Wednesday, November 18, 2015

New FM Prizes - A better Cadmium?

Kixeye has stuck to their usual cycle and so we have new Forsaken Mission prizes now that the raid is complete.  Once again, some of those prizes are really useful for a raid prize... so you whales who have coined Heavy Cruiser builds already already might want to take notice of that pattern.

Magnus Drive 2


This is an improvement on the original Magnus Drive special, with better speed, cloaking, and accuracy for nearly the same weight and build time.

To compare the options:



Magnus Drive was just about a necessity on Spectres. With only 2 specials, there was no way to get speed, cloaking, and a dive time boost without it (don't use a battery if you're in that situation).  For subs with 3 specials like Nighthawks & Barracudas, it was less critical, as players would generally use Speed System, Cat Drive, and Battery.  On Tiger Sharks with 4 specials, it really wasn't needed at all, as players even had that 4th special to work with.

But now that Magnus has improved cloaking AND the highest speed available of any non-range reducing engine... Magnus Drive 2 might be desirable on any sub.   

Check out my two options here for Styx-based Tiger Sharks:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!B00D000005Z5519030ZZ0NA015151515341D6D1GC100C100C1C10000C1C10NA015151515411D6D0OC100C100C1C10000C1C10ZZdC

On the original build I used Speed V, Cat 3 & Bat 3, with Interception System for increasing my corrosive damage stacks and my speed.  6 Styx Torpedos fit on this build.  I have enough weight left over for a few other torps (a Charon or some Assault B), but I left them off for the purpose of this comparison.

Switching Speed V & Cat Drive for Magnus & Ion Thruster, I improve my submerged combat speed from 32 to 36 and improve my turn speed.  This comes at the cost of a cloak reduction from 91 to 80, the 5% accuracy reduction, and an extra 27 hours of build time.  The new build is also lighter, but adding another Styx torp still puts me 4 tons over the weight limit (with shipyard 3).
(my numbers are based on my current retrofits, yours may vary)

Building a Tiger Shark was tough enough with all the options available, now we have one more option in the mix with Magnus Drive 2.

Barrel Loader

This special increases the number of shots fired from a multishot weapon (no it does not give multishot to a non-multishot weapon).  Right now that is only scatterguns for ship weapons, but we might see others in the future.



The question players had upon release was whether the increased number of shots increased the damage output from the weapon, or whether it just spread the same damage over more shots.  The answee we received via the forum mod Laredo was that the actual damage output was increased - each pellet will do the same amount of damage after multishot is applied.



This chart shows the DPS increase on each type of Scattergun assuming that the expected DPS increases linearly with the number of pellets.  The two "regular" scatterguns have the same DPS increase because each fires 5 as their multishot, then the Heavy fires 15.  All of the Scatterguns get a 40% increase for the 19% weight cost of the Barrel 3 special.  For the light scatterguns, the Barrel 2 makes no sense since it gives the same benefit as the lighter Barrel 1.  Any of these combinations is worth using (from a DPS/ weight perspective) if you are willing to use up the special slot.  I've seen too many HC builds using Hull Streamlining... at least put Barrel 1 on instead.

One more thought I have on the Barrel Loader with Cobra Scatterguns... Since those have the Corrosive DoT damage, the DPS might not scale linearly for that weapon.  There are two factors going on... with the DoT damage, the stack does a set amount of damage - it doesn't tail off with range like other splash damage.  So if that extra shot from the loader causes a second hit where you got only one hit before... then your damage doubles.  The flip side of that is that it might cause you to hit the DoT maximum stack more quickly, so that extra shot could also be wasted.  Answering that question precisely would take more simulation than I'm willing to do... so good luck.

UPDATE:
CS Spekkio posted on the Kixeye forums about the barrel loader, and in that post, he implies that the weapon does its entire damage for each projectile fired in the multi-shot. 

Thanks to a video posted by Andrew Knowles...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYpRSb_hMeM&feature=youtu.be
we can see that is incorrect, and also see the benefit of the Barrel Loader. In the video, he took a single Heavy Cruiser with 3 Heavy Scatterguns, and fired at the Dreadnaughts in a 75.  He did this once with Barrel Loader, and once without it.

Math to follow:
One of those Dreads in the video has 42216 health.

A Heavy Scatter is listed at 6600 blueprint damage, which means that each gun does up to 3300 damage to ships (the double damage on blueprint thing), and he's got 3. (and was driving carefully so the D81-M were out of range). 


So he does 9900 damage per shot without the barrel special (ignoring some reduction from spread). 4 shots wouldn't be enough to kill that dread (39600 damage), but 5 is.

He would do 9900x1.4 = 13680 per shot with the barrel special. 3 shots wouldn't be enough to kill that dread (41580 damage), but 4 is.

With the Barrel Special you can see that 4 shots kill the dread. Without it, 5 shots were required.

If the weapon did full damage per projectile (as Spekkio wrote), then it would be doing 15x more damage, and killing everything with one shot.


So to summarize - The listed damage for a Scattergun is divided among the pellets fired in the multishot.  If you use Barrel Loader on a Scattergun with multishot, then you fire more pellets but each one still does the same amount of damage, which increases the damage output of the weapon.

Draconian Scattergun Turret

We have a new "backupLimited Turret prize in the Elite Tier.  The Dead-Eye Ballista was considered a bust by many, but this one looks to be a little more promising.  With 105 range, I don't think you could use it like a Wendigo, but instead you would put it on your front line.  My front line right now consists of Pyroclasts and a couple Gargoyles.  Since this turret has the same submerged damage, I would use it to replace a Gargoyle for sub defense, instead of upgrading to a Gargoyle 2.  


Although the expected DPS is lower than the Gargoyles, I would expect the Drac Scattergun to fire more often and be more effective overall because of its higher shot velocity and its longer range.  Power is reasonable as well.  When you place this gun, be very careful of retargeting... Missiles can take out a line of turrets along the front line when they are clustered, so they could pick you off at a range higher than 105... I suggest making this turret the first turret in a group, so you are guaranteed to get its full effectiveness. 

Nobody will win this gun this week because they have to win all of the other Elite prizes first, but I guess we will see these in action next week...

Streamlined Cadmium Armor


When the first batch of Cadmium came out, I found that it really didn't help repair times because the lack of defensive bonuses on that armor meant that a ship using it would be more vulnerable to damage.  

This Cadmium is even larger than the Cadmium Delta we saw before, and although it doesn't give a defensive bonus, it gives speed bonuses.

To start out with I'll compare just the Armor points, build time, and weight.


In terms of efficiency, the Armor points per weight is good - better than previous Cadmium and better than Zynth armor, but still not as good as Reaver Bulkhead.  However, the real standout here is the low build time of this armor - at just 9 hours to build, where any other armor of this class is over a day (usually nearer 2 days), use of this armor can really shorten build times.  Of course, you are paying 30k Uranium per piece for that benefit.

But the question for many players is whether this armor can give an advantage.  First off... if we were still building 4 ship MCX fleets, with 3 specials and all evade armor, the answer would be a definite no.  However, fleet building has gotten more complex - with most high end fleets using mixed hull, and players having 4 - 5 special slots available.   

So I decided to look at my favorite fleet right now - my mixed Rhino fleet with an Aegis and options for a Prototype Hunter or Neptune to tank.  Since the Rhinos are using Speed System 5 and Interception System, the non-Rhino hulls needed some other speed boosting tech in order to keep up, since they each have some combination of slower base speed and lack of Interception System.


Aegis:
I used 2 pieces of V armor and Reaver Scout engine to get the speed I needed.  Very simply, I replaced the light V armor with the new Streamlined cadmium and replaced the D5-E with D2-E to keep my weight down.

Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!906M01R1R0L0L2B0O5Z1B1B1B1B1B1B06M00U0U25252B0O5Z1B1B1B1B1B1B0ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC

Proto-Hunter:
With the Proto-Hunter, I originally used 3 Assault B torpedos to get the extra speed I needed, so I took off the torpedos and replaced 2 of my D2-E with Streamlined Cadmium.

Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!90N600U0U0U0U2L6D35346F5454545454544H4H4H000N600U250U252L6D35346F545454545454000000000ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC

Neptune:
On the Neptune I used a Speed Upgrade to match the speed boost of Interception System.  I replaced the Speed Upgrade with an Evade Upgrade, then replaced 3 Evade Armors with Cadmium to get the speed back.  I reduced the other Evade armors to D2-E to try to get a bit of the weight back.

Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!907000V0V0V0V0V0V0C5R2U346F25280000005555555755560007000U250U250U250C5P2U346F2528000000555555575556000ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC

I compiled the key before and after statistics in the following table:

(again, specific numbers may vary slightly based on retrofit levels)

For each build, the total Armor Points & Turn Speed went up, and Build Time went down.  Those benefits came at a cost of reduced Evade and increased weight.  Combat Speed was pretty close in each build, by design.  The key benefit was that the repair times were cut - the "Repair Speed Change" being negative denotes the percentage reduction in the time taken to repair each armor point.  The "Evadable Damage Increase" is the percentage of additional damage expected due to the lower evade score.  For the Aegis and the Neptune builds, the increase in damage is significantly less than the repair time reduction, so there is a net benefit to the player when using that ship.  For the case of the Proto-Hunter, the increase in expected damage is fairly close to the decrease in repair time, so there doesn't seem to be any benefit.  Note that for a new build (not a refit), using Streamlined Cadmium would help even on the Hunter build because you would end up with similar statistics for a lower build time.  In each build, you would have to deal with the extra weight.

So overall, it looks like this new armor can have a place on any build where you are looking to increase a ship's speed beyond what is possible with just the engine special.  Yes, you'll need the Uranium.  Builds aren't getting any simpler...

I put up a new poll this week - I am trying to get a sense of where my readers are at.  I may do a couple of these over the next few weeks.

The first poll is intended to find out where your shipyard is - I want to use the Shipyard level that appeals to the highest number of readers.

Please take a couple seconds to vote (once) in the poll at the upper right side of this page - Thanks!

Friday, November 13, 2015

Revenge Raid - One Day In

Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...
Trigger, turn, kite, kill...

Yeah that's my raid.

For players with the right fleets, this is the easiest raid since the first Reaver raid, where anybody with an Engine Disrupter Arbiter and a decent MCX fleet could just hold them out of weapon range and kill all the Reavers for free.

By right fleets, I mean a fast Missile hull like a Rhino, Proto-hunter, or V2H. something with Solid Fuel Booster 3/Guided Missile System, and Blades / Harriers / Disrupters.

Your basic enemies are:
Kodiaks with "Knife Missiles": These are like Blades but with slightly shorter range of 95 (when boosted)
V2C with launchers: They have range 93 launchers and Scourge-like torpedos (with 88 range).  The launchers also have a (mild) slow effect.
Reapers: These also have the Knife Missiles that only fire when surfaced, and the upgraded Drac torpedos.  Their stealth isn't that good - sonar can be used to see these well outside of their missile / torp range.

With that sort of fleet (which isn't rare and you should have been working on something like that), you can enter an A or B target, trigger a group of Dracs, turn away and keep them out of range while killing them.  

URF shows you how in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8qrMPui5cc
(yeah it freezes around 4 minutes, but you'll have the idea well before then.)

For me, I'm using my Hunter/Rhinos/Aegis and only taking damage when I mess up.  Last night I had 24 million points and had only spent 17 coins.  

I find the A targets are taking me about 5 minutes each to beat, and paying about 2.75 million points total for the set + completion bonus.  The Scourge bonus target is a target from the Siege campaign last raid - the one with the Daggerfish & 4 Viperfish in a "plus" formation along with a few Stonefish hidden around. It goes pretty quick and is worth almost 800k points.  I'm usually skipping them just because I can do the drac targets with such low damage, but the Scourge target isn't too bad for a player with a good fleet who wants to speed things up some. 

For crews, I'm kind of waffling between the offensive crews (Dead-eye / Wolfpack) that will help me mess up less frequently (through faster kills), and the defensive crews (Sea Serpents / Steelheads) that will help me take less damage when I do mess up.  I think I'm liking Sea Serpents the best with the extra evade and turn speed.  I'm definitely saving my Grease Monkeys for another time.

Some thoughts on alternative fleets:
Crusaders with Arbalest: Doable, but since my range was only 95, not 98+, I ended up trading fire & taking much more damage.
Drone Decoying: I tried my Firebat Monarch with the Crusaders - they ignored the drones once my ships were in their range, and the drones died pretty quick anyway. 
Subs: Any subs will be able to sneak up on the non-thermal ships.  However, with the 92 thermal range of the V2-C, even players with Scourge Torpedo subs won't be able to kill those for free.  Players are having success combining sub hits with other surface ship hits.
Fusion Cruisers: with D98U, these should do well but I haven't seen many players trying it.

Getting the Payload targets just doesn't seem worth it - to do so you generally will have to charge into a group of Drac ships and take a bunch of unnecessary damage.  For the B sets, the payload ships only seemed to be worth about 6k points each, so I figured that hitting them all while doing a set would only increase your overall points payout by 10%.

Some players have expressed skepticism that I colored those new prizes Green in my "What to Get" article.  It is correct that short range Scatterguns will be difficult to use effectively.  My quick summary/justification is:
Heavy Cruiser: Will be a beast of a tank hull
Heavy Scattergun: Needed to make the Heavy Cruiser into a full-on beast of a tank hull with the speed and defense boosts.
Scattergun D81-M: Quick build with a speed boost.  I'm sure these will come in handy somewhere.  If you really have a problem with the Uranium, go ahead and skip it.  Just remember this will only fire from subs that are surfaced (unlike the Cobra).

I don't have too much more to say here - I'll keep it short... I haven't noticed any mid-raid changes from Kixeye, so I'm quite pleased about that.

As I was writing this, they announced that we will be getting Drac Armadas. The briefing specifically said they would not be spawning. They have also announced that there will be no gold sale

I'm not too fussed about either one... I guess if you don't want to hit the Armadas... don't.  I was actually sort of hoping for a gold sale as my balance is getting low... but I think I'll be making it through this raid without needing more gold anyway.  

Stay on target Kixeye.... steady there.... steady....



Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Revenge Raid - New Prizes and What to Get

The Revenge Raid is coming up, and it is the 50th raid that Battle Pirates has offered.  You can say what you will about the state of Battle Pirates right now, but keeping this game going for that long has been quite an achievement for Kixeye, and they should be congratulated for that. 

That being said, I wish they had put a little more care into the setup for this raid.  I don't know whether it is because Doomrooster is on vacation, but the raid briefing is one of the most unclear and error-filled in memory.

The Briefing is at: https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/586845
And the Video is at: https://youtu.be/oY9ES6yHDDc

I'm frankly not totally clear on everything, so here's the best I can do for you:

In general, you will have to hit sets of targets on the world map.  Hitting a complete set will give some bonus points.  Hitting the convoy ships fleeing a target will give additional points.  Players above level 60 will get reduced points for hitting C sets.  There will also be "open" targets not in a set, and players above Level 45 will get reduced points for hitting those.  Or they will get a popup saying they can't hit them at all.  I'm not sure... I've seen both.

And then there are levels associated with each target set - A is 70+, B is 51 - 70, C is 40 - 50.  But with the points info above, I'm not sure what this additional level information means.

I'll just move on to the Prizes:

Heavy Cruiser:


This hull has some very interesting qualities - The Assault Deflection of 300 is huge.  The Prototype Hunter has an Assault Deflection of 60, and I find that quite useful - the 300 will make this ship hard to kill with fleets. The Siege Deflection of 300 is not as strong as teh Neptune's 600 Siege Deflection, but will also be useful. 

Maneuverability will be interesting with this ship.  18 Combat speed is incredibly fast, but that speed is paired with a turn speed of just 6.  Although the Assault Deflection will make this ship hard to kill, it may be difficult to use this ship well in open water combat.  If you have only short range weapons (like Scatterguns), a skillful driver may be able to keep you out of range by driving perpendicular to your path.

UPDATE/NOTE: Hydraulic Resistors (but not Speed System 5) can be combined with Ion Thrusters to get some good maneuverability on this hull.

50% defense against all damage types except Corrosive and Concussive is very good, but 0% base Evade is not. 

Its (Kixeye, please note the correct spelling of "its" for your blueprint.  It's not a hard word to use properly) only weapon buff is a 50% reload bonus to Scatterguns.  With Scatterguns being short-ranged weapons, and no DPS bonuses on this hull, I would suggest that the best use of this hull would be to tank for other hitter ships (like Rhinos).  I'll come back to that after looking at the new scattergun options.

Heavy Scattergun D81-H

The only previous options for the heavy weapon slots were the Scythe and Death Scythe.  Although those weapons did decent damage, they had a long build time and also took a long time to land on their target, so they turned out to be unpopular when compared with the new missile options available. 

The Heavy Scattergun gives bonus defense and speed to a ship that carries it, and also does good damage.  Its big drawback is its short range of 76.

Scattergun D81-M



This new Scattergun's most interesting properties are not shown on its blueprint.  Its build time with officer is just 2 hrs 48 min, but it also has a uranium cost of 27,500 to build.  Kixeye has specifically posted that the uranium cost is a tradeoff for the reduced build time.

The real question is whether the weapon is worth using.  The range has been reduced even from the other Scatterguns to 73, and neither this nor the D81-H will do any extra damage over time from corrosive stacks.  

The Scattergun weapons compare as: 


And I guess to really understand these weapons, I'll put them on the bubble chart:



Scatterguns on the Heavy Cruiser do a nice amount of damage compared to other weapons on their "best" ships.  The Cobra Scattergun's long build time and the D81-M's short build time are pretty clear on this chart based on their bubble sizes.

The Heavy Scatterguns go real nicely on the Heavy Cruiser - even just for the buffs more than the damage.  The regular Scatterguns do OK damage, but I'm really concerned by their  short range.  Base hitting with Scatterguns will be dicey if guard ships are placed out of reach.  Without being useable by underwater subs, I'm just not sure where I really want to mount the new D81-M.

How to use them?
Well, I don't think I'd want to build a whole fleet of Heavy Cruisers loaded with Scatterguns.  You'll have to sail into a lot of danger & front line turrets... and I think the damage will build up on you eventually even with the deflection.  But you will kill everything as you take all that damage - remember nothing has corrosive resistance (yet), and Evade won't affect these splash weapons.  (I still won't be refitting with cadmium just yet).  So yeah, someone who does this will blast through stuff.  

Me, I've got a Neptune I've been using as a tank for Rhinos, and it works great.  I might try a Heavy Cruiser instead, in this sort of configuration:



I can get away with the Heavy Plate since the ship is so fast, and the Heavy Scatters make it even faster. The D98U would provide spotting for Rhinos.  I thought about High Explosive Shells to give more splash to the Scatters, but the ship is really for tanking, not dealing damage, so the Shielded Tac System seemed more useful. I think that it is interesting that this ship is nearly maxed out on weight once heavily armored and having the three heavy weapons.  Turn still sucks, even with Speed System 5.  But with such a low base turn, I think that the percentage increases from using turn armor won't be too significant.  Ion Thrusters would be a way to get better turn, but using those would require a different engine special... although using the regular researchable engine wouldn't be too bad since the accuracy doesn't matter in this design.  

After designing the build with the 3 heavys and having just about no weight left over to fill the other weapon slots, what kind of pops out about this hull is that you sort of have two basic scattergun options:  Either build with the Heavy Scattergun for the most range, damage, and defense, or do a quick build with the D81-M and no heavy weapons (save about 5.5 days).  You can even tailor your build time by mixing the two.

Green / Yellow / Red prize eval:

My color coding for prizes is:
Green  Most players should want this prize.
Yellow  You may want to buy this prize if you have a plan for using it, but consider "green" prizes first.
Red  I'm not sure why this prize would be worth the points it costs.

Top Tier
Heavy Cruiser (12.5M): Although it has some weaknesses (turn speed, offensive buff to Scattergun only), the Deflection and resistances of this hull will make it very hard to kill.  Even if you feel like your "build list" is a mile long (which is a bad way to look at this game anyway), getting & building just one of these will make your other ships more effective.


Heavy Scattergun D81-H (6M): This weapon looks pretty powerful and also gives good defensive buffs.  Unlike the Scythes, I would consider builds with this weapon.  The range would be a concern, but the high speed & defense of the Heavy Cruiser should mean that you can get into the range you need.

Scattergun D81-M (6M): Although this weapon requires uranium to build, uranium is now easier to get and it also has a pretty short build time. Another interesting point about this weapon is that sometimes I end up looking for weapons to give a speed boost (for matching hull speeds), but all the other (surface) options like Siege Cannons or Blaze Throwers have a long build time... this one doesn't. 

Limited Items: 
Compound Armor D6-A (1.25M, limit ???):  I really like this special, since it is just a bit of a bump from D5-X without too much extra weight or build time.  I loaded up on all I could the last time this was offered.

Agility System IV (1M, limit ???): I'm starting to come around on this one, but I still don't like the build time.

Fallout Armor IV (1M, limit ???): I still don't think this is useful in most situations, and lack of ballistic defense can be a real achilles heel.

Gale Defense System 1/2/3 (250k / 500k / 750k, limit ???): Gale 1 in particular is light and cheap, but I'm not so sure how critical mortar defense is for today's fast fleets.  I prefer Phalanx with their higher accuracy for UAVs.  These anti-mortars can come in handy in 85s if you want to creep through the centers, so they aren't all bad, and they are a big upgrade from Hailstorms (a Gale 2 is more effective than a Hail C).

Hydraulic Resistors (1.5M, limit ???):  This combines a 15% concussive resistance with Speed System V.  If you aren't getting Tier 4 in the Forsaken Mission, this might be a way to get that capability for a fleet.  This is also a nice upgrade for "tank" ships, and wasn't available to buy last month.  UPDATE: These can be combined with Ion Thrusters to get a decent turn speed on the Heavy Cruiser.

Cobra Scattergun (1.2M, limit ???): The best use for this hybrid slot weapon seems to be on subs like the Tiger Shark.  Worth getting if you have a build in mind.

Tokens: Based on how much damage you take getting points, these may or may not be worthwhile redemptions.


Tier 4:
Zynth Armor D5-E (5.5M):  Although this has been available on Tier 4 of the Forsaken mission, if you are missing it, this is a real must-have.

Siege Battery 3 (5M): It took a little while for this to grow on me, but especially with the latest hulls having 5 special slots, this should find a place in builds for Base Hitting or Missions.  Especially powerful when combined with Siege Deflection.

Charon Torpedo (5.5M):  There's a a lot of back & forth about what to use for the "best" Tiger Shark build.  The Styx does more overall damage with its corrosive stacks, but it takes longer to build up.  You definitely want one or the other of the Scourge torpedoes, so get this one if you don't have either one and you are planning a sub build (or refit).

UAV Powercell (4.5M):  UAVs haven't seemed too useful lately, but if you are planning a UAV build, you do want this special.

Apocalypse Mortar (12M):  These take a while to land, and so you really want to combine these with Eruption Pyre on a Level 5 (or 6) turret... but these are an effective part of many base defense strategies these days. 

Dead-Eye Executioner (20M Limit 1 Max 1): The (regular) Executioner is a top base defense weapon.  This version has longer range and sucks down more power.  On a Level 5 turret, it isn't that much more effective than a regular Executioner with Smart Warheads. That might change on a Level 6 turret when you will have enough power to add Smart Warheads to this one.

Tier 3:
Compound Panels E (3M): This compound defense special may be useful on your front line base defense turrets if you don't like changing specials each time the game changes.

Siege Battery 2 (2M): If you can't get Siege Battery 3, this one might be handy for players to work their way up.

Zynth Armor D4-C (2.5M):  Stick with E armor, especially when you get heavy. 

Zynth Armor D4-P (3M):  Stick with E armor on your sub-hunters, especially when you get heavy.  For finding subs, just use Sonar or Sonic Targeting.

Siege Torpedos D65-S (2M):  Nobody wanted to use these when they were new... they certainly aren't wanted now.

Countermeasure Targeting (3M):  I sort of forgot about this special.  It may be useful on the Drac Coaxial Turret... But I'm not sure if the 40% accuracy buff makes a difference in countermeasure mode since those are splash shots.

Tier 2:
Compound Panels C (400k): This compound defense special is more of a stopgap until you get something better, but its low power use may even come in handy once in a while for some situations.

Siege Battery 1 (550k): If you can't get Siege Battery 2 or 3, this one might be handy for players to work their way up.

Zynth Armor D3-C (500k):  Generally stick with E armor, but D3 armors are a little more useful for their weight/build time, especially if you are working your way up.

Zynth Armor D3-P (750k):  Stick with E armor on your sub-hunters.  For finding subs, just use Sonar or Sonic Targeting.

Assault Torpedos D63-V (400k):  If you don't have any Scourge torpedoes, and you don't have the Assault Torpedo B, this is your next best option.  But if you don't have those, you might just want to wait on your sub build.

Tier 1:
Compound Panels A (50k): This compound defense special has a real mild defensive boost that you probably won't notice.

Zynth Armor D1-X (40k):  This is a light way to add some explosive (rocket) defense to a Sub Spotter or Remote Targeting ship in your base guard.

Zynth Armor D2-C (150k):  Generally stick with E armor.

Zynth Armor D2-P (150k):  Stick with E armor on your sub-hunters.  For finding subs, just use Sonar or Sonic Targeting.

Vortex Torpedos D61-M (50k):  Maybe if you're brand new you could put these on Predators or something.  As an aside, I am putting D61-Z on my Tigersharks just to rank them while building out the fleet.  I'll refit once I get them all built.

So overall, this prize list seems a bit "top-heavy".  I like the Top Prizes and the Tier 4 prizes, but there is really a lack of prizes for lower level players to work their way up.  There are no hulls, and no decent lightweight weapons.  Newer players should probably get the best Siege Battery they can, as that will be useful for a Forsaken Mission fleet (and base hitters).  After that, maybe consider some of the limited components as a shortcut to getting ahead.  Don't forget about doing campaigns at half repair too....

For for this raid, I'm hoping for some fun gameplay, and consistency from Kixeye.  I'm tired of mid-raid changes.  Recently we've seen changes to difficulty, points, schedules, prize lists, etc.  Just make a plan, make sure its good, and stick to it!

Good luck Pirates... gaming is not a crime!