Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Megas]

I disagree as far as it concerns having to change up your fleet just to fight them if you found something that works and have been using so far up to the particular point in the playthrough. You have already invested 10-ish hours just to get to that point, to turn around and tell the player they need to dump the fleet they have been playing with so far and pick up a specialized fleet with specialized officers and with a new set of ships with s-mods just to fight remnant Ordo's is like a slap to the face really. Thats not to say Remnant's shouldn't be hard, but they are hard for the wrong reasons.

Yes, you could spend the time and credits to produce a specialized fleet just for fighting remnant. Yes you could probably wheel out the Xenorphica just to burst down a station with a fleet of tanky cruisers as backup, but it feels like it goes against what starsector teaches you for the most part when you start out learning the game and how it already heavily encourages streamlining your fleet in a particular direction based on what skills you selected, and respecing just for a new fleet at the end of the game is a very demanding prospect considering it also means s-modding a bunch of ships you are only using for one particular purpose, having to rebuild or even replace your officers with new ones that support the new fleet and so on. Its alot of hoops to jump through just to fight an enemy thats already stacked well against you.

When I picked ships for double Ordos, I had to fire seven out of eight officers and spent a day leveling up them (not all to max).  That was the worst part of the experience.  After I rebuilt my fleet, I went to double Ordos, and I could beat them, but it was not easy, and the experience was unfun because I could not use all the ships I wanted (some were merely balanced and too weak) and I felt like I had to play a certain way to win.  And if I wanted to change my fleet, I probably would need to fire officers again.  My skills were Combat/Tech/Industry 5 (no Leadership at all), with Automated Ships and Hull Restoration.  I felt like I was at a disadvantage compared to someone who took less QoL skills and more combat/fleet booster skills.

Later, I get Omega weapons for Ziggurat, lowered map size to 200 (to prevent multiple Radiants from overwhelming lone Ziggurat) and could solo double or triple Ordos.  The experience was more enjoyable because I did not need to fret over fleet and officer composition.

[Salter]

I normally focus fleet skills and a few combat ones just to even the playing field and its still an unfair fight. It doesn't get any easier having them, beyond having a few active modifiers floating about.

I did go back and set the DP back to 200 however vs remnants. In hindsight, that was smart and battles are alot more manageable now to split time between commanding and fighting.

[Vanshilar]

I disagree as far as it concerns having to change up your fleet just to fight them if you found something that works and have been using so far up to the particular point in the playthrough.

Not sure how that's a legitimate criticism. If an opponent is harder, then pretty much by definition it means that a fleet which could defeat all opponents up to that point may or may not be able to defeat it. So you may have to improve your fleet to defeat it. That's what being harder means. Most games nowadays are designed specifically for the player character (in Starsector, the fleet and officers more generally) to gradually improve through in-game tasks such as fighting -- you are not meant to fight the endgame boss with your starting rusty dagger.

I don't know if you're trying to say that you think a fleet that can just handle mundane faction fleets should be able to waltz into red warning beacon systems and smash through full Ordos fleets. This does not make sense, since, as mentioned previously, Ordos are endgame, faction fleets are not.

You have already invested 10-ish hours just to get to that point, to turn around and tell the player they need to dump the fleet they have been playing with so far and pick up a specialized fleet with specialized officers and with a new set of ships with s-mods just to fight remnant Ordo's is like a slap to the face really. Thats not to say Remnant's shouldn't be hard, but they are hard for the wrong reasons.

Again, I don't see this as a legitimate criticism. Your fleet is not permanent; you should be improving on your fleet (i.e. getting new ships and retiring old ones) over time. This is no different than getting new weapons and armor and retiring old ones in an RPG. And yes, in any RPG, you have to spend time doing so, you don't start off with an endgame-capable party, but you have to work toward it by playing the game.

For this game, if you understand how Ordos fleets work and principles for designing your fleet to defeat them, then you don't really have to dump your fleet much if at all; your fleet will just be gradually accumulating in power, able to handle tougher and tougher fights, until it's able to beat Ordos fleets, if you've planned around it from the start. If you never encountered Ordos fleets previously and thus have trouble defeating them with your current fleet, resulting in you having to dump your current fleet for a new one, well, that's just part of learning any game, figuring out how to defeat the endgame challenges, which may mean reworking your current character (i.e. fleet). In my current playthrough I don't think I've ever bothered to redo my skills, but I've planned around Ordos fleets from the start.

You only need a specialized fleet to the extent that it follows the general principles for beating Ordos fleets. This isn't about looking for a particular Sword of Dragonbane that you need to defeat the endgame Red Dragon. There are literally hundreds of different fleet configurations that you can use to defeat Ordos fleets. It just comes down to your understanding of how they work, and that's part of the fun of Starsector (and of any game, really, figuring out the endgame challenges).

Yes, you could spend the time and credits to produce a specialized fleet just for fighting remnant. Yes you could probably wheel out the Xenorphica just to burst down a station with a fleet of tanky cruisers as backup, but it feels like it goes against what starsector teaches you for the most part when you start out learning the game...

Fighting Remnants is optional. So you never have to build a fleet for it if you don't want to. But if you have a Remnant-capable fleet, it's not "just" for fighting Remnants; it'll be capable of handling nearly every other challenge in the game (with a couple of exceptions). That's a large part of what makes Remnant-capable fleets worthwhile, and once you learn how they work, it's not really that difficult to come up with different fleet compositions and strategies for handling single and double Ordos. (Triple Ordos takes more care, but is still plenty doable.)

Not sure what you mean by it going against what Starsector teaches you, Starsector does a pretty good job of exposing the player to the challenges that'll be faced for Ordos fleets, i.e. against fast hit-and run ships. This includes LP fleets, phase ships, Tri-Tachyon fleets, and so forth. The principles for beating them are largely similar.

I did go back and set the DP back to 200 however vs remnants. In hindsight, that was smart and battles are alot more manageable now to split time between commanding and fighting.

Yes, making the battle size smaller will make Remnant fights more manageable, and it's helpful for getting a handle on them and figuring out how they work. However, it's also a sign that your fleet could be improved, and a more capable fleet can smash through enemy ships faster with a larger battle size, so that you can go through fights more quickly thus saving you time. My current fleet consists of 155 DP's worth of ships (1 flagship Medusa, 5 Falcon XIV's, 22 LP Brawlers, with Support Doctrine), which implies a battle size of 260 to deploy it all (at 60% of battle size); however, if I set the battle size to 310 (so that the fleet is 50% of battle size instead), the fights finish around 10-15% faster because they don't have to sit there waiting for enemy ships to spawn in, but can more constantly be killing enemy ships. So smaller battle size isn't necessarily always the answer.

[Megas]

So you may have to improve your fleet to defeat it.

After a certain point, getting better ships or weapons will not be enough.  Player will probably need new officers (barring Support Doctrine strategies) or burn hard-earned resources to do it.  Story points are hard to earn without cheese or killing double Ordos.  With human fleets, player can just get more money and more or better ships and weapons.  With Ordos, player already has the best ships and weapons, so that leaves officers for specific ships and/or skills, plus burning story points for s-mods.

Not sure what you mean by it going against what Starsector teaches you, Starsector does a pretty good job of exposing the player to the challenges that'll be faced for Ordos fleets, i.e. against fast hit-and run ships. This includes LP fleets, phase ships, Tri-Tachyon fleets, and so forth. The principles for beating them are largely similar.

Not really.  In those fights against human fleets, enemies do not have a massive skill, DP, and ECM advantage if the player brings a similar fleet of his own.  Ordos, through core spam and strong Radiants, are stronger than human fleets.

Before Ordos, Electronic Warfare is a useful skill for the player (if he brings a conventional fleet).  Either the enemy does not have it and suffers -10% shot range, or they do and shot range is more-or-less equal.  By Ordos, Electronic Warfare is useless (they have about fifteen level 7 or 8 alpha cores plus more lesser cores).

Yes, making the battle size smaller will make Remnant fights more manageable, and it's helpful for getting a handle on them and figuring out how they work. However, it's also a sign that your fleet could be improved, and a more capable fleet can smash through enemy ships faster with a larger battle size, so that you can go through fights more quickly thus saving you time. My current fleet consists of 155 DP's worth of ships (1 flagship Medusa, 5 Falcon XIV's, 22 LP Brawlers, with Support Doctrine), which implies a battle size of 260 to deploy it all (at 60% of battle size); however, if I set the battle size to 310 (so that the fleet is 50% of battle size instead), the fights finish around 10-15% faster because they don't have to sit there waiting for enemy ships to spawn in, but can more constantly be killing enemy ships. So smaller battle size isn't necessarily always the answer.

If the goal of killing Ordos is to farm story points and/or cores, and the easiest or fastest way to do it is to lower battlemap size, then it makes sense to lower map size.  In my case, I used Omega Ziggurat because I was in no mood to spend days firing and training new officers and burning story points to respec skills (especially hidden costs like going from BotB to no BotB) multiple times to experiment.  More than one Radiant with possibly five lances is tricky to fight with solo Ziggurat, so I prevent that by lowering map size because Ordos with only 120 DP can only deploy two Radiants if nothing else is on the field.  (If the Ordos has a weaker ship with Sparks, I leave it alive to prevent double Radiant.)

One fight where lowering map size really hurts is Derelict bounties because Guardians are Radiant-tier enemies (tough bruisers that can easily run away) that costs only 40 DP, and three Guardians against your 80 DP worth of ships is tough.  It was easier to kill three Guardians plus a bunch of Rampart clunkers when I had more ships on the field at 400 map size.


P.S.  Part of what makes Ordos harder is the player needs to get by with a weaker fleet because he is only guaranteed 160 DP plus 20+ from points he may not be able to hold later (or 200 with BotB).  Against human fleets, player will probably have close to 200 because of equal forces.  Unless the player was previously cheesing fights with under DP fleets (like lone Ziggurat) for more xp, he may find himself fighting with fewer ships on the field than previously against human fleets.

[Amoebka]

(long post here)

The issue is that remnants don't just require "better ships or weapons", they require specific strategies. You can beat human mercenary bounties with just about any composition, as long as your loadouts, s-mods, and officers are well matched. For remnants, there are certain ships that are just too weak to use. The excessive advantage they have forces the player into a tiny subset of working strategies, requiring them to drop their favourite ships and playstyles and adapt the "meta" approach. The fact that most of these strategies boil down to spamming a monofleet of overpowered ships, all with the exact same "optimal" loadout doesn't help the fun either.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Might be foolish for me to ask but when most of the danger of Ordos Fleets is condensed on how many Radiants are they bringing to the fight then maybe that implies that their non-radiant ships need a bit of a tune-up?
The latest blogpost said that new Renmant ships are going to be added but nothing about improving the already existing ones. Considering that update in the future is going to make wide sweeping changes to all factions to make them more unique then might as well bring this up now.

[BigBrainEnergy]

You don't have to fight ordos, they're optional.

Oh, you want the loot? Then make a better fleet.

Pretty much any broad strategy is viable, whether you rely on frigates, capitals, s-mods, d-mods, officers, support doctrine, low tech, high tech, carriers, battleships, etc. Yes some ships are going to work better than others. Bringing 18 condors is going to be very challenging, but the fact is some strategies are objectively more effective than others because if that weren't the case there would be literally no point in even thinking about it. If you haven't noticed it until now it's because most of starsector goes easy on you, the ordos are the only recurring enemy that actually poses a challenge. They show you how you can improve your fleet by poking holes in your weakpoints and your reward for overcoming those challenges is a steady supply of story points and alpha cores.

It sounds like some of you haven't experimented enough. ECM useless against them? By itself, yes, but you could run a larger fleet with support doctrine or bring some frigates with elite gunnery implants or put ECM units on your carriers. You can absolutely get up around 30% to 40% ECM if you build for it, or you can just eat the 10% range penalty and focus on something else.

Although if there was one criticism I'd agree with it's the firing of officers to get new ones. The Industrial evolution mod lets you "store" your officers on planets with the academy structure and while the menu is a bit annoying to navigate it's nice to be able to hold on to old officers similar to how you can with old ships just in case you wanna dust 'em off for one more go. The officer hard cap at 10 is fine, but please let me put my extra officers in the fridge until I need them instead of forcing me to throw them out.

[Megas]

It sounds like some of you haven't experimented enough. ECM useless against them? By itself, yes, but you could run a larger fleet with support doctrine or bring some frigates with elite gunnery implants or put ECM units on your carriers. You can absolutely get up around 30% to 40% ECM if you build for it, or you can just eat the 10% range penalty and focus on something else.

That seems like significant investment into Leadership.

So it is not just pigeonholing ships, but skills too.  (Want QoL skills like Helmsmanship, Industrial Planning, or Containment Procedures? Bad player!)  Just about every video that kills Ordos, aside from those featuring Omega Ziggurat, have BotB (and officer skills) and thus Leadership 5.

Electronic Warfare should be useful regardless of fleet composition and skill selection.  It could do something like ECCM that halves the penalty so that it does something if player cannot min-max ECM because of ship or skill choices.  I have a similar complaint with Cybernetic Augmentation that literally does nothing unless player spends SP on officers.

Oh, you want the loot? Then make a better fleet.

Or quit and wait for a better release if it is not fun anymore.  I made a better fleet to defeat a double Ordos, but the game became unfun because I used what I needed to instead of what I want, and if I wanted to change the fleet, I would need to fire all of my officers and spend at least a day to hire and train new ones.  Not doing that!  So far, the easiest way to avoid that nonsense is abuse Omega Ziggurat and map size if I feel like grinding Ordos.


P.S.  Ordos loot also includes Remnant Ships, which means taking Automated Ships to enable looting them in the first place.  If I brought automated ships before fighting more Ordos, that will probably hurt my auto ships' max CR.  Might cause bonus +xp% drop too if I fight again before returning to base.  If I did not bring automated ships, then I have gimped my fleet (for the sake of loot) by not using them and getting other skills that can help instead.

[Amoebka]

nothing about improving the already existing ones.

Brilliants get plasma burn instead of flares. That alone is going to make fights 3 times harder. And I think I heard something about Fulgents getting extra weapon range via a built-in hullmod?

Oh, you want the loot? Then make a better fleet.

Please spare me the "get good" comments. Putting 12 Gryphons on autopilot requires zero skill, yet is one the best anti-remnant (anti-everything really) strategies. A monofleet of overpowered ships, all with the same loadouts, isn't a "better" fleet, it's boring.
I would argue that remnants should be beatable with ANY 240 dp combination of ships, as long as loadouts/officers/orders are employed well. Players shouldn't be forced to abandon their favourite ships (that they likely already s-modded and raised officers for) simply because they are not good enough against the only lategame enemy that matters.

[Megas]

Brilliants get plasma burn instead of flares. That alone is going to make fights 3 times harder. And I think I heard something about Fulgents getting extra weapon range via a built-in hullmod?

Enemy Brilliant getting Plasma Burn seems like... "Thank you for rushing deep into my shot range, now you cannot run away!"  Also, getting flares means less PD for Brilliant, which kind of hurts for (allied) Brilliants who have mediocre PD options otherwise.  Maybe plasma burn will help allied Brilliant with short-range loadouts.  I generally want the Brilliant in my fleet to hang back at medium-to-long range and burn things with autocannons plus HIL/Tachyon Lance.

Apex is the one getting Energy Bolt Coherer.  I suggested Fulgent get it too because it is relatively slow and stuck mostly with energy weapons.

EDIT:  Although I guess Brilliant with Plasma Burn might make an HMG loadout more useful.  HMGs with ePD and Ballistic Mastery (and Gunnery Implants, of course) are fun.

[Thaago]

Overpowered mono fleets will work because they are overpowered, but they aren't required for taking on single Ordos, or even doubles. Single Ordos are very hard, for sure, but they don't need any "cheap" strategies, just a strong fleet that's built to deal with them. You don't need tesseract weapons or superfrigates (or brawler LPs) or or Radiants or Falcon P's etc etc. Just ships that work together, have good loadouts optimized for fighting ships with strong shields and lots of missiles, good officers, and good skills. Player piloting helps because players with practice are better than the AI and so multiply the value of a ship.

I think someone did an average core count recently and Ordos pay about a million credits each before counting any other loot?

[Megas]

I think someone did an average core count recently and Ordos pay about a million credits each before counting any other loot?

That assumes turning in cores for cash?  I do not need more cash by the time I can kill Ordos.  I want cores to pilot my automated ships and to expand my sector-wide empire.  I also want the story points to fuel 2^n colony upgrades.

[BigBrainEnergy]

That seems like significant investment into Leadership.

Not necessarily, you don't need leadership to get elite gunnery implants you just need to decide it's worth more than whatever other elite options you have.

It sounds like you really just hate leadership. In the current format of the skill system leadership is the best at boosting your overall fleet power because it doesn't do anything else. If you ignore it, your fleet is less combat effective.

So it is not just pigeonholing ships, but skills too.  (Want QoL skills like Helmsmanship, Industrial Planning, or Containment Procedures? Bad player!)  Just about every video that kills Ordos, aside from those featuring Omega Ziggurat, have BotB (and officer skills) and thus Leadership 5.

I really can't understand where you're coming from here. If you want to take more skills that boost your flagship, you can do that. If you want to take skills that boost your economic efficiency, you can do that. If you want both AND you want to take leadership you can do that. But you can't do all three and ALSO go into technology. You have to make a choice somewhere. Hell, once you have lategame cash you don't need industry at all anyways.

If you don't like that then this isn't an issue with Ordos being too strong, it's an issue with the skill system being too restrictive.

[Electronic Warafare] could do something like ECCM that halves the penalty so that it does something if player cannot min-max ECM because of ship or skill choices.

That's a good suggestion. It fits the concept of the skill and I think it's true that Electronic Warfare is a bit underpowered at the moment even if it's not useless.

Electronic Warfare should be useful regardless of fleet composition and skill selection.

No.

Or quit and wait for a better release if it is not fun anymore. 

You could try raising the level cap, it's very easy to do and sounds like it would solve a lot of your complaints. Unless you want to play strictly vanilla. But if you really think the baseline game is fun but gets ruined by the Ordo difficulty spike then I don't see what's stopping you.

... if I wanted to change the fleet, I would need to fire all of my officers and spend at least a day to hire and train new ones.

Yes, I agree this sucks. Currently the only solution to this is the industrial evolution mod but it would be nice to see something similar in vanilla.

P.S.  Ordos loot also includes Remnant Ships, which means taking Automated Ships to enable looting them in the first place.  If I brought automated ships before fighting more Ordos, that will probably hurt my auto ships' max CR.  Might cause bonus +xp% drop too if I fight again before returning to base.  If I did not bring automated ships, then I have gimped my fleet (for the sake of loot) by not using them and getting other skills that can help instead.

This is just... wrong? If you don't have the automated ships skill you still get the salvage from them. You only miss out on the opportunity to restore them.

But ok, let's say you want to collect every remnant ship you can. Mothball them. If you aren't using them to fight, just mothball them. Bonus XP is influenced by the CR of your ships, so the lower it is the more bonus XP you get, and mothballed ships don't contribute to fleet strength at all. Mothballed ships also don't count towards skill caps, so it won't harm your other automated ships.

TL;DR: deez nuts

[Doctorhealsgood]

That assumes turning in cores for cash?  I do not need more cash by the time I can kill Ordos.  I want cores to pilot my automated ships and to expand my sector-wide empire.  I also want the story points to fuel 2^n colony upgrades.

2^N Story point for things is absolute agony. I really wish it capped at some point.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Brilliants get plasma burn instead of flares. That alone is going to make fights 3 times harder.

They also lose their fighter bay. Without sparks or flares it balances out because they're much more vulnerable to... missiles.

Ok, this might actually be an issue.

Please spare me the "get good" comments.

Get good

Putting 12 Gryphons on autopilot requires zero skill, yet is one the best anti-remnant (anti-everything really) strategies. A monofleet of overpowered ships, all with the same loadouts, isn't a "better" fleet, it's boring.

Nowhere in all of the multiverse and every possible reality did I tell you to do that. Yeah, some ships are overpowered and thus make good mono-fleets. It's not fun, but it's not even remotely necessary.

I would argue that remnants should be beatable with ANY 240 dp combination of ships, as long as loadouts/officers/orders are employed well. Players shouldn't be forced to abandon their favourite ships (that they likely already s-modded and raised officers for) simply because they are not good enough against the only lategame enemy that matters.

So, first caveat, any ships EXCLUDING civilian ships. You absolutely should not be able to win with 24 of the Atlas.

Second caveat, you should have good builds on your ships. Any combination of combat ships is fine, but any combination of weapons is not.

Third caveat... no I think that's it.

With those two caveats I agree, but to be honest it's already true. Some ships are gonna do it faster and with fewer losses but it can be done. I've done it with mono-Prometheus for crying out loud, and not even the Mark II. The baseline Prometheus can do it. I'm sure you could do it with 24 condors or a bunch of lashers, mules, and whatever other "bad" ships you want. Just make sure to invest in leadership and bring hull restoration because you're gonna suffer some casualties.