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[crvt]

That one is pretty good for survivability. The glimmers also don't block line of fire for larger ships as much, with a beam setup / advanced optics, and gravitons are a nice support addition.
(unfortunately, they still go for a face hug despite having >1k range, against fluxed enemies, and need to be pulled back all the same; but high caps and hardened shields give you more time to do that)

The downsides are that you need multiple glimmers to eliminate enemy frigates, and in general while they output a lot of soft flux dps, the rest of the fleet needs to be highly capable of bursting down ships. The actual kills per DP on these frigates goes down the drain.

It is pretty fun to control a large swarm of these with wolf pack and kill groups surrounding small, isolated groups of ships, but they can't really do it to larger groups. They kind of put up low effective DPS-per-occupied-space, unless the enemy is surrounded.

[Arcagnello]

Any of you guys got your own Special Place Plug Ship Glimmer setups to show off? I'm open to brainstorming!

I think that SO build is probably as good as it's going to get. Reckless AI in this patch is plain suicidal, nothing will save Glimmers other than making enemies die faster, so go all-in on that.

Out of curiosity, if you used Beta cores instead of Gamma cores, what other two skills would you pick? Ordinance Expertise? Target Analyses? Missile Spec?

I figured the first part of your comment would be true aswell, so I tried to maximize offensive capability and mobility to have the ship get in there as fast as possible while still having a chance.

As for fitting Glimmers with Beta Cores, I'm trying that aswell since I'm workshopping a different fleet composition: 1 Paragon, 10 Omens, 4 Alpha Core Brilliants and 4 Gamma Core Glimmers. I'm short on two officer with my Commander setup but getting a couple of Story Point Officers is not going to be a heavy toll to pay, considering I'm essentially raiding Tritach, Hegemony, Persean league and even the Indipendents non-stop now.
Fleet comp

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Faction Relations

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One and only colony I've got. Colonized a very big system thinking I needed multiple military bases to defend it but nope, Expeditions have been nerfed to pathetic levels!

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That one is pretty good for survivability. The glimmers also don't block line of fire for larger ships as much, with a beam setup / advanced optics, and gravitons are a nice support addition.
(unfortunately, they still go for a face hug despite having >1k range, against fluxed enemies, and need to be pulled back all the same; but high caps and hardened shields give you more time to do that)

The downsides are that you need multiple glimmers to eliminate enemy frigates, and in general while they output a lot of soft flux dps, the rest of the fleet needs to be highly capable of bursting down ships. The actual kills per DP on these frigates goes down the drain.

It is pretty fun to control a large swarm of these with wolf pack and kill groups surrounding small, isolated groups of ships, but they can't really do it to larger groups. They kind of put up low effective DPS-per-occupied-space, unless the enemy is surrounded.

Yeah as long as AI corepersonality can't be modified to properly allow for different builds, any wannabe long range option is just subpar.

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I found this build pretty effective this patch.

How do you even field a good amount of them without Combat Endurance? Picking Target Analysis over Systems Expertise also feels like a mistake, considering the ship already has an active ability having it deal 50% more damage.

[Megas]

One and only colony I've got. Colonized a very big system thinking I needed multiple military bases to defend it but nope, Expeditions have been nerfed to pathetic levels!

That is good if the goal is to let player spread his colonies around multiple systems.  If expeditions are too strong, then player is incentivized to colonize a single system simply to let colonies defend themselves.

However, what year is your game?  Expeditions started to ramp up for me around 221, and I am getting two fleets instead of one.  If they continue to ramp up, then they could get strong in extremely long games (and spreading colonies to get a better slipstream map would be a mistake).

[Arcagnello]

One and only colony I've got. Colonized a very big system thinking I needed multiple military bases to defend it but nope, Expeditions have been nerfed to pathetic levels!

That is good if the goal is to let player spread his colonies around multiple systems.  If expeditions are too strong, then player is incentivized to colonize a single system simply to let colonies defend themselves.

However, what year is your game?  Expeditions started to ramp up for me around 221, and I am getting two fleets instead of one.  If they continue to ramp up, then they could get strong in extremely long games (and spreading colonies to get a better slipstream map would be a mistake).

I'm at about Cycle 225, and my Expeditions are utterly pathetic, to the pont I can personally deal with them in Hyperspace. ight have something to do with all of their planets and production facilities getting raided once, twice every cycle by myself tough.

Cycle 225

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My (Non-)Threat Level:

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Faction Relations:

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Anemic Expedition:

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I've also been experimenting with the Medusa, with the following fleet comp:

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Medusa loadout (boosted CR up to 100% since that's gonna be the normal value):

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Third S-mod is probably gonna be Extended shield for that 360° coverage, 6th Officer skill is defo going to be Energy Weapon Mastery. It handily beats the Gauss Dominator in the sim already. Elite SKills are probably gonna be Energy weapon Mastery,Elite Field Modulation, Elite Energy Weapon master and ELite Helsmanship to allow the ship to distance itself faster when it's backing up to vent its massive flux pool. The extra range on all "point defence" weapons is damn good.
Heavy Burst lasers actually dea quite a lot of damage to frigates and destroyers for some nifty kill times on frigates that tend to stick around for longer than I want.
The ship is especailly useful in any fleet lacking in PD aswell, altough I would not put it on Escort since it's a lot more useful hunting frigtes, destroyers and keeping carriers busy by itself.

Omen Loadout:

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Final version is probably gonna sport the usual 2x AM Blaster and a set of S-mods I've still got to decide on!

Oh and this is the meme Paragon Build:

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I'll actually have to get another Paragon since I've mistakenly S-modded Stabilized Shields instead of Armored Weapon Mounts. Officer is also still in training and it's proving a hassle to just grind one after the other, hoping I get the right skills. Combat Performance is uh...interesting, will have to get back once the design is properly realized!

[CapnHector]

Nice Paragon. Let's see if you can make it work. If we're being objective about it you really probably shouldn't S-mod in AWM just for the Gigacannon because it won't be a good weapon anyway, but it is of course important for the memes. On a related note, have you considered trying a 5 Gigacannon Radiant?

Also, here I thought you would be opposed to the Path, but you are a fellow walker on the Path instead. Intriguing.

[Arcagnello]

Nice Paragon. Let's see if you can make it work. If we're being objective about it you really probably shouldn't S-mod in AWM just for the Gigacannon because it won't be a good weapon anyway, but it is of course important for the memes. On a related note, have you considered trying a 5 Gigacannon Radiant?

I was considering built-in Armored Weapon Mounts since the ship is essentially Flux Neutralmost of the time and the built in bonus would raise DPS by 10% by way of a higher fire rate on anything but the 4 Swarmer SRMs

Also, uh, funny bit, the rest of my fleet is so blazigly fast that I have to spawn the Paragon FIRST, then spawn everything else and order all the other ships to station to the left, right and above the enemy Battlestation so that by the time Paragon gets into range my entire force can converge on it from all directions, hopefully not getting in the way of the Paragon much, pf which the Reckless officer on it should help it keep using all of its weapons!

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P.S: Gosh, were Systems Expertise, Elite PD and Point Defence AI Omens always this disgusting? The bloody active ability has absurd range and damage!

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[img]https://i.imgur.com/NsFAO2u.png/img]

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[CapnHector]

Don't know much about Omens since they seemed inferior to Shades in testing but a Shade (P) with antimatter blasters, Systems Expertise and elite Target Analysis which shares the system is nothing short of ridiculous for 6 DP. It is nigh invincible while PPT lasts and disables any ship that dares duel it. If I remember correctly those were doing about 5 times their DP in damage according to combat reports when I used them last version.

[Arcagnello]

Don't know much about Omens since they seemed inferior to Shades in testing but a Shade (P) with antimatter blasters, Systems Expertise and elite Target Analysis which shares the system is nothing short of ridiculous for 6 DP. It is nigh invincible while PPT lasts and disables any ship that dares duel it. If I remember correctly those were doing about 5 times their DP in damage according to combat reports when I used them last version.

Thing I like about Omens is that I couold most likely delete most Point Defencefrom any other ship in my fleet and still neutralize most enemy missiles and fighters just thanks to the 6 Omens I have, plus having a very good ratio 360° shield on an incredibly small frigate goes a long way into negating enemy firepower, altough I guess an Omen does just about the same, with the Caveat of being slightly more vulnerable to beams and fighter swards it can't EMP all at once.

I will try Phase Ships in future playthroughs, this one is mostly Automated Ship focused!

[Arcagnello]

Nice Paragon. Let's see if you can make it work. If we're being objective about it you really probably shouldn't S-mod in AWM just for the Gigacannon because it won't be a good weapon anyway, but it is of course important for the memes. On a related note, have you considered trying a 5 Gigacannon Radiant?

Also, here I thought you would be opposed to the Path, but you are a fellow walker on the Path instead. Intriguing.

I'm sorry Hector I legitimately did not see that link.

That build really makes me wish we could alter the Core personality to fit whatever ship loadout we desire, but alas [Redacted] can't really help themselves when it comes to faceplanting into the enemy and either kill it or die trying.

I ALSO would like to have Kinetic Blasters on hand but it's been 25 years of in-game time and despite exploring 80% of the sector I haven't found a single,bloody Kinetic Blaster!

Edit: Gigacannon could legitimately get a damage increase from 2000 to 3000 with a scaled up flux cost to mantain the same efficiency and it probably would still be subpar compared to other large energy weapons, I hope Alex finds a way to buff it...interestingly.

[Network Pesci]

I ALSO would like to have Kinetic Blasters on hand but it's been 25 years of in-game time and despite exploring 80% of the sector I haven't found a single,bloody Kinetic Blaster!

I've never seen them at the illegal weapons dealers (even Sindrian illegal weapons dealers) or as loot from Research Stations.  In three campaigns of .96a, one modded and two vanilla, some of them stretching to or past 25 cycles (and I make it a point to survey EVERY planet before I call a campaign done), I have never found one except as the reward from that one mission or as loot from fighting Lion's Guard.  If you're morally opposed to opportunistic piracy (even if friendly with Sindrians, turn your transponder off and find a Lion's Guard fleet by themselves you can take in a fight and jump them) you can still find them rarely as loot floating in space when Lion's Guard fight much larger pirate fleets.  You can help this along a little by finding a lone Lion's Guard fleet and turn your transponder off where they can see and then lead them into a pirate raid.  I have NEVER seen them for sale and never found blueprints.  I raided Sindria back into the stone age and never found blueprints for them there either.

[Vanshilar]

Edit: Question, does a weapon with a clip system affected by expanded mags (mining blaster, autopulse, burst PDs, Paladin etc.) also get affected by built-in Armored Weapon Mounts?

Yes they both work but note that they affect different things. AWM increases the fire rate by 10%, EM increases the ammo regen by 50%. For something like the Antimatter Blaster, only AWM will matter since it doesn't regen ammo. For most ammo weapons, you're still going to be limited by the ammo regen rate, which is still +50% due to EM, since AWM only affects how quickly you get rid of the ammo, not how fast you regen it.

AWM doesn't affect continuous beams but it *does* affect burst beams like Phase Lance, Tachyon Lance, etc. For those beams, the chargeup/chargedown and burst duration are unaffected (since that's when they're actually doing damage, you don't want to shorten that), but the cooldown between bursts is reduced by 10%. So a Phase Lance, with 0.25 second chargeup, 1 second burst size, 0.5 second chargedown, 4 second burst delay is a shot every 5.75 seconds, but with AWM the delay becomes 3.6 seconds, so it's a shot every 5.35 seconds. So that's not a full 10% increase in damage but it's still a 7.5% increase.

[Arcagnello]

Edit: Question, does a weapon with a clip system affected by expanded mags (mining blaster, autopulse, burst PDs, Paladin etc.) also get affected by built-in Armored Weapon Mounts?

Yes they both work but note that they affect different things. AWM increases the fire rate by 10%, EM increases the ammo regen by 50%. For something like the Antimatter Blaster, only AWM will matter since it doesn't regen ammo. For most ammo weapons, you're still going to be limited by the ammo regen rate, which is still +50% due to EM, since AWM only affects how quickly you get rid of the ammo, not how fast you regen it.

AWM doesn't affect continuous beams but it *does* affect burst beams like Phase Lance, Tachyon Lance, etc. For those beams, the chargeup/chargedown and burst duration are unaffected (since that's when they're actually doing damage, you don't want to shorten that), but the cooldown between bursts is reduced by 10%. So a Phase Lance, with 0.25 second chargeup, 1 second burst size, 0.5 second chargedown, 4 second burst delay is a shot every 5.75 seconds, but with AWM the delay becomes 3.6 seconds, so it's a shot every 5.35 seconds. So that's not a full 10% increase in damage but it's still a 7.5% increase.

Aye, Armored Weapon Mounts and Expanded Magazines also stack with each other on weapons like Burst PD, Mining Blasters and of course the obiquitous Autopulse Laser. Thank you for the much needed knowledge on the matter!

Are you sure about the bit regarding the Antimatter Blaster? I've got a couple of Auroras with built in Expanded Mags and the 4AM Blasters on Hardpoints seem to fire really, really fast with it, namely because the ship has full vents and the written weapon flux generation is less than half the flux dissipation but the ship still manages to get up very high soft flux values.

[Vanshilar]

Are you sure about the bit regarding the Antimatter Blaster? I've got a couple of Auroras with built in Expanded Mags and the 4AM Blasters on Hardpoints seem to fire really, really fast with it, namely because the ship has full vents and the written weapon flux generation is less than half the flux dissipation but the ship still manages to get up very high soft flux values.

Yeah just tested it in sim, 7 AM blasters on Aurora, weapon flux of 1024, so with AWM (built-in) it's 1126.4 dissipation; if I make it have 1124 dissipation it'll pretty much empty out after each burst. With EM (built-in) it still empties out after each burst.

Are you accounting for the shield upkeep and/or other weapons? One thing this update changed is that front shield conversion no longer halves the shield upkeep, so that was basically a somewhat nerf on the Aurora -- even with stabilized shields, it still needs 200 flux in shield upkeep.

[Arcagnello]

Are you sure about the bit regarding the Antimatter Blaster? I've got a couple of Auroras with built in Expanded Mags and the 4AM Blasters on Hardpoints seem to fire really, really fast with it, namely because the ship has full vents and the written weapon flux generation is less than half the flux dissipation but the ship still manages to get up very high soft flux values.

Yeah just tested it in sim, 7 AM blasters on Aurora, weapon flux of 1024, so with AWM (built-in) it's 1126.4 dissipation; if I make it have 1124 dissipation it'll pretty much empty out after each burst. With EM (built-in) it still empties out after each burst.

Are you accounting for the shield upkeep and/or other weapons? One thing this update changed is that front shield conversion no longer halves the shield upkeep, so that was basically a somewhat nerf on the Aurora -- even with stabilized shields, it still needs 200 flux in shield upkeep.

I did notice that, yeah, Stabilized Shields + Front Shield conversion pretty much was a staple on most if not all decently sized High tech and [redacted] ships.

Also uh, yeah, My Aurora also has a bunch of Burst PDs of both small and medium variant all over, since the ship is using small energies as main weapons with built in IPDAI and Elite Point Defence. GIves the AM blasters on the Aurora some damn good range when combined with ITU!

[Arcagnello]

Update to two of my builds, specifically my 4 Alpha Core Brilliants and 3 Medusas, which I'm 99% sure it's the best ship in the Destroyer class in the whole game bar the Harbinger, which is probably the most useful besides it.

Brilliant Build. I've essentially designed the ship to kneecap anything it's firing at and, incredibly, sometimes manages to beat the sim Onslaught, just barely.
Officer Skills

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HAC Weapon Range

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Ions/Beam Weapon range

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AI control Win against Sim Onslaught (I'd say it's a 50-50?)

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Medusa build, it's missing built-in Extended Shieds for that 360° coverage. Getting a specialized Officer for it is also proving to be really hard; that said, a level 6 officer with an optimal Skill setup would have
-Elite Point Defence
-Elite Ordnance Expertise
-Elite Helsmanship
-Elite Field Modulation
-Gunnery Implants
-Target Analysis
It would also have to be of the Steady or Aggressive) personality, the latter being better since the ship will keep firing the Needlers while attempting (and most of the time succeeding) at getting close enough with the AM blaster to deliver the finishing blow(s). Very important to have both Needlers and AM Blasters on alternating, or it won't fire them while high on Flux.

Subpar officer (for now)

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Needler range

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Heavy Burst PD range

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AM blaster range ( think the mod tooltip lies and it's got a higher range since it also gets affected by built in IPDAI + Elite PD)

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SIM vs 40-ish DP in Destroyers, wins about 75% of the time (This version still had Railguns, performs better with Needlers)

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I'm also reworking my Auroras but that will take a while, I need new officers and uh, about 14 story points