Re: vs. SIM Falcon tests
So it turns out, I had Support Doctrine on, which gave the Falcon Helmsmanship and Combat Endurance. What does that have to do with anything? It shows how ridiculous and contrived this particular setup is. That is to say:
1. The SIM Falcon is no match for any of these ships (Fury, Apogee, Aurora) with any competent loadout. It just has a couple of Heavy Autocannons for kinetic damage, some Ion Beams for disabling, and then some Harpoon missiles as finishers. If it starts off in close range against any of these ships, it would easily get beaten. So, it basically spends it time backing off.
2. The Falcon has a top speed of 80. Maneuvering jets give it +50 speed half the time, so it comes out to +25 speed on average, so it ends up with a retreating speed of 105 on average. This speed range (80 to 105) is very important.
3. At the beginning of the fight, the ships will attack each other. The Falcon will lose and start backing off.
4. The Apogee is
so slow that when the Falcon backs off, it will be out of the Falcon's Ion Beam range. This means that both ships will drop shields and reset their flux before the next encounter. This is very important.
5. The Fury and Aurora are both fast enough that after the Falcon retreats, they will still be in the range of its Ion Beams. Thus, they will keep their shields up, and they won't reset their flux. Because the Falcon's Heavy Autocannons are dealing hard flux, the hard flux on these ships will gradually accumulate, with the Falcon backing up as needed whenever it starts getting too close or starts getting hit.
6. For whatever reason, the AI doesn't recognize that it should use Plasma Burn or Plasma Jets in this situation to close the distance to use its weapons. Both the Fury and the Aurora can easily catch up to the Falcon if they used their shipsystems, but they're content to simply sit there even though their shipsystems are ready to be used. If they do actually use their shipsystem, the Falcon easily dies.
7. Once the ship is at high flux, it starts backing off. Now, the Falcon clearly uses its Maneuvering Jets to chase down the ship, so in that case the AI knows to use its shipsystem to chase a target. It's just that for whatever reason, the same thing doesn't happen for the Fury nor the Aurora.
8. In the case of a Fury with Support Doctrine, Helmsmanship gives it +10% speed, and Combat Endurance and hence 100% CR gives it another 10% speed, so it top speed increases from 90 to 108. This top speed of 108 is higher than the Falcon's average top speed (including Maneuvering Jets) of 105, so even while the Falcon is backing off, the Fury can catch up to it and kill it.
So this has nothing to do with "AI cowardice" or whatever, but simply that the speeds of these ships are in a particular band for this behavior to come out in the sim. The Apogee is so slow that it's below this band, and thus the Falcon ends up so far away that both ships will drop their shields and reset their flux. Attached is an example for if the Apogee gets fast enough (i.e. with Unstable Injector) so that its speed also falls within this band, and it ends up running into the same issue.
In an actual fight, this particular set of circumstances would virtually never happen. The AI uses its shipsystem much more liberally for whatever reason (I've even seen a Fury use its Plasma Burn to ram a Radiant, even though it was already in range of all of its weapons), and there are many more ships each with different weapon ranges, speeds, etc. So it's just an artifact of this particular setup.
To give a similarly contrived "solution" to this setup, i.e. something that works for this setup but not something you'd want to use in a real fight, you could equip an Aurora with tac lasers, graviton beams, and 2 Harpoon pods, with a mining laser somewhere in the back. The Aurora has so much flux and so many weapon mounts that it will actually max out the SIM Falcon's flux using soft flux alone (even though long-range beams are weak), and the Harpoons will finish it off. (And the mining laser? Just there to make sure the Aurora goes in, because otherwise it stays at long range because all its weapons would be long range.)
Why is it strange? Fury is only fast when it plasma burns forward. When Fury backpedals because it loses flux wars, it only has its base speed which is not fast enough to escape Falcon. As for Apogee, it is not the one running away because it wins its flux wars against Falcon.
Fury has a base speed of 90, which is
faster than all cruisers except the Falcon (when you include Maneuvering Jets) and the Aurora (when you include Plasma Jets). (I guess technically it's slower than Doom as well, but I'm ignoring phase ships here.) Contrived cases aside, Furies can easily beat Falcons in a one-on-one. So it can get away easily.
On the other hand, Apogee, with a base speed of 60, is equal or
slower than all cruisers except Venture, Dominator (which has Burn Drive), and Mora. It's a tank, and functions more or less as heavy infantry on the battlefield. It has a large flux pool, but if that runs out (and fights are rarely "even", with local concentrations of force and many-on-one's here and there), it can't back off well. So you better hope that it doesn't get overwhelmed.
In actual combat scenarios, I've found them to be fairly similar in results, and it depends on if the fleet needs more "heavy infantry" (Apogee) or "skirmishers" (Fury). This particular setup just happens to have an edge case that realistically won't occur in actual fights. The Apogee itself doesn't actually kill the SIM Falcon in any reasonable amount of time either (I do not consider taking >7 minutes to kill a Falcon, by slowly chasing it around the map until the Falcon AI messes up due to edge-of-map issues, to be a "win").
One factor which typically gives an edge to the Fury is if you have Cryoblasters, which will have similar damage output as Plasma Cannons over the course of a fight, but only cost about half as much and only need a medium slot. It fits the Fury well since it's a finisher weapon, which allows the Fury to quickly kill off targets and move on to the next one. But Furies tend to plasma burn and flameout more often, which becomes a liability.
For player-piloting Odyssey always seems like a better option than either. It's even better than Aurora at catching stuff (Odyssey's system is faster in a straight line over long term) and stronger in a straight fight. While using Odyssey's system defensively is inconvenient, it still provides decent value when player-piloted.
I think it really depends. Odyssey-Aurora-Fury-Medusa-Shrike-Tempest are all on a continuum of speed vs power. Odyssey may be better if you like to be right in the middle of the fight but faster ships can control the flow of battle better (i.e. get to hotspots quicker, rescue ships in trouble faster, etc.). Plus Odyssey is a broadside ship which is trickier to use, and it costs a lot more DP.
Odyssey's Plasma Burn seems to give a net distance of around 320 su per use, regen once every 10 seconds, which means an average speed increase of +32. Aurora's Plasma Jets seems to give a net distance of around 430 per use, once every 11 seconds, which means an average speed increase of +39. Aurora also starts off with a 10 speed advantage, so overall, Aurora ends up roughly 20 su/s faster than Odyssey.
As the player flagship, Aurora is good for the dual Cryoblasters and all sorts of other choices available to the player in terms of weapon loadouts for a very mobile flagship. As AI goes, however, I think it's in a bit of a tough spot because the player likely wants a tough capital ship (or multiple Apogees) for the front lines, while it's better to have multiple smaller ships to chase down multiple frigates simultaneously, etc., rather than one big ship running from target to target. So it's a bit harder to "place" the Aurora within a fleet.
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