End-game carriers

[matt]

My latest captain was filthy rich from doing missions, so I bought a fully-decked out Vengeance Class Mk3 with two interdictors. This is my first time playing with small craft. It's been pretty fun, though it's nerve-wracking seeing people hit my poor interdictors.

I hired a wing tech and gundeck boss, which has helped. Do life saving talents work on wing leaders if they're shot down? Do they get a death save? Or are wing techs the only way to save them? One of my wing leaders got a trait that gives a bonus to his death save.

Before I put down a zillion credits to upgrade to a Dreadnought as my endgame ship, I'm curious if there's anything special I need to do to keep Jyeeta ships from insta-killing my wing leaders. Are there any must-have components? Price shouldn't be an issue.

I plan on using c-taks, railtraks, and missiles to deal with Jyeeta craft, but it would be nice if my own craft could help out on defense without being a liability.

[happybjorn]

Not sure about the save talents, but that is a good question.

tldr: Stack craft evasion for your small craft and you'll be fine.

The best things for keeping your small craft intact are high level craft, getting some levels on your pilots (so they can actually provide skills to match the craft, level 1 pilots are not so great), and gear. Talents can work well too, but the opportunity cost of using one for your launched craft is pretty high.

I find a single defensive trait (stuff with + craft evasion, Spatial is ideal but there are plenty of good ones), a + craft evasion gear item and the best Interdictor available are extremely hard to hit on Impossible.

I'm biased in favor of using Wing Leaders defensively, so I'd say that plan works best. Enemy craft don't attack your craft when on your ship's side of the screen, they attack your ship. If you make an attack run with a craft and their craft are defending they will attack your craft. You are in range of whatever ship weapons your ship is in range of when defending, you are at range 1 when you close with the enemy ship.

[matt]

Unfortunately, my wing leaders are a bit lower level (25) because they were recruited in the second era. I might be able to conscript someone around 35-40. It's been difficult to capture carriers because I don't want to get bombed. Can I use craft that I don't have the stats for? There might not be a big reason to do so, though.

My Vengeance Class Mk3 should be alright against Jyeeta, but more firepower would be nice. Hopefully I can launch a Dreadnought before the endgame. I have decent stuff, but it's not top of the line. Will have to try being bit a more hardcore about grinding rep for gear, buying high-end craft, and leveling up my flight crew next time.

Defending has been useful, but I sent my interdictors out on attack missions a couple times to stop carriers from launching. The debuff doesn't seem to last very long, but we had some good luck with that. It's just on hard, though, not impossible. Maybe if I get more confident about craft I'll bump it up to brutal.

[happybjorn]

Anything over level 15 is fine. The point of the level comment is really about having some pilot skill to match the craft's stats (having more talents is certainly nice too). Anyone who can use a craft is more effective if they can match their skills to the craft's stats (according to the wiki there is a 2% evasion bonus per matched point of pilot skill. Low level pilots noticeably get hit more).

I can't say for certain about how you will fare against Jyeeta. They ended some of my games (on Impossible). Show up as prepared as you can.

Using your Interdictors to attack can be fine, it really depends on what you are fighting and what you want to do. I really like Screening Swarm, but you can launch a craft to attack on one turn then use an Interdictor for Screening Swarm on the next turn.

If you can get better gear, great, but there are okay defensive options at tier 2 and 4. It would be a mistake not to have any item on your small craft pilots, but might not be worth the grind to get the shiniest stuff (maybe you have better things to do, like complete a story vignette).

Edit: corrected above to okay defensive options at tier 2 and 4.

I checked one of my post Jyeeta saves. My Wing Commanders only have tier 4 accessories (the one that give +10 attack and evasion) and are level 17. I could have done better leveling them up and getting better gear, but they did fine.

[matt]

I ended up recruiting some level 28 wing leaders, one of which has a very good trait. I grabbed the level 5 wing specialist gear, too. There's a level 6 gear, but I don't know how you get it. It may be a bug.

I wasn't able to launch my Dreadnought in time, so I've been doing hunting ground Jyeeta. I was forced into combat with a smaller Jyeeta ship, and my Vengeance Class Mk3 did fine. Buffing the craft helped. I've been making liberal use of screening swarm, and it's great. It's probably overly cautious, but I fled the huge carriers.

After grinding a bunch of ground combats, the Dreadnought is ready to launch now, so I have to decide whether to stop fighting and sail off to get it. I realized that I wasn't sure if +dmg weapons affect small craft. Or if they're susceptible to radiation or void damage. I added a few Cadar targetlock matrices, anyway. I figure it can't hurt.

Dedicated hunting of Jyeeta carriers in my Dreadnought may have to wait for the post-game victory dance. If I did it again, I'd probably be either more focused on launching a Dreadnought, or I'd just use the Vengeance Mk3. I probably split too much of my time between chasing vignettes and towing the Dreadnought around starports.

[TheGioKer]

Just my 2 cents, from experience (mostly hard difficulty, only a couple impossible runs with the below setup).

Jyeeta small crafts appear to be less tough than the top class human crafts. Railguns are their bane. Fully revved (+damage, +critical, +small craft hit) and high level railguns (4RP) will kill those little xenos in one shot. Basically a combination of knock off the void and small crafts +hit% is going to wreck havoc on Jyeeta carriers.

[matt]

Originally posted by TheGioKer:

Jyeeta small crafts appear to be less tough than the top class human crafts. Railguns are their bane. Fully revved (+damage, +critical, +small craft hit) and high level railguns (4RP) will kill those little xenos in one shot. Basically a combination of knock off the void and small crafts +hit% is going to wreck havoc on Jyeeta carriers.

My Vengeance Class Mk3 has two Weyland Falcons. They're mid tier interdictors, but I didn't find time to buy new ones. They seem to reliably do 100 points of damage. I've got a Warhawk Launch Bay (+8% to craft), Warhawk Hangar (+3% to craft), and Capital Carrier Bridge 5 (+12% to craft). I've also got two Tacticians' Annexes. So if the annexes affect craft, we're looking at +43% damage. If not, it's still +23%.

I've got two missiles and a torpedo installed. When buffed with talents, I can maybe blow up one craft per turn. The Falcons usually kill a craft that survives and closes. However, my worry is that I'll get swarmed with craft, and my interdictors won't be enough to stop all the bombers.

My VC3 is great (extravagant even -- the twin $4m hangars were a decadent choice that I made just because I could afford them). I know it can tank smaller Jyeeta carriers, and I think it could do the big ones, too, if I had said no to one of those vignettes and spent a bit more time buying new craft, buying wing gear, etc.

I probably should a carrier with endgame railguns, but I usually go with missiles. Three missiles and a torpedo is pretty nice. It limits the amount of overkill and sometimes knocks out someone's engines early in the battle.

edit: after playing a bit further, turns out I didn't have to worry so much. With talents + interdictors + missiles, the VC3 could take on any Jyeeta ship. There was one hairy moment when we did get swarmed with craft that my missiles didn't destroy, but we knocked out their ship's engines before the craft could attack me, anyway.