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[BigBrainEnergy]

Is Thumper good now? I dont think so.
Does anyone have a good build that uses Thumper?

No, the Thumper isn't good, but what do you expect from a 7 OP medium ballistic?

Look at this nice Naked armor build with with two Thumpers.
GeneralView
Pilot
Weapons
TestBattleStart
TestBattleResultSimulator
Eradicator has 17 DP so Make simulation battle vs : 2 Hammerheads, 1 Mule, 1 Carrier = 37DP 
This Build eats them all at once for breakfast. All AI control only.

It uses ammo clip, so Thumpers get loaded to 90 ammo, so when ship uses System Jets, to come close, it flushes out whole load to make kill.

Ship is used as Frigate&Destroyer fast killer, it excels in 1vs 1 fights or similar small fights.
Due to Elite Helmsman and No Shield and System Jets it is Super speedy. Build is especially good to quickly reach and holds a beacon against enemy small wings. Eventually sneak behind enemy line  (main force), then backstab.
Although keep it away from capital ship clashes and station battles, or it melts.

If you thing any other weapon is better, then lets make it a contest. Same ship Eradicator, same opponents.
So, do you agree Thumper is GOOD ?

BTW: how do you insert picture to fit the screen ? This forum seems like insert original size, so it overlaps, and make it ugly.

What mod is showing the results of the battle at the end there?

[gG_pilot]

What mod is showing the results of the battle at the end there?

When talk about weapon changes, it's wise to have some data.
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11551.0
Otherwise you might look like venting a hot gas.
Looking forward your Thumper build

[Drazan]

Im sorry gG_pilot I missed your reply entirely. It is good to see someone bringing actual test results. Nice build and im sure it performs well as firgate/light destroyer hunter.
However, my problem is that it really lacks armour breaking capability, especially once the missiles run out. It is fine aganist the opponents you choose beacuse they all have low armour. Also you had to frogo shields to make the ai actually use the Thumpers for their full poteintial, but then again in longer battles it is a huge drawback.
Im up to the challenge when I have an hour or so  for this, I might want to use devmode or console command tho, beacuse I dont have the right officer for this. I dont even know if i have a saved game at all.

[Drazan]

No, the Thumper isn't good, but what do you expect from a 7 OP medium ballistic?

Another workhorse weapon like Railgun or Heavy Mortar.

Exactly. I want a weapon at lest at the performace of Railgun, maybe better beacuse it is a medium after all. Instead i get a situationally usefull weapon, that is nearly always overshadowed by other options.

[DaShiv]

Eradicator has 17 DP so Make simulation battle vs : 2 Hammerheads, 1 Mule, 1 Carrier = 37DP 
This Build eats them all at once for breakfast. All AI control only.

[...]

If you thing any other weapon is better, then lets make it a contest. Same ship Eradicator, same opponents.
So, do you agree Thumper is GOOD ?

Challenge NOT accepted, because it's completely trivial to use an officered ship to trample hapless SIM ships at only 2:1 odds - any officered loadout that can't handle tougher odds than this in the simulator would be seriously deficient, and you didn't even include any ships of the same size class. Therefore, let's up the ante by adding 2 cruisers into the mix (an Eagle and a Venture) to double the odds to 73 DP against for a spicier and more reasonable challenge.

Same parameters: AI piloting, 6 officer skills, 2 elite skills, 2 s-mods, and no Omega weapons. The loadout is a simple HVD Breach combo:



The video is a quick and dirty build that's clearly not endgame optimized (I mean lol CH Warthogs, amirite?), but it shows how easy it is to bully multiple weak SIM targets. Some additional notes:

• Your build is a complete mess in terms of weapon selection, weapon groups, officer skills, etc. I'd suggest reading the stickied build guide on this forum as a basic starting point.
• Thumper and Shield Shunt are both "punch down" tools that are designed to bully inferior targets, so they should definitely feel strong against size-disadvantaged SIM ships. However, they're not as well suited for taking on superior enemies, such as officered ships, larger ships, and higher DP disadvantages. I ran your build against the same 73 DP SIM fleet from my video 5 times and it got completely demolished, surviving an average of 68 seconds and scoring only 1 kill across all 5 attempts.
• Simulator testing proves very little about the effectiveness of loadouts in actual battle - combat videos against Ordos fleets is the standard benchmark. There's a particular danger in over-optimizing for simulator performance (especially solo simulator performance) that don't translate into live fleet vs fleet combat.
• The (P) version of the Eradicator is generally an inferior choice to the standard Eradicator for AI piloting, so your ship selection is flawed from the very start. The Eradicator (P) is better suited as a player ship since players can make better use of mobility systems - in particular, forward-only systems like Burn Drive work much better under player use than AI use.

Welcome to the forums - there's lots to learn about Starsector!

[gG_pilot]

Therefore, let's up the ante by adding 2 cruisers into the mix (an Eagle and a Venture) to double the odds to 73 DP against for a spicier and more reasonable challenge.

The video is a quick and dirty build that's clearly not endgame optimized (I mean lol CH Warthogs, amirite?), but it shows how easy it is to bully multiple weak SIM targets. Some additional notes:

• Your build is a complete mess in terms of weapon selection, weapon groups, officer skills, etc. I'd suggest reading the stickied build guide on this forum as a basic starting point.
• Thumper and Shield Shunt are both "punch down" tools that are designed to bully inferior targets, so they should definitely feel strong against size-disadvantaged SIM ships. However, they're not as well suited for taking on superior enemies, such as officered ships, larger ships, and higher DP disadvantages. I ran your build against the same 73 DP SIM fleet from my video 5 times and it got completely demolished, surviving an average of 68 seconds and scoring only 1 kill across all 5 attempts.
• Simulator testing proves very little about the effectiveness of loadouts in actual battle
• The (P) version of the Eradicator is generally an inferior choice to the standard Eradicator for AI piloting,

I tested your 73 DP oponents, once, it took down one Hammerhead and a Mule, then diead. So yes, Thumpers cant chew thru Cruisers. I didnt say that, point of this ship is speed (up to 238, jets are  advantage here althou you dont belive it ) to catch and eliminate Frigates and Destroyers. For this  purpose,  Mobile Beacon Guardian is Thumper perfect. It kills small to medium ships quickly.
Your build can take down stronger ships, yes. But cant catch fast.

Why do you think Officer skills are bad ?

[gG_pilot]

delete me

[Fenrir]

It looks to me you  just bubling withou any proof. Scroll 2 posts up, and answer the challenge. Can you make better Eradicator build without Thumper?

You are simply bullying small ships with a cruiser, where the weapon doesn't really matter that much as long as it's decent. 2 heavy mortars, 1 heavy autocannon and 2 light autocannons does the same job and also pose a better stand against other cruisers, yet requires only gunnery implants. Nonetheless Thumper is a decent option against small ships but it's not "THE BEST" option for general.

[Grievous69]

This is like when people try to say Aurora is not bad and then tell me "look look! it can deal with ships half it size and cost!". But please let's remember folks, running simulator fights to prove a point is useless. Simulator exists purely to test if a certain build works well enough so you can go "ok this seems fine, I'm satisfied and we'll see how it goes in real fights". Running tests for a single weapon to judge its performance is much more intricate, and was actually already done for Thumper, just before the buff. I'll try to find it if I can.

EDIT: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18818.msg293987#msg293987
This is how you do a test.

[Igncom1]

The simulator exists so the player can test a build before forcing it to self destruct from trying to fire too many anti-matter blasters all at once. 

[Alex]

This is like when people try to say Aurora is not bad and then tell me "look look! it can deal with ships half it size and cost!". But please let's remember folks, running simulator fights to prove a point is useless.

*cries in doing a lot of playtesting vs a multi-Radiant Ordo and finding an Aurora flagship to be one of the easiest ships to win the fight with*

(Erm, a bit off-topic, sorry!)

[Grievous69]

Get a load of this guy, acting like he knows everything about the game, like he's the dev or something smh.

(Flagship Aurora is actually ok, I was aiming at scenarios where people test AI loadouts and then face it against a bunch of destroyers)

But yeah Thumper is pretty good at quickly removing small nimble ships and fighters. The inability to do serious damage to large targets doesn't mean its bad. And for those that prefer generalist weapons that are useful in any situation, ask yourself what performs better in this game, specialised weapons or generalists? There are some exceptions that can be spammed tho.

[Alex]

(Fair enough, the Aurora under AI control is... harder to get good value out of. To be honest, I haven't spent too much time with it as a support ship under AI control; perhaps I should at some point! But it's just such prime flagship material, and making it better would make it even better as that.)

To bring things more on-topic, I've had pretty good results using a bunch of Thumpers on an XIV Legion - wasn't super-endgame, but it was definitely facing Ordos etc, and they more than pulled their weight. The burst is just ferocious, and I think managing the flow of the fight so that the ammo recharges during "downtime" and not during an actual engagement is key to making it work. (Hence, a ship with some kind of mobility system being particularly handy here...)

[Grievous69]

Huh, weirdly enough I never tried Thumpers on XIV Legions. How did you build it if you don't mind answering? I'd probably go with Squall + Hurricane and some good pressure fighters.

[Bummelei]

*cries in doing a lot of playtesting vs a multi-Radiant Ordo and finding an Aurora flagship to be one of the easiest ships to win the fight with*

(Erm, a bit off-topic, sorry!)

Could you please share your build? I'm very curious.