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[Alex]

One thing I hate- if I want to field the Lance, I have to bring nothing but fighters. Hooray for losing 2 tempests in the same battle to my own guns (they were the only casualties).

Was this in .52a? Should be nearly impossible now. Unless you did it yourself, that is, and not autofire/autopilot/etc

[naufrago]

it basically wiped out all the opposing fighters, and even frigates with weak shield generators.

My friend, the lance can do MUCH MORE than that. I snipe off with one lance cruisers or cause severe damage.

Might be kind of fun to try out a fleet of Sunders with Tachyon Lances. Ya know, with support of course. I'd have to look at its stats, though...

I'd never dream of trying sunders with HIL's, though. The dps boost was nice, but... it's still basically the poor man's large energy weapon. Like if you bought the Odyssey for 150k while you only had 180k and forgot you still need to equip it properly.

[cp252]

Yes, Alex, it was in .52a. I lose roughly 2 frigates per battle to my elite gunners. ._. I'm flying an Apogee, but there's a 4-Lance Paragon in the backline.
This is with 5 frigates on the field.

[Dx]

Yes, Alex, it was in .52a. I lose roughly 2 frigates per battle to my elite gunners. ._. I'm flying an Apogee, but there's a 4-Lance Paragon in the backline.
This is with 5 frigates on the field.

Hmm I have Odyssey with three of lances on auto-fire, my 4 frigs have never died from friendly fire for now.

[Alex]

Yes, Alex, it was in .52a. I lose roughly 2 frigates per battle to my elite gunners. ._. I'm flying an Apogee, but there's a 4-Lance Paragon in the backline.
This is with 5 frigates on the field.

Hmm I have Odyssey with three of lances on auto-fire, my 4 frigs have never died from friendly fire for now.

Hmm - maybe it has to do with the lances in hardpoints? It shouldn't be any different there, but I'll take a look.

[cp252]

I see your point. I'll try taking the hardpointed lances off.

[StahnAileron]

I notice the AI tends to swing the lances around when fired. I have a 4 Lance Paragon for fire support and when I see the lance fire, it tends to waver a bit instead of just being in a straight line. Also, friendlies may stop firing when an ally travels into their line of fire, but that doesn't affect the ally from recklessly flying through the fire in the first place, I've notice.

There's been countless times when I'm firing off with my personal Paragon (4 Auto-Pulses) and a one or more of my Tempest decide to cut across THROUGH my firing line while strafing the ship we're both attacking. Since it's focused on attacking and avoiding ENEMY fire, I'll wind up cutting off its rear side if I don't stop firing in time. So I think part of the problem there is the fact your own ship don't try to avoid fire FROM friendly when manuveuring. I think the extreme range and burst-y nature of the Tachyons compounds the problem. You can easily have a clear line of fire, shoot, and while the shot is traveling/alive, a friendly decides to cut across the firing line of the Lance(s). I've seen that as well. THe firendly fire avoidance in the ship AI works well enought with just AI ships (Cease fire when Friendly approaches), but it doesn't quite work as well when it's the Player-controlled fire and an AI ship approaching (or significantly delayed/slow shots from another AI vessel).

As for the TL vs HIL discussion: I find the HIL can be used for keeping constant pressure on fighters. I have an Oddy with 3 HIL's and it used to keep fighters at bay quite well. (I've stopped using it once I got my second Paragon, though I'm currently using a 8-frigate fast attack fleet.) TL's have a long reload/refire time. If you miss, you just lost a lot of potential damage. Granted, if it does hit, it HURTS, but still. Misses with the TL's (if somewhat rare) can cost you quite a bit of time waiting for the next shot. While the HIL's are practically useless against larger vessels, I find it useful for constant pressuring of the smaller enemy forces like frigates and fighter wings at long range.

That said, I still love having my Quad TL Paragon snipe suckers from the other side of the map ^_~ It's so fulfilling when you see an enemy frigate pop out of the FoW into the LoS of a one of your own frigates on the far side of the map during opening capture runs and 2 seconds later, it's dead from a TL slavo while your own friagte is on its merry way to the capture point the enemy frigate was heading for ^_^

[IIE16 Yoshi]

That said, I still love having my Quad TL Paragon snipe suckers from the other side of the map ^_~ It's so fulfilling when you see an enemy frigate pop out of the FoW into the LoS of a one of your own frigates on the far side of the map during opening capture runs and 2 seconds later, it's dead from a TL slavo while your own friagte is on its merry way to the capture point the enemy frigate was heading for ^_^

The Omega, a modded ship, takes that to a whole new level. 10 large turrets, 5 on either side, pretty much guarentees no fighter or frigate harassment. As soon as fighters and frigates come into LoS of your own fighters, the Lances melt them. It's so nice seeing pirate armadas take on the Omega with it's 3-4 fighter wings, only to get into the fight and watch as the husks of many dead pirate frigates float past.

[Alex]

THe firendly fire avoidance in the ship AI works well enought with just AI ships (Cease fire when Friendly approaches), but it doesn't quite work as well when it's the Player-controlled fire and an AI ship approaching (or significantly delayed/slow shots from another AI vessel).

Hmm. I don't think the AI could reasonably try to avoid TL's that might fire - that'd restrict its mobility far to much. They could definitely be better about not moving into firing beams, though. But for now, the only thing you can do is to just be more careful

Setting the lances on auto-fire is probably your best bet - it should do a good job avoiding friendly fire, and with the changes in 0.52.1a, will try to attack the ship you've got targeted - so you still have good control over it.

[cp252]

Problem is, my Paragon can't turn its Lances away fast enough when the Tempests trololol their way into the beam...

[Alex]

Problem is, my Paragon can't turn its Lances away fast enough when the Tempests trololol their way into the beam...

What the auto-firing AI does is only fire when they can't get in the way, even if they try. Really, if you fire 2 feet away from the Tempest and it blunders into the beam, it's partly your own fault

[cp252]

My fault? I'm flying a ship halfway across the map 
I guess I should tell it to hold fire when its target is surrounded by five constantly orbiting tempests.
While I'm on this topic, why does my Paragon refuse to turn and present its hardpointed Lances? It just stays pointed whichever way I left it at the Fire Support rally point, firing at an Onslaught with one Lance. I know the AI calculates which way to point for the best firepower, does it not work at range 5000?

[Alex]

I'll take a look (writing it down for now). Thought I fixed that in .52.1a, but not entirely sure, tbh.

[StahnAileron]

[...]I guess I should tell it to hold fire when its target is surrounded by five constantly orbiting tempests.[...]

THIS is the kinda of problem I run into often (though I currently only have 4 Tempests). I know the Tempest are orbiting the target to help avoid fire, but there are times when I REALLY wish they would stay out of my field of fire so I can actually FIRE. (It was REALLY horrible with the Auto-Pulse Laser behavior in 0.51a).

I understand accounting for EXTREME range gun fire like the TL is a problem (that's a real life issue with artillery fire). My concern about friendly fire avoidance is in the sub-1000 weapon range. (Or really, the sub-600 range). Really, if a two capital ships are THAT close to one another, frigates shouldn't be trying to fly BETWEEN them. That's just suicide. (I've toasted one of my own Tempests a couple of time because of that.) It'd be nice of the frigates moved BEHIND the friendly capital ship as it circles: it gets the frigate out of the firing line AND gives it a reprieve to vent flux.

Still, I have learned that for sniping, a fully TL-equipped Paragon is mostly better off on the hands of the AI. Doing it myself is tedious and time consuming (requires liberal use of the CC mode to ID amd acquire targets). The trade off is less concentrated TL fire (It's rare for my Paragon to fire all four TLs at the same target if there's more than one to shoot at.)

Actually, anyone know if the Sunder makes a good single TL turret? Not exactly FP efficient (9 FP for a single TL), but it's an easier way to get a TL or two out on the field for long range fire support early on, no?

[Temjin]

I've been playing a "Sunder Lightsaber" and having a lot of fun.

Weapons:
-Tachyon Lance
-2x Harpoon Missile Launcher
-2x Railgun (front two ballistic turrets)
-1x Vulcan Cannon (rear ballistic turret)

Hull Mods:
-Resistant Flux Conduits, Auxiliary Thrusters
Vents/Capacitors:
-Maximum vents possible with this setup

It's a fun ship to fly, and you know you're getting to be a good pilot when you're able to regularly snipe off Talon and Wasp wings with it. Dunno how the AI does with it though.