Very cool, and glad to see this is becoming a thing ![Grin ;D](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
Yeah it'll be interesting to see how the other ships perform since we have very different approaches to fleet design and battle strategy.
Although I likely won't try that many 5 Ordos runs, since I look more at fast Ordos farming fleets, but the Conquest is still the best I've tried thus far, so I thought I'd take it for a spin and see how it'd do.
This makes me want to actually pilot a ship
Yeah I still feel player piloting the flagship is still a better choice, since the player can overcome deficiencies in the AI (i.e. the player's ship is the only one not limited by the AI). Also it's just fun to burn drive in while spamming PCL and singing "Wrecking Ball".
Buuut why did you record your game with a cam? There is free capturing software and you can use Nvidia Shadowplay if you have their graphics card. Not only does it make the footage better looking, I bet it's also easier having it all saved immediately to your PC.
Wish I could, but I'm using a desktop that's over a decade old. The desktop is so old that I couldn't even use the
Fast Engine Rendering mod. I've tried screen capture software before but they all slow down the game to the point where it becomes a slideshow. So until I buy a new desktop this will have to do. That's why I mostly screenshot but not video record, it's a pain to set up the camera so that it lines up with the computer monitor. Sigh.
Given that the video is over 28 minutes long and is 30 frames per second, I think that means I should be expecting uh around 50 thousand pipe bombs in the mail.
I'm currently using central Mjolnir on my player onslaught for the exact reasons Grievous mentioned - also switched from HAG. The HAG was doing great vs all normal enemies, but I found this to be better vs ordos. Side effect of very high accuracy vs frigates was surprisingly welcome! I did need to tweak other weapons for flux purposes (that gun and S mod expanded magazines for the TPCs are a decent chunk of increased flux).
Well the HAG and the Mjolnir have pretty much the same hit rate, at least with elite Ballistic Mastery (from side by side testing, the Mjolnir currently stands at 862/1364 = 63.2% while the HAG stands at 2284/3661 = 62.4%, so basically within margin of error of testing). So it comes down to the Mjolnir's higher DPS versus the HAG's better flux efficiency. Against armor, the HAG is both faster (higher DPS) and more flux efficient than the Mjolnir. Against Ordos hull, the Mjolnir will on average do about 18% more DPS, but the HAG is 15% more efficient (HAG only needs 85% of the flux to do the same amount of damage to hull). For me, I tried the Mjolnir before, but I wasn't good at getting the "feel" of how quickly the flux went up with it, which was too fast and made me flux out. That's bad for me in the flagship because enemy ships will then start launching a bunch of missiles at me when I'm at high flux; I rely on venting frequently to keep my flux down. So HAG's better efficiency made more sense. If I get better at piloting though I may use the Mjolnir.
For the AI I'd recommend the Mjolnir. As the player though I'll manually turn off the HAG when I'm hitting shields, then turn it back on against armor/hull, to be more flux efficient. (Note that my flagship Onslaught XIV is severely overfluxed.) So I could afford to specialized in anti-armor/hull since I'm manually controlling weapons, while Mjolnir is a more generalist weapon.
[Edit] In terms of long range onslaught potential, I really like S mod expanded magazines!
Yeah s-mod Expanded Magazines for TPC is definitely a good choice. Looking at the results and applying a simplistic *1.5 to the TPC's total damage, that would mean around 8% more overall DPS from the flagship which is definitely good. For this run I was using Heavy Armor though as my 3rd s-mod, for endurance. For double Ordos where I'm not as concerned about endurance, I've been toying with using something else instead of Heavy Armor as the 3rd s-mod, or dropping Heavy Armor entirely. So s-mod Expanded Magazines would definitely be a good choice. (It's considered energy by the way.)
For your loadout, the light needlers + ballistic rangefinder hurts my soul in terms of OP expenditure for offensive gain... it does somewhat maximize forward kinetic power, though if that is the goal then switching to a Mjolnir will also help a lot!
Yeah, they're expensive in OP (due to Ballistic Rangefinder) but they're efficient in damage/flux. They're also somewhat a holdover from my regular farming loadout, where I use Heavy Needlers or some Heavy Autocannons, thus Ballistic Rangefinder is a lot more worthwhile in that case. I find Ballistic Rangefinder can be surprisingly useful in general; they were worthwhile even on the Eradicator for AI use since, even though they only gave 100 base range to the small ballistics, that meant the AI could hit from that much farther away instead of closing in and it dropped the damage the fleet took by around 1/4 or something, so more of the flux went toward killing the enemy, making the ship as a whole more efficient. In this particular case I was going for a long range build so they were useful for that.
Do you ever have trouble capping/holding objectives with no frigates? I'm wondering how you deal with the map with objectives in each corner, where you may have to capture an enemy-side comm relay to deploy everything
It means that yes the enemy will capture the objectives first, but my cruiser will capture it back afterward. The enemy fleet is pretty predictable; it sends a frigate (or sometimes a destroyer) in a straight line towards the objectives, so I just need to make sure I have a bigger ship in the way to kill that ship before it reaches the objective. I then gradually move my fleet forward toward the top of the map where they spawn, making sure that no ships get past my fleet. So once I capture the objective, they won't take it back.