Cobra - anti s/m ship

[Brick33]

I'm experimenting with an anti s/m ship load out and currently having some issues with fighters ganging up on me. I'm using 2 Tau mains, 1 Ion blaster, and a mixture of flak and beam turrets, but if the fight consists of 2+ medium ships and 4+ small ships they kill me pretty quickly.

Would this loadout work better?

https://roguey.co.uk/x4/ships/ship_spl_m_frigate_01_a_macro/w=404040&t=04040404&tg=&s=270512

I'm getting better at swooping and attacking but the fighters accumulate while taking out Xenon P's.

[Apex Artist]

I enjoy doing ship and weapon testing in X4. Based on this thread I set up 7 gate blocker crews to fight Xenon entry into sectors, and 1 blocking passage between two Xenon sectors.
The fleets for this test were uniform across all player-selected metrics, aside from ships capable of using the Proton Barrage, using those, and those that couldn't, used Thermal Disintegrators.
The fleets were as follows:
1 Asgard with all weapons set to Capital Ships
3 Dragon
3 Katana
3 Nemesis Sentinel

The Asgard was there to keep the whole fleet from being wiped by an I coming through a gate, and also to put all the work on the test ships for fighting all M and S sized Xenon. They of course helped the Asgard fight against any inbound Xenon Capital ships too.

The result are after several hours holding these positions, two Dragon were lost, and several Dragon have less that 100% shield. No losses for the Katana or Nemesis, and only one those many ships has less than 100% shield, and it probably was just in the wrong place at the moment a Capital ship rolled through the gate.

Sectors the test used were: Ianamus Zura IV, Getsu Fune, Fires of Defeat, Zyarth's Dominion I, Frontier Edge, Hatikvah's Choice I, Litany of Fury IX, and the Xenon sector was Atiya's Misfortune III.

My takeaway is: The Dragon isn't up to the same standard as the other two, and that I think it's a good trade to drop one weapon for an extra shield. Ships with fewer shields don't just have a handicap in total protection, but also suffer greatly due to slower regeneration.
The shields on a two shielded ship, charge faster than those same shields used for a single shield ship.

I'll run the same test for the Cobra, Falx, Gorgon, etc., and see how that plays out.

[SirProsik]

I use Cobra's for marine boarding after I collect up a bunch of Free Minotaur raiders. The raiders work until I get enough credits to start making my own Cobras :)

The free Osprey is good for filling up stations with drones since it has the most drone storage.

[Daemonjax]

We're talking about player flown ships, right? Then...

Lux for something dedicated to hunting S ships, or the Shih for S/M. Put split mk3 combat engines on them and mostly use shard mk2 guns. I usually use the "extra" 2 guns slots on the shih for burst rays -- I say "extra" because you don't really need more than 2 guns to take down S/M real fast because slasher mod exists.

If there's a "best" gun in the game for killing S/M, it's the shard mk2.

Add a fast frigate to carry them both around since their travel speed will be on the bad side, especially the shih. Always use argon flak on M turrets. The M-sized shard mk2 will shread S/M -- it's beastly, so try to fit at 2 of those on there too.

If you need to, use a swarm of cheap fast ships to distract the enemy while the other ships do most of the killing, like pegasus or kestrels (depends on where you want their speed to be) -- tracking missile launcher (light smart), mk3 shields -- the rest is mk2 gear.

[Hydra_360ci]

M6's were mainly meant to be a more surviable M3. It's best to think of them that way. They're not really meant to be movable weapon platforms.

[vincentf563]

Daemonjax eredeti hozzászólása:

We're talking about player flown ships, right? Then...

Lux for something dedicated to hunting S ships, or the Shih for S/M. Put split mk3 combat engines on them and mostly use shard mk2 guns. I usually use the "extra" 2 guns slots on the shih for burst rays -- I say "extra" because you don't really need more than 2 guns to take down S/M real fast because slasher mod exists.

If there's a "best" gun in the game for killing S/M, it's the shard mk2.

Add a fast frigate to carry them both around since their travel speed will be on the bad side, especially the shih. Always use argon flak on M turrets. The M-sized shard mk2 will shread S/M -- it's beastly, so try to fit at 2 of those on there too.

If you need to, use a swarm of cheap fast ships to distract the enemy while the other ships do most of the killing, like pegasus or kestrels (depends on where you want their speed to be) -- tracking missile launcher (light smart), mk3 shields -- the rest is mk2 gear.

The Tau Accelerator Mk2 is the same gun with more punch. The Shard is definitely the first gun I get at the beginning of my game for sure.

[Gibbo]

Katana does have one advantage. The Proton Barrage. I think you can only fit these to Terran ships? Of course you need the rep.

[Apex Artist]

vincentf563 eredeti hozzászólása:

Daemonjax eredeti hozzászólása:

We're talking about player flown ships, right? Then...

Lux for something dedicated to hunting S ships, or the Shih for S/M. Put split mk3 combat engines on them and mostly use shard mk2 guns. I usually use the "extra" 2 guns slots on the shih for burst rays -- I say "extra" because you don't really need more than 2 guns to take down S/M real fast because slasher mod exists.

If there's a "best" gun in the game for killing S/M, it's the shard mk2.

Add a fast frigate to carry them both around since their travel speed will be on the bad side, especially the shih. Always use argon flak on M turrets. The M-sized shard mk2 will shread S/M -- it's beastly, so try to fit at 2 of those on there too.

If you need to, use a swarm of cheap fast ships to distract the enemy while the other ships do most of the killing, like pegasus or kestrels (depends on where you want their speed to be) -- tracking missile launcher (light smart), mk3 shields -- the rest is mk2 gear.

The Tau Accelerator Mk2 is the same gun with more punch. The Shard is definitely the first gun I get at the beginning of my game for sure.

I'm currently doing a big "every weapon" test at 8 Xenon gates and currently the Shard Battery Mk2 has the worst result of all, but I have a fair amount of testing left to get through just the top tier weapons.
Either way, of the 4 I've put to the test so far, the Shard comes up short in the hands of a large 30 ship Shih force doing gate duty. That group easily lost the most ships. It's a shorter range weapon is my guess as to why. The Tau Accelerator is slotted into my next head to head.

[Apex Artist]

Back to the OP. It wasn't said why the OP is flying the Cobra, only that they are looking for an anti S/M enemy ship solution, thus the valid points made in finding a corvette to fill that role. However, I've now done an updated frigate vs. frigate comparison test (there have been some updates to yaw, pitch, roll performance since my last big test) and the Cobra is a solid choice within the frigate category. If survival is an issue, then the Gorgon S is king within the X4 frigate world. While the Cobra and Gorgon have almost the same hull/shield combination total (50,398 and 50,597 respectively), the Gorgon gets to that number with 3 shield generators, and the Cobra with only 2. That means the Gorgon regains its full shielding faster than anything in the frigate class, except for the Osprey which also has 3 shield generators.
Still, the Cobra is a very good balance within the frigate class. 3 guns, 2 shields, 50k hull/shield total, one of the fastest frigates, but survival was the main point of this original post, and again Gorgon wins there.
The Falx remains a laughable proposition. In my frigate group testing, it was always the first ship to have its hull badly damaged, and always the first total ship loss, despite having double the number of engines than the fastest frigates, and having 4 excellent guns. With 6 engines, it should easily be the fastest frigate in the X4 land, and it's certainly not. Those 6 engines do one thing for the Falx though; they make it laughably expensive. That said, since it's a slow ship, it's also maneuverable, respective of its class.
But, if the frigate isn't a must for the vs. small/medium ship role, a corvette is the right answer, and likely why the corvette is the most selected craft for players of X4.

[Twitch.tv/KAEN_SG]

I dont have any issues outnumbered in combat with a cobra. I use that as my main ship for most storyline missions. 3 Taus Mk2s good enough to kill anything. 4 argon flak turrets either assist with your target or keep the enemy shields from recharging while you line up a salvo, argon flaks are the fastest tracking flak turret so it works better than the split ones when you are constantly evading/spinning your ship around in dogfights at full speed. Needless to say I run the fastest split mk4 engines and terran mk3 shields on my personal ship when I can afford them. Too expensive to put on AI ships though, i rarely go higher than mk2 for AI ships. If you ever lose all your shields, you can usually outrun anything chasing you due to your high combat speed, turn around and dive back in when your shields are back up again.

Make sure you fly full speed and use your mobility/agility to your advantage. Cobras/frigates are lovely because they have a S hangar storage that you can use to pack 1 or 2 small fighters as escorts. I don't always use the escorts but sometimes you have a mission asking you to dock on a ship that only has S docks so I have to switch over to the little guy.

[BlackRainGER *THC*]

Tiberius eredeti hozzászólása:

Frigates are all about drones and the two S ships you have on your ship. Those drones and fighters are much better at taking the heat/aggro away from your frigate, than the turrets ever will.

the main usage of Frigates is, to set them up in a way, that they passively explode points of interrest, for example a warpgate wich you would like to defend against xenon, with turrets.

once you unlocked the laserturret blueprint, your support carrier can craft them same as Rockets and Drones.

so set up a trader for your commander, wich in his case, is the Carrier

this trader than will automatically restock the carrier, so he never actively has to drive to a shipyard to do it himself

than, let him have a frigate or multiple as subordinates

now set their behaviour to " Flee whenever an enemie approaches and drop laserturrets"
but set their fleet commanders behaviour wich also can be a fighter to "intercept for commander" wich again is the carrier.

now what happends is, everytime a xenon passes through the gate,
the intercepter says " jo guuuuys attack"

and the guys says " nooo siiiir, we drop laserturrets"


give this formation an hour, and there will be 50 perfectly circular placed laserturrets at the gate. wich automatically get replaced, when they get destroyed.

and they will get destroyed, because the game is hacked by developers and they made sure, youll not killing your performance with thousands of turrets

so the turrets will slowly get destroyed by korosion xD

well that is an investment. but you know whats not?

to additionally set up a fighter, to pick up all containers in the area, and than set his behaviour up to automatically give the collected loot to your player HQ's itemstorage.

now, you can simply go home and finally have a reason for that stupid storage on your base. wich means, cash money baby. little hint, the teladi courier has the most M ship landing spots, in thus he is supperior as a gate controll courier to all other factions.



i call this "the Chicken and run Tactic"


as an additional cookie:
profitcenter alpha, is a very nice place for that, cause you have the shipdwarfes and all ingredients you need to set this up in the place, so it doesnt matter, if your courier has 0 managementstars.

IT JUST... WORKS