What do I need to make this Carnifex work?

[slayernz]

You'll also find if you beef up Pilot, your fuel bills will plummet to a more manageable level, but to be honest, you're flying a brick with lots of guns pointing out the front. You're never gonna win any drag races, or efficiency competitions.

[xdesperado]

I like the Carnifex a lot. For a combination Gun Bunny/Boarding style captain it has a lot to offer. That said you need both the skills to utilize it and proper upgrades.
Skills:
Pilot 40+ the higher the better.
Intimidate 20+ with over 30 probably getting you into a most effective zone.
Tactics 30+ you need to be able to hit and hit accurately with all that firepower.
Warrior 20+ Basically everything you can afford without messing up what's needed above.
Stealth 5-10 with its signature even without upgrades your not going to be sneaking around the Quadrant. 5-10 points is enough to be able to avoid most initial Torps fired your way especially with a high pilot skill.

Recommended Upgrades:
Cargo Hold; You have a lot of crew to keep in W-F, plus wanting room for weapons, plus wanting room for loot. 100 cargo runs out really fast so extra cargo space is a big boost. The ship is tough enough to take a hell of a beating as is and has plenty of guns to hurt anyone with. Extra engines are a distant possibility but your never going to be able to dance with the really agile ships anyways so extra room to haul W-F, weapons and loot trumps them.
Escape Shuttle or Weapons Locker; Escape Shuttle for when despite your best efforts you crap out against the enemy, Weapons Locker to give you that boost in boarding actions from weapons and help free up regular cargo space for other things like W-F. Your call how to go really.
Water-Fuel Tank or Advanced Bridge; Water-Fuel Tank because you probably need all the W-F you can haul but you also want cargo space for other things...weapons and loot. With 225 crew you really don't need more for the combination Gun Bunny/Boarder you'll have already hurt them badly before you ever board and all those extra crew dramatically increase your needed Pilot, Intimidate and Tactics requirements to be effective. (Personal opinion but the Carnifex is not a good Explorer ship as its too fuel hungry and its cargo capacity is to limited.)
Advanced Bridge because it will help offset some of the advantage faster more agile ships have and improve your combat abilities.
Titan Components or Cargo Pods; Titan Components boost your combat effectiveness from medium range in to boarding. Combined with Advanced Bridge as well as good Pilot and Tactics skills will go a long ways towards evening odds up against more agile oponents and let you own medium or low agility enemies.
Cargo Pods because more cargo space is always welcome with this beast. Just make sure you install them before you do the Cargo Hold to maximize the benefits. Extra Sails are useless as your never going to outrun Fast ships and your not looking to stay at long range for missile duels. Extra guns aren't needed and you get better combat modifiers from Titan Components.
Cargo Pods or if not a MO/Bounty Hunter Predator Tracking Array; Cargo pods because you need all the space you can get, just make sure to install before Cargo Hold for maximum benefit. Predator Tracking Array if you aren't a MO/Bounty Hunter but intend to take Bounty/Assassination contracts anyways.
Extra sails and Torps are useless to your chosen role. Omni-Stealth on this beast has to be a joke considering its signature.

If I'm setting a Carnifex up for contract work I'll generally go with the Advanced Bridge/Titan Component option. For blockades and really long range contracts I go maximum Cargo/W-F Tanks.
Weapons Locker and Escape Shuttle tends to be a toss up for me depending on how I feel at the time and what's available.

Even though I like the Carnifex it will never be my only ship and is unlikely to be my primary one. Instead I'll pull it out for blockades or if I decide to try hunting aliens.

[slayernz]

I'm a long-distance gunbunny purist and therefore am not a boarder, so I'd actually never take a Carnifex. It's too slow, and bloody inefficient. When it came to firing on an enemy ship, 40 guns causes more holes, and regardless of how careful you aim, you're as likely to punch a hole in the enemy hull as take out the engines. This is the type of ship that I would always fly rings around, taking out its engines before it can even react.


IF I were to try boarding, I'd possibly focus on Pilot, Warrior, Tactics, then Intimidate (in that order). For upgrades I'd do:
Structural: Cargo Hold (purchased last)
Combat: Weapons Cabinet (the 25 extra guns is very very useful in boarding, AND the weapons are masked in the ship's signature so don't cause as bad a penalty as storing weapons in your main cargo hold*)
Interior: WF Tank - the more range you can get out of this fuel-sucking guzzler, the better. 25 WF might even get you from DeValtos Prime to
- I wouldn't get the Advanced Bridge because the bonus to pilot you get still won't offset the super-agile ships - rely on stacking your own pilot score over wasting a slot on the Advanced Bridge
Propulsion: I'd still consider Advanced Sails - extra sails help in long-distance efficiency and don't really help/hinder combat anyway. I agree though, this ship sucks fuel, so maybe more sails will be as useful as tits on a bull.
Second option is Titan Components (+5 engines). This may just give you enough to board effectively. Maybe.
Armament: Predator Tracking Array. That's a must - you're going to be doing execution contracts with this thing (you gotta pay for the fuel somehow), so providing an edge in being able to pick your target a little more effectively is not something to sneeze at.

At the end of the day, probably the only thing going for this ship is the large number of crew. Confronting one of these ships means I have to kill more innocents when I set the enemy ship to self-destruct (I hate leaving defeated ships floating around - they're a shipping hazard).

[Deleted]

I'm currently very busy so I won't be able to visit the forum as much as I used to for a while. But this post is so painful that I have to step in.

First, there's a difference between board rolls and damage rolls. Board rolls determine whether you're successful when pressing board, and if its board vs. board who ends up getting boarded. Damage roles determine how much damage each player takes. And there's a third type of roll, HP damage rolls, that determine dueling, whether the enemy is injured, whether your injured. Pilot skill will help get to short range because it does advance, avoids enemy fire when advancing and helps prevent being rammed when doing board. It does not help for damage roles and hence is not the problem here.

Second, when you board, several things can happen, depending on your board strength. You can be unsuccessful in boarding entirely, you can be successful in boarding but take mass casualties, or you can inflict some damage but mainly deal damage to the enemy captain's HP and take almost no damage. The last one requires you to be much more powerful in boarding and is preferred for any boarder. For the last one, its important to have high board roles and high damage roles. The most important skill for this is not intimidate, nor tactics. Its warrior and weapons. Crew, strength and tactics (and maybe intimidate) will help some in board roles (or being successful in boarding), but once your successful in boarding, you need high warrior and weapons to control the damage that each player takes and prevent crew casualties. Strength will also help in inflicting more wounds to the captain and hence winning faster but won't help for damage.

Third, as your crew goes up, so can your casualties. To prevent this, its best to have high warrior skill and weapons before attempting to board with alot of crew. My suggestion is to get the mercenaries. Its an upgrade designed to give high board advantage without giving you more crew than you can control. Then, Id get the weapons cabinet to store more weapons (weapons is better than board upgrades for damage roles). Last, I'd make your warrior skill higher in proportion to your level. I play on impossible where enemies are upto 2x my level, so I get the carnifex with mercenaries upgrade, weapon's cabinet or heavy bulkheads, battle prow or dreadnought architecture, and I store maybe 40-60 weapons. I also keep my warrior 220% of level, strength 400% of level, tactics 80% of level, pilot 120% of level. Because you play on hard, you probably don't need to go to such extremes, but I think you get my point.

Pilot is very impotant for high hull ships for fuel consumption, deep space travel, changing range and getting rammed. NOT for boarding except preventing enemy ramming. Intimidate is good for keeping losses down with high crew and for preventing morale loss and mutiny with alot of crew, and fuel consumption. Not for boarding as much as Warrior. Tactics can help some with big hull, but not as much as Pilot. It can help prevent losses as well for board as well as help increasing board attack. But still warrior is better. Warrior is the most important skill for boarding, crew is the most important ship stat, weapons are also extreamly important. Youd actually be really powerful in boarding with just warrior skill and some pilot for changing range and preventing ram, but tactics is good so for low level enemies you can gun them and prevent board altogether.

[Deleted]

In order starting with most important

Most important for preventing damage (damage rolls): Board rolls, Warrior, Weapons, Tactics and Intimidate, Heavy Bulkheads, Templar
Most important for being successful in boarding (board rolls): Warrior, Strength, Crew and Weapons, Tactics, Leviathan, Attack Shuttles, Military Officer
Most important for dodging guns, torps and ram for advance and board (agility roles): Agility, Pilot, Engines
Most important for increasing enemy captain HP loss and preventing your HP loss (HP damage roles): Board rolls, Warrior, Strength, Weapons, Templar, Bodyguard

[slayernz]

Exalted @starfixer! Your knowledge of all of this area of combat is so fantastic and it's great that you've provided clear guidance correcting inaccuracies that me and others have inadvertently imparted

[Cory Trese]

Man excellent debate on strategy here.