Aargh - it's been a little crazy in the Professor's ivory tower lately (so crazy he's writing in the third person), and he hasn't kept up the blog to his own liking.
(enough of that third person)
Recently, I would have liked to write articles on:
The new round of FM prizes:
- put those Solar Reinforcements everywhere you have a free armor slot
- Splash Dispersion seems cool but I think you'll have to overlap a few for it to be really useful.
- Shockwave Plate 3 & 4 are useful on those Conqueror hulls vulnerable to Shockwaves. Stack them up.
and...
The FM mission 109s:
- Build a tank with M & X resistance. Countermeasures are key for that.
- Flagships are really useful. Harlock Citadel best for its projectile speed, then a Savage Kodiak for M resist, then maybe a Dante's Novastorm for X resist.
And now on to the "what to get" article I should write about the next set of raid prizes.
On the new Raid Prizes:
- New missile based Conqueror stuff looks decent but I really haven't analyzed the DPS. Missile is just another option, and I assume we will see a ballistic conqueror sometime in this raid cycle.
- The ballistic resistance on the Spite is a warning to those who overloaded on ballistic base defense. I've always kept a Revenge in my base hitting fleet to account for that. Spite will be another option.
- I would have loved the Spite if it had remote targeting.
- A reduced build time Neptune with its high Siege deflection might be a decent tank option for those working their way up, but with no Assault Resistance it will be vulnerable to the Rhino's missiles. For Punisher tanks I generally advocate balancing M & X resistance, but on these you may want to emphasize M resist.
- Hellwraiths are fun to play with, and they will probably be the best way to get Uranium not too long after this raid cycle ends. If you don't have them, and you do have any other conqueror hull, I would prioritize the Hellwraith over the Spite.
- Scythe & Death Scythe never really caught on. Their build time is still really long (2+ days for regular Scythe, 3+ days for Death Scythe) and their flight time too slow to be worth it.
- I'm not super excited for the limited ST armor or Ampacity upgrade... just not good enough compared to the alternatives.
OK that's all - good luck in the raid. I won't be publishing again (or on the Crib show) for two weeks at least. Awesome stuff happening IRL but busy busy busy... I'm hoping to have enough time to do this raid, but won't get too bummed if I can't.
I also won't be advertising this article in the FB groups or Kixeye like usual - but of course feel free to share it yourself.
Showing posts with label Mission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mission. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Monday, July 25, 2016
New FM Prize - Reciprocator vs. Gatling Gun
Well I had a nice vacation week - and yet still managed to rank my Vanquishers on VXP weekend through Photon Browser (someone unplugged my home router before we left & I couldn't use my preferred method of Chrome Remote Desktop).
Anyway we have new FM prizes to run through. Given my time constraints and the lateness of this article, I'm going to write an article on the new weapon, and try to give it a good comparison against the CGG. Later this week, I'll write another article on the new Minigun Turret, and compare its effectiveness against common attackers.
Concussive Reciprocator
It does seem like a little brother to the Concussive Gatling Gun with lighter weight, but its only fire mode with an 86 range will do the same amount of damage per salvo as the CGG will in its 68 range primary mode.
The following chart shows a comparison of the weapon performance when mounted on a Revenge with fully retroed Siege Battery 3 and the Strike Warheads.
Above the black line, I did a standard DPS comparison while ignoring the windup. Below the line, I tried to compute the time each weapon (mode) would take to deal out 50,000 points of blueprint damage. I chose that number because it was 1/20th of 1 million points of damage, which would sink a Vanquisher (remember half damage). The interesting thing is that although Kixeye seems to have gone into some effort to choose stats for windup and reload stacks, the minimum reload time of 0.2 seconds and the salvo time really are what seems to drive DPS over time for these weapons.
So the results are that the Secondary mode of the Gatling takes the longest to do a given amount of damage, but it can do so at the longest range. The Reciprocator does the most damage with shorter range. It also has the longest decay time, so it has the best chance of staying wound up for the next target.
So if building a Revenge, which weapon should you choose?
For now, I don't think the weight matters too much - the Revenge with some armor and the heavier CGG isn't quite at max weight, but if you are weight-sensitive, the Reciprocator is significantly lighter... so keep an eye on that.
The range of the Gatling is extremely valuable for sniping targets at long range, and it is tough to pass that up. When driven well, it can even outrange 105 range turrets due to the varying footprint size of ships vs. turrets. Just keep in mind that if spotting for Vendettas, you cannot remote target off of the 104 Secondary range, just the 68 Primary range. You'll want a launcher for spotting.
The Reciprocator does really good damage at medium range and it won't cool off like the Gatling's primary mode (which does similar damage). But you'll have to utilize more of a rushing driving style in order to take advantage. The Reciprocator also has a shorter build time.
Overall, you'll have to pick the weapon that suits your attacking style. I consider this a benefit considering the new BP philosophy to control power creep. Each new weapon should NOT obsolete the one before it. But the flip side of that benefit is that shipbuilding is getting more complex, and you'll have to think carefully when building your fleet, instead of just picking the newest blueprints you have.
Anyway we have new FM prizes to run through. Given my time constraints and the lateness of this article, I'm going to write an article on the new weapon, and try to give it a good comparison against the CGG. Later this week, I'll write another article on the new Minigun Turret, and compare its effectiveness against common attackers.
Concussive Reciprocator
It does seem like a little brother to the Concussive Gatling Gun with lighter weight, but its only fire mode with an 86 range will do the same amount of damage per salvo as the CGG will in its 68 range primary mode.
The following chart shows a comparison of the weapon performance when mounted on a Revenge with fully retroed Siege Battery 3 and the Strike Warheads.
Above the black line, I did a standard DPS comparison while ignoring the windup. Below the line, I tried to compute the time each weapon (mode) would take to deal out 50,000 points of blueprint damage. I chose that number because it was 1/20th of 1 million points of damage, which would sink a Vanquisher (remember half damage). The interesting thing is that although Kixeye seems to have gone into some effort to choose stats for windup and reload stacks, the minimum reload time of 0.2 seconds and the salvo time really are what seems to drive DPS over time for these weapons.
So the results are that the Secondary mode of the Gatling takes the longest to do a given amount of damage, but it can do so at the longest range. The Reciprocator does the most damage with shorter range. It also has the longest decay time, so it has the best chance of staying wound up for the next target.
So if building a Revenge, which weapon should you choose?
For now, I don't think the weight matters too much - the Revenge with some armor and the heavier CGG isn't quite at max weight, but if you are weight-sensitive, the Reciprocator is significantly lighter... so keep an eye on that.
The range of the Gatling is extremely valuable for sniping targets at long range, and it is tough to pass that up. When driven well, it can even outrange 105 range turrets due to the varying footprint size of ships vs. turrets. Just keep in mind that if spotting for Vendettas, you cannot remote target off of the 104 Secondary range, just the 68 Primary range. You'll want a launcher for spotting.
The Reciprocator does really good damage at medium range and it won't cool off like the Gatling's primary mode (which does similar damage). But you'll have to utilize more of a rushing driving style in order to take advantage. The Reciprocator also has a shorter build time.
Overall, you'll have to pick the weapon that suits your attacking style. I consider this a benefit considering the new BP philosophy to control power creep. Each new weapon should NOT obsolete the one before it. But the flip side of that benefit is that shipbuilding is getting more complex, and you'll have to think carefully when building your fleet, instead of just picking the newest blueprints you have.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Concussive - New FM prizes & next raid cycle
In this article, I'll catch you up with the new FM Prizes and also give some thoughts on what to do with the next raid cycle - we've just seen a preview of the targets that are being considered.
Zynthonite Armor CT
The new Zynthonite CT armor is pretty much like any other single-resistance armor, except it resists concussive damage. It is really most like the R armor, where the smaller versions have lowered resistance. It also has the same build time as the equivalent sized R armor.
So whether you want to use this armor all depends on whether you have a ship that expects to be shot at by (mostly) concussive weapons. The two biggest potential uses are for an anti-sub fleet (hopefully they have no Cobras) and an anti-Revenge fleet (with Concussive Gatling Guns). Maybe you want this armor for your base guards, but I'm not super excited for this one.
Oh, and a two letter name for a single resistance is silly and inconsistent. There's no T in concussive. Of course, this all stems from whomever made the bad decision to use "C" for ballistic waaay back when. Bad design decisions come home to roost. On the plus side, the picture looks cool - probably cooler than is warranted for a ho-hum armor.
Concussive Platform Plating
This armor could go on your turrets to help defend against concussive damage. This would result in a very specialized defense against the Concussive Gatlings - but that is still the number one threat to your base. The question is whether this armor would be as effective as the current best alternative - Permacrete. The armor points given by the CPP is the same as the Zynthonite Reinforcements that provides resistance, but like those plates, the armor provided is way short of the 52,080 armor points provided by Permacrete. The power is a small bit higher than the other Zynth options (955 vs. 925) but not as good a value as the Permacrete (1665 power for Permacrete gives you less than 2x the power draw for more than 3x the armor).
So will it defend well against the CGG?
Well the biggest sized plate gives 60 deflection, and let's just consider the best case on a Level 7 turret with 3 armor slots. So my choices are 328,120 armor with 180 deflection on a CPP-defended turret or 436,240 with no deflection on a Permacrete-defended turret (280,000 health comes from the turret itself).
On a revenge, the Concussive Chain Gun is rated at 700 building damage (in long range mode) with salvo 2, but the hull has a +315% damage built in. So it does (700 / 2 * (1 +315%) ) = 1452.5 points of blueprint damage per shot.
When shooting at the Permacrete turret, you do 726.25 points of "real" damage per hit, resulting in 601 hits needed to kill the turret.
When shooting at the CPP turret, you do (1452.5 - 180) / 2 = 636.25 points of "real" damage per hit, resulting in 515 hits needed to kill the turret.
So this means that if you are defending, a Permacrete turret will perform better than a Concussive Plated turret. Also keep in mind that the calculation above was the "best case scenario" for the Concussive Plate... many Revenge have a damage booster like Siege Battery or Concussive Warheads, which makes the deflection even less effective. Or if you have a lower level turret, you have less built in health, which means that the ratio of the health difference between the Permacrete and Concussive will be larger, also making the Permacrete perform better.
So - for anyone who has Permacrete, Concussive Platform Plating is useless.
AT:R Transformer
This is our third Transformer option for a Level 7 turret. The other two give increased damage at the cost of resistance (A-T), or increased resistance at the cost of damage (D-T).
In the current game, high Damage per shot is critically important when defending your base because it is needed to overcome high deflection stats on the Conqueror hulls. That means that I choose the A-T (Offensive) transformer on my frontline turrets over the defensive - I want to make sure that the shots fired will count.
So when looking at this turret, which cuts damage AND resistance to get range, you have to think carefully about where it might be useful. I think the answer is on those mid-range turrets that lay down (or suppress) field effects - The Glacial Launcher, Wendigo, and the Coldsnap are all likely candidates for this transformer. I find that it is particularly challenging to find a good spot to put the Glacial Launcher and that extra 10 range may come in handy. I know that some players really like the damage done by the Glacial, but for me it is the ice fields that slow enemies nearly to a stop and set up a huge amount of resistance bypass that I like.
I'll just say that this one is an option to keep in your toolbox, but think carefully before using it.
Reaver Holdout Targets
In this latest VXP weekend, we got a first look at the "Reaver Holdouts", which was claimed as a sneak preview of the next type of raid target (coming in September).
So the way the target worked, is that you are faced with 3 Reaver Scouts and 1 Reaver Hulk. The Scouts have a Cavitator field (surfaces subs) that blinks on and off, and fire a concussive cannon. The Hulk has a multishot mortar that sets up permanent cavitator fields when it lands. The Reaver ships also have very high resistance to damage types besides concussive and corrosive.
The intended way to engage these targets was by using subs. If you could watch the Scout Cavitator fields, you could come in and kill the Scouts with just 1-2 torpedo volleys while the field is off. The other key is to be able to watch the Mortar shots, estimate where they will land, and stay away from that area. I did two Holdout targets with my Tigershark fleet to get an idea of the difficulty, and I was able to complete the target both times for under 2 hours repair - and all of that damage was done by the ships exploding. You were able to retreat and re-enter to erase the Mortar Cavitator fields if they got too inconvenient - I did take advantage of that.
Just in case you're wondering what I'm using on my Tigers, here's my build. I use Styx with Interception System to maximize my DoT damage, except one ship that has Sonic Targeting for spotting other subs (remember the Scourge?). The Phantom has a few Cobra Scatterguns, but I never really put the shipyard time into those. You'll also note I didn't max out my stealth armor... that's just a design choice that most players didn't make.
Looking at the resistances, it is possible that a Scattergun fleet could be effective too, but I don't know anyone who tried that. Those targets with their concussive damage might also be best attacked with a ship using the new CT armor, but you'll still need to do some damage... once more, my head returns to V2-H with Concussive Gatling Guns. I'm not saying you gotta go out & build those... but it keeps tempting me as a refit.. let me know if you try it. And next time I get on a preview server, I just might give it a shot. On second thought, CGGs might have some trouble against fast moving ships.
Most people used these fleets for ranking - killing a full health ship on these fleets gave about 4k VXP (per ship, no crew), which was a very nice payoff. But we want to understand how to beat these targets going forward, so let's look at what we know from Kixeye... They put these targets out early so that we can get a taste for them, and so that they can start to learn about how we would approach them. There will probably be changes between now and September.
What we do know is that the September raid target will be Skirmish-type, and probably sub friendly. We will probably also see Skirmish ships go into the Foundry. We may also see build time reductions for the hulls and some of the related equipment (Scourge torpedos desperately need a build time reduction).
What Skirmish hulls might we see in the Foundry? Looking through the Skirmish tab in the Shipyard at the non-limited hulls we have:
Tier 4: Tiger Shark
Tier 3: Nighthawk
Tier 2 - 2.5: Stingray, Interdictor, Spectre
Tier 1: - 1.75: Sawfish, Battleship, Battlecruiser X, Battlecruiser, Barracuda
It is very possible that the Skirmish Foundry hulls will be sub-only, resulting in the Barracuda, Spectre, Nighthawk, and the Tiger Shark being the choices. If you have nothing built yet, the Barracuda on Tier 1 might be quite intriguing (as a quick build), especially with the likelihood that its stats will be improved to the R10 version with extra weight. I would probably choose that hull over the Spectre on Tier 2 just for the extra special. The Spectre would need more speed and an extra special slot to be chosen over the Cuda... its submerge time is nice, but I think in most anti-ship situations, I'd rather have a Cuda fleet. (like this?) My thoughts might change when we see the Foundry updates.
In the short term, you might want to start some hulls for ranking, but I wouldn't go overboard until we see the Foundry release. When I built my Tiger Sharks, I did the inital build with Vortex Torpedos just as a quick way to get them in the water. The DPS stat took care of damage dealing for a while. In addition, spending Uranium to retrofit the sub hulls probably isn't a good idea.
For the long term, it looks like you will need a sub fleet. You will do better in that upcoming raid cycle with subs, and then it is very likely that the target we fight in the raids will move to the world map to replace a "chore" type activity (in early 2017?).
Overall, I'm kind of looking forward to these targets - they were creative and a change. The thing I didn't like was that the only time they do damage is if either... the player messes up, gets surfaced, and dies ... or ... the ship does some damage when they die. The nature of sub warfare in BP has always been like that - subs win easily or die horribly. The raid design will be quite difficult, since they will need to find some middle ground - cause enough damage so players won't do it for free, but don't just destroy fleets. Good luck Kixeye!
Zynthonite Armor CT
The new Zynthonite CT armor is pretty much like any other single-resistance armor, except it resists concussive damage. It is really most like the R armor, where the smaller versions have lowered resistance. It also has the same build time as the equivalent sized R armor.
So whether you want to use this armor all depends on whether you have a ship that expects to be shot at by (mostly) concussive weapons. The two biggest potential uses are for an anti-sub fleet (hopefully they have no Cobras) and an anti-Revenge fleet (with Concussive Gatling Guns). Maybe you want this armor for your base guards, but I'm not super excited for this one.
Oh, and a two letter name for a single resistance is silly and inconsistent. There's no T in concussive. Of course, this all stems from whomever made the bad decision to use "C" for ballistic waaay back when. Bad design decisions come home to roost. On the plus side, the picture looks cool - probably cooler than is warranted for a ho-hum armor.
Concussive Platform Plating
This armor could go on your turrets to help defend against concussive damage. This would result in a very specialized defense against the Concussive Gatlings - but that is still the number one threat to your base. The question is whether this armor would be as effective as the current best alternative - Permacrete. The armor points given by the CPP is the same as the Zynthonite Reinforcements that provides resistance, but like those plates, the armor provided is way short of the 52,080 armor points provided by Permacrete. The power is a small bit higher than the other Zynth options (955 vs. 925) but not as good a value as the Permacrete (1665 power for Permacrete gives you less than 2x the power draw for more than 3x the armor).
So will it defend well against the CGG?
Well the biggest sized plate gives 60 deflection, and let's just consider the best case on a Level 7 turret with 3 armor slots. So my choices are 328,120 armor with 180 deflection on a CPP-defended turret or 436,240 with no deflection on a Permacrete-defended turret (280,000 health comes from the turret itself).
On a revenge, the Concussive Chain Gun is rated at 700 building damage (in long range mode) with salvo 2, but the hull has a +315% damage built in. So it does (700 / 2 * (1 +315%) ) = 1452.5 points of blueprint damage per shot.
When shooting at the Permacrete turret, you do 726.25 points of "real" damage per hit, resulting in 601 hits needed to kill the turret.
When shooting at the CPP turret, you do (1452.5 - 180) / 2 = 636.25 points of "real" damage per hit, resulting in 515 hits needed to kill the turret.
So this means that if you are defending, a Permacrete turret will perform better than a Concussive Plated turret. Also keep in mind that the calculation above was the "best case scenario" for the Concussive Plate... many Revenge have a damage booster like Siege Battery or Concussive Warheads, which makes the deflection even less effective. Or if you have a lower level turret, you have less built in health, which means that the ratio of the health difference between the Permacrete and Concussive will be larger, also making the Permacrete perform better.
So - for anyone who has Permacrete, Concussive Platform Plating is useless.
AT:R Transformer
This is our third Transformer option for a Level 7 turret. The other two give increased damage at the cost of resistance (A-T), or increased resistance at the cost of damage (D-T).
In the current game, high Damage per shot is critically important when defending your base because it is needed to overcome high deflection stats on the Conqueror hulls. That means that I choose the A-T (Offensive) transformer on my frontline turrets over the defensive - I want to make sure that the shots fired will count.
So when looking at this turret, which cuts damage AND resistance to get range, you have to think carefully about where it might be useful. I think the answer is on those mid-range turrets that lay down (or suppress) field effects - The Glacial Launcher, Wendigo, and the Coldsnap are all likely candidates for this transformer. I find that it is particularly challenging to find a good spot to put the Glacial Launcher and that extra 10 range may come in handy. I know that some players really like the damage done by the Glacial, but for me it is the ice fields that slow enemies nearly to a stop and set up a huge amount of resistance bypass that I like.
I'll just say that this one is an option to keep in your toolbox, but think carefully before using it.
Reaver Holdout Targets
In this latest VXP weekend, we got a first look at the "Reaver Holdouts", which was claimed as a sneak preview of the next type of raid target (coming in September).
So the way the target worked, is that you are faced with 3 Reaver Scouts and 1 Reaver Hulk. The Scouts have a Cavitator field (surfaces subs) that blinks on and off, and fire a concussive cannon. The Hulk has a multishot mortar that sets up permanent cavitator fields when it lands. The Reaver ships also have very high resistance to damage types besides concussive and corrosive.
The intended way to engage these targets was by using subs. If you could watch the Scout Cavitator fields, you could come in and kill the Scouts with just 1-2 torpedo volleys while the field is off. The other key is to be able to watch the Mortar shots, estimate where they will land, and stay away from that area. I did two Holdout targets with my Tigershark fleet to get an idea of the difficulty, and I was able to complete the target both times for under 2 hours repair - and all of that damage was done by the ships exploding. You were able to retreat and re-enter to erase the Mortar Cavitator fields if they got too inconvenient - I did take advantage of that.
Just in case you're wondering what I'm using on my Tigers, here's my build. I use Styx with Interception System to maximize my DoT damage, except one ship that has Sonic Targeting for spotting other subs (remember the Scourge?). The Phantom has a few Cobra Scatterguns, but I never really put the shipyard time into those. You'll also note I didn't max out my stealth armor... that's just a design choice that most players didn't make.
Looking at the resistances, it is possible that a Scattergun fleet could be effective too, but I don't know anyone who tried that. Those targets with their concussive damage might also be best attacked with a ship using the new CT armor, but you'll still need to do some damage... once more, my head returns to V2-H with Concussive Gatling Guns. I'm not saying you gotta go out & build those... but it keeps tempting me as a refit.. let me know if you try it. And next time I get on a preview server, I just might give it a shot. On second thought, CGGs might have some trouble against fast moving ships.
Most people used these fleets for ranking - killing a full health ship on these fleets gave about 4k VXP (per ship, no crew), which was a very nice payoff. But we want to understand how to beat these targets going forward, so let's look at what we know from Kixeye... They put these targets out early so that we can get a taste for them, and so that they can start to learn about how we would approach them. There will probably be changes between now and September.
What we do know is that the September raid target will be Skirmish-type, and probably sub friendly. We will probably also see Skirmish ships go into the Foundry. We may also see build time reductions for the hulls and some of the related equipment (Scourge torpedos desperately need a build time reduction).
What Skirmish hulls might we see in the Foundry? Looking through the Skirmish tab in the Shipyard at the non-limited hulls we have:
Tier 4: Tiger Shark
Tier 3: Nighthawk
Tier 2 - 2.5: Stingray, Interdictor, Spectre
Tier 1: - 1.75: Sawfish, Battleship, Battlecruiser X, Battlecruiser, Barracuda
It is very possible that the Skirmish Foundry hulls will be sub-only, resulting in the Barracuda, Spectre, Nighthawk, and the Tiger Shark being the choices. If you have nothing built yet, the Barracuda on Tier 1 might be quite intriguing (as a quick build), especially with the likelihood that its stats will be improved to the R10 version with extra weight. I would probably choose that hull over the Spectre on Tier 2 just for the extra special. The Spectre would need more speed and an extra special slot to be chosen over the Cuda... its submerge time is nice, but I think in most anti-ship situations, I'd rather have a Cuda fleet. (like this?) My thoughts might change when we see the Foundry updates.
In the short term, you might want to start some hulls for ranking, but I wouldn't go overboard until we see the Foundry release. When I built my Tiger Sharks, I did the inital build with Vortex Torpedos just as a quick way to get them in the water. The DPS stat took care of damage dealing for a while. In addition, spending Uranium to retrofit the sub hulls probably isn't a good idea.
For the long term, it looks like you will need a sub fleet. You will do better in that upcoming raid cycle with subs, and then it is very likely that the target we fight in the raids will move to the world map to replace a "chore" type activity (in early 2017?).
Overall, I'm kind of looking forward to these targets - they were creative and a change. The thing I didn't like was that the only time they do damage is if either... the player messes up, gets surfaced, and dies ... or ... the ship does some damage when they die. The nature of sub warfare in BP has always been like that - subs win easily or die horribly. The raid design will be quite difficult, since they will need to find some middle ground - cause enough damage so players won't do it for free, but don't just destroy fleets. Good luck Kixeye!
Monday, June 13, 2016
The New FM & Beating a 97
I've been pretty silent on the new Forsaken Mission in the blog. That's because I haven't been very good at the new targets. I will say that I have greatly appreciated the "soft" launch of the new FM, where no new targets were in the 150 million point Tier 5 and old targets were still available. I've taken advantage of the time to do some much needed experimentation and tuning of fleets.
So I'm certainly not the first, second, or third (etc etc) player in the community to figure out the mission, or to post videos or instructions. And I'm certainly drawing on what others have done. But I'll try to break things down in detail and hopefully I will help those players who are still having trouble. Even if you're not big enough to have some of the ships I have to work with and to go after Tier 5, I think these details will help you go after the smaller targets as well.
So first of all, let's look at what you need to defend against:
Mortars
Mortar defense is very important in these new targets. There are mortar turrets and remote targeting Citadels. You must have enough Gale or Hail coverage to be able to choose your own paths & speeds through the target. Some players prefer to spread their coverage across their fleet - I prefer a countermeasure ship so I only have to use a countermeasure special on one ship.
Missiles
Once you have the mortar defense taken care of, missiles are the next biggest threat. Zoe Rhinos with remote targeting missiles have flak evade and are fairly tough to kill. Missile turrets are on the island as well. High accuracy Phalanx are important too, and so that means a countermeasure special. You still won't shoot down all the incoming missiles, which is why most players recommend high missile defense for a "new" FM fleet.
MIRV Missile (Angry Arc)
I didn't coin the "Angry Arc" name, but I really like it. These Angry Arc missiles do a whole lot more damage than the Arc missiles we get. At long range they can be outrun for low to no damage, but when you get close enough to shoot at them, their missiles fall much more quickly. These are great targets for pinch rockets.
Coldsnap Rockets
Most turret platforms include a coldsnap rocket. These don't do a whole lot of damage to decent fleets, but will make ships like the Aegis much less useful.
Iron Curtain
These flak guns don't stop a focused mortar attack, but missiles do have a tough time breaking through. Most players have not been able to use Rhinos effectively in these targets. If these turrets have a secondary ballistic mode, most players ignore them.
Torpedo Towers
The torps from these towers aren't too deadly, and you can often use good pathing to hit these without taking any fire. I'm pretty sure the primary purpose of these is to prevent Cobra/Deluge subs from having any chance in these targets.
Some of the best videos I've seen before on the New FM are:
Insector Gadget was definitely one of the first to share a decent approach for the 97s, although this video does use a Grease Monkeys crew... and those don't exactly grow on trees. His path through the base is good to watch.
I really liked this one from Deathmatrix, using a spotter & some Citadels. However, it is pretty tough to reproduce the driving. I found that when my spotter would get close to the island, the Angry Arc missile would shift targets and destroy my Citadels, or I would bring my Citadels too close (drawing Arc fire) before getting my spotter on its run (I had to account for different speeds).
And lots of players suggested pinching the Angry Arc missile... so will I.
The Fleet:
So let me explain my approach. I started with the Punisher fleet I built for the DUBs, which relied on Earthshaker Cannons to get the fleet up to high speed and Heavy Plating for resistance. I also brought a Neptune loaded with Gales and an Omega giving the fleet additional firepower with its aura. This fleet did pretty poorly - taking 7+ hours repair from a 97. Missile defense (both resistance and Phalanx) was a big weakness of that fleet. I also never liked the Earthshakers as much as I thought I would - since DPS/hton has equalized between most weapons, using the (relatively) light Earthshakers meant that my fleet ended up light and so I was losing out on firepower.
My refit involved replacing 4 Earthshakers with Arbalest and replacing my Heavy Plating with MX-3 alloy (yes maybe full Reactive (anti-Missile) armor special would have been better, but I'd like to preserve SOME capability to do DUBs). Then I had to find a new Countermeasure ship to replace the Neptune, which couldn't keep up any more - I grabbed a Centurion that I built (and then didn't follow up with a fleet). Side note: every once in a while I build random single hulls, dislike them or I am not sure how I'll use them, but I still throw them at VXP weekend targets to get rank anyway. Paid off this time.
The Centurion refit added 3 Phalanx 4 for anti-missile defense and 6 Gale 2 for Anti-mortar (and Explosive resist). I also had to rework the specials and ended up spending over 9 days of shipyard time on this ship.
The final build is:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!B06L00U0Y0U0X0U400X68555Z5Y12000000000000000NH01W130Z342U6A5K2F23232323AKAKAKAKAK2C0NH01W130Z342U6A5K2F23232323AKAKAKAKAK2C0NH01W130Z342U6A5K2F23232323AKAKAKAKAK2C07401P1P1P132534445R6F682A2A2A56AK5656565656dC
Please understand... this is a fleet that has been through many rounds of refit. Not everything is optimized for this FM target (especially the R armor). Use your head & don't copy my builds exactly (or go ahead & copy them, but don't bother asking questions about every single detail).
The Plan
My basic plan was to use a pinch on the Angry Arc, close in, and kill it. Then retreat, do the same to the one on the other side and then kill the rest. As you'll see in the video, I tweaked that somewhat.
First of all, the entry point is key. To hit the lower Arc island I enter almost from the 6 o'clock position but just a little left of that (maybe 6:30 or so). This gives me enough space to line up my ships for their run without taking Arc fire. I also get my Omega moving out of the way. If you enter wrong (the Arc fires), just retreat and try again.
Then the timing of the Pinch & the run in is also important. When using XL Long Pinches, 28 seconds is plenty of time to approach and kill the island. But if using Small Long Pinches (that take 15 minutes each to build instead of 8 hours), you only have 16 seconds. When I start my run before the pinch drops, the Arc gets off a shot or two before the pinch falls, but I don't take any damage from it because I am still far away and moving fast. I found that starting my run with 8 seconds left on the timer worked best for me.
When I get to the island, I target the rear building that protects the turrets, then target the Arc next. After that the rest of the island falls pretty quick, but I'll also try to get the Coldsnap early since it recovers from the pinch before everything else.
After that my fleet makes a left turn. The good anti-mortar coverage is important here since a lot of mortars are generally falling at this point. I kill the Citadel and the Torpedo Tower while on the way to the island next door. Again, targeting the rear building first results in the whole island going down pretty quickly. As I finish off the island, I start turning away to make my retreat. That path results in very little incoming missile fire - most of it is while I'm in range of the Citadel.
I come in and kill the opposite side (the top) in the same way. (except I was having a bit of mouse/computer trouble on the run in the video...)
Then the twist I haven't seen others do ... I bring the Harlock Aegis/Punisher/Rhino fleet that I used against the previous generation of FMs to finish the job. All that is left are the two Rhinos and two Torp Towers. The Punisher tank is be able to repair instantly after finishing it off. Although that last bit is (only) worth a million points or so, be a good neighbor and take care of it. You have 9 more 97s to go, right? Better yet - offer it up to a alli mate who might be having trouble with the new 97s. Also remember you earn Tier 5 / Citadel fragments from the 97.
Overall, I ended up with under half an hour of repair from that 97, after instant repairing a couple ships. I think that's pretty good - if I keep the small pinches building, I could run through a single FM to tier 5 in a single sitting & no coins. If you have a fleet that is less effective offensively, you might need larger pinch rockets, in which case you could build those in advance and use them up to get through the mission. I'm thinking Crusaders & Centurions could use that technique with ballistics, and possibly even mortar fleets using Citadels, Berzerkers, or even Dreadnaught X.
As another point of reference, I tried my fleet without using the pinches & without using the Rhinos to finish things off. I still used two hits, and took out the bottom Rhino/torp after the first hit. I ended up taking 2h 16m worth of damage, with the Centurion taking the brunt of it (probably about half damaged). One thing I noticed was that the Rhino was particularly well placed to be covered by the mines while I attacked it. If you are trying to find a way to beat these targets with fewer hits, I suggest having a way to detect & kill the mines without entering that ice field (Maybe use a CM ship that has sonar & a couple missiles? Like a Rhino???).
I hope this breakdown helps the players that are still having trouble with these new targets. The raid is this week, and next week the "old" FM targets go away along with new prizes being introduced in Tier 5. Kixeye has also said that the point values are going up. You'll still be able to hit Tier 5 with 5x97s (supposedly) but it will be much harder to grind your way there with the smaller targets.
So I'm certainly not the first, second, or third (etc etc) player in the community to figure out the mission, or to post videos or instructions. And I'm certainly drawing on what others have done. But I'll try to break things down in detail and hopefully I will help those players who are still having trouble. Even if you're not big enough to have some of the ships I have to work with and to go after Tier 5, I think these details will help you go after the smaller targets as well.
So first of all, let's look at what you need to defend against:
Mortars
Mortar defense is very important in these new targets. There are mortar turrets and remote targeting Citadels. You must have enough Gale or Hail coverage to be able to choose your own paths & speeds through the target. Some players prefer to spread their coverage across their fleet - I prefer a countermeasure ship so I only have to use a countermeasure special on one ship.
Missiles
Once you have the mortar defense taken care of, missiles are the next biggest threat. Zoe Rhinos with remote targeting missiles have flak evade and are fairly tough to kill. Missile turrets are on the island as well. High accuracy Phalanx are important too, and so that means a countermeasure special. You still won't shoot down all the incoming missiles, which is why most players recommend high missile defense for a "new" FM fleet.
MIRV Missile (Angry Arc)
I didn't coin the "Angry Arc" name, but I really like it. These Angry Arc missiles do a whole lot more damage than the Arc missiles we get. At long range they can be outrun for low to no damage, but when you get close enough to shoot at them, their missiles fall much more quickly. These are great targets for pinch rockets.
Coldsnap Rockets
Most turret platforms include a coldsnap rocket. These don't do a whole lot of damage to decent fleets, but will make ships like the Aegis much less useful.
Iron Curtain
These flak guns don't stop a focused mortar attack, but missiles do have a tough time breaking through. Most players have not been able to use Rhinos effectively in these targets. If these turrets have a secondary ballistic mode, most players ignore them.
Torpedo Towers
The torps from these towers aren't too deadly, and you can often use good pathing to hit these without taking any fire. I'm pretty sure the primary purpose of these is to prevent Cobra/Deluge subs from having any chance in these targets.
Some of the best videos I've seen before on the New FM are:
Insector Gadget was definitely one of the first to share a decent approach for the 97s, although this video does use a Grease Monkeys crew... and those don't exactly grow on trees. His path through the base is good to watch.
I really liked this one from Deathmatrix, using a spotter & some Citadels. However, it is pretty tough to reproduce the driving. I found that when my spotter would get close to the island, the Angry Arc missile would shift targets and destroy my Citadels, or I would bring my Citadels too close (drawing Arc fire) before getting my spotter on its run (I had to account for different speeds).
And lots of players suggested pinching the Angry Arc missile... so will I.
The Fleet:
So let me explain my approach. I started with the Punisher fleet I built for the DUBs, which relied on Earthshaker Cannons to get the fleet up to high speed and Heavy Plating for resistance. I also brought a Neptune loaded with Gales and an Omega giving the fleet additional firepower with its aura. This fleet did pretty poorly - taking 7+ hours repair from a 97. Missile defense (both resistance and Phalanx) was a big weakness of that fleet. I also never liked the Earthshakers as much as I thought I would - since DPS/hton has equalized between most weapons, using the (relatively) light Earthshakers meant that my fleet ended up light and so I was losing out on firepower.
My refit involved replacing 4 Earthshakers with Arbalest and replacing my Heavy Plating with MX-3 alloy (yes maybe full Reactive (anti-Missile) armor special would have been better, but I'd like to preserve SOME capability to do DUBs). Then I had to find a new Countermeasure ship to replace the Neptune, which couldn't keep up any more - I grabbed a Centurion that I built (and then didn't follow up with a fleet). Side note: every once in a while I build random single hulls, dislike them or I am not sure how I'll use them, but I still throw them at VXP weekend targets to get rank anyway. Paid off this time.
The Centurion refit added 3 Phalanx 4 for anti-missile defense and 6 Gale 2 for Anti-mortar (and Explosive resist). I also had to rework the specials and ended up spending over 9 days of shipyard time on this ship.
The final build is:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!B06L00U0Y0U0X0U400X68555Z5Y12000000000000000NH01W130Z342U6A5K2F23232323AKAKAKAKAK2C0NH01W130Z342U6A5K2F23232323AKAKAKAKAK2C0NH01W130Z342U6A5K2F23232323AKAKAKAKAK2C07401P1P1P132534445R6F682A2A2A56AK5656565656dC
Please understand... this is a fleet that has been through many rounds of refit. Not everything is optimized for this FM target (especially the R armor). Use your head & don't copy my builds exactly (or go ahead & copy them, but don't bother asking questions about every single detail).
The Plan
My basic plan was to use a pinch on the Angry Arc, close in, and kill it. Then retreat, do the same to the one on the other side and then kill the rest. As you'll see in the video, I tweaked that somewhat.
First of all, the entry point is key. To hit the lower Arc island I enter almost from the 6 o'clock position but just a little left of that (maybe 6:30 or so). This gives me enough space to line up my ships for their run without taking Arc fire. I also get my Omega moving out of the way. If you enter wrong (the Arc fires), just retreat and try again.
Then the timing of the Pinch & the run in is also important. When using XL Long Pinches, 28 seconds is plenty of time to approach and kill the island. But if using Small Long Pinches (that take 15 minutes each to build instead of 8 hours), you only have 16 seconds. When I start my run before the pinch drops, the Arc gets off a shot or two before the pinch falls, but I don't take any damage from it because I am still far away and moving fast. I found that starting my run with 8 seconds left on the timer worked best for me.
When I get to the island, I target the rear building that protects the turrets, then target the Arc next. After that the rest of the island falls pretty quick, but I'll also try to get the Coldsnap early since it recovers from the pinch before everything else.
After that my fleet makes a left turn. The good anti-mortar coverage is important here since a lot of mortars are generally falling at this point. I kill the Citadel and the Torpedo Tower while on the way to the island next door. Again, targeting the rear building first results in the whole island going down pretty quickly. As I finish off the island, I start turning away to make my retreat. That path results in very little incoming missile fire - most of it is while I'm in range of the Citadel.
I come in and kill the opposite side (the top) in the same way. (except I was having a bit of mouse/computer trouble on the run in the video...)
Then the twist I haven't seen others do ... I bring the Harlock Aegis/Punisher/Rhino fleet that I used against the previous generation of FMs to finish the job. All that is left are the two Rhinos and two Torp Towers. The Punisher tank is be able to repair instantly after finishing it off. Although that last bit is (only) worth a million points or so, be a good neighbor and take care of it. You have 9 more 97s to go, right? Better yet - offer it up to a alli mate who might be having trouble with the new 97s. Also remember you earn Tier 5 / Citadel fragments from the 97.
Overall, I ended up with under half an hour of repair from that 97, after instant repairing a couple ships. I think that's pretty good - if I keep the small pinches building, I could run through a single FM to tier 5 in a single sitting & no coins. If you have a fleet that is less effective offensively, you might need larger pinch rockets, in which case you could build those in advance and use them up to get through the mission. I'm thinking Crusaders & Centurions could use that technique with ballistics, and possibly even mortar fleets using Citadels, Berzerkers, or even Dreadnaught X.
As another point of reference, I tried my fleet without using the pinches & without using the Rhinos to finish things off. I still used two hits, and took out the bottom Rhino/torp after the first hit. I ended up taking 2h 16m worth of damage, with the Centurion taking the brunt of it (probably about half damaged). One thing I noticed was that the Rhino was particularly well placed to be covered by the mines while I attacked it. If you are trying to find a way to beat these targets with fewer hits, I suggest having a way to detect & kill the mines without entering that ice field (Maybe use a CM ship that has sonar & a couple missiles? Like a Rhino???).
I hope this breakdown helps the players that are still having trouble with these new targets. The raid is this week, and next week the "old" FM targets go away along with new prizes being introduced in Tier 5. Kixeye has also said that the point values are going up. You'll still be able to hit Tier 5 with 5x97s (supposedly) but it will be much harder to grind your way there with the smaller targets.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Read the Pins & New FM Prizes
There's a lot of changes going on in the game right now.
It's been confusing for a lot of players, and those that don't understand what's going on are getting frustrated. Last night on comms a player said something like "oh great look what Kixeye did. No more VXP weekend."
Now, those who are paying close attention know that the discounted buying of rank was this weekend, and VXP weekend would be next weekend. But not everyone can do that. Here's what I'm going to say about it, and unfortunately, the readers of this blog probably aren't the people who need to hear it.
Read the Kixeye pinned forum posts.
I get that a lot of the posts on the forums are complaining or noob questions. But every Tuesday we see the weekly release notes (except when they aren't on Tuesday... see the pinned forum post about that). You should read them, and look for any other info pinned there too. Read the pinned raid briefings. I know that Kixeye has neither been the most clear nor the most consistent communicators... I have spent a fair amount of time trying to pick up the pieces. But they are trying, and if you can only read one thing, the official Kixeye communications are a good place to start.
If you want more in-depth opinion and analysis, there is this blog. There are three weekly YouTube shows if you prefer the video format (BP Crib, Battle Vortex, and Forsaken Council). There's a blog starting up that's targeted at newer players. They all have their place. But if you can only read one thing... read the pinned posts.
I'm not going to be able to touch the Foundry for a while (and the Crusader is the only relevant change for most players anyway), so go read the pinned post if you don't get it.
OK, on to the new Forsaken Mission Prizes.
Combusion System 2:
This is the new FM item that I was most anticipating, and I left empty spots on my Citadels & Revenge hulls I'm building (in prep for the upcoming VXP weekend) for this special. Now that it's here, it seems to continue Kixeye's practice of making new items NOT the greatest, but competitive.
The choice between Combustion System 2 and Explosive System 4 is not obvious, as you can see in this chart:
(If you saw this chart on the BP Crib show, the build times have been corrected)
My opinion on this is that the increased spread and extra splash will really help the new Gatling Gun. I see a lot of players planning Revenge / Gatling builds with Strike Warheads... but with the high built-in concussive damage bonus on the Revenge, the marginal amount of extra damage might not be worth the weight/slot for that, and the Combustion System would be more helpful instead. For Citadels, where you are often firing at the longer remote targeting range, the higher speed of Explosive System 4 might be more beneficial. I like having shells land sooner, so my enemies stop firing sooner.
Alloy Armor CL:
This alloy special protects against Ballistics and Radioactive damage at the expense of leaving off Penetrative & Explosive protection.
This one might be good in a few specialized situations:
This has the same general stats as the D5-M & D5-X we've seen, but with Ballistic protection.
I was hoping this armor would have reduced build times compared to the other D5 deflection armors we have seen (because C armor got a build time reduction compared to M & X), but D5-C has the same build time as D5-M & D5-X (1d 17h 24m with officer).
Even so, this may be a tool for builds in some situations, just like the rest of the D5 armors. One caution though - when deflection bypass becomes a thing in PvE targets, the only place we expect deflection to be useful is in player bases. So the extra 20 deflection compared to the huge damage numbers going around there might just not matter at all.
Until next time... stay Frosty. Or Revenge-y. Or Punish-y.
It's been confusing for a lot of players, and those that don't understand what's going on are getting frustrated. Last night on comms a player said something like "oh great look what Kixeye did. No more VXP weekend."
Now, those who are paying close attention know that the discounted buying of rank was this weekend, and VXP weekend would be next weekend. But not everyone can do that. Here's what I'm going to say about it, and unfortunately, the readers of this blog probably aren't the people who need to hear it.
Read the Kixeye pinned forum posts.
I get that a lot of the posts on the forums are complaining or noob questions. But every Tuesday we see the weekly release notes (except when they aren't on Tuesday... see the pinned forum post about that). You should read them, and look for any other info pinned there too. Read the pinned raid briefings. I know that Kixeye has neither been the most clear nor the most consistent communicators... I have spent a fair amount of time trying to pick up the pieces. But they are trying, and if you can only read one thing, the official Kixeye communications are a good place to start.
If you want more in-depth opinion and analysis, there is this blog. There are three weekly YouTube shows if you prefer the video format (BP Crib, Battle Vortex, and Forsaken Council). There's a blog starting up that's targeted at newer players. They all have their place. But if you can only read one thing... read the pinned posts.
I'm not going to be able to touch the Foundry for a while (and the Crusader is the only relevant change for most players anyway), so go read the pinned post if you don't get it.
OK, on to the new Forsaken Mission Prizes.
Combusion System 2:
This is the new FM item that I was most anticipating, and I left empty spots on my Citadels & Revenge hulls I'm building (in prep for the upcoming VXP weekend) for this special. Now that it's here, it seems to continue Kixeye's practice of making new items NOT the greatest, but competitive.
The choice between Combustion System 2 and Explosive System 4 is not obvious, as you can see in this chart:
(If you saw this chart on the BP Crib show, the build times have been corrected)
My opinion on this is that the increased spread and extra splash will really help the new Gatling Gun. I see a lot of players planning Revenge / Gatling builds with Strike Warheads... but with the high built-in concussive damage bonus on the Revenge, the marginal amount of extra damage might not be worth the weight/slot for that, and the Combustion System would be more helpful instead. For Citadels, where you are often firing at the longer remote targeting range, the higher speed of Explosive System 4 might be more beneficial. I like having shells land sooner, so my enemies stop firing sooner.
Alloy Armor CL:
This alloy special protects against Ballistics and Radioactive damage at the expense of leaving off Penetrative & Explosive protection.
This one might be good in a few specialized situations:
- If you want to build a ship/fleet specifically for mines, those deal out exclusively Ballistic and Radioactive damage. (try just a single ship in 60s & 70s by the way)
- The new Revenge hull is weak against Enforcers and Shockwaves - this high radioactive defense may help, but you will set yourself up to be weak against ship's missiles.
- The Citadel hull has high (70%) built-in Explosive & Penetrative Defense but 0% Ballistic and Radioactive. This special balances out those weaknesses.
Zynthonite Armor D5-C:
This has the same general stats as the D5-M & D5-X we've seen, but with Ballistic protection.
I was hoping this armor would have reduced build times compared to the other D5 deflection armors we have seen (because C armor got a build time reduction compared to M & X), but D5-C has the same build time as D5-M & D5-X (1d 17h 24m with officer).
Even so, this may be a tool for builds in some situations, just like the rest of the D5 armors. One caution though - when deflection bypass becomes a thing in PvE targets, the only place we expect deflection to be useful is in player bases. So the extra 20 deflection compared to the huge damage numbers going around there might just not matter at all.
Until next time... stay Frosty. Or Revenge-y. Or Punish-y.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
New FM Prizes: Phalanx 4, ES 4, Oil Slick, & UAV Battery
New week, new FM Prizes.
Despite having about 10,000 readers of this blog (and I appreciate all of you), this week I had that moment where my kid is better known on the Internet than I am.
And in a good way.
So moving on to the new Forsaken Mission Prizes (and we have 4 this week - we'll see if we have 3 or 4 FM opportunities between the next raid), I'll give them all a once over.
Phalanx 4
I love using countermeasures and countermeasure ships. Good Phalanx coverage is critical to doing the Forsaken Mission for low damage, so I was looking forward to seeing what these Phalanx 4 would look like.
It's certainly a lot heavier than the previous Phalanx, But it has more shots per salvo, higher accuracy, higher missile defense bonus, and lower reload time than the previous options. I compared them all in the table below (no retro, Shipyard 1):
Hits / sec is the expected number of non-evading missiles/UAVs hit per second (assuming enough shots come in to force continuous fire), and hps/kton is that number divided by the weapon weight multiplied by 1000. The Phalanx 4 certainly comes in able to shoot down more missiles and do it just as efficiently as the Phalanx 3. With weapons having lower weight these days, having the countermeasures be concentrated in fewer weapon slots opens up more build options too.
The other consideration for this weapon is the higher accuracy. Since each incoming missile only gets one shot from a Phalanx a higher accuracy is important for any case where the incoming missile count is NOT enough to saturate the defenses.
Although the extra 5% accuracy seems like just a little it is actually important - looking at the case where there is no evade and no bonuses, the difference is that 40% of the missiles get through a Phalanx 3, but 35% get through a Phalanx 4, which is a 12.5% reduction in damage. If you have accuracy bonuses, the difference is magnified - accuracy bonuses work as a percentage of base accuracy, so on an Aegis (+20%) with full Alliance bonus (+20%), the Phalanx 3 accuracy would be 84% (16% of missiles get through), but the Phalanx 4 would be 91% (9% get through), resulting in a 44% reduction in damage. Of course against blades the difference would be lower because of the 80% flax evasion.
The real drawback of the Phalanx 4 is its build time. With players still waiting for Kixeye to deliver on their promise of build time reductions, having this weapon take nearly twice as long to build as a Phalanx 3 (1 day 2 hours vs 14 hours) is NOT a step in the right direction. So the new counter is worth building, but you're going to have to be willing to suck up the build time.
Explosive System 4:
This new special is more than just an improvement on Explosive System 3 (which would have gotten a big ho hum from players), it also incorporates a projectile speed improvement.
The stats of this new special are as good as (or better than) the best of any other in the category. The weight is a little bit more and the build time is not outrageous considering the capability you get.
The obvious candidates for this special are mortars and rockets, but Scatterguns and Scythe/Death Scythe missiles will also greatly benefit from it. In fact, any weapon type will benefit from the projectile speed (as no weapon type is given), but it might be a hard sell for this special to find a place on a ship for that reason only.
One more place where this special could be used is on a Proto-Nemesis, where the missiles are given splash by the hull. Just remember that this will not give splash to weapons that don't have it, since +50% from zero is still zero.
UAV Battery
Kixeye was helpful enough to let us know that a new UAV-related special would be out for this Forsaken Mission post-raid, and it is the UAV Battery.
The Battery affects the new "Chain Count" mechanic, which allows UAVs to hop to another target (within their chaining range) once their initial swarm is completed. The new Drac UAV Carrier gives UAVs a Chain Count of 2, but all other UAV ships have a Chain Count of 1. This actually means that the UAV Battery has a higher percentage effect on the non Drac Carrier ships, since going from 1 hop to 2 will double UAV damage output, but going from 2 hops to 3 will only add 50%. At 11% added weight, the Battery seems worth it in either case, but....
One important thing to consider when using the Battery is the Chaining Range. If the UAV has no Chaining Range, it won't be able to complete a hop (unless the target ships are perfectly stacked, which seems unlikely).
Sources of Chaining Range are:
UAV Drac Carrier: 10
Scarab UAV: 4
UAV Powercells: 30
If you aren't using one of those Chaining sources, then don't bother with the UAV Battery.
It certainly seems that the best use of these is for Bombers on the Drac Carrier. If you are trying to improve your Locusts on Valkyries, you will have to use the UAV Powercells and the UAV Battery to get the second hop, which will take 2 of your 4 special slots. Also with extending the chaining of non-Bomber UAVs, the additional damage will be occurring much later than when you launched the UAV, so you will be taking lots of incoming fire before all that damage happens (back-loaded damage).
UGGGGGH I got this wrong (except "best use for Bombers is on a Drac Carrier") - if you are coming back here for reference, ignore all that stuff.
Read this forum post: https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/604164
I may have to come back to this topic in a later post.
Watch out for the (long) 2+ day build time with this special. Those long specials can be a big driver of fleet build times.
Oil Slick:
This base tactical module will cause (surface) ships to speed up but not turn as well. It seems like the idea is to make them beach against corners. It can be mounted on Oil Rigs that are level 10 (level 9?) or higher, or your dock (don't do that).
I haven't seen this in action yet so I don't know how well it will work, but the obvious ship this seems intended to defend against is the Heavy Cruiser, which is fast but poor at turning.
If trying this special out, I would suggest you put it in a 90 degree bend corner, since if it isn't, then the ship just ends up blowing through your base even more quickly. One thing to watch out for is that you may give enemies a target that would allow retargeting missiles to hit turrets that they wouldn't be able to normally reach.
UPDATE: In the forum, Kixeye has confirmed that the Frosty & Aegis fields negate the oil slick effect. I think that most fleets that this MIGHT be effective against are using one of those ships. Thanks to a reader for pointing me in that direction.
Although the humor of watching people slip and slide is pretty good, I think it's even funnier to watch em get hit in the nuts. So I think I'll be allocating my building time to things like upgrading my turrets and buildings, rather than building this special.
Despite having about 10,000 readers of this blog (and I appreciate all of you), this week I had that moment where my kid is better known on the Internet than I am.
And in a good way.
So moving on to the new Forsaken Mission Prizes (and we have 4 this week - we'll see if we have 3 or 4 FM opportunities between the next raid), I'll give them all a once over.
Phalanx 4
I love using countermeasures and countermeasure ships. Good Phalanx coverage is critical to doing the Forsaken Mission for low damage, so I was looking forward to seeing what these Phalanx 4 would look like.
It's certainly a lot heavier than the previous Phalanx, But it has more shots per salvo, higher accuracy, higher missile defense bonus, and lower reload time than the previous options. I compared them all in the table below (no retro, Shipyard 1):
Hits / sec is the expected number of non-evading missiles/UAVs hit per second (assuming enough shots come in to force continuous fire), and hps/kton is that number divided by the weapon weight multiplied by 1000. The Phalanx 4 certainly comes in able to shoot down more missiles and do it just as efficiently as the Phalanx 3. With weapons having lower weight these days, having the countermeasures be concentrated in fewer weapon slots opens up more build options too.
The other consideration for this weapon is the higher accuracy. Since each incoming missile only gets one shot from a Phalanx a higher accuracy is important for any case where the incoming missile count is NOT enough to saturate the defenses.
Although the extra 5% accuracy seems like just a little it is actually important - looking at the case where there is no evade and no bonuses, the difference is that 40% of the missiles get through a Phalanx 3, but 35% get through a Phalanx 4, which is a 12.5% reduction in damage. If you have accuracy bonuses, the difference is magnified - accuracy bonuses work as a percentage of base accuracy, so on an Aegis (+20%) with full Alliance bonus (+20%), the Phalanx 3 accuracy would be 84% (16% of missiles get through), but the Phalanx 4 would be 91% (9% get through), resulting in a 44% reduction in damage. Of course against blades the difference would be lower because of the 80% flax evasion.
The real drawback of the Phalanx 4 is its build time. With players still waiting for Kixeye to deliver on their promise of build time reductions, having this weapon take nearly twice as long to build as a Phalanx 3 (1 day 2 hours vs 14 hours) is NOT a step in the right direction. So the new counter is worth building, but you're going to have to be willing to suck up the build time.
Explosive System 4:
This new special is more than just an improvement on Explosive System 3 (which would have gotten a big ho hum from players), it also incorporates a projectile speed improvement.
The stats of this new special are as good as (or better than) the best of any other in the category. The weight is a little bit more and the build time is not outrageous considering the capability you get.
The obvious candidates for this special are mortars and rockets, but Scatterguns and Scythe/Death Scythe missiles will also greatly benefit from it. In fact, any weapon type will benefit from the projectile speed (as no weapon type is given), but it might be a hard sell for this special to find a place on a ship for that reason only.
One more place where this special could be used is on a Proto-Nemesis, where the missiles are given splash by the hull. Just remember that this will not give splash to weapons that don't have it, since +50% from zero is still zero.
UAV Battery
Kixeye was helpful enough to let us know that a new UAV-related special would be out for this Forsaken Mission post-raid, and it is the UAV Battery.
The Battery affects the new "Chain Count" mechanic, which allows UAVs to hop to another target (within their chaining range) once their initial swarm is completed. The new Drac UAV Carrier gives UAVs a Chain Count of 2, but all other UAV ships have a Chain Count of 1. This actually means that the UAV Battery has a higher percentage effect on the non Drac Carrier ships, since going from 1 hop to 2 will double UAV damage output, but going from 2 hops to 3 will only add 50%. At 11% added weight, the Battery seems worth it in either case, but....
One important thing to consider when using the Battery is the Chaining Range. If the UAV has no Chaining Range, it won't be able to complete a hop (unless the target ships are perfectly stacked, which seems unlikely).
Sources of Chaining Range are:
UAV Drac Carrier: 10
Scarab UAV: 4
UAV Powercells: 30
If you aren't using one of those Chaining sources, then don't bother with the UAV Battery.
It certainly seems that the best use of these is for Bombers on the Drac Carrier. If you are trying to improve your Locusts on Valkyries, you will have to use the UAV Powercells and the UAV Battery to get the second hop, which will take 2 of your 4 special slots. Also with extending the chaining of non-Bomber UAVs, the additional damage will be occurring much later than when you launched the UAV, so you will be taking lots of incoming fire before all that damage happens (back-loaded damage).
UGGGGGH I got this wrong (except "best use for Bombers is on a Drac Carrier") - if you are coming back here for reference, ignore all that stuff.
Read this forum post: https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/604164
I may have to come back to this topic in a later post.
Watch out for the (long) 2+ day build time with this special. Those long specials can be a big driver of fleet build times.
Oil Slick:
This base tactical module will cause (surface) ships to speed up but not turn as well. It seems like the idea is to make them beach against corners. It can be mounted on Oil Rigs that are level 10 (level 9?) or higher, or your dock (don't do that).
I haven't seen this in action yet so I don't know how well it will work, but the obvious ship this seems intended to defend against is the Heavy Cruiser, which is fast but poor at turning.
If trying this special out, I would suggest you put it in a 90 degree bend corner, since if it isn't, then the ship just ends up blowing through your base even more quickly. One thing to watch out for is that you may give enemies a target that would allow retargeting missiles to hit turrets that they wouldn't be able to normally reach.
UPDATE: In the forum, Kixeye has confirmed that the Frosty & Aegis fields negate the oil slick effect. I think that most fleets that this MIGHT be effective against are using one of those ships. Thanks to a reader for pointing me in that direction.
Although the humor of watching people slip and slide is pretty good, I think it's even funnier to watch em get hit in the nuts. So I think I'll be allocating my building time to things like upgrading my turrets and buildings, rather than building this special.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
New FM Prizes - A better Cadmium?
Kixeye has stuck to their usual cycle and so we have new Forsaken Mission prizes now that the raid is complete. Once again, some of those prizes are really useful for a raid prize... so you whales who have coined Heavy Cruiser builds already already might want to take notice of that pattern.
Magnus Drive 2
This is an improvement on the original Magnus Drive special, with better speed, cloaking, and accuracy for nearly the same weight and build time.
To compare the options:
Magnus Drive was just about a necessity on Spectres. With only 2 specials, there was no way to get speed, cloaking, and a dive time boost without it (don't use a battery if you're in that situation). For subs with 3 specials like Nighthawks & Barracudas, it was less critical, as players would generally use Speed System, Cat Drive, and Battery. On Tiger Sharks with 4 specials, it really wasn't needed at all, as players even had that 4th special to work with.
But now that Magnus has improved cloaking AND the highest speed available of any non-range reducing engine... Magnus Drive 2 might be desirable on any sub.
Check out my two options here for Styx-based Tiger Sharks:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!B00D000005Z5519030ZZ0NA015151515341D6D1GC100C100C1C10000C1C10NA015151515411D6D0OC100C100C1C10000C1C10ZZdC
On the original build I used Speed V, Cat 3 & Bat 3, with Interception System for increasing my corrosive damage stacks and my speed. 6 Styx Torpedos fit on this build. I have enough weight left over for a few other torps (a Charon or some Assault B), but I left them off for the purpose of this comparison.
Switching Speed V & Cat Drive for Magnus & Ion Thruster, I improve my submerged combat speed from 32 to 36 and improve my turn speed. This comes at the cost of a cloak reduction from 91 to 80, the 5% accuracy reduction, and an extra 27 hours of build time. The new build is also lighter, but adding another Styx torp still puts me 4 tons over the weight limit (with shipyard 3).
(my numbers are based on my current retrofits, yours may vary)
Building a Tiger Shark was tough enough with all the options available, now we have one more option in the mix with Magnus Drive 2.
Barrel Loader
This special increases the number of shots fired from a multishot weapon (no it does not give multishot to a non-multishot weapon). Right now that is only scatterguns for ship weapons, but we might see others in the future.
The question players had upon release was whether the increased number of shots increased the damage output from the weapon, or whether it just spread the same damage over more shots. The answee we received via the forum mod Laredo was that the actual damage output was increased - each pellet will do the same amount of damage after multishot is applied.
This chart shows the DPS increase on each type of Scattergun assuming that the expected DPS increases linearly with the number of pellets. The two "regular" scatterguns have the same DPS increase because each fires 5 as their multishot, then the Heavy fires 15. All of the Scatterguns get a 40% increase for the 19% weight cost of the Barrel 3 special. For the light scatterguns, the Barrel 2 makes no sense since it gives the same benefit as the lighter Barrel 1. Any of these combinations is worth using (from a DPS/ weight perspective) if you are willing to use up the special slot. I've seen too many HC builds using Hull Streamlining... at least put Barrel 1 on instead.
One more thought I have on the Barrel Loader with Cobra Scatterguns... Since those have the Corrosive DoT damage, the DPS might not scale linearly for that weapon. There are two factors going on... with the DoT damage, the stack does a set amount of damage - it doesn't tail off with range like other splash damage. So if that extra shot from the loader causes a second hit where you got only one hit before... then your damage doubles. The flip side of that is that it might cause you to hit the DoT maximum stack more quickly, so that extra shot could also be wasted. Answering that question precisely would take more simulation than I'm willing to do... so good luck.
UPDATE:
CS Spekkio posted on the Kixeye forums about the barrel loader, and in that post, he implies that the weapon does its entire damage for each projectile fired in the multi-shot.
Thanks to a video posted by Andrew Knowles...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYpRSb_hMeM&feature=youtu.be
we can see that is incorrect, and also see the benefit of the Barrel Loader. In the video, he took a single Heavy Cruiser with 3 Heavy Scatterguns, and fired at the Dreadnaughts in a 75. He did this once with Barrel Loader, and once without it.
Math to follow:
One of those Dreads in the video has 42216 health.
A Heavy Scatter is listed at 6600 blueprint damage, which means that each gun does up to 3300 damage to ships (the double damage on blueprint thing), and he's got 3. (and was driving carefully so the D81-M were out of range).
So he does 9900 damage per shot without the barrel special (ignoring some reduction from spread). 4 shots wouldn't be enough to kill that dread (39600 damage), but 5 is.
He would do 9900x1.4 = 13680 per shot with the barrel special. 3 shots wouldn't be enough to kill that dread (41580 damage), but 4 is.
With the Barrel Special you can see that 4 shots kill the dread. Without it, 5 shots were required.
If the weapon did full damage per projectile (as Spekkio wrote), then it would be doing 15x more damage, and killing everything with one shot.
So to summarize - The listed damage for a Scattergun is divided among the pellets fired in the multishot. If you use Barrel Loader on a Scattergun with multishot, then you fire more pellets but each one still does the same amount of damage, which increases the damage output of the weapon.
Draconian Scattergun Turret
We have a new "backup" Limited Turret prize in the Elite Tier. The Dead-Eye Ballista was considered a bust by many, but this one looks to be a little more promising. With 105 range, I don't think you could use it like a Wendigo, but instead you would put it on your front line. My front line right now consists of Pyroclasts and a couple Gargoyles. Since this turret has the same submerged damage, I would use it to replace a Gargoyle for sub defense, instead of upgrading to a Gargoyle 2.
Although the expected DPS is lower than the Gargoyles, I would expect the Drac Scattergun to fire more often and be more effective overall because of its higher shot velocity and its longer range. Power is reasonable as well. When you place this gun, be very careful of retargeting... Missiles can take out a line of turrets along the front line when they are clustered, so they could pick you off at a range higher than 105... I suggest making this turret the first turret in a group, so you are guaranteed to get its full effectiveness.
Nobody will win this gun this week because they have to win all of the other Elite prizes first, but I guess we will see these in action next week...
Streamlined Cadmium Armor
When the first batch of Cadmium came out, I found that it really didn't help repair times because the lack of defensive bonuses on that armor meant that a ship using it would be more vulnerable to damage.
This Cadmium is even larger than the Cadmium Delta we saw before, and although it doesn't give a defensive bonus, it gives speed bonuses.
To start out with I'll compare just the Armor points, build time, and weight.
In terms of efficiency, the Armor points per weight is good - better than previous Cadmium and better than Zynth armor, but still not as good as Reaver Bulkhead. However, the real standout here is the low build time of this armor - at just 9 hours to build, where any other armor of this class is over a day (usually nearer 2 days), use of this armor can really shorten build times. Of course, you are paying 30k Uranium per piece for that benefit.
But the question for many players is whether this armor can give an advantage. First off... if we were still building 4 ship MCX fleets, with 3 specials and all evade armor, the answer would be a definite no. However, fleet building has gotten more complex - with most high end fleets using mixed hull, and players having 4 - 5 special slots available.
So I decided to look at my favorite fleet right now - my mixed Rhino fleet with an Aegis and options for a Prototype Hunter or Neptune to tank. Since the Rhinos are using Speed System 5 and Interception System, the non-Rhino hulls needed some other speed boosting tech in order to keep up, since they each have some combination of slower base speed and lack of Interception System.
Aegis:
I used 2 pieces of V armor and Reaver Scout engine to get the speed I needed. Very simply, I replaced the light V armor with the new Streamlined cadmium and replaced the D5-E with D2-E to keep my weight down.
Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!906M01R1R0L0L2B0O5Z1B1B1B1B1B1B06M00U0U25252B0O5Z1B1B1B1B1B1B0ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC
Proto-Hunter:
With the Proto-Hunter, I originally used 3 Assault B torpedos to get the extra speed I needed, so I took off the torpedos and replaced 2 of my D2-E with Streamlined Cadmium.
Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!90N600U0U0U0U2L6D35346F5454545454544H4H4H000N600U250U252L6D35346F545454545454000000000ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC
Neptune:
On the Neptune I used a Speed Upgrade to match the speed boost of Interception System. I replaced the Speed Upgrade with an Evade Upgrade, then replaced 3 Evade Armors with Cadmium to get the speed back. I reduced the other Evade armors to D2-E to try to get a bit of the weight back.
Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!907000V0V0V0V0V0V0C5R2U346F25280000005555555755560007000U250U250U250C5P2U346F2528000000555555575556000ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC
I compiled the key before and after statistics in the following table:
(again, specific numbers may vary slightly based on retrofit levels)
For each build, the total Armor Points & Turn Speed went up, and Build Time went down. Those benefits came at a cost of reduced Evade and increased weight. Combat Speed was pretty close in each build, by design. The key benefit was that the repair times were cut - the "Repair Speed Change" being negative denotes the percentage reduction in the time taken to repair each armor point. The "Evadable Damage Increase" is the percentage of additional damage expected due to the lower evade score. For the Aegis and the Neptune builds, the increase in damage is significantly less than the repair time reduction, so there is a net benefit to the player when using that ship. For the case of the Proto-Hunter, the increase in expected damage is fairly close to the decrease in repair time, so there doesn't seem to be any benefit. Note that for a new build (not a refit), using Streamlined Cadmium would help even on the Hunter build because you would end up with similar statistics for a lower build time. In each build, you would have to deal with the extra weight.
So overall, it looks like this new armor can have a place on any build where you are looking to increase a ship's speed beyond what is possible with just the engine special. Yes, you'll need the Uranium. Builds aren't getting any simpler...
I put up a new poll this week - I am trying to get a sense of where my readers are at. I may do a couple of these over the next few weeks.
The first poll is intended to find out where your shipyard is - I want to use the Shipyard level that appeals to the highest number of readers.
Please take a couple seconds to vote (once) in the poll at the upper right side of this page - Thanks!
Magnus Drive 2
This is an improvement on the original Magnus Drive special, with better speed, cloaking, and accuracy for nearly the same weight and build time.
To compare the options:
Magnus Drive was just about a necessity on Spectres. With only 2 specials, there was no way to get speed, cloaking, and a dive time boost without it (don't use a battery if you're in that situation). For subs with 3 specials like Nighthawks & Barracudas, it was less critical, as players would generally use Speed System, Cat Drive, and Battery. On Tiger Sharks with 4 specials, it really wasn't needed at all, as players even had that 4th special to work with.
But now that Magnus has improved cloaking AND the highest speed available of any non-range reducing engine... Magnus Drive 2 might be desirable on any sub.
Check out my two options here for Styx-based Tiger Sharks:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!B00D000005Z5519030ZZ0NA015151515341D6D1GC100C100C1C10000C1C10NA015151515411D6D0OC100C100C1C10000C1C10ZZdC
On the original build I used Speed V, Cat 3 & Bat 3, with Interception System for increasing my corrosive damage stacks and my speed. 6 Styx Torpedos fit on this build. I have enough weight left over for a few other torps (a Charon or some Assault B), but I left them off for the purpose of this comparison.
Switching Speed V & Cat Drive for Magnus & Ion Thruster, I improve my submerged combat speed from 32 to 36 and improve my turn speed. This comes at the cost of a cloak reduction from 91 to 80, the 5% accuracy reduction, and an extra 27 hours of build time. The new build is also lighter, but adding another Styx torp still puts me 4 tons over the weight limit (with shipyard 3).
(my numbers are based on my current retrofits, yours may vary)
Building a Tiger Shark was tough enough with all the options available, now we have one more option in the mix with Magnus Drive 2.
Barrel Loader
This special increases the number of shots fired from a multishot weapon (no it does not give multishot to a non-multishot weapon). Right now that is only scatterguns for ship weapons, but we might see others in the future.
The question players had upon release was whether the increased number of shots increased the damage output from the weapon, or whether it just spread the same damage over more shots. The answee we received via the forum mod Laredo was that the actual damage output was increased - each pellet will do the same amount of damage after multishot is applied.
This chart shows the DPS increase on each type of Scattergun assuming that the expected DPS increases linearly with the number of pellets. The two "regular" scatterguns have the same DPS increase because each fires 5 as their multishot, then the Heavy fires 15. All of the Scatterguns get a 40% increase for the 19% weight cost of the Barrel 3 special. For the light scatterguns, the Barrel 2 makes no sense since it gives the same benefit as the lighter Barrel 1. Any of these combinations is worth using (from a DPS/ weight perspective) if you are willing to use up the special slot. I've seen too many HC builds using Hull Streamlining... at least put Barrel 1 on instead.
One more thought I have on the Barrel Loader with Cobra Scatterguns... Since those have the Corrosive DoT damage, the DPS might not scale linearly for that weapon. There are two factors going on... with the DoT damage, the stack does a set amount of damage - it doesn't tail off with range like other splash damage. So if that extra shot from the loader causes a second hit where you got only one hit before... then your damage doubles. The flip side of that is that it might cause you to hit the DoT maximum stack more quickly, so that extra shot could also be wasted. Answering that question precisely would take more simulation than I'm willing to do... so good luck.
UPDATE:
CS Spekkio posted on the Kixeye forums about the barrel loader, and in that post, he implies that the weapon does its entire damage for each projectile fired in the multi-shot.
Thanks to a video posted by Andrew Knowles...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYpRSb_hMeM&feature=youtu.be
we can see that is incorrect, and also see the benefit of the Barrel Loader. In the video, he took a single Heavy Cruiser with 3 Heavy Scatterguns, and fired at the Dreadnaughts in a 75. He did this once with Barrel Loader, and once without it.
Math to follow:
One of those Dreads in the video has 42216 health.
A Heavy Scatter is listed at 6600 blueprint damage, which means that each gun does up to 3300 damage to ships (the double damage on blueprint thing), and he's got 3. (and was driving carefully so the D81-M were out of range).
So he does 9900 damage per shot without the barrel special (ignoring some reduction from spread). 4 shots wouldn't be enough to kill that dread (39600 damage), but 5 is.
He would do 9900x1.4 = 13680 per shot with the barrel special. 3 shots wouldn't be enough to kill that dread (41580 damage), but 4 is.
With the Barrel Special you can see that 4 shots kill the dread. Without it, 5 shots were required.
If the weapon did full damage per projectile (as Spekkio wrote), then it would be doing 15x more damage, and killing everything with one shot.
So to summarize - The listed damage for a Scattergun is divided among the pellets fired in the multishot. If you use Barrel Loader on a Scattergun with multishot, then you fire more pellets but each one still does the same amount of damage, which increases the damage output of the weapon.
Draconian Scattergun Turret
We have a new "backup" Limited Turret prize in the Elite Tier. The Dead-Eye Ballista was considered a bust by many, but this one looks to be a little more promising. With 105 range, I don't think you could use it like a Wendigo, but instead you would put it on your front line. My front line right now consists of Pyroclasts and a couple Gargoyles. Since this turret has the same submerged damage, I would use it to replace a Gargoyle for sub defense, instead of upgrading to a Gargoyle 2.
Although the expected DPS is lower than the Gargoyles, I would expect the Drac Scattergun to fire more often and be more effective overall because of its higher shot velocity and its longer range. Power is reasonable as well. When you place this gun, be very careful of retargeting... Missiles can take out a line of turrets along the front line when they are clustered, so they could pick you off at a range higher than 105... I suggest making this turret the first turret in a group, so you are guaranteed to get its full effectiveness.
Nobody will win this gun this week because they have to win all of the other Elite prizes first, but I guess we will see these in action next week...
Streamlined Cadmium Armor
When the first batch of Cadmium came out, I found that it really didn't help repair times because the lack of defensive bonuses on that armor meant that a ship using it would be more vulnerable to damage.
This Cadmium is even larger than the Cadmium Delta we saw before, and although it doesn't give a defensive bonus, it gives speed bonuses.
To start out with I'll compare just the Armor points, build time, and weight.
In terms of efficiency, the Armor points per weight is good - better than previous Cadmium and better than Zynth armor, but still not as good as Reaver Bulkhead. However, the real standout here is the low build time of this armor - at just 9 hours to build, where any other armor of this class is over a day (usually nearer 2 days), use of this armor can really shorten build times. Of course, you are paying 30k Uranium per piece for that benefit.
But the question for many players is whether this armor can give an advantage. First off... if we were still building 4 ship MCX fleets, with 3 specials and all evade armor, the answer would be a definite no. However, fleet building has gotten more complex - with most high end fleets using mixed hull, and players having 4 - 5 special slots available.
So I decided to look at my favorite fleet right now - my mixed Rhino fleet with an Aegis and options for a Prototype Hunter or Neptune to tank. Since the Rhinos are using Speed System 5 and Interception System, the non-Rhino hulls needed some other speed boosting tech in order to keep up, since they each have some combination of slower base speed and lack of Interception System.
Aegis:
I used 2 pieces of V armor and Reaver Scout engine to get the speed I needed. Very simply, I replaced the light V armor with the new Streamlined cadmium and replaced the D5-E with D2-E to keep my weight down.
Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!906M01R1R0L0L2B0O5Z1B1B1B1B1B1B06M00U0U25252B0O5Z1B1B1B1B1B1B0ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC
Proto-Hunter:
With the Proto-Hunter, I originally used 3 Assault B torpedos to get the extra speed I needed, so I took off the torpedos and replaced 2 of my D2-E with Streamlined Cadmium.
Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!90N600U0U0U0U2L6D35346F5454545454544H4H4H000N600U250U252L6D35346F545454545454000000000ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC
Neptune:
On the Neptune I used a Speed Upgrade to match the speed boost of Interception System. I replaced the Speed Upgrade with an Evade Upgrade, then replaced 3 Evade Armors with Cadmium to get the speed back. I reduced the other Evade armors to D2-E to try to get a bit of the weight back.
Before & after is at this link:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!907000V0V0V0V0V0V0C5R2U346F25280000005555555755560007000U250U250U250C5P2U346F2528000000555555575556000ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC
I compiled the key before and after statistics in the following table:
(again, specific numbers may vary slightly based on retrofit levels)
For each build, the total Armor Points & Turn Speed went up, and Build Time went down. Those benefits came at a cost of reduced Evade and increased weight. Combat Speed was pretty close in each build, by design. The key benefit was that the repair times were cut - the "Repair Speed Change" being negative denotes the percentage reduction in the time taken to repair each armor point. The "Evadable Damage Increase" is the percentage of additional damage expected due to the lower evade score. For the Aegis and the Neptune builds, the increase in damage is significantly less than the repair time reduction, so there is a net benefit to the player when using that ship. For the case of the Proto-Hunter, the increase in expected damage is fairly close to the decrease in repair time, so there doesn't seem to be any benefit. Note that for a new build (not a refit), using Streamlined Cadmium would help even on the Hunter build because you would end up with similar statistics for a lower build time. In each build, you would have to deal with the extra weight.
So overall, it looks like this new armor can have a place on any build where you are looking to increase a ship's speed beyond what is possible with just the engine special. Yes, you'll need the Uranium. Builds aren't getting any simpler...
I put up a new poll this week - I am trying to get a sense of where my readers are at. I may do a couple of these over the next few weeks.
The first poll is intended to find out where your shipyard is - I want to use the Shipyard level that appeals to the highest number of readers.
Please take a couple seconds to vote (once) in the poll at the upper right side of this page - Thanks!
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