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[SCC]

I felt strong enough about it to make an entire thread about it. Some people might say that Burn Drive or Manoeuvring Jets are a boring system. But it can be worse. What about a system that actually hurts the ship using it? Enter Termination Sequence. I complained about it before, but it's still terrible, so I will complain about it again.

Terminator drones are crucial to Tempest's continued survival and it's an issue if they ever get destroyed in the fighting. Even knocking out just one makes it harder for Tempest to continue fighting, especially against fighter or missile heavy fleets. It's important enough that you don't ever want to lose the drones. And what does Terminator's ship system do?

It disposes of a Terminator. Even worse, you lose a Terminator for the equivalent of 5 seconds of fire from their own weapon systems. You lose a terminator to do 1 second of damage from Tempest's own weapons. Even if the target is in a vulnerable situation, but too far away for the Tempest to engage it directly, it's most likely protected enough for the Terminator to be shot down on the way, far enough to outrun it, or durable enough to just take the hit. It's impossible to see 2 heavy blaster shots to be worth the increase in fragility for the next 30 seconds.

The simplest way to make Tempest better is to just remove the system. You, the player, might do the smart thing and never launch them, sure, but you cannot trust the AI to do that. Every time it fires, it will be a mistake.

I would like to see the system improved or changed. Maybe the drone could have its replacement time reduced significantly. Maybe the system could give you a drone for free, if used after both drones are gone or without a target. Maybe the system, instead of killing the drone, could give them a single use phase lance. I don't care what it should be in particular, but it shouldn't harm the ship.

[vladokapuh]

i agree its a detriment to the ship in most cases

i would just give it back HEF, a lot of stuff was buffed in many ways since last time it had that, imo that would be OK now

[Wyvern]

Just install a burst pd or LRPD in the right turret. It's fine, you weren't getting good use out of two medium energy slots anyway.

For context: I've been playing since before the Tempest had its drones or any sort of ship system. So for me having to (gasp!) actually install a PD weapon is just... that's how it's always been. The drones are nice! But even without Termination Sequence, your ships will fare better if they've got a backup mechanism so they don't go stupid* and die when the drones have been shot down.

*A precise and technical term for the little death-dance the AI does when it doesn't have forwards-facing PD and just slowly backs away from incoming missiles with its shield up / flickering-in-and-out-of-phase at max flux until it dies.

[Nettle]

Just install a burst pd or LRPD in the right turret. It's fine, you weren't getting good use out of two medium energy slots anyway.

After phase lance efficiency changes and with a little bit of help from either a flux distributor or, preferably, flux regulation, Tempest can pretty effectively utilize dual alternating lances. Alternatively, you can put either the autolance or, at least, graviton in a rear slot.

[FooF]

The AI used the system too frequently, yes. I will say that the drones being faux-missiles is interesting enough to keep, though.

Suggestion: Reduce Terminator replacement time to 10 seconds. Make Termination Sequence have a 20 second cooldown. The Tempest would always have at least one drone, barring destruction, and at minimum 50% uptime with both. Yet, it would still retain the “free”’missile.

This actually touches on a topic the Tempest is in the middle of: built-in Drones counting against the Fighter wing total of the Carrier skills. I don’t think they should (nor receive any benefit from Skills) because they are part-and-parcel with the hull they’re attached to. I also don’t think any Drone (even Terminators) are on par with any bona fide Fighter outside or Talons, yet they hurt your bonuses as much as one. Shepherds and Tempests are prime offenders, but the Venture is also in the mix.

[Mishrak]

I tried to manually pilot one for the first time a couple days ago and after I used my terminator drones the first time, I found myself wondering why I did that.

It definitely feels like a system that actively causes problems for the ship.  The defensive drones are super nice but shooting those?  Not so much.

[BigBrainEnergy]

I like the idea of termination sequence, with the drones being a defensive tool that can be traded for offensive power. The problem is that it's a ship system that costs both flux and a long replacement time on the drone itself, which then runs down your replacement rate making everything worse. The system also has to be balanced for both the tempest and apex.

It may be good to make the AI more hesitant to use its last drone, especially when it has no pd on board. On top of that, I think terminator drones shouldn't drop below 100% replacement rate. They take 20 seconds to respawn as is, and firing them costs flux; there's no reason they need to be punished even further with replacement rate. Maybe give both ships with terminator drones a built-in hullmod like "dedicated drone fabricator" that prevents unmanned fighters from draining replacement rate. It could even come with the "downside" that ships with this hullmod don't qualify for carrier skills.

The replacement rate mechanic exists to allow combat ships to wear down carriers over time, so that wiping out a wave of fighters or bombers actually makes progress towards killing the carrier. This mechanic is completely irrelevant to function of the wings on the tempest and apex, and only serves to punish them for using their system.

[TaLaR]

Yeah, AI is definitely not smart enough to use a system with significant drawbacks. I thought we learned this lesson with Burn Drive (which finally became abort-able for AI not that long ago)?

[Draba]

Just install a burst pd or LRPD in the right turret. It's fine, you weren't getting good use out of two medium energy slots anyway.

Phase lance and pulse laser are both pretty cheap to run now, and IR autolance is also an option.
Tempest has enough flux to use any combination of those.

[Goumindong]

Re: can’t use two medium energy.

I have had a lot of success with HEF phase lances. But because flux dumping is actually strong I bet that two pulse lasers would also work well despite the weakness for popping the terminator drones.

Granted. Heavy Burst + heavy blaster is probably the gold standard but like. At least one of those works.

As for the termination sequence… 1200 energy dmg + 600 EMP for 600 flux is good and definitely worth more than 5 seconds of its PD laser at 75 dmg/second. (Does it still have an IR Pulse and if it does does it often fire?)

[Thaago]

The termination attack itself isn't bad at all, its how long the drones are gone for. I'd say reduce the respawn time all the way down to 5 seconds and see how it goes. The drones are kind of baked into the 8dp cost imo.

[Killer of Fate]

does expanded deck crew decrease the general time of respawning drones or was I always stupid to do a graviton beam + pulse laser, low flux build with expanded deck crew and blast doors on top?

I also remember using the character skill that decreases respawn time to counter-react this, but I feel like drones don't interact like that. And I was just wasting my time.

*this was before pulse laser and phase lance changes*

[BigBrainEnergy]

The termination attack itself isn't bad at all, its how long the drones are gone for. I'd say reduce the respawn time all the way down to 5 seconds and see how it goes. The drones are kind of baked into the 8dp cost imo.

I think the only problem here is that enables them to shotgun blast drones as long as they have flux capacity, which will allow them to score easier kills upfront before tanking their replacement rate and being stuck in a similar situation until the replacement rate recovers. That would make them stronger, yes, but I think a better solution would be to have them stay at 100% RR permanently.

[Nettle]

I like the idea of termination sequence, with the drones being a defensive tool that can be traded for offensive power. The problem is that it's a ship system that costs both flux and a long replacement time on the drone itself, which then runs down your replacement rate making everything worse. The system also has to be balanced for both the tempest and apex.

The thing is, drones are the offensive power. You are better off just never using them. My math might be off here, but doesn't it take like 4 to 5 seconds for both drones to deal the exact amount of damage a single termination sequence would do?

[SCC]

The system also has to be balanced for both the tempest and apex.

Ironically, I have never seen the Apex use the system. Nevertheless, it doesn't have to be. Those ships could have different systems, or it could be worse specifically for cruisers and capital ships (like Damper Field is).

For context: I've been playing since before the Tempest had its drones or any sort of ship system. So for me having to (gasp!) actually install a PD weapon is just... that's how it's always been.

Conversely, for me the change to the Terminator drones made Tempest much more enjoyable and I love the ship since then. Tempest can get by relying just on the Terminators, but Termination Sequence lowers the chance it will actually do it.

Yeah, AI is definitely not smart enough to use a system with significant drawbacks. I thought we learned this lesson with Burn Drive (which finally became abort-able for AI not that long ago)?

Hi, I'm a human player. The correct time to use Termination Sequence is: never. The AI obviously struggles even more.

As for the termination sequence… 1200 energy dmg + 600 EMP for 600 flux is good and definitely worth more than 5 seconds of its PD laser at 75 dmg/second. (Does it still have an IR Pulse and if it does does it often fire?)

Wasn't it just 1000 + 500? I suppose it's worth 6 seconds of fire, then. Terminator drone still has IR Pulse and it fires it whenever its in range, thanks to its weapons being flux free (similarly to shielded fighters). It admittedly isn't always, but it's better to have protection always and damage sometimes, than damage once in a blue moon and no protection.

does expanded deck crew decrease the general time of respawning drones or was I always stupid to do a graviton beam + pulse laser, low flux build with expanded deck crew and blast doors on top?

I also remember using the character skill that decreases respawn time to counter-react this, but I feel like drones don't interact like that. And I was just wasting my time.

*this was before pulse laser and phase lance changes*

The drones are fighters, they should be affected by these.

I think the only problem here is that enables them to shotgun blast drones as long as they have flux capacity, which will allow them to score easier kills upfront before tanking their replacement rate and being stuck in a similar situation until the replacement rate recovers. That would make them stronger, yes, but I think a better solution would be to have them stay at 100% RR permanently.

If replacement rate works the way I think it does, then 5 second base replacement time Terminators would at worst take 17 seconds to be replaced at 30% RR, which is still better than the current 20 second replacement time.