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[Drone_Fragger]

In my opinion the issue with the Pegasus was not the 4 large missile mounts, it was the fast missile racks.

Now, the Pegasus feels like a worse conquest, admittedly one that is easier to control. The conquest has better flux stats, and can mount large ballistics, and can still mount the same number of missiles the Pegasus can, so in combat can put a lot more damage out before ending fights with missles using gauss, mjollnirs or auto cannons.

Personally I would revert the Pegasus change, but then change it's ship system to be something that helps with missile usage but not one that makes spamming 12 mirvs at a target a viable option, which was honestly the main issue.

The obvious one is something like missile auto forge, but something that maybe boosts missile speed and turn rate could be useful too (to more quickly bring rear firing missiles on target and make them less likely to miss).

[CapnHector]

In my opinion the issue with the Pegasus was not the 4 large missile mounts, it was the fast missile racks.

Now, the Pegasus feels like a worse conquest, admittedly one that is easier to control. The conquest has better flux stats, and can mount large ballistics, and can still mount the same number of missiles the Pegasus can, so in combat can put a lot more damage out before ending fights with missles using gauss, mjollnirs or auto cannons.

Personally I would revert the Pegasus change, but then change it's ship system to be something that helps with missile usage but not one that makes spamming 12 mirvs at a target a viable option, which was honestly the main issue.

The obvious one is something like missile auto forge, but something that maybe boosts missile speed and turn rate could be useful too (to more quickly bring rear firing missiles on target and make them less likely to miss).

Yeah, I posted this in the other thread too but I re-ran that combat vs Onslaught, and in three tries (1 win and 2 losses) the AI used the FMR system a grand total of two times.

If the player wishes to play an unstoppable super ship that can just demolish capitals then several already exist in the game, including Ziggurat, player controlled Radiant, and PCL Onslaught. So I do not think the Pegasus should be made a significantly worse ship for the AI because the player can exploit the system. Most of the ships in the game are under AI control.

Thank you for the correction about Squall DPS. It is almost certainly to do with how you use a playership and I do not, since the kills happen a lot faster with Locust than Squall and that is the likely reason for why the Locust fleet runs out of missiles at the end of a triple ordo, while the Squall fleet runs out of missiles at the end of a double ordo. Both are firing missiles continuously. I think a HIL Executor is a good idea but I am slightly discouraged to optimize a ship that may change soon.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

The thing is, and maybe it's because the fleet is under AI control rather than having a player-controlled flagship, running out of Squalls when the ships have Missile Spec and EMR is way too long. Usually for double Ordos my ships can get by with just (elite) Missile Spec and not even need EMR.

That's the testament to just how much work your flagship puts in(IIRC from one of your recent examples, it did 31% total damage even though it was accompanied by 8 Gryphons) When it comes to pure AI battles, I'm currently running 4 Conquests with frigate support and it's not uncommon for them to run out of Squalls at the very end of the battle, despite both (elite) MS and EMR. Although the new 20% EMR RoF nerf should ironically help a bit with that. It also depends on the enemy fleet composition, some "rolls" seem genuinely harder than others; I'm beginning to think that strength of Ordo fleets varies even between individual high danger systems. Perhaps scaled with distance from core worlds?

[prav]

I'm beginning to think that strength of Ordo fleets varies even between individual high danger systems. Perhaps scaled with distance from core worlds?

It's just a random range determined at sector gen (and theme level/beacon color), x - y fleets of n - m FP. Sometimes you roll high.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

It's just a random range determined at sector gen (and theme level/beacon color), x - y fleets of n - m FP. Sometimes you roll high.

Huh, I was 60% expecting it to be placebo. Any way to check the value? Is it stored in campaign.xml perhaps?

[prav]

Huh, I was 60% expecting it to be placebo. Any way to check the value? Is it stored in campaign.xml perhaps?

The fleets are reconstructed from seed values when they're needed, so no practical way.

[Vanshilar]

That's the testament to just how much work your flagship puts in(IIRC from one of your recent examples, it did 31% total damage even though it was accompanied by 8 Gryphons)

Well it's both that plus as the flagship, I'm also more or less controlling the flow of the battle; I can go where the battle line needs some more firepower, I can rush in with burn drive to tank if part of my fleet is under attack too much, etc., which enables the fleet to continue to pump out damage instead of having to go on defense (which cuts into their damage output). Generally speaking my flagship Onslaught XIV averages around 1200-1500 DPS, while my flagship SO Medusa with dual Cryoblasters in an SO fleet averages around 800 DPS or so, while my flagship Ziggurat runs at around 2100 DPS. Compared with a Gryphon putting out around 400 DPS and most cruisers putting out less than 300 DPS and yeah, hence I'm not particularly swayed by reports of player-controlled capitals being able to put out a lot of damage. Not that they're not important, but my perspective is that many player-controlled ships can usually put out several times more damage than the AI controlling the same ship in the first place. I'd like to get some measurements on the Pegasus but I won't be able to play until I get back from a trip, so it may be a while before I can get some hard testing done to put it in perspective with other player-controlled ships. Fortunately, even with the RC9 nerf, I can still just add the original back as a skin for testing.

It also depends on the enemy fleet composition, some "rolls" seem genuinely harder than others; I'm beginning to think that strength of Ordo fleets varies even between individual high danger systems. Perhaps scaled with distance from core worlds?

From my 0.95.1a data, the first 10 or so fleets from a full Nexus are basically "warmup" fleets, and after that, a single Ordos varied from 250 to 386 FP (average 317.5 FP), and from 278 to 487 DP (average 385.8 DP). My understanding is that the total FP is rolled and then the fleet factory "spends" that FP on the various ships or something along those lines, but I don't know the actual algorithm. But yes there is a substantial variation from the smallest fleet to the largest fleet that you can get. When I selected the double Ordos fleet to use for testing, I deliberately chose a set that was about average so that the data wouldn't be biased against a harder-than-usual nor easier-than-usual double Ordos fleet.

You can quickly tell the FP of a fleet by using the "kill" console command to kill a fleet, which tells you its FP. The DP I counted the old-fashioned way, by having a spreadsheet of how many Radiants, Brilliants, etc., each fleet had, along with the number of each type of core.

[BaBosa]

Is the stable nerfed speed and shield Pegasus still able to beat out triple ordos or cleanly take out doubles?

[CapnHector]

Is the stable nerfed speed and shield Pegasus still able to beat out triple ordos or cleanly take out doubles?

Thanks for reminding me about a fun fleet! I still love Pegasus.

Fortunately, I have a way where I make a copy of a save every time I change builds, so I can replay this exact fleet and build. Yeah, it's still triple Ordo capable as of .96-Rc10. However, you can definitely tell it's been nerfed. The Cyclones now often miss due to missile mounts not rotating, and the ships are more fragile. Previously it was enough to just issue a Defend order. Now you must be in active fleet command mode and employ the frigates intelligently too. Good thing I became pretty good at stuff like moving ships around with Eliminate orders playing the Venture LP fleet. Listening to "it has to be this way" through the entire triple Ordo combat is highly recommended.

This time I can provide Detailed Combat Results output to show you what is doing the damage.

First, some screenshots of the fun.





Detailed combat results output:
Note the 4 Radiants at the end coming out at the same time with Apexes killed 3 of the Pegasi. They were fine until the very end. This is also why the late deployed Pegasus contributed very little. In practice, this was 5 Pegasus + Glimmers doing almost all of the work.

Best ship:

[Arcagnello]

Very interesting stuff throughout the thread, I would not be surprised if Missiles themselves or their skills (more likely) got nerfed as a result, especially Missile Health and the ECCM speed bonus for some missiles, namely the Reapers

[CapnHector]

Good news to all fans of antimatter and antimatter accessories (and lobsters). I have a build of the Executor where four of it could take out a double Ordo under AI control.


^{This is from an earlier draft that included a Graviton and didn't have Sarissa.}



This is the build. Some notes:
- Only Graviton in the mediums did not kill small ships fast enough. However, only IR autolance seems to be possibly worse than 1 Graviton 3 IRAL despite this win. I may go back to it.
- I did the unthinkable and downgraded large missiles to Pilum. This had hubris behind it because I was thinking the Executor is so strong I can make 5 ships defeat 5 Ordos. Probably not though as this build is not even taking out 3 yet. However it turns out to have been a good move since the officer is very starved for skills. One mobility skill is mandatory. I wanted Combat Endurance to fight 5 ordos but also to leverage the "almost dead but still entirely capable of killing the enemy" effect that Radiants also have due to the immensely strong shield. That in fact happened this fight where 1 ship kept fighting at 500 hull. It needs Reinforced Bulkheads badly but I couldn't afford it.
- It is better than a Paragon because it has an offensive ship system and more ballistics. Well, at least in this role.

I was a little tired and didn't make a full battle report this time. Basically you use some LP Kites to capture command points (this is not relevant now, but will be once I get one more D-mod on the ships so I can deploy all 5 + 2 kites for 239 DP) and then you defend one, issuing eliminate orders as appropriate to keep the battle line intact.


Combat output:

[Grievous69]

Good news to all fans of antimatter and antimatter accessories

-not a single Gigacannon or Antimatter Blaster... I feel cheated.

[CapnHector]

Good news to all fans of antimatter and antimatter accessories

-not a single Gigacannon or Antimatter Blaster... I feel cheated.

Sorry I would dearly like to use the Gigacannon but I also like winning

[BigBrainEnergy]

Is elite combat endurance worth it? Just at a glance it seems like you'd be better off getting elite target analysis for the emp component of the HVDs and Pilums but I can't know just based off the screenshots.

[Void Ganymede]

Sindrian Diktat supremacy

That's awesome!

I like the elite armor skill negating the need for Aux Thrusters. Conflicted on the CH Sarissa - in actual game fleets I'd bring dedicated Herons instead, and spend those OP on maxing out flux capacity to really abuse the ship's shield efficiency. With max shields and enough mobility boosts you can totally make Gigacannons work. Their flux efficiency is valuable!

Running a HEF ship as a ballistic artillery boat is real strange, but 5 forward-facing ballistic mounts speak for themselves.

Which brings us to the most important question: can this run as an Antimatter Blaster boat?