Adament v Berzerk?

[mackgriffin32]

The titles says it all, which ship is better, I can't choose. I like the Adament's heavier armor and munitions slot, but I like the Berzerk's bigger guns and the fact that's it's cheaper.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

Here's some earlier threads this month that cover part of that topic, discussing pros and cons between the two ships:

"Using Adamants less and less"
http://steamcommunity.com/app/544610/discussions/0/2549465882919605805/

"Thoughts on the new DLC ships"
http://steamcommunity.com/app/544610/discussions/0/1499000547473157906/

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

Early game they both have a place. Adamants are your damage soaks, Bezerks are your damage dealers. A couple of Adamants to take the heat so your Bezerks can do their work is good. Once you can get Artemis, the Adamant quickly gets phased out, but the Bezerk still has a place as strong fire support and fighter cover thanks to it's guns and +50 evade hangar.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

Sir Wagglepuss III, you indicated after getting Artemis the Adamants can be phased out. At what FV size is that appropriate? I'm playing the, "very long game" and was about to get into the 3500 FV range, and was thinking 2X Adamant and 3X Berserkers. Since I'll have the Artemis unlocked soon should I instead go with 1X Artemis and 3X Beserkers? I thought the combined armor of the two Adamants would be greater than the 1X Artemis, but not sure if the offensive capabilities of the Artemis outweigh the armor deficits.

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

1x Artemis with 3x Bezerkers will melt any single target that they engage when you get access to them. Just be mindful of excessively vertical targets, I find both Adamant and Bezerk guns really can't track and hit targets that get too high or low and the Battlestar Artillery of your Artemis will struggle to get a solid lock on Nemesis or Cerastes due to their small size and high speed.

Artemis are not cheap, so unless you've proactively cleared out every Quorum member and got your income flowing fast (Which you should, but we all play our way, etc), you'll still be using Adamants as your backbone damage soaks for a little while.

The way I tend to play my campaigns (Admiral difficulty) is that I put a single high-value fleet in every Helios quarter, with a pair of them in Helios Alpha as that's where the Cylon reinforcements come in. If you are very active with your Helios Alpha fleets, your other fleets should barely see any action in the other quarters besides the occasional resource mission you think they can take on. Experience is gained by cycling officers between fleets as the Alpha fleets will gain experience FAST.

To be concise though, I immediately phase out Adamants upon getting Artemis. They take immediate production prioirity with only leaving a little Tylium reserves for loadouts and an emergency jump (200-300 in the bank). If you've been out for blood and intentionally building up slow, you can end up with 3 Officers ready to go 5k FV size when you go for the mission that unlocks the Artemis. Thats 2x Artemis 2x Bezerk or 1x Artemis 5x Bezerk if production is struggling.

(By the way math time for the 2x Adamant vs 1x Artemis question): Adamant has 4x 0.4 damage guns at a high RoF. Two of them make for 8x 0.4 damage on target. The flak pod guns on the Artemis ALONE are doing 8x 0.2 damage at a very high RoF (So you've got an Adamant on your flight pod). The Artemis Battlestar Artillery does 8x 6 damage at slow RoF (2-3 full salvoes in a turn). The Artemis is throwing out 96 - 144 raw damage in it's artillery in a single turn. It's worth it.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

Thanks. Wow, the Artemis sounds amazing on damage output compared to the Adamants.

Also, in FV value, it appears 1XArtemis + 3X Beserkers = 3500, while 2X Adamant + 3X Beserkes = 3450, so the numbers also support the Artemis composition at 3500 FV.

I've got plenty of Tylium so will start cranking these Artemis out...

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

Last note on the Artemis: It is absolutely critical that you keep it lower than your target in combat. It's bottom guns are total junk in comparison to it's Battlestar Artillery at two nose mounted heavy guns and two bottom mounted heavy guns both dealing 2 damage a pop vs the 8 top mounted 6 damage a pop BS-Arty. Just try not to go *too* low, as you'll prevent your flak from giving effective cover if you ever need to throw the wall up.

She can also take a hell of a beating at 80 armour on the side with 120 hull to back it up, but focused fire will take it's toll. When the armour is going to crack, don't be afraid to make the call and turn it away or into the enemy as required as it's a pricey investment to have blow up. Especially when there's fair odds it's your officer's ship too.

[Veritas]

Adamants are good in the dialos fleet; free nukes since there's no supply cost. But berzerkers' vipers and guns are much better than the adamants, while the adamant can take a little more damage and has more flexible loadout options.

Personally, I prefer the constant pressure and range of the berzerker guns.

[Alpharius]

Hello snazzy,
What do you mean the berzerks vipers are better than the adamants? It has superior stock vipers?

[VanguardMk1]

Originally posted by Warsmith:

Hello snazzy,
What do you mean the berzerks vipers are better than the adamants? It has superior stock vipers?

Nice necro :P

To answer your question: the Adamant has a +20 Evade stat for its fighters and the Berzerk has +50 Evade. This means fighters from the Berzerk will ignore 50% of the shots coming at it, while the Adamant's fighters only ignore 20%.

[Alpharius]

Still relevant ;)

That's wicked! Starting to like the Berserk a lot more. Those broadside batteries are pretty gnarly too.

I'm looking for this now, where in the game is this written?

[TheMadTypist]

In battle, select a ship, press spacebar and click 'repair subsystem', you can see the effect of the subsystems including hangar and stance effects on a ship.

The best hangars in the fleet belong to the Berzerk (+50) and the Atlas (+35) where the normal is +20. Cylon bonuses vary based on where they shunt power, but are generally a bit lower than Colonial ones, with the best raiders coming out of the Cerberus (up to +30) and the Talon (up to +24) where the average is max +15 (and defaults at mid-power to +8). Unlike cylon power-transfer the stance of a colonial ship does not impact the hangar, so you'll always have the same evasion. I did testing awhile back with 7xAtlas vs 7xCerberus which seemed to indicate that high evasion squadrons do better when you split them to attack raiders individually and raiders do better when they dogpile their targeting on one squadron at a time. The AI will turn and engage squadrons that attack theirs individually, so they don't focus fire unless the 'helping' squadron is unengaged itself.

That said, I prefer the Adamant simply because the increased durability makes it a better screening ship for bigger things what need protecting, where Berzerks need protecting themselves. Cheap and cheerful ablative protection for my early Artemis or Rangers.