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[Ragnarok101]

See title. I'm currently running a bunch because Tri-Tach's merc attacks fed me a ton of free 3-s-mod ships. They've all got Missile Autoloader, ITU, and Flux Distributor S-modded in.

They also seem to be possessed of the desire to fly directly into the face of 3 cruisers and die instantly.

Currently they've got Advanced Optics and 2 Phase Lances, plus Sabot missiles in the small slot. This should be a ship that flies in, fires off Sabots to pummel shields alongside Termination Sequence, and then goes ham with the beams before *** off again, but they don't seem to want to use the Sabots and instead rush in far too close and get demolished.

What's a better build for these? I have a ton of Kinetic Blasters from stealth-ganking the LG Armada and fending off the gas station wannabes.
 

[Thaago]

What personality is the officer? You could consider dropping down to Steady (shocking).

Do you have enough capacitors and a wide enough shield? For the role you are describing you want to (within reason) prioritize capacitors over vents. You could also consider putting on auxiliary thrusters/helmsmanship so that they can reverse course out of trouble faster.

[Killer of Fate]

i know this might turn out to be not true
but i always believed auxiliary thrusters helped Tempest AI

the ability to manoeuvre more quickly (btw, auxiliary thrusters increases acceleration stats by 100% not 50%, it's really strong) makes it so the ship will more easily disengage and position itself at perfect encounter range

there is however another issue and that is shield profile

Weapons like Locust are rare. There is also the Hydra. Both of which should and will annihilate the Tempest from my experience. Though that might have changed. That might be dependant on what kind of officer you run

I assume that because of that people go with Front Shield conversion. Maybe Extended Shields too? But that's more of a Nova thing

Weapons, I don't know
2 Phase Lances with Advanced Optics is fine and it should make the ship fight at maximum range. But you need to make use of that Energy Weapons Mastery. The closer you fight, the more damage you do. This is why HSA should be good on paper. But it obviously isn't, cause it's stupid.

One of the main ways I assume people prevent Tempests from dying is Wolfpack Tactics. This might sound stupid, but one of the ways to prevent your ship from dying is killing enemies fast enough. And Wolfpack Tactics stacks multiplicatively with Target Analysis, Energy Weapons Mastery, CR, (I presume?) etc. So it's not to be underestimated...

edit: please, correct me if I'm wrong

edit2: people used to put Heavy Burst Laser to allow Tempest to survive even after running out of Tempest drones. But nowadays Tempest drones have a 10 second respawn timer. So, it's like... Whatever. The only justification would be flux efficiency. Heavy Blaster and Heavy Burst PD?

[Wyvern]

The first and most important thing to get a Tempest to not die is to s-mod extended shields. The second requirement is to have a good number of flux capacitors; seven is the minimum I'd field, but more is better. (Non-s-modded extended shields is still better than no extended shields if your s-mod slots are already occupied.)

Last patch I would also have said that a installed-on-the-Tempest PD weapon is near-mandatory, but in 0.98 you can skip that without being in too much trouble from its ship system burning off its drones.

For the specific s-mod setup you've described, I would suggest: Gorgon DEM SRM, Pulse Laser (left turret), Heavy Burst Laser or Phase Lance (right turret), extended shields, hardened shields, hardened subsystems, 8+ capacitors and the rest in flux vents.

Or, alternatively, Swarmer SRM, Phase Lance (left turret), Heavy Burst Laser (right turret), all weapons in one group to ensure auto-fire, extended shields, hardened shields, hardened subsystems, advanced optics, 9 capacitors.

Sabots are a good choice for a Tempest you're piloting yourself, but the AI won't get great use out of them.

i know this might turn out to be not true
but i always believed auxiliary thrusters helped Tempest AI

the ability to manoeuvre more quickly (btw, auxiliary thrusters increases acceleration stats by 100% not 50%, it's really strong) makes it so the ship will more easily disengage and position itself at perfect encounter range

I would strongly advise not going with aux thrusters on a Tempest. It's not worth it, and it's doubly not worth it when you should be getting maneuverability bonus from an officer with Helmsmanship.

[Amoebka]

Helmsmanship is +50% acceleration, thrusters are +100%. Deceleration is still +50% for both, strangely.

[Ragnarok101]

What personality is the officer? You could consider dropping down to Steady (shocking).

Do you have enough capacitors and a wide enough shield? For the role you are describing you want to (within reason) prioritize capacitors over vents. You could also consider putting on auxiliary thrusters/helmsmanship so that they can reverse course out of trouble faster.

No officers - they're all shacked up in cruisers and destroyers.

The first and most important thing to get a Tempest to not die is to s-mod extended shields. The second requirement is to have a good number of flux capacitors; seven is the minimum I'd field, but more is better. (Non-s-modded extended shields is still better than no extended shields if your s-mod slots are already occupied.)

Last patch I would also have said that a installed-on-the-Tempest PD weapon is near-mandatory, but in 0.98 you can skip that without being in too much trouble from its ship system burning off its drones.

For the specific s-mod setup you've described, I would suggest: Gorgon DEM SRM, Pulse Laser (left turret), Heavy Burst Laser or Phase Lance (right turret), extended shields, hardened shields, hardened subsystems, 8+ capacitors and the rest in flux vents.

Or, alternatively, Swarmer SRM, Phase Lance (left turret), Heavy Burst Laser (right turret), all weapons in one group to ensure auto-fire, extended shields, hardened shields, hardened subsystems, advanced optics, 9 capacitors.

Sabots are a good choice for a Tempest you're piloting yourself, but the AI won't get great use out of them.

Noted. Should I try to make use of the Kinetic Blasters I'm swimming in atm?

[Killer of Fate]

Helmsmanship is +50% acceleration, thrusters are +100%. Deceleration is still +50% for both, strangely.

it's magic

[Wyvern]

No officers - they're all shacked up in cruisers and destroyers.

With no officers, you probably want a build with Advanced Optics and either 2x phase lance or phase lance + heavy burst laser; they'll be a lot more fragile without an officer, and the extra range will help. Gorgons, swarmers, and breach missiles are the ones I've found to be best on tempests, though gazers can be amusing too for the 'more beams!' feel. (Probably don't want to go everything-in-one-group-with-a-PD-gun-included for gorgons or gazers, though; that's a maximize-fire-rate thing to do with high-ammo missiles like swarmers or breach where you just don't care about wasting missile ammo.)

I just kindof assumed officered Tempests on the basis that you were trying to get them not to die. (Edit: Well, that, and my fleet compositions always have officers in every ship I'm actually putting on the field; seeing someone run out of officers is weird.)

[Thaago]

You can set the aggression of all your non-officered ships in the Doctrine tab btw - it should be set to "Steady" by default, which should be fine, but if you set it higher in the past that might explain the charging in thing.

No officer is tough because officers are very powerful and many of the mid-tier and up enemies have lots of them. Support Doctrine helps (4 decent skills), but it seems like I'm one of the few people who really love it (and even I admit its not as meta as the other).

[Ragnarok101]

You can set the aggression of all your non-officered ships in the Doctrine tab btw - it should be set to "Steady" by default, which should be fine, but if you set it higher in the past that might explain the charging in thing.

No officer is tough because officers are very powerful and many of the mid-tier and up enemies have lots of them. Support Doctrine helps (4 decent skills), but it seems like I'm one of the few people who really love it (and even I admit its not as meta as the other).

Ah.

I thought it was more of a 'set the officered fleets' thing.

I will fix that back to Steady, then.

[TaLaR]

Imo, you can't. Even best built Tempests are ultimately too dumb and will die to truly dangerous enemies.

You can build Tempests that won't die to human fleets (except when Dooms are involved) or 1-2 remnant ordos most of the time (a few will catch the "idiot ball" even in simple fights).

But against something like omega Doritos - no way. AI doesn't pre-plan future escape before engagement even starts, and that's what is necessary against this kind of opponents.

Same problem with shroud - even if you perfectly hunt down the all the Eyes before they get to shoot at anyone, frigates will often die. Leashing them to escort capitals helps, but only so much.

[Phenir]

More than builds, you need to use orders to keep frigates alive in higher level fights. If there are objectives, set them as objective guards, in pairs or more. They'll steadily draw enemies over to them to die. If not, use the harass order so they draw an enemy and whatever is near it away to divide the enemy fleet.

[Amoebka]

But against something like omega Doritos - no way. AI doesn't pre-plan future escape before engagement even starts, and that's what is necessary against this kind of opponents.

Against Tesseracts no amount of being smart would help. If they ever get in range, frigates melt in one second, without much exaggeration.

Same with eyes - laser kills small ships almost instantly.

Tempest just won't be able to get in range to fire its guns without being evaporated, there's nothing to outsmart in these fights, they are just stat checks.

[Killer of Fate]

Tempest just won't be able to get in range to fire its guns without being evaporated, there's nothing to outsmart in these fights, they are just stat checks.

[Phenir]

The smart move would be to just stay out of range until something else gets its attention but fighting that would be really annoying.