Please suggest smallest size hi-end POI busting Battle SV

[Fury Fairy]

Hi there explorers, and enjoy your day!

Played enough SINGLE PLAYER hours in EGS, fragged dozens of Zirax CVs in space, as well as several Drone Bases. I use T4 CV for warping around and fighting Zirax in space, also have all-arounder T3 SV for mining, scouting and light fighting. However, I'd like to have pure Battle hi-end SV for taking down POIs - Drone bases AND as next step - Legacy POIs. Tried several top-rated SVs from workshop, but still NOT completely satisfied, main reasons:

• Claimed to be "battle ready", however can't survive a minute without critical damage past shield depletion. Repair armor after battle is fine, but loosing half of generators and fuel tanks after 2-3 laser turret hits... does NOT sound like battle ready
  
• Have TONS of non-essential devices, small cargo boxes, useless roleplay crap that eats fuel, occupies space and does nothing
  
• Unfortunately, size class 5 CV I use feels MORE maneuverable and movement agile than so-called battle SVs. Biggest problem - they have NOT enough BACK thrust, which is vital for backing off after quick attack
  
• Some really decent SVs are not bad for fighting, but they have enormous size for reasons unclear for me. Smallest possible drone hatch for safe looting is more than enough for the Battle SV. All in all, I'd like to have a VERY compact ship, capable to fit through 7x9 (ideally 5x9) CV hangar doors. Seems realistic for the purpose, IMO

Long story short aka TLDR: please suggest hi-end pure Battle T4 SV small enough to fit through 7x9 CV hangar doors, with good survivability past depleted shields and enough firepower to take down SHIELDED POIs (with careful, NOT tanking approach). Resources and level are NOT limits.

Thanks in advance for your proposals!..

[The Big Brzezinski]

I just use a tier two CV. I've never found working math for a worthwhile solo attack SV. At best, they seem to do the same job in more time and at higher risk. I'm interested to see what other people have come up with.

[Fury Fairy]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

I just use a tier two CV. I've never found working math for a worthwhile solo attack SV. At best, they seem to do the same job in more time and at higher risk. I'm interested to see what other people have come up with.

How do you deal with the problem that most effective CV weapons are NOT allowed on planets?

[piddlefoot]

Simple, the CV gatt guns and cannons give a higher point hit rate than the gatts and cannons on an SV, while also giving more protection as big blocks can take more of a pounding, theres your key.

With a large front surface area on CV, and weapons deep in front hull, just a little turning and twisting leaves all inbound missiles missing your weapons array and hitting harmless steel surface, all the while your cannons are blasting that turret shooting at you, when turret gone, you can pull back, repair your cannons and do it all again, soon you will defeat the POI.

[Sprocket66]

The recent updates to Empyrion have lessened the usefulness of SV's in taking down the more heavily armed poi's my opinion. For about a year, since shields were introduced, I wasn't using the HV tank very much, after the changes this summer I've had to dust off the T4 tank again. A few missile/plasma turrets on a tank can strip the weapons off an unshielded poi pretty quickly.

I haven't had much luck with the SV's lately other than plinking a few drones and a couple of turrets here and there. Plasma turrets do help but not enough to take out a shielded poi. One of the easier way's to do the drone base without losing half your tank or SV is to build a throw away SV with just a couple of small engines, a cockpit and wings. Glide it to the poi and crash it against the walls at the entrance where the turrets can't get you, run inside and core the place.

For space battles, I just use a CV.

But that's just me, I'm sure the the uber players have found ways to do the whole game with just a SV.

[shdwdrvr83]

Similar to what's already been said above, my experience has been that SVs are great for unshielded POIs, but not for shielded POIs.

I posted a thread here awhile ago with the damage output numbers of how much each weapon does against shields, in order to help focus the discussion on the best approaches to shielded in-atmosphere POIs, particularly the drone bases.
While you can do it with a maneuverable SV, you can't tank damage with them like you would in an HV or CV. The key to doing it with an SV is being maneuverable enough to consistently dodge incoming turret shots.
Unfortunately, even with a full complement of the best SV weapons, it will take a few solid minutes to take down a shield, which means a LOT of successful dodging.

Generally speaking for shielded POIs, you're better off with one of the following:
1.Custom designed Tier4 CV made for atmospheric combat (see the SFS GroudPounder as an example)
2. Mining under the POI and destroying the shield from below in an HV or with hand weapons (Alien Plasma cannon, Epic Minigun, explosive charges)
3. Building a small artillery base just outside of the firing range of the POI, where a base Artillery turret can hit it, but it can't shoot back.
4. Disposable SV that you can use to suicide towards the doors and get your player inside before the turrets destroy your ship, then destroy the base from withn.
5. Tier4 'Tank' HVs - high end HV weapons can do more damage than SV weapons, and HVs can take a lot more damage, especially if built well with combat steel protecting the primary target areas.

For unshielded POIs, a maneuverable, shielded Tier3 SV is sufficient. 4 Rocket launchers for turrets and 4 gattling guns for drones/infantry seems to be the best mix of weapons/cost. Plasma/Pulse weapons are a fine upgrade from Rockets/Gats, but the ammo is significantly more expensive for not a lot more benefit.

My go-to SVs right now are the Nighthawk-A and the Blackbird, but I find that both need a significant redesign. The Blackbird has rail guns by default, which are practically useless and incredible expensive and should be replaced with something else. The Nighthawk has ideal weaponry (could use a couple minigun turrets now that they're available) but has only been half-overhauled since the move away from RCSs. It's got an empty layer of space in the middle of the hull for no reason where there used to be a ton of RCSs, and it still needs more thrusters to get up to ideal maneuverability again. For that reason, I'm looking for a new fighter as well.

[Balthazaar]

Agree about combat HV being very effective currently.

I am currently messing around in a zirax territory, with a massive hv that has several grinders, so im getting good rep mowing down their forests while also getting bad rep stealing ores, the zirax dont know if im coming or going!! Tactical chaos!! LoL,

[The Big Brzezinski]

Originally posted by Fury Fairy:

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

I just use a tier two CV. I've never found working math for a worthwhile solo attack SV. At best, they seem to do the same job in more time and at higher risk. I'm interested to see what other people have come up with.

How do you deal with the problem that most effective CV weapons are NOT allowed on planets?

By using twelve projectile turrets that can all aim forward. Small turret spam worked for Taffy-3, and it works for me.

[Fury Fairy]

Oh wow, couldn't expect this topic to be so popular / attractive!.. Thanks EVERYONE, now let me provide more detailed responses:

@The Big Brzezinski and @piddlefoot - appreciate your CV advice guys, but let's TRY our best to stick to the topic here. EGS is great in a sense that it gives enough ways, including non-obvious and non-traditional (well, if there ARE traditional ones in the 1st place) to do EVERYTHING - from cutting trees to trashing Legacy planet. Still, I'd like to see good, better GREAT examples of Battle SVs over here. Nevertheless, I once again thank you for your suggestions, and in my next playthrough I'll try one of these "12 cannons CV" just for the sake of it.

Before responding to other comments I'll try to briefly describe where I am and what brought me to my question in the 1st place. My fleet is composed of the following vessels:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2149060741

Amazing T4 CV, perfect for my needs as newbie (got it when had less than 100 hrs) and after almost 500 hrs in total at the time of this post. My general attitude IRL and in games - have the MINIMAL number of tools to do the job. Diversity is okay as long as something CANT be combined or be done otherwise with little to none degrade in performance. This CV is fine for ANYTHING I encountered so far - story line, exploration, mining, trashing Zirax in space and on planets. For the latter though I use my custom built T3 SV, the idea and concept mercilessly stolen from this beast:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177727592

I spawned it for the sake of using as inevitably better lazer miner suitable for both space and planets, but in a very short while I remodelled the concept a bit: after adding warp, 2 gatlings and 2 rocket launchers and rebuilding hull almost completely from container extensions (only nose is hardened steel) I got my perfect all-arounder SV... and disbanded completely HV miner and another cool looking, but poorly performing SV I used for scouting. TLDR - It's 3 in 1 with perfect performance for all the mentioned tasks and MORE. But what kind of MORE? Well...

Originally posted by shdwdrvr83:

For unshielded POIs, a maneuverable, shielded Tier3 SV is sufficient. 4 Rocket launchers for turrets and 4 gattling guns for drones/infantry seems to be the best mix of weapons/cost.

^^^ THIS kind. Even 2+2 weapons combo is okay assuming one can pilot / dodge just a little bit okay...ish and be patient. Even piloting skills are NON-essential because of ship size - boulders big enough OR "dig trench, use drill filler to CREATE one", then find perfect spot where your turrets reach enemy, while enemy does nothing:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2229019711

ANY UN-shielded Zirax POI has no chance, proven this many times to date. BUT... But. BUT!!! Drone Base and Legacy POIs with shields. SV T3 sucks for ANY approach except "dig below and use that pile of C4s" - which is fun just once, maybe 2 times.

(On top of the above 2 ships I use for 95% of time I have micro Mosquito miner for more smooth and precise (to my taste) asteroid mining and power saving "10 fuel tanks, 2 fridges 1 cooker" CV box in hangar)

Back to the point though. Maybe it's kinda stubborn or just stupid, but I find it challenging AND entertaining to trash at least Zirax DB using battle SV only. My OP basically reflects several stages of frustration I faced to date. AND, I'm quite READY to face the fact that it's just stupidity and same way as one can mine asteroids using MANUAL drill (or even survival tool) - it's just plain stupid, go get those laser drills already and spend those extra 15-20 mins for something better =)

So, despite all the above, please DO share some decent battle SVs you're tried OR they just seem to be potent for the described purpose. Thanks in advance, and happy exploring!

[Fury Fairy]

Originally posted by shdwdrvr83:

I posted a thread here awhile ago with the damage output numbers of how much each weapon does against shields, in order to help focus the discussion on the best approaches to shielded in-atmosphere POIs, particularly the drone bases.

One of my very 1st EGS bookmarks buddy, AMAZING job you've done here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/383120/discussions/0/2572068116213820917/

Do consider making it quick dirty GUIDE - you'll get TONS of kudos no prob, that table saved me hours and hours of dumb frustration!..