Zombie strike craft too strong

[Kenjataimu]

I'm currently lvl 51 and I have a really hard time against zombie strike craft. I can handle the motherships, but they bring along like a dozen of them that completely melts my shield in seconds, and taking my ship apart far too easily. Currently using Plasma/Pulsar/Zappers, should I switch to snipers?

[Bozobub]

Sniper Cannons ARE quite good as anti-SC support weapons — in fact, they're one of the best support weapons in the game, and are often woefully underappreciated; they usually have a significantly higher *actual* DPS than Pulsers, due to their much higher hit % — as are Mass Drivers, but you don't necessarily need to change your loadout. You DO, however, need speed; A speed rating of 150-175 is about the lowest you can go and still make any of these methods work.

There are three reliable ways you can go about this. All start with you turning sharply (up to 180°) and boosting hard away from the entire enemy swarm OR boosting through it in some way to the other side (more risky), stringing the enemy out behind you. Once you're 2500-3000+ range away, you get to make a choice:

Note: Only launch your own SCs if specified.

1. Simply keep stringing out the enemy SC swarm and keep destroying them as they stern-chase you, until the motherships run out of replacements. This can be rather tedious but does have the advantage of giving a high likelihood of blueprint drops.
   
   
2. Drop a Rally marker somewhat ahead of you (NOT on yourself or the enemy) to create an "SC turret farm", so to speak, and spawn all of your own SCs (note: I never have SCs set to autospawn). Turn (at least partially) to face the incoming enemy SCs and help your own swarm to take them apart. If the enemy SCs/motherships get too close to the Rally marker and/or you are forced to maneuver (say, a Zombie Bomb pops in your face), make sure you keep placing the Rally point farther out in clear territory; this will help your SCs live MUCH longer.
   
   Note: This is probably the most effective way to use SCs in any situation.
   
   This can cost you some resources (to repair/replace SCs) AND depends on having at least moderately strong, large strike craft, or they'll simply vaporize too easily. If you keep on your toes with Rally point placement, however, it's also effective. Like method 1, you'll also see many blueprint drops.
   
   
3. With a fast enough ship, turn and boost *around* the incoming SC swarm, target an enemy mothership (preferably the rearmost, IF they all have actually followed you; sometimes they stay wayyyyy back) and go for it alone. Hold "space" (or w/e your "boost shields" key/button is set to) until within range, so the enemy gets a full volley in the face. You should have time to light 'im up for a bit longer, until the SCs return; when they do, immediately boost away again to pull them away from the mothership. Make sure you keep the same mothership targeted and keep making passes until it's dead. Once you kill it, do the same with any other motherships, in order. Once the motherships are dead, make an "SC turret farm" if you like, as in option 2 above, to help you clean up the SCs.
   
   This method is extremely effective, if you want to speed up engagements (since the motherships never get to reinforce their swarm) but requires the fastest build of all these methods. You will also see many fewer blueprint drops, on average, because you're killing the enemy motherships before they can reinforce any losses.

You can, of course, combine these methods, and I often do, but they each work on their own ^^'. It will also help a great deal, overall, to strongly emphasize speed/turn rate and shields when building your mothership, closely followed by armor (rams are fun AND good finishers). Don't worry about HP at all, and capacitor stats aren't much of an issue, either.

[Tyrian]

Originally posted by Kenjataimu:

I'm currently lvl 51 and I have a really hard time against zombie strike craft. I can handle the motherships, but they bring along like a dozen of them that completely melts my shield in seconds, and taking my ship apart far too easily. Currently using Plasma/Pulsar/Zappers, should I switch to snipers?

sorry broh but they dont give a credit if you cant beat something or not , its ZEDs talking to them is pointless as collecting dogs crap.

[Bozobub]

..? I don't see how that's particularly helpful. You still have to deal with the SCs, one way or another.

[SpееdBяедкея]

i have some problem with lvl 52. i tested so much weapons and drones and have 100k shield. but i cant attack. allways 2+ ships.
no chance bye endgame :(

[Your Mother's A Good Woman]

I haven't played it in a while, but if there haven't been any game changing... changes, then it sounds like you need some minigun turrets. I find having 2-3 of them near my engines works wonders. They stop a ton of missiles, and do a pretty good job of taking down enemy strike craft. Maybe also rethink your ship design. Don't go for what looks pretty, go for what's actually effective. Some of the ships you fight in the arena look cool, but are they practical? No way in hell. You need defense to survive. So having a wide bodied ship that launches nothing but ion missiles is just plain dumb. Having a ship where there's minigun turrets on both sides of it near the engines is a good idea. If you're fast enough, you can out-pace most ships, and the turrets will take care of the missiles. Also shotgun turrets are good for strike craft. It's a sound idea to get engines that have them. They don't do much damage when they hit, but they hit almost every time.

[Ai]

Minigun turrets is underated, it's very helpfull to keep missiles and fighters off your back.
At that level, i would actually use 2 large parts with miniguns on them.

It's aslo very good when attacking a zombie hive, w/o miniguns it's easy to get overrun by missiles and the drones.

Originally posted by SpееdBяедкея:

i have some problem with lvl 52. i tested so much weapons and drones and have 100k shield. but i cant attack. allways 2+ ships.
no chance bye endgame :(

You can have a wingmen to even the odds you know? Provided you made your own faction.
You might be saying : *But i get less exp and parts!*

And to that i respond : It's better to have a chance to win that NOT have a chance to win, high rewards don't matter if you cannot get them, don't be greedy.
Just make sure you give them a bit of rez so they can keep up with you, once they get too weak/destroyed just pick someone esle.

[Bozobub]

First off, if your design is slow — very roughly, under 150 speed stat — then you WILL have problems, most especially with strike craft. Speed and turn rate (together, "agility") are possibly the most important combat stats in the game. With enough agility, all of the defensive weapons work at least reasonably well; without agility, you're going to have a harder time mounting a meaningful defense, while still maintaining a strong offense. Once you start hitting 250+ speeds, you'll notice you can simply outrun much enemy fire. Past 350, you'll start outrunning SCs, even w/o hitting boost.

Example: When attacking a Zombie starbase, if you have enough agility, you can just fly around them in a constant circle (boosting every so often) w/o taking much, if any damage. With enough defenses, you'll pop nearly all of their missiles/Warheads in their own face, as well.

Mini Guns ARE best in the rear, but frankly, their drastically limited range and inferior turret FoV greatly lowers their overall utility, in my eyes. That said, they're also not worthless and should work much better for melee builds, so YMMV of course.

Last, re: wingmen: Honestly, friendly AI mostly *gets in the way*. The biggest service they provide is taking up one enemy slot, so it's never 3-1 against you; otherwise... Meh. They CAN be useful, sure, but I greatly prefer not annoying the heck out of myself and weakening my factionmate so badly; making them a wingman nearly always greatly weakens that captain's overall growth, even when micromanaged properly (which most folks probably don't do ^^').

Note: The methods I outlined earlier DO work, even on "Insane", I promise (because I use them =) ).

[Kensei]

Dude I got 3 Mass Drivers and it takes me 7 volleys to kill a gold digger. I kill ships with 3. Dafuq.

[Ai]

Originally posted by Kensei:

Dude I got 3 Mass Drivers and it takes me 7 volleys to kill a gold digger. I kill ships with 3. Dafuq.

You do know this post is nearly a year old right?

Also, mass drivers purpose is to kill large ships, not strikecrafts, so it's working has intended.

[Imnuktam]

When I build my sniper craft with snipers, mass drivers and a few mini guns those become very easy to deal with, especially if you string them out like Bozo mentions. Also while you are stringing them out use zoom function to check your course and head for the shield bubble to refill if possible.

Also agree with him on speed, dont skimp on engines or stringing them out just wont work. Some things also dont adapt well to the range of your build if you go with snipers/mass drivers. You can pretty much park at your range at some bases and just fire away with impunity.

My last game I had a large sniper wing up front on each side, mass drivers on nose and tail another large sniper / mass driver on left and on right a couple bomber hangars and it just mowed everything a little too easily to be honest.

Having a hard time not rebuilding that same ship as i try to have a different feel in my current game.

[Strygald]

As far as I know strike craft don't have armor and only weak shields, I have a lot of success using torpedoes and explosive bombers(not the ion ones).. those excel on wiping out hull hp.

[Bozobub]

Um... Yes, strike craft DO have armor; check their stats for yourself, if you don't believe me, it's clearly displayed. As for the rest of their stats, if your enemy is fielding 6-star large strike craft, they can have pretty ludicrous stats from both their star level and the captain's levelup bonuses, which they share (just like your own strike craft share yours). For example, I run 2x Hammerhead (Plasma, Mass Driver, 2x Pulser) and 2x Shatter (2x Pulser, 4x Zapper Pod), both 6-star, and their stats are, in order displayed:
Health: 382.8*
Armor: 277.2*
Shield: 287*
Turn Rate: 26
Thrust: 60
Reactor: 774 <- A Hammerhead with these stats will *hurt you*.
Capacitor: 446 <- ^^^
100% Damage bonus!

*Remember, your onscreen gauges multiply these numbers by 100.

So "weak shields" is pretty relative; those aren't bad stats for an early-midgame mothership! And if you multiply that by 12, from 3 high-level Zombies, on "Expert" or "Insane"... Well, let's just say you may change your tune a bit *cough*.

Motherships aren't what make 3:1 Zombie battles take so long, ya know; those evaporate pretty readily, if you build and fly reasonably well, but strike craft can drag out battles tediously at best, and swarm you to a rapid, brutal death at worst. This is only exacerbated if you tend to make...er..."porky" builds. If you have less than 150 speed or so, you're going to have serious issues, especially late-game on higher difficulties, and bad turn rates also don't help one bit.

There's more than one reason literally *every single one* of my late-game builds directly outflies strike craft, even without using boost ^^'. Not only is this obviously useful defensively, it lets you kite enemies, choose combat on your terms, and chase down and murder strike craft. Enough agility, and even weapons that normally have issues can nail SCs with ease, as you fly right up to them at your leisure...

[Strygald]

Originally posted by Bozobub:

Um... Yes, strike craft DO have armor

I see, I am not refuting what you say but I will say that is just bloody confusing ... I read a dev post that stated armor on ship parts is hitpoints that need to be reduced before the part flies off, hull hitpoints on a part feeds into the total hitpoints of your ship; you can't take down hull hitpoints until a subcore is exposed.

Soo, the armor stat on strike craft does not work consistently in the same way it does on ship parts.. bad. Sounds like it either reduces hull damage the strike craft takes by some unknown amount or acts as initial hitpoints that is affected by different weapon types than the hull hitpoints of the strike craft. In any case a pair of gravity missiles followed by an explosive torpedo is pretty effective from my experience in taking out strike craft.

[Bozobub]

Armor is present on SCs simply to give specialized armor-destroying weapons, such as Mass Drivers, something to destroy. If armor hits 0, the SC dies, AFAIK, just as the HP falling to 0 does. This odd behavior is because strike craft are treated essentially as *single modules*; the normal behavior of a part "falling off" when armor reaches 0 doesn't make a lot of sense for them.