This thread is interesting. While we're somewhere on the topic of Dominators and Onslaughts, does anyone know how to properly outfit a Dominator? I hear people liking it so that got me interested; but I just can't seem to figure out a good build for it to work. It's always meandering and doing something unimportant. When the battle gets hot, certain ships clutch hard in winning their little skirmishes, but I just can never rely on the Dominator to do what it's made for.
No matter what build you give a dominator it benefits from being told to reposition itself somewhere better when it starts chasing some silly destroyer or frigate.
There’s a few ways to make a dominator and a few ways to specialize it against certain enemies. Here’s some general build advice for the dominator though;
Always use Integrated Targeting Unit if you are not using safety overrides.
Always use omni shield + accelerated shield if you’re using safety overrides and giving it to the ai to pilot. Or shield shunt I guess, but I’m not a fan of shield shunt dominator.
Avoid using mjolnirs if it isn’t made SO and avoid hephag. Not only is mjolnir a bit too costly for the dominator, but it also strongly prefers being in a spinal hardpoint or turret. This is because its armor stripping power isn’t the best, so it benefits from hitting the same spot on armor over that your other weapons may be hitting, concentrating damage and getting that mjolnir to hull sooner rather than later. Hephag is not as expensive but it’s got a similar ‘wants to be concentrated’ thing going on as the mjolnir. In contrast the hellbore, mark9 Autocannon and devastator all love being in hardpoints, though the devastator is notably shorter range.
Strongly consider Ballistic Rangefinder small kinetics for its loadout. Light auto cannons, railguns, light needlers. This isn’t the single best way to build a dominator, but it’s in the running as the ship that loves using BRF the most. You might even want to downsize the mediums into small kinetics too, to save on flux compared to the usually more flux inefficient mediums. Again, not a ‘must do,’ just something to consider as a tool for your builds.
Strongly consider using high impact missiles in the mediums. Target analysis elite skill’d pilums with eccm do lots of emp damage once they hit. Harpoons with ECCM are great finishers and 3 linked together are likely to hit. Any of the unguided missiles are good impact when they hit. Sabots can swing a battle immediately if the enemy gets too close.
Consider Omni shield + hardened shield builds. Yes, dominator is an armor/hull tank, but armor/hull can synergize with shields pretty well. With Omni shield it is encouraged to flicker shield more often, resulting in more armor hits from minor weapons while blocking scary ones but also more effective shields as a result.
Don’t forget to put at least 4 mining lasers or 2 Vulcans somewhere at the rear to stop the odd salamander.
