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[Euphytose]

Hey,

Said I'd create a thread once the ship arrived so here it is!

This is my current loadout:

Spoiler

[close]

Probably pretty bad, but I'm not used to carriers in general. I rarely use them. Although the Astral has so many bays it should be useful in any fleet I think.

What do you usually use in an Astral? Do you mix fighters or just spam one type? And if so, which one? I currently have 6 Tridents, and 6 Longbows.

Also important: Since officers don't have carrier skills anymore, is it completely useless to put one into a carrier, even a capital?

Thanks!

[Amoebka]

Having an officer in a ship multiplies leadership carrier bonuses by 1.5.

It's usually best to mix bombers with some flare-dropping fighters to distract PD. My go-to for astral is Lux/Broadsword + 2 Longbow + 3 Trident.

You really need to use those missiles. Preferably with hullmods for them. Burst PD lasers are not really needed on a backline ship with 0.6 shields. Recovery shuttles are less useful for tanky bombers like tridents, especially if you mix in some flare supports.

[Euphytose]

Having an officer in a ship multiplies leadership carrier bonuses by 1.5.

It's usually best to mix bombers with some flare-dropping fighters to distract PD. My go-to for astral is Lux/Broadsword + 2 Longbow + 3 Trident.

Alright I'll try that once I get my hands on some Broadswords, should be very easy.

I had never tried mixing fighters before.

Thanks!

Edit: Alright, will take that into account, thanks again!

What would you recommend for the missile slots? Squalls?

[Amoebka]

All large missiles are good (except the new DEMs), it depends on what role you want them to perform for your fleet, and how willing you are to spend OP on missile racks and ECCM. Some missiles need them more than others (squalls, hurricanes).

If you don't want to spend on missiles too much, just put two pilum catapults in there. Cheap and useful.

[BigBrainEnergy]

You absolutely want squalls. Long range keeps the carrier out of danger and the high-hp + high-volume will overwhelm enemy pd and help your bombers get through, not to mention the kinetic damage compliments the HE damage from the bombers.

[Euphytose]

Alright thanks, gonna use Squalls then! That is, once I find them. I saw some already but didn't buy them. Kinda regretting it now.

[PsychoThruster]

I run shield hull mods to take advantage of the great shield tank. From there I run 6 tridents and go full tac beam. You don't need fighters to break up PD with tridents. They have great shield and launch from far enough away that some of that 24 torpedo payload is going to get through and ruin someone's day. The full stack of tac lasers will keep constant pressure on frigates trying to flank your back line, pd on the astral isn't necessary. I ignore missiles. The AI does great with the recall system, throwing in fighters or interceptors just ruins the alpha strike potential.

Alternatively you can stack zyphos go tac grav and phase lance beams for a brawler build that puts out insane pressure and sets up targets for your HE armed ships. Once again ignoring missiles.

Slap in officers with shield skill, maneuverability, energy mastery, and maybe some other tank skills or gunnery implants.

[Euphytose]

Thanks. I'll admit I really do want to keep my 6 Tridents lol, so I'll try what you suggest.

I agree on the AI doing a good job with the ship's system.

I actually never piloted a carrier in my entire Starsector career. I think the AI is very good with them, and to be completely honest I think piloting one is probably too boring, at least for me.

Edit: With a ship system like that I think bombers are really the way to go. You can just launch a strike, recall, and boom, another one. It's just too good. And the AI does exactly that.

[PsychoThruster]

Yeah I find carriers a bit boring but the astral is unique in that you can make it a support version of the paragon. Anyway build in those shield mods and get some vent. Pretty sure it can run flux neutral with shield and tacs. Oh almost forgot, get that ITU on there too

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Hey,

Said I'd create a thread once the ship arrived so here it is!

This is my current loadout:

Spoiler

[close]

Probably pretty bad, but I'm not used to carriers in general. I rarely use them. Although the Astral has so many bays it should be useful in any fleet I think.

What do you usually use in an Astral? Do you mix fighters or just spam one type? And if so, which one? I currently have 6 Tridents, and 6 Longbows.

Also important: Since officers don't have carrier skills anymore, is it completely useless to put one into a carrier, even a capital?

Thanks!

Unless something has changed with the Astral's A.I., it will not use its system until all bombers have fired. So, if your bomber has shields, and gets overloaded, the Astral will not use the recall device until the bomber is dead or has fired. So bombers like khopesh or perditions are strangely better. An officer with system expertise is highly recommended.
Use the small mounts for burst PD, it tends to be better per OP than the heavy burst PD. In the medium mounts, put phase lances for anti frigate duties, IR Autolances to help with frigates and fighters, and gravitons for anything with shields. You'll have to experiment, but in general have at least some weaponry in the medium energy mounts.

Due to advanced optics being built in, I recommend getting advanced turret gyros, although the debuff may have been moved to built in only I need to check.

Squalls should be put in the missile mounts.

[Euphytose]

Thanks again!

[bonerstorm]

Having an officer in a ship multiplies leadership carrier bonuses by 1.5.

It's usually best to mix bombers with some flare-dropping fighters to distract PD. My go-to for astral is Lux/Broadsword + 2 Longbow + 3 Trident.

You really need to use those missiles. Preferably with hullmods for them. Burst PD lasers are not really needed on a backline ship with 0.6 shields. Recovery shuttles are less useful for tanky bombers like tridents, especially if you mix in some flare supports.

+1

I always go Lux + Longbow + Trident/Dagger in all my big carriers.

For smaller ships, the Sarissa gets an extremely honorable mention for being tanky, murderous, versatile and OP-cheap. Since the changes to Convert Hangar, I've slapped that joint on most of my civilian ships, including salvage rig.

My favorite innovation is putting ECM and Nav mods on Valkyrie, then slapping a hangar with Sarissa on top. Experimented with Thunder but they weren't tanky enough. Now the two most useless ships in my fleet give a large bonus to speed and penalty to enemy weapon range PLUS a little extra fighter support while generally staying far from the front line. AND they don't even contribute to combat ship DP calc because they're considered civilian. All for a negligible increase in deployment cost.

Note: it seems like ship AI has a general tendency to try to fistfight fighters rather than rush glass cannon carriers, so Sarissas appear to greatly extend the lifespan of most long-range ships.

I figured this out by testing retreats from sim. Even very slow civilian ships like the Atlas or Prometheus have a fighting chance to escape when they have Sarissas covering their asses.

Agreed on Squalls being necessary on Astrals as well as Legions, Conquests and Apogees. They force the enemy to keep shields up and rack up hard flux if they want to be anywhere in your vicinity, which makes it much harder to kite you - a serious concern when you're flying a slower capital.

[Euphytose]

Agreed on Squalls being necessary on Astrals as well as Legions, Conquests and Apogees.

Now that you mention it I should really try Squalls on my Apogee yeah. For now I'm using the new Dragonfire torpedoes but they don't have enough ammo in my opinion.

Edit: Plus the AI tends to waste them I found. Shame because they deal really good damage.

Edit 2: Here's my updated Astral loadout:

Spoiler

[close]

I found that the back turrets wouldn't really be put to good use so I left them empty, not sure if that's the correct decision.

[bonerstorm]

Agreed on Squalls being necessary on Astrals as well as Legions, Conquests and Apogees.

Now that you mention it I should really try Squalls on my Apogee yeah. For now I'm using the new Dragonfire torpedoes but they don't have enough ammo in my opinion.

Edit: Plus the AI tends to waste them I found. Shame because they deal really good damage.

Edit 2: Here's my updated Astral loadout:

Spoiler

[close]

I found that the back turrets wouldn't really be put to good use so I left them empty, not sure if that's the correct decision.

I always run at least one Apogee in my fleet - usually my starting ship. Always blow two story points on Augmented Drive and Insulated Engines, then give plasma, squall, graviton, two burst lasers and a salamander. Can go to-to-toe with everything short of a capital. Also, of course, hardened and stabilized shields plus ITU.

Honestly don't know how any of y'all play without Aug Drive on anything with less than 9 burn. I'd be so bored trudging across the sector at anything less than 20B.

My 2c: 2 tridents, 2 longbows, 2 lux/broadsword. Maybe trade 1 broadsword for another longbow. Use the savings to give 2 or 3 burst lasers at the front of the ship - just in case a bad boi makes it to your backline and tries to cram a reaper down your mouth.

TBH I'm not even a fan of Astrals. Legions and Herons give much more bang for the buck and are less likely to get nuked the minute things go wrong.

[Euphytose]

Yeah unfortunately for me, the Astral seems like a "win more" ship, but if the battle doesn't go your way, it's likely to get nuked as you said. I'll keep it in my fleet because it's fun to see so many Atropos destroy something though.

As far as burn level is concerned, 16 is enough for me. What I really absolutely need though, is the increased "slow" burn level, to 7 in this case. 4 is way too slow.

Edit: Basically when the battle seems to be hard, I don't deploy the Astral. I'd much rather deploy another Onslaught and something else. And more often than not, the result proves I was right.

Maybe I shouldn't be playing on default battle size, I don't know.