Starting/Favourite ship discussion

[Vinraith]

Teleport Raiders, to the point where my co-op partner and I are cripplingly dependent on them. They make neutering so much easier and faster, they make destroying tachyon sentinels to create stealth lanes through AI territory trivial, and they can take down nearly everything on an AI homeworld by themselves with no need to waste "real" ships on the job until the very end.

[Lancefighter]

I love zenith autobombs. they fill a wonderful niche between 'I've nothing better to do, so here have some resources ai!'

Unfortunately, the salvage thing murdered them. And they werent honestly very good to begin with, since the last round of nerfs.. Although at some point frigates became not-immune to them, which made me happy.

And the best part - when the AI has them, theyre completely useless!

[TechSY730]

I like straight forward ships. So Zenith Electric Bombers (though, as pointed out, their cap stats are a bit underwhelming at the moment compared to other types of ship cap), Spire railclusters, MRLSes, and laser gatlings (yes, THOSE laser gatlings, yes they are certainly underpowered right now, but they can still do some work, especially their sheer number can be a good way to distract and cause a large amount of waste in an alpha strike). Easy to use and clear with their purpose, the way I like my starting ships.

Don't get me wrong, I abuse other ship types' specialties when I come across them. It's just that I don't really like starting the game with them, rather, come across them as the time comes.

I have been experimenting with Neinzul youngling fireflies + regen chambers. They deal damage to "charge up", and then retreat to the chamber to heal up and maintain their charge, so they can keep fighting to build up more charge. It's been working well so far, and only slightly deviates from the "just throw it in" that I like from my starting ships.

I have also been experimenting with Zenith medic frigates some, as they are also very "throw in-able", but also come with a nifty ability to keep your fleet alive longer, very useful in the early game and overall, especially before you can afford mobile space docks/repairers.


In terms of ships I don't mind getting through ARS throughout the game:
- Any of the above I mentioned, except for youngling fireflies (unless I built my long term arrangement of stuff around it, it isn't all that worth it to try to fit them in after I start getting things rolling)
- Zenith Bombarder (for obvious reasons)
- Parasite (the fleet ship)
- Autocanon minipods (surprisingly effective at softening things up in a stealth mission, thanks to their bonuses and cloaking, and they have armor rotting too, meaning armored stuff won't stuff their low damage for very long)
- Most spire ships (again, for obvious reasons)
- Vampire claws (though it would be nice if the health gain percentage went up a bit)

[Bognor]

[things about the AI getting Protector Starships]

Already on Mantis.  It's not only for Everything AIs.

[keith.lamothe]

Unfortunately, the salvage thing murdered them.

I've done tons of dock-cannon combat (mainly by building tigers into the AI's face) and not found the salvage thing to be a massive deterrent there.  It's a counterbalance, sure, but the tactic was still a significant net gain.  Have you tried it with the autobomb?

[Lancefighter]

Honesty, it just feels like past early game autobombs arent doing anything relevant at all, just tieing up engineers that would be better off elsewhere afking on top of a city.

Id probably agree the counter waves arent a big deal from salvage (a tier 1 wave is basically nothing, and a tier 2 wave is barely a thing), but last game I played with autobombs I just dont really feel like they had any impact.

[Kahuna]

Snipers
-Expensive
-Fragile
+Infinite range
+Shots hit instantly
+Very good damage multipliers (Bombers, Guardians, Fighters)
+High damage

Neinzul Youngling Tigers
^^

Anti Armor
-Fragile
-Is countered by and has shorter range than Missile Frigates
+Very good damage multipliers
+Very high damage (744000 cap dps)
+Long range

Munitions Boosters
-Not a real combat ship
-Fragile
-Is countered by and has shorter range than Missile Frigates
+Ok damage
+Artillery damage multiplier
+80% damage boost at Mark I
+Even a single Munitions Booster can boost dozens of ships/turrets
+Can be used to boost turrets' damage
+Can be combined with Missile Frigates, Plasmasiege Starships and Riot Starships for long range kiting fleet. Mark II Munitions Boosters "give Missile Frigates 2,1 damage multiplier vs everything". Kind of.

Space Planes
-Fragile
+High damage
+Very good damage multipliers
+Surprisingly good at destroying AI Guard Posts they don't have damage multipliers against
+Very good at neutering AI planets and raiding in general
+Range > radar dampening
+Cloaking
+Very fast
+Dirt cheap

Eye Bots
-Slow
-Limited damage multipliers
+Good damage
+Surprisingly good damage even without damage multipliers
+Dirt cheap
+Cloaking and cloaking boosting
+Works as a scout
+Missile immunity and refractive hull --> surprisingly tanky
+Sniper and force field immunity
+Heavy and Structural damage multipliers
+Good at AI homeworld attacks for destroying those Mark V Force Fields and Heavy hull core guard posts
+Good at killing AI Flagships and Hybrids
+Immune to insta killv

Bulletproof Fighters
-Is countered by and has shorter range than Missile Frigates
+Very tanky
+Very high damage
+Good damage multipliers
+Mark I Fighters + Mark I bulletproof fighters = a lot of firepower vs their damage multipliers --> no need to unlock any more polycyrstal or medium killing things --> unlock more Missile Frigates and Bombers.
+Immune to insta kill

Infiltrators
-Fragile
-Is countered by and has shorter range than Missile Frigates
+High damage
+Damage multipliers vs heavy and medium --> very good at killing guardians, hybrids and heavy hull core guard posts.
+Force field immunity
+Good base damage
+Good at raiding
+Dirt cheap
+Cloaking

Acid Sprayer
-Is melee and countered by fighters
-Specialized role
+Immune to missiles
+Tanky
+Insane dps (936960)
+Will obliterate AI bombers, zenith starships
+Very good if you're going to unlock a lot of ships (instead of turrets for example)
+Acid Sprayers kill bombers and will win missile frigates --> unlock more missile frigates to kill AI fighters which counter Acid Sprayers
+Fair price

Attractor Drone
-Specialized role
+Counters AI zenith starships and missile frigates
+long range
+Ok damage
+Very good if you're going to unlock a lot of ships (instead of turrets for example)
+Attracts lasers --> unlock counter missile turrets and/or Mark IV Scout Starships --> your stuff is immune to lasers and missiles
+Fair price

[The Hunter]

(Its been a while since i posted last time, isnt it?)

My fav for now is new random option, really, made me try ships that i haven't tried before, its fun. Then again i like randomness in games(With certain exceptions), so...
Also i sometimes like picking themed ships for multiplayer games, like when everyone picks zenith ships only or something like that.

As for something i dont like to pick, its Protector starships, ironically. At least unless doing some silly/ridiculous game settings. The reason being mostly cause having protector starships with fleet is like having regen golem or something, if not more than that, lol. I am okay in finding them in ARS/Fabs/Backups, but having them at start is a bit too much. (I'm probably only one who has that opinion on them though)

[Burnstreet]

my favorites:

• Shield Bearer
  • + portable force fields w/o damage reduction. huge survivability gain, especially when combined with N Scapegoats
  • + make your ships tractor immune while below them
  • + available in base game
• N Scapegoats
  • + save you masses of metal when you have many expensive fleetships
  • + when combined with some spacedocs on auto-build, can make your fleet unkillable
  • + cheap
  • - contraproductive when used with railpods or other cheap suicide units
• Space planes
• Tractor Drone Launchers
  • + everything that is short ranged and tractorable gets carried away
  • nice immunities
  • - expensive
  • - canceled by gravity
  • - ineffective against frigates

I have to go, so I may add more later