Ranking the Rank Icebreaker

There's some great videos out there on how to do this raid.   My favorite is Forsaken Cove's article on how to do the 107.  On the 100, I do a loop for the long range turrets, a loop for the short range ballistics, a loop for the big launcher, and then pick off the outer launchers.  I'm sure there's some videos out there from the last raid.

All that assumes a ranked Harlock Cannoneer fleet... without that, well-driven Cannoneers can hit lots of targets in the 70s before repairing (I collected nearly 50 million doing that on Thursday night), and many Ironclads can do targets in the 50s with instant repairs.

But I'm going to write this article about the Icebreaker.

First off, you need to understand Kixeye's raid structure for the foreseeable future.  It started with the Reaver Skirmish raid series, continued through this Scourge Siege raid series, and will continue with the upcoming garrison series.  Each of those raids had a Skill hull and a Blitz hull.  The Hellwraith and the Cannoneers are the skill hulls we've seen so far. The Tideseeker, Ironclad.and now the new Icebreaker are the Blitz hulls.  So far, we've seen well driven skill hulls can do high end targets with no damage, and Blitz hulls have had mixed results (although I suspect the damage output of a Tideseekers with Calamity was an unforeseen combo on Kixeye's part).  

So we need to think about the Icebreaker going forward.  Each player should be able to assess their own game.  On my part, I like the skill hulls, and have only built the Blitz hull with tokens.  This raid we've seen the order from last raid flipped, and now we have the Blitz hull available at a high point price, and we can expect the skill hull to come up in a TLC soon after the raid.

Since I like the skill hulls, I'm not really excited about the Icebreaker in general, and at approximately 2 week build times per ship, I'm not going to devote my shipyard to building a full fleet of those (and note they have a stacking bonus).  So I strongly considered not redeeming it this raid.  I did and I started on.  My plan is to build only one Icebreaker in the near term (see it below), and save as many tokens as I can out of this raid to be ready to build the upcoming skill hull ASAP.  



(Important Note: I've heard that the Charged Armors are not currently working.... hold on buying & installing those until we know more)

The only real non-obvious part on this build is the High Velocity Rounds.  Those give me building damage and help my rockets land quickly.  Other choices could be made to increase damage.  Agility 4 could easily be replaced with Guidance Scrambler 3 to save 5 hours of build time.

You also need to be concerned about what we don't know in the upcoming Garrison Raid targets.  I think the biggest question is whether you will want countermeasures.  The way most players are attacking FM Garrison targets right now, we have a tank hull with countermeasures and mortar hulls to deal damage.  But if you are blitzing with Icebreakers, anti-mortar defenses may not be needed, and whether or not anti-missile is useful will really depend on the target.  We might even see a return of countermeasure specialist ships with the Icebreaker (I was always a big fan).  

For that type of build, Frontline Countermeasures would replace the Garrison battery,  Evade Upgrade or Deflection Upgrade SA (limited component I didn't see a need for at the time) could replace the HVR.  Then I'd probably put 4 Gales or Hail D, 3 Phalanx 4, and keep one rocket.

So one more thing - let's talk about ranking these Icebreakers.  The new Siege Rocket has a one second reload, a +100% built in rocket reload bonus, and then a +10% stacking aura reload bonus (per ship).  So a solo Icebreaker gets a 110% reload bonus, and a full 5 ship fleet gets 150%.   The means the reload time for 1 ship is 0.48 seconds, and for 5 ships it is 0.4 seconds.  My long-time readers may remember when I demonstrated that the minimum reload time for any weapon is 0.2 seconds, and also may remember that rank bonuses are applied differently than hull/special/aura bonuses:
reload = base reload * (1 - rank bonus).  
(note that the additional 0.2 seconds per salvo shot isn't affected by this)

So any bonus that puts your reload under 0.2 seconds is wasted.  For the 5 ship fleet the math works out really easily 
0.2 = 0.4 * (1 - rank%) 
Any rank bonus above 50% is wasted on a 5 ship Icebreaker fleet.

For the 1 ship fleet - I broke out the calculator to determine that 
0.2 = 0.48 * (1 - rank%) 
Any rank bonus above 58% is wasted when you only have 1 Icebreaker.

I'll leave the other cases for the reader.  Also remember that if you use Cluster Warheads to increase your reload bonus further, you will just max out your fire rate at a lower rank.  Keep in mind that this applies to Icebreakers using the new Siege Rockets D100S only.  If using other weapons or other hulls, you will max out differently - remember Goresabers with Infernos maxed out at even lower ranks.  

Another case to consider is if you are using countermeasures.  Those will not max out their reload at any rank, so it may pay off to rank ships with CM all the way to legendary (another reason to concentrate those defenses on one ship).

Good luck in the raid - keep grinding!

Navigating Utopia's Big Ole Store

Well, if you buy into the whole consumerism thing and paradise is a huge shopping mall, then this next raid really will be Utopia for you.  

Since Kixeye was kind enough to post the prize list early, I'll try to make sense of this store and break things down. I'm NOT going to go with a full red/yellow/green breakdown... that's crazy.

I'm going to start with looking at it from my own point of view - a player who is pretty much caught up.  For players like that, the major priority will be to get set up for success in the next raid series (which will be Garrison).  Actually, that should be all players' priority.  As the game has moved towards a very predictable rotation of target types, you need to try to jump on to that hamster wheel so set yourself up for continued success.

So the first things to look at are the new equipment.  We don't have full blueprints, but we have some general ideas.

To get the new equipment, you first need to take the Empyrean generalist hull.  A valid question is - why do we need another generalist hull after the Zelos?  The answer is that the Empyrean is a remote targeting hull, so that you can build up the Zelos as a tank, and use Empyreans behind that to rain down fire.  With the new weapon and special being released for that hull (Advanced Imperial Mortar D100-Z and Advanced Trajectory Plotter) - the Empyrean will have remote targeting for mortars.  My hope is that in the spirit of true 'generalism', that hull will ALSO remote target for missiles, but right now only remote targeting stats for mortars are shown in the raid video.  (and a heavy weapon slot...) I also expect that new Imperial Mortar and Trajectory Plotter special will be relatively quick building and Generalist only (just like the previous Quake Cannon and Seismic Rounds released with the Zelos).  Players who are caught up are probably interested in taking the Empyrean only because they have to be.  I'm plenty happy with my Citadels for remote targeting of Mortars, and Rhinos for remote targeting of Missiles, and I don't think I'll be devoting shipyard time to that hull.  I've been quite happy with my decision to build no Zelos hulls so far.

Instead, I'll be devoting time to the specialized Garrison hulls - the first of which is the Icebreaker, which is described as the "Auto" hull.  This puts it in the same genre as the Ironclad and Tideseeker, which means it will be sort of a 'charge in and blow stuff up' kind of hull.  Released with the Icebreaker are the Siege Rockets D110-S and the Garrison Battery Mk-X.  These rockets and (likely) explosive-enhancing special should go with the Icebreaker.  Rockets haven't been really effective in this game since players were loading up Leviathans with Hydras and blitzing them into Sentinel missiles... but we will see how these look when we get the full blueprint.  Right now we have some hints from the video:

ICEBREAKER:  
Rocket Range: +30%
Rocket Reload: +100%
Explosive Defense: +80%
Penetrative Defense: +80%
Field Resistance: +90%

Note the last rocket hull we've seen, the Goresaber, had +25% Rocket Range, +160% Rocket Reload, 50% Exp/Pen resist, and +67% Field Resistance.  

SIEGE ROCKET D100-S:
Range: 57
Damage: 6672
Splash: 20

The previous generation of rockets, Dragonfires, Lockdowns, and Coaxial Firestorms (who remembers they fire rockets in primary mode?) all had range of 68.  Old school Siege Rockets have the 57 range.  Dragonfires also have that 20 splash, although they are a low damage, fast firing rocket.  If our targets have any deflection, Dragonfires will be near useless.  

GARRISON BATTERY Mk-X:
Unknown

So to start off with, players who are 'keeping up' will need:
Empyrean: 15M
Icebreaker: 60M 
Siege Rocket D100-S: 20M
Garrison Battery Mk-X: 10M
Total (new stuff): 105M points

That's kind of a bare minimum, unless you want to take a 'high-risk' approach to this raid.  That would be to wait for the Specialist hull, which should be released in an upcoming TLC. Even so, you may also want the Rocket weapon and Explosive special.  You don't know how much time you'll have to do that TLC before VXP weekend (with a 6 day raid). I'll just suggest that the 'high-risk' approach is too high risk for me.

Then I looked down at the rest of the prize list and I saw a bunch of tokens I wanted:

11d 3h ship build tokens: 30.9M
4x Liberator 25k VXP tokens: 24M
4x Oppressor 25k VXP tokens: 24M
8x 2 day Structure build tokens: 32M
Total (tokens): 110.9M

I would prioritize the Ship Build tokens very highly so I can get at least 4 Icebreaker hulls complete before VXP weekend.  I also really want those Liberator VXP tokens... since I already armored those 2 of the 3 I've built (even the Prof makes mistakes sometimes).  The structure ones I could probably do without if the points get tight.

I also saw some limited items:  
First off are the new Charged Zynthonite C1-X and C1-M Armors.  These new armors add no repair time and have some stats released in the video:

Charged Zynth C1-X
Explosive Dmg Reduction: 10,000
Explosive Armor Pool: 170,000

Charged Zynth C1-M
Penetrating Dmg Reduction: 37,725
Penetrating Armor Pool: 700,000

From the scant description we have, these seem to work like some sort of 'pre-deflection' damage reduction, but I'm not going to attempt any detailed description or analysis until we hear more from Kixeye.  But with the reduction of M & X damage, they certainly seem like they will be useful in these Garrison targets (which do primarily M & X damage).  I suspect you'll want one of each of these armors on ships being built for Garrison targets.  This means I'm going to want at least 4 of each ... if not 8 - 10.  I also want to restock my Agility system IV and Hydraulic Resistors.  I'm less concerned about Gales (Hail D is at least... useful) and Cobras.

4x Charged Armor C1-X: 40M
4x Charged Armor C1-M: 40M
5x Agility System IV: 5M
5x Hydro Resistors: 7.5M
Total (Limited): 92.5M

So, even not going for everything... I really want a bit over 300 million points this raid.  and I think a lot of players will be in similar situations.  WOOF! 

So what else is out there?

If you are going the "generalist" route, you will probably want:

Empyrean Hull: 15M
Advanced Imperial Mortar D100-Z: 9M
Trajectory Plotter: 6M
up to 15x Zelos 1 day Build Tokens (refit one to M/X defense): up to 30M
1x Charged Armor C1-X: 10M
1x Charged Armor C1-M: 10M
11d 3h Ship Build Tokens: 30.9M
Total (generalist):  30M - 110.9M

Lower end players who can't go after those big ticket items should make sure they have some sort of Garrison fleet in order.  If you can't get those Generalist hulls, then the Citadel / Punisher combination are the next best thing.  Hopefully you've gotten the hulls from the low end FM tiers, but you should make sure you have the equipment you need for them too.  If you don't have a Punisher tank (WHY NOT???) or Citadel mortar chuckers built, Berzerker build tokens are available.  If you are in this category, I would plan your fleet / refits very carefully so you can take only the tokens you need.  Note that the ship specific build tokens are cheaper than the general build tokens.  Consider:

up to 11d 3h Ship Build Tokens: up to 30.9M
up to 10 Citadel 1 day build tokens: up to 15M
up to 10 Citadel 5000 VXP tokens: up to 10M
Berzerker Hull: 0.75M
up to 10 Berzerker 3 day build tokens: up to 15M
Judgement Mortar: 0.9M
or Pandemonium Mortar: 0.6M
Explosive System IV: 0.6M
or Combustion System 2: 0.6M
No total here - too situation specific

Lower end players who have been having trouble in this raid cycle need to get a Siege fleet in order.  The best plan here is Ironclads with Mausers - Cannoneers and Millenium Guns are too expensive.  If you haven't been able to do the TLCs to win Ironclad/Mauser, get them now.  High Velocity Rounds are worth the splurge (for mortar/garrison fleets too).    Take build & VXP tokens to get them done.

up to 11d 3h Ship Build Tokens: up to 30.9M
Ironclad: 1M
High Velocity Rounds: 5M
up to 20 Ironclad 1 day build tokens: up to 10M
up to 20 Ironclad 5000 VXP tokens: up to 6M
Mauser Cannon: 0.75M
Nuclear Accelerators: 0.5M
No total here - too situation specific

Lower end players who have been having trouble getting Uranium need a Skirmish fleet.  Hellwraiths or Tideseekers are the thing here, but since Hellwraiths are comparatively expensive in the store, I recommend the Tideseekers.  The Conflagration Scattergun that is most effective isn't in the store, and neither are the concussive cannons, so torpedoes are the next best idea.

up to 11d 3h Ship Build Tokens: up to 30.9M
Tideseeker: 0.5M
Fire Twister Torpedo: 2M
Sealed Fire Charge: 1M
No total here - too situation specific

Going after Megas needs an Assault fleet, basically Apollos.  Phalanx 4 are preferred as your anti-missile solution, since switchblades can get overwhelmed, but they aren't available.  If you don't have Phalanx, don't go all Switchblade, make sure to mix in some Blades to maintain offense.

up to 11d 3h Ship Build Tokens: up to 30.9M
Apollo: 3M
Blade: 0.6M
Switchblade Anti-Missile: 0.9M
Interception System: 0.3M
Counter Missile Extender: 0.6M
No total here - too situation specific

If you want to get into Base Hitting and PvP, the tier 5 Conqueror hulls can still smash a lot of bases (just not the best ones).  If you're starting from scratch, I'd recommend taking the Vendetta and at least one other hull type, so you can use 2 tanks and 3 remote targeting Vendettas. If forced to pick one tank, I'd probably go with the Spite, but Malice are decent too (if you equip with Radioactive Plate).  All the "PvP" components are pretty cheap, so make sure you have weapons and specials to complete whatever hull you grab.  

Vendetta: 1.5M
Spite: 2M
Malice: 1.5M

For Base Defense we have the Valiant and Vanquisher.  Pick one and make sure you can equip it. Avoid the Alpha Behemoth and Cesium Scarab - they are really underperforming in most situations.

Valiant: 2M
Vanquisher: 1.5M

Whether to get Turrets is an interesting question.  The latest generation of turrets like Gargoyle 3, Hyena, and Explosive D99-S are not available, and they really are a step up in capability from previous versions.  Cataclysm is available and worth getting. I expect more improved turrets will be available to round out the damage types, so unless you are desperate, I would focus on the 'better' Limited turrets in this store.  

Glacial Launcher: 2M 
Coldsnap Rocket: 2M 
Cataclysm: 4M

Ferox Fury will be a flagship for Fury hulls.  Without seeing it, it's tough to figure out if it will be desirable to build.  Right now, the only people I could see really wanting it at its 40M point price tag are those who have a full fleet of Furys but are missing out on the Tier 6 Conquerors.

Well, although there are a lot of good prizes available at good prices, the massive size of the store and the high prices on new equipment mean that a lot of players will be wanting a lot of points.  Remember it will be a 6 day raid and you should try to use all 6 days if you can.  Also remember Alliance points reset on Monday, and so you'll probably be hit.  Deal with it.

Uprising - What did we do wrong?

Well, it's Friday night, I have about 60 million points... I feel like I should write an article.

When I looked at the prize list, and the points/structure to get the Cannoneer, I feel like asking Kixeye what we did wrong.  Why are we being punished?  Is the Zoe Vendetta like the vegetables we have to eat before getting dessert?  Players have never liked 'locked' prizes, where you have to get something before being able to get something else.  When the prizes are related and laddered, we kind of understand, but having to get a niche Limited hull before getting the mainline hull before the next raid... well it just isn't right. 

Anyway I'll start off with my process for doing the 107.  I use a 4 Hellwraith fleet, armed mostly with Fire Twisters (and a couple Mayhems).  What I heard / read was that it was easier to do the bottom 'pancake' first and with some practice I found that was correct.  My process for the 107 is:

• Clear the bottom five Scouts on the first two dive cycles.  Do not kill the Hellstrike - the oil slick makes it more difficult to complete the rest of the target.  (I find this also holds for the 105)  Don't kill any drones either.... they will respawn exactly where you don't want them.
• About halfway through the third dive cycle, there seems to be a spot where the drones seem to be clustered at or heading toward the top.  This opens the bottom side of the Southeast pancake. I target it by clicking on it - I don't want to get too close or I'm seen by the drones above the pancake.  (your window is from about 7:25 to 7:15.  Follow the last set of drones on in... but not too close)  Heading towards the right a little bit as you go gives you a little more time.  Once it's dead I head back to the bottom.
• Clean out the ships that are orbiting the (now sunken) lower pancake.  Also kill drones and then go after the four scouts that started between the Pancakes.
• There should only be two groups of drones left.  Wait until they are on top, then hit the remaining pancake from the bottom.
• Clean out the rest.

I can do a 107 for zero damage using this process, but usually end up with 2 - 4 coins repair.  Sometimes I'll take a couple hits from drones when hitting the first pancake, and sometimes I mess up a little with the scouts.  Again, just like last time, the Scouts are best hit by sailing alongside of them so you have more time to stop between your torpedo range and their thermal range.. 

So on to the prizes:

The Cannoneer certainly will be the go-to hull for the next raid with its resistances and ballistic weapon output.  I think the real question is whether they will work best singly or grouped.  I'm wondering this because when hitting mines, I find my Punishers are most effective when working alone.  Since they have enough offensive output to clear turrets in two hits, much of the firepower they would have when stacked up is wasted.  The splash weapons in the mines mean that the stacked ships just end up sharing more damage.  When I use Centurions, they have less offensive output, and also have the stacking field for splash resistance.  They work best stacked up so they can kill turrets faster.

The Cannoneer has the (new since preview) stacking field that provides speed and offensive output.  Whether they will work better stacked or not will remain to be seen, and may even depend on the target.  

The Zelos got better since the preview (when I panned it).  They've added resistance across the board, more deflection, combat speed, and more DPS.  I think with the new launchers or with ballistics (and its +45% ballistic range), it could be effective in the new Siege targets. 

One point many have seen on these new hulls is they have increased repair and build times compared to the times of many hulls since Kixeye made some reductions.  The Cannoneer is back to the old one point per second repair time.  I think what is going on is that we are getting back some power creep.  The longer build and repair times are reflective of the higher power level (performance) of these new hulls.  The alternative is to release hulls that are just as powerful as existing hulls, but the problem is that those aren't really very attractive to the players.  Power creep is necessary, let's just hope it doesn't get too bad again.

If you're unsure what to get in this raid, and you won't have the points to get everything, make sure you come out of this raid with the right hulls & equipment to do the following:

Siege Targets:

You need Radioactive and Ballistic resistances along with a weapon that won't get shot down.  After the Cannoneer and Zelos, Centurion, Punisher or Crusader are your choices (in that order).  If you're going with ballistic weaponry, the Arbalest is a great price this raid and still very effective.  CL-3 Alloy is key, or go after Reflective Plate (and pair with Layered Armor).  Also keep in mind that I, like many other players, expect some new Ballistic weapon + special to be released in the next FM or an upcoming TLC... so make sure you have a backup, but don't overcommit to ballistics right now.  Launchers may also be effective, and the new Squall Launcher + Flechette Feeder will be the best of breed there.

Reaver Targets:

The latest raid target style with these Reavers is expected to replace the current Draconian Armadas as the primary way to get Uranium.  Make sure you have the right equipment to build a fleet to go after these targets too.  If you are using subs, the most important thing is to have 88 range torpedos.  Mayhems are not available (coming from the FM Tier 5), but Fire Twisters are.  You could also go with Tideseekers and either Calamity Scatterguns (if you already have them), or the Concussive Gatling Gun (available in this raid).  

Conquerors:

If you want to hit bases and haven't gotten any conquerors yet... the Fury is the best all arounder, but the revenge is probably best against low end bases and the Vendetta will still be effective as a remote target mortar chucker against bases that don't have the new Cataclysm Mortar or Maxim guns.

Base Defense:

A whole lot of base defense weapons are available.  Glacial Launcher and Coldsnap should be top priorities if you don't have them, but the Executioner and Drac Scattergun are still effective.  The Wendigo isn't totally obsolete yet, but I wouldn't spend on it compared to many other turret choices.

Hellborn - What not to get

No pre-raid post this time, but I'll just combine my "pre" and "one day in" posts here.

Raid thoughts:

Hellborn is here and the raid looks just like the last one.  The one notable change is the addition of the 74 "blitz target".  This target is worth 600,000 points if you kill the Hellstrikes that run away.  If you beat it in one hit, it can be blitzed for a minimum cost of 5 coin, working out to 120,000 points per coin.  For me, I like to be able to do raids for 500k to 1 million points per coin, so using blitz would work out to be a very expensive raid by my standards, but your may vary.  In terms of target diificulty, I tried a couple 74s with the two Tideseekers I built using the build and VXP tokens from the High Tide TLC, and was able to beat it for 4 coin repair.  The keys I found for using Tideseekers there are to avoid drones until ready to hit the mothership, and drive so that you are only engaging only one ship at a time.  Basic stuff.

For most of the raid, I've been using my Hellwraiths to hit 105s and a Grease Monkeys crew to repair, and have just about completed the raid (64M points) using 2 GMs and less than 50 coin.  I've been seeing mixed messages from players in the Facebook groups and such, but I've been having pretty good luck using the 100 Uranium crew rolls lately and I had 3 GMs stocked up.  

The most important tip for this raid when using subs is to come alongside the thermal scouts when firing at them - this way small differences in your ship placement won't cause you to be in thermal range.  Note that the motherships have lower thermal range than the scouts, so you don't have to be as careful when approaching them.  

A couple other notes:

• The yellow thermal rings seem to pop up a little more often than last time, even occasionally when I'm not near a thermal ship.  I think the drones are involved in triggering those, but I'm not too sure.  I generally try to hit areas that are away from drones until I have to.
• When my Hellwraith fleet is full strength, it will kill a scout in one volley, so sometimes I will stop my fleet in front of a scout and let it creep into range... but your fleet may vary.

Prizes:

The new prizes are the Valiant - a new defender hull, a Harlock Tideseeker for finding Phantoms, and a new Scattergun weapon and corrosive special.  In addition there are two limited component prizes that will be available for only the first two days of the raid.

Valiant:


This hull has pretty good armor, but not as good as the Vanquisher (100k vs 500k) - it also has longer repair time (3h vs 2h, cut in half when in base defender fleet slot).  Instead, it has across-the-board deflection, which means that it just might hold up longer than the Vanquisher against a lot of attack types.

On the weapon side, this hull gives range, damage, and reload bonuses across the board, which means there are a lot of choices available to the player on what to use.

The first thing to look at is the range - Jefe put this chart together for the Wednesday night BP Crib show:



These are pretty good options across the board, but the new Calamity Scattergun looks really good here, considering it is a weapon that does area damage.

One more thought is that this ship with 1 speed (instead of zero speed) might be good for base prepping, this was probably more true with the stats from the preview, but the ranges as released are actually a little less than using Cyclone/D98-U launchers on a Retribution (103.4).  And even with a bunch of speed boosts, it's REALLY going to be tedious to use it.

Calamity Scattergun:


This Corrosive Scattergun has more range than any previous scattergun, and it also does a lot of damage with its secondary concussive damage.  Having two damage types is particularly useful against conqueror hulls that have the damage-type specific deflection.  In particular, the Fury and Spite have Corrosive deflection but no Concussive deflection (Fury gets 600 Concussive with Bloodthirst). A DPS comparison (again from Jefe) is shown below:



The DPS improvement from previous scatterguns (both by weapon and by weight) is pretty astounding.  Along with the range improvement, this is clearly the new "must have" scattergun.  Although the focus right now may be on building Valiants, any Furys you build would benefit from this weapon as well.

Compressed Corrosion Canisters:


Again, I'm going back to the Jefe well on this one:


From a pure damage perspective, improving the multishot though Heavy Barrel, or improving the concussive damage through Advanced Concussive will give more benefit than improving the splash damage through Compressed Corrosion Canisters.  But you don't have to choose.  Since each of those three specials affect different statistics, they can be combined for huge damage benefits (as shown in the "stacked" column).  On the Valiant with 5 special slots, and no reason to use an engine or armor special, there is enough room to do it.  But on Offensive ships where you may only have one special to allocate for your weapon boost, consider the other options and even the Hydroxide Injectors, which will give the +1 multishot with the +25% corrosive damage boost.  Adding to multishot is particularly effective with the Calamity Scattergun because it only starts with 3 pellets instead of 6 for the Conflagration Scattergun.  

Harlock's Tideseeker:

This is the anti-sub ship we've been waiting for since the very first phantom sub was released.  It can see phantoms on the world map, and it has the thermal range to see them in combat.  The only defense subs have left to survive against these is speed.. and that really applies only to Hellwraiths.  So when building Tideseekers, remember to emphasize speed if you want to kill the subs you hunt down.

Limited Components: 
I'm putting these together because they aren't worth any more time than that...
 
Using Armor to get 10% Slow Resistance just doesn't seem that great.  Better ways to get Slow Resistance are Agility System and Shielded Tactical System.  For Armor slots on Conquerors, War Plating is a better choice.  1 Million points per piece of armor doesn't seem like that bad a price, but only for armor you'd want to use.


With only 20 points of deflection, I feel like there are more important ways to use your special slots on the (generally) PvE hulls that this special is limited to.  If there were 100 points or so from this special, then it might be worth using.  5 Million points for this just doesn't seem right as-is.

What to get:
The new prizes are good for base defense... you want them.  At 30 million points they seem to be at around the same value point as other recent prizes.  If you're a little short on points, leaving off the new special is probably the best choice out of the three.

Elsewhere in the main prize ladder, the Enforcer (1.75M) and Charon Torpedo (900,000) are good deals if you are missing a defensive hull and a Scourge Torpedo.with 88 range.  D98-U Launcher (900,000) is also a good deal if you are missing a 94 range launcher.  It makes a great spotter weapon if you are building a tank-type ship, or even an alternative to railguns on a Punisher.  Stealth Attack System 4 (350,000) goes well with the lower end sub hulls where you are limited on special slots.  If you have to decide between the Tier 2 weapons, you'll just have to decide where you are weakest in capability and focus there.

And at this point in the raid cycle, I am less positive on the Hellwraith, especially if you were able to pick up the Tideseeker in the first run of High Tide.  If you don't have a good weapon for Tideseekers, the Fire Twister Torpedo (9M) is your best choice from this raid.  The Concussive Gatling Gun (7.5M) is also available but seems a bit overpriced.

The Harlock's Tideseeker, at 20 million points, also seems like a good value considering the brand new unique capability it brings to the table.  

The two new locked limited prizes just don't seem worth it to buy or use (as I mentioned above).  The shards for "super-hulls" may be worth it if you have the commitment to save up... the Gamma Behemoth in particular only takes 10 shards (45M total points over two raids), so only 2 raids are required to complete that hull.  Other than that I don't see too much use for the Hellstar, Protonemesis, or the Man-of-War.  Ghostcrawlers are fun and still useful occasionally... but don't be leaving them sitting around anymore (speaking of which I just docked mine)!

For the other unlocked Prizes, 

Good Deals:
Arbalest (1.1M) 
Heavy Plating 3 (2M)

Pick these up if you don't have them.

Overpriced but maybe useful:
Styx Torpedo (6M)
Concussive Gatling Gun (7.5M)
Concussive Upgrade (3M) 
Nuclear Accelerators (4M)
Punisher (12.5M) 

Only pick these up if you are 'desperate' for the capability, but look for alternatives.  For example, the Punisher is a great tank for the 109s in the FM, but many players are having success with the Tideseeker.  The Styx Torpedo is 6 million points, but the Charon is only 900,000.

OK pirates, play smart and have fun, and start sinking those Phantoms!

Rise of the Warlords - What to get

A new raid cycle is upon us - the Reavers have returned with Drones, Scouts, Hulks, and a whole lot of Sub Cavitator fields.  If you've paid any attention at all over the last month, you've seen that subs really are the only viable option for beating these targets.  I was sort of intrigued by the idea of trying V2H or a similar ship with Concussive Reciprocators, but these Reavers deal out enough damage that I wouldn't want to rely on that.

The Raid Briefing is here: https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/659299
The Raid Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai6b7L8-P08
(it's more entertaining than usual by the way)

To take these targets on, you will need to use your subs, pick off the scouts when their cavitator field is down, then go for the Hulk(s).  For targets without the hunter-killer mortars, patience is key.  If you do it really well, the only damage you will take is from their death weapon.  In early versions of these targets, you were able to avoid some damage from that explosion by turning & running before the target died.  In what we've seen lately, the splash damage is the same no matter how far you are from the explosion, so it makes more sense to ignore the splash and just think about going for the next target quickly.  Most of the damage is explosive from these explosions, so X defense is key.  Some is plasma and just can't be resisted.

For the S target (only?) when the hunter-killer mortars are in play, you will really want to go after the mothership and hulks that fire the mortars ASAP.  Then once you've rushed through that... then you can slow down & try to pick off the rest.  We've also heard that the retargeting range of the hunter killer mortars has been reduced.  Hopefully what we will see is that you will only need to face the mortar from one enemy at a time instead of all four.

If you have Hellwraiths with Fire Twisters, using one sub at a time is the general strategy to minimize the splash damage.  However, if you have weaker subs and the Cavitator field comes back on before you can kill your target, you might want to use more subs and stack up so you can complete each target in reasonable time.  In this case you'll want to stick with the lower level targets.

Let's look at the new prizes:

Fury Conqueror Hull


This Conqueror hull is in the same class as the other ones we've seen, but this time the rotating wheel of weapon love has landed on Scattergun. 

It has a powerful overload that will buff your other ships, as well as briefly stunning nearby targets.

It has very high deflection against Penetrative, Explosive, and Radioactive Damage where it will basically ignore any weapons of that type.  It has some built-in corrosive deflection too, but not enough that it will ignore corrosive weapons.  Bloodlust will get this ship some additional Ballistic, Concussive, and Corrosive deflection, but this hull will really have to watch out for Blunderbuss and Miniguns.

When building these, consider that they have the 100% defense handicap we've seen recently on a lot of hulls, but they don't have any built-in turret defense.  I recommend Siege Battery on any build of these for the Turret Defense.  Resonance Capacitor could also get you some turret defense, but I don't think you can count on being in a field all the time with these hulls.

You also will want to look at your Evade stat.  You start at -50%, which means that with an evade special and armor, you can get that into a decently positive range.  Perhaps the only weapon you'd face where you care about evade is Javelins, but you might want to be able to delay Shockwaves too.

With a bare hull build time of a bit over 2 days, this hull can be built for a reasonable amount of shipyard time.

Conflagration Scattergun

This new Scattergun has higher damage and better range than other light Scatterguns - it is definitely preferable to the Cobra and the D81-M for dealing damage.  It also has a death weapon that will start making your battle look really pretty once ships start sinking.  The actual amount of death weapon damage isn't too high.

One thing to remember on the old D81-M - it was Kixeye's experiment with making weapons have a uranium cost, and although it has shorter range and less damage than this new Scattergun, it does have a much shorter build time (about 3 hours vs. 10) and it adds combat speed.  

Hydroxide Injector


This special adds multishot and corrosive damage.  It is ideal for light scatterguns (like the new Conflagration), but Barrel System 3 still does better for your heavy scatterguns.



What to Get:

The prize list is not too massive, so I'll try to be comprehensive this time:

MAIN PRIZES:

Fury:  The conventional story on these sort of blitz hulls is that they don't have very long useful lifespans.  I think the story might have changed a little bit, since most of the conqueror hulls are run like blitz fleets nowadays - you don't outrange the front line turrets anymore, remember?  This hull has a nice overload when damaged, so when fitted with a launcher for spotting, it can be swapped in for Retributions or Revenges as spotters for Vendettas and be a nice addition to your toolchest.

Conflagration Scattergun:  It's probably the best weapon to put on your Fury.  Concussive repeaters also come to mind, but without the damage bonus, those weapons are probably best on Revenges.

Hydroxide Injector:  Adding 46% to your DPS is a good thing, right? If you are using the Fury to spot, that might not matter too much though.

Hellwraith:  If you don't have these yet, I HIGHLY recommend them.  Of course, getting 15 million points this raid might be tough if you don't have these already.  They will be the critical hull to get in this raid cycle, and we expect to see these types of Reaver targets somewhere for a long time after this raid cycle.  If it is a question of "Fury or Hellwraith?" I'd strongly recommend Hellwraith.

Fire Twister Torpedo:  These torpedoes deal lots of damage, but the excitement for these was damped a bit when we saw they are "dumbfire" instead of aimed.  Coupled with Hellwraiths and Sealed Fire Charge, it really isn't much of a problem, but on other hulls you might not want to depend on these.

Sealed Fire Charge:  These go nicely with the FTTs, giving splash and speed bonuses. Critical hits are great against targets with deflection.

Tiger Shark:  I'm not scrapping mine just yet, but these subs are noticeably less effectivein this raid than Hellwraiths.  If this is all you can get (for a much lower point total than the Hellwraith), it might be a nice step-up to build these, but I'm not sure they are worth the build time in comparison.

Heavy Cruiser: These just don't seem like they have a place in today's game.

Charon Torpedo: Cheap at 900,000 points, these are the best alternative to Fire Twisters

Scattergun D81-M: I'm not sure where you'd really use these.  They were a cheap/light way to get some combat speed when they were introduced, but the nearly weightless/instant building Siege Cannons do that now.

Stealth Attack System IV: Again a good pickup for cheap, and usable in some combinations.

Barrel System 3: Best for "Heavy" weapon multishot of +6, you're more likely to want this special to be use with the Thermonuclear Launcher than the Heavy Scattergun.

LOCKED STORE:

Interception System: I liked this one in Tigers with my Styx torpedoes, or possibly on a ship with Antipode Launchers, but I'm not sure this is a must-have these days.

Railgun D-110:  Not bad if you have a use for it, but the Arbalest is better in Mine and FM targets.  This might be decent on the Gamma Behemoth if you are going that way - it has better speed than the Arbalest.

Gamma Behemoth Shards (limit 5):  Since you only need 10 shards for the Gamma blueprint, this raid could get you halfway there.  As a hull with significant buffs for ballistics and countermeasures, this hull has a place in many high-end guard fleets. 

Proto Nemesis / Hellstar / Ghostcrawler / Man-O-War shards x5 (limit 20 shards):  You already know whether or not you want to get these... just remember that you will need 250 shards to actually redeem the blueprint.  I still consider the Ghostcrawler useful.  Not so sure about the other ones.

UNLOCKED STORE:

Ship build tokens (limit 5 days 10 hours): Just make sure that you are getting a positive return on these before you redeem.

Fusion Charger: Not sure where you'd use this currently, but it sure is cheap.


Good luck in the raid pirates!

New Raid Prizes - Hellwraith creeping up

I hate steering my readers wrong... but between changes to the 70 Reaver Armadas and the preview of the new upcoming raid prizes... my last article is obsolete.  I gave 4 options for doing the next raid:

- Wait for new raid prize subs
- Refit Tiger Sharks
- Refit / Build low end subs
- Refit surface ship like Frosty, V2-H, or Proto-Hunter

The changes to the 70 targets added defense bypass - this nullified the resistance advantage of the surface ships, and made that option almost useless.  The increases in target health also made the higher end Reaver Armadas much more difficult with low end subs.  I did complete my Tiger Shark refit (at 2 days 7 hours per sub), and have been having more success against the Armadas... although it took some practice too.

But when we saw the results from the prize preview, the new Reaver sub, weapon, and special were looking quite destructive.

I'll do some comparisons and number crunching and see if we can figure out where the big advantages are coming from....

Hellwraith


Comparison below:


It's not all bad for the Tiger Shark in comparison, but I think the Tiger's DPS won't make up for the huge torpedo damage bonus, and the Assault Deflection will help the Hellwraith in comparison to the slightly higher submerged resistances.  I'll put those statements to the test in the next section.

The very high speed of the Hellwraith is certainly worth mentioning and will really come in handly - choosing range is often key for victory.  It will more than make up for the shorter dive/surface cycle.

Fire Twister Torpedo



The chart below compares the effectiveness of different combinations of attacking hull (generic, Tigershark R0, Hellwraith) & torpedo (Fire Twister, Charon R0) against different targets (Tiger R0, Hellwraith, and Cavitator Scout from Reaver 70s).



The numbers vs. the Reaver Cavitator Scout show the Fire Twister is about twice as effective as the Charon (R0), and the Hellwraith is about 50% more effective than the Tiger Shark This matches the destructiveness we saw in the preview.  But against player targets with high concussive resistance, the Assault DPS built into the Tiger Shark beats the extra torpedo damage of the Hellwraith, since the Assault DPS doesn't get resisted.

So my conclusion is that although the new hull/weapon combo will be much more effective than older hulls in this raid, it might not actually drive FvF power creep.  This hull will not be changing sub vs. ship or sub vs. sub outcomes significantly compared to older hulls.

The new torpedos are a big improvement though... 50% more damage and lighter weight than Charons.

Sealed Fire Charge


The Sealed Fire Charge is an unconventional weapons improvement - with the increase to critical damage, it gives a 20% DPS bonus - more if the target has deflection.  Splash and projectile speed are nice too (if you are using the Fire Twister).  The Cloak Efficiency hit shouldn't be too bad if you are using it on a Hellwraith, since those have a built in Cloak Efficiency buff.  So far, 70% - 75% is a good cloak efficiency target vs the Reavers.

Vassago's Punisher


I'm not going to spend too much time on this ship - it looks like it will be really good in Mines and pretty good in DUBs too.  However, with no Penetrative resistance and no Assault Deflection, this hull is not what you'd want to bring into a Forsaken Mission Stronghold.  With an 18 day buildtime, there are a lot more economical ways to beat a mine or a DUB.

Overall on the Prizes

The big must-get is the weapon, not the hull.  The Fire Twister makes all the other torpedoes obsolete.  The Hellwraith will be significantly more effective in the upcoming raid cycles, and it has some unique advantages with its high speed, but I think that players who can't get 50 million points for the new gear should shoot for 21 million to get Tigers & Fire Twisters, or even 12.9 million to get Spectres and Fire Twisters.

My plan is to pick up the new prize hull and start building ASAP.  My goal is to have at least two (mostly empty) hulls to rank during VXP weekend.  Two Hellwraiths should be at least as effective as my Styx Tiger fleet.

On the rest of the list
I'm not going to go through each of the other prizes - there are just too many.  I'll try to hit the highlights:

Hulls
Subs: Getting the best Sub hull you can is probably a priority if you don't have any.  I don't really like the Nighthawk over the lower build times and point cost of the Spectre, so the major ones to consider are the Hellwraith (30M), Tiger Shark (9M), and Spectre (900k).  

Chores: The Punisher (12.5M) is clearly the king of the chores right now but Apollos (12.5M), Centurions (9M), and Rhinos (1.75M) are also options.

Conquerors:  The Revenge (15M) is the only conqueror available in this raid.  Most players would have rather seen Vendettas, but no luck there.  If you don't have any options, and you really want to get into the base hitting game, pick up Revenge and the Concussive Gatling (7.5M) 

Flagships: The Omega Behemoth (11M) and the High-landers NC (4.5M) are the best flag options for chores.  The Savage Kodiak (10M) is also worth considering to enhance a Rhino fleet.  The Destroyer ECM (40M) is really a vanity hull - sonar protection doesn't help against thermal.  Vassago's Punisher (50M) just doesn't seem worth the build time or points right now.


Turrets
The limited Coldsnap (15M) and the Glacial Launcher (15M) are both very key pieces of a high end base defense.  The Apoc Mortar (12M) can be useful against some fleets, but really needs the Level 6 turrets (two specials) before it can shine.

Weapons
As said above - the Fire Twister Torpedo (12M) is the prize of choice this raid.  Most of the other weapons can be useful if you have a build in mind, but none leap out as must-gets.  The D98-U Antipode Launcher (5.5M) has been offered for the first time in a while, so you might want to pick that up.  Avoid the Styx and the UAVs... the Styx is not useful in the upcoming raid cycle vs. these targets with corrosive resist, and the UAVs simply lack a good hull to carry them at this point in the game.

Armors 
Streamlined Cadmium (7.5M) lost its lustre when ships repair times came down.  D5-X (3.5M) is good for its deflection bonus as well as defense.

Specials
The Sealed Fire Charge (9M) will be useful in conjunction with the new hull & weapon, but I'd avoid it otherwise.  Other useful specials out there are the Barrel System 3 (5M) and Stealth Attack System 4 (3.5M) 

Tokens & Shards
Up to 11 days of tokens are welcome.  So are Ghostcrawler shards.


Good luck in the raid!  Remember that it is a 6 day raid.  Use the time wisely and don't get frustrated early.  Don't forget your crews.

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.