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[CapnHector]

No, I swapped to SC Omni because it kept turning its shields off in response to any orders. Now it mostly keeps them on but sometimes not. Stupidly enough part of this seems to do with having friendly Flash bombers in the fleet, it will actually turn the shields off and then flick them on and off in the direction of a friendly if that friendly has a fighter strike command on a target that is on the other side of the ship, so the ship would be in the line of fire. So it protects itself. Unfortunately it doesn't let the shield get to full for whatever reason and that means it will actually allow another ship like a Brilliant (not joking) to fire on itself to protect itself from the Flashes. But there are other things. Like I give it a rally command and it stone cold vents in the face of an Apex to get there faster I guess. Or just plain old turning shield off if given any excuse despite how it takes very long to get it back up and the ship is fragile as an egg without it. I'm going to just post the video to Alex when I'm done, it would be too daunting to write individual reports. Since actual combat ships don't do this stuff unlike my battlecarrier I'm guessing the non-combat carrier AI is somehow busted. But you can work with it most of the time.

In fact you know what, when I'm done with this 5 Ordo video I'm going to mod this to be an actual combat carrier in the game files and see if that fixes it

[CapnHector]

Alright, I'm afraid I need to give up on the Astral. Here's the reason:

• It must have hardened subsystems since it can't retreat twice.
• With front shields and carrier AI, it occasionally drops the shields in response to Retreat command. This is unfortunate because a retreat must be made in a 5 Ordo combat.
• With Omni shields it no longer does that. However, with S-modded Omni Shields I've been unable to produce an effective loadout that also includes Hardened Subsystems since the ship has low OP for all it needs. Also, with Omni shields, it can retreat but it occasionally drops the shields in response to a friendly Flash bomber being behind it.
• Switching to Combat Carrier AI, it behaves strangely (such as moves back when told to fighter strike, so no straight line is kept).
• I genuinely don't know where to go from here

So, it seems like for now the Astral is a 4 Ordo ship without modding. Give it just like 25 more OP and it's a 5 Ordo ship. However, I did produce a video of a combat that would quite possibly have been won with Hardened Subsystems. I tried tons of layouts, including Sarissa x 2 Flash x 2 Xyphos x 1 Empty x 1 (fun!), Talon x 3 Flash x 2, Talon x 2 Broadsword x 1 Flash x 2, Daggers, Broadsword x 3 Flash x 2, but out of all of these I had the most success with Warthog x 3 Flash x 2.

Anyway, that's the Astral. Too bad, it's a beautiful ship. Video in OP.

(edit to add: I did also try 6 wings loadouts, the reason to go 5 and relatively sturdy is otherwise replacement rate will eventually fall in a fight like this esp. if paired with bombers)

[Buggie]

Hey man, turning a backline carrier ship like the astral into a battlecarrier that can kill four and a half ordos is still insane, this is still something to be proud of

[Tranquility]

Alright, I'm afraid I need to give up on the Astral. Here's the reason:

...

I'm surprised you didn't consider - or at least mention considering - S-Modding either ITU or Hardened Shields in place of SC-Omni and maybe (?) Stabilized Shields. I do wonder if having 360 shields is actually so crucial that it warrants effectively giving up half the OP needed to get Hardened Subsystems. In fact, the increased shield arc matters less when SC-Omni has the hidden downside of halving the shield raise rate (I guess omni-shields having half the raise rate of front-shields is more of an intrinsic property than a mere hull-mod penalty, but that really should be mentioned in the tooltip regardless), and, as such, this downside makes the S-Mod bonus come into play less often than it should. You might need to give up a few Mining Lasers, a Tac Laser, and maybe a few capacitors if only replacing S-Modded SC-Omni with S-Modded ITU or HS (either one), but given the importance of Hardened Subsystems for doing multi-fleet fights, the tradeoff could be worth it.

Also, I think you should consider getting the Field Modulation elite bonus rather than the EWM elite bonus, as not only the Astrals are already flux-neutral even without the 10% less energy flux, but, from what I've skimmed through in the new video, they spend plenty of time not firing most of their weapons but still keeping shields raised up against minor to no hard-flux damage. The small hard-flux dissipation from elite FM could make a noticeable difference in their survivability, more so than having less energy weapon flux from elite EWM.

Finally, no consideration for Mining Pods? They're effectively free with 0 OP, and they can provide a bit of both PD and distraction as the 6th wing. Granted, they're not as tanky as Warthogs, but given the presence of Flash bombers, the Mining Pods shouldn't affect the average replacement rate by a lot - in fact, it might even benefit it slightly as long as the Pods remain alive.

(Also a minor nitpick, but the small weapon mount of the leftmost Tac Laser actually has less weapon arc than the one directly below it. It'd probably be better if the left Tac Laser gets moved to that bottom-left front-side mount.)

Regardless if you move forward with these suggestions or not, it's still impressive to see a competent and effective battlecarrier Astral loadout, especially when such loadouts are usually considered as little more than a joke that gets easily surpassed by a Legion. Great work making it work as best as you can, CapnHector!

[CapnHector]

I did try the non-S Omni! But here's the thing, that leaves a gap in the shields which leads to doom for 1 Astral because it will be surrounded by Glimmers. You know how this loadout has real trouble killing Glimmers and Scintillas of all things due to only dealing hard flux at short range and having slow fighters? It is not generally a problem as those ships are non-threatening, in fact these can just tank their beams and run out their CR. But as it turns out you leave a gap in the shields and suddenly there is a big problem with the beams. All stuff that's very hard to figure out until you try it.

I will prob make the following changes: change 2-3 tacs to 1 Ion Beam (I was doing this with my later trials of eg Sarissa already), and swap eEWM to eFM as that's actually very smart. Don't think Mining Pods necessarily are good as they will barely do more than empty hangar but present a replacement rate liability).

Then if you guys think it's still a good loadout I'm going to shop for the weakest 5 Ordos around and kill them just because 5 ships vs 5 Ordos is the name of the game I'm playing here, so spin it as a win. Just let it be understood that had better be 1500 DP 5 Ordos, not 2200 DP 5 Ordos due to lack of endurance.


Okay you should never actually give up on these builds. I came up with a new variant. I'm calling it "Dragon Lady" because it is absolutely unforgiving of any mistakes you might make, like it'll die to 3 Fulgents if left by itself. But it has Hardened Subsystems and I was able to micro it all the way through a 5 Ordo fight to the Radiants... where it couldn't finish them off under fire from the Apexes. I think it needs more firepower, so probably just return to the bugged shields and do not use Retreat command. Also just improve firepower by 15% overall rather than vs frigates by getting rid of ATG if possible. There could be still more ways to go to get this ship really powerful.

[Hatter]

Would running IR Pulse lasers in the smalls instead of mining lasers be any help to dissaude smalller ships? It loses range and flux efficiency, but does hardflux.

[CapnHector]

Good news everyone! I decided to give up on the idea of retreating due to the bugged shields, and try to make it strong enough to beat 5 Ordos in one battle instead. It almost did.



Video is coming up in the OP, sorry I have something else to do so I'll just post this now and it's going to take like 15 minutes still to upload and process.

I am fairly sure I will beat this combat eventually, so I am calling it now that the Astral is a 5 Ordo ship too. Incredibly, incredibly strong if you build it correctly (and build it correctly means ignore the system and make it a battlecarrier), the only real impediment is the bugged AI.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Best way to use astral:
>ignore recall device
>ignore advanced optics

This feels wrong

[CapnHector]

It looks wrong but feels so right. Anyway, when you have the shields of a Paragon, the weapons of a Legion XIV, and 6 flight decks you don't need a system or Advanced Optics. In fact this is probably my favorite ship in the game from now on (updating profile pic in 5... 4...), it is just really hell of elegant but deadly and rewards endlessly tinkering at details like the fighter composition. When Alex releases the fixed AI it is going to be the strongest ship right alongside Paragon.

[Void Ganymede]

I agree with BigBrainEnergy, this feels like heresy. Broadside medium blasters and large Reapers on a carrier?!?!

Dig the mixed fighter complement though. Edit: and these get really nasty with all the modded fighter wings, don't they?

Edit2: would R ship selection + T move camera to target ship simplify tracking what's happening in the battlespace? I notice in this one you have to spend a lot of time in the tactical view.

[BaBosa]

It’s interesting how just a few months ago there was a big thread talking about how warthogs are underpowered but they’re consistently in these multi ordo killing carrier fleets.

[CapnHector]

I agree with BigBrainEnergy, this feels like heresy. Broadside medium blasters and large Reapers on a carrier?!?!

Dig the mixed fighter complement though. Edit: and these get really nasty with all the modded fighter wings, don't they?

Edit2: would R ship selection + T move camera to target ship simplify tracking what's happening in the battlespace? I notice in this one you have to spend a lot of time in the tactical view.

Well you see you think of it as a high tech battleship that carries some of its weapons on its fighter companions and then the build becomes obvious. It feels totally natural when playing the ship. The main thing is 2x turreted Cyclone and 0.6 360 shields are immensely strong. As you see in the video. I'm fairly certain there is no other way to pull this one off.

I'll need to try to improve camera work. I need to try to keep track of the flux level on these, the rules are the carriers must work in a group and overfluxed ones must pull back since they only have paper armor and hull. Maybe some visual mods would help but I don't want to alter the look of the game too much for a video about it.

The same loadout but with 3x Kinetic Blaster is much safer and more reliable since it can dissipate hard flux even when tanking, but need the extra killing speed for this one.

It%u2019s interesting how just a few months ago there was a big thread talking about how warthogs are underpowered but they%u2019re consistently in these multi ordo killing carrier fleets.

Isn't it though? I'll admit I didn't see the potential either. However turns out like Tranquility said Remnants don't have shields everywhere and can't keep them up all the time. It's not even just that you need replacement rate although Ws are great for keeping that up and it is a major consideration. It's genuinely that it's hard to add other things to Warthog spam to make them better even vs these high tech ships. I tried mixing in Broadswords, Talons and Thunders but usually that just lowers killing speed and increases replacement rate drain (Thunders are ok though). Claw is an exception, 1 Claw in fact improves things noticably due to disabling engines and weapons on a swarmed ship.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

It’s interesting how just a few months ago there was a big thread talking about how warthogs are underpowered but they’re consistently in these multi ordo killing carrier fleets.

Warthog spam fleet also won the most recent AI Tournament(for what that's worth)

[Thaago]

As long as the target ship can be caught by warthogs in a reasonable amount of time, warthogs are very strong. I suspect the kinetic from the sarissas is helping a lot too!

It does beg the question: are strike bombers too weak, or is it that in a "pure" composition they don't get the opportunities to hit high flux enemies that they would with combat ships up front? (Also kinetic missiles + strike bombers vs pressure fighters + reaper execution).

[CapnHector]

@Thaago per DCR the 3 Warthog wings do about the same shield damage as the 2 Sarissas. If these were used as backline carriers rather than battlecarriers you would use 5x Warthog 1x Claw I think because the Warthogs have the ability to chase targets and that should work fine (in fact it does work since I tested it). The main reason to use Sarissas is to improve the battlecarrier's survivability and dueling ability by keeping some fighters around it at all times, which is important for taking on the bigger Remnant ships, as they genuinely help win the flux war in a fight with Brilliants or Novas (where a 5 Warthog one may falter if its fighters are elsewhere, the AI doesn't understand it could summon them to help).

However, it's not in fact the case that bombers are weak. If you think this is destructive you should see what happens if you put in 3x Warthog 2x Flash. It just vaporizes the initial encounter. In fact it vaporized a Radiant too in like 5 seconds in one fight. The main problem with this extreme swarming fight is the multiple bombers drain replacement rate, even with that setup where they're the minority, while 1x Flash doesn't really achieve saturation. Incorporating Flashes is something I'm still going to try though because they do outperform Warthogs in raw DPS if the constant RR drain can be mitigated