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[Hiruma Kai]

If I'm being too literal for a moment and not to be taken seriously, the best build for the majority of the storyline of the game is no skills, a lone militarized Dram with Unstable Injector, SO, More Fuel Space, and built in Expanded Cargo and Insulated Engines.

If I ever bother optimising the any per cent speedrun and it turns out you can coast by just with story points you get from doing the missions, this might turn out actually true.

I personally think Hound > Dram for campaign, since all you need to do is enough Academy missions to progress, which I think are always just go to X location and then possibly go to Y location, with no combat necessary.  That means just enough fuel to get to the target system and back. I've done it with 0 story points spent on iron man. If you run a hound with Auxilliary Fuel Tanks, Augmented Drive Field, SO and Unstable Injector, and put your 1 skill point into Bulk Transport, you have 45 light years out and 45 light years back, and your base 255 speed means you simply pick disengage option and then leave for nearly all hostile encounters, so no need to waste story points.  Dram's base speed is 60 slower and will be forced to actually play out the retreat or spend the story point since it actually can be caught by Pather SO Hounds.

[Sly]

If I'm being too literal for a moment and not to be taken seriously, the best build for the majority of the storyline of the game is no skills, a lone militarized Dram with Unstable Injector, SO, More Fuel Space, and built in Expanded Cargo and Insulated Engines.

If I ever bother optimising the any per cent speedrun and it turns out you can coast by just with story points you get from doing the missions, this might turn out actually true.

I personally think Hound > Dram for campaign, since all you need to do is enough Academy missions to progress, which I think are always just go to X location and then possibly go to Y location, with no combat necessary.  That means just enough fuel to get to the target system and back. I've done it with 0 story points spent on iron man. If you run a hound with Auxilliary Fuel Tanks, Augmented Drive Field, SO and Unstable Injector, and put your 1 skill point into Bulk Transport, you have 45 light years out and 45 light years back, and your base 255 speed means you simply pick disengage option and then leave for nearly all hostile encounters, so no need to waste story points.  Dram's base speed is 60 slower and will be forced to actually play out the retreat or spend the story point since it actually can be caught by Pather SO Hounds.

This is a really good point. The Hound is definitely better at straight up running the story missions. When I used to run this strategy, though, I found that the Dram was better because I would fill up my star chart without any risk of running out of fuel or supplies while I hunted down unique items, AI cores, and blueprints on the fringes. It also enabled me to pick up other exploration missions in the core alongside and finish them up too.

This was before the advent of slipstreams, though, so I have to wonder if the Hound is better overall if you get good slipstream RNG in your seed?

[SCC]

I'd encourage you to try the whole Dram thing if really want to, but I wasn't kidding when I said I thought it was incredibly boring. It's like playing a title crawl that just goes on, and on, and on...

You are one and half a year late to this revelation.

[close]

I personally think Hound > Dram for campaign, since all you need to do is enough Academy missions to progress, which I think are always just go to X location and then possibly go to Y location, with no combat necessary.  That means just enough fuel to get to the target system and back.

Hound or Cerberus are better, indeed, but I didn't really feel the need to find out what was the best ship at the time. Hound does not have enough fuel capacity to make a round trip to the edge of the sector if necessary, but I don't know if it would come into play in a small sector.

[Sly]

I'd encourage you to try the whole Dram thing if really want to, but I wasn't kidding when I said I thought it was incredibly boring. It's like playing a title crawl that just goes on, and on, and on...

You are one and half a year late to this revelation.

[close]

Haha, holy crap, we had the same idea around the same time. Great(?) minds think alike? That's hilarious. Thank you for sharing that with me.

[Hiruma Kai]

Hound does not have enough fuel capacity to make a round trip to the edge of the sector if necessary, but I don't know if it would come into play in a small sector.

Depends on your first skill point.  Given we are assuming a speed run of the campaign, you can get tranverse jump from the story line itself very quickly, so Navigation doesn't need to be your first pick.

To demonstrate: Fresh start, Wolf + Kite.  Place 1 point in Bulk Transport.  Fly to Jangala, buy hound, sell everything else, slap on Auxiliary Fuel Tanks, Expanded Cargo Hold, Unstable Injector, Safety Overrides.  Buy up to 90 fuel and and 157 supplies.  Fuel range map attached.  Storm riding in a straight line to the corner and back from Corvus is no problem, and even easier if you start from a closer edge inhabited system.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

I personally think Hound > Dram for campaign, since all you need to do is enough Academy missions to progress, which I think are always just go to X location and then possibly go to Y location, with no combat necessary.  That means just enough fuel to get to the target system and back. I've done it with 0 story points spent on iron man. If you run a hound with Auxilliary Fuel Tanks, Augmented Drive Field, SO and Unstable Injector, and put your 1 skill point into Bulk Transport, you have 45 light years out and 45 light years back, and your base 255 speed means you simply pick disengage option and then leave for nearly all hostile encounters, so no need to waste story points.  Dram's base speed is 60 slower and will be forced to actually play out the retreat or spend the story point since it actually can be caught by Pather SO Hounds.

I see that and one-up it with Shade P.

[BaBosa]

Doom is good too. Overall I consider Afflictor, Doom and capitals to be the only really good endgame player piloting picks. Harbinger had it's glory moment too, but modern version is nerfed into the ground.

Afflictor's key advantage over alternatives is endurance - you have 4 Afflictors for 40DP, not just 1 player ship. So you can easily afford any huge or chained fights (more relevant for Nexelerin, Vanilla generally doesn't get so ridiculous).

Have you tried triple ion pulser Harbinger with smod expanded mags and phase anchor this release? Absolutely belts out damage. Gorgons are also good for them or swarmers for killing fighters.

[TaLaR]

Have you tried triple ion pulser Harbinger with smod expanded mags and phase anchor this release? Absolutely belts out damage. Gorgons are also good for them or swarmers for killing fighters.

Optimal Afflictor bypasses shields (any shields, omni with accelerated shield hullmod included, and AI doesn't keep 360 shields up consistently enough for that to be a counter) with 4AM blasters while target is under it's system's debuff (+50% damage, so effectively 6AM shots). This almost one-shots skills-less sim capitals. Officer-ed capitals take 2-3 passes. Cruisers 1-2 passes.

Doom can't bypass shields via mobility, but it can force enemy to rotate shield out of the way via mines or partially bypass shields with mines alone (drop mines in sync on opposite sides of enemy ship, at least one side will be unavoidable, unless enemy can run away). It also has a lot more flux to directly dump into enemies via time dilation to dissipate/reload faster (+anchor).

Current Harbinger doesn't excel at anything. It's too slow to outmaneuver shields, current Quantum disruptor is just a single use system with long cooldown. At most you'd be able to shoot 3AM blasters in this time window (medium slots aren't an improvement in single shot power, AM is still better). Harbinger has somewhat more flux than Afflictor, but can't use it anywhere as effectively.

Afflictor and Doom are capital-grade threats when player-piloted. Harbinger is not.

[PsychoThruster]

Even ai afflictors are a threat when they are loaded with a couple AMs. Almost lost my eagle to one last night, it was only because of the mobility system that I was able to get back to my line and force it's retreat, in a 1v1 situation that thing is a beast. I'm considering refitting my eagles with dual AMs in their rear small slots instead of pd just to counter afflictor shenanigans. Thankfully I've never seen an AI loadout with more than 2 AMs.