Ship and weapon ratings for MP

[TheCallidus]

Hi as I am board I wanted to give a list of ratings and impressions of the diffrend ships and weapons available to both factions. This is only based for multiplayer. (but if its good there it is probably good in SP too). This is pretty early but maybe it gives ideas for players to test diffrent things out. (I see way to many Adamant fleets) And also can help with balancing discussions.
I played 40 Battles in MP so far and won 30. So I have a rough Idea on what I'm doing.

I will rate them in a 5 point system
1 Point Usless and bad should probably be rebalanced
2 Points Highly specialised good in some situations weak overall
3 Points Solid in most situations bad in some good in others
4 Points Overall good or very strong in special situations
5 Points Broken or over powered



Colonial Fleet
In general the Colonial Fleet is very well rounded with few weak points. It has very strong fighters, very good anti missile tools and powerfull broadsides.

• Manticor
  4 PointsThe Manticor is very maneuverable cheap and decently armed. It's speed helps with scouting the opposing fleet, flanking and disengageing. It hase 1 missile slot (4turn reload) which gives it a lot of utility or additional firepower. Due to its mobility you can also ram it with a decent succes chance into higher value enemies. Vulnerable to fighters and guided missiles and light guns.
  
  
• Adamant
  5 Points Best ship in the game. Has everything you want. It's mobile enough to dodge torpes and to distribute damage it takes on all sides. It is overall pretty tanky. It has 1 Fighter slot and 1 Missile slot(4 turn reload) and only costs 750 Points. While it's firepower is not great it is very consistend as it has light gun batteries on each side. This ship has no downside. You might not want to go into a 1on1 with a Battlestar though.
  
  
• Minotaur
  2 Points The Minotaur gunship is a straight up high dps brawler. Boost it into close combat and overwhelm your enemie with raw firepower. It also is a one trick pony while it is a good close up brawler it is not good at dodging torpedos and is vulnerable to fighers and ecm. It has to many weaknesses. But for specialised tasked and unleashed at the right time it can be very potend.
  
  
• Ranger
  4 Points The Ranger is is a specialised missileboat with 2 missile slots. Out fitted with torpedos it has defestating firepower against big ships. But those 2 slots and the 2 round reload make it also very versitile. If you fit one PCM and the missile defence of your fleet just became strong. It is also decently mobile and has decent gun firepower. The only downside is the Adamant is 300 Points cheaper.
  
  
• Atlas
  3 Points It seems that the Atlas is highly undervalued by the community so far. And thats primarily because the Adamant is 300 Points cheaper. The Atlas provides you with 2 fighter slots, armor better than an Artemis and good firepower against big ships with heavy batteries on each side. It is slow and vulnerable to torpedos. It also has trouble dealing with highly mobile units like the Adamant or Nemesis. But it almost gurantes you air superiority and it's theoretical dps is very high for its cost.
  
  
• Artemis
  4 Points For me the go to Battlestar. It provides 2 Fighters and 1 Missile Slot with 3 turn reload. I also can use flak which protects it and its fleet against missiles of any kind, and is defestating to fighters your own included. It's downside is, it is not as much armored as you might expect and you should be carefull sending it into a direct brawl with multiple opponents.
  
  
• Jupiter
  3 Points The Jupiter is the strongest ship in the game also the most expensive. You have to pay 600 Points to get a bit more tanky Artemis. The slot layout is the same, fire power is similiar, Jupiter has an advantage on its bottom and bow armament. Its price also makes it more difficult to build a strong support fleet around it.

Colonial Fightercraft

• Viper MK1
  3 Points Solid choice beats every other fighter craft except the MK2 in a duel. Can be used as scout, airsuperiority and is usefull in chasing lighter capitals like Manticor and Nemesis damage output against bigger capitals is pretty low also due to the fighting animation that let fighters turn away from big capitals in strange maneuvers.
  
  
• Viper MK2
  4 Points Best Air superiority Fighter in the game.
  
  
• Raptor
  1 Point Nice Idea. Damage with rockets is way to low and why is the icon for rockets the same as guided missiles? Rockets need a big dmg increase to make this usefull or make them guided.
  
  
• Sweeper
  As i haven't managed to use the sweeper in a MP match I don't dare to rate it. In SP Ramjb seems to love it. For MP you give up Air superiority for more missile defence so I tend to rate it lowly as it is highly specialised tool which won't be usefull in every Situation.

Colonial Missiles

• Guided Missiles
  4 Points Overall good weapon system especialty as it can hit highly maneuverable targets such as Adamants and Manticors.
  
  
• Torpedos
  3 Points Extremly strong against Cylons bad against Colonials. Huge damage, but unguided and dodgeable. As such an unreliable weapon.
  
  
• PCM
  4 Points Very usefull as missiles are a big part of engagments. Weak against massive torpedo salvos as it will detonate the first ones and let the rest through. Best nuke defence.
  
  
• Nuke
  2 Points Very specialised tool. Needs to be fired at the right time at the right target or you just wasted 400 points on nothing. If used corectly it can be very powerfull. Fire at short range against tight formations or to destroy 1 Adamant, Talon, Nemesis or Manticore outright. Fireing a nuke on a Nemesis or Manticore is mostly a waste though.
  
  
• Armor Piercer
  1 Point Just bad use torpedos instead. Highly armored targets don't move much.

Cylon Fleet

For me the Cylon fleet is a mess. It has some strong points and a lot of weak points most importaintly zero anti missle tools and bad air superiority. It has some nice missile platforms in its fleet but with colonial missile defence so strong this is not worth much. Most Cylon ships are cheaper than the colonial counterparts but with fleets being limited to 7 ships and low pointlimits you can't use this much if at all.

• Nemesis
  3 Points Decent little ship has a frontal lightgun as such its fire power is weak, but it has a missile slot (4 turn reload) and more importaintly it has a hacking ability. 2 Nemesis with proper energy managment can shutdown weapon control systems of almost any ship in 2-3 turns. Also a usefull scout and decent for ramming attacks.
  
  
• Talon
  1 Points The Talon has almost no positives going for it. It has a fighter slot but with raiders being a lot weaker than vipers this slot is not as usefull as a colonial one. Only reason for me to bring a talon you want one more heavy raider and you can't afford an arachne.
  
  
• Revenant
  2 Points Cylon counter part to to the Minotaur with the same strength and weaknesses. It is weaker armored but a bit more maneuverable.
  
  
• Arachne
  4 Points Best ship the Cylons have in theire arsenal. 1 fighter slot 1 missile slot (2 turn reload) and 2 medium gun batteries 1 on the top one in the bow. Medium guns are very powerfull and if you can bring both batteries to bare on one target the Arachne can unleash a surprising amount of firepower. It also has a 2 turn reload for its missile slot. Downside is it's size and its poor weapon placement which makes it difficult to tank damage while also dishing it out.
  
  
• Cerberus
  2 Points Overall bad ship as it specialisis in fighters with 3 fighter slots. If it werent for the heavy raider this would be a 1 point ship. It is slow has bad weapons is weakly armored for its size and points, and colonial fighters are a lot stronger so that it is almost impossible ot gain air superiority. Pray that your enemie wastes ammo and time destroying this ship early.
  
  
• Basestar
  3 Points Decent capital due to its 2 missile slots with 3 turn reload. It also has 2 fighter slots. It's top and bottom heavy batteries are very weak. The Basestar is incredible slow and as such a very easy target. It has weak armor but a very healthy amount of structure.

Cylon Fightercraft

• Prototype Raider
  2 Points Worst fighter in the game.
  
  
• Raider
  3 Points Roughly comparable with the Viper MK1 Viper MK1 still a bit better
  
  
• Heavy Raider
  4 Points These can win you Battles on theire own. 2 Heavy Raiders will Incapacitate an enemie ship in a couple of turns depending if your enemy is boosting his mariens or not. Expect 4-5 turns for full effect. They are vulnerable to enemy fighters so be carefull when you launch them.
  
  
• Wardriver
  2 Points Similiar use as Heavy raiders but a lot more vulnerable as you have to stay in space for hacking.

Cylon Missiles

• Guided Missiles
  4 Points See Colonials
  
  
• Torpedos
  3 Points See Colonials
  
  
• Armor piercer
  1 Point See Colonials
  
  
• Nuke
  2 Points See Colonials
  
  
• Clusterbomb
  1 Point You trade this for PCM which is a very bad deal. Theire damage to subsystems is just to low atm to be worth it.

I hope the Cylons will get some kind of help a they have a lot of weakpoints and theire strong point missiles gets countered by Colonials. May be just give more ships hacking or faster reloads for missiles on Cylon ships or bigger silos. With the recend patch i think the state of balancing became a lot better. Some tools might want to see some adjustment but overall it is pretty balanced.

[Colonel Clank]

Thanks for the Info!!

I haven't played MP yet but the general weakness of the Cylon units does irritate me. i think basestars and cerberus should have some light PD guns added to help defend themselves against fighters and corvettes, otherwise they are just sitting ducks. it would also be cool if instead of Flak Cylon ships could target their PD and light batteries at missiles, or set them default to prioritize them over other targets, because right now if your fleet of 7 ships all launch missiles at the same Cylon target simultaneosly, then that ship is toast.

[Pioneer11]

I think you rate the adamant and Manticore a little too highly and the artamis and miotaur and a bit too low.


Manticore (glass cannon without the cannon)
As you said the Manticore is effective as a fleet scout, however, this is almost completely irreverent as fighters fill this role vastly better than it due to their higher speed and the fact that even one squadron of fighters has massively more firepower than a Manticore, and in real terms vastly more durable - this thing has barely any armour and barely any hit points.

That being said it is useful as a missile boat and when used in a group can deliver pretty devastating missile salvos, however if that is what you're wanting just swap two of these things for a single Ranger, you get more torpedo firepower, it's almost as fast, it has infinitely more gun based firepower and it's almost as durable as a pair of these things.



Adamant (good but overshadowed)
Basically this thing is a carrier, while its guns are decently accurate they just don't do enough damage to be a major threat to anything other than light units (although they are still way better than Manticcore's. It also has excellent armour for something its size

This is a good ship but for almost exactly the same price as two of these you get an Artimis, which has vastly more firepower than two of these(presuming you use it correctly - see below), almost as many hit points as two of these (and flack which will vastly reduce the damage you take) and the same number of fighters as two of these.



Artemis (raining fire from below)
alright this ship is 100% all about positioning and posture, it has good armour (although as you said not as good as you would expect) and two wings of vipers, but the important thing is its guns, everywhere other than the top of the ship it's firepower is abysmal, however, on the top it has a tonne of battlestar turrets, these are extremely inaccurate but also extremely powerful.

The upshot of all of this is if you can get this thing below whatever it is fighting and put it in an offensive posture (an in game mechanic which boosts the firepower and accuracy of the guns in exchange for making its defensive systems weaker) so that its guns will actually hit the target then it will wreck any ship in the game almost instantly. The flak also makes it almost completely immune from missile and fighter attacks.

I usually base my fleets pretty heavily around these things as their only weakness is needing something to cover for them from being outmanoeuvred (although it is also decently manoeuvrable so anything that can outmanoeuvre you can almost certainly be taken down by your fighters)



Minotaur (covering the Artemis's weaknesses)
I tend to have at least one of these things in my fleet as they perfectly cover the Artemis's Achilles heal, they have a good amount of firepower and a good amount of armour, and that's all, they don't have fighters they don't have munitions and they don't have flack.

So what's so great about them?
Simple - unlike almost every ship in the game they have strong firepower in any direction, this makes them perfect for covering the Artemis's Achilles heal as any ship which can outmanoeuvre the Artemis will stand no chance against this thing in a gunfight.



Suggested fleet

4 Artemis class
gives you a strong fighter presence which can wreck any light enemy ships and or fighters presuming you concentrate them into two squadrons of four (which you should).

Also allows you to generate a solid wall of flak - making your enemy's munitions useless

2 Minotaur class
presuming anything survives your fighter's and gets into a decent position to attack your battlestar's then you can use this to wreck it.


Fleet strength's
- immense amount of firepower (if positioned correctly)
- Strong/extremely strong fighter wing

Fleet weaknesses
- Poor munitions (though your flack screen will neutralise both side's munitions making this largely irreverent)






Note's
This changes if you are playing against the computer as it is vastly more vulnerable to munitions due to being stupid

I have yet to try out the Jupiter class - as I understand it they are similar to the Artimis class but cost more fleet points and are slower in exchange for getting non-awful firepower on the bottom and front and improved armour, I don't think this trade will be worth it but I will update this when I have tried it out.

<--- mark 2 Jupiter is just this trade on steroids.

[condottiere]

In terms of bang for buck, it would be Adamants and Artemisii, the difference being trading a missile slot for extra heavy artillery and a flak screen.

In my opinion, they are also used tactically different at various point levels.

[Pioneer11]

Originally posted by condottiere:

In terms of bang for buck, it would be Adamants and Artemisii, the difference being trading a missile slot for extra heavy artillery and a flak screen.

In my opinion, they are also used tactically different at various point levels.

How so?

[Half Phased]

Why was this necro’d? It’s old and half of the information is out of date. Numerous balance passes have happened in the time since it was made, and it hardly represents what the MP community rates half the stuff (for example Mk1 vipers are considered pretty much garbage and should only be chosen for lack points).

If you want to discuss ship ratings next to each other, may I suggest a new thread, rather than comparing to a 2 and half year and multiple version old thread?

[Pioneer11]

Originally posted by Half Phased:

Why was this necro’d? It’s old and half of the information is out of date. Numerous balance passes have happened in the time since it was made, and it hardly represents what the MP community rates half the stuff (for example Mk1 vipers are considered pretty much garbage and should only be chosen for lack points).

If you want to discuss ship ratings next to each other, may I suggest a new thread, rather than comparing to a 2 and half year and multiple version old thread?

Fair point