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[Wyvern]

Guess you didn't do the math. Salamander is 1500 EMP damage (more with skills). Engines have 200/400/600/800 health (+-25% based on plume size). So unless you are a cruiser with SO / plasma burn active, or a capital, 300% health is still not good enough.

There's "do the math", and there's "actually test it in-game", and when they disagree, you're clearly missing something in your math.

It's been my in-game experience that a destroyer with insulated engines won't lose an engine from a single salamander hit, while two salamanders in rapid succession will burn out at least one, if not two or three engines. There are, as others have posted, a number of possible reasons why my experience doesn't match your math, and frankly, I'm not interested enough to bother testing out exactly what's going on here: it's enough for me to know that insulated engines works, and will work better when s-modded.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

A single circus missile can and will eventually lose you an entire fleet against a late-game ordo fight.

I probably fought Ordo over a hundred times at this point and I can't recall a single time any of my ships was hit by a Salamander. I can't even tell you which Remnant ships carry it. Some Lumens I guess?

Then again I do put PD on my ships. YMMV.

[Princess of Evil]

Salamanders keep your ships honest, in a way. They're easily swatted by PD, but if you skip on it, well, have fun.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Bit late but:

Specific weapons are now reliably found at specific faction markets/black markets
For example, the new directed-energy missiles can be found on Persean League colonies

Does this extend to ships too? Will it be finally possible to buy Apogees?

[strcat]

There's no way Front Shield Conversion is getting nerfed... I'm not sure I ever caught myself thinking "man, this hullmod is bonkers". Let me guess, s-mod bonus gives it cost reduction?

Not liking this change mainly because I hate flying with Omni shields on 95% of the ships. I get that it's cheaper now but I don't see myself using this as often as before.

You say it feels wrong to grab a hullmod for the side effect, and let me tell you there's a huge amount of people who put RFC on almost every ship purely for faster vent speed (especially on flagships). I feel that's fine if the player really wants to maximize one part, or just enable his comfort playstyle.

I think omni shields are extremely underrated for player ships and it's part of why ships where front shields don't work well like the Odyssey are significantly underrated. Omni shields are even quite useful with the Onslaught since turning takes so long even when you're holding fire for zero flux boost. Dropping all the hard flux while turning also isn't actually desirable due to Polarized Armor combined with tons of flux dissipation from Ordnance Expertise, maxed out vents and Flux Distributor. I don't currently include the conversion but it would probably be worth sacrificing something for it and then leaning more on shields instead of zero flux boost turning.

You need to make some changes to how you fly ships in order to properly take advantage of omni shields. It conflicts with aiming weapons manually since you often or even usually want the shield facing differently than your primary weapons. Weapons need target leading and shields are also used to defend against more than your primary target. Autofire is usually more efficient than the player at aiming and firing most weapons with Elite Gunnery Implants or high CR anyway. The player is much better at timing limited ammunition or high cooldown weapons which you can still do without manually aiming one of your weapon groups. You also need to use the normal keybindings for turning and strafing rather than holding shift for steering and using A and D for strafing. That has a learning curve if you're used to flying while holding shift.

For the Odyssey, I keep 3x Sabot SRM Pod as the selected weapon group and use the mouse to aim the 180 degree omni shield including redeploying it. It's extremely important to focus on that especially with such a mobile ship where you can dart towards and away from enemies. 2x Plasma Cannon on autofire works better than manually aiming them in most cases and frees up focus for managing the ship orientation / movement including the ship system, shield orientation, target selection and sabots. I use 2x Xyphos and a Locust SRM Launcher for 360 degree PD rather than PD weapons which helps make up for not having a 360 degree shield. It almost never wants the shield facing directing in front since you approach enemies from the side, circle around them and potentially disengage. If you need to disengage faster, the shield needs to be more rear facing. I focus on dissipation and venting speed with near 0 capacitors. Venting frequently and quickly deploying the shield in the right place is crucial. Front shields would be far worse despite full coverage and the ship would be far more prone to getting killed instead of being able to solo nearly anything.

You say it feels wrong to grab a hullmod for the side effect, and let me tell you there's a huge amount of people who put RFC on almost every ship purely for faster vent speed (especially on flagships). I feel that's fine if the player really wants to maximize one part, or just enable his comfort playstyle.

For player flagships, EMP resistance for RFC is really the secondary effect in most cases. I also use Hardened Shields to have much stronger shields without longer venting speed from adding capacitors. The same choices may not make sense for AI ships since they aren't nearly as aggressive with active venting.

[Grievous69]

It's not a matter of being underrated (Odyssey is definitely not underrated lol), I think the majority just prefers frontal shields for comfort. Juggling weapons and managing flux is already a big task on some ships, now having to steer your shield to block shots while doing all of that gets hectic quite fast. And the fact that it's impossible to rotate your shield without the camera also following your mouse. It's just a hassle for me, unless the ship has such a simple loadout, I don't need to manage anything (or where the majority of firepower is on hardpoints).

[Schwartz]

Frontal shields are not always better. The AI is notoriously careless about flicking shields on and off; taking hits on armor when it doesn't have to and not accounting for the time it takes for a frontal shield to fully envelop the ship. Assume it's got bombers incoming on the side and it takes 3 seconds for the shield to cover the side. It's not calculating that or see it as a risk, at least not as far as I can see. Omni shields don't have that issue. Unless the conversion results in 360° coverage I'll usually not bother.

Accelerated shields help, and previously with upkeep cost reduction for free you'd consider slapping Accelerated on, too. Now it may be more of a Tough Decision.

[strcat]

It's not a matter of being underrated (Odyssey is definitely not underrated lol), I think the majority just prefers frontal shields for comfort. Juggling weapons and managing flux is already a big task on some ships, now having to steer your shield to block shots while doing all of that gets hectic quite fast. And the fact that it's impossible to rotate your shield without the camera also following your mouse. It's just a hassle for me, unless the ship has such a simple loadout, I don't need to manage anything (or where the majority of firepower is on hardpoints).

I haven't seen many people using the Odyssey and it typically gets rated under the Onslaught or Paragon as a player piloted ship. It's considered quite good but usually not top tier which is what I mean by underrated. Something can be widely regarded as very good while still being underrated. I personally didn't use it for a long time because I wasn't used to broadside ships or omni shields, and it wasn't hyped up as an incredible ship so I never put the effort into giving it a real shot. AI can't pilot it well but it's incredible as a player ship and is on a whole other level than those. I can't solo a typical Ordo fleet with an Onslaught or Paragon because they get swarmed and can't make nearly as much difference in a fleet battle with only burn drive. Charge-based ship systems get an extreme benefit from Systems Expertise and you can pick up BotB and the important technology skills by skipping Industry. It's unforgiving of mistakes but it's perfect as a player ship.

I really think a lot of it is that it feels useful to manually aim a primary ballistic/energy weapon even if autofire will usually do a better job with max target leading accuracy from skills. That cripples your ability to use omni shields and therefore omni shields are seen as something that's good for the AI but bad for players. The battle report mod helps with seeing that manually aiming weapons may actually often be making them less efficient in practice. There are certainly cases where manually aiming them allows for clever usage but I'm not sure it makes up for all the little inaccuracies/mistakes. Autofire currently has issues with the Tachyon Lance and Phase Lance but it seems the latest patch will be fixing that issue. Player can do smart things with both timing and aiming for those kinds of weapons such as aiming TL off center so the AI can't raise front shields in time to block it but at least once the bug is fixed I expect that autofire is overall much more efficient since it won't miss lots of shots vs. frigates, etc. and will properly track them as they move. I think it's very obvious that beam weapons work extremely well on autofire but it's very good at target leading for projectiles too when that's maxed.

[Draba]

Frontal shields are not always better. The AI is notoriously careless about flicking shields on and off; taking hits on armor when it doesn't have to and not accounting for the time it takes for a frontal shield to fully envelop the ship. Assume it's got bombers incoming on the side and it takes 3 seconds for the shield to cover the side. It's not calculating that or see it as a risk, at least not as far as I can see. Omni shields don't have that issue. Unless the conversion results in 360° coverage I'll usually not bother.

In my experience the AI is more likely to keep frontal shields up, that paired with the increased extension speed is also very good.
Seems to be more reliable for lots of ships (often overlaps with the >300° coverage you mentioned ofc).

I really think a lot of it is that it feels useful to manually aim a primary ballistic/energy weapon even if autofire will usually do a better job with max target leading accuracy from skills. That cripples your ability to use omni shields and therefore omni shields are seen as something that's good for the AI but bad for players.

I rarely use anything but burst weapons on manual, and have a setup to autofire weapons on group 2 while holding a button.
Still prefer frontal shields in most cases, it's a mix of being bad at piloting and frontal arc/raise speed/flux buff being worth it

Something like Odyssey also really doesn't need omni, frontal gives full coverage and you'll mostly have enemies on the left/front left.
Basically never have defend both sides where I can't just keep 360° up.

The ships that like omni most are the armor tanks, can just take most hits to the face and react with shields against the big threats/beams.
They also tend to have strong PD and hard to reach backs so still not a necessity.

I haven't seen many people using the Odyssey and it typically gets rated under the Onslaught or Paragon as a player piloted ship.

70 base speed capital with plasma burn and double L energy+lots of missiles screams high impact player ship.
Didn't see people saying it's anything but brutal with manual control, admittedly didn't look too hard but it'd be really silly IMO.
Being good in AI hands is the part that's not obvious, I think the AI is great with Odyssey but many don't like it.

[Amoebka]

Mining Pods: will now try to stay in front of the carrier

Does "in front" here mean "between the ship and its closest enemy" or "opposite from the engines"? Asking about broadside ships, like Odyssey.

[strcat]

Frontal shields are not always better. The AI is notoriously careless about flicking shields on and off; taking hits on armor when it doesn't have to and not accounting for the time it takes for a frontal shield to fully envelop the ship. Assume it's got bombers incoming on the side and it takes 3 seconds for the shield to cover the side. It's not calculating that or see it as a risk, at least not as far as I can see. Omni shields don't have that issue. Unless the conversion results in 360° coverage I'll usually not bother.

Accelerated shields help, and previously with upkeep cost reduction for free you'd consider slapping Accelerated on, too. Now it may be more of a Tough Decision.

Players can work around front shields better, but players can also take better advantage of omni shields if you fit it into your piloting. There are ships where front shield conversion is very obvious like the Aurora since 360° coverage is awesome and it has an easy time remaining facing almost any enemy. That's still going to be obvious without the flux cost discount and Aurora in particular is getting a buff which more than makes up for it. Slow turning ships get a lot of benefit from omni shields, especially if you're aggressively using active venting.

[Alex]

Specific weapons are now reliably found at specific faction markets/black markets
For example, the new directed-energy missiles can be found on Persean League colonies

Does this extend to ships too? Will it be finally possible to buy Apogees?

Not to the same extent, no - though it's generally easier because factions have more distinct ship lineups. For the Apogee specifically, probably the easiest place to pick it up would be at the military market on Nortia, especially if its stability is not too low. Nothing like "reliable" (the independent faction has access to *a lot* of different cruisers!) but also not exceedingly rare.

Assume it's got bombers incoming on the side and it takes 3 seconds for the shield to cover the side. It's not calculating that or see it as a risk, at least not as far as I can see.

It does! It not always going to get it right but you'd really notice if it didn't do it at all

[strcat]

Something like Odyssey also really doesn't need omni, frontal gives full coverage and you'll mostly have enemies on the left/front left.
Basically never have defend both sides where I can't just keep 360° up.

Since the movement system only moves you forward, Odyssey is great at circling around and flanking. It can avoid getting swarmed that way without needing backup. Keeping enemies on the left by outrunning and circling around them works very well and the main benefit of more coverage would be again fighters, but those will still screw you over (especially Broadswords) if you try to tank them instead of quickly killing them (Locust SRM Launcher is amazing at a lot more than dealing with fighters, and 2x Xyphos helps too). Being able to raise the shield directly facing the enemies after venting greatly reduces how long it makes you vulnerable. Frequent active venting is part of what makes the player so strong compared to the AI. Running away as quickly as possible involves turning away and bursting past them, in which case they're behind you and your engines are facing them. If you're engaging the enemy as part of a battle line kiting back and forth, then I agree front shields don't hurt much but still hinder you when flanking. If you're alone, staying moving forward and active venting aggressively keeps you alive.

[Hiruma Kai]

I will also second the argument that, at least in player hands, omni-shield Odyssey is much stronger than front shield conversion Odyssey.  Given the relatively shallow flux capacity it has compared to its peers, a common usage I have is to engage at 90 to 135 degrees (left side or left rear towards enemy), burn perpendicular or not quite directly away, and then vent for ~2 seconds.  Unfortunately, the AI isn't quite sophisticated enough to approach in that way.

If I'm soloing a 300-400k bounty with a pile of Conquests and Champions, being able to drop and quickly bring up shields in the correct direction is key given the long range missile spam.  Front shield deployment would take way too long to get to the rear of the ship in that case, resulting in hits on the ship.

The only issue with 360 front shields is how quickly it gets to the position you need it at, but it happens to be a big issue for some ships. On small ships like the Hyperion or Scarab, it's not a big deal since it raises quickly and they can easily back off to vent and re-engage quickly.  If you're in the middle of a battle line, it's also not a big deal, since other ships are dealing with flankers.  But if you're isolated (or soloing) or defending a flank, then it can run into some issues.

I do tend to think omni shield conversion on armor tankers which don't start that way, such as on Onslaughts, and sometimes Legions, is quite nice as well, both for player and AI piloting. The smaller area is less of an issue since you want to use armor to win the flux war anyways, while also prioritizing incoming Reapers or phase ships from odd angles.

[Draba]

I will also second the argument that, at least in player hands, omni-shield Odyssey is much stronger than front shield conversion Odyssey.  Given the relatively shallow flux capacity it has compared to its peers, a common usage I have is to engage at 90 to 135 degrees (left side or left rear towards enemy), burn perpendicular or not quite directly away, and then vent for ~2 seconds.  Unfortunately, the AI isn't quite sophisticated enough to approach in that way.

And if you are not soloing you can use front left and M reaper some fools
If you are hammering for your fleet you really don't get much from omni (doesn't matter that much ofc).