The Hegemony has access to the new Grendel-class (renamed) phase cruiser. That's the only new ship in this release.
Of course that's what COMSEC wants everyone to think! Beware what may lie in the Abyss...
I had a situation where I ordered a Conquest with a 15% nav rating - so not exactly a slow ship - to eliminate a Radiant that was high on flux and it chased the damn thing around an objective for about two minutes(cue Benny Hill music) and, as far as I can tell, did not manage to score any hull damage whatsoever.
Radiant top speed is 40. Phase Skimmer adds another 30 on average. Conquest top speed is 45. Maneuvering Jets add another 25 on average. So without any bonuses to begin with, the Conquest wouldn't really be able to chase down a Radiant in the first place With bonuses on both sides, it'd take a long time either way.
It was evident from the start that Ordos would get more powerful annoying to fight. You just can't balance a valuable resource (elite skill for officer), and having the player feel powerful without making, without also messing up the enemy that gets guaranteed all elite skills on most ships.
I wouldn't necessarily say Ordos are harder or more annoying to fight. Instead, the challenge is now different.
In the previous version, since Ordos would always deploy small ships first (after the initial balanced fleet), then big ships, the player fleet had to be able to 1) defeat a fleet made up of a bunch of scattered smaller ships, as well as 2) defeat a fleet made up of fewer larger, more powerful ships. So the player fleet had to have ships that could handle both.
Now, since the AI's deployment algorithm is more even, there will likely always be some big ship in the enemy fleet, as well as some smaller ships in the enemy fleet. So now the player fleet's ships are more able to specialize in anti-small ships or anti-big ships. That will open up more interesting combinations for player fleet compositions. Instead of having ships that were more jack-of-all-trades, each individual ship can now lean into its strengths more.
Mass Gryphon spam led by flagship Onslaught XIV had its DPS go from around 430 DPS each to around 420 DPS each
on the first try (and I'll get better at controlling the fleet as I go along), even though Gryphons were supposed to be somewhat nerfed, so it looks like Ordos fleets will still die pretty readily against powerful player fleets.
Second, I was chased by a full Ordo when I was level 2 while hunting a 40k bounty. The whole fleet was heavily D-modded but it had an Alpha Core Radiant and Brilliant along with 10 or so smaller ships. I can only assume it was a sensor ghost that turned into an Ordo but I don't remember any chasing me into and around a system. I don't recall salvaging anything that causes a fleet to come. Suffice to say, I E-burned out of there.
That's something that's been present from the last release (or earlier), a random encounter with a very d-modded Ordos fleet.
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So, trying out Escort Package, it looks like it'll open up a lot of interesting destroyer builds. The way it works is that at around 1000 range and below, the ship gets its full bonus. Between around 1000 and 1500 range, the ship's bonus decreases linearly from max to 0. Destroyers if next to a capital ship get double this bonus. This is approximate, a Manticore near a Gryphon seems to be around 900 range, while around an Atlas2 it was at around 1037 or so (so I'm guessing it accounts for the larger ship's collision size or something like that).
So in terms of weapon range, it really just means that destroyers and cruisers can "borrow" the weapon range of a nearby larger ship. Smaller ships tend to pack more flux per DP (and thus more offensive power per DP) but are more fragile, so it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out. Trying out my flagship Onslaught XIV + 2 Gryphons as flankers + 2 Atlas2's as support + 6 Manticores against double Ordos, I got a completion in less than 4.5 minutes. But the interesting bit is that the Gryphons averaged 331 DPS for 20 DP or 16.5 DPS/DP, the Atlas2's averaged 404 DPS for 24 DP or 16.8 DPS/DP, and the Manticores averaged 205 DPS for 12 DP or 17.1 DPS/DP. So the Manticores actually contributed about as much on a per-DP basis as the Gryphon and the Atlas2, both pretty powerful hitters in their own right. (The Gryphons and Atlas2's were more backline support ships in this fleet though, rather than front and center; the Gryphons did less in this fleet than if it were Gryphon spam.) Some screenshots of the battle are attached.
I feel like the Manticores got to too close of a range unnecessarily, thus not taking full advantage of their range and taking unnecessary damage (and testing in sim, they seem to naturally close in to a bit less than half their full range against a static, non-firing target from the Practice Targets mod). Maybe it's because I had them set to aggressive though, plus liberal use of the "Eliminate" command. They'd probably stay further away if set to steady instead.
The ships were:
Flagship Onslaught XIV: Mjolnir, 2 Heph on sides, 3 HAC in front, 2 HVD in middle, 2 Light Needlers in front, 4 LAC on front sides, 4 PCL, with s-modded ATG, AWM, EM, then BRF, FD, ITU, RFC, ARU, Solar Shielding (was testing between Solar Shielding versus more capacitors), 30 caps, 55 vents
Gryphon: Squall, 2 Harpoon Pods, 3 Harpoons (all linked), HVD, with s-modded ATG, ECCM, MA, then Escort Package, HS, ITU, with officer skills Helms, CE, TA (elite), SE, MS (elite)
Atlas2: Squall, Locust (both linked), 2 Mjolnir (separate groups), 2 LAC, with s-modded ATG, AWM, Aux Thrusters, then BRF, ECCM, ITU, Mili Sub, with officer skills Helms (elite), CE, TA, BM, MS (elite)
Manticore: Heph, 2 Harpoon Pods, 3 LAC, with s-modded AWM, Escort Package, EMR, then ITU, with officer skills CE, TA (elite), BM (elite), MS, GI
Character skills were basically Missile Spec, BotB, and Cyber Aug.
Note that this isn't the "final", optimized fleet, it was just me trying something out, so it'll only get better from here.
It'll be interesting to try out Sunders (1950-range HIL/Gravitons or 1225-range Plasma Cannon in a 11-DP package) with this...if I can figure out how to keep them alive.
