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I'm late to the party, just picked this up yesterday and am having a blast so far. I think I'm nearing the end of the plot in the starting system (working with what's-her-name to break out my Aunt  ) rolling in a riced-out Icarus with Mk2 everything (2x Particle Beam turrets top, Flak turrets on the sides, a null-grav booster) and have basically been trying a bunch of different loadouts.Do broadsides ever get more varied? So far my only options are 'normal broadside', 'short-range, high-ROF' and 'long-range, slow firing' but they otherwise feel really samey. I can't really find a secondary I like either. Dumbfires and mines didn't click for me, I'm running EMP Flak right now but I always forget to use it (I wish it was a toggle rather than having to keep tapping shift), maybe I'll try heat seekers even though the ammo counts on everything else I've tried felt really low. I was really disappointed that Swarm Turrets had so little ammo. What a great looking weapon but it runs dry in 90 seconds. For most the time I've been running full beam turrets set to fire on everything, which seems to work decently against fighters except that all the turrets tend to want to shoot the same fight, which seems like a waste. I've got a feeling that the 'best' turret setup is going to be a mixture of flak, pulse, and beam with different settings while I just tootle around and worry about the big fish with my broadsides... e: Ramming Deflectors seem to absorb more damage than normal ones (in addition to dealing damage), with the only drawback being that their maximum usage length is half as long? Doesn't seem to be a worthwile trade to me, since I mostly use my deflector to give my shields time to recharge. Ramming is underwhelming, at least in the ships I've had so far. If an endgame ship can just ram into and explode dudes and not even stop then that might be different.  Does it matter much which upgrade I chose from Specter? I went with the Deflector boost.  e2: What's some good music to stuff in this thing while I play? WarLocke fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 21:06
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GotLag posted:Proton cannons are good for that. You can shoot people up from afar by aiming your shots fully, or you can get right in close and just click as fast as you can and laugh as their ship melts. Yeah I tried the neutron beams but went back to proton cannons. The range advantage and ability to just vomit all over a big ship up close makes them great. I'm in a Tennhauser right now (although getting close to maxed out equipment on it, then I'll have to decide on what to move up to) and a setup of Photon Cannons, 2x Scatter Turret, 2x Pulse Turret (all set to 'fire on everything') seems to work well. Since fighters/bombers tend to close faster than capital ships they get focused on first, then when it's just the big boys left they still add a surprising amount of damage. I think if I move up to a Scarab I may try the same setup but just adding 2x Beam Turret and a Flak Turret - it seems like if your turrets are all the same type them they all want to focus fire, which is pretty wasteful, if you mix them up it doesn't happen as much...
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Dec 12, 2015 23:09
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euphronius posted:How do you change the order of similar weapon systems in your load out. If I'm understanding the question, I don't think you can outside of dock. In dock, you can either sell/rebuy turrets to move them around between hardpoints, or there's a button to just remove the current turret (CTRL I think?) and then you switch to the mount you want it on and place it there.
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Dec 12, 2015 23:21
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GotLag posted:Note also that you can click and drag with the right mouse button to rotate your ship in the equipment store and shipyard. I didn't realise this for ages Also, just for completeness sake, when you have a turret selected in the list there's a little white box around it on the ship view, I missed it at first, just saying.
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Dec 12, 2015 23:56
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Nordick posted:This is very true. It's easy to underestimate the value of being small and fast. I restarted because I wasn't that far into the game and I was feeling that choosing the Deflector boost was a mistake - Afterburners are always useful and don't shut off your guns. My pro strat in the new game was to use Slamjet boosters, the Field Recovery shields (double capacity but slower regen) in the small fast, starter ships - the Mastodon is so agile that I would literally fly around behind capital ships and pull up to them like we were drag racing (I call em drive-bys ) at under a space-click and just vomit tachyon broadsides into them. They're almost always dead before they can even breach my shields.  It's almost too bad that particle turrets seem to outperform everything pretty much flat out, though. Yeah, they're crap against shields, but they do enough raw damage to force their way through anyway - especially if massed - and their nice range and pinpoint accuracy can't be ignored. quote:And remember; if you want to change direction in a hurry, let go of the gas pedal. This is a loving pro tip I had no idea was possible. Now I'm drifting like a true space cowboy  VVV: I meant the bonus you get from the AI, I chose the +10% Deflectors the first time. WarLocke fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 21:51
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Does the $3mil subsystem that absorbs missile damage to recharge shields just totally neuter them? Deciding on subsystems is the hardest part of setting up a ship, since even the biggest ones only get 4 slots. So repair bot, that missile absorption thing, then I really want the 'make nebulas not gently caress up radar' one... leaves one slot to play with. 
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Dec 18, 2015 21:30
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RBA Starblade posted:I just bought the game and wow, space ships and trucker vibes actually go super well together. My only real issue with the game is it's hard to get used to a 2d space game that's not top-down, but really it's fine. Time to smuggle some space whiskey! I haven't even tried smuggling (or trading), I just collect poo poo from ships I blow up and sell it the next time I dock. Flying around in a tricked-out Arcturus right now (2 scatter turrets, 2 pulse, 2 ions, 3 beams) and finally getting to the point where I can mostly just let my turrets obliterate NPC frigates and corvettes and only need to broadside stuff like destroyers and cruisers.  I'm finding that I prefer using Field Impact shields and Shock deflectors. The larger capacity/slower recharge works better for me than the other way around, I think.
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Dec 29, 2015 21:07
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The beefy shields actually recharge faster than normal ones anyway. They have twice the damage absorption, but their recharge isn't quite twice as long (18 seconds versus 10 seconds) so in practice you actually get more 'shield HP' back per-second with the beefy 'slow recharge' ones. Deflectors are actually a tradeoff since the double-strength ones take upwards of 40 seconds to fully recharge, but when you consider that all your guns turn off when it's up I'd prefer to not be flipping them on every couple seconds, so I use the beefy ones and basically save them for when my shields are about to collapse.
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Dec 30, 2015 21:46
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I keep swapping my booster type. Null-grav is nice, yeah, but once you get into the bigger ships their acceleration is rear end. At least slamjets will actually get my Arcturus going from a hairpin turn in less than 10 seconds. Mk4-5 slamjets only have like 3-4 seconds recharge anyway, so the only time I really miss nullgravs is when I try to do a blockade run delivery type mission (which I've mostly stopped doing).
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Dec 31, 2015 00:36
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Kesper North posted:I'm loving this game. I just got it yesterday and I've pretty much done nothing else with my weekend. I went from the Tennhausen to the Barracuda to the Sturville, as the thread consensus seemed to suggest, and while that's fun, I'm getting to the point where I kind of want an upgrade, or to try out a bigger ship or something. I've got mostly mk IV gear with some mk IV, and 3 million spacebucks in cash (thanks to a lucky encounter with an asteroid field stuffed to the gills with Faces of Gozu) plus the hull value of my Sturville. I'm in an Arcturus at the moment. 9 turrets, it's pretty squarely in the 'middle weight' class and rather cheap (1.3mil or so for the chassis, another mil if you want to splurge on the manuevering jets upgrade, it's no Sturville but with the upgrade it's pretty snappy for its size). It also looks metal as hell.
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Jan 3, 2016 21:16
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I think I'm shooting myself in the foot for doing this but I always upgrade my defenses/burner/warp drive/etc first before starting on weapons. All that stuff you need on every ship, so getting a better shield is never going to be a bad investment. But sometimes you move to a new ship and it has fewer turrets so you just have to convert that investment into something else anyway. My Arcturus is mostly mkV except for the weapons, which are about 70% mkIV still, and money is actually starting to flow nicely now that missions are paying 200-400k each now. I think my net worth is something like 12.6 million spacebucks.
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Jan 3, 2016 21:57
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When you get into bigger ships (and when you get to later systems when NPCs start showing up in bigger ships) broadsides become a LOT more important. NPC dreadnaughts can soak up turrets for a long time if that's all they have to deal with. I used to think heat seeking missiles as a secondary was a waste of money, but they help a loving lot with big badass ships later on.
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Jan 3, 2016 22:29
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Doctor Bombadil posted:On a more serious note, any recomendations on turrets? Like I've said, I'm using beam broadsides, and mostly rely on them so I am leaving turrets to shoot on any target. I've been flying with two pulses, two flaks and one beam, though I have just changed pulses for ions, but to tell the truth I have no idea what I am doing. I don't use any of the ammo-limited turrets, since I want them shooting at everything and the ammo count for turrets is way too low. I tried going all-particle beam and it was great for melting capital ships, but you waste a lot of firepower on fighters since the turrets tend to focus fire, and more than 2 or maybe 3 beams on a fighter is way overkill. Also, the cooldown/spool-up time on them and their damage-over-time aspect can bite you in the rear end if you have to hit your deflectors. Scatter and Pulse turrets may seem underwhelming looking at their stats, and the low-mark ones seem to miss fighters a lot, but their projectile speed goes up with better versions, making them a lot more accurate. And while their on-paper damage output isn't impressive, they fire constantly and immediately get to work when you let up the deflectors. IMO they're pretty good workhorse turrets. Ion turrets I'm still feeling out. You probably don't want to have these shooting at fighters, since they tend to have basically no shields anyway (and I think the turrets aren't that good at hitting fighters), but one or two set to fire on capitals only can be really nice with that 300% damage to shields. Right now with a 9-turret Arcturus, I'm rocking 2 Scatter, 2 Pulse, 2 Ion, and 3 Particle Beam, and it seems to be a pretty effective mix. e: Flak turrets are a trap, don't ever use them. They only damage fighters and their max range is incredibly short, to the point that many types of fighters never have to get that close in order to shoot you. They do tend to murder fighters that get that close, but IMO a Scatter or Pulse still does the same basic job, with longer range, and actually works on bigger ships. WarLocke fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 22:31
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Kesper North posted:EMP Flak secondaries are boss though, since they paralyze fighters. EMP Flak is nice, but Heat-Seeking Missiles can be clutch when you end up having to fight 3 dreadnaughts at once. IMO after a certain point handling fighters becomes less of a hurdle than breaking through large capship tanks, and the up-front punch of heat seekers can help a lot with that. I really want some of those uber Korian lasers but the only one I've gotten so far was mk2 and shity compared to mk4-5 normal stuff. 
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Jan 5, 2016 23:35
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Those random nebulas with asteroids and junk actually fairly often have randomly floating cargo canisters in them. You can pick up trade goods or even outright ship upgrades out of them (my mk5 shield came from a floating can). I mean if you're in a bigass ship that turns like the Titanic I might avoid them, but in smaller ships they're free money yo.
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Jan 7, 2016 01:17
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Psion posted:Question though - where's a good place or strategy to get special weapon drops? I got a Badger missile turret and thought it was ... ehhhh? I might change my mind if I had five of them or something though. Also I want those cool lasers. 'Pirate Lords' (notated on the system map by a pirate-ey skull icon) always drop a piece of gear. It's not gauranteed to be a 'special' one, but it's probably your best bet is you're actively trying to hunt down gear you can't buy. I don't remember if you have to check a bar mesage board before they'll show on the map, though.
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Jan 11, 2016 23:46
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double nine posted:In all honesty what's the point of keeping the pirates and co. friendly? They have a sub-par ship for sale and you get hostile to a bunch of useful stations Mercenary missions can also be against (legitimate) Militia or civilians/traders. Mercs don't give a gently caress, they'll shoot whoever.
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Feb 1, 2016 23:55
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 04:30 |
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Psion posted:In general you can top out with almost whatever ship you want - personally I prefer obliterating blockades to running them ( Yeah, your actual 'power level' is almost solely coming from the gear on your ship, not the ship itself. Moving up to bigger ships gets you more turrets/broadsides/secondary port (and I think marginally more hull, but you never want to be relying on hull) but tends to come with the compromise of being a larger/more sluggish target. I'm pretty sure you could finish the game in the starter ship as long as you had mk6 gear.
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Feb 18, 2016 23:52
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