to player side.
Your example just says that against a massively inflated ball of stats having the speed+range advantage(+more DP) is more important.

Fleet doctrine to aggressive or reckless, toggle search&destroy on spawn, Enforcer still more often than not wins by just burning in and dumping 6+6 linked sabots+harpoons.
Little damage taken, ~10 sec total. It's not what happens in a real battle, but the setup isn't exactly realistic either
(IIRC S&D doesn't need doctrine, dunno I always use aggressive)

Again, low can use a buff but you did nothing to demonstrate why, or what.
2 sore spots for me are durability being a bit lower than what feels right, and missiles of all kinds being wasted too often.
For missiles I love the omega style, IMO a higher cooldown and a little extra ammo would make them much more AI-friendly.

Yes. It is exactly my point. Speed+range is not some mere advantage. It is a definitive one. And the Enforcer plus the whole Low-Tech with it are all nerfed by design. Armor is irrelevant because you can't compensate the said handicap with it. If you want to win you have to revert to the lottery style all-or-nothing bursts (you don't really need any hullmods apart from the racks). Not the extensively mentioned "armor tanking" or the actual topic with the "fix" to the burn drive. It is all about strike capabilities. But while Hammerhead is enjoying its complete domination over that "massively inflated ball of stats" making even this level of buff useless, Enforcer doesn't have the same level of the dominance in the close range fight. Why is that? What is the actual amount of defense needed to really compensate the speed lost?

[Lucky33]

That Fulgent is just one of the things I shoot at in the Sim. And it is not the point. It being the whole mess you need to do with the Enforcer to make it win in the same clean manner as the very basic Hammerhead. Like really boringly basic. As I said it was rhetorical stuff.

That Fulgent is 56 OP over the limit, and the player side is kneecapped by losing 27-39 OP (heavy armor-extended missile racks-hardened shields builtins).
Builtins are part of the game and a very important buff to player side.
Your example just says that against a massively inflated ball of stats having the speed+range advantage(+more DP) is more important.

Fleet doctrine to aggressive or reckless, toggle search&destroy on spawn, Enforcer still more often than not wins by just burning in and dumping 6+6 linked sabots+harpoons.
Little damage taken, ~10 sec total. It's not what happens in a real battle, but the setup isn't exactly realistic either
(IIRC S&D doesn't need doctrine, dunno I always use aggressive)

Again, low can use a buff but you did nothing to demonstrate why, or what.
2 sore spots for me are durability being a bit lower than what feels right, and missiles of all kinds being wasted too often.
For missiles I love the omega style, IMO a higher cooldown and a little extra ammo would make them much more AI-friendly.

I did not notice that Fulgent was 56OP over the standard amount until I did the OP math. You're correct.

Extra sins and no hot tea with us on local bars for you Lucky33

Just kidding.To everyone its own!
What mod is actually adding Remnant Variants like that into the sim by the way? Did you add them yourself? I might want to get that too considering my future plans regarding writing up remnant content and possibly working on Remnant-focused mods in the future...

Talar made it into actual mod so what you will not accidently damage your core files.

But I don't see it in the mod section.

Strange.

I'm using it mostly for the skills effect imitation. Hence inflated stats.

[Draba]

Yes. It is exactly my point. Speed+range is not some mere advantage. It is a definitive one.

An example to illustrate the point: if you spawn a special enemy with 300 range infinite damage weapons then everything slower than it loses.
If you set its speed to ~80 you can say that Brawler is stronger than Paragon in an absolute sense, because it can chip it down while Paragon loses.
Not a problem with being slow, the test is just really bad for what you want to demonstrate.
AI can't realistically win a shootout against a higher DP, faster ship if it also has both hands tied behind its back and knees smashed with a hammer.

I'm using it mostly for the skills effect imitation. Hence inflated stats.

Don't need to imitate skills if player doesn't get them and the builtin mods every keeper ship will have.

[Lucky33]

Enforcer can win. It is inconsistent. And the question is, why it is Low Tech what has to suffer this fate. I mean it is common knowledge what kiting mechanics is and its power. Making a whole ship line-up noticeably slow without any compensation is a very bold decision. Like painting a target marker on your forehead. It worked to some extent in 0.91 because enemy was weak. Now it is not and we have the whole array of target practice equipment called "military ships".

[Thaago]

The sim Hammerhead with HVD/Mauler is defeated by the sim condor with broadswords. It does not have enough DPS on turrets to kill the broadswords and gets destroyed. A sim escort Enforcer wins this fight. Why does midline have to suffer this fate? All of midline is obviously terrible!

No, no midline is not terrible. A single cherry picked example does not give any real information on balance.

And on a side note, thats not a correct fulgent variant. It has 56 more OP than it should out of a budget of 100! Even if all 3 hullmods were built in it couldn't be correct. It has 30 vents and 30 caps, despite the limit on destroyers normally being 20 too. So yes, I can believe that an 11 DP ship with a cheat build of +50% OP can defeat a ship that can't kite it that costs 9 DP and isn't allowed any buffs. How about we give the Enforcer a free 60 OP and the ability to go to 30 vents/caps? That would be a bit more fair.

On kiting: A build that has range + speed advantage at the same time will always win. Usually slowly, as mostly long ranged weapons have lower DPS than their medium/close range counterparts. But that same build can be hard countered by things it doesn't outrange + outspeed, while a shorter ranged build isn't. I'm doing a midline run right now and have some 'support' Hammerheads with the 1000 range guns. They do very nicely, but their DPS is only like 275 + system for ~412 (and slightly closer in it has 1-200 laser dps from lrpds) , while a "brawler" Hammherhead is 774 + system for ~1161, nearly 2.5 times more DPS. Those support Hammerheads are a lot safer and they can win some fights the brawlers can't, because there are some enemies too dangerous for the brawlers to get in with that the supports can kite. Does that make the brawlers useless? No, they kill things 3 times faster and kill speed matters. They are also much more capable against things that can catch them, such as frigates and fighters.

[Lucky33]

It is not about specific builds. It is about the fact that kiting is implemented fully, without limits and a ship with range and speed advantage is guaranteed to win even against way more powerful enemy. But brawling is limited. There is no specific "brawling build" responsible for the same level of absolute advantage as the kiting one. It is all about stats. Even the Safety Overrides. No specific weapon, hull mod or system what guarantees victory if the ship with it managed to close the range.

Kiters gonna kite. But brawlers don't really exist apart from the Harbinger. They were balanced out of the game.

[SCC]

Kiters gonna kite. But brawlers don't really exist apart from the Harbinger. They were balanced out of the game.

Could you elaborate on this point? I don't consider Harbinger to have its playstyle be any different to phase frigates, which is just unphasing, using the ship system, unloading guns, then phasing again, like a really big bomber.