Ship and fleet optimisation - please advice

[Mr. n]

I'm playing 0.9.4 stable (Steam branch - no betas) and I'm trying to over-optimise my fleet even though I'm in the mid of the FW story.

My capital Bactrian:

		"Jump Drive"
		"Pebble Core"
		`"Bufaer" Atomic Steering`
		"Mass Expansion" 4
		"Large Heat Shunt" 2
		"Intrusion Countermeasures" 4
		"Thruster (Planetary Class)"
		"Korath Minelayer"
		"Korath Mine" 17
		"Outfit Scanner"
		"Fragmentation Grenades" 245
		"Cargo Scanner"
		"Wanderer Ramscoop" 2
		Sunbeam 2
		"Dark Storm Shielding" 5
		"Yellow Sun Reactor"
		"White Sun Reactor"

and my 10 Shield beetles:

		"Jump Drive"
		"Ion Cannon" 3
		"Pebble Core"
		`"Bufaer" Atomic Steering`
		"Mass Expansion" 7
		"Fuel Pod" 2
		"Large Heat Shunt" 2
		"Korath Warder"
		"Thruster (Planetary Class)"
		"Laser Rifle" 47
		"Wanderer Ramscoop" 2
		"Plasma Cannon"
		Sunbeam 4
		"Dark Storm Shielding" 2
		"Yellow Sun Reactor"
		"White Sun Reactor"

Is there anything I could optimise given my current tech availability (Korath Raiders and Worldships, friendly Hai and Wanderer merchants, Kestrel/engines, Plasma turrets, Flamethrower)?

Please note I am unable to farm automatons, Quarg and Drak because I get mercilessly shredded by them in seconds.

Main ship is for capturing, baiting and sometimes small pirate obliteration, Shield Beetles are for everything else - big enough shields, weapons and anti-missiles, best stuff I could piece together as far as I know (though as I'm probably woefully wrong, I'm asking you guys ;)).

The only mod for the game I'm using is planet-side storage - no additional outfits or anything of the sort, I'd rather play vanilla for now.

I've heard of Blue Sun reactors, but they're locked behind Wanderer story which takes place after FW if I am informed correctly.

[S.CoolShooter]

Well first thing is first, you wont ever need a cargo scanner, outfit scanners are pointless when you play the game more and know whats in what ship, if you insist on having scanners steal one from a republic drone, wanderer reactors are not that good execpt for the blue sun. get a korath triple core and big heat shunts. get bigger reactors for your sheild beatles and you can farm the quarg if you have fast ships with plasma guns or a bunch of ships with grabstrikes and more plasma guns. you should cap some korath raiders and make them grabstrike only and make sure you have lots of grabstrike ships, like a lot, then give your beatles plasma stuff and get yourself a capture specific ship or throw away the weapons on your capital ship and have bunks and nerve gas. then you can farm the quarg to your hearts content. when you farmin quarg, steal a wander freighter and use that as capital ship cause you aint capping now quarg ship anytime soon

once you capped one quage, life is too easy from then on

[Mr. n]

Thanks, though I have a few questions to follow up:

How many is "like a lot" of grabstrike ships? What plasma stuff? How would you propose I divide my Beetle fleet (6 grabstrikes/4 plasmas/any ions or anti-missiles?)?

Is there anything in-between my tech and Quarg stuff (i.e. am I locked into fighting Quarg to effectively advance) or that's it?

What about that Wanderer freighter - could you elaborate on "not capping quarg ships anytime soon" and why it should become my new capital instead of Bactrian?

I like numbers ;).

[Anima]

2 ships fully equipped with grab strikes can hold a full size ship from jumping. If you split 4 SB's with grab strikes and ion cannons then it'll work pretty well, along with plasma cannons on other ships.

Also: omg someone spelled bactrian right!

[S.CoolShooter]

At least 4 grab strike full ships, especailly raiders since they have 6 turrets, best to have 6 grab strike raiders and whatever else you want. wanderer freigters have a huge amount of cargo and tiny crew amounts and lets you loot many outfites from disabled quarg and you could make a giant fourtune lotting quarg outfits. if you finish the wanderer story you can get a world ship legit but difficult which lets you capture quarg ships with ease. then you can hunt down the drak

[S.CoolShooter]

Quarg batteries are also amazing

[Mr. n]

I thought it was meant to be like the camel, always wondered why everyone had trouble spelling that... but maybe because I'm a pedantic piece of arse and I'm not a native speaker.

So... 4 fully-grab-strike Shield Beetles and plasmas and ions on the 6 remaining Beetles?

Can I get Wanderer Freighters without fighting them? (I would love to have more cargo space, Beetles have 10 yeach (!) and the Bactrian has a meager 470, though 245 crew for boarding).

Wait, about World-ships... how would I restock the crew on them (also: how would I pay death penalties for those 100s of dead guys) if they're confined to Korath space?


What about the outfits I already have and have access to? Is there anything I could further optimise (different set of engines or something)?

For now I'd like to keep peaceful with all races that are peaceful with me (Pug, Wanderer, Quarg, Drak) - please note if... obtaining an outfit would be against this rule (I will go after them at some point in the future).

[Anima]

Originally posted by Mr. n:

I thought it was meant to be like the camel, always wondered why everyone had trouble spelling that... but maybe because I'm a pedantic piece of arse and I'm not a native speaker.

No actually you hit the nail on the head there.

[Avior]

ship Bactrian
	name Exhibition
	outfits
		"Mass Expansion"
		"Jump Drive"
		"Intrusion Countermeasures" 4
		"Small Heat Shunt" 2
		"Systems Core (Medium)"
		"Thruster (Planetary Class)"
		"Type 1 Radiant Steering"
		Sunbeam 2
		"White Sun Reactor" 2
		"Dark Storm Shielding" 4
		"Type 4 Radiant Steering" 2
		"Fragmentation Grenades" 245
		"Outfit Scanner"
		"Cargo Scanner"
		"Wanderer Ramscoop"
	gun -15 -226 Sunbeam
	gun 15 -226 Sunbeam
	gun -40 -133
	gun -45 -128

We actually discussed the bactrian camel last week in history class.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=694210893
Drak Archons cannot be farmed; as of this post, there are only four in the game, and all of them have the "never disabled" tag.

[Sinsling]

First off, those laser rifles on your beetles are a waste of cash, as they will never be boarded or board others.

Ditch the double dark storm for a single large system core and get rid of the pebble core.
(lsc will act as an extra battery), drop the plasma cannon, add a bright cloud shielding if you want that over 400 shield gen.

Disruptors let you ignore shielding when attacking, and stack quite nicely. They pair well with sunbeams and even better with slicers. I would change out outleast one sun beam for a disruptor turret on your beetles.

Since you don't have blue suns availible yet, triple plasma cores sound better than your current setup of white/yellow suns. You may need atleast one more large heat shunt.

Overall, this should free up 45 space on your beetles to do more tinkering with.

Now for your flagship, I suggest tearing out the minelayer all together, as you have to go back and farm the ammo when you run out since it can't be bought at this time.

Change those 5 dark storm shieldings into 2 korath large system cores.

Swap out the yellow/white reactors for a triple plasma core and another large heat shunt

This should free up 87 space for more crew bunks, meaning more capping power.

I assume those sunbeams are turrets. If not, upgrade them to turrets using some of the space saved from the above suggestions.

[Mr. n]

Sinsling, thanks! That is superb, exactly what I needed!

Actually I may have gone overboard with cooling - IIRC none of my ships are heating. As you've pointed out, that may be what's pulling me back capacity-wise. As for laser rifles, those are a remainder of an older age - I just forgot to sell them. As for the minelayer, it's there because I couldn't stash it anywhere else and should have mentioned it earlier. I just managed to pick one up after quickly fleeing out of the Korath space with my tail between me legs.

(Wait, there are Sunbeam turrets?!)

You've mentioned slicers... I'm going to assume you mean the Kor Automata stuff. I think it may be a bit out of my reach (at least out of my semi-reliable reach).

I'm nevertheless going to try. According to virtually all answers in the topic I should go and farm one or the other Korath faction, so that's where I'll go next :).

I'm going to make a backup save and try out what you've told me as soon as I debug my first program this year :P.

[Avarice]

Here's a tip, open the spreadsheets. They're nice and compiled showing stats and with a little basic math you can tell which has more benefits. Remember to customize your ships as per your purpose though(gunboats/battle platforms/cargo/et. cetra).

[Mr. n]

What spreadsheets? I've been making my own for effectiveness of parts and cost-effectiveness of plunder (those Triple Plasmas!).

While I'm still tinkering around with the Beetles, Sinsling's suggestions for the main ship were massively helpful - after everything I'll be just able (0 outfit space left) to put in Bufaer Thrusters... or buy more bunk-rooms, but I'll fly around for a bit with the better thrusters to try and feel if they're worth it. Everything accounted for, the only thing that's a bit worse is a couple hundred shield power regen lost (but the benefits are definitely worth it).

I'm still not sure about those Beetles, I wanted a homogenous fleet (i.e. every Beetle is identical).

I'm especially having trouble with ratio of weapons (disruptors to sunbeams to slicers to ion cannons to korath warders) - any advice on how to balance it properly? Some of you guys said to get grabstrikes - how would they fit in those ratio counts?

EDIT:
Hot damn, those spreadsheets! I'm going to bury myself in them and tinker... when I find more than a lonely half-hour time unit for that.

[Sinsling]

I've personally learned grabstrikes aren't worth it in the current vanilla content, as any fleet that is bigger than 6 ships should be able to disable a target before they ever manage to jump. You may be better off with a disruptor to allow your weapons to pierce shields. One warder per ship should be more than enough in most instances, but there is eventually a wanderer am that is better for clearing automa minefields.

Edit: Also, my build for the beetles was for keeping them all the same. I do the same when I build my fleets.

[Mr. n]

Sweet, that simplifies things. Sinsling, your suggestions really, really helped (and I have the next step for my Bactrian already planned - the second I can have those Blue Suns I'm going to upgrade). Thanks for pointing all that out :)!

I've come up with a pretty good set-up overall for the Beetles:

1 Jump Drive
3 Heat Shunts
1 Systems Core (Large)
2 Wanderer Ramscoop
7 Mass Expansion
2 Fuel pods
1 Triple Plasma Core
1 Bufaer Steering
1 Planetary Thruster
OPTIONAL: 1 Bright Cloud Shielding
Pad up to capacity with fuel pods or cut Mass Expansions as I don't have anything better to do with that space.

I'm still wondering about the weapons.

What set of weapons would you propose for Beetles then?
Let's assume that I have 8 free gun ports and 4 free turret gun ports and 333 weapon capacity.

Things to choose from (again, assuming I will be somehow able to buy/farm it enough):
• Ion Cannons (47 outfit space)
• Korath Warder (turret) (28 outfit space)
• Plasma Cannon (25 outfit space)
• Plasma Turret (60 outfit space)
• Sunbeam (34 outfit space)
• Sunbeam Turret (46 outfit space)
• Korath Disruptor (Turret) (35 outfit space)
• Korath Slicer (46 outfit space)
• Korath Slicer (Turret) (59 outfit space)

I'd like to keep one Warder turret per ship if possible; I have 2600 energy production (5200 storage) and heat shouldn't be a problem. Dropping the sun reactors was a good move outfit- and energy-wise, but left me with less storage than I'd like (and I'm disinclined to fight Quarg before I get everything else out of the game).

[Avior]

Originally posted by Mr. n:

Things to choose from (again, assuming I will be somehow able to buy/farm it enough):
• Ion Cannons (47 outfit space)
• Korath Warder (turret) (28 outfit space)
• Plasma Cannon (25 outfit space)
• Plasma Turret (60 outfit space)
• Sunbeam (34 outfit space)
• Sunbeam Turret (46 outfit space)
• Korath Disruptor (Turret) (35 outfit space)
• Korath Slicer (46 outfit space)
• Korath Slicer (Turret) (59 outfit space)

I'd like to keep one Warder turret per ship if possible; I have 2600 energy production (5200 storage) and heat shouldn't be a problem. Dropping the sun reactors was a good move outfit- and energy-wise, but left me with less storage than I'd like (and I'm disinclined to fight Quarg before I get everything else out of the game).

You have 10 shield beetles. Eventually, you will gain access to the Wanderer equivalent of an anti-missile turret, once you advance in their campaign. Drop the warders for those (once you can get them, of course). Though, you've implied that you are still playing the FW campaign, so it's gonna take a while for that.

Sunbeam turrets and dual sunbeam turrets are unavailable until you play the Wanderer campaign. Korath slicer guns have not even been implemented yet; that's coming in 0.9.5. (Their turreted versions are implemented, tho.)

imo, Wanderer reactors are excellent. Though they are less powerful, they provide that huge backup storage, and they are also much more heat efficient as well.

Disruptor turrets and ion cannons are absurdly powerful if you spam them enough.
Get an ion cannon, a disruptor cannon, and a slicer turret, and fit them on your ten shield beetles (and a warder as well); I suppose that should be good enough for most of your fights, assuming you can concentrate fire of course.

Assuming I am doing the math correctly, (in infinite time, against an enemy with infinite shields) that should result in
40.91 shield damage, 662.47 hull damage, 483.75 ion damage, and 1393.2 disruption damage. Per second. Per shield beetle.
I have no idea what I am doing, and I'm too lazy to calculate for 10 shield beetles.