Ship Weapons ineffective - Basic playability is impossible.

[Bosun]

I've made it so far to the Save the Scout mission.

My ship's weapons are entirely ineffective, even after upgrading. I have the Brutus and Sparta, as well as all fighter squadrons attacking a single ship together, and the cruisers, with weapons at 200 percent, cannot take down the shield of a single ship, and the fighters will initially damage the subsystems, but then the subsystem will repair while they (and Angelwing) are attacking it.

So far, I cannot disable a subsystem except for the first minute of the mission. After one Gorg ship becomes disabled (I haven't actually destroyed ANY ship in the game thus far, I imagine it would take the better part of an hour just to wittle down the health of an unarmed cruiser at the rate my guns do damage), all the Gorg weapons increase in potency, and the Sparta will go from 'doing just fine' to 'destroyed' in 38 seconds, despite lasting in the same fight for the last 3 minutes without it's shields even suffering much. (I counted.)

What is going on? Is this fixable? Am I missing something?

I've verified game files. I'm playing on 'Easy." I don't get it. It's impossible to get past this mission and it was very difficult to make it this far.

[Bosun]

Finally finished the mission - but was incapable of destroying a single ship with the weak weaponry.

As soon as the IP blocker is detected, a noticeable drop in weapon performance occurs. I can watch a disabled ship with no engines, losing systems, go from surely disabled, to rebuilding it's hit points under the same barrage and the only thing that has changed was the detection occurred.

Anyone have any fixes for this?

[Rhophius]

so what weapons and how many are you using against what target? firing a single device laser will not get you anywhere in this game, the same with firign a single anti shield weapon vs a battleship, be a bit more in depth with your problem instead of just whining the game is crap.

[NeoG]

It's a good idea to spread out weapon types out by hulls and focus on a strategy.

For example, using hull damaging weapons on ships that still have shileds up is a waste of ammo and power.

On the angelwing, there are 6 weapon mounts. A good, well-rounded strategy is to have 2 anti-shield weapons, 2 lasers and 2 anti-hull weapons.

On the destroyers, one of each type.

This is important because unless you want to cheat and check what is the best loadout for each mission before you start, it is best to keep a well rounded fleet ready for any situation.

So when you are in combat, you need to have them focus fire on a single ship to ONLY disable shields, and this means they will use all available weapons energy fire to use the shield disablers, having a much faster rate of fire for them and quickly disabling the shields. Then pause the game (this is critical all throughout for best effiiency) and use anti-hull weaponry while keeping maybe 1 or 2 anti shield weapons on the target to prevent them from recharging. This way you can quickly and effectively whittle down the enemy forces.

Keep in mind that usually the small corvettes and the destroyers can only really effectivelly use one weapon system at a time, so having two bubble ES firing at once will only mean they have a slower ROF. With a really upgraded angelwing it may be possible continuously fire 3 weapon systes and 4 by using the backup energy battery (which most of the time should be used to increase shield recharge instead).

So against small ships it goes: disable shelds with bubble weapons, then use anti hull guns.
Against battleships: disable shields with bubble, then destroy the module with lasers and fighters/bombers. Then destroy engines/flak/IP drive/weapon generator/specific weapon, depending on ship and situation.

It is also important to use ECM to help tank damage and to disengage ships that are taking too much damage BEFORE they lose shields. ECCM plays a part in preventing the enemy ships from evading too much. The angelwing is the only effective tank ship because it can heal hull damage on the fly and evade a good portion of shots when using advanced ECM. ECM is more important than ECCM.

Now, bombers are somewhat useless, IMHO. It is best to use fighters to maintain air superiority, to disable AA weapons on select ships, and certain components. So it is important to have all 6+ squadrons focus on single targets, and when it is really important, to use the marine boarders. The bombers and gunboats are worthless against the enemy fighters and too slow. You can often keep most fighthers squadrons alive and well by docking them when they take too much damage since they are so agile, and they instantly get free repairs and are good to go again. If at least one ship per squadron survives, you don't need to re-purchase the squadron. Also fightere are REALLY good against the enemy biological small energy drain craft.

Personally I try to stay away from limited ammo weapons like torpedoes, missiles and anti-shield bombs. AOE weapons are tricky to use, but devastating when you land a hit. The problem is that there is no sustain power to them. Once expended they are dead weight. I think it may be OK to have 2 torpedo racks on the cruiser ship (not the angelwing), carrier (for the long range) or battleships to quickly dispatch larger hulls that have had their shields disabled.

Killing shields then hull is often the fastest way to get rid of a ship.

[Xautos]

some ships are useful for shield stripping, others are useful for hull damage and the larger ships are capable of both.

either go for energy shells for shield stripping for say your smaller ships, and one or two on your main ship, i wouldn't use lasers if i could get away with using gatling guns instead, the longer range and high refire makes it useful in chasing a target down and chipping away at the hull, but it will take time. the gatling guns are useful for taking out subsystems as well but the ship will have to move to the area in question in order to target and take out the system.

bombers are only useful for when a target has no shielding and then in a tactical capacity, with a steady stream of bombers even those wings can take out subsystems fairly quickly. bombers are virtually useless outside that role and you will need to protect those bombers, either with your main ship or fighter wings, but some ships have such strong AA capability that your fighter wings will need to remain grounded indefinitely until you disable them at the very least.

if you must use torpedo weapons, use them only when you can, i have used some torpedo weapons and while they look cool in an explosion on a target and the target takes a fairly hefty whack when the shields are out, you only got as pointed out in a previous post, so much ammo to work with and the AOE can easily cripple your ships, possibly even destroy them. only when you got a target chasing your main ship is where a torpedo comes into full effect, more so when your ships aren't chasing it.

some targets can only be disabled because of mission scriped sequences, so it would be best to avoid massive firepower in some missions over others.

keep upgrading your weapons, batteries, shields and what not, but make sure you focus on what you want for each ship, specialize in one thing for that ship and build around it.