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[Hiruma Kai]

So the patch notes thread had an interesting discussion on Dominator balance, and Mishrak kindly put together a video showing off Dominators with an RTS playstyle.  Rather than continue the discussion there, I figured it was better to pull it out to its own thread.

I lied and decided to make a video before the weekend.  Honestly, I'm a little more impressed with them as time has gone on.  When properly escorted they handle fairly well.  Burn drive also does a pretty decent job.  But then, as you'll see, my playstyle is a little more RTS-like.  I think they'd struggle if the playstyle was just set and forget.

This is just a single Ordo, but I've had similar fights against most of the different single Ordo setups - double Nova, Nova + Radiant, Double Radiant.  Also keep in mind that all my officers are 6 skilled with 2 elites.  My frigates all have random aggressive/reckless mercs in them.  The only Dorito weapons this fleet uses are two Cryoblasters: two of the Medusas have one each.
 

I'm more of flagship flying player who tends to set and forget, so I thought I'd test the fire and forget hypothesis out.  While I was at, I haven't done any serious fleet Dragonfire torpedo tests, and as it was mentioned the Expanded Missile Racks + Missile Specialization is likely overkill on Reapers.  However, that same setup is basically mandatory for Dragonfire.   Plus I was curious if the range band on the Dragonfires better matched the Mark IV and Heavy Maulers. 

So I used Console Commands to magic up an end game Dominator XIV heavy fleet.  An Executor, 6 Dominators, 5 Omens, 10 level 6 officers (no mercenaries, so no officers for 2 of the omens).  And a 5 skill flagship Afflictor.  Ran through an Ordo system a few times to scale up the enemy fleets a bit, and did a few runs at Radiant + 2 Nova single Ordos real quick.  Embarrassingly got my flagship shot up twice on the earlier Ordos without capitals, but the fleet finished them no problem.  After the warm ups, I apparently played better as I didn't lose the Afflictor against the actual capital heavy fleets.

I recorded one of the fights, to show off my poor Afflictor decision making (and flagship centric playstyle), along with showing what the Dominators could do without being micromanaged, but initially setup on a battle line.

It can be found here:


As far as I can tell, I wouldn't want to take the Dragonfires into a double or more Ordo, due to lack of sustain, but for typical single fleet play, they seemed OK to me.  I may have been a bit too much focusing on ensuring kills with them when I linked all 3, as there were times when fewer probably would have been better, or arrived late.  Or I stole a kill in my Afflictor.

Dominators didn't seem to have too much issue and stayed lined up for most of the fight.  I'll note I didn't take Auxiliary Thrusters on them, but did have Elite Impact Mitigation.  I was again curious if only a +55-60% manuever bonus was that big of hinderance.  I also had half with Targeting Analysis, and the other half with Combat Endurance.  I was curious if the +0/+10/+15/+20% damage was better than the +5% across the board damage and -5% damage taken.  Randomness of combat ended up having a larger effect than the difference in the skills.

One fun fact was the Mark IVs on fixed mounts with Armored Weapon Mounts and Gunnery Implants have like no spread.  It is kind of impressive watching 4 hits lands on a frigate out beyond 1000 units.

As for overall balance, they seem to work okay?  Certainly playing to their strengths, setting up a firing line and keeping the enemy fleet from flanking with escorts worked, while not being very heavy handed with the orders most of the fight.  Only losses the entire test run was my Afflictor, so the Dominators kept the Omens quite safe, and vice versa.

Attached are the combat reports for the 2 capital heavy fights.

[Thaago]

Oh those poor Novas. I can almost hear the mad cackled of your Dominator captains as you blast out their engines and leave them drifting dead in range of your battle line.

For the Dragonfires they seem functional, but like you said the overkill was notable.

Omens my beloved, they did such a good job protecting the flanks of those Doms! System Expertise on them is quite strong, especially for the range increase. I used to know which skills stacked on that system, but I've forgotten and didn't write it down.

[Edit] One thing watching this that really stood out is that Dragonfire's take so long to deal damage to a target that even with the AI holding back a bit in launching them vs overloaded/highly vulnerable targets, that trickle of more dragonfires is still way too much.

[Void Ganymede]

It's cool to see high tech frigates serve as the complementary escorts a low tech battle line needs.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Adding a mental note that dominators are good dragonfire candidates. Linking them might be overkill though

[vladokapuh]

One fun fact was the Mark IVs on fixed mounts with Armored Weapon Mounts and Gunnery Implants have like no spread.  It is kind of impressive watching 4 hits lands on a frigate out beyond 1000 units.

I do really love hardpointed mk9, i tried different weapons on the larges, but kept coming back to those.
Even with buffed hephag i ended up not really liking it on the dom, and went back to 2mk9.

I should check how the 2sec PCL do vs remnants

[Mishrak]

Nice to see more HIL Executor fans.  Thank Pixi for that fit.

It's fun to see the line play in action and to see how disruptive the player can be with an Afflictor.  I'll have to give those Dragonfires a try again, especially with the increased activation range in .97.

[Alex]

This is super cool! Not going to lie, I love seeing the Dragonfires in action. The amount of overkill does make me wonder if they'd do alright set on alternating, and possibly even last through a 2-Ordo fight.

[Hiruma Kai]

For the Dragonfires they seem functional, but like you said the overkill was notable.

[Edit] One thing watching this that really stood out is that Dragonfire's take so long to deal damage to a target that even with the AI holding back a bit in launching them vs overloaded/highly vulnerable targets, that trickle of more dragonfires is still way too much.

This is super cool! Not going to lie, I love seeing the Dragonfires in action. The amount of overkill does make me wonder if they'd do alright set on alternating, and possibly even last through a 2-Ordo fight.

So, I tried a few more single Ordo fights, and alternating fire seems to work fine.  I can't really see a big difference in the final numbers, but they do seem to be used more sparingly.

Which made me willing to try to answer the 2 Ordo question, and to my embarrassment, I ran out of antimatter blaster charges on my Afflictor.  Forgot to put on expanded magazines for such an extended fight, and be a bit choosier in my targets.  This left me unable to properly support when the Radiant came out at the end (plus my CR was like 20% when I finally retreated my Afflictor), which meant I couldn't delay it enough before I could reorganize my ships to approach it properly with all the remaining carrier spam. So it rolled up one flank.  On the other hand, it did pull it off at the end.  See the attached after action reports.

I do really love hardpointed mk9, i tried different weapons on the larges, but kept coming back to those.
Even with buffed hephag i ended up not really liking it on the dom, and went back to 2mk9.

I should check how the 2sec PCL do vs remnants

Yeah, chunks of 200 kinetic damage are just really good, and work fine against most tiers of Remnant armor.  Wouldn't want it necessarily against an Invictus, but then again, Dragonfires are really good against Shield Shunt ships.

Personally, I was wishing I had PCLs, even 2 second refire ones, on that double Ordo with carrier spam.  12 Scintillas and 24 fighters wings is just a lot to wade through with just 5 Omens.  And it feels like 10 of them were still out when the Radiant came calling.

Nice to see more HIL Executor fans.  Thank Pixi for that fit.

Thanks Pixi!

But yeah, I just love that Hypervelocity Driver + High Intensity Laser combo.  It just feels good.

Some further thoughts playing around:

I do really like the ensure a kill aspect (plus the laser light show) by linking the Dragonfires together, as a 12000 damage soft spike is quite nice for getting that overload, or at least getting them to drop shield and take some of it on hull.  However, the 4.16 (5/0.8/1.5) second refire delay feels almost as short as the time it takes to go from start of firing sequence (pair of red targeting beams) to last tick of damage.  I know it is not, but it is like 2 seconds, right, plus 0.5 seconds to deliver all the damage?  I guess, it just feels bad watching the firing sequence going on for 2 seconds pointed at a dead husk that just viscerally feels bad.  Its like, why not change targets at that point, you've still clearly got tracking capabilities.  Where as something like a Harpoon might as least swerve away to another target.  Although even those still usually just run into the dead hulk if they're that close.

Counterpoint to that feeling, watching Dragonfires turn like 90 degrees to track a phase skimming Radiant and still connect is kind of cool.  Plus, at least from time a fight takes and combat report metrics, it doesn't seem that much more effective than just letting the AI do it's thing selecting how many it wants to fire.

For this very specific application of Dragonfires on Dominators in AI hands, I personally would prefer it if they had a 10-15 second refire delay (closer to Typhoons), but that might impact Persean League negatively.  Again personal preference in this particular case.

I think the -20% fire rate on Expanded Missile racks, and the drop to +25% fire rate in the next release for Elite Missile Specializations might actually be a buff for how I want to use them here.

A 10 second base delay, base count of 3 would be about perfect I think.  With this setup next patch, that is a minimum of 90 seconds before an AI can fire them all.  Compared to the potentially 25 seconds currently in this build.  Harpoon pods currently have at least 67 seconds (81 seconds next patch) of fire time (3x3 salvos,9/08/1.5 second refire time).  Typhoon Reapers clock in at 225 seconds (270 seconds next patch) before an AI can have fired them all right now.

I also did a couple SO Champion runs (swapping in Champions 1 for 1, Plasma, Cyclone,2x Ion Pulser totally aggressive setup), it has reminded me the difference between a SO fighting style and line fighting style.  It is precisely because Dominators are so slow that they make great line ships - they fundamentally can't move quickly off the line without burn drive, and AI tends to be willing to cancel it quite early these days.

An SO fight, due to the extremely short ranges, wants everything to devolve into a bunch of one on ones or two on ones away from each other.  An SO ship can't support another SO ship from 1000 units away, while long range cruisers/capitals can.  So to avoid DPS concentration by the enemy which you can't replicate, you want the enemy line split up.  This makes for a more hectic fighting style.  Its not a weak style, as SO ships will win that 1 on 1 fight, but it is different, and you need to approach them differently.

Also, SO Champions really need some faster frigate killer ships with them, since while fast for a cruiser, they are not fast for a frigate, especially something like a beam Glimmer.  100% CR SO + UI Champion with Coordinated Maneuvers and Helmsmanship (base) is 60 + 24 + 20 + 15 + 50 = 169 speed.  Elite Helmsmanship beam Glimmer with Coordinated Maneuvers and 85% CR is like speed 130+45+5 = 180 and range 1000 (to 1150).  The Omens in my fleet without SO top out at 155+62+5=222 speed, so I don't feel bad sending the after a Glimmer or Lumen with an eliminate order.

This is one of the reasons I prefer Furies and Medusa as fire and forget SO ships.  Base speed is higher, plus a manuever system means they will catch and kill frigates, no questions asked.  If a frigate "distracts" them, it won't be for very long. Compare Fury's speed of 95+38+20+15+50=218 speed to my Omens or that hypothetical Glimmer, and then throw Plasma burn on top.

Edit: I've got a video loading to Youtube of another Dragonfire Dominator vs double Ordo.  Tweaked the fleet some, added 2 mercencary officers to the last two Omens, and grabbed Wolfpack tactics instead of Tactical Drills to get more PPT on the frigates.  Turns out I was overestimating my Afflictor compentancy.   Again, not a clean win, and some poor Afflictor play on my part, but the alternating fire fleet does get the job done.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Dragonfires trying to aim to something else if their original target is dead would be a nice change. Not asking for resetting the firing sequence but if they at least try to turn to something else would be nice.

[Hiruma Kai]

So, I've got a video of said slightly modified fleet against a double Ordo up now (High definition still has 30 minutes to process at this time Done now).



Things of note:  I make a couple poor decisions in the heat of combat, like overusing eliminate orders, or at least not canceling a couple.  Also some poor Afflictor decision making.

Overall, however, the fleet technically made a profit on the fight.  Definitely not the strongest fleet I've made, but I'd say its definitely Ironman-able given I haven't actually lost a fight using it, just gotten some d-mods for my trouble.

Also have been playing around with Harpoons and Reapers, and I kind of take back what I said.  Fleet works with them, but the hull damage proportion by the Dominators is on average noticeably lower according to combat reports.  Single run with Harpoons (ECCM instead of hardened shields, +6 caps), Dominators averaged about 9k hull damage each (54k out of 165k total, 32%).  Single run with Reaper (+6 caps), Dominators averaged 12k hull damage each (76k out of 176k total,43%).  Alternating Dragonfire averaged about 23k hull damage each (138k out of 230k total, 60%).  Even on the double Ordos, they're doing a solid proportion.  First fight, 127k out of 288k for 44%, and then second fight which was noticeably more opposing DP, 228k out of 369k for 61%.

[Thaago]

Very interesting! It seems I've been sleeping on Dragonfires then.

Something I hadn't really considered before: does combat report record overkill damage or not? I ask because while it could be a coincidence, I note that the damage difference between reapers and dragonfires almost exactly matches the total hull difference in damage done (and the harpoons, which I would expect to have the least overkill though maybe I'm wrong there, have the least total hull damage). It could also have just been a fight against beefier enemies though.

[Draba]

Alternating Dragonfire averaged about 23k hull damage each (138k out of 230k total, 60%)

There is no way that's accurate, combat results include things like 63.6K damage done in 7 hits.
That'd be ~9.1K damage done by each 4K nominal damage Dragonfire, should be too much even if every single one hits hull of amped ships.

[Hiruma Kai]

Alternating Dragonfire averaged about 23k hull damage each (138k out of 230k total, 60%)

There is no way that's accurate, combat results include things like 63.6K damage done in 7 hits.
That'd be ~9.1K damage done by each 4K nominal damage Dragonfire, should be too much even if every single one hits hull of amped ships.

Apologies for the confusion, that's per Dominator overall dealt hull damage, not Dragonfire only.  I.e. I'm trying to work out what percentage of ships died to the Dominators, not specifically what was done by the Dragonfires.  If the Dragonfires simply enabled killing instead of doing it themselves, that's still valuable since at the end of the day, I care about destroyed enemy ships.

Edit: Nevermind, I see what you mean, in the video, the actual breakdown shows 63k damage in 7 dragon fire shots.  Point taken.  Not sure what that implies.

Edit2:  Testing in the simulator seems to suggest total damage is correct, but number of hits is wrong.  Which might have to do with the beam like nature of the weapon.  A hit number great than 1 may just imply how many payloads physically hit something before converting to beam.

For example, take a triple Dragonfire Dominator into simulator against the Atlas.  Fire 3.  Reports only 1 hit, despite 3 beams landing on it.  Total damage dealt is on the order of 9300, which is roughly what you might expect for an Atlas.

[Draba]

Alternating Dragonfire averaged about 23k hull damage each (138k out of 230k total, 60%)

There is no way that's accurate, combat results include things like 63.6K damage done in 7 hits.
That'd be ~9.1K damage done by each 4K nominal damage Dragonfire, should be too much even if every single one hits hull of amped ships.

Apologies for the confusion, that's per Dominator overall dealt hull damage, not Dragonfire only.  I.e. I'm trying to work out what percentage of ships died to the Dominators, not specifically what was done by the Dragonfires.  If the Dragonfires simply enabled killing instead of doing it themselves, that's still valuable since at the end of the day, I care about destroyed enemy ships.

As for Dragonfires themselves, 18 per Dominator means potentially up to 72,000 energy damage.

I understand that, I meant the Dragonfire damage is definitely overreported.
For example, if you look at the last video TA 3 did 63.6K damage with 7 Dragonfire hits.
Dragonfire nominal damage is 4K, CR+missile spec+TA bonus +40%, amped that should be hard capped at 5600*1.5 = 8400 damage per hit, 58.8K total (I think amp is multiplicative with everything, not sure but this is the best case).
Enemies have CR damage reduction, shields take much less than nominal damage and IIRC all alpha cores have damage control so getting close to 58.8 is already impossible.
It's also very unlikely that all hits were amped and did full damage with no overkill.

Edit: nvm, updated. 63K damage with 18 available missiles still seems unlikely, but it's possible. 370K total hull for 768 DP is ~expected.

[Hiruma Kai]

Very interesting! It seems I've been sleeping on Dragonfires then.

Something I hadn't really considered before: does combat report record overkill damage or not? I ask because while it could be a coincidence, I note that the damage difference between reapers and dragonfires almost exactly matches the total hull difference in damage done (and the harpoons, which I would expect to have the least overkill though maybe I'm wrong there, have the least total hull damage). It could also have just been a fight against beefier enemies though.

So, I'm not using the same opposing fleet each time, I'm just changing loadout, going back to the system and getting another roll of the Ordos (and in some cases, waiting some time for the poor Nexus to regenerate some).

Harpoons fight had 445 DP and nominally 151,500 hull.  It reported 165,000 hull damage dealt. ~9% higher, so armor damage reduction?
It was 1 Radiant (20000 hull), 3 Nova (36000 hull), 1 Apex (12000 hull), 5 Brilliants (40000 hull), 7 Fulgent (35000 hull), 1 Glimmer (1500 hull), 7 Lumen (7000 hull)

Reaper fight had 393 DP and nominally 146,500 hull.  It reported 176,000 hull damage dealt though.  Alot more armor, so maybe more damage reduction?  Here it is 20% higher.
It was 2 Radiant (40000 hull), 5 Apex (60000), 3 Scintilla (15000), 4 Fulgent (20000), 3 Glimmer (4500), 7 Lumen (7000)

Alternating Dragonfire vs single Ordo had 477 DP and nominally 163,000 hull.  It reported 230,000 hull damage dealt, so 41% higher than naive estimate.  Hrm.
It was 2 Radiant (40000), 1 Nova (12000), 1 Apex (12000), 7 Brilliant (56000), 2 Scintilla (10000), 4 Fulgent (20000), 8 Glimmer (12000), 1 Lumen (1000).

Maybe there is an issue here.