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[TK3600]

Remnants is when I need to min-max officers and add s-mods to ships.  This is when firing and leveling up officers anytime I want a significant fleet change becomes a problem.  In old releases, if I wanted a new fleet, all I had to do was swap ships and maybe weapons in storage, and it is done.  Lately, that is not enough.  Now, I need to carefully cultivate officers and add choice s-mods to many of my ships toward fleet function and changing all of that is much harder or tedious than merely swapping ships.  These days, I do not bother fighting Remnants because I do not want to lock my fleet and officer roster in just to counter Ordos.  (I did that already two releases ago, and it has not changed significantly since.)  If I build an Ordos killing fleet, changing the fleet into a different one becomes a nightmare because I need to fire officers and level up new ones, and maybe lose SP because elite skills die with the officer without refund, and losing s-mods without refund if BotB is removed.

I do not want to see Remnants buffed until officers can reassign their skills as easily or freely as the player or AI cores.  Also, SP recovered if officers with elite skills get fired, just like scuttling ships.  And BotB refunding SP for all s-mods lost when removed.

Fury definitely does not have "very low DP cost and fair enough firepower".

For me, it is "AI Fury (without SO) cannot backpedal away fast enough and gets sniped to death (possibly by low DP ship)" when its flux gets high while pinned in a one-on-one duel, and it is too expensive at 20 DP.  It does better with Safety Override by not getting stuck backpedaling as much and may be worth 20 DP then.

Fair ponits. AI dont have fficer cap. Spamming elite gunnery implant gave too much fleet wide ecm buff.

[Megas]

Fair ponits. AI dont have fficer cap. Spamming elite gunnery implant gave too much fleet wide ecm buff.

What makes it aggravating is for at least the first half of the game, I am making do with what I find, and I want to build my ships to help survive now, not lock-in resources for the final fights when it will not help me now.  (Missile or phase officer when I have basic warships plus some carriers.)  I cannot exactly build for Gryphon or other meta fleet when I am stuck with random ships and weapons for the majority of the game, and if I build up officers, it is to use the ships I have now, not for ships I do not have (but will get much later).  Of course, officers are usually stuck at level 1 or 2 so I can bank xp and levels and save-scum the game to pick their skills.

In my current game, by the time I made it to the end, my officers were all generalists (basically built like Support Doctrine plus Gunnery Implants).  I would need to fire every officer I have, hire new ones and level them up after I decide what kind of fleet I want to kill Ordos.  The fleet and officers I had for killing crises fleets would not work killing more than one Ordos.  Needless to say, I quit the game at that point (and have not restarted since) since gameplay seems mostly unchanged since 0.95a.

[chandl34]

Fair ponits. AI dont have fficer cap. Spamming elite gunnery implant gave too much fleet wide ecm buff.

What makes it aggravating is for at least the first half of the game, I am making do with what I find, and I want to build my ships to help survive now, not lock-in resources for the final fights when it will not help me now.  (Missile or phase officer when I have basic warships plus some carriers.)  I cannot exactly build for Gryphon or other meta fleet when I am stuck with random ships and weapons for the majority of the game, and if I build up officers, it is to use the ships I have now, not for ships I do not have (but will get much later).  Of course, officers are usually stuck at level 1 or 2 so I can bank xp and levels and save-scum the game to pick their skills.

In my current game, by the time I made it to the end, my officers were all generalists (basically built like Support Doctrine plus Gunnery Implants).  I would need to fire every officer I have, hire new ones and level them up after I decide what kind of fleet I want to kill Ordos.  The fleet and officers I had for killing crises fleets would not work killing more than one Ordos.  Needless to say, I quit the game at that point (and have not restarted since) since gameplay seems mostly unchanged since 0.95a.

I think it helps to always be on the lookout for good mercenary officers, over the course of your entire run.  Finding a good one is rare, but if start early, you'll have found some by the end of your run.

[Mishrak]

What makes it aggravating is for at least the first half of the game, I am making do with what I find, and I want to build my ships to help survive now, not lock-in resources for the final fights when it will not help me now.  (Missile or phase officer when I have basic warships plus some carriers.)  I cannot exactly build for Gryphon or other meta fleet when I am stuck with random ships and weapons for the majority of the game, and if I build up officers, it is to use the ships I have now, not for ships I do not have (but will get much later).  Of course, officers are usually stuck at level 1 or 2 so I can bank xp and levels and save-scum the game to pick their skills.

In my current game, by the time I made it to the end, my officers were all generalists (basically built like Support Doctrine plus Gunnery Implants).  I would need to fire every officer I have, hire new ones and level them up after I decide what kind of fleet I want to kill Ordos.  The fleet and officers I had for killing crises fleets would not work killing more than one Ordos.  Needless to say, I quit the game at that point (and have not restarted since) since gameplay seems mostly unchanged since 0.95a.

Yeah the officer disparity is quite a huge problem if playing the "intended" way, namely not save scumming officers, and taking what the game gives out.  Usually what the game gives out is very abysmally skilled officers.  So not only do the Remnants out-skill the player in terms of volume of skills, but they're also fully elite and have better chosen skills.

It's a huge investment of time and effort to get good officers, the system is wholly inflexible to making changes in a reasonable way and the current system generally doesn't give officers that are particularly functional beyond just an average level.  Average level doesn't cut it against the harder content in the game unless the player has a nearly total mastery of the game's mechanics.  It also doesn't cut it for any off meta fleet comps.  The player needs every skill they can get to be suitable for the ship in these scenarios.

I have yet to find any 7 skill officer in this run or any usable mercs, and every single 5 skill officer has been completely unusable for my fleet comp.  And no, 2 or 3 skills out of 5 skills being applicable is not usable to me.  I spent a fair bit of time leveling officers up to max while staying at level 1 and gotten ideal ones that way, but that is such an undesirable way to play the game.

[TK3600]

Officer extension could make meta officer respec easier. You may keep reserve officers for each ship. But yeah, cancer without mods. It should be trivial to fix, I hope devs fix it soon.

[Megas]

I think it helps to always be on the lookout for good mercenary officers, over the course of your entire run.  Finding a good one is rare, but if start early, you'll have found some by the end of your run.

They cost too much until my income is high at endgame, or post-endgame.  I do not think about using mercs because of the money drain, plus I do not want to look for them.  If player could demote officers he no longer needs into mercs instead of firing them, maybe I might think about using one or two (provided I have unlimited money to support them).

[Mishrak]

I think it helps to always be on the lookout for good mercenary officers, over the course of your entire run.  Finding a good one is rare, but if start early, you'll have found some by the end of your run.

They cost too much until my income is high at endgame, or post-endgame.  I do not think about using mercs because of the money drain, plus I do not want to look for them.  If player could demote officers he no longer needs into mercs instead of firing them, maybe I might think about using one or two (provided I have unlimited money to support them).

In essence, you can demote officers into mercs by switching to the +2 officer skill and then re-speccing out of it.  It feels like an exploit, but that's basically the only way to guarantee you get mercs with the skills you want.

This is ultimately the problem I have with the officer system in the game.  The actual gameplay mechanics for them is so un-fun that far and away it's better just to save yourself the headache and command line add officers in and change their skills.

It would take hours and hours and hours and hours to switch an officer group by playing the game normally.

I realize this is pretty far off topic, but it's definitely related to Remnants because of how important it is for the player to close the officer skill gap.

[PixiCode]

They cost too much until my income is high at endgame, or post-endgame.  I do not think about using mercs because of the money drain, plus I do not want to look for them.  If player could demote officers he no longer needs into mercs instead of firing them, maybe I might think about using one or two (provided I have unlimited money to support them).

Chandi gives good advice - there are so few money sinks in this game but so many ways to earn money that it is silly to avoid mercenaries because of the money cost. The story point cost is slightly more valid - although you get a 100% exp bonus for hiring a mercenary from a comm log, you get 0 bonus exp for extending their contract. I think mercenaries are well worth the SP tax, and the money tax is almost completely irrelevant past the very early game.

It might be nice if Alex expanded on the mercenary system a bit so that you could pay to get mercaneries you’re needing for a specific challenge but your current officers don’t fulfill. Due to that being off topi , that’s the last I’ll say of it here, just wanted to mention something about it.

[Megas]

I say officers are heavily linked with Remnants because the player needs officers to fight Ordos.

In essence, you can demote officers into mercs by switching to the +2 officer skill and then re-speccing out of it.  It feels like an exploit, but that's basically the only way to guarantee you get mercs with the skills you want.

Useless to me since none of my games used Officer Management, and I will not respec multiple times to get mercs like this (thanks no bonus XP refund for respec).  The only time I respecced like that was to swap s-mods on Ziggurat (by toggling BotB on and off) after I swapped from human weapons to Omega missile weapons, and that was a one-time deal (no need to respec a second time).  I did not like swapping s-mods like this (two SP lost without refund from respec).

Chandi gives good advice - there are so few money sinks in this game but so many ways to earn money that it is silly to avoid mercenaries because of the money cost. The story point cost is slightly more valid - although you get a 100% exp bonus for hiring a mercenary from a comm log, you get 0 bonus exp for extending their contract. I think mercenaries are well worth the SP tax, and the money tax is almost completely irrelevant past the very early game.

That may be true late, but before that, I need all the money I can get to buy my ships, build up my colonies, and all the supplies and fuel I need to feed my fleet.

I need my SP for skills, s-mods, and sometimes colonies (improvements or new stable points), and a few in reserve to escape combat or select real story event options.  I do not feel like I have so many SP until I start grinding endgame fleets like Ordos at +500% xp.

I like building up colonies, and I want a huge pile of SP on hand to splurge on multiple colony improvements thanks to 2^n costs.  In practice, I may use few improvements because I need a big pile for s-mods first.

P.S.  Currently, I have not made officer skills elite because of fire-and-replace.

P.P.S.  The biggest money sink is Restore when I have hundreds of clunkers in storage.  In one game, I had over 20 million credits in reserve, but it was not enough to Restore the hundreds of ships I collected and put into storage.  I only feel like I have too much money when I can afford to restore every ship I want to collect to pristine, and I never got that much money.

[Doctorhealsgood]

---Fulgent: 300>330 flux dissipation, 5000>5500 flux, 11>10 DP.

Arguably worst Remenent ship. It is seriously under fluxed. For a 11 DP high tech ship it has less than a shrike, who is not even high. Max flux around same as some low techs. Even after buff, still DP inefficient. 10 DP is just 1 drop, but reach break point when using automated ships. Good enough.

 
 
Don't let those large arc medium synergies and energy coherer fool you.  It's a missile ship.  That's why the flux is low.  It also has 15 more OP to spend over the Shrike.  Double medium Reapers + double small sabots on a destroyer that has .6 starting shield base.  MMmmm.   My fulgents run with sub .4 shields after s-mods. 

Then i need to question why put a coherer on a ship that isn't designed to use it properly

[TK3600]

---Fulgent: 300>330 flux dissipation, 5000>5500 flux, 11>10 DP.

Arguably worst Remenent ship. It is seriously under fluxed. For a 11 DP high tech ship it has less than a shrike, who is not even high. Max flux around same as some low techs. Even after buff, still DP inefficient. 10 DP is just 1 drop, but reach break point when using automated ships. Good enough.

 
 
Don't let those large arc medium synergies and energy coherer fool you.  It's a missile ship.  That's why the flux is low.  It also has 15 more OP to spend over the Shrike.  Double medium Reapers + double small sabots on a destroyer that has .6 starting shield base.  MMmmm.   My fulgents run with sub .4 shields after s-mods. 

Then i need to question why put a coherer on a ship that isn't designed to use it properly

Alternatively fulgent can get bigger buff, but kerp 11 DP. 350 vent, 6000 flux. This let it better spam strike weapons it seem to build for.

[Megas]

Then i need to question why put a coherer on a ship that isn't designed to use it properly

Probably because Fulgent is not very fast and gets outranged and sniped to death by human destroyers (assuming no ECM advantage through core spam).  (600 range is not hard to outrange.)  It is likely a similar reason why Paragon got Advanced Targeting Core a few releases after Tachyon Lance lost its 2500 range.  It is silly when Dominator flagship can reliably snipe Paragon to death by outranging and outrunning it.

Fulgent's system (High Energy Focus) encourages building it like an energy-user and brawl with guns.  Fulgent's synergy mounts are the best for energy weapons because the other mounts are either hardpoints or have awkward coverage, and if I want it to brawl (small targets), I want to use the synergies for brawling. Then there are times when I recover Fulgents and arm them with whatever weapons I have on hand, which may or may not include missiles, and use them in battle (because I have Industry skills) before I make it back home.

Want to encourage more missile use by Fulgent?  Change the system to a missile or generalist one.  Then again, if Fulgent becomes a mini-Gryphon or Pegasus, then Remnants no longer have a basic warship in destroyer size, and they will need a new ship to fill the role of destroyer-sized grunt or infantry.

[FooF]

My opinion is that Remnants just need another Destroyer but are otherwise fine. The Fulgent is fine as a generalist and Scintilla as a carrier but they need a glass-cannon. Something that is entirely reliant on other ships providing cover but is deadly if left to take potshots at your ships.

My initial thought is a Destroyer with Advanced Targeting Core (+100% range) and High Energy Focus with a Large Energy and just a few Small Energies as PD. Terrible shield (1.2) and armor (250) stats but decent flux stats. About 60 speed. Literally exists as fire support but can be popped by a Frigate when separated. Typically outfitted with a Tachyon Lance.

If this kind of ship becomes an option, it starts taking the place of Fulgents and Scintillas. This means you’d see these snipers but they’re very easy to kill with smaller ships. Interestingly, Cruisers and Capitals would be most vulnerable because they’d be out ranged and can’t catch them without mobility systems or support.

[Megas]

I like to see another carrier in Remnant fleets aside from Scintilla.  Brilliant used to be it, but now it was changed.  Actually, I like to see the return of the original Brilliant with flares, fighter bay and universal large mount... as a rarer variant of the modern Brilliant, call it Brilliant (C).  Bring it back and raise its DP to 30.  Remnant can be like human factions and have variants.

Also, another frigate.  Lumen and Glimmer are not enough.

I would like to see a phase Remnant, but lore indicates that phase tech and AI (cores) do not mix.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

If anything the Remnant should be nerfed because there's a chasm in difficulty between human fleets and a full-sized Ordo. Human fleets can be reliably beaten by any half-decent fleet with half-decent fits, while Ordo all but requires max level officers, S-mods, max player level and general minmaxing.

Unless of course Remnant being significantly stronger than everyone else is the point.