Best 200mm shell?

[SS-310]

I'll be honest, I suck at making good shells for my cannons, so I was wondering what the most damaging shell is for a 200mm that has 16 shell part spaces. My current shell is 3 gunpowder casings, 4 stabilizer fins, an inertia fuse, 7 HE warheads and a squash head

[Sabertoothproton]

Originally posted by Eggie84552:

Originally posted by XIII:

WTF for real? My current standard "frigate" uses 3 turrets shooting 400m/s max size frag rounds, which are 750 frags per projectile? Only a quarter of their damage actually happened?

I mean, I noticed some inconsistency, but they still did a lot of damage and could take out well shielded godlikes like said Terrawatt.

SUPER interesting comment though, I think I'm gonna completely revamp my frigates shells right now. It was already quite powerful, at 245k ressources and being able to kill all LH/WF godlikes, but if what you say is right, then it could be much better with some minor adjustments.

how do you counter the purfurator its particle cannon destroys my best ship in 3 shots?

To counter the perforator you need layered shielding to resist its frag guns. Keeping distance between you and the perforator will cause some of the particle beams to miss and they will suffer falloff. The perforator has great layered shielding that makes frag shells less effective but it does not have a LAMS system meaning that crams or disruptor APS + a Damage shell are good shells to use against it.
As it has no LAMS it can be hit by missiles and torpedos relatively easily (it does have decoys though)

[XIII]

Originally posted by Eggie84552:

how do you counter the purfurator its particle cannon destroys my best ship in 3 shots?

Idk, it just doesn't do much. It's frags get countered by somewhat badly placed shields in the front half, and I got some solid armor where it counts. Actually a bit surprised how little damage it's (the purfs) smaller cannons do to to my ship, to be honest. Had it zip past me, fire at the more vulnerable, unshielded points and still not do too much damage.

The torpedos could be terrifying (despite the overly long cooldown), but the floating depths isn't set at all and they are few in numbers. I guess they might tear a few holes if they were set up to stay below 5m for the double exp damage. Then again, my newer and better protected 260k version of my ship has radar/sonar decoys.

And the particle cannon... don't get me wrong, it's an amazing piece of art, and PACs are fun. But they really don't do much damage. Despite the lower price, my ship has like 12/13k volume, so the naturally quite inaccurate pokes just don't hit where it hurts.


If it kills your ships fast, then I imagine they are much more compact, so the enemy guns can dig much faster to the ammo storages or turrets. My ship started out as an attempt at a frigate, and somehow became a bombardment cruiser or so. It's really nothing special, more overly mediocre in it's application of building techniques, more something to experiment with everything I learned and trying to avoid weaknesses (particuarly with turret clips and ammo storage) than anything else.

[Eggie84552]

I would'nt say it was compact but I ask your opinon also the frag guns arn't the issue its just the particle cannon
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1426243131

[XIII]

In that case it's just the way I set up my craft against the White Flayers. Front to the enemy, as far away as possible, and AI only - so no move command at all.

Means my ships got lots of hull before the vulnerable turret mags, all shields facing them and the Purf's PAC is super inaccurate. My torpedos do lots of damage, while EMP missiles and disruptor shells weaken shields so the other main guns can cripple it.

As said, my ship isn't a good design, it's just mediocre but setup in the right spot.

[Eggie84552]

so stay far away?

[XIII]

Yep! Armor in the vulnerable spots also helps a bit, but 90% of the battle is staying at a distance.

If you want to take manual aim, then a single good hit to the PAC can also kill half the enemy cannon.

[Eggie84552]

any advice for my ship?

[XIII]

I can take a look at it later, but I'm afraid I can't give too much good advice. Still learning myself.

[Sabertoothproton]

I took a look at your ship. It has a lot of issues that i will list here
Pros.
1. Spacing in hull armour will be hard to gut with HEAT
2. Nasty Frag Gun
Cons
1. Overdependance on frag. Agaisnt the butterfly shielding of the perforator frag is next to useless. You need a diffrent shell type to get through layered shielding like disruptor rounds for example. This ship has the space for extra turrets
2. Inefficent Overheating engines. Consider getting engines from guaibees UFEH
http://www.fromthedepthsgame.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=26052
3. No shields. It will get shredded by any kind of cannon. Add shields.
4. No missile defense. I would add a LAMS to a ship of this size but flares and decoys are better than nothing.
5. Inefficent turret tetris. You could make a similar gun that would fit in a smaller hole.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/203755725090979841/301762554969980930/Turret_Layout.png
6. Poorly armored ammo and a lot of it. This ship has an absurd amount of ammo 60k and it is not well protected. Consider wrapping your ammo stores in Heavy Armor and using a few ammo processors (not too many)
7. Default Aimpoint selection card. This is too easily fooled by Aimpoint spoofing. Switch it over to random block targeting
8. Exposed Heavy armour on the turret cap with an exposed mantlet. The mantlet will get destroyed before the HA around it does
9. Too many heavy barrels. Heavy barrels slow your guns elevation speed down massively. Use them sparingly
10. Unused space. large gaps insude could be more guns

[XIII]

Thanks Sabertooth, for taking a look at it! I think that's definitely better advice than I could've given!

Also for the general advice+discussion. While I'm still torn between frag and he (frag's so good tho), your advice helped to make me experiment with different APS types again. I think my next ship is gonna be a gunboat in the style of the Onyx Watch, so I can use all of the APS. HE should be devastating if you reach a critical mass of shells. Also some stupid butterfly shielding for good measure, actuall emp-defenses, and armor that can potentially withstand direct PAC hits.

I think that's a good list of things to try.

[XIII]

Some much more general advice on your ship, for the buildings process:

It seems like you build the hull, and then fill it with stuff. Building a ship like that can be really difficult, particuarly if you don't yet know how to balance things; the amount and size of guns, amount of ammo/processors/engines/etc yet. That only comes with experience, and is one of the harder things about FTD to learn.

I'd recommend doing another ship like this: First, think what guns you want it to have, then build around that. Add a bit more space in length and with than you think you'd need; that way you got space for armor to add should a place turn out to be too weak. Don't place turrets to close so they don't kill each other when one's clips get blown up. Then add some midship section for utilities, then bow and stern, and fill the crannies with stuff you need. Ammo is best kept in multiple armored compartments, with 3m clearance to any important hardware in case it blows up.


Eg for my frigate, my basic plan was that I want three max caliber turrets that can shoot forwards, and then vertically launched EMP missile support for breaking enemy shields and overwhelming enemy point defense systems. Everything rounded up by all the more advanced systems I learned about. That was a good base, and then lots of other stuff was modified and added later because of my experience with that hull.

Trial and error is everything; I built something because I lacked the specialization to beat the combined shields+pds of a bullwark (besides some overpriced battleship), and ended up with a reasonably priced heavy frigate that can kill half the games godlikes if used correctly. So I'd say, why not go and look what you'd need to kill a Perforator?

[Eggie84552]

Originally posted by XIII:

Some much more general advice on your ship, for the buildings process:

It seems like you build the hull, and then fill it with stuff. Building a ship like that can be really difficult, particuarly if you don't yet know how to balance things; the amount and size of guns, amount of ammo/processors/engines/etc yet. That only comes with experience, and is one of the harder things about FTD to learn.

I'd recommend doing another ship like this: First, think what guns you want it to have, then build around that. Add a bit more space in length and with than you think you'd need; that way you got space for armor to add should a place turn out to be too weak. Don't place turrets to close so they don't kill each other when one's clips get blown up. Then add some midship section for utilities, then bow and stern, and fill the crannies with stuff you need. Ammo is best kept in multiple armored compartments, with 3m clearance to any important hardware in case it blows up.


Eg for my frigate, my basic plan was that I want three max caliber turrets that can shoot forwards, and then vertically launched EMP missile support for breaking enemy shields and overwhelming enemy point defense systems. Everything rounded up by all the more advanced systems I learned about. That was a good base, and then lots of other stuff was modified and added later because of my experience with that hull.

Trial and error is everything; I built something because I lacked the specialization to beat the combined shields+pds of a bullwark (besides some overpriced battleship), and ended up with a reasonably priced heavy frigate that can kill half the games godlikes if used correctly. So I'd say, why not go and look what you'd need to kill a Perforator?

this the building of the hull what i do is I place the ammo and ai and guns on a flat area and then build walls around that

[Eggie84552]

Originally posted by sabertoothproton:

I took a look at your ship. It has a lot of issues that i will list here
Pros.
1. Spacing in hull armour will be hard to gut with HEAT
2. Nasty Frag Gun
Cons
1. Overdependance on frag. Agaisnt the butterfly shielding of the perforator frag is next to useless. You need a diffrent shell type to get through layered shielding like disruptor rounds for example. This ship has the space for extra turrets
2. Inefficent Overheating engines. Consider getting engines from guaibees UFEH
http://www.fromthedepthsgame.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=26052
3. No shields. It will get shredded by any kind of cannon. Add shields.
4. No missile defense. I would add a LAMS to a ship of this size but flares and decoys are better than nothing.
5. Inefficent turret tetris. You could make a similar gun that would fit in a smaller hole.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/203755725090979841/301762554969980930/Turret_Layout.png
6. Poorly armored ammo and a lot of it. This ship has an absurd amount of ammo 60k and it is not well protected. Consider wrapping your ammo stores in Heavy Armor and using a few ammo processors (not too many)
7. Default Aimpoint selection card. This is too easily fooled by Aimpoint spoofing. Switch it over to random block targeting
8. Exposed Heavy armour on the turret cap with an exposed mantlet. The mantlet will get destroyed before the HA around it does
9. Too many heavy barrels. Heavy barrels slow your guns elevation speed down massively. Use them sparingly
10. Unused space. large gaps insude could be more guns

when you say bad tetras do you mean the area in which the gun is placed so how you have the correct area for your turrets or is there a more effiecent way of building that gun for the same space

[Eggie84552]

also thanks for telling me about the engine didn't realise as I only had it running at low power.
also what I did with the pid's removing the need for recoil stabalises would that work for larger ships or not?

[Sabertoothproton]

Originally posted by Eggie84552:

Originally posted by sabertoothproton:

I took a look at your ship. It has a lot of issues that i will list here
Pros.
1. Spacing in hull armour will be hard to gut with HEAT
2. Nasty Frag Gun
Cons
1. Overdependance on frag. Agaisnt the butterfly shielding of the perforator frag is next to useless. You need a diffrent shell type to get through layered shielding like disruptor rounds for example. This ship has the space for extra turrets
2. Inefficent Overheating engines. Consider getting engines from guaibees UFEH
http://www.fromthedepthsgame.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=26052
3. No shields. It will get shredded by any kind of cannon. Add shields.
4. No missile defense. I would add a LAMS to a ship of this size but flares and decoys are better than nothing.
5. Inefficent turret tetris. You could make a similar gun that would fit in a smaller hole.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/203755725090979841/301762554969980930/Turret_Layout.png
6. Poorly armored ammo and a lot of it. This ship has an absurd amount of ammo 60k and it is not well protected. Consider wrapping your ammo stores in Heavy Armor and using a few ammo processors (not too many)
7. Default Aimpoint selection card. This is too easily fooled by Aimpoint spoofing. Switch it over to random block targeting
8. Exposed Heavy armour on the turret cap with an exposed mantlet. The mantlet will get destroyed before the HA around it does
9. Too many heavy barrels. Heavy barrels slow your guns elevation speed down massively. Use them sparingly
10. Unused space. large gaps insude could be more guns

when you say bad tetras do you mean the area in which the gun is placed so how you have the correct area for your turrets or is there a more effiecent way of building that gun for the same space

I mean both. For the size of hole that it needs to spin into it isnt using all the space and the layout of the gun itself isnt terribly space efficent