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Author Topic: So what's the plan with the Fury?  (Read 8550 times)

Megas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #15 on: July 18, 2022, 06:37:49 AM »

Fury costs too much at 20 DP.  I prefer it over Eagle, but not over Apogee or Eradicator.  It should be no more expensive than Apogee, 18 DP.

Aurora is a cursed ship that will never be allowed to be good again. Comparing things to it isn't meaningful.
30 DP is too much.  At least as an AI ship, it is worse than Dominator or Champion, or more precisely, I do not get my DP's worth like I do with those two 25 DP cruisers.  Aurora feels more like a 25 DP ship.
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Tadas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #16 on: July 18, 2022, 06:56:36 AM »

I wouldn't mind Aurora buff, but at the same time - bad on AI, good in players hands is a fine niche as well. Wouldn't Ziggurat need buffing if we tried balancing it around AI usage?
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Megas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #17 on: July 18, 2022, 07:01:02 AM »

I wouldn't mind Aurora buff, but at the same time - bad on AI, good in players hands is a fine niche as well. Wouldn't Ziggurat need buffing if we tried balancing it around AI usage?
There is only one Ziggurat in the game, and the player cannot build or find another.  It is Starsector's hero ship Vindicator.  Also, Ziggurat is the biggest, baddest ship the player can use in the game - it is a monster.  Player can build as many Auroras as he wants, and Aurora is not the biggest ship.

It is disappointing that the AI cannot use Ziggurat as well, but that is more of a problem with AI not being able to take advantage of Phase Anchor's combat boosts.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2022, 07:03:57 AM by Megas »
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Tadas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #18 on: July 18, 2022, 07:06:14 AM »

I don't disagree, thematically it is "biggest baddest" and at AI hands it's not worth the DP points. Not an issue. Same thing with Aurora or Hyperion or Doom. It's fine that some ships are only good in players hands, it's an ok niche.
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Megas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #19 on: July 18, 2022, 07:42:50 AM »

I don't disagree, thematically it is "biggest baddest" and at AI hands it's not worth the DP points. Not an issue. Same thing with Aurora or Hyperion or Doom. It's fine that some ships are only good in players hands, it's an ok niche.
Hyperion is actually very strong, possibly overpowered, even in AI hands... but only with Safety Override to enable teleportation while shields are up and get the flux stats it needs to sustain three medium weapons.

Doom needs Combat skills, especially Systems Expertise, to be good, but AI can do alright with it.  If all the player wants is a crash test dummy that can cheat death, then Doom with Phase Anchor is okay at the job.

P.S.  If the ship is underpowered or overpriced as an AI ship, then the ship had better be overpowered enough to be one of the best options in the entire game for the player can use, or at least do something unique and game-changing no other ship can do.  Ziggurat easily qualifies.  Afflictor chains can qualify if player is skilled enough.  Aurora does not.  Aurora is strong in player's hands, but it is not overpowered enough to kill everything.  Aurora is best at sweeping multiple smaller ships.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2022, 07:52:03 AM by Megas »
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Tadas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #20 on: July 18, 2022, 07:52:21 AM »

Interesting, will try it out! What weapon setup do you go for for AI Doom?

Edit: I don't agree with that standard for player only ship, it feels a bit artificially manufactured to get a "win" in this conversation. SO Aurora is super fun to fly - it's fast, with combat skills it's maneuverable, yes it's great at bullying anything smaller than a capital, but in real fight it kills or sets up kills for capitals all the time. I like to put a bunch of reapers on it, so it can one shot almost any capital with it's shield down, but most importantly it feels fun to fly and is very impactful in the fight.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2022, 07:58:11 AM by Tadas »
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Megas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #21 on: July 18, 2022, 08:02:32 AM »

I do not have specific loadouts for Doom.  Probably heavy blasters and maybe kinetics and/or Pilums for AI Doom.  The only thing necessary is Phase Anchor so that it does not die when hull collapses, provided CR is high enough.  (Remember only one ship per battle can dive.)  I do not remember if I armor it up like I would with Vanguard or Derelicts.  I do not expect Doom to work miracles and kill everyone.  As long as it kills some ships or at least enable others to do so, and not die will doing it, it does want I need it to do.  I am averse to casualties because I want pristine ships and, without Hull Restoration, ships that die will get d-mods when recovered.
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Tadas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #22 on: July 18, 2022, 09:41:46 AM »

Cool, thanks, will try it out.
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Thaago

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #23 on: July 18, 2022, 09:47:27 AM »

Wouldn't really call 1 medium + 1 potential medium slot a "bunch of missiles" for 20 DP. Manticore has that much missile firepower and it's not even built around it. Anyways I can't believe my eyes someone would say Fury is a safe ship, or more recent, that a pack of Furies mean business. No, both are factually wrong because my very first playthrough this patch, I had 3 Furies in my fleet probably 80% of the game. ...

The Manticore does have that many missiles, but the Manticore is an outlier! And it is OP limited, so its hard to fit both missiles to the full extent with racks and ECCM without giving up something about its guns (if the Manticore weren't short on OP it would be pretty overpowered, as it stands it can be built to excel at either guns or missiles but not really both, at least in my builds). Its not really a good point of comparison

For comparison to other ships I think are missile heavy but not purely a missile ship, a Champion at 25 is a single large, a Dominator at 25 is 3 mediums, Apogee is 1 large at 18, Onslaughts are 4 mediums for 40, Legion 5 mediums for 40, Aurora 2 medium 4 smalls for 30, Shrike 1 medium for 8 - I'm sure I'm missing a few, but 2 medium for 20 fits right into that trend, maybe slightly on the low end. Oh, Conquest at 2 larges, 2 mediums for 40, thats significantly above the trend of the other ships I've listed.

When you had 3 furies, were you operating at the DP limit or in battles where you were deploy limited? Because the only thing that changed about the Fury from last patch (if searching the notes is enough info) is the DP and cost - they are the same warship underneath. If you were DP limited fair enough, but I've had them perform just fine both before the DP change and after.
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Grievous69

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #24 on: July 18, 2022, 10:27:50 AM »

I'm fine if a ship is slightly worse in AI control but shines in player hands, but balancing a ship around the player's skill is wrong, you're left with a detriment if it's an AI ship. You can only have one flagship at the end of the day. If an Aurora is worth 30 DP then Falcon (P) could be 25, Gryphon could be 35, Afflictor 20. You can see how this would get absurd really fast.

@Thaago
Not really an outlier since every other ship also can't fit missiles + EMR + ECCM and good guns. But that's not really important here.

Yeah I think I was just slightly above the 240 DP limit, had a few frigates as reinforcements. Also I wouldn't be here complaining about the DP cost if I never got to the cap lol. Only then you can really tell how much is each ship worth.
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Tadas

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #25 on: July 18, 2022, 10:47:19 AM »

My argument is that "not all ships need to be balanced around AI usage", not "all ships need to be balanced around player". Ships with gimmicks will probably be considerably stronger in player hands. As I said before I generally stopped playing with Aurora, because it felt a bit too strong, so I don't think it needs a buff, but I am fine either way. If I won't like it, I will just use self-imposed rules.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #26 on: July 18, 2022, 11:46:24 AM »

I typically either run SO Furies or Xyphos Converted Hangar Furies personally, and those seem to work well enough even against end game Ordos (especially if I've got s-mods on everything).

The thing about SO Furies is they have frigate tier speed (ignoring their plasma burn) with a pair of 1000 energy DPS heavy blasters.  I vaguely view them as an easier to find Hyperion replacement, that has a bit more PPT.

Alternatively, Sabots + Xyphos + Heavy Blaster is a solid disabling build that doesn't need the 1400 flux/second that SO provides.

I find both builds tend to be pretty safe, as they either move out of danger easily, or they reduce incoming fire significantly.

Since playstyle and fitting are a huge component to effectiveness of ships,  I'd be interested in hearing how people are configuring them for use by the AI, both for those that think they're underperforming and those that feel they're fine.  It may be trying to shoehorn them into a job which they are ill-suited for.

I'm pretty sure I've seen posts showing off mono-fleets of Furies being able to handle end game Ordo fights at the 20 DP price point in the campaign after the latest release, although maybe I should try that for myself.
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Grievous69

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #27 on: July 18, 2022, 11:57:32 AM »

I don't remember the exact builds but I tried pretty much everything except the Xyphos build you mentioned.
Heavy Blaster + Sabot + Typhoon
Ion Pulser + Pulser Laser + Breach
Pulse Laser + Phase Lance + Sabot
There's probably more, and in the 2 small energies that can point forward, I tried AMBs, IR Pulse Lasers and Ion Cannons.

Don't like SO so didn't bother with such builds.

I'm sure if you min max enough for a certain fight you can beat it with a lot of mono fleets, but I'm not sure if that's a valid argument for game balance.
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Draba

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #28 on: July 18, 2022, 12:18:00 PM »

The thing about SO Furies is they have frigate tier speed (ignoring their plasma burn) with a pair of 1000 energy DPS heavy blasters.  I vaguely view them as an easier to find Hyperion replacement, that has a bit more PPT.
...
Since playstyle and fitting are a huge component to effectiveness of ships,  I'd be interested in hearing how people are configuring them for use by the AI, both for those that think they're underperforming and those that feel they're fine.  It may be trying to shoehorn them into a job which they are ill-suited for.
Fury with SO is pretty silly (SO in general is overpowered IMO), but is also fast/durable enough to be used with used unstable injector+elite helmsmanship officer and double heavy blaster+ion cannon (no other weapons). Can almost max caps/vents, it smashes smaller things and can gang up on big ones. It does have the pretty common problem of low range ships, AI sometimes just doesn't want to close in so might need some extra babysitting when used as a line ship.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: So what's the plan with the Fury?
« Reply #29 on: July 18, 2022, 03:54:37 PM »

Don't like SO so didn't bother with such builds.

Fair enough, certainly I'd expect the ship to be worth the points with or without safety overrides.  I will note, SO does play to the strengths of the Fury more than say, an Eradicator, so I tend to think it gets more mileage out of it than most low or mid-tech ships.  Plasma burn + SO means you can't be kited all day by an ion beam Wolf or Tempest, unlike most other SO cruisers (Eradicator included).

I'm sure if you min max enough for a certain fight you can beat it with a lot of mono fleets, but I'm not sure if that's a valid argument for game balance.

That brings up the age old question, what is a valid argument for game balance?  As you noted, the DP cost is meaningless for early campaign, it's just a few supplies here and there.  It only matter at the 240 DP fleet limit.  So what am I usually fighting when I've amassed a full 240 DP fleet? Ordos, Doritos, and end game bounties.  How do I test just the Fury effectiveness with as few other confounding factors?  Just use Furies, aka a mono-fleet.

Perhaps there's a better metric, and I'd love to hear other testing methodologies.   General experience feedback is obviously valuable, but it's hard to place in context given it is presumably with a specific loadout (or set of loadouts) in a specific fleet composition played in a certain way.

As for weapon choices, my philosophy of medium energy weapons goes something like this:

I consider Pulse Lasers to be primarily for frigates (it's almost literally 2 IR pulse lasers).  Phase lance is mostly a secondary weapon for swatting fighters, or on a ship like the Harbinger that can bypass shields in some way.  On AI ships I tend to see it get dumped into shields way too often, and it's not a continuous pressure weapon, so AI mistakes hurt.  Graviton and Ion Beams are long range support soft flux weapons, which again isn't great for actually killing things as the primary weapon (unless your entire fleet is doing beam spam, plus I can get 2 Ion beams at no slot and flux cost for 42 OP, or 27 with s-mod).  Heavy Burst PD is mostly PD, although some anti-armor.  Ion Pulsars (which combine Ion damage with 900 energy burst DPS) are great for bursting down frigates/destroyer shields, while having Ion utility against cruisers and battleships.  I consider Heavy Blasters to be 2/3's of a Plasma Cannon DPS and all of it's armor penetration, in a medium mount for 2/5 of the OP cost.  I'm discounting mining blasters as those are either pirate weapons or niche Harbinger builds.

So if I'm running a full fleet late game, my Auroras and Furies are going to be fit with Heavy Blasters and sometimes an Ion Pulser mixed in.  And then sabots.  Its admittedly a bit monotone in weapon selection, but there really are only two hard flux medium energy mounts to consider for cruisers as primary DPS.

63 OP for 1 Heavy Blaster, 1 Ion Pulsar, 1 Sabot Pod, and 30 Vents would be my starting point for a non-SO, non-converted hangar build.  900 flux/second sustained matches dissipation, and has 680 sustained DPS, 9800 energy damage burst over 7 seconds.  That burst will crumple almost all* frigate shields.

*depends on whether you consider Hyperions to be "frigates" or cruisers in frigate clothing.
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