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Author Topic: High Scatter Amplifier builds  (Read 9314 times)

Kriby

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High Scatter Amplifier builds
« on: January 19, 2022, 03:10:24 PM »

Are there any? I've tried to squeeze this thing into every size of ship but I haven't found anything that feels justified. Paragon got pretty close, the anti-capital duel damage of quad scatter TL is terrifying, but multi-target environment TL durrbeaming + maneuverability stops it from being realistically useful.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2022, 03:29:18 PM »

I've been experimenting with it on a scarab with a rift lance (and an officer). It seems pretty good TBH, but that's pretty much the only ship I've found with the right combination of speed and durability to get into the really short range bands to make it decent. The range penalties just feel too harsh on most ships.
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Megas

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2022, 03:39:57 PM »

Last release, Gravitons, Tacticals, and Phase Lance was usable on Fulgent, and burst PD had full range.  Now, that build is ruined mostly because beam PD lost range with High Scatter Amplifier.  If beam PD still had full range, all I would need to do is replace Phase Lance with Pulse Laser.
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Szasz

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2022, 10:07:04 PM »

Are there any? I've tried to squeeze this thing into every size of ship but I haven't found anything that feels justified. Paragon got pretty close, the anti-capital duel damage of quad scatter TL is terrifying, but multi-target environment TL durrbeaming + maneuverability stops it from being realistically useful.
In my experience efficiency stopped TL from being useful. Other than that HSA became a niche at best. Support beams have assault weapon range with it while not living up to that category in dps. AI also overestimates range with HSA and usually ends up staring at the enemy all battle long (unless it dies from facetanking the well deserved incoming fire).
Setting base range to 50%+100 really neutered the more sensible choices like phase lance and PDs.
If hullmod OP cost was not this high and the effect optional per mounts I could imagine hardbeam gravitons for pressing shields, soft phase lances for armour penetration and their joint fire for hull damage on a nimble ship.
Right now it seems better to simply mount projectile weapons in their place.
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TaLaR

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2022, 11:45:30 PM »

If hullmod OP cost was not this high and the effect effect optional per mounts I could imagine hardbeam gravitons for pressing shields, soft phase lances for armour penetration and their joint fire for hull damage on a nimble ship.

Now this would create a real niche for HSA.
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Szasz

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2022, 11:54:45 PM »

Is that a good or a bad thing?
Other than the given example there might be other ways to take advantage of that mechanic.
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Low Settings

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2022, 12:01:12 AM »

I think the ideal weapon for the Amplifier are the lances. So a harbinger or doom with phase lance or ziggurat with tachyons. Also there is a sunder without a large mount so maybe you can put 3 phase lances there instead of an autopulse or high intensity
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Szasz

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2022, 12:13:32 AM »

Except Harbingers do not need HSA for lances. That's the funny thing.
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Kriby

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2022, 12:59:35 AM »

The issues I run into with HSA are typically:

  • HSA competes with Advanced Optics or just "X OP"
  • Beam weapons compete with pulsed-type energy weapons (sometimes more through multi-type mounts)
  • Soft/Hard flux is not that big of a difference once you can apply pressure constantly (No mod/AO has edge by range)
  • 10% damage increase is typically not a big difference when comparing to pulsed weapons especially, as beam AI targetting means beam weapons have worse accuracy (sweep misses during target changes, especially for lance types)
  • Ship AI is acutely aware of beam weapon pressure and will evade it relatively efficiently, but pulsed projectiles are not acknowledged until they bring hard flux to some critical threshold
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Null Ganymede

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2022, 01:18:37 AM »

Soft flux *is* kind of identical to hard flux for offensive player ships. They're usually putting out enough damage.

10% damage boost doesn't seem convincing to take beams (usually low DPS, aside from the explosive laser) into close quarters combat.
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baxt

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2022, 09:02:14 AM »

Did you play about with it on the Scarab? 4x Tac lasers 1x IR Pulse with an aggressive officer is probably enough to keep any Destroyers near max hard flux though I'm sure there is much better builds for the Scarab, it kind of works.
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Hypilein

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2022, 02:23:14 AM »

I have a Paragon with 4 HIL, Graviton Beams and Tac Lasers in the small slots. It seems to do alright. In the past I often went for Autopulse, but I've found that the higher average dmg of HIL seems to win out for me. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong though. There are definitely multiple viable playstyles available in this game.
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Goumindong

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #12 on: February 05, 2022, 03:26:00 AM »

Could it work on an SO Sunder?

HIL, 2x Graviton. 500 HE+200 Kin pinpoint accuracy. Weakness seems to be that well… that is only 650 of 1k base dissipation

Even without SO if you went with AO you would hit 800 range.

I could also maybe see it on an Odyssey. With ITU and AO you should hit 1160 range with tac  lasers and HIL/Tach Lance. That isn’t great but it’s 40 more range than Plasma Cannon + ITU which the ship works well with (though it is indeed not a lot of DPS out of those slots I find that IRPulse tends to miss small ships and it’s lack of range is a detriment… that would go away with hard flux tac lasers.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #13 on: February 05, 2022, 08:48:01 AM »

My feeling on various beam weapons with HSA:

Beam PD is shafted by the range reduction (reduced time to shoot missiles down). Beam PD is generally already very low DPS and can just barely handle missiles when massed, so reducing the range really hurts. This is one of the biggest issues with HSA IMO.

HSA tac lasers seem like bad IR pulse lasers. Maybe the extra 100 range is significant, but I don't think it's enough to offset the extra OP of the hullmod, the lower DPS, the worse armor pen, and the worse efficiency.

HSA graviton is interesting (probably the best use case for HSA IMO), but it's still pretty expensive in OP to pay for HSA for such low DPS. It doesn't feel like enough to build the entire ship around, but I think 110 kinetic DPS for 75 flux/sec at 600 range is a good weapon. I think most ships wouldn't mind the weapon but the OP cost for what's still essentially a support weapon is a bit too steep. I think maybe wolf might be an interesting use case.

HSA phase lance has 400 range which makes it really difficult to use safely. 400 range is pretty much the LMG/HMG range band, so it's super dangerous to go that close. It's super risky in late game to go into <500 range unless you have a really good mobility ship system, and even then, the AI is really hesitant to go that close unless you use reckless AI which can lead to other issues. I think HSA phase lance is close to unusable for the AI in practice, and probably not worth the extra OP of the hullmod in general. I would rather use normal phase lance.

HSA HIL seems like a bad option to me. The whole point of HSA is to make beams better against shields, but HIL sucks against shields anyway due to HE damage even with HSA, and also eats a ton of flux. HSA HIL is 275 shield DPS for 500 flux/sec at 600 range. Losing 400 range hurts way more than gaining hard flux IMO. If you can win the shield battle while trading flux so inefficiently, you probably didn't need the hard flux in the first place IMO. Maybe paragon can get away with brute forcing shields with HIL, but I think there are better builds.

Tac lance seems like another interesting option, but at 600 range, I have to justify using it over a plasma cannon. Best use case might be on a champion IMO (but losing beam PD kinda sucks). Odyssey and apogee really would rather use plasma cannon IMO and I think paragon is too slow to want 600 range, although 4x HSA TL paragon might be a fun meme, or even 2x TL + 2x Autopulse or something like that.

I think rift lance has a lot of the same issues as phase lance. I did experiment with HSA rift lance on a scarab, and it was effective, but I found that I got pretty much the same performance out of the same scarab with 4 extra capacitors instead of HSA, so I'm not sure it actually does anything. I think theoretically the HSA version should be better 1v1 but in practice, there's enough shield DPS from allies that the hard flux isn't super important.

...Even without SO if you went with AO you would hit 800 range...
..With ITU and AO...
You are not allowed to use AO and HSA together. Even if you could, I think the HSA range reduction would probably apply after the AO buff giving only 100 extra range. If you could get 200 extra range, I think that might make HSA more viable, although the massive OP cost of HSA + AO (and probably turret gyros too) is still a huge issue.

HSA + SO is an interesting idea trying to make the range reduction unimpactful. My main issue with that concept in general is that SO is already a massive OP sink, so the extra OP to equip HSA is a really big issue. I also think that beam weapons are generally low flux/s and DPS, but SO wants the highest DPS weapons possible to take advantage of the extra dissipation, so I think the two hullmods just don't really work together. I would rather just use heavy blasters. Maybe there are some good builds though.


edit: I just though of one interesting idea -> Aurora with 3x phase lance and tons of rift lances. Massive burst damage. Might better with one ion pulser and few ir pulse lasers/mini pulser.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2022, 08:58:18 AM by intrinsic_parity »
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Megas

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Re: High Scatter Amplifier builds
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2022, 09:38:21 AM »

HSA graviton is interesting (probably the best use case for HSA IMO), but it's still pretty expensive in OP to pay for HSA for such low DPS. It doesn't feel like enough to build the entire ship around, but I think 110 kinetic DPS for 75 flux/sec at 600 range is a good weapon. I think most ships wouldn't mind the weapon but the OP cost for what's still essentially a support weapon is a bit too steep. I think maybe wolf might be an interesting use case.
Tried HSA Graviton on Wolf, but it was not good enough - too weak.  Not noticeably better than trying to drill with Pulse Laser.  I was better off without HSA and slowly beaming an enemy frigate to death with 1000 range graviton plus two tactical lasers.
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