Quick tips on Homeland

I'm basically not writing scheduled articles anymore... sorry.  But I've got a few quick tips on the Homeland campaign that I can't pass up on sharing.

Overall my plan is to use my FM fleet for missions 1 - 4 & 6. I use a conqueror fleet for Missions 5 & 7 (obviously).

My FM fleet has been bolstered by the 12 days worth of Punisher build tokens.  I used those to convert 2 Punishers from Draconian Uranium Base focused Arbalest ships to more tanky ships I can use in the FM.  With just one well built Punisher tank I could just about do a full round of the FM without stopping to repair.  Two 6 day refits left me with 2 more Punisher tanks that aren't as good as the original but are still decent.  I burn through those weaker two tanks on the first four missions and then save my good tank for #6.

A Long Pinch XL doesn't hurt on some of those islands either.  I don't use rockets that often these days... but why not?

Bullseye Brigade can also help a lot, but I hesitate to recommend rare or legendary crews as the key for anything, since many players can't count on having a specific one of those.

For mission #6, the Dreadnaught X can really lay down a lot of mortars and really tear you up.  On my first runthrough it totally overwhelmed and destroyed my Countermeasure tank.  The trick I used the next time....  I ran to the Southwest as I was engaging the other ships, and I was able to retreat before that DNX did any damage.  Then I came in with Hellwraiths.  Although that ship has thermal, my Hells were able to outrun the shells no problem and sink that bastard (it doesn't have much health). 

For the bases, on #5 I used a Spite to spot for Vendettas.  After clearing the front turrets and the ship, I ran the Vendettas in behind - far enough back that they were not running into the fire pools.  As the Spite got in range of the dock, the Vendetta let off a might blast of mortars ad killed much of the center turrets.  My Spite took some damage on this.. but not too bad.

On base #7... Metatech or whomever that is made a big noob mistake in their base layout:

Yes, prep that right side.  After that you can prep those front four turrets as well without coming under too much fire.  Take your time because they have lots of health.

Since I have a Pride built with its specials and a couple Ruin Scatterguns, I was able to blast through this base with nothing more than instant repair on any of my ships... after I went around that first bend I took it slow with the Pride to hit each turret as I went, then brought up the Vendettas again to finish it off.  Without the Pride you'll be somewhat worse off, but look for something that can resist those Maxim guns.

I hope that helps you out with the Homeland campaign - you've got less than 2 days left to take some more shots at it.  If you miss out on the Liberator... well I think there will be more Tier 6 Conquerors coming, so you won't be left out forever.

Dark Reign and New Flagships

The new Dark Reign Time Limited Campaign (TLC) is here.  It brings lots of limited goodies - Gale Anti-Mortars, the Omega Behemoth, and 2 new flagship hulls.

There really isn't much to say about the campaign targets that hasn't been said.  They are basically targets from the raid, so Apollos & Rhinos are still your best options for fighting it.  I've gone through the first three runs so far with my current raid fleet: the Savage Kodiak, Apollo tank, and three R4 Rhinos.  I've had mixed results with the Savage, but since I got it to legendary on the last VXP weekend, it matches speed & turn with my Rhinos and so it has been much easier to keep it out of trouble.

I know some players like to rush through these sort of things, but I see no reason to coin repairs if I don't have to.  I've been slow repairing my fleet after each run - my third run was about 6 hours to repair.  With my fleet setup, my repairs are basically dependent on how well I drive to keep my non-Apollos out of trouble.  Some of the targets are setup to get ships coming in from different directions and so get some damage through to my rear ships.

If I have to coin some repair on my Apollo to complete the last two campaigns, I guess it won't be so bad - I feel like these ships can be acquired more cheaply than they would have been if they were limited prizes in a raid.

Let's get to reviews of the prizes ...

Gale Anti-Mortars:
Most players are pretty familiar with these by now, but if you are not, these limited anti-mortars are significantly more effective than the Hailstorms.  Yes, you want them.  If you are a beginner player and missed out on these, you will really want to try to work through the first couple campaigns to get a few of these.  If they are the only ones you have, concentrating them on a ship built for countermeasures would probably be your best option. 

For higher level players, these are really more of an annoyance, since when you have all of the prizes in a campaign's prize pack, you can skip it and start at higher levels. In this case, the limited prizes mean that all players have to do every level of the campaign.

Omega Behemoth (flagship):
Again, most players should be familiar with this hull.  When it was released, it was a great option for base defense, with its powerful ballistic capability against ships and good thermal detection for sub spotting.  These days it is mostly used as an empty shell, providing its aura effect to enhance ballistic fleets when hitting Forsaken Mission, Mine, or Draconian Base targets.  

This flagship hull has a 6 day bare hull build time.  (remember this in a couple paragraphs)

Harlock's Citadel (flagship):



This enhanced version of the Citadel is described as a frontline spotter.  I don't like the Citadel in general as a spotter - its defenses are too specialized (Explosive & Penetrating only) and its assault deflection isn't very good compared to the Punisher.  Its 50% defense handicap means that trying to add defenses isn't too effective.  But with its limited range aura effect, it would be great in a group of other Citadels when using another ship as spotter.  Also note that it does not have any sort of enhanced repair time over a regular Citadel.

+200% Explosive Damage and +200% Projectile Speed results in triple damage and a projectile that lands three times as fast as it otherwise would.  In fact, with that much speed bonus, adding a combustion system-type special isn't really helping your speed much, since the actual landing time difference between a projectile at +200% and +240% speed isn't that large.  But you would still like the large splash bonus... so don't go pulling those ES4 & CS2 specials.

The limitations of the aura are its 100 range and its effect on Citadels only.

The most puzzling trait of this ship is its build time - about 15 days (no bonuses) just for the bare hull.  By comparison, build times on other high-end (at the time) limited flagships like the Grimshine's Berserker are 13 days 22 hours, and the Harlock's Aegis is 12 days 3 hours.  I would argue that those hulls were more 'dominant' at the time of their release than the Harlock's Citadel is in today's game.

I'm not going to try to make a build for this hull now - I would want to specialize it too much.  My one piece of advice would be to use Combustion System 2 over Explosive System 4.  CS 2 has higher splash and adds to the spread instead of subtracts from it.  When doing the aura-boosted amount of damage, I think doing it over the maximum possible area is the best idea.  My previously built Citadels use Explosive System 4 because I wanted to maximize their projectile speed when firing from remote range.

I could see this hull in a couple roles - artillery (enhance offense), FM spotter (use Evade armor), or base defense (remember Vendetta have no Explosive deflection).  For mines, you'd want to try to add radioactive defense and probably field resistance.  Maybe you can spend the coin you saved by doing the campaign over a few days on speeding the build?

Zoe's Apollo:


This version of the Apollo is designed to run with other Apollos - it has a shorter (40) range aura that affects Apollos only, giving them better defenses & Penetrative Reload.  The aura isn't a whole lot better than the (unlimited range) Savage Kodak, but it also gives Corrosive Defense.   

This version of the Apollo has +1 multi-shot, which will make the Switchblade more effective in antimissile mode.  It also has a slightly higher Anti-Missile Accuracy bonus (+40%) than the regular Apollo (+35%).  On the negative side, this hull also has the same +50% Defense Handicap as Harlock's Citadel (to offset better built-in defenses).

It gives better repair (in a way) by maintaining the same hull repair time (1h 30 min) as the Apollo with more armor points (15,000 instead of 12,000).

Unfortunately, like Harlock's Citadel, Zoe's Apollo also has a punishing build time at nearly 17 days (no bonus).  

Really the use and builds of this ship are very simple - build it the same as the Apollos you run it with, and use it for the same tasks.

In closing
These new hulls seem really cool, but I think a lot of players will be turned off by the extremely long build time for non-game changing capability.  By comparison - the other long building flagships I mentioned like the Grimshine's Berserker and the Harlock's Aegis were game-changing when released.  I will be working to win these hulls, but I likely will not build them.  My advice to most players would be to consider very carefully whether you would build these before working (spending coin) to win them.  Remember you're going to need a sub fleet very soon. (My general recommendation there is get some hulls built to start ranking, but wait & see if the component build times drop.)  Overall, hull build times have been going down but these two flagships have really bucked the trend.  Let's hope Kixeye gets back on track with the next batch of hulls we see.

An irregular opinion piece

I haven't written in a while, and there's been a lot going on in the game.  Usually I can get my random opinions out there in the weekly Battle Pirates Crib show, but we kind of flaked out this week (sorry) and I'll just put this stuff out here.

The Anti Hack update:
The big anti-hack update is a mess.  I hope it works and I hear it is (mostly) working so far.  But everything else that was messed up from this update is pretty poor.  Now I know that a fundamental architecture change (which this change was) is difficult, but the level of chaos in-game following the update is just not good.  If fixing the integrity of the game were not so critical for it being viable in the long run, I'd be a lot more upset.  But I guess I'll take the couple weeks of chaos, as long as this change works.

I've seen a few posts here and there suggesting that "the hackers only exist because Kixeye is so greedy."  I think that is a real load of garbage - Kixeye has created this game, and they are allowed to charge what they want for it.  You're certainly allowed to think that they charge too much, but the fact is that nobody ever makes you pay.  You can always choose to walk away today, spend nothing, and play tomorrow.  Some people disagree with Kixeye's management of this game, but if you buy a hack, then you're paying a thief and there's no question on that.

The Double Dragon campaign:
On the prizes - each of the turrets is absolutely worth getting.  For the anti-rocketeer turret, going from 50% to 75% accuracy means that an incoming rocket is half as likely to get through, so I think it's totally worth it.  Defending a ship or turret against two incoming Daisy Cutters or Bunker Busters is much easier than against four or eight.  Or with a 75% chance to shoot down a Pinch, pinching that key turret mid-hit and continuing on your way is a much riskier proposition.  Although Kixeye is letting players run the mastery round twice, I think one of these turrets should be enough for most bases.

For the campaign itself, my biggest complaint is that the best way to win seems like to be using subs.  That isn't really feasible for ACTUAL base defense.  My next biggest complaint is the HUGE range on the carriers for encounter 3 - that also requires a non-realistic base defense to beat.  I had to move my Outpost far away from the center island turrets in order for it to survive (long enough for my subs to sink the attackers). 

The thing I like about the campaign is that I have all week to beat it.  I beat encounter 5 this morning, so I'm slowly working my way through without spending much at all (just a few coins here & there to fix my dock so I can start fleet repair before going to bed).  Yes, like most other successful players I'm using subs.  My fleet has four Tiger subs with Styx torps & a Phantom Tiger with Cobras.  I also suggest that if you want more intel, find one of the You Tube videos showing the campaign so you know what's coming each wave.

More on the turret update:
Kixeye should have implemented the turret update later - the week of the raid or even the week after, and given us a little advance notice (so that we still knew the importance of winning this upcoming hull).  Game's been a bit boring last couple weeks, right?

I thought about doing a DPS roundup post-change, but it doesn't mean much until we know more about the PvP hull stats, so stay tuned.

Raid this week:
The Hull raid is coming up this week, and I'll say it again, the most important thing to go after is the new Revenge hull so that you can get into (or back into) the base-hitting game.  I expect it to have at least 1000 siege deflection, and possibly more (2000+?).  The interesting thing I'm waiting to see is how that hull is tailored to stand up to the new turret statistics, while also standing up to guard fleets, but not being overpowered in the PvE game.

Early info post:  https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/625227

Kixeye calls it Tips & Tricks, but the only tips relate to the new Man-O-War target.  Some of that early info coming out about the Zoe's new "super hull" is kind of interesting, but making that target only pay out Uranium seems sort of weak - players would be much more likely to hit it for shards, event points, or other blueprints.  I guess Kixeye hasn't said it won't pay out shards or prints - we will see.

I'll be posting next when we get some more specific raid & prize info - I expect that to be available with Tuesday's update (as usual).

Dragon Strike Campaign and prizes

The Dragon Strike campaign was released last week, and I haven't gotten around to reviewing it or the prizes until now.  This article took a while because I wanted to play through the campaign a couple times. The short story is that the prizes aren't super great, so I didn't feel the rush.  I thought the higher priority was to take a close look at the Cadmium armor... which I did.

This campaign is structured like other campaign sets, unlocking at level 55 and having three difficulty levels with increasing encounters and decreasing time at each level. The main differences from other campaigns are: 

• The time allowed for each campaign is longer than other campaigns - 24 hours for Pack 1, 18 hour for Pack 2, and 12 hour for Mastery.
• The third level (mastery) is a limited time campaign. It will be available until November 10th (Tuesday before the next raid).

Of course, the other big difference between the Dragon Strike and other campaigns is that some of the encounters (3, 5, & 7) are attacks on your base.

I have some tips for these campaign encounters:

Encounters 1 & 2 (FvF):

• These aren't easy targets, so make sure you have a good FvF fleet to use that won't utilize the ships you depend on for base defense.
• Scourge Torpedo subs can beat these pretty handily.  Even without those, I used my Spectres with Assault Torpedo B to prep all of the ships except the ones with thermal.  Just be smart about your flagship - make it dead, Phantom, or expendable because they will chase it (on encounter 1).

Encounter 4 (Drac Platform with guard ships):

• Not a simple target either, but if you break it apart into sections (instead of just charging in) you can do it more easily.
• Subs can also prep some ships in here, but you probably want to be careful about trying for the ones on the interior.

Encounter 6 (Drac "Base" with guard ships):

• The initial entry has cryo mines, you can rim those and try to get some retargeting onto their turrets.
• After opening the gates & clearing mines, the base might be sub preppable (Tiger Sharks & Banshees).  Tiger Sharks with their sonar can probably clear the mines themselves.
• Watch out for the Ballista in this base - keep moving to make it useless.
• Pinch something - either an Enforcer or the center turrets.

Encounters 3, 5, & 7 (Base Defense):

• If you don't want to coin base repairs, plan your time so that you can wait the time between base repairs but still complete the campaign in time.  Leaving 8 hours for base repair (this allows turrets to be fixed), you can do the first two packs over that 8 hour period and you are allotted 18 - 24.  Hit #3 at the start, then #5 eight hours later.  If attempting the Mastery level with three base hits, you won't be able to let your turrets totally repair between each hit - you'll need to work with damaged turrets or do some coining.  I would suggest running the first two hits closer together, then making sure you are fully repaired for the final one.
• After a successful base defense, you will get a 12 hour bubble.  Starting the base defense encounter will not pop an existing bubble.
• Don't be afraid to drive your fleets.  Greta Spader won't send you any condescending messages.
• Don't worry about sub defense in your guard fleet.  If you have a ship optimized for sub spotting, consider swapping it out for something with more punch.
• Use an Aegis if you have it.  It can be tricky to use an Aegis in offline base defense, but when you can drive it to a spot, it is much easier to use.
• The incoming ships were heavily distracted by firing at non-defensive buildings like resource generators and labs.
• They also seemed to prioritize targeting guard ships over turrets, so a ship would often drive into pyroclasts or other short-range turrets to fire at guards.
• Use a crew - Sea Serpents is very useful since the extra evade works against the missiles and launchers that the attackers are firing.
• Keep your dock away from your entrance side of your base - the attackers seem to fire a few missiles with very long range when they warp into your base, and those few missiles really love docks somehow.
• The Proto-Nemesis in #7 is most vulnerable to subs.

Just to diagram a few of these principles for you, I'll show my interior base layout:

(I actually recorded a video, but the file got corrupted.  Sorry!)

The Aegis isn't usually part of my guard fleet, but I have room for it since the Dock 12 upgrade (haven't messed with my guard yet).  I also use a Mastodon & Omega Behemoth instead of the Rhinos.  The Mastodon is a little more optimized for base defense with its longer range, but my Rhinos have more punch and I can drive the Rhinos to the spot I need them.  l also don't need the Omega since I don't need its sub spotting.  Again, the Rhino has more firepower.  When the battle starts, I drive the Aegis into a position to cover the Enforcer, and the Rhinos behind that to cover the Enforcer's fire circle.  If the Enforcer dies, I would drive the Aegis to cover the Harlock Carrier, and reposition the Rhinos to stay out of trouble.

One more update - at Mastery level, I used the layout above, but I swapped that carrier for a Grim Wrath (to get even more reload on my Rhinos), and used Steelheads crew.  The Proto went down without even killing my Enforcer.

And just as an aside, I'm not too thrilled with this design for OP7... I need to spend some more time laying out a new concept.

For an even more sneaky tactic, check out PriceIsWrong's video of the Elite campaign.  At one point, he shows how guard ships on the outside can be used to make the attackers circle back and forth in your channel.  You may be able to keep them under Apoc Mortar fire with this tactic, or even make them time out if you are skillful and patient enough.

https://youtu.be/Uwgm2ktO5CI?t=10m45s

And now on to the prizes....

Shockwave Plate:

Versions of this armor are available from prize packs 1 & 2.  This armor has a benefit of giving a flat damage reduction (like Plate armor or deflection) against launcher shockwaves (and nothing else).  comparing the damage reduction to the amount of damage from an Antipode shock (24k+), it seems pretty low, so for this to have a good effect even in its intended use, I would think you need to stack up a few of these plates.  With that configuration, you are losing your options for the defense bonuses from Zynthonite armor, which most ships depend on.  

Ignoring the usefulness (or non-usefulness) of the armor's special capability, the Shockwave Plate 2 has a decent build time for a "large" piece of armor, but the Shockwave Plate 1 does not.  The weight per armor point is the same as the other Forsaken Plate armors.

It is tough for me to come up with a ship configuration where this armor would be really useful - most PvE targets do not have enough massed launchers to get shockwaves against decently built player ships.  In base hitting, Enforcers do have a decent chance of getting a shockwave against incoming ships, but I'm not sure that I'd want to build a fleet or even a single tank ship to be so specialized.  

Ballista Turret:

The Ballista is available from Prize Pack 2.  Most of the players who went to build the Dead-Eye Ballista found out that the turret has a big weakness - The D-E Ballista fires at a spot like the Arbalest, so it has real trouble against moving fleets. I am pretty sure this turret does the same, but even so... Information from readers and the forums suggests that the Ballista turret is aimed, unlike the Dead-Eye.  Comparing this turret to the Javelin, we see only a mild DPS increase although it does have much better range.

The key to using this turret is finding a way to make it hit.  For example, placing a Ballista on the center island with my base layout I showed above would be pretty much useless.  Incoming attack fleets are not stopping anywhere for very long.  The only way I could think of to make the Ballista (or the Dead-Eye version) useful would be to layout the base so that it fires straight down a chute at incoming ships, so that they are moving toward the shot.  

Fundamentally, I don't think players that will be able to win this turret are really looking for another turret that has similar DPS to the turrets they already have, yet would require a base redesign to use effectively.

This turret has a nice range upgrade and a mild DPS upgrade from the Javelin.  I suppose it would be preferred to the Jav, but maybe not a priority to build.

Draconian Coaxial Turret:

This limited base defense turret is available at the Mastery Prize pack (1 per campaign with a limit of 5).  This is an improved version of the Coaxial turret we have had available for a while. The major differences are that the countermeasures have longer range and are area effect (like flak), and the gun fires more slowly with a heavier shot.

The DPS of the "gun mode" is improved compared to the previous Coax:

And the 4 shot flak is the only way the countermeasures are even remotely useful in today's game - the incoming volume of missiles from ships like Rhinos will easily overwhelm any sort of single shot countermeasures available to a player.

The problem with the countermeasures is that many players are using Blade Missiles with their 80% flak evade... so the flak mode will still only reduce the incoming volume of fire by 20% at best (unless you can layer a few of these).  It likely won't be enough to make enemies stop for very long.  But the other thing to consider is that the gun mode has a range of 96, so it might be able to get a few shots onto enemies that don't carefully stop at their missile weapon's max range (98.6 with Blade and SFB3 or GMS).  The Pyroclast has the potential to hit harder, but with a range of 90, it is easier for attackers to avoid.  For players that can earn it, I don't think this turret will be the key to stopping missile (or any fleets), but it will possibly be a benefit.  For example, it you look at my base picture up above, I might consider replacing the third Pyroclast in with one of these - it would cover the other two front Pyros and the Enforcer.

So overall, I think that Dragon Strike is a pretty cool concept, but the prizes are pretty meh.  Play it if you want.  Don't if you don't.

New FM Prizes - Cadmium Armor analysis

The Death From Below raid is over, and we have a new Forsaken Mission cycle and a new Campaign to try.  (Sorry guys, Dragon Strike stuff will have to wait for a later article)

Kixeye has changed the Forsaken Mission a bit - it is now easier to do the repeat run through because:

• The three day timer is reset when you reset for the second run
• Points for the second run are now the same as the first

Although I could previously do Elite tier twice coin-free, that meant that I was doing nothing in BP besides the Forsaken Mission for that three day period.  The timer reset allows players a bit more flexibility in their BP activities.  However, this change does not help the players that couldn't reach a particular tier at all.

Another change is that the number of prizes in the first three tiers has gone up quite a bit.  This might help players who are newer and trying to acquire tech, but only if those prizes are good.  I went through each tier and tried to determine how good the prizes were on each tier. For Tiers 1 & 2 I tried to "adjust" my rating based on how useful those prizes were for early players.  I'm sure some of you will disagree with my ratings, but I'm just trying to provide a rough idea.

Forsaken Mission Prize Ratings:








I suppose it really isn't a surprise that I find the higher tier items more useful.  Some things worth pointing out: 

• Why is Radiation Suppressor on both Tier 2 & Tier 3?
• Fusion Chargers are nice, but I like Interception System much better.
• When I made these pictures, I thought that the larger Cadmium armors might have been useful.  I did the analysis below... and I should have made all the Cadmium red.
• Tier 3 has a lot of really useful stuff, particularly the D53-D, Speed System 4, Reflective Coat 3, Pyroclast Turret, and Reaver Bulkhead.  A new player should be trying to get Tier 3 ASAP.
• Tier 2 also has useful stuff for the newer player.  Just about everything that I marked green, except Firebat 2, is a high priority for a new player.

So the real question is - do we like all the extra items in the Forsaken Mission?  I have mixed feelings.  Many key items are in there, and hopefully will stay in there.  But a player's chances of getting the thing they want is lower because of the chaff.  It has been suggested that players be allowed to choose their prize, or be able to pay Uranium/Gold for a re-roll.  With more items in each tier, that suggestion looks better and better.  If charging Uranium for a re-roll, a reasonable pricing (in my opinion) would be to make each re-roll cost the amount of Uranium awarded in that tier.  

So let's look more in depth at the new prizes... you'll see that I already rated the Stealth Attack System 4 and the Gargoyle Depth Charge as Green, and the Cadmium Armor as Red/Yellow:

Stealth Attack System 4:


This special is equal to Concussion Warhead 3 and Nautilus Battery 3 combined into a single special slot.  This is exactly what I was hoping for when this item was teased in the October WIP.  The pleasant surprise on SAS 4 is that the build time for the special is just under 10 hours, where most combo specials can be 1.5 - 2 day builds.  Use of this special on subs is pretty much a benefit in all situations, except for a few considerations:

• The retrofit of SAS is with Concussive Systems, but Nautilus Battery is in Stealth Systems.  If you have already retrofit Stealth Systems but not Concussive, then you will also have to complete the other retrofit in order to match your previous cloaking time.  Concussive is a "moderate" uranium cost for retrofit (4k/12k/24k), compared to Steath (8k/24k/48k).
• The Concussive Damage bonus won't be so helpful if you are using Styx torpedos, since those do most of their damage as Corrosive. Otherwise, even if you are up against your weight limit, it will be worth it to use fewer torpedos to be able to add this special.
• Don't use a Cloak Time special on Ghostcrawlers.
• Strike Warheads does have a higher concussive damage bonus, but much more build time.  You won't be able to combine SAS 4 with Strike Warheads.

Gargoyle Depth Charge 2:

This is an improvement on the original Gargoyle Depth Charge turret, giving more range, more damage, and quicker reload.

This damage chart is a little bit of a spoiler, since I also included the Draconian Coaxial turret prize from Dragon Strike Elite.  The expected damage output from a Gargoyle 2 is twice that of a Gargoyle 1 (or a Pyroclastic Turret).  However, the short range when compared to a Pyroclast means that you probably want to keep those Pyroclasts as the basis of your front line defense, and only use Gargoyles where you want to provide sub defense (and don't forget your spotter).

Cadmium Armor:

Just as an aside, how is Cadmium Armor easier AND quicker to repair?  I understand how it is quicker, but does the repair button grow larger so it is easier to press?

Anyway, this armor was promised as a way to improve our repair times, and the short story on this armor is that armor points that are provided by Cadmium take half time to repair (2 points per second instead of 1 point per second).  However, that improved repair time is averaged over the total ship repair time, so you are never repairing damage twice as fast (even if you use 100% cadmium armor, your ship has built-in armor points). 

In Battle Pirates, you can't ever really tell if something is good on its own - you have to compare it against the alternatives.  In this case, the usual alternative to Cadmium armor would be Draconian Zynthonite Armor.  Evade armor is the popular alternative. 

On the forums, Doyen already worked out a comparison of a ship with Cadmium vs. a ship with all Evade.  His thread isn't openable for some mysterious reason... but I'll reproduce his analysis here: 

"A ship with 7000 base armor and 4 armor slots, using 4 armor plates with 750 armor each. (10000 total armor points) One has Evade armor for +28% Evade, the other has Cadmium." 

Other than a change in how I account for the stacking of the evade armor resulting in a slightly different evade number, the first two columns of the table below are the cases from Doyen's analysis.  I included other cases where I thought the Cadmium might be more beneficial, combining large Cadmium armors with small evade armors. 

And yes, the cases where I combined Cadmium Delta with D2-E result in slightly reduced repair times, but at a cost of additional weight & ship build time.  I'm going to take a closer look, but use my real Proto-Hunter build (still 7000 ship armor & 4 armor slots), include my actual retrofits, and look at whether it is worth modifying:

Baseline Ship (4xD2-E):

74.1% Evade, 63% Penetrative Defense, 5192 tons, 10,000 armor 14d 18h 42m build time

Revised Ship (2x D2-E, 2xCad-D):

68.6% Evade, 63.0% Penetrative Defense, 6039 tons, 13,000 armor 16d 19h 58m build time 

(I ignored assault deflection since we didn't choose a specific weapon type)

Nope!  Nope nope nope!  Why would I incur that extra build time & extra weight?

Since my Evade armor is at R15, it is more valuable than it was in the initial baseline analysis.  Also, when you are talking about just a couple percent benefit, rounding can be a big deal. My initial cut used the 69% Evade number shown in the in-game stat window, and I calculated a 1% benefit (the 68.6% came from Huggy's).  But even a 1% repair time benefit would not be worth the additional 2+ days of build time and extra 847 tons of weight.  I'm certainly not going to burn 2+ days of refit time and allocate weight that could be used for weapons to get a slim (at best) repair benefit or (even) more likely longer repairs.  

Also - note that the fact that the incoming damage is penetrative doesn't make a difference.  Revising the penetrative resist to zero does not change the percentage difference in repairs.  This means I don't have to do another analysis for incoming Charon Torps, where some damage is Concussive, and some damage is Corrosive... Evade works against all of it.

Just for fun, I also tried a Mercury R5 with 3 Siege Missiles, and compared adding Cadmium Alpha armor against 3xD2-E (as a build for a low level player).  The Cadmium builds added 2%, 4%, and 5% more expected repair time (respectively) with 1, 2, and 3 pieces of Cadmium Alpha armor.

The case where Cadmium might do better is against splash or fire pool damage, since your Evade armor won't help you avoid that damage.  But I would say that splash & firepools are mostly specific to the Reavers, and even against Reaver targets a large percentage of the incoming damage is still aimed.  But if insist on wanting to load up against that type of incoming damage, then armor that resists the incoming damage type will do better than Cadmium, for the same reasons Evade did best against aimed damage.

So is Cadmium Armor a Hoax?  Well.... I'm not going to use it.  I would also say that someone who states "Using Cadmium Armor will reduce your ships' repair times" will be incorrect.  Send them to this article.  And no, I'm not going to do a specific analysis for your ship... do your own.

So here's the last question - did the designers just choose a 50% damage reduction because it seemed like it might be a pretty good benefit?  Or did they do some kind of analysis that showed (what I did) that the armor was basically a wash?

Two possible suggestions on how to improve Cadmium:

1. Make it so that the Cadmium takes damage first and repairs last.  Ships that are lightly damaged (for less damage than their cadmium armor points) would then repair at double speed.

or

2. Make the Cadmium repair time reduction much larger. 80% to 95% should do it, but I don't have numbers to back that up.

New Retros & Ashes to Ashes

With the game update after the Perdition raid, there were no fixes, but two new pieces of content: New retrofits and a new campaign.

New Retrofits: 
Kixeye has released retrofits on 4 limited hulls: Greta's Nuclear Cruiser, Vassago's Interdictor, Harlock's Triton, and Zoe's Stingray.  In case you missed them, those four hulls are all available from campaigns.   They also each have a repair specialist available (for not too much Uranium), which makes them each a little bit more attractive as a "daily driver."

Greta's Nuclear Cruiser:

First typo - unretrofitted Radioactive Reload is 80%. R4 and R5 are each pretty good for this hull. However at R5, this hull will still have its intrinsic weaknesses of "average" combat speed and 3 specials.  Uranium costs are a bit high for R5 as well.

Vassago's Interdictor:


Radioactive Defense at R3, and the Weight / Speed / Evade increase at R5 can make this one a decent general purpose hull.  Thermal Imaging at R4 (along with the R5 speed) puts this one back in the conversation as a potential sub-hunter.  The Ballistic Damage at R2 is a bit puzzling, as it doesn't have any other ballistic buffs (particularly range) that would make this an attractive ballistic hull.  Having only 4 non-torpedo weapon slots are this hull's biggest weakness.

Harlock's Triton:

Second typo: No Ballistic Defense reduction at R4.  I like all of these buffs.  The biggest drawbacks to using this hull as a countermeasures escort are (were) its low speed and maneuverability.  R1 and R5 address those issues, and although with a base speed of 12 it won't be mistaken for an Interceptor, 12 is at least respectable.  I would have liked to see an accuracy buff for countermeasures, but oh well.

Zoe's Stingray

R4 and R5 are really nice buffs here, and the total Uranium cost is pretty reasonable.  For players that missed out on the Crusader, the SCX used to be the only other (open water) hull that had the same 40% ballistic range buff.  With the speed and radioactive defense, this hull becomes a very attractive alternative.   Its speed with Speed System 3 and Nuclear Accelerators will be above 30 (with no component retrofits).  I'd still rather have my Crusader fleet, but I would prefer to avoid fighting these with just about any fleet.
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!704J01R1R685B6A1S2323002351232304J01R1R685B6A1S2323002351232304J01R1R685B6A1S2323002351232304J01R1R685B6A1S232300235123230ZZdB

Ashes to Ashes campaign: 
This campaign wasn't hinted at in the May WIP, but here it is.  The prize packs have lots of fire/radioactive tech, and the mastery prize is the new Hellblazer Hull.

Prize Pack 1 has:
Brimstone Missile
D2-R Armor
Inferno Rockets

The Brimstone (although better than the Halo) is a bit obsolete - it has really been eclipsed by the Apocalypse Mortar.  As rockets go, Infernos are a good choice despite their long build time.  D2-R might be useful for light fleets, although the larger R armor pieces have better radioactive resist.

Prize Pack 2 has: 
Napalm Missile
D3-R Armor
Hellstrike Hull
Blaze Thrower

Yes, if you just spent 5.5 million raid points for the Napalm turret in Perdition, you got screwed.  Nobody likes to hear "I told you so", but I did have that turret in RED on my Perdition "what to get" list (not because I knew it was coming out this week... just that I didn't think it was worthwhile) .  D3-R might be useful for managing weight and build time while adding some radioactive resist.  The Hellstrike hull has a few uses still, especially as a tank if you don't have the Hellhound.  It is also the best hull for Rockets if you really want a rocket fleet (and you don't particularly).  The Blaze Thrower is decent for FvF, even though you don't see it much. It may be very useful on the Mastery prize though... the new limited hull: the HELLBLAZER. 



As the blueprint description says, this will be a very capable ship for Throwers with its +60% Thrower damage and +120% radioactive reload.  The other weapon that comes to mind would be S launchers... with the reload and +30% Projectile Speed launchers will land more quickly.  The other launchers would not be nearly as good - with their higher salvo they wouldn't be as able to take advantage of the reload bonus, and their lighter weight might be a problem when considering only 6 weapon slots.

A few drawbacks: At 7400 tons max weight, a 4 ship fleet would not quite max out the dock weight, so a 5 ship fleet would be best, but that will drive up the build time.  4 ships with a blank Highlander Nuclear Cruiser could also be quite effective.  Turn speed is weak, so Speed System should be the best engine option.  The repair modifier is 125%, which is lower than the 150% that most reaver hulls have, but not the 100% we would prefer.

Here's an S launcher build to think about:  
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!70KU0000000001S00550000000000000019PN001R0U1R1R0U0U0U1V0O685H4X4X4X4X001APN001R0U1R1R0U0U0U1V0O685H4X4X4X4X001APN001R0U1R1R0U0U0U1V0O685H4X4X4X4X001APN001R0U1R1R0U0U0U1V0O685H4X4X4X4X001AdB

16 S launchers means that you will get one shockwave per salvo against buildings/turrets.  I used the Strike System + Thruster combo to keep my accuracy and get turn speed.  If 14,750 armor isn't enough for you, try using a Reaver Bulkhead and switching more of the D5E for D2E.

A couple other oddball build ideas: 
- If you don't have Enforcers, load a Hellblazer with S launchers and use in base defense.  They'll be easier to rank than Enforcers anyway.
- Build Hellblazers with mortars (Speed bonus), and use them like blitz Hellhounds.  Hint: you have 7 armor slots to work with.  Don't leave any empty.

One more reminder - Since I am suggesting S launchers with this hull, remember that using the Gauss Supercharger special with the S launcher is a bad idea, since you only get the extra 0.5 charge added to the x5 / x8 charge of the S launchers.  That little bit is not worth using the special slot or the weight.  N, U, or F launchers will benefit more from Gauss... details are in my last launcher roundup.

For the campaign itself, each of the (up to) seven encounters is a group of Reaver ships (no bases / platforms).  (what do you call a group of Reaver ships?  Fleet?  Warhost? Murder?) Without giving a play-by-play, it is a difficult campaign, with the seventh encounter being an absolute ZOO.  

I saw this video runthrough from Death Machine, if you would like to get a preview before attempting it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYanESaImzw

When Launchers first came out, Launcher-armed Stingrays were surprisingly effective despite their low armor.  Now, you can build a fleet like that, but not have the low armor.  So... beware.

Retrofit Pack 15, Proto-Mastodon, and Repair Specialists

The content keeps coming....

Retrofit Pack 15 - Kodiak, Nighthawk, Interceptor V2-C, Interceptor V2-H

When this retrofit pack was announced, I think one of the most common opinions I heard was "These hulls are pretty recent and good still... why are they getting retrofits?"

The other constraint on these hulls was that they each had a corresponding limited hull, so any enhancements to speed or turn would have resulted in a mismatched fleet in battle.  These retrofit enhancements ended up pretty mild overall.  Let's take a look:

Kodiak:
The Kodiak, which is already very good when taking fire, is getting better at defending:



I really like the armor abilities bonus in general, so the 25% is welcome, although lower than that on other hulls.  150,000 total Uranium is needed to get to R5.

Nighthawk:
The Nighthawk is also getting better at defending at R2, R4, and R5.  This improves its ability for prepping, when you want to surface and survive a few salvos of fire and move on to another guard.

More damage is always good too.  200,000 total Uranium is needed to get to R5.

Interceptor V2-H:

These enhancements made me think that these might be a little better in Dredges, especially with the extra Missile Damage, and maybe also in Drac targets.



125,000 total Uranium is needed to get to R5.

Interceptor V2-C:

With the extra anti-missile accuracy and Evade, I definitely think these are going to be better against Dracs.



Just like V2-H, 125,000 total Uranium is needed to get to R5.

Overall, these retrofits are worth doing if you use the hull, but they don't really bring anything super desirable or any new capability.

For the V2-C R5, you might want to see if retrofitting Evade Armor will have more benefit than spending 75,000 Uranium for 10% Evade.  It will depend on your current retrofit level and your armor loadout... use Huggy's Shipyard to check.

After looking at all these hulls, I thought I'd do a comparison chart on the missile hulls. With various combinations of reload and damage bonus, the question often comes up - which does the most damage?  The bottom three rows of this chart show the weapon DPS for each hull, using the reload and damage bonuses only (no alliance bonus) against a zero resistance target.

Statistic	Int V2H R5	Interceptor V2H	Kodiak R5	Kodiak	Mastodon	MCX R10	Mercury R10
Weapon Slots	8	8	10	10	10	6	6
Armor Slots	4	4	5	5	5	4	3
Special Slots	4	4	4	4	4	3	3
Max Weight	6,548	6,548	9,000	9,000	12,300	8,695	6,920
Base Armor	4,954	4,954	6,505	6,505	3,552	2,965	2,665
Combat Speed	15	15	11	11	11	12	15
Turn Speed	20	20	13	13	13	15	22
Evade	20%	20%	10%	10%	-10%	30%	25%
Ballistic Defense	20%	20%	30%	30%	20%	35%	0%
Explosive Defense	30%	20%	40%	30%	20%	30%	0%
Penetrative Defense	40%	20%	40%	40%	40%	60%	40%
Concussive Defense	40%	40%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Radioactive Defense	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%	30%	40%
Penetrating Reload	90%	90%	100%	100%	120%	150%	30%
Penetrating Damage	25%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	60%
Building Damage	0%	0%	100%	60%	0%	0%	0%
Anti Mort Range	0%	0%	50%	50%	0%	0%	0%
Flak Evade	30%	30%	30%	30%	30%	30%	0%
Retargeting	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Other	Unreactive, Thermal Img	Unreactive, Thermal Img	Anti-Mort Acc +20%, Armor Ability +25%	-	Remote Targeting	-	-
Repair Modifier	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Hull Build Time w/off	4d 23h 54m	4d 23h 54m	5d 16h 15m	5d 16h 15m	5d 16h 15m	4d 20h 38m	1d 3h
Total U needed	125,000	0	150,000	0	0	375,000	75,000	Basic DPS
Siege Z Ship DPS	457.3	384.9	405.2	405.2	445.7	506.5	382.2	202.6
Torr 3 Ship DPS	287.6	242.7	251.3	251.3	267.8	290.6	266.2	150.0
Strike B Ship DPS	66.5	53.2	56.0	56.0	61.6	70.0	58.2	28.0

MCX R10 with its 150% reload bonus is the DPS master, but the V2-H R5 looks pretty good too.  The Kodiak retrofit did not come with any ship damage enhancements, just the building damage increase.

For some more commentary on the retrofits (and the rest of the topics I'm about to discuss), check out this week's Battle Pirates Crib live show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_su-XgUSY4&feature=youtu.be

Snowfall Campaign and Proto-Mastodon:

Kixeye has released a new campaign called "Snowfall" - with a new limited hull as the mastery prize - the Proto-Mastodon.  And just in case it was holding you back, you can start campaigns at lower levels... this one unlocks at Level 48.

The Snowfall campaign is structured similarly to the other campaigns with mastery prizes. 12 hours for 5 engagements to get the first Prize Pack, 6 hours for 6 engagements to get the second Prize Pack, and 1 hours for 7 engagements to get 1 blueprint for the Mastery prize.  Multiple Mastery blueprints are needed to build multiple hulls.  

The engagements for this campaign are taken from the Arctic series of raids.  I'm not going to go in detail through each encounter, but they are briefly described as follows:

Encounter 1: Open Water Fleet - Kodiaks
Encounter 2: Open Water Fleet - Proto-Nemesis
Encounter 3: L Base
Encounter 4: Split Pads
Encounter 5: U Base
Encounter 6: Big Triple Base
Encounter 7: Kraken

The descriptions are how I think of them, and hopefully they will be memory joggers for those of you who have been through the Arctic raids.  I have seen playthough videos on You Tube, so if you want to see more detail, find one.

Each of the Encounters (except the Kraken) has certain targets designated as Priority, and just like during the raids, killing all of the Priority Targets will end the Encounter.  Some of the later encounters can be lengthy, so take advantage of this where you can.

In addition, many players find the Kraken quite difficult, since the Kraken sub never surfaces and has very good resistances and evade.  Thermal Detection is very helpful, and so is Bullseye Brigade with missiles.  Players who use Poseidon Depth Charges on a fast fleet have reported good success against Krakens.


The Proto-Mastodon adds a few stat buffs to the original Mastodon design and also adds a Cryo Missile override launch - it creates splash damage and a cryo field.  The stats compare as follows:

Statistic	Proto-Mastodon	Mastodon
Weapon Slots	10	10
Armor Slots	5	5
Special Slots	4	4
Max Weight	12,300	12,300
Base Armor	4,536	3,552
Combat Speed	11	11
Turn Speed	18	13
Evade	0%	-10%
Ballistic Defense	30%	20%
Explosive Defense	30%	20%
Penetrative Defense	40%	40%
Concussive Defense	0%	0%
Radioactive Defense	30%	20%
Penetrating Reload	130%	120%
Penetrating Damage	0%	0%
Building Damage	25%	0%
Anti Mort Range	0%	0%
Flak Evade	30%	30%
Retargeting	No	No
Other	Remote Targeting, Cryo Launch Override	Remote Targeting
Repair Modifier	100%	100%
Hull Build Time w/off	5d 16h 15m	5d 16h 15m
Siege Z Ship DPS	465.9	445.7
Torr 3 Ship DPS	275.6	267.8
Strike B Ship DPS	64.4	61.6

The new Proto-Mastodon is a very desirable hull - it is equal to or better than the regular Mastodon in every way.

Also for players that don't have it yet - the Strike Cruiser X is available in Prize Pack 1.  With the R3 Ballistic Reload bonus (100%), R5 Ballistic Range bonus (40%), and the R7 Ballistic Damage Bonus (50%), the SCX can be quite capable with ballistics, especially the Bypass Chaingun.
Repair Specialist:
This is a new feature Kixeye has announced.  

Their official announcement is here:
https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/528659

The "Vote on which hull comes first" thread is here:
https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/528668

And the discussion thread with much moaning (and not the good kind) is here:
https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/528899

All of this has not been completely explained yet, but I'll try to summarize what we have been told from CM/Moderator sources:

• Repair Specialists will be released for specific hulls in packs, similar to retrofit packs.
• The first pack will be released on March 3
• When you unlock the Repair Specialist for a hull type, the repair modifier will be modified based on the ship's rank.  Higher rank ships will repair faster.
• The amount of repair reduction is not stated, but may be different on different hulls.
• Repair Specialists will NOT require gold to unlock.  
• Resources that will be needed (Oil/Energy/Metal/Zyn, Uranium, Time) to unlock Repair Specialists has not been stated.
• Repair Specialists will be in the Intelligence Lab.

TOTAL SPECULATION FOLLOWS:

One thing I'm concerned about from the last item - if these repair specialists are in the Intelligence Lab, then you may need to have your Intelligence Lab at a certain Level in order to access/unlock them.  When the Outpost max level was increased to 6, and the Lab max levels were increased to 11, I thought that it was curious that the Intelligence Lab could be increased to Level 11 with no apparent benefit from doing so.  It may be possible that in order to unlock the Repair Specialists for the higher-end hulls, you may need a Level 11 Intelligence Lab.  In order to upgrade the Intel Lab to 11, the Naval, Weapons, and Advanced Lab must all be Level 11.  In case you haven't done these yet (I haven't), upgrading all 4 labs from Level 10 to 11 will take over 15 days and 3,320 Uranium.  March 3 is under 13 days away...

Disclaimer: If you spend the Time, Resources, & Uranium to upgrade these labs... they might continue to be useless.

END OF TOTAL SPECULATION

Some players are criticizing this upcoming change already, some are praising it.  I think that we don't have enough information yet to evaluate.  Rank is already very valuable for the reload bonus, and this change will make it even more valuable.  Many players have been asking for a reduction in repair times, and we will be getting a mechanism for exactly that.  I'll be cautiously optimistic for now.

Stay tuned - when more solid information is released I'll get on it.