Is the Squadron good for anything?

[voidCaster]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2964911232

This is my A-Class Fighter wingman. He's the only one I have right now. Took me forever to find an A-Class guy with good ship stats (base damage/shields/maneuverability). I spent a lot of nanites to unlock the 2nd slot and I'm still shopping for that wingman.

This guy is a total joke. In my first-ever space combat with him "helping out" I watched his weapons focus-fire on a Sentinel ship for a solid 5 seconds while doing NO damage at all. I saw this happen once where he did no shield damage, then another time where he did no hull damage. BEST OF ALL!!! this giant, floppy set of clownshoes got in my way at least 3 times, so he was taking MY fire instead of the enemy. On one of those occasions I moved aside and this retread actually swerved back into my line of fire.

In my new B-Class Sentinel Interceptor, I had to recharge my shields at least 6 times. I didn't have to recharge more than twice during the same battle in the previous ship, which is how I found the Interceptor in the first place, when that ship had 100 less in absolutely every category.

Edit: I also paid close attention, and absolutely NO Sentinel Ships ever fire on this guy. I did note that 1 out of what is it, 12 turrets on the Sentinel Cap Ship did shoot at him briefly.

So what's the point of having a Squadron, unless you really enjoy screaming cuss words while playing NMS?

[Jaggid Edje]

They make a very good meat shield.


for your opponents...

I always recruit a full squadron, because I like the sexy ships that I recruit to be flying with me in battle. But...

If you use phase beams, they do have one benefit, you can shoot them to recharge your own shields and it doesn't even harm them.

In the very early game, they can also help you to keep the enemies from regenerating shields. Enemies start shield regen VERY quickly, but only if they aren't being hit. Your squadmates hitting them does count for this. Later in the game, you will kill foes quickly enough that this isn't really a concern, but early game the squaddies can be helpful for that.

And lastly, they do a (very) small amount of damage. @prescient stones has a video of them actually finishing off an enemy. And it turns out that if your squadmates finish off a friendly target, the sentinels don't even get mad.
On higher difficulties, however, they do such minimal damage that I doubt they could finish off an enemy before I got bored and fell asleep watching them.

[Guyver8]

mine does...but i'm using Gumsk's gSquad More Squadron Damage mod
(using the x10 increased damage version, so they don't win the fight for me but they're in it)
https://www.nexusmods.com/nomanssky/mods/2469

[rdouglass1]

I have never seen them Draw Fire away from my ship, and 30 % of the time or more, They are In The Line Of Fire, and Block my fire at Targets... I Stopped using them.

[Darth Cervantes]

I have purposely done nothing in some battles to see what they do. They do SOME damage but not much. I still keep them around but they don't do much.

[Kuma]

Don't expect them to kill for you, just expect them to support you, and that they do well.

[Galadhlinn]

I've noticed an improvement with squadrons when taking out the sentinel freighter (5th wave). I have two saves I've done these battles on since the Interceptor update. One save has a fill squadron of S-class. The other save has no squadron. In the save with a squadron, they actually do serve as a helpful distraction to the sentinel fighters, and I took noticeably less hits/damage. However they still crash into you, knock you off target, block you sight (LOS) when trying to shoot enemies. Hopefully still a WIP.

[Krash Megiddo]

On my E9 save I decided to put off the squadron. Maybe later when I have 100,000 nanites and nothing else to spend them on I'll form up a squadron of interceptors. That assumes we can sell interceptors to NPCs. Not sure about that.

[Joker]

Is the Squadron good for anything? its great for getting in the way of that perfect shot by blocking you. they never even shoot anything down. they just fly in front of you like they are are all women drivers yelling at their brats sitting in the back seat.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Krash Megiddo:

Maybe later when I have 100,000 nanites and nothing else to spend them on I'll form up a squadron of interceptors. That assumes we can sell interceptors to NPCs. Not sure about that.

I can confirm that you can trade interceptors to NPC's.

Man, you just added to things I have to do in all of my saves now.

[latteine]

They're very good at bumping into you when you're aiming and then intercepting your fire

[Johnny in the Clouds]

If they destroy enemy ships you get the loot. But it is up to you to do dictate the battle.
Four s-Class squadron pilots increase the odds of a quick end to a battle especially when doing Nexus missions solo.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

It may just be my imagination, but the squad does nothing for you in a noticeable way. They do seem to provide passive protection so I take less damage and my weapon seems a little more effective.

I could be wrong, but my take is the squad is more like a ship upgrade then an actual helper NPC. I do notice things go a lot more smoothly when I use my squad of 4 S class pilots. Ship type or class for your squad seems to make zero difference.

[ld2950]

Each squad pilot has a rank so to speak also choosing stats on the pilots that benefit the squad also seems to help at least it did in my playing around with different squads.

[Langkard]

Originally posted by tekmunkey:

If anybody can tell me how to post screenshots properly, that would be appreciated.

You open up your screenshots, click on view online library, then click on the screeshot you wish to post. Copy and paste the url in the upper left border of the screenshot into your post. The one you want looks like this:

https :/steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id= with a string of numbers after the =

[Johny_Drifter]

I have 4 S Class Squad Members each in a different color squid ship. Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. I was flying my grey squid ship for a long time until I got into a Sentinel ship. For a while it was fun to see 5 different color squid ships. The novelty wore off shortly though because I shoot them more than the enemy. In the beginning, I would stop shooting because I thought I would destroy them but now I know they can't die so I just continue shooting them. Once their shields drop, they get out of the way. Slightly annoying because I would destroy enemy ships faster without them in the way but I can't bring myself to get rid of them because it took me so long to get a whole fleet of different color squidies.