Give Hepaestus to Fleet and Fly Donkey?

[TheMac]

I have 50 fleet skill points now and I'm wanting to add a cruiser to the fleet. Mining and killing bounties is what I primarily do, and I'm a terrible pilot. That means I'm mostly only good for shooting missiles to add to the fight at times, and hauling things. My fleet do 90% of the killing.

I currently have a Hepaestus which I fly, and my fleet consists of a Claymore cruiser, Archimedes (which I found floating in space), and three Guardian 4-77's. I don't have the money for a dreadnought or I'd buy a Dominance.

I'm level 35 and I do fine in systems of that level. Lately I've found an amazing mining system, though it's level 52 and the mercenaries that warp in tend to kill my fleet. It's usually 5-6 of them in a group and several have silver stars on them. The goal is two-fold. I need to at least keep the same total cargo space I have now when I add a cruiser, and I need to beef up my damage output. Yes, my next goal is to move all the ore I've mined back to a station and craft some weapons. I want to get the ships first so I'll know how big the gun slots are and can be more purposeful when crafting.

Can the Hepaestus be a decent fleet ship? Should I just dock it because it calls in "more powerful enemies" and buy two new cruisers?

Would my fleet be stronger militarily if I flew a Mule and gave the Hepaestus to the fleet, or should I fly the Hepaestus and buy the fleet a combat ship such as the Juggernaugt or Empress? Thanks!

[❗️❗️ Annex ❗️❗]

The AI doesnt use the ships effectively enough. It more or less sits there getting blasted apart. As such the best ship should always be in your hands, and fleet ships are more or less there to tank and distract the AI while you take them out

[Moon-Shadow]

I'm currently playing with Corvette , Razor , and fleets from 1 to 2 Razor.

I'm mostly 10 levels below the enemy, and see gold stars, don't use missiles, and play on hardcore ( Without Perma Dead. )

And it's not that much harder or easier than when I play in something smaller alone and without a fleet, or with a fleet in something larger, or alone in something larger at around 20 levels higher.

My Fleet Razors have tended to do more damage than me so far, and I mostly just use 2 Rail Guns and a Pink PD, all homemade, and a homemade Repair Beam, while the Fleet Razors have Blue Custom Beams, and the Razors last longer the flux for the flux shield and the bonus that they fly faster.

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And since there was fleet, and you can install jump drives for jumping, i.e. only since fleet use, I have never lost a ship, although my fleet ships often have lower HP , as me.

Just because there isn't a feature that allows the player to jump without first opening the galaxy map and hitting the jump button quickly enough with the mouse if you've already selected a sector.

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Hephaestus

Supposedly, stronger opponents should come if the fleet is controlled him, as if the player were inside.

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Ships weapon slots can also be seen beforehand by holding SHIFT when pointing at the ship, then you can see how big the slot is.

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Hephaestus

If you control it yourself it's better, especially with missiles, instead of the AI ​​throwing missiles at an opponent who will be destroyed soon, but would rather throw more at the opponent and waste ammo and time.

For the 2 weapon slots size 4 on the sides, 2 missiles type come into question, each size 4.

Burst , with 3 missiles per burst , slow fire rate , low ammo consumption , but each missile retains a lot of damage and only slightly weakens at 8 runs.

And single shot missiles, also size 4, high fire rate, unfortunately high costs, a little weaker per missile compared to burst, but much more controlled how many missiles you throw at an opponent.

In both cases, one side should be bound to a mouse button, and the 360 ​​degrees and stern tower should be set to automatic. Above all, burst is the best way to control not throwing too many missiles at an opponent and having to wait a long time until you can throw some at the next one.

I use such missiles, both have already been used, I find the individual better, but I also use the front 360 degree turret Manuel with "Ziggy" for my own Flak weapon size 3 , all other Turrets with self made Pink PD Beams size 3.

And as soon as I have the skill where I get my ship size number as additional weapons space, I can also make a flak weapon similar to the one from the tower, maximum of the points that are left +5 which comes to believe size 8 or so.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by ❗️❗️ Annex ❗️❗:

The AI doesnt use the ships effectively enough. It more or less sits there getting blasted apart. As such the best ship should always be in your hands, and fleet ships are more or less there to tank and distract the AI while you take them out

Oh no! ;) Well, guess I'm fish food, then. Ha!

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Moon-Shadow:

I'm currently playing with Corvette , Razor , and fleets from 1 to 2 Razor.

I'm mostly 10 levels below the enemy, and see gold stars, don't use missiles, and play on hardcore ( Without Perma Dead. )

And it's not that much harder or easier than when I play in something smaller alone and without a fleet, or with a fleet in something larger, or alone in something larger at around 20 levels higher.

My Fleet Razors have tended to do more damage than me so far, and I mostly just use 2 Rail Guns and a Pink PD, all homemade, and a homemade Repair Beam, while the Fleet Razors have Blue Custom Beams, and the Razors last longer the flux for the flux shield and the bonus that they fly faster.

---

And since there was fleet, and you can install jump drives for jumping, i.e. only since fleet use, I have never lost a ship, although my fleet ships often have lower HP , as me.

Just because there isn't a feature that allows the player to jump without first opening the galaxy map and hitting the jump button quickly enough with the mouse if you've already selected a sector.

---

Hephaestus

Supposedly, stronger opponents should come if the fleet is controlled him, as if the player were inside.

---

Ships weapon slots can also be seen beforehand by holding SHIFT when pointing at the ship, then you can see how big the slot is.

---

Hephaestus

If you control it yourself it's better, especially with missiles, instead of the AI ​​throwing missiles at an opponent who will be destroyed soon, but would rather throw more at the opponent and waste ammo and time.

For the 2 weapon slots size 4 on the sides, 2 missiles type come into question, each size 4.

Burst , with 3 missiles per burst , slow fire rate , low ammo consumption , but each missile retains a lot of damage and only slightly weakens at 8 runs.

And single shot missiles, also size 4, high fire rate, unfortunately high costs, a little weaker per missile compared to burst, but much more controlled how many missiles you throw at an opponent.

In both cases, one side should be bound to a mouse button, and the 360 ​​degrees and stern tower should be set to automatic. Above all, burst is the best way to control not throwing too many missiles at an opponent and having to wait a long time until you can throw some at the next one.

I use such missiles, both have already been used, I find the individual better, but I also use the front 360 degree turret Manuel with "Ziggy" for my own Flak weapon size 3 , all other Turrets with self made Pink PD Beams size 3.

And as soon as I have the skill where I get my ship size number as additional weapons space, I can also make a flak weapon similar to the one from the tower, maximum of the points that are left +5 which comes to believe size 8 or so.

Thank you. You have some skill making your own weapons. I am getting ready to try this myself, though my journey and experimentation are just beginning.

The Razors are probably the best small (class 3 ship) I have had and I agree they are very fast and can do quite a bit of damage. I've never tried a rail gun and will have to look into this.

I completely agree that the AI does not use missiles well. When I gave the AI gunner control over the missiles in my Hepaestus, I noticed there were times the AI did better than me because I couldn't tell which ship was targeted, though most of the time the AI fired at ship that were retreating and could outrun the missiles. I'll also look at what type of missiles I'm firing and see if there is room for improvement there. Thanks for the suggestion.

You mention using Flak and Railgun weapons. I try to steer away from weapons which use ammunition, because the AI doesn't appear to be smart enough to know not to use them if mining, and I try not to have to refit my ships each time I want to go mining. My current issue is that I get jumped in the higher level sectors while mining which creates some real problems for me (death). ;) You also mention having success with beams. I could try to make some good custom beam weapons, then I don't lose any ammunition while mining and only some efficiency which doesn't bother me. By efficiency I mean that mining beams do 6x damage to asteroids while normal beams do normal damage.

[Jaasrg]

Originally posted by TheMac:

I completely agree that the AI does not use missiles well. When I gave the AI gunner control over the missiles in my Hepaestus, I noticed there were times the AI did better than me because I couldn't tell which ship was targeted, though most of the time the AI fired at ship that were retreating and could outrun the missiles.

Missiles are kinda weird since even with best setup of small warhead, max speed boosters and mounted on Heph sides, they cap at 75 speed which is nice, but can still be outrun.
So I just stopped bothering with speed boosters and now do one of 2 things:
Run away making enemy chase and run into missiles on their own, so speed doesn't matter
Fly big enough ship to carry beams and leave the glacial speed missiles for large ships/stations.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Jaasrg:

Originally posted by TheMac:

I completely agree that the AI does not use missiles well. When I gave the AI gunner control over the missiles in my Hepaestus, I noticed there were times the AI did better than me because I couldn't tell which ship was targeted, though most of the time the AI fired at ship that were retreating and could outrun the missiles.

Missiles are kinda weird since even with best setup of small warhead, max speed boosters and mounted on Heph sides, they cap at 75 speed which is nice, but can still be outrun.
So I just stopped bothering with speed boosters and now do one of 2 things:
Run away making enemy chase and run into missiles on their own, so speed doesn't matter
Fly big enough ship to carry beams and leave the glacial speed missiles for large ships/stations.

Those sound like very smart moves! Good food for thought. I've just built my first beams, and I'm going to test them out myself! ;)

BTW, what is working for you in terms of beams? The first one's I've built have the purple core (I believe that's the color) that give the weapons the longest range.

Edit: I just tried them while mining, and I noticed they stretch about 60% of the view range. Not the best for mining, but really something to watch.

[Moon-Shadow]

I always use ammo-based weapons myself, so they're not a problem for fleets, they don't get any.

My ship, if there is a gunner on a weapon that uses ammo, then the gunner is set to manual anyway.

Setting flak weapons to automatic is bad, gunners often don't hit them or you hit yourself with them, so always set the gunner manually and use it yourself.

Never give Railgun to Fleet, or put a Gunner on Auto, wait 7 seconds for it to be ready again, and if you use this better self on Manuall you can also use it with Explosive where the Fleet and Gunner won't be able to handle it at all.

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I had already built beams that were stronger than mining beams, so I didn't need mining beams, this beam would have to be adapted for a fleet.

Even normal lasers if built correctly can do more damage than beams and do more damage than mining beams Asteroids, problem for Fleet then shoots with lasers that can also miss the enemy more easily than beams do.

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Hephaestus

My missiles for the sides only have speed 50 from building with small cores.

If something is too fast, I'll fight it with the other weapons on board.

And if it's something that gets close enough to be grabbed with a tractor beam, the missiles go at speed 50 and hit the enemy.

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Beams.

Blue coolest , pink best range , green best damage and highest heat , red in all medium.

Fleet Razor ships use blue ones , for heat stability Cooler on Weapon, with cooler in ship, i made size 3 so use 2 per Razor, since they are built with 1 core and beam to size 2, and with Boosted below and further boosters up to size 3, for cooling and damage boosters or just cooling boosters depending on what the Razor has when to heat stable be.

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I don't know but you never write what upgrades you put on your ships.

Going to the Build Weapons interface, Build your own weapons on the left, Build Original Stuff in the middle where you know plans, Upgrade Ship on the right.

Upgrading ships is also possible with fleet, if you look inside, where you can also see the neutral values ​​for crafting weapons, since fleet ships have no player skills.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Moon-Shadow:

I always use ammo-based weapons myself, so they're not a problem for fleets, they don't get any.

My ship, if there is a gunner on a weapon that uses ammo, then the gunner is set to manual anyway.

Setting flak weapons to automatic is bad, gunners often don't hit them or you hit yourself with them, so always set the gunner manually and use it yourself.

Never give Railgun to Fleet, or put a Gunner on Auto, wait 7 seconds for it to be ready again, and if you use this better self on Manuall you can also use it with Explosive where the Fleet and Gunner won't be able to handle it at all.

---

I had already built beams that were stronger than mining beams, so I didn't need mining beams, this beam would have to be adapted for a fleet.

Even normal lasers if built correctly can do more damage than beams and do more damage than mining beams Asteroids, problem for Fleet then shoots with lasers that can also miss the enemy more easily than beams do.

---

Hephaestus

My missiles for the sides only have speed 50 from building with small cores.

If something is too fast, I'll fight it with the other weapons on board.

And if it's something that gets close enough to be grabbed with a tractor beam, the missiles go at speed 50 and hit the enemy.

---

Beams.

Blue coolest , pink best range , green best damage and highest heat , red in all medium.

Fleet Razor ships use blue ones , for heat stability Cooler on Weapon, with cooler in ship, i made size 3 so use 2 per Razor, since they are built with 1 core and beam to size 2, and with Boosted below and further boosters up to size 3, for cooling and damage boosters or just cooling boosters depending on what the Razor has when to heat stable be.

---

I don't know but you never write what upgrades you put on your ships.

Going to the Build Weapons interface, Build your own weapons on the left, Build Original Stuff in the middle where you know plans, Upgrade Ship on the right.

Upgrading ships is also possible with fleet, if you look inside, where you can also see the neutral values ​​for crafting weapons, since fleet ships have no player skills.

Thank you! All very helpful and insightful.

I'm new to upgrades and weapon crafting in general, though I'm starting to understand it. I usually upgrade my ships with tier 3 - 8% damage reduction, tier 2 - 16% shield increase x 2. I know there are other choices such as weapon heat reduction, though with the way I fly, I am trying to survive at this point. When I have more experience flying my dread and three cruisers, I will likely change the ship upgrades or maybe I'll learn that survivability is the best way for me to go. :)