Good Nut's Guide to Bulk Freighters

Are the endless options presented by the Bulk Freighter giving you a case of analysis paralysis? Why is grapeshot an option? What the hell is a large DC storage?

In this guide I will go over basic Bulk Freighter (often abbreviated as LN or BLN) designs as well as some of the less common and a few of my own quirky designs.

What is the LN's Sole Purpose?

Bring to bear the ability to kill anything on the ANS roster.

Capable of equipping any weapon system devised by the OSP, the bulk freighter is endlessly flexible and capable of any direct or indirect combat roles.

Common common archetypes are as platforms for 250mm guns, 450mm guns, plasma launchers, S2 missiles, and 100mm gun platforms.

450mm Liner

A mainstay, the 450mm Liner provides a long range base of fire. Empty your large autoloaders in seconds and you'll have done as much damage as a Gun Battleship that has been firing for minutes.

Fire on accurate tracks and retreat into cover for the lengthy reload (don't forget your ammo elevators). Despite your size, you are somewhat fragile, so bring rapid cycle cradles to fire your autoloader faster and reduce time out of cover.

Your point defense options are limited, as on most liners. But if you maximize your flak PD count, you are resistant to S2, S3, and S2H strikes. Have a chance against S3H by using softkill, anti-missile missiles, and the P60 Grazer PDT, or find a friendly Ocello.

Get your tracks from a Bloodhound LRT. Tugs make excellent platforms for those. Stack 2 or 3 track correllators and get accurate cannon fire at 11km (further than the ANS bullseye). Stay beyond 9km to stay out of range of their Bullseyes and to keep a healthy distance from beams.

As a rule, the liners want the CHI-7700 drive to increase yaw and roll rates and get your casemated guns on target.

250mm Liner

More easily engage targets with the greater freedom of movement provided by the C56 casemated, 250mm cannon.

250mm rounds are faster than 450, combine that with the better traversal angles you are more equipped to vaporize light ships. 250mm AP in these volumes will even put the hurt on Heavy Cruisers. The range is limited to 8km as compared to the 11,250m of trhe 450mm casemates.

C56 cannons are typically cheaper than their 450mm counterparts, so it is a little easier to get supporting tugs into a 3000 point fleet. Or equip them to both sides, and spin between reloads to bring your newly-loaded guns to bear.

Fire HE at Light Cruiser and lower, AP at CL and higher. If you're firing broadside into a CL use HE, if you're at an oblique/bow on angle use AP.

Pair with Plasma to deal more damage with HE against capital CH and larger.

Plasma Liner

The Plasma Liner is a support ship through and through. You won't put up huge damage numbers, but the plasma will melt armor off enemy ships and have a suppressive effect against enemy capital ships. It is this ships job to shred the armor off larger ships, and allow lighter calibers to deal damage, such as 100mm HE-HC and 250mm HE.

100mm Liner

The 100mm liner build is pretty niche. Most often armed with 8 T30 100mm cannons, and on occasion 4 roof mounted C53s, the 100mm liner seeks to make full use of targets stripped by plasma.

When engaging frigates and sprinters, use HE or Grape. Grape has a further range than the other 100mm shells (8000m vs 7200m) and a higher muzzle velocity, which helps to engage targets that are dodging.

HE is sufficient against Destroyers, and AP will work best against Light Cruisers.

AP technically Pens Heavy Cruisers, but you are better off firing HE-HC against it after a coating of plasma. Same for Battleships.

HE-HC stands for High Explosive High Capacity. It has miserable pen, but excellent damage and pen depth. This allows you to destroy key reinforced components such as CICs and DC lockers.

HE-HC will really only work after you have stripped the armor off with plasma.

Mass Driver Liner

Mass driver liners excel at softening up targets at long range.

Capable of engaging targets up to 21km away, it can safely stay outside the range of counter-battery 450mm fire while relying on forward observers in the form of allied vessels and dedicated spotter clippers or use the R400 Bloodhound long range tracking radar (LRT) equipped with 2 track correlators to provide fireable locks up to 14km away.

It is more efficient to run 3 mass driver guns instead of four. This lets you run more energy regulators (EREGS) and more reactors to power everything.

A monitor equipped with Early Warning Radar and LRT is found below, they make excellent platforms for EWR/LRT and Intel centers.

You will likely need to run both of these vessels without search radars such as the Huntress and Bridgemaster to power everything.

MLS-2 and 3 Liners

Instead of the Vertical Launch System (VLS) that the ANS carries, OSP bring to bear Magazine Launch Systems (MLS)

Firing 4 and 2 missiles per salvo per mount respectively, the MLS-2 and MLS-3 systems fire standard size 2 and size 3 missiles in huge volumes when equipped to liners.

8 mounts yields 32 size 2 missiles and 16 size 3 torpedoes per ship per salvo.

How you use these ships will depend entirely on the missiles you pack your magazines with.

You could spam high speed, high agility, short range S2s to brute force through ANS PD, or fire 32 waypointed missiles from across the map straight into the other team's natural caps when the game starts.

Torpedoes are going to be more limited in range, and use high speeds OR high maneuverability to get through PD. The decoy support module is more efficient on torpedoes, which makes it a common choice.

Note: Since salvo size is tied to the launcher modules, you do NOT need missile programming busses/ bus arrays.

Damage Control Recommendations and the Citadel Magazine

A quick note on DC as there have been some changes to the meta since I wrote this.

I wrote this before the addition of the Damage Control Complex (DCX), Citadel Magazine, and the addition of DC teams to the Large DC Storage.

It is highly recommended to take all three of these on your average liner. Each of your 8x3x8 compartments should use these components. The DCX and CitMag are both incredibly tanky, and the first CitMag is free like any other mag. The Large DC Storage gives you 4 restores and some additional DC teams. This, in my opinion, is the bare minimum DC a liner should bring.

I like to supplement this with another Reinforced DC Locker (RDC) for redundancy. The CitMag, while not as spacious as a reinforced or bulk mag, should have plenty of room for your ammo.

Tips and Tricks in Commanding Liners and Their Fleets

While quick in a straight line, and very fast to roll, the liners take AGES to yaw. Do what you can to see the enemy coming so you have time to MANUALLY set your roll and heading so that your broadside cannons will be unmasked against your target. You can do that by bringing EWR or forward observers. Anticipate your targets ahead of time so you appropriately manage your ships orientation and engage them as soon as you can.

Do NOT issue fire orders until you have the guns pointed in the right direction, otherwise the ship might take the long way around to get them on target.

Your gun liners are naturally pretty terrible at stopping hybrid missile strikes. Do not over-invest in damage control, you are going to get hit anyway, so it is better to bring 3 liners with middling DC instead of 2 with excellent.
I tpyically run 1 Reinforced DC (RDC), 1 Large DC (LDC) and a large DC storage which contains 4 restores but no additional teams. The restores in the storage cannot be used by rapid DC teams.

CHI-7700 is by far the best drive for gun liners. It boosts roll and yaw rates as well as acceleration at a minor speed cost.

Otherwise. you can dual drive missile liners to keep them fast and away from threats.

Shuttles make excellent forward observers and add great capping utility to your fleet.
Equip them with a pinpoint and rockets to get you locks and punish light ships.

Tugs make very solid PD escorts for your Liners. Pack em with AMMs and grazers for this role. It is best to leave the flak for your liners.

Example Fleets and Parting Words

Below you will find some example fleets. Some go all in on liners, some make use of escort craft and EWR. What you choose is up to you, but you will make better decisions if you take your allies' fleet compositions in to account.

Please, feel free to DM me on the developer discord or in steam if you have any questions.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and leave a review/comment if you could. I will try to answer any questions and make corrections as I find them.

Notes:
-If you see an SGM-1xx missile, that is an anti-missile-missile.
-If there is a liner equipped with a CHI-777 Yard Drive, that's a mistake it should be CHI-7700.

[MOK]

This guide helped a lot. I put down Nebulous when OSP dropped because I was already struggling with the learning curve beforehand. Now that I'm trying to force my way back in, this was a nearly perfect primer.

One suggestion that could kick this guide up a notch:
A description of an example match. A common team for Pillars, featuring their intended role and positioning, the composition of the squads, and what goal or tactic orients their composition and team behavior.

[Fetty Wappucine]

Pretty nice guide, don't forget to mention the new C56 in your 250mm Bulker section, it's tankier than the C53 is now.

[Parils]

Thanks, this is great

[Hekkura]

Don't forget the Revolver bulk!