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[Thaago]

I've been a bit surprised to see the heavy mortar on these builds - I have trouble with it on turrets (as opposed to hardpoints) because its recoil, and that gets exacerbated for capital range fights. I suppose Gunnery implants + armored weapon mounts is enough?

[Draba]

I've been a bit surprised to see the heavy mortar on these builds - I have trouble with it on turrets (as opposed to hardpoints) because its recoil, and that gets exacerbated for capital range fights. I suppose Gunnery implants + armored weapon mounts is enough?

Legion has it because it's what fits the budget after everything else, and it's decent enough at hitting Radiant/Brilliant.
No good option for M here, need some HE so if the legion is caught out something getting close can't just keep shields down almost indefinitely.
Guess 2 mortars are better than 1 mauler or chaingun. As a consolation price it doesn't build much soft flux even under beam fire, so AI should be close to max polarized armor boost more often.

For Enforcer I like mortars because even with Ordnance Expertise it can't really support hpyervelocity+mauler. If it's 700 range might as well go for something that has a bite at that 700.
Eradicator is similar, 20 DP so even with ammo feeder 3 Ms aren't that strong IMO. Might as well settle for 700 range and now you can use the eco Ms and LAC/thumper.
To be fair to me those 2 aren't bricky enough for how slow they are, they always get caught out so didn't play around too much with the 1000 range options.

[Goumindong]

I'm morbidly curious about the same thing. HAG is such a weird weapon to me that I never got it to work on any ship, there's always a better alternative. I just look at it as a large weapon and then see the damage per shot, no thx. The crazy flux cost also throws me off a lot.

Its per-hit shot looks not so great but is actually pretty decent. 240 vs armor doesn't seem like a lot but its minimum damage point is 1360 (assuming no skills on either side). And it hits fast enough that its still doing significant armor DPS above that, remember its HE so its armor DPS is still 960.(so 4 seconds to get from 2k armor to 1k armor at minimum damage assuming perfect accuracy) And once it gets through armor it shreds hull.. All at 900 base range

[Grievous69]

It's in an awkward spot where it's not fast enough to get out of the way of remnants, not durable enough to facetank them, and has no efficient 900 range options.

Same exact experience here, 3 of my Eradicators just get rolled versus Remnants. The only one that manages to hold its ground is the 2 HVD + Mauler one. That said I'm not super prepared to fight them, as I have mostly other-than-Sabots missiles on my ships.

[Warnoise]

Alex needs to give the XIV Onslaught and Dominator heavy ballistic integration of whatever that hullmod name (the one that reduces OP price of large ballistic weapons).

It is sad to see the most effective onslaught build still being 90% point defense

[Hiruma Kai]

Alex needs to give the XIV Onslaught and Dominator heavy ballistic integration of whatever that hullmod name (the one that reduces OP price of large ballistic weapons).

It is sad to see the most effective onslaught build still being 90% point defense

I'm confused by this statement given Onslaughts did gain Ballistics Integration in 0.95.1a.  Just double checked in game, my Onslaught XIV has ballistics integration.

Dominators didn't get the hullmod, but they did get a 10 OP bump from 0.95.1a, which is kinda like half the bonus (2 large mounts with the hullmod would be a 20 OP savings).  I don't think I've ever downgraded the large mounts on Dominators I run, given they both focus forward and large ballistics tend to be the best ballistics.  I don't remember seeing builds posted to the forums with people filling them with mediums, although perhaps I've missed it.

As for going heavy on point defense, they kind of are over mounted for their DP.  If they actually had the flux to fire all offensive weaponry, they'd outgun Radiants and Paragons.  Assuming 1 large = 2 mediums = 4 smalls:
Onslaughts come with 5 large gun mounts, 9 medium guns, 6 small guns, and 4 medium missile mounts (52 small equivalent). 
Radiants only come with 5 large mounts, 4 mediums, and 10 smalls (38 small equivalent). 
Paragons have 4 large, 6 mediums, 9 smalls, and 4 small missile mounts (41 small equivalent).

They simply don't need all their mounts dedicated to offense to put out good damage numbers, so filling the rest with PD to prevent Reapers from removing their heavy armor defense seems like a good investment.

[Thaago]

Heavy Ballistics Integration also isn't to make large ballistic mounts competitive for their OP cost: they already are, and if a ship is struggling to support them it can get more flux/OP (Dominator).

Its to make non-overlapping firing arcs competitive places to put large guns, like on the original ship with the hullmod, the Conquest. The ship absolutely wanted to install large ballistics in the slots to be pointed at the enemy, but since half the mounts were often not going to be pointed at the enemy it was better to downgrade them and save the OP. Concentrate all the resources in one side and then point that. The hullmod, while an OP buff, in effect mainly changes the cost/benefit analysis for slots that won't be facing at the enemy most of the time. It only costs 18OP to put on a MkIX+Devastator combo on the off side instead of 38, so if I put 2 single flaks on those slots I'm only saving 2 OP instead of 22OP!

Same deal with the Onslaught, especially as it got the hullmod the same time that the side mounts actually got rotated a bit away from the front (which makes them harder to flank). It was already common practice to downgrade the sides to flaks when concentrating on frontal firepower. Just as with the Conquest, instead of saving ~20-24 OP (2 devastators or 2 mk IXs)it now saves 0-4 OP - might as well leave the big guns in anyways as they don't take away from frontal firepower.

[Linnis]

Great build and overall ship usage. The amount of fuel you must haul around scare me...

I love the HMG and the Vulcan cannon with the point defense skill, it absolutely shreds. You are totally using them correctly.

I am however slightly critical of you monitor builds. Machine gun on them is honestly kind of useless, they can plink away but do no real damage, and often they don't hit shields either. Even in the video imagine you have the monitors with an ion cannon. That radiant you were duking it out would be spinning with no engines easily.

Second of all is your onslaught piloting. I understand staying at high flux will lure the AI into fighting you, but radiants do that anyways, and your HMG will almost be the same range has his autopulse regardless, so its not a big deal. With ships like onslaught and even conquest, the better play would be to stay at low flux at all time, venting in between volleys of autopulse shots and anything else hurty to armor. This is where Hardened shield and that venting hullmod helps alot. An player onslaught should be able to 1v1 a radiant while taking barely any damage.

As for the dominator builds, I also agree that single autocannon is better than the dual ones, especially the accuracy is so bad on the dual ones your hitting 1 shot out of 2 anyways. But with ballistic rangefinder in the game now small railguns are my go to main DPS on the dominator. The medium slots I would put heavy mauler or hypervelocity driver depends on who I'm fighting. The two large front slots I would only use one of them and put on a storm needler. Otherwise if you want your dominator to fight at range as support dps I would use double gauss cannon. Double hephaestus only works when your sabots hit, but this combo makes the dominator useless 1/2 of the time its out there fighting. Whenever I see a ship sitting there not doing anything in the fight it hurts me inside. I would rather just have a longbow dagger carrier at that point.

Your legion build is almost exactly what I am using. Dual Squall with 4 bomber wings whos carrier is up front is so overpowered this update. You are right they are the MVPs.

Great build overall though!

[Warnoise]

Alex needs to give the XIV Onslaught and Dominator heavy ballistic integration of whatever that hullmod name (the one that reduces OP price of large ballistic weapons).

It is sad to see the most effective onslaught build still being 90% point defense

I'm confused by this statement given Onslaughts did gain Ballistics Integration in 0.95.1a.  Just double checked in game, my Onslaught XIV has ballistics integration.

Dominators didn't get the hullmod, but they did get a 10 OP bump from 0.95.1a, which is kinda like half the bonus (2 large mounts with the hullmod would be a 20 OP savings).  I don't think I've ever downgraded the large mounts on Dominators I run, given they both focus forward and large ballistics tend to be the best ballistics.  I don't remember seeing builds posted to the forums with people filling them with mediums, although perhaps I've missed it.

As for going heavy on point defense, they kind of are over mounted for their DP.  If they actually had the flux to fire all offensive weaponry, they'd outgun Radiants and Paragons.  Assuming 1 large = 2 mediums = 4 smalls:
Onslaughts come with 5 large gun mounts, 9 medium guns, 6 small guns, and 4 medium missile mounts (52 small equivalent). 
Radiants only come with 5 large mounts, 4 mediums, and 10 smalls (38 small equivalent). 
Paragons have 4 large, 6 mediums, 9 smalls, and 4 small missile mounts (41 small equivalent).

They simply don't need all their mounts dedicated to offense to put out good damage numbers, so filling the rest with PD to prevent Reapers from removing their heavy armor defense seems like a good investment.

OP's pic kinda confused me because I didn't see the hullmod in his pic. I haven't used Onslaught recently so I missed that

As about Dominator, even with the +10 OP still can't afford anything above Mark IX  because of the flux cost Large weapons require a lot of flux dissipation and dominator doesn't have that. But that pilot skill that gives more flux stats for every op spent on weapons fixes that.

As about weapons, unlike the rest of the ships you mentioned, Onslaught can fire at max 3 large weapons at the same time at one target (a large one, 2 at small one)
But that's not the issue here,  Onslaught simply can't perform well when more than 2 large weapons are firing at the same time due to bad flux stats. You can even see in the video posted by OP, if that was the AI it would have been dead. So this is why despite having 5 large slots, putting offense weapon in each slot feels like a noob bait simply because the price weapons (before the heavy ballistics integration) prevented the player from putting a lot of points in flux stats/hullmods

[Draba]

Alex needs to give the XIV Onslaught and Dominator heavy ballistic integration of whatever that hullmod name (the one that reduces OP price of large ballistic weapons).

It is sad to see the most effective onslaught build still being 90% point defense

Don't think there is a definite "most effective", this is just what I like to do and works well enough in my fleet. Others already pointed out the heavy ballistic integration/PD considerations so not getting into that.
I think XIV Onslaught and Dominator are strong enough, they are extremely durable now and the recent changes made their damage output much better.

As about weapons, unlike the rest of the ships you mentioned, Onslaught can fire at max 3 large weapons at the same time at one target (a large one, 2 at small one)
But that's not the issue here,  Onslaught simply can't perform well when more than 2 large weapons are firing at the same time due to bad flux stats. You can even see in the video posted by OP, if that was the AI it would have been dead. So this is why despite having 5 large slots, putting offense weapon in each slot feels like a noob bait simply because the price weapons (before the heavy ballistics integration) prevented the player from putting a lot of points in flux stats/hullmods

Keep in mind both Paragon and Radiant are 60 DP, and TPC is the best L energy weapon by far (arcs do suck though).
I occasionally give the Onslaught to an officer, they are very good at staying alive and dish out enough damage.
They have some turning/target switching issues so XIV Legions are better in AI hands, but I still liked them.

Great build and overall ship usage. The amount of fuel you must haul around scare me...

I love the HMG and the Vulcan cannon with the point defense skill, it absolutely shreds. You are totally using them correctly.

I am however slightly critical of you monitor builds. Machine gun on them is honestly kind of useless, they can plink away but do no real damage, and often they don't hit shields either. Even in the video imagine you have the monitors with an ion cannon. That radiant you were duking it out would be spinning with no engines easily.

Second of all is your onslaught piloting. I understand staying at high flux will lure the AI into fighting you, but radiants do that anyways, and your HMG will almost be the same range has his autopulse regardless, so its not a big deal. With ships like onslaught and even conquest, the better play would be to stay at low flux at all time, venting in between volleys of autopulse shots and anything else hurty to armor. This is where Hardened shield and that venting hullmod helps alot. An player onslaught should be able to 1v1 a radiant while taking barely any damage.

As for the dominator builds, I also agree that single autocannon is better than the dual ones, especially the accuracy is so bad on the dual ones your hitting 1 shot out of 2 anyways. But with ballistic rangefinder in the game now small railguns are my go to main DPS on the dominator. The medium slots I would put heavy mauler or hypervelocity driver depends on who I'm fighting. The two large front slots I would only use one of them and put on a storm needler. Otherwise if you want your dominator to fight at range as support dps I would use double gauss cannon. Double hephaestus only works when your sabots hit, but this combo makes the dominator useless 1/2 of the time its out there fighting. Whenever I see a ship sitting there not doing anything in the fight it hurts me inside. I would rather just have a longbow dagger carrier at that point.

Your legion build is almost exactly what I am using. Dual Squall with 4 bomber wings whos carrier is up front is so overpowered this update. You are right they are the MVPs.

Great build overall though!

Fair point on railguns.
Played around a bit more with them since and if you do not have so many other kinetic sources and/or just want better anti-small it's a perfectly fine alternative.

Monitors are a mixed bag.
2x light machine guns are super cheap, practically free to fire and 312 base kinetic DPS is very significant when it's glued to you.
Ion cannon are much nicer if the enemy already dropped the shield, but:
- it won't drop shields as much without the LMG's kinetic. I just want shields down so the fleet's HE can go to town
- monitors don't have elite TA, so ions wouldn't do as much as usual
- with elite PD and unstable injector range of ion and LMG is the same
I usually have 1 ion cannon on anything with a small energy slot, here I just want the monitors to survive everything so went for the ~6 extra OP.

Dual hephaestus on dominators because they are following a 2 squall+thunder+longbow legion, have some base kinetic of their own and are mostly there for hull damage output/bodyguard duty.
They do idle a lot, not ideal but I tend to forget about them after giving orders and tried to keep the video moving.

My Onslaught style is the hill I'll die on, got elite combat endurance and field repairs so I'll be damned if I don't use 100% of them in every single battle
A bit more seriously, yeah Radiant 1v1s could be done much cleaner but just firing away with polarized bonus means smaller things on the sides/back basically don't do damage and Radiant is smashed/pushed away much faster.
Onslaught has more than enough armor/hull to facetank, can switch to be more conservative if they get low or there are too many plasmas/tachyons (also, tried to speed it up for video).
I should use the side armor/devastators more and should control the TPCs separately, but I'm just not that good and works well enough anyway.