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[Troll]

Concerning the changes to the Invictus, they seem fine.
The ship is not as nigh un-breakable as it was but is still very much the definition of a tank and it overheats a little bit faster.
Overall I feel it has become a proper ship for the DP, before it was too tough.
I'd like it if the Canister Flaks had a bit more range as it's hard to properly calculate the time for detonation while in the heat of battle.

[Megas]

Simply cut FMR to one charge as multiple people suggested already. It's the most obvious solution to excessive burst and it would work. Why overcomplicate things?

Only if applied to capitals, if the system must be different among sizes like 3/3/2/1.  Do not want another Damper Field incident where it guts the original users of the system (Vigilance, Condor, and Venture).  Even then, that might push people to get Systems Expertise on officers if they truly do not use FMR enough to matter.

Currently, I rely on officers with Missile Spec on Pegasus, then I hijack their ship to spam FMR and their extra missiles because my flagship does not have either Combat capstone.

[Amoebka]

Simply cut FMR to one charge as multiple people suggested already. It's the most obvious solution to excessive burst and it would work. Why overcomplicate things?

Only if applied to capitals.  Do not want another Damper Field incident where it guts the original users of the system (Vigilance, Condor, and Venture).

Yes, I meant changing the system for Pegasus only. It could get a different name too if needed, and also be changed to a purely cooldown-based one, so SysExp doesn't grant an extra use.

[Vanshilar]

It's less about the number of missiles, and more about the proportion of base flux to total flux. Pegasus has very high shield efficiency with a very low base flux pool. This means most of its flux ends up being from capacitors/hullmods/skills, so 25% base flux ends up being a rather small number.

Right, and hence a way to balance it would be to make it cost a non-trivial amount of flux. That way if you really want to spam multiple FMR charges you could, but then you'll be vulnerable after that. The exact system or amount could come from playtesting. Just that it would need to scale properly to the Pegasus as well as the other ships which use the same system. Could also make it something like, 10% of base flux if frigate, 20% if destroyer, 30% if cruiser, 50% if capital or something, i.e. the amount depends on ship size. There are a lot of possibilities.

This makes it so that spamming FMR is still an option available to the player, but then it comes with the downside of making the ship vulnerable for some time afterward. So it becomes part of the decision of whether or not the player should spend flux for extra damage, on a weapon type where usually no flux is used (i.e. since missiles are usually flux-free).

Now, Conquest is a better battleship than Pegasus.  Conquest in recent releases already blurred the line between battlecruiser and battleship.

Nah Conquest is most likely much easier to kill than Pegasus. Its shields are much worse, along with armor and hull befitting a battlecruiser.

Pegasus should live up to the name of battleship, not just firepower (whether missiles or big guns) but durability too.

It already does. That's the problem. Its shields can absorb more damage than every non-Automated ship except the Paragon, and it has better armor/hull than every non-Automated ship except the Onslaught, Legion, Invictus, and the Paragon (which has same armor but 1k more hull), and it has a lot of long-range offensive power to boot. It also has good mobility for a capital ship as well.

Simply cut FMR to one charge as multiple people suggested already. It's the most obvious solution to excessive burst and it would work. Why overcomplicate things?

Yup that can certainly work too. It seems like the problem is that players can spam multiple FMR charges too easily, in which case, the simple solution is to decrease FMR charges and/or increase how long it takes to recharge.

[Megas]

Yes, I meant changing the system for Pegasus only. It could get a different name too if needed, and also be changed to a purely cooldown-based one, so SysExp doesn't grant an extra use.

Just make it a different system without charges.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

On a non-Pegasus note, fought two Pather fleets simultaneously today(to make things go faster) and damn they almost broke the line. These new SO Eradicators don't screw around, it definitely feels like you're fighting bunch of fanatics.

[Catalina]

For the record I would be happy with both making its shield 1.0 or 1.2 efficiency and armor 1200 or 1000 and switching the system to Active Flare Launcher. 4x Large missile would still make it interesting and unique.

Cutting its armor or its shield to that point would actually make it a worse conquest, with slighty more missiles but slighty less ballistic firepower for 10 more dp. Since the conquest is already a glass cannon, the pegasus has to be an anchor with good defensive stats. 1500 armor feels right for a midline battleship, it's 250 less armor than an onslaught when the champion has 250 less armor than the dominator as well.

Some people already suggested it, but a decoy flare laucher system would be interesting on the pegasus. Let's imagine it lauches a mirv that deploys all those flares, then the player could use this system at the key point of the battle to successfully land all its missiles. Not to mention that would look way cooler than fmr it could also be used in synergy with allied fighters.

If the pegasus even needs another nerf on top of this system, just put the flare laucher in place of one of the large missile mount. The ship is already asymmetric, and this change looks like something the league, or the cruiser school, could do. On those heavily specialised ships, practicality and combat efficiency prevail over pure aesthetic considerations. See the heron and gryphon.

Though I understand such a system would require a lot of work for sure, and cutting fmr to one charge definitely feels like a much simpler way to balance this ship.



Alternatively make it spaw gremlins, loaded with nothing but decoy flare lauchers, right in front of ennemy ships! The pegasus is so wide it can probably hold some of them, and they are certainly not much more complicated to engineer than hydra dem.

[Megas]

Now, Conquest is a better battleship than Pegasus.  Conquest in recent releases already blurred the line between battlecruiser and battleship.

Nah Conquest is most likely much easier to kill than Pegasus. Its shields are much worse, along with armor and hull befitting a battlecruiser.

Conquest can support more firepower (Pegasus has smaller guns and weak dissipation) and could stand up to stock classic Onslaught of similar skill power (like unskilled vs. unskilled) limited to SIM-like loadouts that was used for so long.  Pegasus without super missiles does not have battleship firepower, given the mount types and dissipation.  Granted, this is not the same as fighting Onslaught with better-than-SIM loadout and maybe better skills.

I will give that Conquest has less armor and shield numbers than Pegasus.

and it has better armor/hull than every non-Automated ship except the Onslaught, Legion, Invictus, and the Paragon (which has same armor but 1k more hull)

I would compare Pegasus to Onslaught and Paragon (them being called battleships), maybe Legion too (being the Galactica expy).  Pegasus does not have Onslaught's/Legion's armor or Paragon's shields.  When I send my fleet after Pegasus, it dies faster than Onslaught since Pegasus has less armor, and firepower without the missiles is much less scary (and enemy Pegasus uses DEMs, being a League ship).  I do not know how it compares to Paragon.  (I fought one this release, but do not remember exactly how the fight went.)  Attacking Pegasus feels a bit like attacking an Atlas II.

Invictus feels more like a super-capital from mod-land, and with its size and unusual campaign stats (in an expensive way), I expect it to be a bit overpowered in combat for its cost like Ziggurat is.  Was too durable before, but it seems less excessively durable after the armor fix now.

[CapnHector]

4 Large Missiles with 2 forward facing is quite a lot more than 2 Large Missiles sideward facing (if you are using Conquest as intended with Large Ballistics facing the enemy). Twice more for 10 more DP in fact. Having farmed double Ordos with both Conquest and Pegasus I am confident it would still be stellar and worth its DP with the nerfs mentioned. Specifically the ability to use kinetic missiles or Locusts in the rear facing slots and Cyclone Reapers in the forward facing slots is unique and the defining feature of this ship. It is not something that depends on the FMR system, since the AI barely uses this system based on my testing yet the Pegasus still did fine under AI control with this layout.

I can tell you having played both ships extensively I would pick the Conquest over the Pegasus as it is now and I would pick the Pegasus over the Conquest if the Pegasus had the above-mentioned defensive attributes and Active Flare Launcher, but its old missile layout.

[smithney]

I can tell you having played both ships extensively I would pick the Conquest over the Pegasus as it is now and I would pick the Pegasus over the Conquest if the Pegasus had the above-mentioned defensive attributes and Active Flare Launcher, but its old missile layout.

¿Por qué no los dos? *Cue Salamancans cheering*

I don't get how can the two be compared just based on the number of missile slots and being midline. Doesn't the playstyle differ by miles? If not, that would be something to concern me.

[Alex]

Thank you for all the ideas re: missiles/Pegasus/and so on!

Made some notes on that and other things; my apologies for not responding to everything directly, but I've read all the feedback and responses!

One thing I might need to do is re-implement the Executor as a separate ship rather than a Pegasus skin; that's making some things unnecessarily complicated.

Could you please elaborate on this? Because from a thematic perspective the current design does a lot of storytelling work, I think it would be a shame to see it go.

This change would be an entirely behind-the-scenes implementation detail that would just make tweaking certain numbers easier.

The point is, a better balance lever would be to reduce its ridiculous defensive potential rather than remove its identity and make it a slow worse Conquest. In its current state it can tank hits from a Radiant; a better identity in keeping with the original design would be a relatively vulnerable missile battleship with great offensive potential.

To illustrate just how good the shield is, my anti-Ordo build had 25k flux capacity with a .4 efficiency shield on the Pegasus with the appropriate hullmods and officer. And that wasn't even using all caps or all available shield bonuses, just hardened shields, 30 caps and Field Modulation. That is insanely good defense for any ship, let alone a supposed missile ship. The shield has almost full coverage, too.

Hmm. How much does its tankiness matter if it's putting out overwhelming missile fire? I guess it matters some, but e.g. it has no immediate effect on something like dumping out 20 Hurricanes from beyond engagement range; that still seems... off.

The AI is really bad at using FMR.

(Something I actually wanted to look at.)

[CapnHector]

Thank you for all the ideas re: missiles/Pegasus/and so on!

The point is, a better balance lever would be to reduce its ridiculous defensive potential rather than remove its identity and make it a slow worse Conquest. In its current state it can tank hits from a Radiant; a better identity in keeping with the original design would be a relatively vulnerable missile battleship with great offensive potential.

To illustrate just how good the shield is, my anti-Ordo build had 25k flux capacity with a .4 efficiency shield on the Pegasus with the appropriate hullmods and officer. And that wasn't even using all caps or all available shield bonuses, just hardened shields, 30 caps and Field Modulation. That is insanely good defense for any ship, let alone a supposed missile ship. The shield has almost full coverage, too.

Hmm. How much does its tankiness matter if it's putting out overwhelming missile fire? I guess it matters some, but e.g. it has no immediate effect on something like dumping out 20 Hurricanes from beyond engagement range; that still seems... off.

Well, rather than theorize about it, let's test it empirically.

Here is my old fleet configured into a Hurricane spamming fleet. This is still the previous release.


We fight this Ordo. No orders given, all ships under AI control, all identical except the D-mods.




It is a resounding victory.


Now, I change in ships.csv the Pegasus' armor value to 1200 and shield to 1.2 efficiency. Note I do not change the ship system.

The result is quite different as the Brilliants and Nova-class drone battlecruisers drive in and crush this fleet, ending in a full defeat.




This is an expected result based on using this ship a lot. The tankiness does matter.

[basileus]

Personally, I think you should return the Pegasus to the way it was, and buff the Point Defense skill and Integrated Point Defense hullmod.  At least double their effectiveness against missiles.  That way, there will be a modest percentage of ships out there that are actually very good at intercepting missiles, and missile spam won't always be the answer.

[Alex]

The result is quite different as the Brilliants and Nova-class drone battlecruisers drive in and crush this fleet, ending in a full defeat.

This is an expected result based on using this ship a lot. The tankiness does matter.

I mean, that makes sense! I think you'd expect it to in a nearly mono-fleet. But with something else to do the tanking... still, hmm.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Personally, I think you should return the Pegasus to the way it was, and buff the Point Defense skill and Integrated Point Defense hullmod.  At least double their effectiveness against missiles.  That way, there will be a modest percentage of ships out there that are actually very good at intercepting missiles, and missile spam won't always be the answer.

Doubling? That's bold. It might end up with missiles becoming useless because none of then can ever get close.