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[CapnHector]

I won it! Toughest Starsector combat of my life. 5 Ordo destroyed and no retreats. Took some tinkering, but the Astral is a wonderful and extremely powerful ship. Enjoy the spectacle!



Some notes:
The fighter layout is Broadsword - Flash - Flash - Xyphos - Sarissa - Sarissa. We don't actually expect much kinetic pressure from the Broadswords, but we do want cover for the Flashes. Xyphos and Sarissa are intended to help the battlecarrier duel, but also keep replacement rate high despite constant drain from bombers. In the end, this outperformed 1 Warthog, although Warthog-Warthog-Flash-Claw-Sarissa-Sarissa seemed like it might also have gotten there. However, Flashes were more effective than Warthogs in DCR.


Beautiful and deadly. That is the Astral. Despite how I haven't won this combat yet, it's close enough that I am fairly sure that with practice or a little luck I will, so I am calling it now that the Astral is a 5 Ordo ship.

Just look at this video and witness its incredible destructive potential.


I need some practice with the orders before I can claim a win, but getting to the final ships in a 5 Ordo in one battle under AI control without a playership is just something else.

Small writeup:

Spoiler

Q: Why KB instead of pulse laser?
A: Need DPS, tried pulses too, this clocks better

Q: Warthogs?
A: See Tranquility's research. They also keep Replacement Rate up.

Q: No bombers?
A: Flashes are better in short combats, worse in 5 Ordo no retreat due to Replacement Rate loss.

Q: No retreat?
A: Astral shield is bugged as confirmed by Alex, retreat causes it to drop shields. So we fight this in one engagement and eventually we will destroy 5 Ordos in one engagement surely. Fortunately it's fixed next version.

Q: Is this reliable?
A: Yes, with practice I am now routinely getting this far. It took a lot of learning because this ship does not take easily to orders, that's why micro is relatively minimal and the ship is designed robustly. Some orders like Retreat will just kill it and using the default Fighter Strike is not great, so I manually assign Eliminate orders.

Q: What happened to tacs?
A: DCR showed they mostly hit shields = waste of flux and OP when it's soft flux damage vs Remnant. Better to spend the OP elsewhere.

[close]

Original thread follows.


I was unable to make it work any better, due to reasons listed here: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=27476.msg405884#msg405884
But I did find a pretty nice loadout, thanks to Tranquility's (Warthogs) and Jang's (Flash) ideas. If I could fit Hardened Subsystems we probably would have won here, but the ship simply no longer works for this if I cut that much.



By the way, I just recolored the Warthog sprite to make it look nicer, and edited Warthog's ship file to make it high tech. It's a vanilla Warthog in stats.



Hi guys,

turning to you for advice since brainstorming was super helpful with the Invictus build. I realized the Astral has 0.6 shield efficiency and decent mounts, so it should probably be able to do 5 Ordos too. Unfortunately I'm having trouble getting it to win even vs 4 Ordos with 5 Astrals and 2 Wolf.

Here's the build:


In action:




Here's the issue: it has a lot of trouble taking out Apexes. This is the same thing I ran into with the Invictus build. Because the kinetics are short ranged, it can kite the Astral for a long time. This is deadly because it leads into having to fight Radiants at the same time as Apexes (I think it would be fine vs just the Radiants, they warp in to Reaper / Blaster range). Unfortunately I've been unable to mitigate this issue. I tried putting in 5th Warthog and also Thunder and also 3x Warthog + Thunder + Xyphos but the problem is 5th Warthog is less survivable and Thunders are too fragile. Soft flux weapons don't really work here and there is no long range hard flux option available. Squalls would run out, I've tested Locust and Squall builds before going for KB-Reaper. Bombers, well, there is already a problem keeping up replacement rate.

This is made infinitely worse by the fact that Astral AI is just broken, I can say. It randomly drops shields in combat, I have no idea what it's trying to do, it happens even despite enemies relatively near, at negligible flux. In fact you can see a badly damaged Astral with shields off just for fun in the video thumbnail apparently. You can see one such random shield drop at 2.20 (note it does not even get zero flux speed boost due to having fighters out). Using the Retreat command is not safe (although I still do) because it can take that to mean "drop shields and retreat". Sometimes it rotates backwards if I give it a rally order. It also seems to basically ignore movement commands sometimes. It's safest to give as few orders as possible to this ship and that's really bad because I usually micro these fleets a lot.

So that's where I'm with this. Ideas?

Ps. thanks to Tranquility for figuring out Warthogs are great vs Remnants.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Hi guys,

turning to you for advice since brainstorming was super helpful with the Invictus build. I realized the Astral has 0.6 shield efficiency and decent mounts, so it should probably be able to do 5 Ordos too. Unfortunately I'm having trouble getting it to win even vs 4 Ordos with 5 Astrals and 2 Wolf.

Here's the build:


In action:




Here's the issue: it has a lot of trouble taking out Apexes. This is the same thing I ran into with the Invictus build. Because the kinetics are short ranged, it can kite the Astral for a long time. This is deadly because it leads into having to fight Radiants at the same time as Apexes (I think it would be fine vs just the Radiants, they warp in to Reaper / Blaster range). Unfortunately I've been unable to mitigate this issue. I tried putting in 5th Warthog and also Thunder and also 3x Warthog + Thunder + Xyphos but the problem is 5th Warthog is less survivable and Thunders are too fragile. Soft flux weapons don't really work here and there is no long range hard flux option available. Squalls would run out, I've tested Locust and Squall builds before going for KB-Reaper. Bombers, well, there is already a problem keeping up replacement rate.

This is made infinitely worse by the fact that Astral AI is just broken, I can say. It randomly drops shields in combat, I have no idea what it's trying to do, it happens even despite enemies relatively near, at negligible flux. In fact you can see a badly damaged Astral with shields off just for fun in the video thumbnail apparently. You can see one such random shield drop at 2.20 (note it does not even get zero flux speed boost due to having fighters out). Using the Retreat command is not safe (although I still do) because it can take that to mean "drop shields and retreat". Sometimes it rotates backwards if I give it a rally order. It also seems to basically ignore movement commands sometimes. It's safest to give as few orders as possible to this ship and that's really bad because I usually micro these fleets a lot.

So that's where I'm with this. Ideas?

Ps. thanks to Tranquility for figuring out Warthogs are great vs Remnants.

Thunders are for cruisers and capitals that tend to get isolated. Their entire purpose is to distract enemy frigates and destroyers so that the parent ship can fight less at once. It's why they are very good on the Odyssey. However, they have little use in a non-mobile fleet composition, against laser PD. Replace them with broadswords if you want long range kinetic damage, or claws if you want long range ion damage.

Give the Wolfs a couple captains, make sure they have system expertise at least. They'll be practically immortal, and you can distract large segments of the enemy fleet with them.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Why off-center Typhoons of all things?

[CapnHector]

Replace them with broadswords if you want long range kinetic damage, or claws if you want long range ion damage.

Give the Wolfs a couple captains, make sure they have system expertise at least. They'll be practically immortal, and you can distract large segments of the enemy fleet with them.

Wolfs already have SE captains. They are immortal. If people feel its kosher to use frigate cheese in a challenge fleet that is going to help. Broadswords might be a thing, hmm... 2 was too much for killing power IIRC, but maybe 1?

Why off-center Typhoons of all things?

Lawrence those are turreted missiles. It's basically like old Pegasus except only the front mounts. It is awesome.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Replace them with broadswords if you want long range kinetic damage, or claws if you want long range ion damage.

Give the Wolfs a couple captains, make sure they have system expertise at least. They'll be practically immortal, and you can distract large segments of the enemy fleet with them.

Wolfs already have SE captains. They are immortal. If people feel its kosher to use frigate cheese in a challenge fleet that is going to help. Broadswords might be a thing, hmm... 2 was too much for killing power IIRC, but maybe 1?

Or two and drop the Xyphos. Gladius, while exceptionally weaker, is another option, it has better kill potential than a Broadsword thanks to its high delay ir pulse laser. I want to recommend the lux due to it having 4 fighters, but with its slower replacement time, fewer weapons, slower speed, and lower health I can't.

[Goumindong]

So… some thoughts

1) your ships are lowering shields because they are taking immediate incoming fire. Even if it’s “in combat” your ships will want to save that flux. This causss problems because Astrals are front shielded

2) Astrals may have .6 shields but they also only have 12k base cap. Executors are 14k.

Why no bombers? I know bombers are generally bad but like… recall device fixes all these issues 4/2 longbow/trident will produce a steady stream of high quality damage.

Similarly why no squall? I know they are expected to run out in an engagement but the pressure would be super useful when you have bombers.

[Buggie]

Huh, i had no idea astral's missile slots were turrets either. Now i'm wondering if there might be a nice player controlled battlecarrier build for them


As for the fleet do you think switching a kinetic blaster with a cryoblaster might be worth it, or is the flux cost too much of a hinderance for it to be worth it?

[CapnHector]

Yeah Cryoblaster would be the bomb but I'm trying to make it so that I don't use Omega tech if at all possible. If using Omega tech then what you want here is probably something starting with 2x Resonator.

Anyway I think I got somewhere. Basically looking at my video and re-reading my own post I figured it's probably best to S-mod Omni shields into this thing so I can give it actual orders. Then if that works, and I can actually retreat this ship (was impossible due to ship behaving badly with orders) I can drop the Hardened Subsystems. I was trying to win this in one go because retreating was impossible.

Bombers really don't do as much vs these huge Remnant fleets as you might think, at least not here; you can try putting an Astral vs 2 Radiants in the sim and what you'll probably see is they get 1 volley off, a Radiant blocks it, Astral dies. Also they drain replacement rate. Of course if you are not making the Astral a battlecarrier the equation becomes a little different...

[Tranquility]

Wow, I didn't think officered Astrals could work well as a battlecarrier, but I suppose anything's possible with enough kinetics and Reapers. What I do notice is that the mono-Astral fleet might actually be suffering from success, mostly because the Apexes seem to correctly view the multiple Astrals, with their Kinetic Blasters + loaded Cyclone Reapers, as extremely threatening, which means they will refuse to close in with their PD weapons (as Reckless and Fearless personalities normally do) and instead stay within range of their normal weapons - and, thus, outside the range of the Astral's blasters. This also has the effect of leaving the Astral's fighters completely vulnerable to the Terminator Drones, which makes clearing out Apexes a huge hassle, especially when Radiants start coming out too. One of the main reasons my SD+DO Mora fleet (somehow) works for double Ordos is because, first, the Remnant ships are far more aggressive than they need to be (e.g. Novas suicidally charging into a pack of Moras and Warthogs, Apexes taking both PCL and LDAC fire just to do a bit more damage with their PD lasers, Radiants continuing to engage Moras and failing to retreat properly even when swarmed by Warthogs) and, second, Moras, being armor bricks, are incredibly resilient against burst energy damage like Autopulses and Ion Pulsers, meaning they can handle their reckless aggression much better than shield-heavy ships like the Astral or Heron.

I definitely do want to throw a few quick suggestions as well:

1. You might want to find some OP to fit in an Omni-shield conversion hullmod. I noticed on 10:43 that the Astral had to drop shields to mitigate the hard-flux from the Radiant's energy weapons, which allowed the Radiant's Cyclone Reapers to slam into the Astral before the front shields could stop it. In general, the AI seems to be better at properly using shields to block HE damage and ignore kinetics if they are Omni-shielded as opposed to being front-shielded, so it's definitely worth considering, especially for a battlecarrier with heavy frontal firepower but little to no PD.

2. The Xyphos didn't seem to do much (or anything at all) against the Apexes due to being outranged. I'm not sure how critical they are against the smaller ships, but it might be worth considering the following alternatives:

• Simply exchanging the Xyphos wing for a Broadsword, Gladius, or Claw wing, which might work out better due to better damage or, in the case of Claws, better EMP support when combined with Warthogs.
• Replacing a Kinetic Blaster with a Ion Beam and the Xyphos with a Sarissa wing. This might actually work out better since the Ion Beam still gets Advanced Optics from the Astral's built-in, while also benefiting from both ITU and skill bonuses. Plus, the Sarissas should partially make up for the loss in kinetic damage and also help bodyblock for the Astral, unlike the rather timid Xyphos.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Lawrence those are turreted missiles. It's basically like old Pegasus except only the front mounts. It is awesome.

So "fake" turrets? Interesting, didn't know that.

The question still stands though. Cyclones are OP expensive, run out quickly and in my experience are easy to shot down or dodge. I feel like just about anything else would be better, even Hammer Barrage.

[Void Ganymede]

I like deep battle lines rather than wide ones. You want to concentrate forces and defeat stuff in detail, having an Astral back line supporting a front line does that.

Backline Astral exploits Recall device and gets good uptime on LRMs and wings, but doesn't exploit its flux pool/shield efficiency/energy mounts. Front line Astral does but can't replenish wings or get value out of ship system. Front line can use slightly punchier missiles, but it just doesn't lean into the ship strengths!

Also I like carrier skills. 8 wings with perfect aim and 30% extra speed, kept at full strength through supporting missile / kinetic / EMP spam, is higher impact than a swarm that quickly gets defanged.

tl;dr you need two ship types this ain't an SO Mora (although you *could* repurpose the fighter bays for 10 OP)

[CapnHector]

I am close to getting there (5 Ordo) but oh man is this one frustrating ship. It has the firepower to do it and the shields to tank in a line but let your attention slip for 1 second and let it get a bit out of position and suddenly you're dead. You have to be carrier whisperer to play this ship. Fortunately I can indeed issue retreat orders with the Omni shield (though I still had an incident where the ship stood there at 0 flux just taking fire on the hull with shields down). I've developed a strategy of fighting retreat all the way to the map edge. See if it's enough.

I think this ship's main strength is double Cyclone Reaper turret so I'm going to lean into that basically. Also the shield efficiency.

[BigBrainEnergy]

You can edit the files to let you place a defense/rally order closer to the map edge, if it helps.

[CapnHector]

That would help immensely but isn't it cheating?

So anyway with like 10 tries, I can almost clear a 5 Ordo with 4x Warthog 1x Claw, but not quite. And by that I mean I get to the Apexes but by that point I am going to make a mistake and a carrier is going to die, even though I know they would win if I played absolutely perfectly.

However, reading Tranquility's thread thoroughly (also thanks for the tips) I decided to try some different fighters. 5x Gladius 1x Claw might look good in the sim but it is a bust in reality. Replacement rate just goes down and nothing dies. However this:



This is absolutely cash money. It may not look like it but it actually ruins Remnants. In part because the battlecarrier is now actually quite fierce in combat due to much improved flux stats but also the Talons kill things surprisingly fast. And those are base Talons btw, I just noticed there is a "talon_tritachyon.png" in the game files. Anybody know why that is there? Anyway, I decided to edit the Talon file to use it to make it easier on the eyes.

Now this would probably just destroy a double Ordo but the problem with 5x Ordo is this hits replacement rate issues pretty bad by the time you are deep into the destroyers. So I'm still going to have to work on the fighter choice. Now this is fun again! It was getting really miserable trying to micro the Warthog variants with millimeter precision, these are much more forgiving and destructive too.

[Goumindong]

Huh, i had no idea astral's missile slots were turrets either. Now i'm wondering if there might be a nice player controlled battlecarrier build for them

They didn’t used to be. This was changed the last or close to the last patch.

Anyway it’s very weird to me to see Astrals without bombers. So no bombers work? Like. I know longbows and tridents are expensive but I feel like they would be effective.