Outpost 6, etc.

On September 23, 2014, Kixeye released an update that might be the biggest since the game was released.  I'll try to help make sense of it.

Higher Building Levels 
The following things may be upgraded in your base:

Outpost 6: 16d 6h 27m
Dock 11: 3d 7h 12m
Turret 5: 10d 4h 41m

Weapons Lab 11: 3d 13h 16m

Naval Lab 11: 3d 13h 16m

Advanced Lab 11 4d 16h 19m

Intel Lab 11: 5d 0h 17m

Resource Generator Level 11: 1d 7h 40m

(times are with Construction Expert officer)

The useful upgrades (for high level players) are the first three.  If we include building and upgrading the additional 2 turrets available with Outpost 6, the total build time for Outpost, Dock, and Turrets is over 185 days, or 8,894 coins (give or take a few).  For those of you who wish to coin it, thank you for supporting the game and keeping the squeeze off of the rest of us.

Of course, that 185 days also assumes that you aren't putting any armor, tactical fields, or new specials on your turrets or buildings, and that you aren't building those Executioners, Gargoyles, or any other new turret weapons you've won.

I put the Weapons Lab 11 in its own group, since there are some new weapons available to be researched in that lab - Howitzer 5, Cerberus 5, and Victory Mortar 5.  The other Lab upgrades have no usefulness (yet).

Outpost 6 allows 2 more turrets, 5 more land squares, 30 more walls, and 2 more of each resource generator.  Enables Dock to 6, and Labs and Resource Generators to 11.

So what is the best use of your time?

Clearly Outpost 6 is the first upgrade, since it enables all the others.  Dock 6 should be done next, as having a bigger guard fleet weight will improve your defense potential just as much as another turret, and bigger fleets will also be very useful for everything else you do.  After those two upgrades, players will have to choose between constructing Tactical Fields, Turret Armor, Turrets, and Weapons.

(Edit: The Dock 11 upgrade increases the dock repair time from 2 hours to 4 hours... so be warned)

Building the two extra turrets to Level 4 quickly is probably a good idea, since they should only take 2 days each for the turret platform.  After that, putting a quick-build weapon on top like a Gargoyle might be best to get going on those turrets.  

Without recommending specific upgrades, I would upgrade such that specific choke points within the base are upgraded (instead of spreading upgrades around).  Group armor and upgraded turrets together in the field of fire of weapons & guards that deal a lot of damage, so attacking fleets are slowed the most at the point where your weapons are most effective.  Adding Fire Support fields that boost multiple turrets on the center island are also a good use of construction time for base defense.

All of these upgrades require uranium, so the already severe uranium demand will just keep going up.  I'm going to put in a pitch here AGAINST making uranium lootable.  I think that lootable uranium will only make the difference between the high end and low end players worse, and I can imagine a lot of players quitting if they get hit repeatedly for their uranium.  This will make them feel "locked-out" of even having a chance to catch up.

Max Fleet Weight (Dock 11):
With Dock 11, the maximum fleet weight increases from 27,548 to 31,756 tons.  This is a weight increase of 4,208 tons.  The maximum ships weights for even fleets is now:

	Dock 11	Dock 10
Max Fleet weight	31,756	27,548
5 Ship Fleet per ship	6,351	5,509
4 Ship Fleet per ship	7,939	6,887
3 Ship Fleet per ship	10,585	9,182

So you have three options to take advantage of the new maximum fleet weight:  Build new fleets, retrofit your old fleets, or add a new ship to 3 / 4 ship fleets.  I'll take a quick look at the third option.  

To take advantage of the 4,208 tons you get, you could build a "baby" version of the ships you are using, or you could add a specialist ship.  The two roles I thought of for specialists are Countermeasure or Tank.

For a Countermeasure Ship, you would like enough weapon slots, speed & turn to nearly match (but generally be a little less than) your main fleet, and one weapon with a longer range than the weapons on your main fleet. The Negotiator Mortar 1 used to be my favorite weapon for that, but with launchers and UAVs, those don't have enough range any more - you really need a UAV now for this.  This means than the Triton is probably the best ship for this, but other hulls that might work would be the Super Fortress or the Floating Fortress A.  Those will take less build time than the Triton.

A Super Fortress example is shown above.  If you wanted to use Anti-mortar instead, Countermeasure Loaders would be the better special (for higher anti-mortar accuracy) instead of Countermeasure Equipment.  Turn and Speed armor could be used to match maneuverability characteristics to the fleet (whatever it is) a little better if desired.  Strike System could be used for more accuracy, but at the cost of turn speed, which will hurt against raid & mission targets if you try to keep your fleet together.

If using a Triton, you have more armor and weapon slots to work with, so you could use more smaller countermeasure weapons (mix Phalanx and Hailstorms), and also take advantage of more Turn & Speed armor.

The link below provides some starting points for build ideas.
http://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!703050U0U0U0U2B1S1B1B1O1B1B1B03O50U0U0U2N1S4N4N4N4N1O4N04100R0R0L0L0L2N1S004M4M4M4M1A1A1O4M1A1A0ZZ0ZZ

For a Decoy ship, the new retrofitted Juggernaut X is a fantastic choice.  I used one of these very successfully in the Frostbite Event.  With this build, you want your speed to be equal to or faster than your main fleet, and you want your weapon to have shorter range.  My initial build used all Impact Cannon R, but I refit to the following & had more success:

The evade of this ship is 83.2% without any retrofits.  The Diplomat 1 is light and gives this ship enough "standoff" to allow you to select the whole fleet and just click on targets.  The Phalanx 2 give some missile resistance along with the missile shootdowns.  This ship is great fun to use and just over 9 days to build.

Retrofit Lab:

The other big change is that many new items (specials and weapons) have been added to the Retrofit Lab, including researchable (non-prize) items.  The Berzeker hull was also added to the Retro Lab.  Its changes are mostly additions to resistance and evade, which are nice but not a huge deal.  The Uranium cost is very high for the Berserker - over 150,000 Uranium is required at R5.

Overall, you should look at retrofitting weapons, specials, and armors that you use a lot.  

For this article, I'll just point out a few new highlights.  In a later article, I'll try to run through all the options for retrofit, and identify some good ones to consider (assuming you use that weapon/armor/special).

Highlights:
Impulse Launchers - increase Accuracy and Fire Rate - each stat will help you get a shockwave more quickly.

Fire Support Cannon Turret (Javelin & Harpoon) - increase Damage - that's what they are there to do.

Maneuverability Systems (Guidance Scrambler, Thrusters, Evade Upgrade) - increase Evade and Turn Speed - I always like more evade.  

Explosive Systems - increase splash, projectile speed, rocket reload - many, many specials are affected.  You're bound to find some you like to use.

Engine Systems - (Engine Upgrade, Speed Upgrade, Unstable Core, Reaver Scout Engine ) - increase speed - notable because the basic Engine Upgrades are now included

UAV Systems (UAV Powercells) - If you use Powercells and want a UAV boost, spend the Uranium here, not on the UAV weapon.

Evade Armor - not new, but now includes D5-E

Lowlights:

UAVs - increase Swarm Duration - unless the increase in swarm duration crosses the threshold to allow another shot from the drone, this increase is of zero benefit.

Countermeasure Turret - increase Range - this isn't terrible, but be careful.  Although the picture looks like a Coaxial, the Coax Turret is not included in the list.

Plate Armors (all) - just not much of a benefit.


In Closing....  some players are discouraged with all the new items and the uranium cost.  I would just suggest you play at your own rate, prioritize what's important, and don't worry about the players that are coining it all.  Thank them for supporting the game so you don't have to, and remember that no one can hit you so hard that your repair button breaks. 

Interceptor Builds

The Interceptor hull is the latest hull released in the game.  In my raid preview article, I compared this hull to the MCX, Kodiak, and the Viper, and thought it looked very good.

Two analogies I came up with are:
- It is the love-child of the MCX and the Viper
- It is the new Mercury

The second one is actually a pretty good analogy.  For those of you who were around when the Mercury first came out, it had similar characteristics.... similar slots and better speed when compared to the top hulls, sonar, and some underwater weaponry.  High end players looked at this as a sub hunter or FvF hull only, and mid-level to lower players built base fleets with them.  The Interceptor can do the same things - its improvements over the Mercury put it at the same relative strength compared to other hulls commonly used.

In this article, I'm going to look at some different builds for its possible roles.

Sub Hunter
I'm going to start with this one, because much of the talk has centered around this role.  The first step here is to look at the requirements.  Because the Thermal Detection range is 68 on the Interceptor, and the Assault Torpedo B range is 78, there are two options to winning a battle with Nighthawks - outrun them (submerged), or withstand a full dose of torpedos.  Nighthawks will likely have a core loadout of 7 Assault B Torpedos, Magnus Drive, and Battery 3.  This results in a submerged combat speed of 35.5 (with no retrofits).

(Core build, I'm not suggesting the other slots would be empty)

So to start with, let's see how we can get the Interceptor to a combat speed of 36...

Strike System 3, 2 Engine upgrades, 4 V armors, and 4 B torpedos get the Interceptor to 36 exactly.  This is a bare minimum - you won't be closing with the Nighthawks quickly, but at least you'll be keeping pace.  You could use Engine to get an extra 20% speed, and leave off one of the Engine Upgrades, but then you would still need a SFB special, so you really aren't any better off.  Magnus might help if retrofit.

(Core build, I'm not suggesting the other slots would be empty)

To finish off the weapons, I added 4xTorrent 2 missiles, and set the armor to be 3xD4V and 1x D3V.  The 4 torrents will do enough damage to kill a sub in 1 volley, so tapping "0" to get each Interceptor to target a different sub should be enough to kill the fleet once they are seen.

I also considered Assault Missile Z, which has enough range (74) to target at the edge of Thermal Imaging range without a special, but they don't have the damage potential of the Torrents.

The question is - will the Interceptor live long enough to get in range?

With 4 Nighthawks, each loaded with 7 Assault Torpedo B, with a Rank bonus of 50% and full alliance Gunner bonus, the DPS from 28 torpedos against the Interceptor build (52% evade, 40% concussive resist) is 838.25 damage per second - with a dive time of 66.7 seconds with battery 3, that results in the fleet doing 55,911 damage if in range for the full submerge time.  The interceptor fleet has 11454 armor per ship, so 57,270 total armor for the fleet.  So.... the fleet is nearly sunk in one submerge cycle (if the sub driver gets in range right away, and he targets efficiently, ...).  There's lot of variables here... a Phantom as flag obviously pumps up the fleet DPS, rank and torpedo retrofit can also come into play, lower level Alliance Bonuses, and of course, the subs won't be in firing range for their entire submerge cycle.

Another option would be to pump up the evade, and try to catch the Nighthawks only when surfaced.  I tried it with 2xD5E, 2xD3E, and Evade upgrades instead of the Speed upgrades. The fleet DPS gets cut in half - down to 419.13, and the amror per ships is at 11954, so now the total dive time damage is 27956 compared to 59770 armor.  Better, but with an Interceptor combat speed of 27 and a Nighthawk surfaced speed of 23.7 (at least), the Interceptors might not be able to catch a careful Nighthawk fleet even when surfaced.

Overall, the result is that any Interceptor sub hunter fleet is in for a tough time against a well-driven and/or well built Nighthawk fleet.  This doesn't mean an Interceptor will lose every time, but they are in for a tough fight.

Builds are in the following link:

http://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!70LI0000000001D2O4H4H4H4H4H4H4H0LI00L0L0L1A1D2O4H4H4H4H4H4H4H0M600L0L0L0L1V5R005R4H4H4H4H000000000M600N0N0M0N1V5R0C5R4H4H4H4HA9A9A9A90M600V1R0V1R1V5P0C5P4H4H4H4HA9A9A9A9

Baser / FvF
I looked at loadouts using Assault Missile Z, Achilles Missile B, and Impulse Launcher F.  The number of weapons was chosen to keep the total fleet weapon weight 15,000-15,500 tons.  I used Strike System on each build - on the Missile build for the range, and on the Launcher build to minimize accuracy loss.

I put the three weapon configurations into my DPS calculator, including the alliance gunner bonus, and targeting a hull with around 60% penetrative resist and 30% radioactive resist.  The defense % number used for the Assault Z tries to account for the combined damage, and the number used for the Achilles accounts for the armor bypass.  The the building damage numbers below use zero resist and 100% accuracy.  I estimated a rank bonus of 50%.  Using a higher rank would make the missiles look relatively better, as recent understanding makes it look like the rank bonus is computed separately from (and so compounds onto) hull bonuses (this likely explains the S launcher vs. F launcher behavior on Enforcers).  However, not everyone puts in the time to get fleets up to legendary rank.

Weapon	Assault D53-Z	Achilles D55-B	Impulse D92-F
Fleet Damage	305	500	648
Building Damage	420	1000	972
Salvo (shots)	2	1	9
Salvo Delay (sec)	0.1	0.1	0.1
Weapon Blueprint Reload (sec)	4	8	2.5
Weapon Accuracy (%)	75%	60%	70%
Overload Damage	0	0	7864
Hits to Overload	120	15	120
Overload Time (sec)	10	10	10
Weapon Weight (tons)	600	850	970
Special Weight (+%)	0%	0%	0%
Attacker
Number of Weapons	25	18	16
Hull+Special+Alli Reload Bonus (%)	100%	100%	10%
Rank Reload Bonus (%)	50%	50%	50%
Accuracy Bonus (%)	20%	20%	20%
Defender
Evade (%)	50%	50%	50%
Defense (%)	50%	30%	30%
DPS Calculations	Ass-Z	Ach-B	D92-F
Total Fleet DPS	1,197.0	850.5	2,515.0
Total Fleet DPS/hton	8.0	5.6	16.2
Total Building DPS	7,325.6	6,750.0	10,793.6
Total Building DPS/hton	48.8	39.4	69.6

The D92-F does the most DPS against buildings and fleets, the Assault Missile Z is in the middle, and the Achilles comes in last.  These DPS numbers do not account for splash from the shockwaves.

With the fourth special available on these ships, use of the Gauss Supercharger is possible for the launchers, but the Enhanced Warhead would also be available for Missiles.  With those changes (and dropping a few weapons for weight), the DPS numbers look like:

DPS Calculations	Ass-Z w EnhW	Ach-B w EnhW	D92-F w Gauss
Total Fleet DPS	1,375.2	1,005.5	2,724.9
Total Fleet DPS/hton	8.9	6.6	17.6
Total Building DPS	8,566.4	7,980.0	11,227.7
Total Building DPS/hton	55.4	52.4	72.5

This use of special doesn't change the relative rankings of the weapons, or the conclusion that the launchers are much more destructive than the long range missile options.  The Armor Bypass ability of the Achilles isn't enough to overcome its lower inherent DPS.  Note I'm comparing against "long range missiles." Torrents do have a DPS that is competitive with launchers, but their range is much shorter.  

Another disadvantage of building a missile fleet is that it will take MUCH longer to build than the launcher fleet.  

• 16 D92-F launchers: 17d 12h 22m
• 25 Assault D53-Z: 37d 1h 26m
• 18 Achilles D55-B: 25d 15h 42m

If build time is supposed to reflect relative "power" of weapons, the slight extra range & retargeting potential of the missiles don't make up for the vastly lower DPS and lack of shockwave.  I don't understand why the build time for the missiles should be so long.

If you really want to use missiles, you could use SFB3 instead of Strike System, and with the Assault Missile Z, you would get 96 range, as opposed to 91 for the launchers.  This is an advantage, but you are reducing your antifleet capability by a factor of two.  Even if you are up against a slower Launcher fleet, it would be difficult (although perhaps possible) to exploit that small range difference to avoid damage.

So the weapon of choice for an Interceptor used as a Base and as a FvF fleet would be the same - Launchers.  The FvF build might emphasize speed, and the Baser build might emphasize resistance, but they wouldn't be very different overall.  When people were first putting launchers on Stingrays, I saw a few bases get destroyed by those fleets.  I could imagine Interceptor FvF builds having similar success against bases that aren't top-end.

A high evade baser build (needs Dock 11) is below:

http://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!70M600U1R0V1R1V5H0C6500190000004R4R4R0M600U1R0V1R1V5H0C6500190000004R4R4R0M600U1R0V1R1V5H0C6500190000004R4R4R0M600U1R0V1R1V5H0C6500190000004R4R4R0M600U1R0V1R1V5H0C6500000000004R4R4R

You may want to add some radioactive armor instead of the evade.  I dropped in a few Phalanx 1...  Impact Cannon or Vortex T might also be ways to use up the fleet weight.

So then the next question on my mind is: Should I bother building the launcher Interceptors?  Or if I'm going Launchers, why not build a Greta NC fleet... targeted at dock 11 weight?

This isn't really a "numbers" decision, it's a capability decision. The Interceptors have the speed and the extra special, but Greta's NC has the reload and the cryo overload.  I'm not sure what my answer will be.  It really depends on each player's current fleets.  I have a NC fleet that I'm pretty happy with, but it will be light once the dock gets to 11.  I still don't have a fast (over speed 21) surface fleet, so building the Interceptors would fill a hole in my capability.


Next Time - I'll try to make sense of the latest update.  It includes Outpost 6, Dock 11, Weapons Lab 11, and Retrofit lab items including Berserker, Base turrets, and Specials. I just took a quick look and my head is spinning.

Frostbite - Tips after a day

To start, I have a new poll.  There has been some discussion on the "goodness" of using leaked data from the preview server.  When invited to the server, I have not leaked any data myself, but I have utilized the info that others have leaked to publish raid preview articles before Kixeye releases the official info.  I have always gone back & checked my info after the official info is released.  Since I'm not beholden to Kixeye - I'm beholden to my readers... I would like you (my readers) to vote on whether I should continue using leaked data to publish early info, or wait for the official preview.  If you have any other thoughts, please leave a comment below.

There's a few tips & tricks available on Frostbite if you look, and I don't have too much original here, but I'll summarize.  

For Lower Level Players (below 50):

To start with, the world map fleets are not for you - they are too hard.  This is a big change from the previous raid... where the fleets were the only targets you could hit.  But, I have found that the Frostbite Recon campaign is fairly easy to beat with the Strike Missile N BB-A fleet that I described in a previous Battle Pirates for Noobs article.  I ended up adding Laser Targeting 1 instead of Solid Fuel Booster.  It was built to be instant repair for raids, and so I can hit the campaign target, repair each ship at my dock, and go back out for the next one very quickly.

The campaign targets break down as follows:
Mission 1: 3 Light Cruisers

Mission 2: 3 Light Cruisers, 1 Turret

Mission 3: 3 Light Cruisers, 2 Turrets

Mission 4: 3 Light Cruisers, 2 Missile Cruisers

Mission 5: 4 Turrets, 2 Missile Cruisers (and buildings)

Completing this campaign is worth about 113,000 points, and takes about 30 minutes with the fleet I used.  I also tried a Ballistic (Impact/Ripper) BB-A fleet, and a Cutlass BC fleet.  The Ballistic didn't do as well because it has shorter range and the turrets have walls protecting them (this fleet does fine against Missions 1 & 4).  The Cutlass fleet didn't do as well because the Coax turrets defended fairly well against the lower Cutlass fire rate, and lower building damage.

With the ease of getting through that campaign, I have revised my prize targets for this raid.  In my previous article, I suggested that low level players focus on the normal campaigns for better prizes.  But I think the following prizes are worth picking up, given the ease of getting points:

Tier 3:  Assault Torpedo V (500k points)
Tier 2: Strike System 2 (200k points), Stealth Attack System 2 (175k points)
Tier 1: Vortex Torpedo T (30k points)


I plan to use the Strike System 2 as an upgrade on my BB-A fleet, and the Assault V with Stealth System 2 might be nice on Stalker subs.

If 905k points is too much, Strike System 2 should be your first priority, and if you can't get the points for Assault Torpedo V, get Assault Torpedo X instead (don't get SAS 2) (I prefer the extra damage over 3 range).

If you really want to put in the seat time, the sky is the limit, and you could go for some of the higher level prizes like Strike System 3, Assault Torpedo B, or even the Interceptor hull.

The other thing I was able to do was beat the first run of the Death Grip campaign.  It took much of the 12 hours, but I now have Maulers to build.

For Higher Level Players (above 50):

I ran through the Forsaken Siege campaign once using my Harlock Carriers.  I got just over 4 million points for 38 coins repair... which is OK, but not great.  I was hoping the UAVs would be very effective against the ships, but the tradeoff is that they take a while to kill the turrets, and the Executioners are very damaging (even while dragonfly debuffed).  Nuke Cruisers will likely do better, since they will kill the turrets faster.

One tip is to kill just a part of the Forsaken Assault campaign base.  There are a few videos out there if you look, but I'll diagram it - this is from the lower right area of the Assault base.  In the picture below, you want to kill "Cluster 1" and avoid "Cluster 2".

Cluster 1 is worth 438,899 points, and I killed it with my Nuke Cruisers with just under 50 minutes of damage.  For me, this is about double the point/coin ratio as doing the Siege campaign.  I could also do that a few times and repair offline (for no coins at all).

Cluster 2 is worth 246,400 points, and I took 40 minutes of damage, so the point/coin wasn't as good (but not terrible if you want to go quicker).

It is possible in Assault to tease out and kill some Nighthawks with almost no damage.  Sit at the "Safe Spot" and activate the Nighthawks with a decoy sub (send it around the top .  Zombie repair the sub and repeat.  This got me 76,122 points, but it took a while - my R5 Battlecruiser with Sonar 3 couldn't see the Nighthawks from the safe spot, so my ships (Torrent MCX) would only fire when the Nighthawks surfaced.  If you plan to hit the whole Assault target, this might be a worthwhile prep if your hitter fleet doesn't have good anti-sub capability.

Some people are having success against the various fleet targets...  They also pay a LOT of resources if you are interested in that. 
25: 2 Interceptors, 3 Nuke Cruisers, 1 Kodiak:  34,254 points
Harlock Atlas: 7 minute repair.

41: 5 Interceptors, 1 Proto-nemesis, 3 Interceptors: 96,977 points
Harlock Atlas: 50 minutes repair

43: 6 Nuke Cruisers, 5 Kodiaks: 150,787 points
Harlock Atlas: 13 minutes repair

45: 5 Interceptors, 4 Kodiaks, 3 Nuke Cruisers: 182,310 points
Harlock Atlas: 23 minutes repair

47: 5 Interceptors, 4 Kodiaks, 3 Nuke Cruisers, 1 Proto-nemesis: 301,906 points
Harlock Atlas: 2h 42 min repair.  (they all swarm right away and cornered me.  Trying to take notes wasn't helping)

The fleets with the Proto are certainly tougher - the Proto itself doesn't seem that tough, but end up doing a lot of damage.  Overall, I find these fleets not worth the damage, but other fleets might do better.  Phalanx coverage would help reduce damage.  A good sub driver might be able to find some exploits - remember the Thermal range of the Interceptors is only 68.

On the prizes - the Executioner seems fairly deadly in these bases, maybe more so than Javs despite my analysis (putting it similar).  Get it if you can.

Good Luck!

Frostbite - Raid Format and What to Get

With the official Frostbite information being published, I'll make a few more comments on raid format, and then look over the prize list and make some recommendations:

The raid post (with video) is at:  https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/495162

The raid targets consist of:

• Seek and Destroy:  Similar to last time, there will be fleets to hit on the world map, but they go up to higher point values.  The Snowblind targets went from 2,000 to 20,000 points, but the targets in this raid will be worth up to 225,000 points.
• Frostbite Recon: players level 1 - 49 have this campaign available, with a series of Arctic Bases to hit.  The Bonus for this campaign is 60,000 points
• Frostbite Siege: players level 50 and up have this campaign available, with a series of Arctic Bases to hit.  The Bonus for this campaign is 2 Million points
• Frostbite Assault: one large Arctic Stronghold to hit, worth up to 6 million points.  Expect Nighthawks.

Two player-friendly changes have been made:  

• The time limit for the campaigns will be the duration of the event, which will help mid-levels and non-coiners who might want to do the campaign slowly and repair between fights.
• Co-op is possible, so players can help each other.  However, the full bonus goes to the player who started the campaign.  Also, there will still be a divide between players 50+ and lower level players.  It seems like players at or above level 50 will not be able to help a player level 49 or below with the Frostbite Recon campaign.  Update - a mod has said that once a player starts a campaign, any player (even above level 50) can help.  However, Level 50 players who have a "Sugar Daddy" could start the Siege campaign, sit in with a gunboat, and have the Sugar Daddy complete the campaign to give 2 million points to their special friend.

Prizes

I did an analysis of the prizes in my earlier post:  http://bpprof.blogspot.com/2014/09/frostbite-leaked-prize-analysis.html

I'll make some recommendations on each tier:

Tier 5: 

Limited (1) Deadeye Executioner (20 Million): This is a fairly unique turret, with retargeting and extremely long range.  One of these won't make your base impenetrable, but it will be nice to have.

Executioner (12.5 Million): Another base turret option, in the same damage class as the Javelin. Having a mix of Javelins and Executioners will force base fleets to not be loaded up on any particular damage resistance.

Tier 4:

Interceptor Hull (5.5 Million): The only hull available this raid, This hull is a must-get, especially if you don't have the Viper. 

Impulse Launcher D92-U (4.5 Million): This launcher doesn't have quite as good DPS as the F launcher, but is well tuned for PvE targets.  S launcher (available from Forsaken Mission Tier 4) may also be better when very highly ranked.  The U launcher is also available in the Fractured Empires Campaign pack 2 - Look for a guide on the forums for how to do that campaign with subs or lower level ships.

Achilles Missile D55-B (5.5 Million) / Siege Missile D55-F:  These missile aren't world beaters compared to launchers or UAVs.  If looking to arm a missile-optimized hull, the Assault Missile D53-Z available from Forsaken Mission Tier 4 might be the best long-range option, or the Torrent 3 would be better if long range isn't needed.

Siege Torpedoes D65-Z (6 Million): Although their extra damage, extra speed, and shorter minimum range is nice compared to Assault Torpedos, most players prefer the Assault Torpedo B for the extra range.

Armor D4-T, M, P (5 Million): These (Turn Speed, Missile Resist, Sonar Range) are not really the best use of your points, especially if any other D4 armors are in your lab (E for Evade, and V for Speed would be my first two choices).

Tier 3:

Siege Torpedo C, S, D, Assault Torpedo V:  Unless you really need a Draconian torpedo for a Spectre or other high-end sub, skip these, since you'll want to refit with the Siege Z or Assault B once you get it.  I like the Siege C better than the other two Siege Torpedos if you are determined to take one.

Strike System 3: Great for Missile hulls (Interceptor!) or even Nuclear Cruisers, this one sometimes comes up in the Forsaken Mission.  If you get the Interceptor, you want this special as well, so pick it up if you don't have it.

Torrent 3:  Also a good fit for the new missile hulls, this one is also available in the Forsaken Mission.  Like Strike 3, it is worth getting if you have a build in mind. 

Stealth Attack System 3:  Previously used only rarely on subs, this special (Submerge time + Concussive damage) may come in handy in combination with Magnus Drive. 

Armor D3-M, P: Like the D4 armors, these (Missile Resist, Sonar Range) are not really the best use of your points, especially if any other D3 armors are in your lab (E for Evade, and V for Speed are still my first two choices).

Tier 2: This whole tier is like Tier 3, but a step down. 

Assault Torpedo X, R: Don't take these to refit over Havoks, but you might want the Assault X for new sub builds if you don't have access to anything better.

Strike System 2: Also available in campaign Hunt the Nemesis Pack 2 - see if you might be able to go that route instead.

Stealth Attack System 2:  Not your first choice, but might be cool on a Stalker.

Armor D2-M, P: Like the D4 & D3 armors, these (Missile Resist, Sonar Range) are not really the best use of your points, especially if any other D2 armors are in your lab (E for Evade, and V for Speed are still my first two choices).

Tier 1: This whole tier is like Tier 2, but another step down. 

Vortex Torpedo T, M: I like the Vortex T for decoy Spectres.  Otherwise skip these. predators with Vortex torpedos won't up your game.

Strike System 1: Also available in campaign Hunt the Nemesis Pack 1 - but if you can do that campaign, you probably aren't messing around with Tier 1 specials.

Stealth Attack System 1:  Not your first choice, but might be OK on a Stalker.

Armor D1-M, C: D1 armor choices are limited to M, C, and X.  But these are all available from Tier 1 salvage blueprint drops.  Don't spend points on these.

Overall, I like the new prizes but am not too excited about what they made available from the back catalog (sort of the opposite of last raid).  

Although this raid looks to be more player friendly, I think players who are limited to the first three tiers of prizes don't have very good prize options, which is too bad, especially since the influx of players through Armor Games will be going through their first raid.

For High levels, my recommended priority is: 

1. Interceptor
2. Executioner
3. Deadeye Executioner

For Mid levels, my recommended priority is:

1. Interceptor Hull (if you can)
2. Strike System 3
3. Impulse Launcher D92-U
4. Torrent 3

For Low levels, my recommended priority is:

1. Do campaigns.  Death Grip Prize Pack 1 gives 3 great prizes: Mauler Hull, Hailstorm A, and Shockwave D71-L (and Alloy MX-1).  Win the Prize Pack, then put all those things together in a fleet. 

(I've updated this - see my next article:  http://bpprof.blogspot.com/2014/09/frostbite-tips-after-day.html)

One more note... I am noticing lots of torpedos and sub specials in the prize list this time... what is Kixeye up to?