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[CapnHector]

Thanks to ideas from this thread I was able to do it without the heresy of Omega weapons! Praise Ludd!

5 Invictus vs 5 Ordos: the movie is here. It is probably the hardest combat I have done in this game alongside the Eagles LG fight.


Writeup by Void Ganymede:

God damn, these things really are omnidirectional aren't they? That direct retreat trick is amazing. Canceling the retreat burn is like a burn drive in reverse.

Watching them shred smaller ships while outnumbered then use the wreckage as ablative armor from missile volleys is amazing. Ditto for canister flak and devastators removing entire fighter swarms in one burst.

Lot of whiffed gauss shots, but can't tell if that's hardpoints and a lack of agility or low aiming accuracy. Low agility might even be helping spread damage away from the all-important front.

Broadsword replacement rate get shredded in first phase :< Recovers a little on the 1st retreat, but front line ships still go down to 30-40%. Same during 3rd retreat... But then you enter phase 2 against the first two Radiants with fresh wings! 8-10% kinetic damage tally for them in the end, which ain't bad but ain't great. Probably still room to experiment with carrier skills and Thunders/Xyphos.

Phase 2 around 49 minutes is spicy. I was dubious about 4 gauss due to how ridiculously hot ships were running phase 1, but...

Spoiler

[close]

Retreating on first spotted Radiant then bouncing them off a freshly-formed battle line is clean. I wonder if IX+Hellbore or EMP fighters would help stop their retreats and vents, but it takes so long to reach phase 2 and there's so many variables leading to it that'll be hard to test.

Final crew death toll:
- 1200 1st retreat
- 660 2nd retreat
- 670 3rd retreat
- 5500 victory (1x Invictus disabled)
- total: 8 colonies not founded RIP heroes you're with Ludd now.

Good news all ye faithful of Ludd! I was able to do it and Invictus is the third ship to join the 5 ships vs 5 Ordos club. I'm not sure there are any others in this game that could do it. Video is here:



Original post follows.

Nice. try with invictus next.

Fair. Can you take out Moloch's demons without help from Moloch himself? It turns out the answer is... no. At least not 5 Ordos. It's just too much damage to armor tank.



I spent some hours re-trying this combat with different loadouts, this was the best I got. However, since we make it to the final Radiants I think it's worth sharing. Gladly accept any tips.

Some things:
1. The layout was created by finding one that can defeat 2 sim Radiants, then optimizing based on observing the fights.
2. This is not a fleet for people who do not like micro. It's easily the most micro intensive of the capital fleets.
3. It seems 2 Gauss might not be enough kinetic to fight the Radiants, but honestly I think the problem is mostly just all the ablative armor is just gone by then and with no shields, while 28 000 hull might sound like a lot it is not actually that many Tachyon Lance shots.

[Grievous69]

That was the best build from testing? I'm surprised because Gauss is so wildly inefficient and Devastators are great on Invictus but I don't see the point of them in hardpoints. Did you try 2 MkIX, 1 Mjolnir and 1 Hellbore? From my personal experience that seemed like the most optimized thing, even for Remnants.

I still feel that large missiles are a trap, AWM is crucial, you could probably fit in another thing from leftover 36 OP without Locusts. Or maybe I'm completely wrong and this is not doable without them.

But yeah in the end it just might be an "issue" with the ship itself, it wasn't meant to fight for so long with other no shield ships.

[CapnHector]

Yeah Gauss is by no means an obvious choice. However you need the range to be able to outrange the Remnants, that's the problem. Trying a shorter range Mark IX + Heph loadout a few times I couldn't even get to the Radiants in a 4 ordo. That is because you can't deal with Apexes and Radiants, and even dealing with Novas can get hard when they outrange you with Tachyon Lance. I'm thinking maybe it should actually have 4 Gauss to be able to deal serious damage at a range, but the problem is it doesn't have the flux to fire those.

The point of Devastators there are 1) so that I can actually fire the Gauss salvo with the flux constraints, 2) to include HE with the barrage (the options are HAG and Hellbore which are not appealing) and 3) to not let down PD guard while firing the barrage.

I did start with AWM and no Locusts in fact so great minds think alike, but I was getting a strong impression it is not doable without them either, or at least it was going worse. Likewise getting rid of Sarissa made me take significantly more damage in the initial frigate spam phase. The 11000 armor is not that impressive anyway when it's only the ADR of 1100 vs 1000, so it's actually less +HP than could be gotten from Insulated Engines I think, so I'd take that mostly for the firerate, but then I can't fit all this stuff.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

I never cared much for Invictus in the first place but if I did I would probably start with some math.

I.e. Lidar lasts for 5 seconds, during that time main battery generates 3x the normal amount of flux, then you have to vent it in 10 seconds while the ability is on cooldown.

So for example four Mark IXs generate ~21k flux per Lidar use, then you have to flush it so you need dissipation of at least 700(with Resistant Flux Conduits) That's well below base Invictus stats.

Two Mark IXs and two Mjolnirs is ~30k flux and you need about 1000 dissipation, that is probably more on point.

All this is without Systems Expertise, which would probably be worth it, for the AI at least.

[CapnHector]

29700 (-4975 from dissipation) for the Gauss Devastator barrage which just about maxes out the ship. But wait a minute. I forgot Systems Expertise existed. Does that actually give +50% range with LIDAR Array? If so then that is what is going on this build alongside some Mjolnirs and/or Mark IX. If it only buffs duration and reduces cooldown then might not be terribly effective or might even be harmful if ship ends overfluxed with side turrets disabled.

IF the AI could be coached into actively venting whenever near max flux then S-modded RFC and elite Polarized Armor would be great, unfortunately it tends to not vent enough. I tried Reckless AI but it didn't seem to make a difference.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Isn't the Devastator almost completely useless at that range?

[CapnHector]

Isn't the Devastator almost completely useless at that range?

It does seem to do damage. You can see how the volley works by looking at the Radiant being fired on at around 16.50:


(somehow embed seems to mess up the timepoint)

It is almost certainly not very good at that range. However here's the dilemma: I want Gauss range because otherwise the ship can't outrange the Remnants, so they can just kite it. But what do I want with Gauss? HAG is too expensive to fire. Hellbore doesn't deal much DPS either.

I will try Grievous' loadout eventually but I'm not too optimistic because I got worse results from the non-Gauss builds. They do well vs the easier ships but break down in the Apex spam phase.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

But what do I want with Gauss?

Hm, more Gauss? Four Gauss is 36k flux per Lidar without dissipation, so you'd need ~1200 dissipation. You're at 995, so simply getting Flux Distributor should get you under since it will affect Lidar dissipation as well. I would definitely ditch Missile Specialization on officers, little point to it in a fight that's going to last like 15 minutes. Get Ballistic Mastery or Ordnance Expertise instead. For same reason, ditch missiles entirely or swap them for Catapults. S-modded Advanced Turret Gyros will never not be a meme to me, and there are so much better options like Aux Thrusters.

Ultimately though it may just be impossible since these are definitely not monofleet-friendly ships.

[Grievous69]

Also another thing I dare say, instead of s-modded EMR, maybe s-modded RFC? They do spend a ton of time venting all that flux, just not sure if that will mess Polarized Armour too much.

And didn't even notice the lack of Flux Distributor the first time, that's definitely a big loss of DPS.

[Aeson]

It is almost certainly not very good at that range. However here's the dilemma: I want Gauss range because otherwise the ship can't outrange the Remnants, so they can just kite it. But what do I want with Gauss? HAG is too expensive to fire. Hellbore doesn't deal much DPS either.

If you want to stick with HE damage, what about a Heavy Mauler and a HAG? 22 OP and 600 flux/s isn't much more expensive than the 20 OP and 580 flux/s for the two Devastators in hardpoints, the damage is more concentrated, the Heavy Mauler has a bit more range and hitstrength, and when half the Devastators' shots aren't hitting the target a Heavy Mauler + HAG probably has higher effective DPS (which, incidentally, is also an issue for the "Hellbore doesn't offer enough DPS" argument).

[CapnHector]

Wooo! I actually did this! Video coming up!

Some notes:

1. I think you guys are simply underrating the Devastator. If you look at the damage screens it does very good damage while also working as defense simultaneously. I tried a lot of different things including Mark IX, Mjolnir, Hephaestus etc. but I just couldn't find anything to beat the Devastator using loadouts. In fact I found just all Devastators even coasted to the final Apexes and Radiants but couldn't defeat them, nor 1x Gauss 3x Devastator, so I went back to 2x Gauss 2x Devastator.
2. I had to put in Resonator MRMs which is a shame. I put in the 4 which I legitimately found this run. I suppose you really do need Moloch's help. 4 Ordos is doable with the Locust build. 5 Ordos is really pushing it for this ship.
3. Another key was switching the skills to include Ballistic Mastery and Gunnery Implants to maximize range. Simply put this also works as defense which I didn't really realize at first, but it also improves the performance of the Devastator because the shots start exploding mostly at half range (IIRC) which means it in fact should hit at pretty good strength to a range of 1550 if LIDAR is in use. The main attraction though is Gauss sniping at extreme range.
4. Broadswords may not do much early in the fight and in fact their overall damage output is lower than Sarissa scored, but they are intended to help Radiant duels as another type of kinetic missile. Also saves OP which this ship is really short on.

Enjoy! I'll even put some good music in this time. Screw the cymbals and no drums even if it's supposed to be Church stuff.

Edit: removed point 1.1. since I realized Devastator has 42% the anti shield of Mark IX, not 80%.

[BaBosa]

I wonder how good it would be to combine Invictus with Conquests. Then you'd have like a hammer and anvil or brick and skirmisher fleet. I'm finding the combo works really well but I'm not that good at judging  .

[CapnHector]

3 Conquests 2 Invictus should be an ultra strong 240DP fleet so long as you don't fight more than 3 Ordos. They also have excellent synergy in that both fight at long range with overwhelming firepower. The reason I think only Paragon, Executor and Invictus can do 5 ships vs 5 Ordos is Conquest and Pegasus run out of missiles, otherwise they probably could too.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

I think you guys are simply underrating the Devastator.

Can someone confirm this for me - because it looks like the "minimum range" of the Devastator is affected by weapon range modifiers? You can clearly see it at 3:00, with the bottom Invictus(the one partially off-screen) firing at the Glimmer. None of the Devastator shots land even close to the Invictus. I didn't even know that was the case, and I wonder how intended it is...

[Aeson]

If you look at the damage screens it does very good damage while also working as defense simultaneously.

Something like two-thirds of the guns in your fleet are Devastator Cannons; if they were not dealing "very good damage" despite being fielded in those numbers then either they'd have to be highly specialized or they'd be almost worthless, maybe both.