Print

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

[Amoebka]

Since the Wolf is the topic right now:

If you were a dev, what would you change about the Hegemony variant to make it more than a cosmetic recolor?

Give it the XIV hullmod and 3-5 more OP, probably. Different system/mounts don't make sense for a hegemony skin. And different from other ships, it would be a lot less of a strict upgrade on a Wolf. The speed penalty is a lot more crippling, while the armor bonus is irrelevant.

[Thaago]

That would work - as long as it doesn't get a ballistic mount than the usual XIV adjustments wouldn't be revolutionary. The extra flux would be a good upgrade, but I agree with Amoebka that the speed penalty would be more important than on other XIV ships.

Or if going less a XIV route and more the usual H route as applied to for example the Kite: build in a hullmod that works with the Hegemony style of things. Reinforced Hull for example would be a decent one: its very useful on Wolves just to get their hull a _little_ stronger and guarantee recovery, but the low base hull value means that the total power boost is not too high. Reinforced Hull seems to me to be Heg themed from a flavor perspective, but that could just be me.

[Megas]

I like to see pirate Wolf get a ballistic for its sole turret, maybe change its system to plasma burn too.

Hegemony Wolf can have Armored Turret Mounts for free like the Hound.

I just want to see the good old standard blue Wolf get better.

They struggle vs shields, but that's an easy problem to fix as the player because you can pair them up with something carrying kinetics - a Kite with a single autocannon or a railgun for the H variant goes really well.

Wolf is not the only ship the gets better when paired up with something else.

[Amoebka]

I don't like giving Wolf access to ballistics, because it both dilutes the ship identity and futher masks the underlying issue of energy weapons being complete garbage on their own.

[Megas]

I don't like giving Wolf access to ballistics, because it both dilutes the ship identity and futher masks the underlying issue of energy weapons being complete garbage on their own.

For normal Wolf, yes.  But pirate Wolf?  Pirate Shrike already has it, and pirate Wolf is a downgrade while other pirate ships that are not phasers are sidegrades.  Pirates have evolved and moved on from being strictly inferior to standard to weird, quirky sidegrades (or simply a red paint job).  At this point, pirate Wolf should have some advantage to use beyond standard Wolf aside from costing one less DP.

[Thaago]

I don't like giving Wolf access to ballistics, because it both dilutes the ship identity and futher masks the underlying issue of energy weapons being complete garbage on their own.

They aren't garbage, especially for ships with mobility systems that can close the range. Its mainly an issue with the Wolf and its poor flux. If a Wolf could run an IR Pulse + a Pulse laser, that would be ~450 DPS which is a fine amount of shield DPS for a frigate. The "standard" Pulse Laser + Ion Cannon is 350, which while slightly on the low side is also not bad for a frigate. A mixed armament lasher with 1 railgun, 1 LAG (or 2 light mortars) has ~410 anti-shield DPS before its system for comparison. Regular Shrikes with something like Pulse laser + IR Pulse + AM Blaster (or just 2 IR Pulses if using missiles for the armor breaking) are decently armed for a light destroyer (without counting the excellent medium missiles) with ~600 anti shield DPS, and they could support more than that if they are willing to give up forward PD as their "default" dissipation before skills or hullmods is 550. A mortar + railgun hammerhead is doing ~860 antishield DPS without its system: a bunch more, but its a slower full gunship destroyer (with worse missiles) that costs more OP and has a lower burn, so it better be.

For anti-armor/hull, energy is excellent. AM blasters in the small slots are short ranged and OP expensive, but best in class. Phase Lances are general purpose anti-armor/anti-hull with a 500 hit strength, while heavy blasters are incredible DPS and also 500 hit strength, just at a heavy flux cost. For lockdown, energy has ion cannon/pulser/beam; ballistic just doesn't have that role, though some weapons carry a bit of EMP as a secondary bonus.

The only ship that medium energies are really bad on is imo the Eagle, because its too slow really use the 600 range weapons effectively.

[Amoebka]

All energy weapons have appaling flux efficiency and range compared to ballistic counterparts. The only reason it's "fair" is high-tech warships having almost double (!) the flux stats of low-tech ships in the same class.

When you have a high-tech that doesn't have the doubled flux stats (i.e. Wolf), you can't do much with it. DPS numbers are only relevant when the ship has enough dissipation to fire continuosly, which isn't the case for most high-tech loadouts.

[Harmful Mechanic]

Seems like the obvious solution here is to throw 50-100 extra dissipation on the base Wolf and see what happens with a couple of these fits in the simulator.

[Doctorhealsgood]

I didn't even know there was a hegemony wolf. Never saw one.

[Candesce]

If you were a dev, what would you change about the Hegemony variant to make it more than a cosmetic recolor?

Hmm.

I don't think giving the Wolf a ballistic or hybrid mount is a good idea, and while making the missile mounts composites without actually giving it any more flux sounds hilariously stupid, it's probably not a good idea, either.

The Hegemony militarized civvie ships all get a free Militarized Systems, which is neat, but that's a hull mod with mixed benefits and penalties, and assigned to ships that are mostly for logistics use. Unless we're going to do something real dumb like building in Shield Shunt, there's not a lot of comparable mods that seem appropriate for a Heg Wolf.

... Probably I'd just stick "Efficiency Overhaul" on them and call it a day; it makes them strictly superior to other Wolves, but not in a high-impact way, and it's the kind of upgrade the Hegemony is both fond of and doesn't imply they've got better ability with technology when compared to their rivals still using baseline Wolves. Maybe cut a point off their OP, so the mod is discounted rather than free.

[Megas]

I would not use Hegemony Wolf if it lost OP for built-in Efficiency Overhaul.  Hound has built-in Armored Weapon Mounts and +4 OP.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Since the Wolf is the topic right now:

If you were a dev, what would you change about the Hegemony variant to make it more than a cosmetic recolor?

Give it the XIV hullmod and 3-5 more OP, probably. Different system/mounts don't make sense for a hegemony skin. And different from other ships, it would be a lot less of a strict upgrade on a Wolf. The speed penalty is a lot more crippling, while the armor bonus is irrelevant.

but hegemony ships are not necessarily XIV ships