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[icepick37]

Hey all. There's been talk of balancing the cerberus, so I figured I'd open up some discussion here. Mostly out of curiosity. I like it pretty well.

I always have run shields though. And I always run a longer range weapon on it. If you didn't do that, I can see how it's lack of primary defense would be a huge disadvantage.

I like burn drive on it, but honestly I could see that go for an uptick in speed/maneuverability.

[Gothars]

I'm not sure what role it could fill with its current stats, if any. Fast freighter? Hound/Hermes is better. Any typical frigate role like escort or strike? There are better and cheaper (both credit and logistic wise) alternatives for everything. Seriously, why does it cost three times as much as a Lasher?

And then there is its devastating weakness against missiles, even with Vulcan Cannons. I guess a shield hullmod fixes that, but as we now those are OP costly and not always available.



I could imagine different solutions.
One would be if it stays expensive like it is, but gets the speed and maneuverability of a Hound. That would make for an interesting ship.
Or it stays slow, but gets a drone system, like TuP's Foxhound. A offensively used drone system is a lot of fun.
Just making it cheaper or buff it's overall stats would work too, but I want to like that ship, and that sounds a bit boring.

[icepick37]

Yeah I didn't think about the high cost...

All fair points.

I always go tech first, so the shield is immediately available, haha.  :p  Probably should branch out from that.

I wouldn't mind it becoming just a better stronger (same speed) hound with the comparatively high cost.

[Cycerin]

I've found it to be most useful with a turreted Flak Cannon and a frontal Light Needler, with vulcans on the flanks. That said, it's still a fairly bad frigate and I'd rather have a pair of Hounds.

I think giving it a very low-tech sort of PD drone with Vulcans would be cool. Spawn 4 drones or something with 8 for backup.

[Gothars]

Or Light Mortar drones 

[icepick37]

Or Light Mortar drones 

Hah! +1. That is a beautiful sentiment. 

[Cycerin]

Or Light Mortar drones 

With an AI that makes em dive in, shoot once and then back out. Glorious.

[PCCL]

I feel a couple of drones with light mortars and flares, along with an armor buff to the ship itself, makes for a fairly compelling buff

if it has to rely on armor, a built in hullmod that increases EMP resistance might also be needed


hmm....

that sounds pretty good actually, an old garbage barge too primitive for EMP going into battle with two poorly armed shuttles. Sounds like what the Firefly would be if she had to fight a war

*heads off to mod workshop

[icepick37]

So I tried a more vanilla variant  with no shields (but some extra caps), and yeah you definitely feel the lack of defense, though holy crap is that armor tough.

Even a small speed boost would help methinks. I really like the burn drive, haha, so not sure I want to lose that, even to drones. You'd lose that beefy chase them down (or run away) feel.

[Debido]

Honestly I'm satisfied with it as is. It's a fast enough mover that it can intercept most any transport ship, and in groups can be a force to be reckoned with. Their price is fairly cost effective for the amount of missions I've won. I do find that I need to give them the retreat signal more often than other ships though, so a shield would be useful.

[PCCL]

welp, here it is, primitive systems and "runner" class shuttle escort

I might have overdid it a bit and made her a bit OP, the idea is she's supposed to be able to do about as much damage as a tempest before going down (since the cost is similar, and she's definitely weaker in large battles where pilums are floating around), this means she's extremely dangerous in small skirmishes, but the lack of shield or replacement shuttles mean she lacks staying power in combat

download link here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/q5h0sbtcbgx731w/cerberusbuff.rar

let me know what you guys think

[xenoargh]

One of these can take on a Buffalo Mk. 2 and win, then kill a Lasher and win, armed with Light Assault Guns and a Heavy Autocannon.  It's tough and dependable and I really like the feel over the Vanilla version.

The design's very burst-heavy due to low Flux dissipation and probably fares quite poorly in a 2 vs. 1 due to speed, but with no shield, it can do nice hard alpha-strikes.  The stock variant is nice and tough, but not so hard to defeat that I couldn't see newbies handling it after a bit of practice.

The drones are nice and weak, although they really should have a different sprite, as that one is a bit big.

[PCCL]

eh, the idea is they are manned shuttles rather than drones, but I'll see about scaling them down

funny thing is, in a battle their roles change constantly. In the beginning, they're these heavily armored implacable beasts with firepower rivaling a destroyer, then as their armor get whittled down they become more of a carrier (since the drones deal out appreciable firepower on their own), then when they lose their drones they become long range support (with that mauler of theirs). Completely unintentional, but I like it