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[kaoseth]

But this will have no perceptible effect on how Hammerhead performs in combat.

The solution is obvious: more guns.

Hmmm, but that might not make any difference either... how about even more?

That's a fine looking hammer head cruiser you got going there. 

[Shinr]

Keep the base Hammerhead as it is.

Add an official vanilla XIV Hammerhead with forward-pointing rear turrets.

[Princess of Evil]

That's a funky looking Enforcer.

[Bungee_man]

Hmmm, but that might not make any difference either... how about even more?

Is it bad that I don't hate it? An AAF destroyer with a bunch of small ballistics would be interesting.

[FooF]

Alternate suggestion B: If you really really don't like those rear turrets having firing arcs across the front of the ship, add an extra center-forwards small energy turret and +5 OP to (mostly) offset the cost of installing a burst PD there. There's a decent spot on the sprite for a central small turret at the base of the forwards hammer, where it joins the neck. (I don't personally see the problem - this used to work just fine - but I know it's something Alex keeps bringing up.)

I made this suggestion some time ago. Center-forward Energy, convert rear Smalls to Energy. Convert forward Smalls to Ballistic. +5 OP.

I do hate power creep though. The Hammerhead is sort of like the Eagle in terms of a standard candle for the rest of the line-up but I don't think Hammerheads pull their weight like they used to. I'm not sure if adding another mount and a little OP is really going to change that but it's a step in the right direction.

What about switching out the 2 Small Missiles with a single Medium? That could give it some punching-up ability.

[Bungee_man]

Convert forward Smalls to Ballistic.

...

What about switching out the 2 Small Missiles with a single Medium? That could give it some punching-up ability.

Come to think of it, everyone seems to hate the Hammerhead's small missiles. Why not give it built-in missile autoloader, to make them more useful?

[Megas]

Hammerhead rear smalls used to point forwards, but don't anymore, because of SO. But SO isn't what it used to be, so I think it's time to go back and return Hammerhead's rear smalls to their original arcs.

Wasn't the reason given for the rear turret change was because Alex did not like the looks of shots firing over the Hammerhead itself?  In other words, it was "nerfed" for artistic reasons, not power.

All I used those forward pointing rear mounts for was to stacking more Tactical Lasers to support dual HVDs.  Back then, those mounts were energy, and the only good option for PD it had back then (for anti-Salamander) was burst PD.

[Thaago]

I feel like Hammerheads are fine. I recently tested them with and without converted hangar as part of a destroyer lineup alongside enforcers, sunders, and manticores. Pretty much everything other than the Manticores did similarly, trading off positions, while the Manticore's missiles put them consistently above the rest (the Sunders did not do as well as I expected, maybe because things were too crowded? Not sure). The Hammerheads did best as frontline 700 range (+ ITU) units with mortars and needlers, swapping to mortar + HAC vs ordos. (Yes, I kept using them in this role up to Ordos, with a converted Hangar broadsword each: they did fine.).

One thing about the current Hammerhead: it is the easiest destroyer to build something functional with. We can argue about whether, when built precisely and compared to other highly optimized builds it stacks up, but the fact is that if a player just throws some guns and vents on, the thing will work well enough. Mortars, HACs, Arbalests, Thumpers, light autocanons, light assault guns, etc etc etc: the recoil reduction on the mediums and arcs on the smalls means that every gun will do fine (except maybe light mortars in the front smalls? Might be too high recoil there!). The system works with everything too. Medium stats with the only weakness being the rear + some guns = something that can contribute.

[Princess of Evil]

Sunders work worse in a pure destroyer fleet, since they're made of wet tissue paper. As escorts, they get the pleasure of a meatshield *and* get a capital ITU on their main gun. Hammerhead can be an escort, but two HVDs aren't a 500 DPS 1000 range beatstick. Although the two even out with the respective systems turned on.

Hammerhead is absolutely the easiest ship in the game to build, though. There just aren't that many bad weapons to put on it. I could even see mining blasters + 4 vulcans be usable on it.

[Killer of Fate]

Sunders work worse in a pure destroyer fleet, since they're made of wet tissue paper. As escorts, they get the pleasure of a meatshield *and* get a capital ITU on their main gun. Hammerhead can be an escort, but two HVDs aren't a 500 DPS 1000 range beatstick. Although the two even out with the respective systems turned on.

Hammerhead is absolutely the easiest ship in the game to build, though. There just aren't that many bad weapons to put on it. I could even see mining blasters + 4 vulcans be usable on it.

What are you planning to fight with that? Derelicts?
There is only one viable Hammerhead build. That is Hypervelocity Driver and Heavy Mauler. Everything else is redundant or too risky.

The issue will always be range. 700*1.2 is 840. And then you have 900*1.4=1260
The difference is also the fact that unlike Heavy Mortars, real weapons deal damage. And don't just pretend to.

Hammerhead's lacking flux capacity will also make it immediately explode to Sabots or Cyclones. It's not a paper towel. But it can't defend itself from incoming projectiles unless it sacrifices its frontal 2 small hybrid slots for a very expensive PD. And I don't think there are any medium ballistics that can play on its own as 2 slots. Because they're all specialised. With the exception of Heavy Mauler and Hypervelocity Driver. Which are so long-ranged they can do what they want indefinitely. And do not rely on tempo. They rely on simply being annoying

Meh...

[Thaago]

Sunders work worse in a pure destroyer fleet, since they're made of wet tissue paper. As escorts, they get the pleasure of a meatshield *and* get a capital ITU on their main gun. Hammerhead can be an escort, but two HVDs aren't a 500 DPS 1000 range beatstick. Although the two even out with the respective systems turned on.

Hammerhead is absolutely the easiest ship in the game to build, though. There just aren't that many bad weapons to put on it. I could even see mining blasters + 4 vulcans be usable on it.

What are you planning to fight with that? Derelicts?
There is only one viable Hammerhead build. That is Hypervelocity Driver and Heavy Mauler. Everything else is redundant or too risky.

The issue will always be range. 700*1.2 is 840. And then you have 900*1.4=1260
The difference is also the fact that unlike Heavy Mortars, real weapons deal damage. And don't just pretend to.

Hammerhead's lacking flux capacity will also make it immediately explode to Sabots or Cyclones. It's not a paper towel. But it can't defend itself from incoming projectiles unless it sacrifices its frontal 2 small hybrid slots for a very expensive PD. And I don't think there are any medium ballistics that can play on its own as 2 slots. Because they're all specialised. With the exception of Heavy Mauler and Hypervelocity Driver. Which are so long-ranged they can do what they want indefinitely. And do not rely on tempo. They rely on simply being annoying

Meh...

Literally everything you wrote here is wrong.

[Killer of Fate]

Sunders work worse in a pure destroyer fleet, since they're made of wet tissue paper. As escorts, they get the pleasure of a meatshield *and* get a capital ITU on their main gun. Hammerhead can be an escort, but two HVDs aren't a 500 DPS 1000 range beatstick. Although the two even out with the respective systems turned on.

Hammerhead is absolutely the easiest ship in the game to build, though. There just aren't that many bad weapons to put on it. I could even see mining blasters + 4 vulcans be usable on it.

What are you planning to fight with that? Derelicts?
There is only one viable Hammerhead build. That is Hypervelocity Driver and Heavy Mauler. Everything else is redundant or too risky.

The issue will always be range. 700*1.2 is 840. And then you have 900*1.4=1260
The difference is also the fact that unlike Heavy Mortars, real weapons deal damage. And don't just pretend to.

Hammerhead's lacking flux capacity will also make it immediately explode to Sabots or Cyclones. It's not a paper towel. But it can't defend itself from incoming projectiles unless it sacrifices its frontal 2 small hybrid slots for a very expensive PD. And I don't think there are any medium ballistics that can play on its own as 2 slots. Because they're all specialised. With the exception of Heavy Mauler and Hypervelocity Driver. Which are so long-ranged they can do what they want indefinitely. And do not rely on tempo. They rely on simply being annoying

Meh...

Literally everything you wrote here is wrong.

did you give up on justifying your statements recently?

[Thaago]

When people make outlandish statements, it is up to them to prove it. I meant what I said: Literally every single sentence in what you wrote is wrong in some way. Actually no, you are correct that 700*1.2 = 840.

[Killer of Fate]

When people make outlandish statements, it is up to them to prove it. I meant what I said: Literally every single sentence in what you wrote is wrong in some way. Actually no, you are correct that 700*1.2 = 840.

I dunno. I find it very hard to believe that a Hammerhead using Heavy Mortar and Railguns is any way useful in mid to late game. It endangers itself simply too much. Sure, it can do some damage. Sure, it can help a lot. But it's only a matter of time before it gets blasted with something random and immediately explodes.

It's not at all designed to be present in combat. The way how ammofeed and its low flux capacity and venting works leads to it acting very similarly to the Sunder. Except with the scale slightly more balanced towards durability. But it does devolve into just being an artillery unit in the end.

Any form of aggressive play will just meet with the fact that most weapons don't do any damage to competent ship structures. And also possibly fall out easily against Remnants which have ridiculous flux stats and shields, causing them to be able to shrug off most conventional damage. But then again, you can probably walk around that with s-mods.

From my experience destroyers in general just don't work with anything but long range weapons. They will simply die very easily otherwise. Frontline work at medium range is simply better left off to cruisers. Because mid range frontline work for destroyers is close quarters work for cruisers with ridiculous range.

And another aspect is that you are most likely going to run destroyers with Support Doctrine. And Support Doctrine doesn't have Ballistic Mastery+, again pushing you towards using weapons with very high projectile speed. Those not being Heavy Mortar. And if you're sparing a real officer for the Hammerhead. Then I am visibly confused. Because you'll be way better off putting one on an Eagle.

[AcaMetis]

Hammerhead is absolutely the easiest ship in the game to build, though. There just aren't that many bad weapons to put on it. I could even see mining blasters + 4 vulcans be usable on it.

Random aside, I decided to experiment with this "build" a bit and while it's obviously not good it's surprisingly fun. I could easily imagine there existing an ancient Hammerhead variant used as a dedicated mining ship way back when, using mining blasters, hammer torpedoes and mining lasers all on front, with external cargo bays attached to the ship's spine filling in the empty space on the current militarised version giving it more of a "combat freighter" feel.

It honestly seems like it could make for a fun (P) ship variant, pirates bolting better weapons onto a mining ship and using it as a combat vessel. If it really needed some extra firepower to be reasonable you could give it one external cargo bay and one landing bay, maybe with build in Converted Hanger, so it has a wing slot. Flavour it as pirates ripping off one of the cargo bays and (shoddily) converting it into a landing bay to add more teeth, or that the ship normally designed for mining pods is being pushed well beyond specs.

All told, I approve .