After having a great time playing with Grendel, Eradicator and Retribution, I decided to turn my attention to the Dominator. No one talks about it, it's like it doesn't exist, and the rare comments about it boil down to a simple phrase "just take Onslaught". Something is wrong here. So I decided to test it. And the result was somewhat disappointing to my expectations. Let's start in order:
1. Maneuverability and OP taxation.
The ship, like all other ships with frontal weapon mounts, suffers from the inability to engage multiple targets at once, but compared to a light Hammerhead or Midline cruisers with a maneuverability system, the Dominator is a complete brick that has truly colossal problems with this.
The ship requires both maneuverability perks, Auxiliary Thrusters and in no case S-modded Heavy Armor. We've only just begun.
He needs a means to fight off flanking opponents:
Kinetics in medium mounts? Suboptimal. Without defensive mounts, the frontal hemisphere is open to being pounded by all types of missiles and torpedoes, and offensive mounts pale in comparison to the options provided by small mounts. Therefore, offensive weapons with a Ballistic Rangefinder.
Let's summarize: in total 47 OP + ITU 15 OP + 2 maneuverability perks out of the basic 5.
But why did I even decide that this was necessary? Empirical experience. I played with the Dominator for a long time, and I can say that the Dominator without this "minimum" is simply a punching bag, it simply cannot keep up with the flanking enemy, who ultimately comes to its rear with an obvious result. At the same time, the described measures allow the ship to feel much more confident and if regarding the issue with maneuverability I have seen the difference with my own eyes on my ships, then regarding small mounts I have also seen it on opponents (railguns help the ship a lot).
My suggestions? Increase the ship's maneuverability by 50% and integrate the Ballistic Rangefinder as was done with the Lasher in its time. Having played with these settings, I can say that the ship finally feels like its 25 DP.
2. Sub mediocre weapons:
Annihilator Pod.
The most optimal options for Dominator loadouts require Harpoons and possibly Gorgons (at the time of writing, I completely forgot about them). PCLs work better on capital ships, Reapers are deceptively good, and Sabot seems completely out of place. Annihilator Pod. An option that seems like a glove for the ship, but in practice is a trap:
Low HP.
Slow projectile speed.
Terrible rate of fire.
Even when assembling a ship entirely for them, they simply hang like dead weight. Almost every second ship in the enemy team has a perk for PD, in battles against Low-Tech and Remnants, even taking ECCM, the player rarely sees hits, all missiles are simply shot down on approach.
I suggest adding stats to the Annihilators and if necessary increasing their OP cost, because in modern realities it is difficult to imagine their use not only on the Dominator, but also on other ships for the banal reason of the existence of PCL (even nerfed).
Gauss Gun.
Everything is simpler here. This weapon is rarely worth mentioning - a gigantic flux profile against the background of suboptimal DPM completely bury it not only on the flux-starved Dominator, but also on other ships (people in 10 out of 10 cases simply take Mjolnir). With all the other disadvantages (long warm-up, terrible turn speed that does not get better with hullmod) its cost monstrously limits its use, literally making it impractical.
After the Multi-Needler was brought back to life by buffs, I would like to believe that a similar fate awaits the Gauss Gun. In my opinion, this is one of the options that could greatly help Dominator.
It would be interesting to hear your opinion on this matter.
