Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 [2]

Author Topic: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract  (Read 2902 times)

SpoonWasAlreadyTaken

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2022, 04:18:34 AM »

But you have to admit that a Tesseract or a very nerfed version of it would be a cool final reward to the player when you manage to kill the final final thing or its equivalent or something of the sort. If you are familiar with the game Terraria, in it you can a set of weapons when you kill the final boss, those weapons are so powerful you can kill the final boss with your eyes closed with them, nobody really uses them in a vanilla game but they are cool as all heck to have as that last hurray of the game.

Idk, I prefer the open and undefined "ending" Starsector has to the "Congratulations! You defeated the final boss! Here have a reward that completely trivializes the game because we have no more challenge to offer you!" approach. This way you just quit when you start getting bored and don't feel pressured to "complete" a sandbox game.

Interesting, I had heard that the AM blaster is good on the Scarab. I have been trying to get the AM blaster bp for about 8 hours now with no luck.
Logged

intrinsic_parity

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3071
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #16 on: June 29, 2022, 09:26:25 AM »

Without an officer and skills, I like to run scarab with Ir pulse + ion canon + amb to keep flux down. With flux boosting skills, I will run more flux heavy loadouts like Grevious suggested. I think front shield conversion which gives 360 coverage + a 50% reduction in upkeep is really good too. That lets you comfortably run without PD IMO, although I've been reconsidering that decisions, since I think the AI can sometimes be unnecessarily passive without PD when it could just tank some missiles on shields. The amb is really the thing that lets you do damage to hull/armor so it's pretty key.

To see the real power of scarabs (and frigates in general), you want the skill wolfpack tactics along with an officer. I think the Scarab might benefit disproportionately from that too. I highly recommend trying out that play style with a group of 4-5 officered scarabs. It's pretty fun and they definitely perform better in groups where they can rotate in/out of combat easily.

Scarab also becomes kinda crazy strong with omega weapons, particularly mini pulsers and anti matter srm launchers.
Logged

SpoonWasAlreadyTaken

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #17 on: June 30, 2022, 02:26:19 AM »

Without an officer and skills, I like to run scarab with Ir pulse + ion canon + amb to keep flux down. With flux boosting skills, I will run more flux heavy loadouts like Grevious suggested. I think front shield conversion which gives 360 coverage + a 50% reduction in upkeep is really good too. That lets you comfortably run without PD IMO, although I've been reconsidering that decisions, since I think the AI can sometimes be unnecessarily passive without PD when it could just tank some missiles on shields. The amb is really the thing that lets you do damage to hull/armor so it's pretty key.

To see the real power of scarabs (and frigates in general), you want the skill wolfpack tactics along with an officer. I think the Scarab might benefit disproportionately from that too. I highly recommend trying out that play style with a group of 4-5 officered scarabs. It's pretty fun and they definitely perform better in groups where they can rotate in/out of combat easily.

Scarab also becomes kinda crazy strong with omega weapons, particularly mini pulsers and anti matter srm launchers.

I decided to raid Tri Tach for AM blaster blueprint and to try out the scarabs with that. Actually very good especially with the green tree last skill that makes them have 3 skills and less cost without an officer and have them with hardened subsystems, safety overrides, and front shield conversion. I had an army of about 25 go in to the Coronal Hypershunt Guardian battle and only 1 managed to die. Sadly from both fights and alpha site I managed to get all the Omega weapons i dont have any real use for in my fleet. Like the Rift Missile Launcher, rift beam, and Disruptor repeater (I think thats its name) and a copy or two of eachj of those Ohwell.
Logged

Brainwright

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 593
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #18 on: July 01, 2022, 11:13:37 PM »

Sadly from both fights and alpha site I managed to get all the Omega weapons i dont have any real use for in my fleet. Like the Rift Missile Launcher, rift beam, and Disruptor repeater (I think thats its name) and a copy or two of eachj of those Ohwell.

I find the rift lance to be a good replacement for antimatter blasters.  It works better against shield flickering, and only really is overshadowed by the AMB against the most armored ships in the game.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #19 on: July 02, 2022, 05:01:32 AM »

Sadly from both fights and alpha site I managed to get all the Omega weapons i dont have any real use for in my fleet. Like the Rift Missile Launcher, rift beam, and Disruptor repeater (I think thats its name) and a copy or two of eachj of those Ohwell.
I find the rift lance to be a good replacement for antimatter blasters.  It works better against shield flickering, and only really is overshadowed by the AMB against the most armored ships in the game.
There is a difference between Rift Lance and Rift Beam.  Rift lance is the faster phase lance in a small mount.  That is strong, although not as an AMB substitute.  Rift beam is the continuous beam in a medium mount.  Rift beam is a better heavy burst laser, and it is underwhelming unless the ship really needs something with more PD power than heavy burst laser.  The explosions it procs can gobble up fighters.

Rift Missile Launcher I am guessing is the large missile.  Not terribly practical, and not as useful as smaller Omega missiles.  With only one at a time, it is practically a slow homing Sabot because you almost never catch the AI without its shields up, so that one missile is basically 6000 damage to shields.  With more than one missile (from racks or Missile Spec.), player might get the chance to actually land a hit on armor or hull.

Disruptor repeater... not sure if you refer to Reality Disruptor (which is not a repeater) or Volatile Particle Driver (which is a repeater).  Reality Disruptor seems more useful for the enemy to use against the player than the other way around.  It is slow and non-homing, does little more than EMP whatever is in its path.  Volatile Particle Driver is decent on high-tech ships.  Not too useful for ballistic users because it does not count as ballistic for Heavy Ballistics Integration (you pay full 30 OP) or Ballistic Mastery (no range and damage bonuses).
Logged

BigBrainEnergy

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 680
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #20 on: July 02, 2022, 06:13:26 AM »

Volatile particle driver is pretty cool when paired with HEF because it counts as an energy weapon even though it does kinteic damage.

As for rift torpedoes they're really good if you pair them with a squall on the apogee. Overload duration is based on how far over the flux capacity the one shot puts you, so rift torpedo overloads are the longest in the game. Plus it's really hard to overload ships like the onslaught because the AI is smart enough to let some torpedoes through to avoid it. On a ship that heavy it's better to take an atropos to the face if it keeps your pd going. The rift torpedo though? It pretty consistently blocks that one. The long window it provides makes it easy for your other ships to follow up with some good old-fashioned anti armor.
Logged
TL;DR deez nuts

Brainwright

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 593
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #21 on: July 03, 2022, 01:28:39 AM »

There is a difference between Rift Lance and Rift Beam.  Rift lance is the faster phase lance in a small mount.  That is strong, although not as an AMB substitute.  Rift beam is the continuous beam in a medium mount.  Rift beam is a better heavy burst laser, and it is underwhelming unless the ship really needs something with more PD power than heavy burst laser.  The explosions it procs can gobble up fighters.

Rift Missile Launcher I am guessing is the large missile.  Not terribly practical, and not as useful as smaller Omega missiles.  With only one at a time, it is practically a slow homing Sabot because you almost never catch the AI without its shields up, so that one missile is basically 6000 damage to shields.  With more than one missile (from racks or Missile Spec.), player might get the chance to actually land a hit on armor or hull.

Disruptor repeater... not sure if you refer to Reality Disruptor (which is not a repeater) or Volatile Particle Driver (which is a repeater).  Reality Disruptor seems more useful for the enemy to use against the player than the other way around.  It is slow and non-homing, does little more than EMP whatever is in its path.  Volatile Particle Driver is decent on high-tech ships.  Not too useful for ballistic users because it does not count as ballistic for Heavy Ballistics Integration (you pay full 30 OP) or Ballistic Mastery (no range and damage bonuses).

Okay.   You can believe all that if you want.

And the important point about the Reality Disrupter is that it deals EMP damage to all sides of the target ships, and no ship can really tolerate having shields up at all times.

Few missiles work well without ECCM, so you're better off trying them with that before calling them trash.  That said, a missile that can reliably put an opposing ship into overload is actually quite good.

When I'm running sims, the best result I can get is when the opposing ships just refuse to approach the ship I've built, and the rift torpedoes are regularly on those ships.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #22 on: July 03, 2022, 09:28:03 AM »

ECCM does not change that rift torpedoes are still slow (even if they are a bit faster from ECCM) and that standard maximum ammo is one.  ECCM makes the torpedoes easier to use against agile frigates, but otherwise does not make the rift torpedoes much more effective than they already are.  Simply hitting the target, shields or otherwise, with rift torpedoes is not the hard part.  6000 damage to an enemy ship's shields with capacity nearly maxed in the first place is overkill, and that results a lot of wasted damage (given the slow recharge for another shot), despite a glorious overload.  If player wants to land a hit on the ship's armor/hull, he needs to shoot two at a time, overload the target another way before the torpedo hits, or somehow aim at an undefended area (like Onslaught's rear.)  I suppose with an effective 300 DPS, it could act like a long-range pulse laser/autopulse substitute over time if nothing else.


Tried Reality Disruptor again.

It stinks as the only main gun.  If the attacker's main gun was this, he will take longer to kill the target.  Attacker needs more firepower from elsewhere or rely on other ships to kill the target.  Less of a problem for a capital that may have enough other guns.

It has a slow rate of fire.  Makes missing (or enemy lucky enough to be minimally affected) painful.

The sparks do not have much range from the cloud.  It is rare to hit more than one ship at a time.  Whatever ship the cloud is aimed at will likely be the only ship affected.

It targets and mows down missiles along the way.  Does not handle huge swarms like Annihilator spam well (too many missiles) but it is good at clearing fewer but tougher missiles like Squalls.  This feature is not clearly documented anywhere.  Reality Disruptor kind of functions like Devastator in this way.  Fighters are merely stunned.  Omen in projectile form is a rather apt description.

It seems to work better in a sustained battle against a large ship with missiles, who cannot easily dodge the cloud, but tough enough to last more than a few seconds.  Enough clouds to do something and clear out some of their missiles.
Logged

BigBrainEnergy

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 680
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #23 on: July 03, 2022, 09:38:29 AM »

You know the maximum ammo on rift torpedoes will increase with the missile skill right? 20 seconds is a long recharge time but it's pretty common for the AI to have one loaded up and continue holding fire. That's why it's a huge waste not to have either missile racks or the missile skill (or both), especially if the ship has other missile weapons.
Logged
TL;DR deez nuts

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Curious on why it isn't possible (Vanilla) to get the Tesseract
« Reply #24 on: July 03, 2022, 10:14:44 AM »

You know the maximum ammo on rift torpedoes will increase with the missile skill right? 20 seconds is a long recharge time but it's pretty common for the AI to have one loaded up and continue holding fire. That's why it's a huge waste not to have either missile racks or the missile skill (or both), especially if the ship has other missile weapons.
Requiring Missile Racks hurts if Rift Torpedo is the only missile on the ship, so I do not want to use it as say... an energy weapon substitute, especially on a ship with few or no other missiles.  That makes Rift Torpedo effectively cost much more than 30 OP in that case.  If I do use Rift Torpedo, of course I would add Missile Racks (usually as an s-mod).

As for Missile Specialization, that is not guaranteed.  Five skills on human officers are not enough to get everything I want for all-rounder use.  With only five skills, I need to specialize the officer for the ship.

For Combat tree, I always get Helmsmanship and Impact Mitigation for QoL purposes (ships are too sluggish for me without them).  I almost always get Combat Endurance as well for QoL purposes too.  That leaves two left if I limit myself to five Combat skills, and what I need varies by flagship.  Most of the rest of combat skills are nice.  Field Modulation for normal phase ships, Point Defense to enable ePD+IPDAI shenanigans for a wide variety of ships, Ballistics Mastery for anything (even some high-tech) with ballistics, Target Analysis for more damage, Systems Expertise for few choice ships (Gryphon, Doom, several ships with mobility ships, especially Radiant), Missile Specialization for missiles.  I cannot take everything, so I take two of what I want or need most.  Missile Specialization does not make the cut unless I plan to play dedicated missile boat (like Ziggurat with four AMSRMs and two Resonators).
« Last Edit: July 03, 2022, 10:19:19 AM by Megas »
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]