S/M ships

[Tyrant]

does anyone use these ships classes?
they are too small to be of use when trading (and slow).
besides id rather buy a Rahanas for 6 mill credits then X amount of M freighters of equal value


and when it comes to fighting they seem patheticly weak compared to their price.
except for the Xenon P who i find are equal in damage potential to the skunk (is a shame the ai cant fly).
i am playing on very hard and have very little issues with the swarms of 26 fighters that come through on occasion but the capitals are a real threat aslong as they are not alone.

some tests ive done also indicate that a single destroyer is superior to a force of fighters of equal credit value.

So what is the point with even bothering with these small ships? they are bearly classable as cannon fodder.

[XenoZeduX]

M class haulers are anything but useless except in some kind of obvious systems like DeVries, Toride, Fields of Oppurtunity and Cold Star.

Instead they are actually faster for in sector trading for your stations than almost any capital trading ship.

It is not very efficient to just assign multiple capital ships to stations and zero M class haulers especially when you are talking about Rahanas which hardly have any hull. Even a pirate Sanahar can severely damage a Rahanas. Depending on the station I keep at least 1 capital ship and 2 to 4 M class haulers except for very hostile systems.

Regarding S and M fighters they are good for escorting the M class haulers. Don't underestimate the firepower of large groups of these ships though like the 'Drostan Raiding Party' in Last Stand in Commerce Core in Omicron Lyrae is potent enough to easily destroy most of the Albion trading and mining ships in a really short time. If you are in Albion then you can go to Dormant Bear in Lookout Alpha where the Badlands Mining Colony is getting bombed by a similar group of Drostans and other fighter escorts. Even in 'in zone' combat these fighter groups usually manage to take down a few turrets on most combat capital ships unless they are engaging with the drones.

[Daddy Shark]

Some stations are more efficient with fleets of small freighters. The best use I've found is for selling medical supplies and narcotics. Stations buy frequent, small batches of these components. If you only have a few capital vessels running deliveries, they can't get to all the small little orders in time. If you stock the station with 10-15 gigurums or mecantias or something like that, it's MUCH more efficient and you make lots more money and the rest of your stations all run better because the drugs and medkits give them all production buffs.

Those little guys are slower and more vulnerable than a capital vessel, so what you do is give a fleet of 40-80 fighters to the station's defense officer, and the DO will send out escorts and patrols to defend all your little freighters as they make deliveries.

[Tyrant]

i spent 100 mill on fighters and had them assigned to a station in albion (freeplay) and i watch them get destroyed in less then 2 hours.

the capital freighters seem to have no issue with anything and even if a 260k m3 freighter is only moving 5k m3 of freight it still seems more effective at shifting the goods then the M freighters in my experience.

in devries even on very hard there is far less pirates then there is in the built up regions aswell so escort arent even needed except for the mining vessels whose escort was solved by parking olmekrons in the sectors with minerals on a patrol order.


so i have no idea what im doing wrong with these smaller ships then cause they seem very suicidal to me.

[XenoZeduX]

You don't need to use them. It is okay not to use them as the escort algorithm isn't very good whether we are talking about the capital or non capital ships. If you could set it up like fleet formations or something similar then it could be much more effective. Well at least fighter squads could be, capital fleets much less unless we are taking into account drones which work better than the current ones do.

[Lupo]

I use M ships at the start of my games, barely do boarding so they allow me to get a small fleet of merchants going till I can afford Capital ships, also when I just build a station so the manager does not goes all crazy trying to fill up all the storage space with needed materials.

[Tyrant]

well the game throws Titurels at you so running out of capital freighters is kinda hard.
just wish that there were more raids and larger AI fleets attacking your holdings when you press out into contested territories such as devries/toride/maelstrom.

but ill give the M freighters a go again in devries where they dont get attacked every 2 seconds.

[XenoZeduX]

I wonder whether you are playing a campaign playthrough or any other sort of free play one. In free play there is always a Titurel escorted by 4 Stormvok with additional fighter escorts in one of the zones of Bleak Pebble in DeVries. Besides that the zones adjacent to the REI stations are a nightmare even with something like a Fulmekron patrolling, well its turrets being placed so close to each other end up getting destroyed frequently. Unless I bring a Galactica (Arawn) it is always in chaos. I plan to build some stations in those zones instead and see how it holds.

[eMYNOCK]

The average patroling REI Titurel is located in Barren Heart and not in Bleak Pebble... and it is only Escorted by when you play on Very hard.

Beside that.. regular Pirates (Syndicate & Heretic Vanguards) will use Titurels, Sahanar & Rahanas Hybrids on normal Plunder Duty... if you stumble over a Pirate Titu just enjoy and take it...

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK (MadHwK):

The average patroling REI Titurel is located in Barren Heart and not in Bleak Pebble... and it is only Escorted by when you play on Very hard.

Beside that.. regular Pirates (Syndicate & Heretic Vanguards) will use Titurels, Sahanar & Rahanas Hybrids on normal Plunder Duty... if you stumble over a Pirate Titu just enjoy and take it...

and that is what i do. they are also frequently on kill missions to in albion and usually only escorted by a light sul and token fighters that arent worth mentioning.

as for what mode im playing its free play on very hard. on lower settings there are no pirates anywhere that can even be considderd a ''annoyance''.

step 1 get boarding crew
step 2 find titurel
step 3 borrow titurel
step 4 use that titurel as the start of your trade fleet
step 5 if titurel = 5 then sell Titurel x5 and buy lyramekron
(though titurels are a bit more agile at times due to the more compact body)

[Witch ~]

they're amazing for in-sector trading with little violance. Same with miners.

[XenoZeduX]

Titurels are good for early game and for systems like Albion. It only takes them a little while to turn into derelict in systems like Omicron Lyrae and Toride.

I rather prefer boarding Marauder Phoenix in Field of Oppurtunity. You can capture 2 of them in the same time compared to 1 Titurel. Though the Titurel has more overall weaponry and hull these ships are much faster and in groups can deal massive damage to anything including the Xenon I. The Marauder version also has good enough universal cargo space for trading. Last but not the least they are worth much more than the Titurel even if you want to just make money quickly in relatively early game. The only requirement is that you should not try to board them with recruit marines.

[eMYNOCK]

you also benefit from the fact that marauder Phoenix are listed as Combat Ship... Uguras & Cartell avoid attacking Combat Ships with Cargo on board...

The perfect Trade Ship in Fields of Opportunity.

Too bad that PMC will attack them in Albion when you play the Campaign.

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK (MadHwK):

you also benefit from the fact that marauder Phoenix are listed as Combat Ship... Uguras & Cartell avoid attacking Combat Ships with Cargo on board...

The perfect Trade Ship in Fields of Opportunity.

Too bad that PMC will attack them in Albion when you play the Campaign.

isnt their cargospace tiny?

[eMYNOCK]

yes, their cargo space is tiny.. the same size like a Lepton to be honest.. but much more hull and firepower.

and the primary benefit ist that they count as Fighting Class and Teladi Pirates do not bother with them.

aka.. if it is meant to fight.. we do not attack it... it could cause more loss than profit.

[UniTrader]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK (MadHwK):

and the primary benefit ist that they count as Fighting Class and Teladi Pirates do not bother with them.

nope....

  <macro name="units_size_xl_cargo_hauler_2_macro" class="ship_xl">
......
      <purpose primary="trade" />

i am pretty sure they used to be fight ships but this was changed at some point...