Firstly, let me apologize for any formatting errors. I've been lurking these forums for years, but never felt a need to post anything. Part of that is that I'm not very good at this game (never beaten the [SUPER REDACTED], but I hope to change that this run!), and part of it is that my interest in games tends to wax and wane, so I rarely feel up-to-date enough to weigh in.
Until Now! I recently started another playthrough on 0.97a. It's been a blast, but I have to say that my absolute favorite thing about this patch is the simple, elegant design of the Escort Package hullmod, and how it simplifies my fleet outfit significantly. So, I felt a need to make this first post of mine.
Part One: Low-Tech and Destroyers
I'm a big fan of Low-Tech; I like watching a hail of ballistic fire and PD fill the air (it tickles the part of my brain that used to nerd out about Naval History back in high school). In the past, however, I found fleet combat with Low-Tech, especially with steady doctrine/officers, to be finicky and obtuse. High-Tech ships often have high enough flux stats and/or speed that the ally ship AI is comfortable operating independently, without too much order micromanagement. I don't need to go into great detail because there are innumerable videos and posts showing that well-built High-Tech fleets (even wolf-packs or small fleets with minimal logistical profiles) can clear the vast majority of the combat encounters in the game.
Low-Tech, on the other hand, needed to juggle their relatively poor flux stats and mobility with their armor and consistent ballistic pressure. Low-Tech ships often lacked the speed and flux stats to reliably chase down frigates and other flankers without fighter support, and they struggled (at least in my experience) to keep up consistent pressure with their powerful ballistic weaponry while managing shields, armor, and (in many cases) venting.
Many Low-Tech heavies are vulnerable to flanking, and without some form of escort (fighter or otherwise), I often found my Onslaughts and Dominators breaking off from the big enemy in front of them to throw a few pot-shots at some far-off frigate it felt was getting too frisky. Steady AI in particular is very skittish about letting small ships get on its flanks, in my experience; this naturally causes them to lose focus (and the flux war), diminishing their effectiveness in large fleet combat and forcing the AI to make uncomfortable choices to back off and vent (often times it will not, as it isn't fast enough to disengage to a safe distance, and it doesn't like venting when enemy missiles or high-explosive weapons are in play - no matter how much armor it has, it loathes opening itself up to HE, even if it might be better in the long run). This makes sense - Steady AI has a propensity for trying to preserve its ship as much as it reasonably can, while still putting pressure on the enemy - it's not unreasonable for it to be nervous about flanking frigates. An Aggressive AI might push forward and continue fighting regardless, but an Aggressive AI will probably lose its ship more often, driving up logistical costs significantly.
Relatedly, Low-Tech (and Midline) destroyers, in particular, can struggle to really find an identity - without Safety Overrides they aren't usually fast enough to operate the way High-Tech wolf-packs do, and even with SO they often times still lack the tactical mobility and shield stats necessary to operate like frigates. On the other hand, they aren't tough enough or long-ranged enough to really operate on a "battle line". If they try and offer fire-support to cruisers or capitals, most Low/Mid-Tech destroyers find themselves blundering into the firing line just to get in range, often dying in the process.
Tl;dr: Low/Mid-Tech Destroyers are too big and slow to use frigate tactics, too small and fragile to use cruiser/capital tactics (at least in my prior experience). Part Two: The Escort Order
In the time I've lurked here I've seen some consternation over the behavior of the "Escort" order. Plenty of posts discuss escort ships hanging back, not contributing to the battle line, or pointing their guns at some far-off frigate in a bizarre standoff (where neither side is actually in range of the other) while the capital they are escorting struggles to deal with its opposition. Often, I believe this to be a misunderstanding of what exactly an "Escort" is.
From my experience, Escort ships seem to have very strict movement restrictions (there's even a tooltip on the title screen about how the Escort order "heavily restricts the escort's movement"); this is fairly obviously meant to keep the escort away from the firing arcs of the ship it is escorting. Even in historical Naval battles, destroyers would never roll right up to an enemy battleship just to fire their puny guns at it when their own battleship is mid-combat; doing so would risk friendly fire, and its not like the destroyer's guns are going to make a dent in a capital. Better to let the big bois duke it out amongst themselves, and maybe offer some torpedo support if possible. The main function of an escort is to protect large capitals from smaller, more numerous flanking threats that the capital is too ponderous to feasibly respond to. This means that an escort should (in theory) concern itself with enemy fighters, flanking attacks, torpedo rushes, etc. The word "destroyer" even derives from the original purpose of those ships in WWI-era maritime fleets:
"Torpedo-boat destroyer".
So, the Escort order in Starsector effectively forces the escort ship to stay out of the firing arcs of the main ship. This often manifests as the escort sticking to one side of the cruiser/capital (as in the case of most combat ships) or behind it (as in the case of most non-combat carriers). This also causes the escort to focus
really hard on dissuading enemy flankers from approaching the capital while it deals with the enemy target.
But, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of ships we would typically assign to escort duty (frigates and destroyers) lack the range to really pressure these ships.
- An Enforcer with Hyper-Velocity Drivers (HVDs) and Integrated Targeting Unit (ITU) has a range of roughly 1200 su (1000 base range for HVDs, +20% for destroyer-class ITU, +/- range fluctuations due to skills, ECM rating, etc).
- A capital ship with large ballistics (Such as the Mk IX Autocannon or Hephaestus Assault Gun) and ITU has a range of 1440 su (900 base + 60% from capital-class ITU).
- I'm not even going to bother mentioning frigate ranges. Beam weapons with Advanced Optics and ITU can reach 1300 su, but that's basically it. Frigate ballistics aren't really going to contribute meaningfully to most engagements. [\li]
The destroyer escort basically needs to run the highest-range medium ballistic guns with ITU to even get
close to being able to engage enemy ships within the capital's firing envelope. If you can't mount HVDs for some reason (flux, ordnance points, not enough DPS...), then your engagement range drops significantly, and the escort can no longer meaningfully contribute to the battle unless an enemy rushes the ship they are escorting. They simply lack the range. This is why missile-heavy ships (like the Gryphon) and carriers with interceptors (a-la Drover with Thunders or Gladius') made for more useful escorts in the past. Missiles can shoot over allies and have fairly long ranges, making them the perfect tool for supporting a capital against another capital, while also providing the burst necessary to finish off enemy frigates that took a little too much incoming fire. Carriers can similarly provide support from behind their capital with their fighters, and also chase down flanking frigates with them.
On top of this, escorts have the prerequisite of being faster than the ship they are escorting; if they aren't, they will simply fall behind when their capital
eventually kills the enemy its attacking and moves elsewhere. Speed and Maneuverability also help escorts take a more active role in the flux war - if the capital wants to back off to vent, it can't use its PD to block incoming missiles, and can't use its shields to block incoming HE fire. A maneuverable escort can (and I believe tries to, if it can) block incoming shots with its own flux pool while the capital is venting and can use its PD to protect against incoming missiles / torpedoes during this very vulnerable time. Slow, ponderous escorts struggle to fulfill this role though - they lack the maneuverability to pull it off. Low-Tech destroyers are also often too fragile to do this for very long.
Tl;dr: Escort ships tend to stay at the sides of the ship they are escorting so the capital can focus on the enemy capital without getting sidetracked by flankers or interrupted by friendlies in its firing line. This means escorts desperately need mobility (to keep up with their capital and maneuver where the capital need them to be, and desperately need range to be able to engage enemy flankers or capitals without leaving the side of the ship they are assigned to escort. This is why missile-heavy ships and interceptor-loaded carriers make good escorts, in my experience. Part Three: The Full Package
The "Escort Package" hullmod is a huge step forward for escort ships, effectively fixing every issue I've personally experienced in Low/Mid-Tech fleets. From the Starsector Wiki:
When this ship is within approximately 1000 su of a larger friendly vessel, increases the ship's maneouverability by 25%, and top speed by 10%. Also increases ballistic and energy weapon range by 20%.
These bonuses are doubled for destroyers when the nearby friendly is a capital ship.
S-mod bonus: Destroyers: reduces the amount of damage taken by shields by 10%. No added effect for cruisers.
This fixes every single issue I've personally experienced with Low/Mid-Tech Escort ships, all neatly wrapped into a single package. Namely:
- The range bonus from Escort Package combines with ITU's range bonus to match the ITU of the ship class you're escorting. A destroyer with ITU and Escort Package has +40% range, which matches a cruiser with ITU (+40% range). A destroyer near a capital ship has +60% range, once again matching the range bonus of capital-class ITU (+60% range). A cruiser escorting a capital has +60% as well. This allows you to run more DPS-oriented (or more efficient) ballistic weapons while still having enough range to both engage the ship the capital is engaging (basically acting as close fire support) or engage flankers from far enough away that they have to lose a significant amount of flux just to get close. It's like giving a capital a bunch of extra gun mounts that have their own flux pool!
- This "range-matching" also makes PD more effective, gives HVDs and other "sniper-type" ballistics even more pick-off capability, and reduces reliance on fighters and missiles to fill in the holes in the escort's offensive profile. It also dramatically reduces the impact of the "strict" movement restrictions that the escort order imposes. Is the escort ship out of flankers to shoot, and wants to help the capital win the flux war, but can't close the distance because it would get in the way of the capital's guns? Not a problem! Just shoot alongside it, you've got the range now!
- The maneuverability and speed bonuses make slower escorts (such as the Enforcer) able to keep up with their escort target easily and makes faster escorts (or escorts with hardpoints) significantly more effective in their role. Far less likely to get out-maneuvered by flanking frigates when you've got a 50% maneuverability and 20% speed bonus on top of all that range.
- The s-mod bonus gives Destroyers half of hardened shields for free (or the entirety of hardened shields if they are escorting a capital, if I understand the interaction correctly). This helps immensely with their flux management, since they are going to be joining a capital on the battle line and they need every bit of flux they can get.
- It also combines with the increased maneuverability to make destroyers significantly better at protecting capitals that want to back off to vent. The maneuverability and speed bonuses allow them to dip into position to body-block HE rounds and shoot down missiles with their PD, and the increased shield efficiency means they are less likely to instantly pop when they do body-block those HE rounds.
I have had immense success (so far, don't want to get ahead of myself just yet) with Enforcers and such with s-mod Escort Package. They can dissuade and even pick off flanking frigates comfortably, and when no flankers are present, they can contribute meaningful DPS to the capital-vs-capital flux war without needing me to give them an eliminate order (and thus messing up their positioning in the process). Naturally, Safety Overrides still offers more aggressive, wolfpack-leader-type bonuses for destroyers that want to do that (like SO Hammerhead leading a Lasher squad), but Escort Package really does allow Destroyers to act as efficient and functional escorts for both capitals and cruisers with no micro-management involved. All they need is a single direct escort order at the start of battle (which is when you're going to be giving capture orders anyway, so it barely even has an impact on command points).
Conclusion
I can
finally use an Enforcer XIV in my fleet battles without feeling like I'm wasting the DP. It does something now! It finally does something now!
Spoiler
Oh and, since this is my first post, I should mention; I love this game a lot. Awesome work as a whole from everyone at Fractal Softworks. Hi Alex!
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Topic: Escort Package might be my favorite Low/Mid-Tech buff (Read 3211 times)