Which Faction Has the Best Ships And Why?

[Silver Heart TTV]

Hey

So I just tried the Fires Of Defeat start. Will probably try it again when I'm in the mood for being the Split. Kind of lost the mood to continue that playthrough as I decided to go with the Stranded start instead. Wanna try to make a pirate empire, right now. Aargh and all that.

In that first playthrough, though, even though things were going pretty well (6 million in the bank and my first proper fighter), I couldn't help but notice that my 'personal fighter' turned out to be as fragile as glass. I had used a buzzard from the Tel in a playthrough before this one and it felt great to fly and fight with but the Split fighters felt like one wrong move meant half my hull was gone.

So I wanted to ask the general question of what faction is the best in terms of military types and economy. In other words, which faction does the best economically and who does the worst as well as which factions have the best shields, engines, weapons...etc and which factions have the worst.

I'm eager to hear your experienced opinions on the matter as well as your personal experiences with many of the factions.

So far, from what I've seen, it feels like the Terrans have the best military, the Split have the worst, Teladi have the best economy and the Boron have the worst.

[🎮 PalkoVvodets 🔑]

TER is the best (in your terms).
The worst is subjective. Perhaps TEL/MIN since I use their stuff the least.

[Donauwelle]

While most of this is prob just a subject of personal Taste,

id say TER has the "best" startoff in terms of Economy and Military.
Their Eco is compared to the "rest" pretty damn simple, thus easy to handle and to get going for the AI.
Their ships are slow as snails, but generally got the most Dakka and 2nd best shielding right after BOR.

Personally....Split rulez as i just like their Glass-cannon playstyle.
But the AI just gets wasted as they struggle with the Map-placement of ZYA territory and cant really utilize the strengh of Glass-cannon and Hit&Run.

Then there is BOR....
On Map they have the most secure positioning (ter 2 ways into their territory, bor just 1) and while they struggle at the beginning with their economy due to them needing Water for ships+pops and having quite low ammount of trader to peddle their own goods, this can also be exploited by the player for some good $$$.
Marysue shields, Traveldrive with instacharge and good Topspeeds (even tho a bit slow acceleration), inflated hulls (keep in mind their shields), the most boring customisation options in the game, low overall turret/hardpoint numbers but a focus on Carrier make them somewhat like the Red-army.... But in tanky.

-Basegame factions each one have their "dat one ship" but generally feel like they need some love. BTW 7.0 includes some Basegame ship overhauls.

[Xautos]

That's easy. Terran Asgard in terms of raw firepower.
Split Raptor for best carrier.
Vigor Barbarossa for best freighter.

those are certain to be clear winners compared to all the others, even if a few of them have one or two better stats elsewhere, on the overall though they win by whole galaxies ahead of the rest if it were a race.

[SinisterSlay]

The Terran are kind of unstoppable. Both with the weapons, and their train size ships and train like ship speed.

Different though for player ships. The Nemesis is still my second favorite, with the unspellable Yaki version of the Nemesis being the best.
The Boron Hydra is an oddly good player ship too. Not so for combat, but its fast, and has easy entrance and exit via elevator that really adds to the immersion rather than a teleporter.
I like the trend of making the ships interiors actually real. And crew don't disappear into teleporters. I am sure it's not good for game performance though, but the Astrid is one of my favorites because of this.

[Cellar_Cat]

Terran are probably the best overall, mostly because their two main flaws—ranged heavy turrets and top speed—are things the AI don't make amazing use of anyway. In player hands the former can also be somewhat compensated for by use of heavy dumbfire missiles, if you are doing a pure one-faction run.

They also uniquely have a battleship, and more importantly as the AI goes, they actively make use of it via Intervention Corps. By comparison the other factions with a very heavy combat ship seem to keep it exclusively for defence.

Sadly they put the crappy L guns on it which eat up most of the time it could be firing its beam instead, but as the player you're free to avoid that mistake.

[Wraith]

Depend on role but personally for me

Carriers: Boron
Destroyers: Terran/Argon
Fighters: Argon/yaki
Heavy fighter: Split
Miners: Split/Paranid
Traders: Paranid/teladi

Economically
Teladi & Terran for always stocked
HOP & ZYA for poor economy

Everyone else is a mix between the two

[Nine of Seven]

Evryone is right with his best playership. Cause it depends on personally favors, do u want to fight, u need a ship with fast fliying speed, good shields and much firepower. U don't like dogfights u need another with a fast travelling speed and maybe some useable place for goods. I do like SinisterSlay and use Yaki Kuraokami with terran shields, Argon weapons and Split engins, so i took the best from all. :)
If u shoot some corsairs and collekt the things that drop out of their ships u can use mods to pimp all your ship modules. But i dont like the random values when install the mods. This is very expensive and u have to shot a mass of xenon to get the addditional ressources for mods.

[¥aeko]

Split Dragon with TER pulse guns and TER shields, yummy.

but tbh, aside from player ship, it usually doesnt matter.

A Rattlesnake can pop an I just as much as a Ray can, but the way to do it is completely different.

[david.hardie]

Generally I use TER. They are slow but that just means longer travel times.
The shipyards are always stocked as well so no waiting time for materials.

[King DaMuncha]

PAR are fast but lack cargo, TEL are REALY slow but have alot of cargo. TER are mid but have decent guns. And I havent played with the other races ships.

[Meemai]

Keep in mind that mixing up tech also results in unexpectedly good results.

For example, the Split Buffalo might feel slow and its shields fragile, but give it Argon engines and Teladi shields, and things will change quite drastically.

[blackphoenixx]

My personal top picks for different roles:
- Fighters: Takoba
- Bombers: Chimera
- anti-Khaak patrols: Nemesis or Cerberus Vanguard
- M Traders: Demeter or Vulture Sentinel, depending on distance
- M miners Plutus Sentinel
- L traders: Barbarossa or Shuyaku Sentinel
- L miners: Crane Sentinel or Chthonios Sentinel
- Destroyers: Oddyseus Vanguard for patrols, Syn or Behemoth Vanguard for gate guarding
- Carriers: borons all the way
- supply ships: Orca

Originally posted by Wraith:

HOP & ZYA for poor economy

The only reason HOP is bad at economy is because of their terrible starting position (they basically have near-zero methane in their territory which is obviously a problem, as is the fact that they keep sending their L miners into PAR sectors to die).

Their miners and M traders are actually top tier though so if you're looking for what ships to buy they're a prime contender (and a fantastic business opportunity since YOU can mine methane in The Void or Pious Mists IV no problem if ARG and PAR aren't hostile to you).

[Victor]

That is a hard question for me to answer, because I actually tend to look at it on a ship by ship basis.
Let's take M-classes for instance.

Are Teladi frigates good, well in general no, They are so slow it can take them forever to respond from multiple jumps away. Most all of their stats are worse than some other option.
But, they have great shields. So they make good flying bricks that can simply tank endless chip damage from small numbers of fighters if a few are together into a group. They just refuse to die.
Put an equal number of Gorgons or a Cerebus in the same situation? They would get eaten up. Their slightly better maneuvering just isn't enough to prevent fighters from staying behind them where they are weak.

Or, you could pay like 5x the amount for one Falx that will not be as effective for the same cost expended that would buy those multiple Ospreys. Despite it being better ship one for one.

Gunboats don't tend to be the greatest ships generally, m-class turrets don't tend to do impressive damage, but teladi gunboats are fairly cheap, with 3 tanky shields. lots of turrets, and decent angle/coverage. Throw in a couple and they contribute well to a defensive fleet, just by being in the area and through sheer unending fire. They also do what is expected for a gunboat: survive strafe runs due to a large shield, and dealing some return fire damage that may be enough for the other ships to secure kills and slowly win through attrition.

You can have like three of those for the price of one Jain, and it's turret placement will cover more area than just the top of it.
But, it won't give the absolute total focus fire that a Jain can offer if one were to be put on a carrier's m-class landing bay, and that lack of focus means individually they aren't as likely to seal the deal as a Jain.

Throw in those Nemesis/Yaki equivalents or a Katana you have your hammers to along with your Anvil. At least for fighters and other m-classes.


Quickly on destroyers:
The Phoenix destroyer is mediocre overall, It's slow, it's guns can't be brought to bear
in tandem against one target as easily as other destroyers can.
Behemoth is better imo vs. other capitals and it's L guns are easier to siege stations with I find. People don't tend to like the Phoenix for that.
But, it's spread turret placement is actually good against fighters and M-class ships.

They simply cover different angles that other destroyer's turrets don't. It's a decent flying fortress in that way at least against the a.i.

So if you mix in one with some behemoths, and do all of letting it linger with your other destroyers it with cut down any swarm of fighter's ability to recharge if they get under the belly where turret coverage is lesser. It will swat down a large in-sector defense drone swarm, far better than if you just brought another Behemoth and lose one to a massive swarm of mere station defense drones.

Everything else it's not the better Destroyer but it is decent for that.

[LASci]

Terran. And it's not even close. As the question is broad, and asks for a single faction, Terran is clearly the best. Their best in class shields mean that all of their ships are superb in the hands of the AI. No other faction has an answer to the station killing Asgard. And in the hands of the player, they have arguably one of the best, if not the best corvette in the game, the Katana. Sure their ships are slow (except the Katana), but the AI does nothing with speed anyways - just look at the horrible Split.

[blackphoenixx]

Originally posted by Victor:

That is a hard question for me to answer, because I actually tend to look at it on a ship by ship basis.
Let's take M-classes for instance.

Are Teladi frigates good, well in general no, They are so slow it can take them forever to respond from multiple jumps away. Most all of their stats are worse than some other option.
But, they have great shields. So they make good flying bricks that can simply tank endless chip damage from small numbers of fighters if a few are together into a group. They just refuse to die.
Put an equal number of Gorgons or a Cerebus in the same situation? They would get eaten up. Their slightly better maneuvering just isn't enough to prevent fighters from staying behind them where they are weak.

The commonwealth frigates all have the same number of shield slots. And any of them can deal with small fighter swarms with the right loadout.