Behemoth turrets?

[Harry]

Best weapon for Behemoth turrets, at present I am building Behemoths with 4 medium flak turrets and two large plasma turrets wondering if this a good idea especially the large plasma turrets.

Each Behemoth has 30 fighters set to defend and with the flak turrets they are well protected so what would be an effective offensive turret weapon against stations and other large ships.

[dogshocker]

Can friendly flak turrets inflict unintentional damage on friendly fighters whilst shooting incoming missiles or enemy fighters?

[Bardicheart]

Generally I put 2x L Plasma and 8x M Tracking Turrets with either Light Swarm missiles or Heavy Heat Seeking, depending on what they'll be going up against (the former for speed and range against S/M targets, the latter for range against L/XL and stationary targets). I wouldn't put more than 8 fighters onboard, and generally I only give each 4 Eclipse Heavy Fighters if I give them fighters at all (fighters are better based on a carrier which can launch them fast, recover them and repair them). The Behemoth can't launch them quickly so it will take them quite a bit of time to launch and recover 30 fighters. It also can't repair them so expect that to become a hassle.

I'm not impressed with the flak turrets, range is just too short to be effective. If I use gun turrets in the Medium mounts I usually go with Bolters for both the range and the damage as well as being versatile against S, M and L ships and can even switch to anti-missile defense (which is still dodgy but it generally stops some of the incoming missiles, maybe 50% if you're lucky). Alternately you could try the M Pulse turret which has a better rotation speed and shot speed but less damage, so its better for anti-fighter and anti-missiles while keeping the 2km range. If you're going after large targets (like stations) and want sustained fire power, use M Plasma turrets.

If you really want to hit stations and have steady resupply, swap the M turrets with M Dumbfire and use the heavy missile with the 21km range. Nothing like slamming salvos of heavy missiles into something from outside its weapons range to ruin a station's day.

I very much prefer hitting my target when they can't hit back.

For damage dealing you'll find the Odysseus outclasses all other destroyers (like most Paranid ships) which I think ought to be re-balanced to make the races designs more evenly matched. It would make choices of ships more interesting instead of most of us using Paranid designs almost exclusively. Personally I like the aesthetic designs of either the Behemoth or the Phoenix to that of the Odysseus, but sadly neither has the performance of the Paranid destroyer at dealing out damage.

For my Eclipse fighters in the past I armed them with bolters, and Paranid engines and shields. The shields have less strength but recharge faster, and with the way NPC pilots like to burn their shields boosting, that fast recharge helps keep them alive (they boost out of combat and then turn to re-engage, by which time the PAR shields are often back to full strength). With the new racial weapons I would try either the Muon Charger or the Mass Driver on the Eclipse. The insanely fast shot speed of the Mass driver means nearly instant hits at short range, so that should help them be more accurate against other fighters, on the other hand the Muon charger has a faster shot speed than the bolter and does a lot more damage. Should be interesting to experiment with both. Pulsars make good fighter bombers, six weapon mounts give them a lot of fire power for their size and they have enough speed and agility to help them survive, but they can't keep it up, they only carry enough torps for 3 full volleys.

[Harry]

Originally posted by Bardicheart:

Generally I put 2x L Plasma and 8x M Tracking Turrets with either Light Swarm missiles or Heavy Heat Seeking, depending on what they'll be going up against (the former for speed and range against S/M targets, the latter for range against L/XL and stationary targets). I wouldn't put more than 8 fighters onboard, and generally I only give each 4 Eclipse Heavy Fighters if I give them fighters at all (fighters are better based on a carrier which can launch them fast, recover them and repair them). The Behemoth can't launch them quickly so it will take them quite a bit of time to launch and recover 30 fighters. It also can't repair them so expect that to become a hassle.

I'm not impressed with the flak turrets, range is just too short to be effective. If I use gun turrets in the Medium mounts I usually go with Bolters for both the range and the damage as well as being versatile against S, M and L ships and can even switch to anti-missile defense (which is still dodgy but it generally stops some of the incoming missiles, maybe 50% if you're lucky). Alternately you could try the M Pulse turret which has a better rotation speed and shot speed but less damage, so its better for anti-fighter and anti-missiles while keeping the 2km range. If you're going after large targets (like stations) and want sustained fire power, use M Plasma turrets.

If you really want to hit stations and have steady resupply, swap the M turrets with M Dumbfire and use the heavy missile with the 21km range. Nothing like slamming salvos of heavy missiles into something from outside its weapons range to ruin a station's day.

I very much prefer hitting my target when they can't hit back.

For damage dealing you'll find the Odysseus outclasses all other destroyers (like most Paranid ships) which I think ought to be re-balanced to make the races designs more evenly matched. It would make choices of ships more interesting instead of most of us using Paranid designs almost exclusively. Personally I like the aesthetic designs of either the Behemoth or the Phoenix to that of the Odysseus, but sadly neither has the performance of the Paranid destroyer at dealing out damage.

For my Eclipse fighters in the past I armed them with bolters, and Paranid engines and shields. The shields have less strength but recharge faster, and with the way NPC pilots like to burn their shields boosting, that fast recharge helps keep them alive (they boost out of combat and then turn to re-engage, by which time the PAR shields are often back to full strength). With the new racial weapons I would try either the Muon Charger or the Mass Driver on the Eclipse. The insanely fast shot speed of the Mass driver means nearly instant hits at short range, so that should help them be more accurate against other fighters, on the other hand the Muon charger has a faster shot speed than the bolter and does a lot more damage. Should be interesting to experiment with both. Pulsars make good fighter bombers, six weapon mounts give them a lot of fire power for their size and they have enough speed and agility to help them survive, but they can't keep it up, they only carry enough torps for 3 full volleys.

Interesting will look more carefully at what you have said.

I like the appearance of the Behemoth and would feel embarrassed to have a fleet of giant flying hairdryers regardless of their strengths.

I am using the Behemoth really as a carrier but have an Auxiliary nearby and I find when I attack a station with about 300 fighters most survive to be repaired.

I actually forgot about having an actual carrier which would make more sense and use the Behemoths as a long range attack and to finish off a station.

Related question, player controlled Behemoth with missiles can the player target defence turrets on a station using missiles.

[Bardicheart]

A single Colossus with a good mix of fighters can do a LOT of damage, especially in the hands of the player. Prior to 3.0 (caveat, I haven't tried this in 3.0 yet) I could take a carrier with 20 Eclipse fighters with bolters (essentially strike fighters) and 20 Pulsar fighters with plasma or torps (essentially fighter bombers) and take out a Xenon I with no losses. At most I might occasionally have to order a fighter that got into trouble to move out and maybe return for repairs before rejoining the fight... so basically I was the CAC. Add some destroyers into that group to follow the fighters in, the fighters act as a screen so the Xenon doesn't target the destroyers while they hammer it with the big guns.

Side note: Use a fast M ship to fly in and scan the Xenon I before your other stuff hits, then sit back and during the battle keep the Xenon targeted and watch the lower right panel on your screen, you'll be able to see exactly which ship it is currently targeting. Watch what happens when those fighters hit as it rapidly cycles through all of them non stop (sometimes switching targets as fast as 2 per second! It gets going so fast you almost can't read it anymore.) Once in awhile you may even see what I call "target lockup", where it apparently gets so confused it stops targeting anything at all, its guns stop firing and go into lock down mode and it just sits there while you kill it. Usually I see that happen when a Xenon I attacks a station and gets swarmed by a 100+ drones, the game AI just can't cope with it.

For an interceptor I like the Perseus, its very fast, very agile, and in groups can be surprisingly dangerous. I've used 40 of them on a carrier to cause quite a bit of havoc and with their speed they can get around a battle pretty quick. That works well if you need to screen a destroyer group.

The Nomad as a "pocket carrier" doesn't work so good, it can only dock 2 fighters at a time and can't launch any faster either, so you have to pretend you're a very early aircraft carrier (one of the old ones where they took an old cruiser and built this scaffolding with a flight deck on top that could only launch or recover one plane at a time. Granted at the time they were still using bi-planes), by that I mean pre-launch everything before you get anywhere near the battle and then move in. Its more of a hassle but at least the Nomad can do repairs. It seems best suited for supporting destroyer squadrons. Just remember to remove it from the squadron before engaging in a battle, the Nomad has no business being anywhere near a fight and the current AI doesn't have sense enough to have it hang back.

Anyway, to answer your question, as far as I know you can't target turrets with missile launchers, I wish you could. What you can try to do with the dumbfire (because they fly in a straight line) is line up your "volleys" so they'll hit near a cluster of turrets and hope the splash damage does the job. I haven't tried it in 3.0 yet so I don't know if they changed that, can always try telling the turrets to fire at your current target and then target a turret and see what happens. Or try sniping the turrets with a Nemesis and a set of Mass Drivers from about 10-12 km out (haven't tried that yet either, its on my to-do list).

Speaking of which, that's another ship I miss from X3.... missile frigates. Hint Hint EgoSoft! :-D

One of these days I need to finish up my re-balance notes regarding carriers and destroyers and post them, should probably do that soon too and see if EgoSoft will give it a go in the 3.0 patch.

Best of luck, its fun experimenting with all the combinations and options.