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[BigBrainEnergy]

Poked around with the converted hangar xiphos to add those ion beams to the mix. It however comes up into the issue that well if you go advanced optics + ITU the range of your beams is 1680 and the xiphos beam has a range of 1000 + 100 if you S-Mod Targeting defensive Array

Xyphos have advanced optics so their range is 1,200 normally and 1,300 with smod targeting array.

Plus advanced optics is additive and not multiplicative, so the ship's beams really have 1600 range.

[Doctorhealsgood]

1300 range? neat!

[Drone_Fragger]

Eagle isn't bad, just suffers from the "medium energy" problem, wherein all the medium energy weapons are really only good as support weapons (graviton, IR lance), have too short a range (pulse laser, blaster, phase lance) to be good on line ships. They're still good, just not on a line ship. If there was an analogue of the HIL for medium (Medium Intensity laser, perhaps) with a similar range profile it would be very good.

As it is now you're forced to either make the eagle a flux war winner (beams with kinetics, rely on allied ships to blow ships up once they drop shields) or spend like 50 OP trying to buff phase lance range so you can finish ships once you drop their shields with Heavy autocannons or hypervelocity drivers.

There is some good eagle builds for AI usage, which are tediously boring for players to use - 2 gravitons/1 ion beam with 2 hypervelocity/1 mauler is the prime example. AI ships can't tank the hypervelocity hits forever due to the ion beam keeping their shield up, then the solitary mauler can eventually blow them, up once they're they're fluxed.

[Grievous69]

Medium energies are definitely not bad now (finally), we can stop repeating the past facts. Majority of them not working great on Eagle has nothing to do with the weapon itself, but midline hull and Eagle's very unique mount setup. And again, I don't see what's so bad if a ship works best as a support. Not everything needs to be a "burst-forward alpha striker" or missile spammer.

[CapnHector]

Poked around with the converted hangar xiphos to add those ion beams to the mix. It however comes up into the issue that well if you go advanced optics + ITU the range of your beams is 1680 and the xiphos beam has a range of 1000 + 100 if you S-Mod Targeting defensive Array so yeah there is a big range mismatch here therefore it won't help if the eagle is trying to stay at range but the xiphos will give nice PD support (Specially if you S-Modded defensive targeting array) and the ion beams are still there if the gap is closed so i guess it will help in survivability in general? I also replaced the heavy mauler with a HVD because the mauler felt redundant with autoloader breaches and it has also EMP so it helps on bullying ships.
Honestly i am just poking around with stuff and i will probably load back my save and think this over a bit later but this thing can bully a sim dominator until it blows up so that was funny to watch.

Nice! You really do not need PD on a relatively agile ship with good shields that fights at 1600 range though. In the DCR test the 3 Tactical Lasers were responsible for 24% of the damage so you took that out to possibly block a few missiles instead of shield tanking them which does not seem like a good trade.

On the other hand if putting in Defensive Targeting Array then note you now also have quite interesting possibilities like you can add Daggers which will result in infinite ammo Atropos that your ship fires occasionally, or Longbows to get the same for Sabot + Burst PD. Defensive targeting array makes it so the bombers stay with the ship, don't die and synergize better with the beams.

Really, a lot of stuff to try out.

[Goumindong]

DTA may be a bit short range though. In havent had a chance to test it but don’t non-PD usually stay behind the primary ship? So the range of the daggers at 1200 from the back may be kinda low if you’re pushing 1600 range for your beams/ballistics.

But If you’re really wanting PD a wing of pure PD fighters may be better than a group of anything else. You definitely don’t want to have Xyphos and LR/burst PD in the front (or back really). So fitting the Tacs is far better.

[Alex]

DTA may be a bit short range though. In havent had a chance to test it but don’t non-PD usually stay behind the primary ship? So the range of the daggers at 1200 from the back may be kinda low if you’re pushing 1600 range for your beams/ballistics.

The description doesn't mention it, but DTA changes the behavior of non-support fighters to "stay in front of the ship". Support fighters may or may not do that depending on their tags, since presumably they're intended to work one way or the other and DTA shouldn't change it. (Namely, the behavior is determined by the presence of "stay_in_front_of_ship" in the wing tags).

[CapnHector]

Okay, I tried putting Ion Beam on it, does nothing (why would it when it's a soft flux ship), seriously guys I know it's a frag weapon but just keep the IR Autolances or at least one, the ship needs something to deal hull damage with and it has much better hit strength than other frag weapons.

The DTA Daggers work with this build though, they do in fact fire. I didn't have much time to test so I don't know if it's any good but if it's good anywhere then it's probably on a ship of this type, since the bombers are not at risk due to the long engagement range and can just immediately return to restock.

[Goumindong]

In a pure sim, pure fleet it definitely needs bull damage. But maybe it doesn’t in a mixed fleet. I bet that one or two escorting a sunder would do really well. As would escorting a champion or other slightly slower ship that can fit a HIL.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

I was playing with the Eagle in sim and then this happened which I thought was pretty funny after all the bad things I've said about it.

(If you're wondering what the hell is going on: since Eagle outranges the sim Radiant, once it builds up flux it will continue to try to disengage, which it can't because the Eagle is faster, which leads to a - very - slow death. Obviously such a thing would never actually happen in actual fleet fight; just one of the ways the sim lies to you)

About the IR Autolance, it is kind of disappointing. The HVD actually has more sustained DPS against hull and one full Autolance burst is barely enough to kill a single Broadsword. I get that it has fantastic flux efficiency, but efficiency isn't everything, especially for a weapon that deals fragmentation damage. Most high tech ships have very few mounts to begin with since medium energies generally hit above their size, so it feels like an Eagle-exclusive weapon.

[CapnHector]

Oh? Meanwhile I decided to double down on the IR Autolance and abandon the rest as useless. Remembering that defense is for suckers, I made a brawler Eagle (LG) build. My Venture (LP) officers even half fit here although they are really not Eagle pilots.



The idea is once shields go down, they stay down. Forever.

It is not half bad. Vs this double Ordo, and with the 17 Eagles, and with everyone Reckless:



I can get to the final Radiant and Apexes destroying all the rest. Unfortunately I can't win the fight despite repeated attempts and due to overconfidence I've locked myself into it, saving 1 second before the fight.

Also the gameplay is totally unenjoyable, it takes the normal herding cats experience of high level Starsector and turns it up to 11. I run out of CP trying to make them not chase frigates. I think the fleet would win if I could set the ship to not do so.

Pew pew pew!

[Hiruma Kai]

I can get to the final Radiant and Apexes destroying all the rest. Unfortunately I can't win the fight despite repeated attempts and due to overconfidence I've locked myself into it, saving 1 second before the fight.

No spare story point?  Clean disengage option?  Can always just turn on dev mode and teleport out (Ctrl left click).

Also the gameplay is totally unenjoyable, it takes the normal herding cats experience of high level Starsector and turns it up to 11. I run out of CP trying to make them not chase frigates. I think the fleet would win if I could set the ship to not do so.

Eagles really want to be in a mixed fleet.  And technically don't necessarily need to be herdered that much, I think.

As a quick test, I took the fleet I was using testing 6 Gryphons and swapped them out 1 for 1 for Eagles and did a single quick run (also tuned Officers to match since Missile Spec isn't quite so handy).  And used the exact same orders.  Afflictors to grab far objectives, grab closer with Radiant and cruiser, issue defend order on Onslaught.  Order an Afflictor to escort Radiant, cancel objective order, and let the defend order on the Onslaught keep the fleet together, and basically ignore fleet orders after that.

Eagles were 3 HVD, 2 Graviton, 1 Ion, 3 LR PD, 2 Burst PD, 2 Reapers, Missile Autoloader, 26 vents, 17 Caps, s-mod Hardened Shields + ITU. eCE, eFM, eOE, GI, TA officers.  So a long range shield damage ship designed to keep enemies at bay.  Compared to spam Gryphon, I got about the same final result, although the player piloted Radiant actually saw a lot more action rather than the enemy kind of evaporating from the missile storm of Gryphons.  However, I've had cases where a bad Nova engage saw a Gryphon pop, and something similar happened with the Eagles.  However, they held the enemy back enough to give the Radiant and Onslaught a place to ditch flux, which is all I really needed.

I suppose if I were actually paying attention more I probably could have saved the Eagle with a well timed Afflictor distraction, but shrug.  Same thing happens with Gryphons.

Keep in mind, the fleet wide skills were Coordinated Manuevers, Crew Training, Flux Regulation and Cybernetic Augmentation, so these aren't exactly top of the line AI controlled Eagles, but they held well enough.

[CapnHector]

Yeah I should have clarified it was a monofleet of 17 of that Eagle and no other ships. I have no doubt the long ranged version is very good if you have a player ship or capital ship to go with it, but as a monofleet it lacked dps and couldn't get even close to double Ordo. At least not the LG beam version.