How to design an end-game ship at level 20

[andersonm]

A strong ship lets you access high-level star systems. That lets you destroy high level ships, massacre your local ecosystem, and get high level weapons, accelerating your game massively.

Needs Piloting level 4 (C-class) and Starship Design level 1. Parts are found in most shipyards.

4 PB-300 Alpha beams. Put 12 energy into them
4 Vanguard Ares particle cannon. Put 1 energy into them.

Those weapons is all you need. Some other good parts:

Engines: 4x Supernova 2000 engines. Put 2-3 energy into them.
Shield: Any shield generator, before you get a large enough reactor for the Vanguard Bulwark. Put 12 energy into it.
Grav drive: move over 1 energy when needed
Reactor: Theta Pinch B9 at level 20, upgrade to SF20 Sheared Flow at level 27.

The weapons makes this OP due to how weapons work.

Recharge-for-each-shot weapons
Some weapons must recharge for each shot, and recharge faster with high energy allocation. This is the PB-300 Alpha Beams. It's why it gets 12 energy.

Magazine-type weapons
Some weapons have a "battery"/"magazine". While you shoot, it draws down the battery and doesn't recharge. When you stop shooting, it recharges, faster with high energy.
But as long as you have 1 energy in it, it will start combat with full battery.
This is the Vanguard Ares particle cannon. So you start each fight with 28x4 shots or so, at the cost of 1 energy.

Total damage:
PB-300: 4x41x1.5 = 246 dps
Vanguard Ares: 4x18x4 = 288 dps

No need to switch between anti-shield and anti-hull. No need to use tracking mode for aiming missiles.
You hold down both buttons for 3 seconds and anything dies, from a range of 3000. Usually 2 seconds, sometimes 1 second.

Thanks to the Vanguard Ares "battery", you get a massive damage burst at the start of each ship battle, and can take out 2-3 enemy ships in seconds. This is important for ship battles, because 4 enemies is 10x harder than 2 enemies.

[chris23162]

It's not end game though as you can't get the best stuff till it unlocks at level 60 and your enemies are locked to having low level stuff too. So they can't use anything beyond your level as well, when you get to level 60 there are A class reactors with over 30 power and far more powerful guns that will be needed as the ai will then have access to the better shields. If you make ships before level 60 your actually just wasting money as you can get by easily by just capping ships.

[Mack]

This ship is cheaper and only requires 3, Starship Design 1 and to join the UC Vanguard and complete it's first mission on Tau Ceti.

102DS Mag Inertial Reactor
Vanguard Bulwark Shield
PBO-100 Auto Neutron Beam or Vanguard Obliterator Autoprojectors (Main Weapon)
PBO-100 Auto Neutron Turrets (Optional)
EMP-80 or EMP-500 Suppressor (For killing engines with the Targeting skill to be able to board)
Stroud Viking Cockpit
Stroud Workshop 2x1

24 Power Generation, 1450 Shields, a high crew capacity + the workshop for crafting if you need it, Suppressors for boarding actions and a weapon set that obliterates enemies.

[andersonm]

Originally posted by chris23162:

reactors with over 30 power and far more powerful guns that will be needed as the ai will then have access to the better shields.

No, that's the point. This weapon combination melts everything. A level 98 enemy ship took maybe 4 seconds. Try it to understand it. Nothing better is ever needed. It's massively OP.

You can get it at level 20 and use it for the rest of the game. That's why it's end-game.
Sure, a reactor upgrade at level 27 for the Vanguard shield.
After that, you're just adding reactor to get more cargo space.

EMP isn't needed. You can just target engines and take them out in 2 shots if you want to capture.

[andersonm]

Originally posted by Mack:

This ship is cheaper and only requires 3, Starship Design 1 and to join the UC Vanguard and complete it's first mission on Tau Ceti.

102DS Mag Inertial Reactor
Vanguard Bulwark Shield
PBO-100 Auto Neutron Beam or Vanguard Obliterator Autoprojectors (Main Weapon)

PBO-100 Auto Neutron Beam does 4x5x14 = 280dps, or a little more than half. When you have emptied the mags, you need to wait for it to recharge.

The OP combination is a recharge-for-each-shot weapon (12 energy) with a magazine weapon (1 energy)

[Blackout]

Love this ship building stuff. Gonna make both setups posted here.

[Mack]

yeah it's not as good but it's cheaper & doesn't require as much skillpoint investment

[Singrave]

A really good one guide. Thanks to all participiants!