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Post by cerseisadvocate on Dec 11, 2019 5:59:41 GMT -5
So I made it to the end game on hard difficulty. My bank account is somewhere in the millions my crew is seasoned and my ship is pimped out with the most expensive components. But maybe the wrong ones? While I understand most of the concepts in ship combat I am feeling unsure how to value them against each other. Until the Jeeta apperaed I got by by doing what felt appropriate in fluff terms. Now I did some rebuilding for the Jeeta and actually my build can handle craft quite well. I can defeate the weakest Jeeta ship with moderat damage and without casulties but the stronger ships wreck me (usually with their guns). So I am asking myself what should I do? add more armor? Increase my nav or pilot pools and what can I dispense off? Here is my current build for you to judge
My Components in detail are: Large: - Capital Bridge 4 - Behemoth Void Engine - Combat Hyperwarp Drive - Armored Cargo Hold 4 - Advanced Launch Bay - Advanced Launch Bay
Medium:
- Reinforced Barracks 5
- Shielded Officer Suits
- Shielded Officer Suits - M94 Barrel Cannon - Goliath Missile Battery
- Combat Medical Clinic
- Shielded Hangar Bay - Shielded Hangar Bay - Shielded Hangar Bay - Adv Mass Dampener 4
Small:
- Railtrak Guidance Matrix 4 - Railtrak Guidance Matrix 4 - C-Tak Interceptor System 4 - C-Tak Interceptor System 4 - Compact Barracks - Reinforced Officer Cabin - Firewave Torpedos
- M95 Tracer Cannon - M95 Tracer Cannon - M95 Tracer Cannon - Nav Assist Module 4
- Defense Pattern Matrix 4 - Question is the 5% defense bonus usefull (and should be expanded or ist is useless cause the basevalue is to small (what is the base value) Also what does the +1% Shield do?
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Post by pendell on Dec 11, 2019 7:28:24 GMT -5
I remind you that I'm not a very good player but I'll still give my own thoughts on the matter. Which are 1) Check out the discord discordapp.com/channels/354299073689419779/359350778277920772. There are a lot more people there than in the forums and you may find better advice. 2) If you're getting wrecked with guns then you're going to need more pilot assist modules (if you're fighting from range 3 or below) or the equivalent for electronics (if you fight from range 4 and above). I believe all of those are small components. I'll point you to the wiki for detailed mechanical answer to your DPM question, but this is my understanding from memory: -- Defense Pattern Matrix is useful against the large ship but NOT against craft. That's why I would rely on pilot assist or electronics modules instead, because that works on both craft and the parent ship. -- shield protects against radiation and other effects in addition to the main damage but does not help against the mother craft's gun accuracy. I wouldn't worry too much about that, not if you're being pounded into debris with straight gunfire. -- In any event, just one defense module of any kind seems a little ... sparse. So my advice is to swap out the DPM for a pilot or electronics module, depending on your preferred range, and to stack more on in place. I don't think the Nav Assist Module provides anything save better fuel efficiency, so that's an easy cut. You could also move the barracks and officer cabin to the medium or large slots. After that, the choices get harder -- do you absolutely need torpedoes, or are you going to be fighting from range 3 and below? If you still need more room in the small slots, the next question is which you can live with: Worse accuracy or fewer guns. Then adjust and swap in the defensive module of your choice. It may be you're going to have to sacrifice perfect craft defense in favor of greater survivability against the mother craft. Another potential solution is to try to use early boarding talents such as Blood Game to board and inflict crippling dread, which will inflict an accuracy debuff. 4 Crippling dreads makes it hard to hit a ship's hull even if you're standing inside it  . Good luck! Respectfully, Brian P. |
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Post by cerseisadvocate on Dec 11, 2019 7:49:24 GMT -5
-- Defense Pattern Matrix is useful against the large ship but NOT against craft. That's why I would rely on pilot assist or electronics modules instead, because that works on both craft and the parent ship. -- shield protects against radiation and other effects in addition to the main damage but does not help against the mother craft's gun accuracy. I wouldn't worry too much about that, not if you're being pounded into debris with straight gunfire. -- In any event, just one defense module of any kind seems a little ... sparse. So my advice is to swap out the DPM for a pilot or electronics module, depending on your preferred range, and to stack more on in place. I don't think the Nav Assist Module provides anything save better fuel efficiency, so that's an easy cut. You could also move the barracks and officer cabin to the medium or large slots. After that, the choices get harder -- do you absolutely need torpedoes, or are you going to be fighting from range 3 and below? If you still need more room in the small slots, the next question is which you can live with: Worse accuracy or fewer guns. Then adjust and swap in the defensive module of your choice. It may be you're going to have to sacrifice perfect craft defense in favor of greater survivability against the mother craft. Another potential solution is to try to use early boarding talents such as Blood Game to board and inflict crippling dread, which will inflict an accuracy debuff. 4 Crippling dreads makes it hard to hit a ship's hull even if you're standing inside it . One Problem with the build is that its pretty tense on the mass requirement so I cant just switch a gun (100mass) for a pilot assist module (125mass). My Prefered range is 5 I like to have at least one long range gun so I can use Bombardment. The Cannons are for point defense only. My primary tactic is to launch pairs of bombers (wich accuracy debuff flightplan) and Interdictors for defense, I start with defense buffs and once the main cannon of the enemy cant hit me I switch either to repair talents or to anti craft talents. I thought Nav would be relevant for long range defense so do I understand correctly that Electronics is more important when nav? What does the +1% Shield of the defense pattern module mean? How much use is increasing your Ratings without increasing your dice pools? How far off are my dice pools from your end games ships? |
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Post by drspendlove on Dec 11, 2019 9:14:35 GMT -5
Navigation doesn't help with Defense at any range. It helps with weapon accuracy and range change but both only at long range (4, 5). +1% shield is hard to answer. It would add +1% if it were the only thing on your ship giving shielding. Otherwise it has diminishing returns. Suffice to say, it is incredibly minor. The base that the +% for defense is acting on is your entire defense dice pool, both strong and standard. See: startraders.gamepedia.com/Ship_Combat |
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Post by pendell on Dec 12, 2019 8:49:59 GMT -5
cerseisadvocate , I've pulled my own stats. Let's do a line-by-line-comparison. ME YOU PILOT 158/76 (207%) vs. 82/47 (174%) SHIP OPS 169/82 (206%) vs. 93/67 (138%) GUNNERY 180/61 (296%) vs. 92/80 (115%) ELECTRONICS 169/57 (296%) vs. 85/61 (139%) NAVIGATION 171/43(337%) vs. 71/47 (151%) ... Bear in mind that I play at normal difficulty, I have twice your pilot and almost as many electronics, and a Jyeeta Desecrator will STILL hit my ship like it was a pinata. So I think all your dice pools are too low for the difficulty you're playing at, at least if you intend to fight the best Jyeeta ships. As I recall, 100% staffing is the bare minimum to get any kind of benefit at all. After that , performance improvements continue until you hit 200%, after which any additional points are wasted, it's at this point you have to expand your dice pool with modules to make use of the surplus. So far as I can tell, you're not yet taking full advantage of the dice pool you have, so I'd recommend hiring some pilots or e-techs to bring up your percentage in pilotage and electronics to 200%. Once you reach that, then you can start talking about swapping components. ETA: Of course, the other alternative is to simply Skip Off The Void when you encounter a Jyeeta Desecrator. My recollection from the higher difficulties of the original ST is that the game becomes much more about picking your battles carefully, rather than expecting to win any combat against enemy. "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. " Respectfully, Brian P.
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Post by cerseisadvocate on Dec 12, 2019 9:10:12 GMT -5
Wow, that difference is quite obvious. In the meantime I have filled my two open bunks with two more E-Techs that dosn't change the overall picture though.
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Post by fallen on Dec 12, 2019 9:46:09 GMT -5
Keep in mind that during combat, only 100% of your dice are used, so to show that comparison for combat, it is PENDELL / CERSEIADVOCATE PILOT 76 vs. 47 SHIP OPS 82 vs. 67 GUNNERY 61 vs. 80 ELECTRONICS 57 vs. 61 NAVIGATION 43 vs. 47 It's much closer than originally stated I think  pendell is relying on Pilot over Electronics for defender, where cerseisadvocate is using 61 Electronics. Depends of course immensely on engine speed/agility too. |
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Post by pendell on Dec 12, 2019 12:13:44 GMT -5
Now I have a question for you. You've got a ton of autoguns; Are those useable at range 5, or do you have to close with the target to fire the guns , in order to get them to automatically target small craft?
Respectfully,
Brian P.
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Post by fallen on Dec 12, 2019 13:20:47 GMT -5
pendell - autocannons can be fired at any range if an enemy small craft has closed on your ship.
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Post by mishaadams198828 on Dec 12, 2019 13:35:46 GMT -5
Put some spinners on it! That will definitely show everyone how much of a pimp you are. Bonus points if your captain comes out 1st position melee using a cane as a weapon in crew combat.
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Post by cerseisadvocate on Dec 16, 2019 7:01:19 GMT -5
Put some spinners on it! That will definitely show everyone how much of a pimp you are. Bonus points if your captain comes out 1st position melee using a cane as a weapon in crew combat. Yeah that pretty much did the trick. I successfully defeated the Jeeta shooting down a few dozen of their captail ships and coming out alive of half a dozen stacked battles. It is no roflstomp build for sure but with the right "tacktic" (aka spam defense buffs/accuracy debuffs until the jeeta gunners star to cry and their acidic tears start dissolving the ship internaly). The spinners asside my final build looks like this My Components in detail are: Large: - Capital Bridge 4 - Behemoth Void Engine - Combat Hyperwarp Drive - Armored Cargo Hold 4 - Advanced Launch Bay - Lvl 6 Bomber - Advanced Launch Bay - Lvl 6 Bomber Medium: - Reinforced Barracks 5 - Shielded Officer Suits - Shielded Officer Suits - M94 Barrel Cannon - M94 Barrel Cannon - Combat Medical Clinic - Shielded Hangar Bay - Lvl 5 Interdictor - Shielded Hangar Bay - Lvl 5 Interdictor - Shielded Hangar Bay - Lvl 5 Shuttle - Adv Mass Dampener 4 Small: - Railtrak Guidance Matrix 4 - Railtrak Guidance Matrix 4 - C-Tak Interceptor System 4 - Compact Barracks - Reinforced Officer Cabin - Firewave Torpedos - Firewave Torpedos - Firewave Torpedos - Defense Pattern Matrix 4 - Defense Pattern Matrix 4 - Defense Pattern Matrix 4 - Sensor Array
Using the Sensor Array I could replace some of the 100 mass anti craft modules with 125 mass defense pattern matrixes. I also filled two emty bunks with e-tchs and got rid of one low level gunner in favor for another e-tech
One Sad conclusion I came to is that there is basically no reason to use the Havoc Carrier over the Sword Battlecruiser other than the look. Hope we will see 9000+ mass carriers one day.
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Post by pendell on Dec 16, 2019 14:18:51 GMT -5
Glad to hear it's working for you, Captain! Although now I must demand a mod which allows my melee characters to go into battle carrying a cane. Also the ability to re-skin the boarding party as Scooby Doo characters . "One Sad conclusion I came to is that there is basically no reason to use the Havoc Carrier over the Sword Battlecruiser other than the look ." Regrettably, that is my conclusion also. Respectfully, Brian P. |
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