Already can see Pegasus being big pain in the ass regardless of whether it is on your side or on the enemy's
We shall see
Exciting stuff, thanks for sharing. Is the Nova sporting a new color scheme for the Remnants (blue instead of teal) or is it just the effect of the Comsec filter?
It's the filter.
I wonder how DEM will affect shieldless ships. High-power beams is one of their major weaknesses, after all.
About as you'd expect and probably still less badly than a regular High Intensity Laser
Pegasus: Despite 2 of the Large missiles facing backwards, I still feel like a 4 Hurricane loadout would be a bit imbalanced. I look forward to trying it out!
Ah - I seem to remember (not in connection with the Pegasus) reducing the warhead count on the Hurricane a bit back. It's at <checks> 7 now, but with considerably improvement maneuverability to compensate, so that ECCM no longer feels as "required" to make the Hurricane work. So the net effect of the change is to raise the floor and reduce the ceiling of its performance - which also has to fortunate effect of making it less of an issue on the Pegasus, I think.
Sindrian Stuff: I get the lore reason behind it, but I kind of don't like the Lions Guard ships being worse than the generic counterparts. The XIV ships are mostly better across the board given their hullmod and improved flux stats, making them a nice treat to pick up. The LG ships on the other hand, are stuck with a permanent D-mod and worse OP in exchange for the relatively useless Solar Shielding - I feel like there would be little reason for the player to go out of their way to grab a LG Eagle. Perhaps I'm too spoiled by the LG ships in mods, that usually are a step above the basic versions.
This is one of those things where it makes good in-fiction sense that they'd look flashy and be worse - where for the XIV ships, it makes sense that they'd actually be better. As for why the player might grab them... self-challenge run, perhaps?
They're not *terrble*, anyway; it's barely a d-mod (and doesn't reduce their recovery cost, btw).
Ludd Stuff: I first bought this game after watching Sseth's video, and always thought the pathers would be ramming me with exceptionally explosive tanker ships like the space jihadis that they were. The wonderful Luddic Enchancement mod has this, but I wondered if there would ever be official integration of the Kamikaze Tanker ships.
Hmm - that seems like it would be difficult to make fun. Like, you can shoot down missiles, but you can't really shoot down ships, and you might end up with situations where there just isn't too much you can do. And it'd mess with the ship AI - it would have to become aware of a qualitatively different threat. I mean, I could see it, depending, but it's also not something I'm super keen on, if that makes sense.
Wonderful work as always, I eagerly await the next update!
Thank you!
There's one thing I do not understand. Why is Sindria using midline ships at all? Their fleet is a rogue Hegemony battlegroup. Surely they should be using Hegemony ships? Or a mix of Hegemony and stuff they've bought from...whoever would be willing to sell to them. Are they the Hegemony's testbed fleet that tried using midline ships for some reason?
It's a question of blueprints, right? The ships in the original battlegroup are long gone by now, and - as evidenced by their use of midline ships - these midline blueprints are what they were able to get their hands on.
Also, while the Lion of Sindria might be a dictator, and surely wouldn't be perfect, he is an intelligent admiral with significant actual combat experience. They gave him a battlegroup. The idea that he's a completely negative influence on the fleet is a little odd. He might skew them weirdly, but he shouldn't make them flat-out ineffective and useless (especially since Sindria's not big enough to keep existing if their fleet is useless and their Lion is incompetent and dragging them down). Plus I concur with AppleMarineXX that it doesn't exactly make it fun to get a LG ship.
Also also, IMO Sindria's way more interesting if it's a dictatorship with flaws but is actually an improvement over what was there before. That's far more interesting than the Lion of Sindria just being a bog-standard dictator who thinks he's a genius but isn't.
I think if you see the SD and Andrada this way, you probably haven't been reading too much of the lore/backstory/descriptions/etc, and aren't considering how someone with a tendency towards megalomania is going to change over, what, 50+ years of having absolute power. Which, fair enough, but it's been this way all along - now it's just reflected in their fleets.
(Edit: as an added point, I don't think the idea that a high-ranking military officer has to be intelligent or even competent stands up to much scrutiny. Also, the survival of a small polity would also be down to politics and leverage (in this case, fuel production); it would be exceedingly unlikely to be assured by military force.)
Ir auto lance seems interesting as well, I'm curious if it will completely take over the niche of low flux cost support in the medium energy slot from the graviton beam.
Hmm - it's really, really, really bad at anti-shield, so I'd suspect not, but I guess we'll see!
I'm curious if the beam missiles can fire over allies or not. That would really change their effectiveness IMO.
They all can, yeah.
I'm also really glad to hear squall is getting adjusted. Squall spam was already an issue if you stacked enough ships like apogee in a fleet.
*thumbs up*
I'll second the opinion that making lions guard ships kinda just downgrades from normal ships feels really bad. At least the executor gets some different mounts that could make it interesting, but if the other LG ships are just normal ships with a d-mod, that's really disappointing IMO.
I get where you're coming from with that! I've been half-thinking of increasing the OP by like half the Solar Shielding cost so they get half of it for "free", perhaps. But on the other hand, that'd be going against the narrative point that this is making - cool-looking ships that aren't actually as good, and all that entails as far as "why" etc. Basically, the primary role of the LG skins is narrative, not mechanical, if that makes sense. (Their weapons, on the other hand, were easier to make do both of those.)