Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 ... 11 12 [13]

Author Topic: Legion is too underwhelming?  (Read 16833 times)

Salter

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 213
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #180 on: January 20, 2023, 02:42:37 PM »

Brains legion build was perfectly fine. Its not flashy, but its a low tech capital it doesn't rely or focus on its shields anyways. Your worries should not be about your capacitors on low tech capitals, thats the domain of mid & high-tech which does it better. You use your armor to soak damage and weather the worst like torpedo's and so on with your shield.

If anything it could have used more vents. Legion could always use more OP on either of its versions.
Logged

Draba

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 732
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #181 on: January 20, 2023, 05:09:08 PM »

The other thing to consider is that a Legion wants the Fighter Skills while also wanting all the same skills the Onslaught has! In order for the Legion to surpass the Onslaught, it needs two more skills to do it. If the base Legion was slightly overtuned relative to the Onslaught, the Onslaught would make up for it by requiring less skills to reach its ceiling.
Yeah I don't think it needs any drastic changes. Considering it's possible missile loadout (for either), burn drive is a good system for the ship. I just wish the AI would not cancel it so cautiously! Run your enemy down!

In terms of is 40 an overbuff: I would also say no. Comparing loadouts with an Onslaught as FooF mentioned, they are both 40 DP ships and yet the Onslaught can comfortably run a full stack of hullmods to boost itself, while a Legion has to sacrifice in one of its categories (fighters, missiles, guns) in order to afford the basic "required" ones.
By itself the 40 OP wouldn't even look that much, certainly helps a lot.
What makes me really want to try a base Legion as soon as the update is out is the 40 OP+the Sarissa fighters (low tech Xyphos with 2x light autocannons: https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1593701882777587712 ).
Good sustained kinetic output could really make 5xM missiles pop, and the large ballistic options also open up a bit.

There is plenty room to do something unique compared to the Onslaught without changing DP.
Legion will still be less tanky but seems like it could have higher, more situational damage output.
Logged

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #182 on: January 20, 2023, 05:25:29 PM »

What makes me really want to try a base Legion as soon as the update is out is the 40 OP+the Sarissa fighters (low tech Xyphos with 2x light autocannons: https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/1593701882777587712 ). Good sustained kinetic output could really make 5xM missiles pop, and the large ballistic options also open up a bit.

Yes, the new Escort Fighter is going to be a huge buff to the Legion. I modded the Gladius to have 3x LACs, 3 fighters and cannister flak to approximate what it might be like and they were pretty effective, albeit short-ranged (for a Capital). I don't know their final stats but it was a decent amount of Kinetic fire coming from them.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7174
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #183 on: January 20, 2023, 05:48:12 PM »

Oh me too, those support fighters look excellent for the Legion! I also want to stick them on a Shrike and see how they do backing up a high tech ship that normally can't get kinetics.
Logged

Doctorhealsgood

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 516
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #184 on: January 21, 2023, 08:48:59 AM »

I’m not convinced the Legion needs an overhaul. Reserve Deployment wouldn’t be bad but then you’d have to buff base speed because a ship that is supposed to be front-line but can’t get to the front lines is useless. Salvage Gantry and logistics buffs doesn’t add anything of value to me. By the time I have a capital, post-battle salvage is trivial and I already have a fleet of logistics vessels.
Reserve redeployment? Far as i know that will murder your replacement rate so fast that you might as well not use fighters. Would rather keep burn drive to be honest.
Logged
Quote from: Doctorhealsgood
Sometimes i feel like my brain has been hit by salamanders not gonna lie.

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #185 on: January 21, 2023, 09:13:00 AM »

Reserve Deployment is bugged though, which is being fixed, so it might not be so terrible in the next patch. Don't get me wrong, though, I want my Legions to have Burn Drive. I was only responding to the hypothetical "What if the Legion had a different system?"
Logged

Doctorhealsgood

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 516
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #186 on: January 21, 2023, 09:34:16 AM »

Ah, i see.
Well that aside i i just saw on that twitter post that alex made a new hullmod called "Defensive Targeting Array" that makes any fighter into a support fighter (and gives a boost to fighter PD capabilities) and it is also supposed to be pretty cheap. And oh my god i will probably spend a lot of time testing different fighter loadouts on the legion.
And testing it on converted cargo bay derelict ships for fun too
Logged
Quote from: Doctorhealsgood
Sometimes i feel like my brain has been hit by salamanders not gonna lie.

Kos135

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 149
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #187 on: January 21, 2023, 02:07:30 PM »

I'm excited for Defensive Targeting Array as well, but more for the Mora than the Legion.
Logged
You cannot trick an honest man, only a villain will fall for it.

Vanshilar

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 585
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #188 on: February 14, 2023, 01:49:55 AM »

Those single maulers have me intrigued... do you think the mauler works for actually punishing lowered shields, or making the AI do what you want it to?

Oh sorry never responded to this. In sim, yes the Heavy Mauler does seem to prevent the enemy AI from venting (without it, the enemy AI just disrespectfully vents in my face, since I wouldn't have any anti-armor). I'm not sure if it really affects it that much in fleet combat though.

Rather, it's so that my ship has at least one weapon for anti-armor. Anti-armor is different than anti-shield or anti-hull. In the other cases, you can pretty much just sum up the damage from each weapon. But for anti-armor, what's most important is whichever is the strongest. So the single Heavy Mauler provides the anti-armor role. The HVD will provide nearly as much anti-hull as the Heavy Mauler, but far more anti-shield damage, so it's more useful to stack HVD's.

In this case, in theory my Cobras provides anti-armor (and anti-hull...and anti-shield), but I was never good at timing fighter strikes. So the Heavy Mauler provides some backup anti-armor capability in between Cobra strikes.

And yes, I'm looking forward to Legion with Sarissa as well, along with Prox spam. Although in the end, I ended up piloting Onslaught XIV so that I wouldn't have to worry about timing my fighters; but Legion with Sarissa might work well too.
Logged

strcat

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 20
    • View Profile
Re: Legion is too underwhelming?
« Reply #189 on: March 23, 2023, 02:52:43 AM »

Legion (XIV) is already quite strong as an aggressive close range flagship.

4x Xyphos Support Fighter
2x Cyclone Reaper Launcher
5x Heavy Machine Gun
4x Light Dual Machine Gun

Heavy Armor (built-in)
Integrated Targeting Unit (built-in)
Extended Missile Racks (built-in)
Resistant Flux Conduits
Insulated Engine Assembly
Armored Weapon Mounts
Solar Shielding

0x Capacitors
16x Vents (only really needs 12x)

Using only machine guns gives a ton of kinetic firepower and saves a ton of OP on Vents to get decent hull mods despite the overall lack of OP compared to an Onslaught (XIV). Elite Point Defense makes them medium ranged weapons. Burn Drive makes it work against most enemies if you use it well.

A similar machine gun focused Onslaught (XIV) is better at fighting multiple enemies at once and can still have strong long range attack capabilities via TPC and the central large ballistic slot. Still, Legion (XIV) has nearly as much frontal anti-shield firepower and gets much more from the missile slots. Xyphos disables lots of point defense and clears the way for the reapers to hit very reliably. You also get twice as much reaper ammo with 2 large slots compared to 4 medium slots. Even against a capital ship, it quickly takes down shields, disables their weapons and then deletes it with reapers. Can make sense to allow enemies to shoot you beyond your range to build up 100% hard flux for Polarized Armor while approaching since they're going to get deleted so quickly when you get close. This also helps avoids not getting close enough and letting them slip away from you. Radiants can slip away but that also applies to the Onslaught (XIV).

Every non-Xyphos fighter gets themselves killed too quickly. Bombers work well for close range combat and save you missiles but each Cyclone Reaper Launcher has 40x missiles with either EMR or Missile Specialization and 60x with both. I'd rather have 4x Xyphos providing EMP and PD than more missiles, particularly with the lack of rear PD coverage and lack of OP for IDPAI which are major weaknesses.

40 extra OP will close the gap with Onslaught (XIV) further, allowing adding Integrated Point Defense AI, Automated Repair Unit and optionally using Shield Shunt with 11x Vents which is only slightly below the total weapon flux. Cyclone Reaper Launcher has enough ammo for Extended Missile Racks to simply be dropped and replaced with something else.

Best of the Best takes 5 points and Polarized Armor takes 2 points. With 3 points in Combat, there are enough points to grab the 2nd Leadership officer skill, Electronic Warfare and Flux Regulation. Giving up one of those gives another powerful combat skill. Giving up another allows using Missile Specialization. Low tech is powerful partly because so many of the skills work well with it, which is both good and bad since it's hard to balance with fleet skills while that's easier to balance for high tech. I'd personally prefer if all personal combat skills were in Combat with more skills added to Technology and Industry as replacements, partly because I don't like the asymmetry with how it works differently for officers.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 11 12 [13]