how to counter Iridescent Star Torpedo

[wei270]

wow ♥♥♥♥ these guys got a major upgrade, they took out a nano tube armor layed defence in one hit. and for some reason they are super fast now.

what is the best counter to these guys in the current patch?

[Ericus1]

PD Ions. And lots of them.

[GeneralDerpSide]

No armor can hold against several torpedo hits.
I Find myself building 1 or 2 types of damage dealing ships, and the rest are different types of supporting point defence ships just to survive the initial torpedo salvos.

try to use Infrared Phasers as point defence so your ships could support one another in tight formations.

[Ericus1]

PD Ions can support each other, and have much quicker firing times than infrared phasers. All beams make for very inferior PD, because despite missiles essentially dying in one hit, beams have significantly less range than their raw stats would imply and significantly worse firing times, even as phasers.

Basically PD Ions are the best anti-missile PD in the game, and 40 mm cannons are the best anti-kinetics in the game although cannot support allies quite as well.

[debott]

I did the following:
1. regular PD
2. small laser batteries, so my fleet formations can cover each other over longer distances
3. missiles on defensive stance.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

PD Ions. And lots of them.

In the maneuvering missile combat it's currently lots of waste of slots as I already demonstrated in https://imgur.com/a/iLI7azN, which you would know if you didn't choose to be ignorant in this area.

Edit: To sum up, maneuver alone is enough, currently (and in the past).

[Overlooter]

- No more than 2 slots of PD. (People have said Ion Batteries which are good yes, but Phaser Batteries if you have them unlocked have 150km more range)
- High Wall formation so that one ship is covered by the PD of its neighbors as well as its own

[Blaarg]

PD Ion batteries have better range than PD phaser turrets (200km vs 129km*). As far as 60cm phaser batteries are concerned, they have a 200km range (when on defense), but their fire rate is more than 3 times worse.

*Listed figure does not include the effects of longer ships giving slightly more range or laser engines boosting the range of the PD phaser turrets.

[marten_fierce]

I found that bringing a mix of PD and lasers is better. My battleships all have 1 PD, 1 small phaser battery and 1 medium phaser battery. The batteries fire slower, but it's much better in larger fleets, 10+ ships, when every ship can cover each other.

Always use wall / high wall formation, for maximum PD coverage..

Also, one trick that seems to work way to good, is to start the battle at ~50 speed, and reverse for like 150 - 200 speed. I don't know why, but the aliens just break formation at that point and start accelerating towards your fleet. You can pick them one by one now.

[wei270]

yeah after playing with pd a bit i come to understand there are two PD concept, protect your self, and then there is protect your fleet.

things like PD ion and 40mm are excellent when it comes to protect your self. but once you have scale perhaps shifting to the fleet protection where you go for range instead of frequency is actually an alternative

but of course at the start of the game you don;t have to worry about fleet protection, because you don't have one.

[[+DG+] Sir_Castic]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

PD Ions can support each other, and have much quicker firing times than infrared phasers. All beams make for very inferior PD, because despite missiles essentially dying in one hit, beams have significantly less range than their raw stats would imply and significantly worse firing times, even as phasers.

Basically PD Ions are the best anti-missile PD in the game, and 40 mm cannons are the best anti-kinetics in the game although cannot support allies quite as well.

if beams fired way faster, it'd give batteries an actual tactical use, as they started depleting on relevant timescales.

[Fasalrod]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Originally posted by Ericus1:

PD Ions. And lots of them.

In the maneuvering missile combat it's currently lots of waste of slots as I already demonstrated in https://imgur.com/a/iLI7azN, which you would know if you didn't choose to be ignorant in this area.

Edit: To sum up, maneuver alone is enough, currently (and in the past).

Maneuver is ok in the early game, but it is useless against brilliant sky missiles.

[POWER WITHIN USER]

what is the best counter to these guys in the current patch?

The counter to fission/fusion torpedos is to not let them hit your ship or modules because if they do, no amount of armor will help.

Shoot down the missiles, the ships launching them or sacrifice a ship - you have a lot of choices.

PD Ions

On LDAs?

[Ericus1]

Static defenses will never hold on their own. You need a fleet supporting them, and the best anti-missile PD is PD ions.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by Fasalrod:

Originally posted by Pawleus:

In the maneuvering missile combat it's currently lots of waste of slots as I already demonstrated in https://imgur.com/a/iLI7azN, which you would know if you didn't choose to be ignorant in this area.

Edit: To sum up, maneuver alone is enough, currently (and in the past).

Maneuver is ok in the early game, but it is useless against brilliant sky missiles.

Have you actually tried it as I showed in the linked example?

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by Fasalrod:

Originally posted by Pawleus:

In the maneuvering missile combat it's currently lots of waste of slots as I already demonstrated in https://imgur.com/a/iLI7azN, which you would know if you didn't choose to be ignorant in this area.

Edit: To sum up, maneuver alone is enough, currently (and in the past).

Maneuver is ok in the early game, but it is useless against brilliant sky missiles.

You know that, and I know that, but you'll never convince them of that. They'll just screech at you about some idealized, out of context, non-applicable case and call you an idiot for saying otherwise. My advice: ignore them rather than get drawn into an endless fight for a more stress-free Steam forum experience.