Print

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

[smithney]

I'd just like to drop in quickly to say that Eagle being effectively better at combat than Falcon but having 8 burn, all while playing roughly the same, does make a lot of sense from gameplay perspective. You either get a light version of a cruiser-sized brawler for your midgame fleet in Falcon. Or you start fielding Eagles if you need the serious version for your lategame fleet, where 8 burn isn't as much of a burden. It's not like you won't be able to field Falcons if you wanted, Phalcons probably won't stop being a strike threat, right?

[SCC]

(1/40 the damage I believe since beams "tick" ten times per second)

Beam damage for armour reduction is calculated using the half of its continuous DPS. To use HIL as an example - it deals 500 HE damage. HE doubles the damage to 1000, then the damage is halved to 500, and this 500 is used as the hit strength. Or, HIL has the armour penetration of a heavy blaster.

A new and terrifying thought just occurred to me: is the Eagle the new Conquest? 

I don't know. Conquest is more fun to fly.

[Thaago]

@Vanshilar, Thanks for doing those tests - I'm really surprised the tac lasers did so much damage! I suppose stacking the stacking range extenders end up giving them a big reach to poke things.

Did you find that the Xyphos were a big contributor? I ask because they are very OP expensive and the new support fighter looks like its going to be incredible at anti-missile.

[Delta_of_Isaire]

As a huge fan of the Eagle (with regard to its looks and paper stats, not its actual performance) I've been following this thread with interest. Some very good points have been raised.

There is one point I want to add, which is yet another example of how game mechanics interact poorly with the Eagle's design. It is about the ballistic hardpoints, upon which the Eagle is very reliant for its anti-shield damage, but which the AI uses poorly when faced with two or more enemies. The AI likes to point its nose towards its target, which is always the *nearest* enemy as far as I can tell. Long story short, if two or more Destroyers or Frigates attack a ship then that ship will frequently switch targets and attempt to re-orient itself. As a result of which forward-facing hardpoints spend a lot of time not pointing at a target, and thus not contributing DPS.

This really hurts the Eagle's ability to punch down, compared to Eradicator, Champion and Dominator which all have turreted medium ballistics. Of course the same problem exists for the Falcon, however the Falcon is much more maneuverable and therefore doesn't suffer as much, at least against destroyers.

Slating the Eagle as a defensive ship that can "dynamically hold an area" is absolutely fine. In 1v1 situations the Eagle is actually great at winning flux wars, and it is one of very few ships where equipping Ion Beams is both possible and sensible. Yeah it lacks finishing ability, but that's where fleet assets like Gryphon, Heron etc come in. It's all good. Except when the enemy doesn't allow a neat 1v1 but swarms the Eagle with smaller ships. Then, the fact that its anti-shield DPS is locked in ineffective hardpoint mounts becomes a huge problem. The Eagle cannot dynamically hold an area against multiple smaller opponents.

The obvious solution is indeed to swap the ballistic and energy mounts. That would mostly solve the problem, along with some other issues like the ballistic/energy range disparity, etc. Should the mounts be swapped like that? Well it's not my decision. I'm just here to say that giving the Eagle turreted kinetic weapons would enable it to be a good defensive pivot, which it currently isn't.

[BCS]

The obvious solution is indeed to swap the ballistic and energy mounts. That would mostly solve the problem, along with some other issues like the ballistic/energy range disparity, etc.

Then flux becomes a problem - lowest flux/second energy weapon is Phase Lance at 214(not counting Gravitons/Ions for obvious reasons) Put three of these in front and you're already out of flux, and you didn't even fit the ballistics yet(nor included shield upkeep)

Maybe if you just switched the middle energy/ballistic slots? Would look kind of messy but it would keep two budget medium beams so it wouldn't be as much of a problem.

Also, just for the record: while I made the large-ballistic-in-center Eagle as a meme, I now unironically thing it's the best solution. It basically solves all of the firepower issues, it has no fitting/flux issues(all the pictures I posted were flux neutral fits with the exception of the last one which was very close, but that was SO), it has no range mismatch issues, it follows from the design of Falcon, it is unique in its own way and it looks cool. What else do you want?

[FooF]

@BCS

A central Large Ballistic (or Hybrid?) would be interesting, perhaps even good, but that’s a pretty strong departure from stat changes. (This is assuming the other central mounts are removed) I don’t think it’s in the cards. Maybe a cool variant? It would definitely be more of a line cruiser at that point. It would also really distinguish it from the Falcon. Hmm.

[Thaago]

Huh, switching the energies and ballistics is an interesting idea. Not sure how I feel about it tbh, but it would certainly be a different feel! Kind of similar to the Sunder's layout with its forward energies and small ballistics. I'm immediately thinking of doing something like 2x heavy needler 1x flak, with 3 phase lances up front... letting the medium ballistic take some of the PD duty would also free up the small energies to be something like ion cannons, tac lasers, etc!

In terms of flux it would be weapon choice dependent but probably ok. As Hiruma Kai pointed out a 700 base flux Eagle is going to have 1000 dissipation with no skills, ~1300 with skills, which is plenty if not running more than 1 heavy blaster.

I kind of want to give this a try - the build possibilities at least are exciting.

[smithney]

A central Large Ballistic (or Hybrid?) would be interesting, perhaps even good, but that’s a pretty strong departure from stat changes. (This is assuming the other central mounts are removed) I don’t think it’s in the cards. Maybe a cool variant? It would definitely be more of a line cruiser at that point. It would also really distinguish it from the Falcon. Hmm.

Well I'd wager a built-in unique weapon tailored for the mount could solve Eagle's issues, too. Is that too odd of an idea? Not a design choice I'd see Alex use often, it's an option taken from the player, but I'd say it would be justified considering the amount of discussion Eagle kicks up. I mean better to have Eagle fit into few fleet roles smoothly rather than have it be grudgingly hamfisted into any role it's acceptable in, right?

Also please, for crab's sake, don't put onomatopoeia like "Hmm." into your posts. I can barely stomach it when Alex does it x_x

[FooF]

I’ve suggested a built-in spinal weapon for years (even an Aquila Cannon in this thread). Built-ins are finicky though and you really have to get them right. I.e. build a ship around them rather than shoehorn them into something existing. I mean, a big particle cannon would be awesome (I’m thinking BRDY Nevermore’s built-in) but would that be a good fit on an Eagle? Eh, probably not.

Switching the medium mount types around would run into the question of why the Falcon doesn’t do  the same. I guess it could for consistency’s sake but I don’t have a problem with the Falcon’s layout.  I did mod that configuration myself months ago and to be honest, I didn’t see much of a difference. I was more tempted to put PD in the Ballistic turrets. Also, the hard points help Ballistics a lot more because most Energy weapons don’t have recoil issues. I found that Heavy Mortars were notoriously inaccurate on the turrets.

If anything, I’ll mod the Large Ballistic on there and play around.

[Hiruma Kai]

Further brainstorming thoughts:

I wonder if Alex just wanted at least one ship in the game to showcase long range beam weapons, and the Eagle was intended for that job. 3 forward small energies and 3 forward medium energies certainly matches the mounts which can converge on any high tech doctrine ship out there (Fury, Aurora, Medusa, Shrike).  Certainly, beams tend to make ships back off, but not kill them effectively.  And it's less of a kiting risk on an Eagle then an Aurora, for example.

The current 17 DP proposal we have is effectively increasing the overall DPS of an Eagle contingent by about 30% by simply having about 30% more Eagles, which means 30% more beam spam along with 30% more ballistics.

But beam spam gets stronger the more you have of it in a concentrated area.  30% more ships often means more ships getting in the way of each other, or splitting fire. So what if instead of changing mounts, or making it significantly cheaper, we made the Eagle actually focus on beams in a way that no other ship can.  Give it a built in hullmod which increases beam damage by 100% (or 80% or 75%, but you get the idea).

This has a number of effects:
1) Makes beam based PD actually reasonable at the job.  This makes PD focused Eagles (Integrated Point Defense + Point Defense Skill + 100% base damage) actually capable of sweeping a section of the battle map of fighters and missiles.
2) 3 Graviton beam + 3 Tactical laser soft flux pressure goes from 825 (which against Remnants with hardened shields drives up the Eagle's flux more than the target's, and I think a Glimmer can potentially tank indefinitely), to 1650.  It's still not going to overload a decent shield tanking cruiser, but it will seriously put a crimp in flux budgets and will eventually make it back off.  It will force low tech ships back.
3) Makes SO + HSA a very interesting proposition with Phase Lances.

Essentially, right now, everyone agrees beams really just don't cut it as the secondary set of weapons, but what if we did make them cut it, just for the Eagle?  This with an eye to raising the DP back up to like 20 or 22 DP.

[Grievous69]

My issue with such drastic hullmods is that they force you to use certain weapons. You ideally want to have a situation where giving up something has an actual payoff. For example that hullmod would make sense on a very speedy ship that can just use projectiles easily. Or let's take Invictus - Converted Hangar gives it a bonus fighter bay, but with such limited OP pool you have to think about it.

Here I'd just continue using Phase Lances and Gravitons. Doesn't change the ship in any way except making it more punishing when deviating from the "intended" build, and sure more damage.

Built-in spinal weapon sounds cool but I know what Alex thinks about such mechanics.

Also it's not even beams as a whole package = bad. Medium beams just got the short end.

• Heavy Burst PD - lame.
• Graviton Beam - tickle pressure
• Phase Lance - only real assault option, but not AI friendly
• Ion Beam - too expensive and niche

This is also why I feel forced to use Heavy Blasters and Ion Pulsers on high tech ships without large mounts.

[llama]

I had a similar idea to increse the power of beam Eagle relative to Falcon, which was to increase number of medium energy mounts from 3 to 4 or 5 (still keeping the radial or V layout), with enough OP and flux to use them. The good non-beam energy weapons would still be gated by range and total flux dissipation (I hope, but maybe this would break SO builds) but it wouldn't punish you for taking them.

[SCC]

But Eagle already struggles to make use of all its energy mounts that it currently has. Adding more would only make it even more obvious.

[Grievous69]

I had a similar idea to increse the power of beam Eagle relative to Falcon, which was to increase number of medium energy mounts from 3 to 4 or 5 (still keeping the radial or V layout), with enough OP and flux to use them. The good non-beam energy weapons would still be gated by range and total flux dissipation (I hope, but maybe this would break SO builds) but it wouldn't punish you for taking them.

Oh hell yeah, let's embrace the medium mount package. 6 MEDIUM ENERGIES! It fits the ship, it's dumb, let's make it a midline Enforcer. And yes I am absolutely serious about this suggestion.

But Eagle already struggles to make use of all its energy mounts that it currently has. Adding more would only make it even more obvious.

Only when we let go of fear, are we truly free. But nah it could be fun, beam builds only getting better, projectile pretty much the same but with more flux.

[Hiruma Kai]

My issue with such drastic hullmods is that they force you to use certain weapons.

That is actually my point.  is there another ship in the game that actually does well with Gravitons as party of it's primary armament as opposed to an afterthought support weapon?

Midline already has the Falcon and the Champion.  Falcon is capable of using said Heavy Blaster and Ion Pulsers because of it's speed. Or an Ion beam if it wants.  Or a Phase lance.  Champion is medium speed with energy and ballistic mixture, along with missiles so it can actually effectively kill stuff.

Eagle is always going to be stepping on some other ships toes no matter which direction it goes.  If we make it faster, its stepping on the Falcon.  If we give it a large mount its moving closer to the Champion.

A medium mount beam specialization would be giving something unique to midline and to the game overall.  Or at least, I can't see the Eagle stepping on any other ships specialization in that direction.

You ideally want to have a situation where giving up something has an actual payoff. For example that hullmod would make sense on a very speedy ship that can just use projectiles easily. Here I'd just continue using Phase Lances and Gravitons. Doesn't change the ship in any way except making it more punishing when deviating from the "intended" build, and sure more damage.

I'm looking at it from the fleet and overall game perspective as opposed to the individual ship perspective.  What you're giving up is the large missile mount of the Champion or the speed of the Falcon.  It's at the ship choice level instead of the fitting level.  The whole point is to have a ship that does in fact want to use Gravitons, unlike nearly every other ship in the game.  The Eagle loses some flexibility in what is optimal for it, but the game as a whole gains something new.

Right now, as far as I know, the in development Eagle is going to be providing 30% more damage per DP spent.  You could also imagine that beam built Eagles have perhaps, 25-30% of its damage coming from beams.  The ballistics certainly are the lion's share of long range damage output, simply because it is hard flux.  So if you double that 25-30%, then that is similar the 30% per DP gain we are expecting by dropping to 17 DP.  So such a beam boosted Eagle might be worth 20 or 21 DP.

This is also why I feel forced to use Heavy Blasters and Ion Pulsers on high tech ships without large mounts.

Which is saying no ships really use said weapons.  Which by forcing the Eagle into favoring said weapons, means you might have an actual reason to use said weapons on at least one ship in the game.  If you want a ballistic + energy projectile midline ship, the Falcon and Champion both exist.  Or if you explicitly just want Heavy Blasters and Ion Pulsers, the Fury, Aurora, Medusa, Hyperion all exist.  At least this way, the game gains something it doesn't have yet.  A cruiser that you might actually want to fit beams to instead of Heavy Blasters and Ion Pulsers.