Nebulous: Fleet Command

[wet root]

Rather than being a point threshold

[quiet quiver]

It'll kinda suck tho if you're RPFing a shuttle and don't even notice the pods launch

[wicked mirage]

Ah, yeah that is a potential concern xD

[wet root]

I actually really like that, having to be careful with what you're shooting 250mm of high explosives at feels very in-theme

[glad aurora]

Task Force 4 Autumns

[wicked mirage]

You can zoom in and see if you hear alarms, if you do it means the ship is dead and about to release lifepods.

[wet root]

I still have no idea what the evac alarm sounds like vs the other alarms lol

[glad aurora]

Roll the dice: Is the fleet you're facing about to be four shuttles or four ConLs? You may never know

[wet root]

Space oil is my means of checking

[minor raven]

Is that the end product of rory's work?

[wicked mirage]

YEAH!~

[wet root]

While I doubt this will happen, I wish they would change it so ships broadcast an evac signal (i.e. changed their intel status to "Evacuated") before they actually started podding - say, 30 seconds before (it's 1 minute between ship getting killed and pods IIRC, so that would be right in the middle)

[minor raven]

Very much worth learning. Knowing when a ship is dead sooner is very helpful

[minor raven]

Sweet. He did a good job

[wet root]

Checking for smoke/alarms is one of those micro taxes that Neb is mostly good at avoiding

But I know that removing it completely will never happen because of the playerbase, so making it less critical at least would be nice

[quiet quiver]

Oh also I get why you don't wanna just have your tenders automatically withdraw, but I still don't know what'll discourage "okay everyone withdraw" when it's not a fight you wanted to have in the first place

[wicked mirage]

I'm sure there will be changes to ensure QoL, we definitely don't want people to accidentally kill lifepods too much because that would be frustrating and not good gameplay.

[wicked mirage]

That's... a discussion that's being had xD Conquest is still early in development.

[wet root]

Could have it only work if they have a functional antenna as well

[quiet quiver]

Heh, yeah I figured

Also I didn't know that podding was a whole minute after, that means waiting for pods is potentially a lot of wasted fire

[wet root]

Yeah, it takes a while

[wicked mirage]

I can't comment on specifics, but yeah I at least think that trapping an enemy fleet into a disadvantaged battle should be rewarding, but also not overly crushing for the team that got trapped either.

something something balance

happy middle grounds etc

[wet root]

Could be something like a fuel cost to withdrawing that goes down over time

Or goes down with total score acquired would be better

So if you withdraw without capping a single point you're losing a lot of fuel, but if it's been a back and forth battle where each point has changed hands twice but now they've pushed you back and there's no chance to retake, you can withdraw for free

[quiet quiver]

I'm meanwhile imagining a different paradigm where enemy ships that get close can prevent a clean retreat so you at least have to fight the fast ones off

[junior heron]

I forget, what are the rules for the tug-of-war mode?

if you have more points than your opponent, you get score?

[misty storm]

i kinda want to play a game with carriers and vanilla+ to see how stuplidly fuckbusted it is

[wet root]

Yep, score change is based on difference in points held. In Skirmish it tends to become annihilation but should work a lot better in Conquest

[bitter furnace]

in the concept document, it says that retreating from a defensive battle without killing any enemy ships will double the victory point losses from that battle - fight or face dishonour

[quiet quiver]

Ah I see

[bitter furnace]

in offensive battles, it's not an issue because you wouldn't be in the battle if you didn't want it to happen

[quiet quiver]

Makes sense, though I'm imagining this incentivizes yubbing one thing before you skedaddle

And thus the enemy force wanting to play cautious and prevent a yub death without at least inflicting damage themselves

[bitter furnace]

Control:
both teams start with 0% points
Team A holds 3 caps, Team B holds 2 caps = Team A accrues 6 points per tick, Team B accrues 4 points per tick
Team A holds 4 caps, Team B holds 1 caps = Team A accrues 8 points per tick, Team B accrues 2 points per tick

Tug of War:
both teams start with 50% points
Team A holds 3 caps, Team B holds 2 caps = Team A accrues 2 points per tick, Team B decays 2 points per tick
Team A holds 4 caps, Team B holds 1 caps = Team A accrues 6 points per tick, Team B decays 6 points per tick

effectively, in Control, an early lead can spiral into a victory because you can hold on to a single cap and still inch over the finish line, but in Tug of War, to win, you have to hold a majority of the caps until the end

[olive blade]

testing against a bb with disco, 2 blankets, 2 chaff/flare launchers facing up + down, active decoys and the meme missile firing torps at about 3.8km range, with various illum counts

[quiet quiver]

Mathematically, it's like playing control and you win with a 500-pt lead instead of a 1000-pt threshhold

[junior heron]

ah

[bitter furnace]

Tug of War puts time pressure on the team that holds a minority of the map, without making the whole battle revolve around the cap points to the exclusion of good positioning and other strategic considerations

[bitter furnace]

Definitely, we will see how it plays when balance testing starts. A lot will depend on how easy or hard it is to manufacture new missiles to resupply

[wary flame]

four shuttles would be considerably more dangerous

[glad aurora]

oof

[wary flame]

three conLs and one shuttle becomes a terrifying monstrosity but four conLs is a piñata

because none of them have radar

I want to be set loose on conquest purely to design awful container liner carrier strike groups

[glad aurora]

carrier strike group vs. 20 vauxhalls

... come to think of it, are we ever getting sub equivalents

[wary flame]

torpedo MN

fat, slow, can't take a hit fom any missiles because it has no PD, hits like a truck, ambush dependent

fairly cheap

assert dominance over the Solomon

[quiet quiver]

IDK, they could have radar if they have 40 containers of throw rate instead of 56

[wet root]

You could get 52 plus a radar fairly easily

just pray your radar conl doesn't get popped

[glad aurora]

drawing straws for who has to play the radar conl again

[junior heron]

you think you're getting multiple container liner designs?

you'll take the radar container liner and you'll accept it

[wet root]

You could probably go 12 channels and an EWR

[junior heron]

of course we'll need at least 2 battleship designs though, one for beam and one for cannons

[glad aurora]

Taking up design resources with the Vauxhall that's nothing but six torpedo turrets as we speak

[wet root]

Oh, conquest will be painful for me

Everyone will want designs with "PD" and "DC"

[supple sonnet]

Then thequstion of wich kind of Gun BB gets made, is it in the patern of the Sunray, on of pyropes nightmares, or the Queen of Hunger.

[wet root]

All my EWAR gone

[glad aurora]

come to think of it, most of my usual designs are very cursed for Conquest

the Uncomfortably Little DC battlecruiser Ocellos, the Kitakami Vauxhall, the beam BB...

[mint sinew]

Capitals will also be running on fewer compartment slots due to Flags and likely an extra magazine. It's going to be interesting to see how the designs shift when we aren't optimising to limp over 1000 points of control

[wet root]

Well, flags don't have to be in capitals - there's a reason I mentioned the Box of Nerds (unarmed Monitor with an intel center that sits in the backline)

Will be curious if there's any incentive to fighting with your flag - hopefully there will be

Extra mags will also depend somewhat on the withdrawal costs, but I imagine you're right about them being more common

It's a lot easier to get them in Ocellos and Axfords if you're not squishing up against the 1500 point line, and being able to put down a crippled Sollie for good is very worth the cost

[glad aurora]

the most likely flag spot for ANS is probably going to be a yub axford or raines

[wet root]

I think putting it on a Raines is rather risky, they're already priority targets

[glad aurora]

Sure, but how often do they get engaged until the game's already a lost cause?

[wet root]

Depends on how many MMTs OSP has

[glad aurora]

Fair.

[quiet quiver]

Time to roll out the prowler-drive 4-PD intel/flag-room raines

[junior heron]

pretty sure flag room will require a cruiser+

maybe destroyer+

[wet root]

Sarissa Box with flag and intel doesn't sound absurd

Nose mounted ELINT on a Keystone

[olive blade]

if not that would be funny, double prowler sprinter on the floor of the map

[wet root]

Or a beam so you can give anyone who tries to hunt you down a nasty surprise

[junior heron]

please help my ensign, they're running out of points to build their fleet. Here is their flak budget:

[olive blade]

yikes

[quiet quiver]

Okay, the largest compartment on Axford is a 6x1x8, Vauxhall or Keystone both have one this size, Raines does not

[misty storm]

can frigates benfit from having restores or do you just run 1 rapid on em

[wet root]

They can, personally I don't

[junior heron]

I like having 1 because I'll often lose drive or reactor

[wet root]

214 points, for anyone curious

[junior heron]

213, right?

[olive blade]

I don't think its super worthwhile to have restores on them, I tend to find the frigate once it starts taking real hits tends to die or be broken past one restore

[glad aurora]

Are Activest Decoys supposed to be ~14pts?

[wet root]

213 1/3, it rounds up

[wet root]

They should only be like 8 IIRC

[junior heron]

7 or 8

[glad aurora]

If I drop down to regular SSJ instead of BSSJ it's 9, hm

[junior heron]

you want ssj

SSJ is orb so it'll pull things

BSSJ is a cone so it's harder

[wet root]

BSSJ is much worse for this case

[glad aurora]

Ah, gotcha

Then fixed instead of steerable seeker?

[wet root]

No seeker

You don't want it to hit

[glad aurora]

Hm. I thought you fired it off like a usual AMM

So no defensive behavior either, I take it, you just dump it out somewhere

[wet root]

You do, but you want it to just pass by the incoming salvo and draw them off

[junior heron]

you do need it to be marked defensive to skip programming

[wet root]

If it has a seeker it will home in and destroy itself

[mint sinew]

You do, but without a seeker it just dumbfires in the vague direction of the incoming missiles

[wet root]

SAH also works

Just make sure nobody floodlights the missiles

[junior heron]

here's my version

[glad aurora]

Ah, I see.

[misty storm]

i wish there was a way to mark an amm as manual fire only in the missile designer

[glad aurora]

Targeting behavior 3+ only, or 2+?

[misty storm]

you only want to shoot them at ARAD or HOJ

so i guess you can just set 1 2 and 3 to red

[mint sinew]

Set it with no targets. Prio marked missiles still get AMMs that don't match on size

[junior heron]

same :(
I made a suggestion on the neb server for exactly that

[mint sinew]

You can launch them at ACT as a jammer too, though they will likely return to target

[glad aurora]

now, dare I risk a beam BB with only two beams + the fore CLS mount (I do not have anywhere else to put a launcher for S2s)

[misty storm]

you can just set 1 2 and 3 to red

[wet root]

Why not three beams and VLS on the C4?

[glad aurora]

Because then I lose out on the torpedoes.

That would be very sad.

[wet root]

Why not just do a S3 bowling ball then?

[glad aurora]

Bowling ball?

[wet root]

Activest Decoy

[glad aurora]

... you know, fair point

Jesus, that's actually much less expensive than the S2 version.

[wet root]

Er, the S3 decoy? Or overall price?

I'd have thought the S3 would cost about the same

[glad aurora]

S3 decoy with max maneuverability + cold gas + no seeker, no warhead is 4pts

update: forgot to install the jammer

[mint sinew]

I think you forgot the SSJ

[glad aurora]

10pts

[wet root]

You could probably drop the maneuver to save a few points

I think you want burn time more than anything else

[glad aurora]

175 m/s for 7.4km at 18.9/2.5g is 8pts

[misty storm]

i feel like the carriers mod needs more time in the oven. however, ive found the hulls that got added in vanilla+ interesting so i made a BC and a CC fleet. vanilla+ is still kinda silly imo since it adds smol beam turrets that can go on a vaux which is. terrifying

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'BC + Escort Frigates' is composed of 3 ships that cost 3000 points:

  Bone Pack : Constantine []
Gusty Armor : 'Raines' class Frigate [PD Missile]
  Bold Data : 'Raines' class Frigate [PD Missile]
```This fleet uses 3 different missile types:
```yaml
                             SGM-110 Block : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
                     SGM-299 Activer Decoy : DIRECT - SAH(RADAR) - NONE [8pts]
SGM-H-216 Stairs With not Enough Head Room : CRUISE - ACT(RADAR)/PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [11pts]

Mods required:

• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3047591006

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'CC + Scouts' is composed of 1 ship which costs 3000 points:

Straw Black : Typhon []
```This fleet uses 3 different missile types:
```yaml
                             SGM-110 Block : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
                     SGM-299 Activer Decoy : DIRECT - SAH(RADAR) - NONE [8pts]
SGM-H-216 Stairs With not Enough Head Room : CRUISE - ACT(RADAR)/PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [11pts]

Mods required:

• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3047591006

[misty storm]

mostly throwing in the activer decoys since i wanna use em :)

what do regular 4 point active decoys work on?

[mint sinew]

Well they cost 8 points now. They bait ACT and ARAD seekers and SAH if they are illuminated

(and pass the validation for all of the above)

[misty storm]

oh fair

does having chaff and then just using activer decoys for ARAD and HOJ if you have an s2 launcher better then? since theyre 8 points too

[mint sinew]

Seems to be a common setup at the moment. If you already want an S2 launcher the costs are pretty close

SSJ decoys trigger ARAD seekers at jamming ranges which can mess up decoys and sprint stages.

Active decoys can't be avoided by ACT[ARAD] seekers like the SSJ AMMs

[glad aurora]

vaguely contemplating this as a battleship fleet for the modern state of neb, as loath as I am to walk into anywhere with just a mere six torpedoes

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'NG 2 Magician' is composed of 2 ships that cost 3000 points:

   Mirror of Days : 'Solomon' class Battleship [Beam PD Missile Sensor]
Shield of Morning : 'Raines' class Frigate [Gun EWar]
```This fleet uses 2 different missile types:
```yaml
   SGT-351 Ascalon : DIRECT - CMD - HE SHAPED [25pts]
SGT-370 False Idol : DIRECT - NONE - NONE [8pts]

[wary flame]

disregard stonewall, obtain interrupt jammer

and way more softkill

can also remove three of the rapid DC lockers and take Aux Steerings instead, they absorb damage like nothing else

[glad aurora]

more softkill?

I'm also surprised interrupts over the two blankets

[wary flame]

they do different jobs

but you can afford to pare back on the flak, stonewalls to rebounds

swap one for the interrupt

I generally go with 10 or so act decoys and 20+ chaff

[glad aurora]

I assume no flares anymore?

Can't really remember when I last saw an OSP wake missile anyway

[wary flame]

maybe take half a dozen

[glad aurora]

my brother in christ, I do not have enough mounts for all these

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'NG 2 Magician' is composed of 2 ships that cost 3000 points:

   Mirror of Days : 'Solomon' class Battleship [Beam Missile PD EWar Sensor]
Shield of Morning : 'Raines' class Frigate [Gun EWar]
```This fleet uses 2 different missile types:
```yaml
SGM-270 False Idol : DIRECT - NONE - NONE [8pts]
   SGT-351 Ascalon : DIRECT - CMD - HE SHAPED [25pts]

[mint sinew]

Is the VLS-2 worth it over just S3 SSJ AMMs?

[glad aurora]

Debatable

At the moment, it's +10pts and +1 mount, and I suppose if I didn't, I could do something like

this

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'NG 2 Magician' is composed of 2 ships that cost 3000 points:

   Mirror of Days : 'Solomon' class Battleship [Beam PD Missile EWar Sensor]
Shield of Morning : 'Raines' class Frigate [Gun EWar]
```This fleet uses 2 different missile types:
```yaml
   SGT-351 Ascalon : DIRECT - CMD - HE SHAPED [25pts]
SGT-370 False Idol : DIRECT - NONE - NONE [8pts]

[misty storm]

If you hit z to launch an activer decoy at some containers, if you put it on the first one will it explode when it reaches it or will it go past (it doesn’t have a warhead)

[glad aurora]

Jesus.

[misty storm]

Nice

[mint sinew]

Only if you have it on self destruct I guess. It should otherwise keep going until the fuel runs out

[misty storm]

Ok I’ve gotta check that then

[mint sinew]

It's very funny on the container ones as you get to watch them sail out past the retreat line

[wary flame]

raines won't use the large DC locker, it can have two rapids or one rapid and an aux steering

maybe drop one stonewall and take a rebound instead, put all that budget into a stack of active decoys and you're probably all right

[glad aurora]

Interesting to see how much the meta's changed in the area of capital fleets, that's for sure.

[misty storm]

Have torpedo turrets became better or are they still kinda bad?

[misty storm]

i wonder if mazer will make a special ui for tug of war

[misty storm]

trying to update this hybrid cl fleet into something else since torpedo turrets are still bad and i dont know what

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Hybrid CLs + Jamming Sprinters' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

Split Candy : 'Vauxhall' class Light Cruiser [Gun PD]
  Deaf Wrap : 'Vauxhall' class Light Cruiser [Gun PD]
Metal Squat : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [PD EWar]
 Fancy Comb : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [PD EWar]
```This fleet uses 5 different missile types:
```yaml
            SGM-110 Block : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
              SGM-113 Jab : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [2pts]
SGM-171 Tribble Container : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
          SGT-313 Javelin : DIRECT - CMD - HE SHAPED [12pts]
            SGT-314 Arrow : DIRECT - CMD - HE SHAPED [24pts]

[misty storm]

@noble zodiac dont you have an ans capgame fleet thats a similar format? (2 vauxes and sprinters)

[noble zodiac]

yup

1 sec lemme grab it

i need to update it tho

(mostly bc the PD is bad and softkill is A Thing Now)

[lime jungle]

Fleet '3k - Saga of the Ice Queen (Mk 1) (Reskin of Vancouver Canucks)' is composed of 5 ships that cost 3000 points:

     I Am A Huntress : 'Vauxhall' class Light Cruiser [Gun PD Sensor]
   This Life Is Mine : 'Vauxhall' class Light Cruiser [Gun PD Sensor]
   Path To Isolation : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Missile Gun PD]
       Mirror Mirror : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Missile Gun PD]
The Loneliest Of All : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Missile Gun PD]
```This fleet uses 5 different missile types:
```yaml
       SGM-10 Sliver of Hope : DIRECT - HOJ(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
         SGM-135 Egg Cracker : DIRECT - CMD - HE SHAPED [4pts]
        SGM-177 Eyes of Fire : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [2pts]
   SGM-222 From Dust To Dust : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR)/[PSV(WAKE)] - HE SHAPED [5pts]
SGM-H-262 Like Tears In Rain : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR)/[PSV(WAKE)] - HE SHAPED [10pts]

[misty storm]

ok thanks

can vauxes benefit all that much from an aux steering

[olive blade]

its still tough and in the nose and can get you out of bad situations

I like it

[wary flame]

padding out all your spare bow compartments with aux steerings I would say is optimal

adds a huge amount of tank

[misty storm]

ok

[misty storm]

curious to see how you update it!

what is a good way to do liners + ewr tug + bloodhound tug? mostly curious what mix of guns on the liners

doesnt a good gun liner run ~1000ish

[mint sinew]

My general version of that is a 250mm (4c56 + 1C53) liner and a gun liner of choice (450/100, plasma/100, second 250m).

Round out your points with a shuttle or two

[misty storm]

may i see an example

[mint sinew]

You are rarely going to be unhappy to have a 250mm liner, while the others are more tailored to specific threats

[mint sinew]

Not from me, I'm about 1500km away from my PC

[misty storm]

ok

does anyone have a standard example of a current meta 250 liner?

[tulip vault]

It sounded to me like withdrawing ships that withdrew before the like, retreat phase, went somewhere semi-random? Though my brain may be just filling in the blanks there

But also conquest just looks great

The portraits for the officers look awesome, not to mention that the bonuses seem very very relevant and quite good? Which I do like quite a bit

[wet root]

I think it was just that they had to be given an order to a location (presumably different from their current destination if intercepted)

[tulip vault]

Oh, huh

Yeah I dunno then

I guessed it was a hasty retreat in disarray kind of thing but I suppose not

[wet root]

I think it's more ensuring they can't just turn around and re-cap

Or that interceptions disrupt their operations

I do like the idea of a retreat in disarray kind of thing

Have them go to the nearest friendly location or something

That could be annoyingly abusable though

[wet root]

Ditto, though I did submit a suggestion that officers should only get bonuses that are actually relevant to the ships they're serving on (e.g. no -programming time if you don't have any missiles)

So that they end up specializing in their own ships

#905325713861771265 message

[tulip vault]

I more had the idea they went to a variety of friendly places, or maybe even an uninhabited rock, just to make it real annoying

Also your officer thing is a great idea

Im so happy that mazer didn’t do AI art for the portraits. I didn’t expect it persay but these of days it’s always a worry plaguing me

But they look so good, the artist they got is amazing

[wary flame]

oak with modern softkill suite

[glad aurora]

Alright, now that I've finally sat down and read the devlog, I'm really looking forward to running a commerce raider Vauxhall fleet.

The question is whether S3, pure 250, or some combination thereof will work best for killing logistics ships, and "does this finally make Prowler Vauxhall worth it"

[rigid bison]

(ab)using the Romulan Cloaking Device that comes standard with every Ocello for commerce raiding is gonna be funny

[glad aurora]

Are Ocellos fast enough for commerce raiding?

(that is, the ones that aren't my triple whiplash abominations)

[wet root]

They can be

[glad aurora]

Hm.

New battle win method: just rush their fuel ships and run

enjoy getting stranded, idiots

[rigid bison]

wonder how fuel ships react to grape from sunnydrive gunshuttles

(or rockets if that fails)

[glad aurora]

I assume they're actually going to be fairly heavily armored so you have to interact with them with serious guns (250+)

[bitter furnace]

Interesting idea

that might be something I can see the Alliance doing, but I dunno about the OSP, lorewise I mean

[mint sinew]

I'd assume that the OSP fuel ship will be a liner variant so will be similarly durable

[wet root]

Lineships are durable because they're full of empty space, I would expect one that's full of fuel to be much more volatile

[olive blade]

I feel like yub strikes are gonna be the real thing they fear

if ANS logistics is not container resistant...

[rigid bison]

Sarissa+softkill+defender escorts will be very useful

[mint sinew]

Yub will be a logistical strain on its own, so I think that minigame will be interesting

[olive blade]

yeah

I can definitely see big yub then retreat fleets existing

[glad aurora]

simply don't have a logistics train 🙂

Then you beat everyone who had to spend resources on bringing a logistics train + defenders for it to the fight

[olive blade]

I think actually its a pretty big buff to yub ships if they can just fuck off

after firing everything

like sure you gotta handle the logistics or whatever

but its probably easier than making a whole new ship

[sharp crow]

depends on if you can intercept the ammoless ships before they get resupplied I suppose

especially if VLSs work like they do for the US navy right now and they can only be resupplied at a base

[glad aurora]

VLS fluff explicitly says it can only be resupplied in port

which is interesting, because IIRC torpedo tubes/turrets don't

[olive blade]

yeah mls you presumably can load from a supply ship too

I guess osp yub outside containers is pretty bad atm

so I dunno how much it will change

[worthy bane]

MLS's would be reloadable out of port, right? (at least, lorewise) because the missiles are just in a magazine?

[misty storm]

Yub ships may just end up being economically unviable lol

[worthy bane]

Also wait because starting ammo is a factor of total ammo in your navy designs...
Can't wait for the inevitable story of a game where ANS skimps on defender ammo count to squeeze in another ship or something, and then the OSP hit whatever station makes defender ammo and realise they can just drip feed single containers or weave missiles as ammo sinks and run the pd budget dry
(I don't think it's likely but it would be funny)

[worthy bane]

Yub has the advantage of letting smaller, cheaper, hulls punch up and simply by existing forcing the other side to respect groups of smaller or fewer ships and play more cautious
(Also, making and refitting missiles might end up being easier, especially for any missile ships that don't need to be at port to rearm, than changing or refitting the PD/softkill options of ships - the smaller ship design pool also means once things kick off you can tailor your missiles to specific enemy targets and in environments where PD is a known quality)

[worthy bane]

Yeah, if you yub someone they're out a ship and all the ammo and officers on it, you're just out the missiles and the trip to port

Oh! The fact major repairs need port might (depending on what counts as "you need to go to port to fix this" damage) have implications for battleshorting

(chained this off of thinking about the fact that won but got missiled hard is much more pyrrhic now)

[rigid bison]

Auroras (and to a much lesser extent grazers) might be better simply for not having ammo consumption

[rigid bison]

Also are there gonna be boats today?

[sly glade]

Don't see why there wouldn't be, though I'm probably not joining tonight

I know Aneta's looking forwards to it

[arctic magnet]

I'll be around

[supple sonnet]

We are probaly goign to pass, insomina has been kicking our ass

[arctic magnet]

backpack missile question: why S3H and not S2H? I figure the general argument for hybrids is the sprint stage and HEKP for killing monitors, but wouldn't S2H be as good in that role, but also cheaper?

[tulip vault]

I know one thing is that s2h benefits a lot more from larger salvo sizes, which kinda conflicts with the idea of a backpack

[arctic magnet]

oh, looking in the editor, the S3H sprint stage is just larger

[misty storm]

does anyone have a standard example of a current meta 250 liner?

this is what ive got rn

[lime jungle]

Fleet '250 Liners + Search Tugs' is composed of 4 ships that cost 2561 points:

Flaky Dying : 'Bulk Freighter' class Line Ship [Missile PD Sensor]
Weedy Frost : 'Bulk Freighter' class Line Ship [Missile PD Sensor]
  Snub Logo : 'Tugboat' class Clipper [Sensor PD]
North Delta : 'Tugboat' class Clipper [PD]

[wet root]

S3H are more cost-efficient on a per-missile basis, and better at getting past point defense in small salvos

But they also take up a lot more space, so for smaller ships like Vauxhalls I prefer S2H backpacks, because 24 S2H goes a lot further than 6 S3H

[runic torrent]

<@&942093958551588904> opening boat night channels!

[wet root]

I'll be on in a few mins

[junior heron]

@wary flame will you be joining us today?

[wicked mirage]

I don't think I can play Boat Night today x.x as much as I would like to I got stuff to do today D:

[junior heron]

fair enough

[glad aurora]

Abandon the stuff, Jessie. There is only Boat.

Sink into the Boat. Let it embrace you as a friend.

[wary flame]

probably not boating tonight, sorry

[olive blade]

I'm around noiw

[sly glade]

They're about halfway done with a match rn

[olive blade]

oki

[sly glade]

Game's over!

[mint sinew]

Can't give you a full build, but here are some things to look at:

• after a few ammo elevators a rapid cycle cradle or two improves your fire rate more for c56s (the goal being 3ae:2rcc)
• a citadel mag should be a free durability upgrade if you are using the xl slot. I doubt you'll fill it
• conventional wisdom suggests that you don't need a GPC for 250mm
• bulkers are so long that they really benefit from running 2 cics at opposite ends of the ship. The one in the bow can even be a basic if you are skimping on points (it takes less fire)
• my standard bulker DC Loadout is one each of: [DCX, large storage, reinforced] and fill with rapids/aux to taste. This gives you a good density of restores without being too expensive. Larges have a habit of getting shot out inconveniently

[quiet quiver]

Yeah the biggest compartment slots the only thing that really needs the space are mines and missiles

And even then it's potentially a shitton of missiles

[mint sinew]

Citadel is only the capacity of a large slot reinforced mag, but that's still plenty unless you are bringing ordnance or a double load of ammo (e.g turret bulker or 450/100) though even those should just squeeze in

[wary flame]

I know from experience that 450/100 and plas/100 can still fit in a large reinforced

[mint sinew]

Yeah, i just remembered when I refit after the patch I struggled to fit an overlap of ammo types i.e. more ammo than I need total so I didn't run out of AP if ANS brought oops all capitals

[misty storm]

ok thanks

[wet root]

The rarest sight

[misty storm]

POG

[tulip vault]

That’s amazing

[misty storm]

something like this? ignore the other 2 ships @mint sinew

[lime jungle]

Fleet '250 Liners + Intel Squadron' is composed of 3 ships that cost 1926 points:

Flaky Dying : 'Bulk Freighter' class Line Ship [Missile PD Sensor]
 Timid Base : 'Cargo Feeder' class Monitor [PD Gun]
  Snub Logo : 'Tugboat' class Clipper [Sensor Gun PD]
```This fleet uses 2 different missile types:
```yaml
            SGM-110 Block : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
SGM-171 Tribble Container : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]

[misty storm]

not sure on ammo balance

[mint sinew]

Looks pretty solid.

• PD/backpack can be tweaked to taste.
• I forgot to mention this in the first pass but one of the aft sections of the bulker has the PD mounts aligned with the broadside casemates. This means you can mount a C53 alongside your C56s for a bit more firepower

[quiet quiver]

Also the monitor can take citadel mags too

[misty storm]

Yeah, just uh. What would you reccomend for ammo on the bulker?

[mint sinew]

🤷 start at 600 of each 250mm ammo, 12k 20mm and 900 flak? Adjust to taste and experience

[misty storm]

lookin pretty good

[lime jungle]

Fleet '250 Liners + Intel Squadron' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

Flaky Dying : 'Bulk Freighter' class Line Ship [Missile PD Sensor]
 Used Yield : 'Bulk Freighter' class Line Ship [Missile PD Sensor]
 Timid Base : 'Cargo Feeder' class Monitor [PD Gun]
  Snub Logo : 'Tugboat' class Clipper [Sensor Gun PD]
```This fleet uses only one missile type:
```yaml
SGM-110 Block : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]

[olive blade]

that looks pretty reasonable

I'd maybe get a huntress on one so it can burnthrough if you get jammed a bunch

but thats about it

[mint sinew]

Consider a yard drive on the monitor over a sundrive. It'll be pretty sluggish to aim otherwise

[misty storm]

ok

[mint sinew]

Now I'm looking at your spotters:

• unless you are being jammed a second arr doesn't make a huge difference, you are likely better off with a scryer
• I'd also look at a huntress on your monitor as you have the TCs to make it good to shoot at anyway (and can still scale up to a boosted for the power)
• 100mm ammo comes in stacks of 250 so it's free to round up

[misty storm]

OH that right on the 100

[olive blade]

scryer is a good shout, I don't mind the double arr I personally find it helps with finding sprinters but thats a preference thing

[misty storm]

ok thanks

[mint sinew]

That's what I get for trusting conventional wisdom, I should run the numbers myself to check that

[olive blade]

Its hard to know, I found it helped a bit but its so hard to know with neb what actually matters

[misty storm]

what benefit does a scryer give if im just using amms and hope

also cant the intelligence center id missiles

[tulip vault]

Scryer can ID the size of the missile quicker which helps with picky amms

Also it does but much slower than a scryer

[misty storm]

Ok

[minor raven]

The size along with the seeker head, which is very helpful for counter-play.

random fun fact about the scryer. It weighs slightly more than other comparable modules, meaning if you have two idedentical ships, like a pair of CLs, the one with a scryer will move like 1m/s slower.

No idea why that choice was made or why I felt the need to share it.

[wet root]

(Just to nitpick, it's closer to 1cm/s slower, weight is basically entire negligible)

It is a nice touch, since the scryer is basically one of those old room-sized computers IIRC

[misty storm]

What are some good niches to cover as ans team comp wise?

[tulip vault]

I think ANS as a faction is a lot more able to bring all-rounder fleets than OSP, but I think beam DDs are a very powerful niche that I often see underrepresented in games

[misty storm]

Hm. Was thinking about that

What would a current meta beam destroyer fleet look like rn?

[topaz jolt]

Hii hi, are peoples still playing a little Nebulous?

[mint sinew]

The classic "niche" ANS is the cap/counter cap fleet where you bring a combination of scouts, fast ships and ships which are good at killing cappers

[wet root]

Unfortunately Boat Night ended a couple hours ago

[misty storm]

i have no clue how to make a beam dd

esp in the current meta

[wet root]

Make sure to bring at least two FPAs

[misty storm]

ok

idk if you wanna just do ALL beam dds or some beam dds and other ships

[oak shell]

I have a double Vauxhall+double beamstone fleet I ran before the patch

And of course there's TF Ash

[misty storm]

are eregs worth it on beam dds?

also, is a 250 or a 120 better as a secondary gun on a beam dd?

like, can a 250 get out turned at close range

[mint sinew]

Generally not, a big strength of beam DDs is that you can just battleshort when you need more beam

[misty storm]

ok

[mint sinew]

250s are fine at close range but as a rule of thumb 120s perform better than 250s when unbuffed. 250s help you kill bigger ships while 120s help more with the small threats

[supple sonnet]

120's have better DPS base then 250's and most things the OSP has can be pened by 120AP

[misty storm]

ok

when does a mk64 become better than a mk62?

[misty storm]

hows this

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Beam DDs' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

 Avian Key : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD Gun Missile]
Naive Pier : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD Gun]
 Ago Wagon : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD Gun EWar]
Dinky Dibs : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD Gun Sensor]
```This fleet uses 3 different missile types:
```yaml
                      SGM-110 Block : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
SGM-222 Stairs With Ample Head Room : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR)/[PSV(WAKE)] - HE SHAPED [5pts]
              SGM-299 Activer Decoy : DIRECT - SAH(RADAR) - NONE [8pts]

[topaz jolt]

Awwww, time goes zooom and I was making and having a little food then.

Is there a schedule for when people play normally?

[wet root]

The main time is Saturdays at 12:00 PT for Boat Nights, but I think there's often some people around in the early afternoon on weekdays

[quiet quiver]

Boat Night is the same time every week, spontaneous games are most common EST evenings

Or PST afternoons, whatever

[wet root]

You could also check Vivi's schedule, she usually plays Neb with viewers about once a week

https://twitch.tv/docvivileandra

[misty storm]

did ans used to be able to take MLSes? im seeing in a video a vaux with an mls

this is wild https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpuwX5lW_Mg

[bitter furnace]

yeah long ago, before the Modular Missile Update

MLS got yanked from Alliance roster so VLS could be more easily balanced, then a bit later it was re-introduced with the OSP Update

[misty storm]

ok

terrifying

[oak shell]

It was!

Vauxhalls were the premiere torpedo platform in those days

[misty storm]

them just SLINGING torpedoes and amms at eachother at insane speeds at super close range is wild to see

[oak shell]

Yeah
The AMMs of that era were the only real defense

And some species of Macehaull developed Auroras for shooting the AMMs

[tulip vault]

I miss my MLS torp axford

It hasn’t been the same since the MMU

Which is probably for the best, riposte screens were silly

[bitter furnace]

Defenders could handle torps, they didn't have weave or corkscrew back then, but Defenders were near useless against anything else due to bugs with their target leading logic, so they weren't very common picks

also the one torpedo design (remember this is before modular missiles), the Mace, had a max range of 3,120m - I know that number exactly because if you played the game back then you lived or died on respecting that number, avoiding ambush or rushdown through caution or scouting

[tulip vault]

Mace combat was a fun time in some ways

Certainly had interesting dynamics to it

[wary flame]

the functional max range was also somewhat lower, because in the absence of CLS the torpedoes had an absolutely gigantic arc out of the launcher

it was just one of only a few ways to actually shut down ANS capitals in the absence of just running other capitals into them wholesale, which is why the AVA meta eventually calcified around big axford and solomon deathballs

[quiet quiver]

IIRC rail solomon was also good and very hard to approach

[tulip vault]

Rail BBs were very good at that point yeah

[misty storm]

Is taking any offensive missiles useful for a beam dd? I’ve got a chunk of points left and a pretty empty s2 launcher

Also are parallaxes worth it on a beam dd

[sly glade]

They were basically what everyone had to play around yeah

A lot of torpedo shenanigans were so you'd have something lighter than a Solomon that could kill a Solomon

Because otherwise rail Solomons just kinda killed everything if they had even a little team support

[supple sonnet]

Our Beem DD's run stairs as there secondary wepion

PunchBunny ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Is taking any offensive missiles useful for a beam dd? I’ve got a chunk of points left and a pretty …

[tulip vault]

I personally forgo missiles in favour of EWAR and scouting, but I think missiles are very nice to have on beam dds

[wicked mirage]

Next week I'll be there!

[misty storm]

Do you take any extra channels or?

[supple sonnet]

one or two, it mostly just for the attrition constantly getting handfuls of them thrown about gets. any ship that's running light on flack just hast to deal with you pokeing it from potentaly across the map for a while.

The other thing about taking Yub as a seconday on beemstones is that it lets you do thigns as you get into postion, and beem stoens do kinda just kill most OSP ships that get sent to deal with yub-nub fleets

just don't get flanked

[misty storm]

does this look good?

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Beam DDs' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

 Avian Key : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD Gun Missile]
Naive Pier : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD Gun]
 Ago Wagon : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD Gun EWar]
Dinky Dibs : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD Gun Sensor]
```This fleet uses 3 different missile types:
```yaml
                             SGM-110 Block : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
                     SGM-299 Activer Decoy : DIRECT - SAH(RADAR) - NONE [8pts]
SGM-H-216 Stairs With not Enough Head Room : CRUISE - ACT(RADAR)/PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [11pts]

[tulip vault]

A few things:

• I’m not sold on the lack of redundancy in this fleet — an unlucky missile strike or even just a few shells could remove your ability to lock and then you’d be pretty high and dry
• No EWAR is personally kinda scary but that’s a more personal thing, if played solely as ambushers it’s less necessary imo
• I also think these ships have too much DC and not enough DC buffing compartments. Repair speed is huge for battleshort reasons, and as such I think you’d be further ahead with a DCC or workshop rather than the large. One restore is good to fix the beam or a reactor or something, but a situation where more than one restore would actually save a beam destroyer doesn’t come too frequently ime

Why did the list list like that

[quiet quiver]

No space after the - in the first entry

[misty storm]

Yeah I don’t know how to make a dd fleet. I was just trying to fit in the needed soft kill stuff

And go off my intuition

[wet root]

Also, you only have frontline burnthrough, which means you will fold to jamming

[tulip vault]

Hazel?

Guess not

[wet root]

Underscores strike again

[tulip vault]

Well either way that’s my current beam DD fleet

[misty storm]

It’s an xml

[tulip vault]

I dont think Ive changed it since then

Oh yeah

Thanks phone

[wet root]

You can also save the points on the programming bus if you split the missiles across two ships

Lets you get a third FPA in as well

[tulip vault]

Nope

[wet root]

still .xml

[tulip vault]

Yeah Im sadly not at my computer right now

Alas, my fleet will have to stay concealed forevermore

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Tron - ANS Fleet 2' is composed of 5 ships that cost 3000 points:

  Cleddyf O'r Haul : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
Cleddyf O'r Cyfnos : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
 Cleddyf O'r Gwawr : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
     Llygad Y Dydd : 'Raines' class Frigate [PD Sensor]
     Cu Disgleirio : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [PD]
```This fleet uses 2 different missile types:
```yaml
SGM-123 Aderyn Ryhfedd : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
       SGM-133 Cyllell : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [2pts]

[misty storm]

thanks

[tulip vault]

Oh yeah they have ACAs

Forgot about that

But yeah that’s what my beam DD fleet looks like, and I think it’s pretty good, though power management is super tight on the leader of the pack

[wet root]

This one is a bit elderly, but it's my dedicated beam fleet - notably it's in two pairs of two, since four DDs is ridiculous overkill against most any fleet

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Loose Rain' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

Rutile Flection : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam EWar PD Sensor]
  Triple Meteor : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam EWar PD Sensor]
 Perfect Freeze : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Gun Beam PD]
   Bright Night : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Gun Beam PD]

[wet root]

Pretty sure it's still the fleet that has my personal damage record

[tulip vault]

That is pretty sweet as well yeah

[misty storm]

when does a mk64 get better dps than a mk62?

hows this?

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Beam DDs + Softkill Escorts' is composed of 5 ships that cost 3000 points:

  Cleddyf O'r Haul : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
Cleddyf O'r Cyfnos : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
 Cleddyf O'r Gwawr : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
        Past Leeds : 'Raines' class Frigate [PD Gun Missile]
     Llygad Y Dydd : 'Raines' class Frigate [PD Gun EWar]
```This fleet uses only one missile type:
```yaml
SGM-299 Activer Decoy : DIRECT - SAH(RADAR) - NONE [8pts]

[misty storm]

oh i gotta change the names :)

[wet root]

Never, except when the mk62 can't pen armor or break DT IIRC

[misty storm]

ah

[wet root]

However, unlike the mk62, it significantly outranges the beam

[misty storm]

120 is 7200m and 250 is 8000m

and i mostly just have the guns there to deal dmage to stuff that can get around the beams

i do like this setup in terms of ships

[wet root]

Yeah, guns are a good idea for anti-shuttle/tug work

[misty storm]

Six blankets feels kinda overkill though?

[supple sonnet]

Nah, you relay don't want to get seen or locked in a beemstone

[misty storm]

I see

[wet root]

Also having blankets on each ship means you can split them up

Having an entire fleet of beamstones in one place is fairly questionable unless you expect to need the PD coverage

[wary flame]

nice round number

[misty storm]

if an amm is set up like this will it still shoot if i press z on something?

[wary flame]

yes, that is the standard setup for the SSJ S2 AMMs used to softkill ARAD salvoes

[misty storm]

ok yeah

[junior heron]

wait it does fire?

i would've assumed priority-targeting would only fire things doctrined for the target

guess that would mean it wouldn't fire before you identify the missile

huh

[arctic magnet]

Super Saiyan AMM

is where my brain goes every time

[noble zodiac]

wait so you literally just fire these straight at the inbounds and they work?

i thought you’d need to do some like off-angle fuckery :V

[wet root]

Nope, just fire and watch all the ARAD missiles choose their own path to the stars

[junior heron]

note: because the prioritize will lead the target, you want to make sure the missiles are on their final inbound course towards you

when I was playing the outnumbered game against Lark+Aneta+Punch, Lark was arcing a lot of containers around lots of ways, and I think I fired at a few volleys that still had a few changes in their course

[tulip vault]

Ime the real thing is that having all 3 in a ball lets you jam effectively in many directions

That’s why I drive them around together

It also tends to guarantee that at least one aims properly

[junior heron]

remember when TF Ash was the scariest fleet

[tulip vault]

I think it’s still pretty spooky tbf

[misty storm]

does this look good though?

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Beam DDs + Softkill Escorts' is composed of 5 ships that cost 3000 points:

Bound March : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
 Sound Veil : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
Stark Humor : 'Keystone' class Destroyer [Beam PD EWar Sensor]
  Able Tune : 'Raines' class Frigate [PD Gun Missile]
 Deft Story : 'Raines' class Frigate [PD Gun EWar]
```This fleet uses only one missile type:
```yaml
SGM-299 Activer Decoy : DIRECT - SAH(RADAR) - NONE [8pts]

[olive blade]

I'm not sure about the workshops on dds

[wet root]

They're nice for the beam repair speed

[olive blade]

yeah I guess

[wet root]

I would definitely put a third FPA in though

[olive blade]

3fpas is nice I find but I don't mind the heavy jamming instead

2fpa kills pretty fast too

[wet root]

If it were one or the other I'd agree, I have 2FPAs in mine to support jamming

But there's empty module slots there

[olive blade]

yeah

[wet root]

Wait, are FPAs 3x3x3?

[glad aurora]

think so

[wet root]

I was thinking they fit 2x2x2s but I might be wrong

Ahh

[wary flame]

yes

[wary flame]

<@&942093958551588904> playing pubs if anyone wants in

[noble zodiac]

pubulous

[tulip vault]

Sadly Ive been marooned, so there shall be no pubulous for me

[junior heron]

loading up now, what lobby are you in?

[wary flame]

Lesten

[wet root]

Sadly, I shall be Nebuless for the next week

[junior heron]

D: oh no
will you be around for boat night?

and/or does that also mean you're dotaless?

[wet root]

Unfortunately not, probably won't be able to spin up the server either

And yep, no Dota either, my laptop definitely can't run it any more

[runic torrent]

next boat night on <t:1704571200:F> <t:1704571200:R>!

[misty storm]

with this fleet, i was recommended to have the bloodhound on the monitor and the EWR on the tug, but why not the opposite? the tug can rotate a lot faster

[lime jungle]

Fleet '250 Liners + Intel Squadron' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

Flaky Dying : 'Bulk Freighter' class Line Ship [Missile PD Sensor]
 Used Yield : 'Bulk Freighter' class Line Ship [Missile PD Sensor]
 Timid Base : 'Cargo Feeder' class Monitor [PD Gun]
  Snub Logo : 'Tugboat' class Clipper [Sensor Gun PD]
```This fleet uses only one missile type:
```yaml
SGM-110 Block : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]

[topaz jolt]

Ooh, still playing right now? I'll attempt to join when Nebulous has loaded.

[wary flame]

most historically accurate blue BB called Bismarck

solo killed by a 580pt monitor

fired eight basic act S3H called "V2" at me, missed completely and was then splattered

[topaz jolt]

Awww, poor Bismarck

[arctic magnet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Ufc2hI4FM

"HMS" lmao

[sly glade]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyWIbZD7vg

[misty storm]

Yikes! Deserved tho lmao

[sly glade]

@olive blade look at this shit

[misty storm]

Wish you could report those fuckers

[wary flame]

the Neb community does already have a meme for this

[noble zodiac]

HMS bismarck
HMS
bismarck

[rigid bison]

I bet that this abomination was a 3k BB run by a midshipman

[glad aurora]

I'm fairly sure that's the ANS Bismarck

[wary flame]

it had an escort, it was the HMS "princ eugn"

[glad aurora]

:^)

to be fair, I've idly contemplated a set of battlecruiser Ocellos called the Scharnhorst and Tirpitz before, but those actually did something

[rigid bison]

and OakCello is a decent build

[quiet quiver]

TIL (painfully) that only one of the two Axfords in TF Oak has chaff, the other does not

[glad aurora]

WHAT THE FUCK IS A SOFTKILL

[bitter furnace]

yeah their PD is fine when kept together but split up it's not gonna fly

you can tweak Oak to your liking and save it as a new fleet

there's room for more chaff on both ships, but to get the points for it, you'll have to figure out what to sacrifice

which depends on your playstyle and what you value in a fleet

[wet root]

I'm sure the DC teams will appreciate their shore leave

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'My first Container' is composed of 1 ship which costs 2999 points:

Dash Found : 'Container Liner' class Line Ship [Missile]
```This fleet uses only one missile type:
```yaml
CM-400 Container Block II : CRUISE - ACT(RADAR)/PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [12pts]

[wary flame]

this pub game has incredible advances in EWR technology

[tulip vault]

Brilliant

[rigid bison]

fits the starsector reference

[olive blade]

wait how does that work

[junior heron]

replace the drive with a boosted reactor

and you have enough to power the EWR

the drive animation is from burning in, and is a bug

[olive blade]

oh I see testing it in the thing

hmm

135 points

[junior heron]

(I think, with the drive thing)

135 points, better be on point with your deployment

[olive blade]

its cute

but idk

a basic ewr tug with reinf cic, a little chaff, a pinpoint and a c53 is 231

[junior heron]

(not-quite-)twice as expensive but probably more than twice as useful

[olive blade]

yeah

it is cute tho

[tulip vault]

It’s a silly little creature but I would not use it over a normal EWR tug

[wary flame]

I might bring one as a meme because it looks cute

on Nyx

[rigid bison]

the sniffer

[wet root]

Oh, huh, I might actually bring the EWR buoy, 145 points with chaff is cheap

[wary flame]

new testulous

CMD val nerfed, chaff and flares deploy near-instantly, a few bug fixes and kinetic kill AMM warheads that are free and oneshot containers

not sure I like that part

[olive blade]

I can see it on nyx yeah

[olive blade]

why

and is there a full changelog somewhere

[noble zodiac]

yes!

[olive blade]

hmmm

lotta nice fixes

[junior heron]

"ANS Rails do double damage" is a nice bugfix

[wet root]

The mine change is really nice for setting up minefields in ambush points

[olive blade]

I'm not quite sure thats what it works out as tom but it is nice

[junior heron]

I think it is, that seemed to be what the bugtesting I saw people doing mathed out to

[wet root]

It is, ANS rails were doing half component damage against almost every ship

I think the exception was spinal shots on capitals

[olive blade]

hmmm

[rigid bison]

anyone down for a small Testulous game?

[olive blade]

I'm not quite sure what the numbers for half would be

but nice that thats the effects

[wet root]

40/20/10... per component instead of 80/40/20... IIRC

I'm curious which seeker/validator combo no longer stages early

[olive blade]

I assume its arad and something

[wet root]

Yeah

[olive blade]

I'm really not sure why chaff needed a buff

[wet root]

It's one of those buffs that mostly lowers the skill floor, which is nice

Experienced players already chaff plenty early, this means that there's just a bit more leeway for newer people

[olive blade]

ships autochaffing works pretty good

[wet root]

It does make curving around rocks a bit less useful which is sad

[noble zodiac]

more like 20/10/5 vs 40/20/10

[wet root]

Ah, couldn't remember if it was base 80 or 160

[olive blade]

yeah I dunno

I'm not entirely sure what the dev vision for missiles is I guess

[quiet quiver]

Also trying to think out what the CMD val area of uncertainty change means in practice

[tulip vault]

The OSP have invented burrowing mines, lovely

I like a lot of the little tweaks here but Im not so sure about the big changes

Im really unsure about the chaff thing

[mint sinew]

Mostly impacts the ability to use CMD val on poor tracks to beat chaff

[tulip vault]

Also the kinetic kill warheads being free is very very odd

I suppose if they’re not meant to be used with CMD that makes them pretty vulnerable to SSJs but even then

[wary flame]

they work with CMD, Pyrope has made some monster missile backpack that can eat three decoy container salvos with ease

[noble zodiac]

it has a biblically accurate number of bullseyes

but

it works

[tulip vault]

Ah well then I truly have no clue

I like the idea of anti-container AMMs but I feel like they shouldn’t be that effective

Because they cost what, 2 points? If Ive done my head math right?

4?

[minor raven]

They work with cmd against big ass containers. They do struggle with smaller things (unless the incoming projectile is locked)

[wary flame]

reports from spectating some serious stackulous: Act/[CMD] still works, just not on BRN or Elint tracks

beam DDs still seem to be fucky with dragonfly drives

there's a bug where defenders don't produce VFX although they work fine

containers got extremely softkilled, nobody really went for the KKV AMMs besides Pyrope and it didn't really seem like they needed them

[tulip vault]

Huh, specifically with dragonflies?

[wary flame]

maybe not but those were the only ones I saw and they were not behaving

Mazer mentioned the PID is calibrated for standard drives now so it might be throwing it off

[tulip vault]

Huh

[wary flame]

seems to me like the optimal KKV design is some kind of dirt cheap cruise missile with a massive warhead that you spam redded ships out to either structure break them instantly or blast all their reinforced components

[glad aurora]

KKVs also work on ships?

[wary flame]

they are (very jankily) dual-purpose

they fire exactly one superheavy damage ray that either does nothing if it clips empty space and misses the structure hitbox, instantly greys out one component regardless of durability or deals a disgusting amount of structure damage

since KKV warhead is quite literally free since it's just a big tungsten rod, you can make some very cheap kill confirms

[wet root]

... time to slam people with salvos of 48 KKV Gales

Actually, can you get to 2 points with pure SAH S2s?

[junior heron]

yes

[wet root]

Heck, of all the boat nights to miss

I assume the damage is based on velocity? What's an S3H KKV look like?

[junior heron]

good point, actually
<@&942093958551588904> hey all, with the new test branch out I figure it'd be good to ask early: would people like to try it out this boat night, or stick to main branch for now?

figure I'll ping early so there's time to build fleets over the week if the answer is test branch.

[quiet quiver]

I suspect there may be a followup patch or two before Sat

[tulip vault]

Oh god it has a single damage ray?

[quiet quiver]

A single damage ray that doesn't pen

Whatever it hits it hits

[noble zodiac]

doesnt *overpen but yeah

[tulip vault]

Actually maybe this is good, we can put the fear of CIC snipes back in solomon players

[quiet quiver]

Whether that's a thruster, a citadel compartment, or the structure box

[olive blade]

yeah hmmm

that sounds intense

[tulip vault]

Im good with testing as always

[bitter furnace]

it's probably gonna get patched out, Mazer said he only tested them on S1s and didn't consider potential usage vs ships

[tulip vault]

That’s nice to hear

[junior heron]

lol, fair

[wet root]

I was thinking of proposing Fleet Swap Night for the 13th (the one after this), so Testulous for this boat night could work out nicely

[bitter furnace]

public testing doing its job already heh

[tulip vault]

Honestly I don’t hate the idea of them being dual purpose but that level of jank dual purpose seems bad

[quiet quiver]

Alas for anyone who wanted to cast spell of 1000 Bricks Until You Die

[junior heron]

i could go for a fleet swap night again

[tulip vault]

Ooh Id be down for fleet swap

I didn’t actually get to play in the last one

[wary flame]

I took Tron's MN fleet and it turns out that if you go all KKV you can make 2/3 of the missiles CMD Val

which is disgusting

[wet root]

Fleet Swap would be Mainulous, presumably

[glad aurora]

Damn, not even going to get a chance to play with "god's most normal 250 vauxhall that happens to just have 32 insta-stage KKVs in the backseat"

[tulip vault]

Oh god

That’s not okay honestly

[wet root]

I'm pretty sure all 1 damage rays is also just better on Gales

[tulip vault]

Im so confused by the reasoning behind the warhead being 0 points

[wet root]

Being able to grey stuff is the weakness of missiles

[quiet quiver]

Because it's diegetically a lump of metal in the warhead compartment

[wet root]

I assume the whole "only intended as AMMs" aspect

[misty storm]

yeah KKM is really unbalanced imo

[quiet quiver]

And also yeah, intended for AMMs that only kill 1 missile and only on direct hit

[wet root]

It would be a fun option as an antiship warhead but definitely should have a cost there

Say the antiship variant needs fancy alloys

[tulip vault]

The antiship variant is pointy

[quiet quiver]

I think it just needs to not have such cranked damage (and possibly bounce on sollies)

[tulip vault]

But also yeah I think you’re right

[wary flame]

9 hits, knocked out exactly four components, those orange sections are actually "one side grey, one side fine"

[junior heron]

perhaps if it also had some high explosives for after it penetrated as well...

[tulip vault]

No that would be silly

Who would do that

[junior heron]

two options here:
make HEKP free, or make KKM 2.5 points per tick

[quiet quiver]

TBF, the "explode several times down the length of the ship" is kinda silly

[tulip vault]

For 9 hits that’s a pretty good result honestly

[wet root]

I do like "OSP's version of HEKP is just a big rock"

[tulip vault]

Though I imagine it’s very inconsistent in practice

[wary flame]

well, the volley was 16 missiles and cost 32pts

[tulip vault]

…what horrid PD does this axford have

But also yeah wow

[wet root]

Yeah that's excellent value

[tulip vault]

9 hits with HEI is like, something, but it certainly wouldn’t knock out a turret and a reactor

What does the damage look like on an S1 of these?

[wet root]

Also TIL that one side grey one side green averages out like that, weird

[wary flame]

this was one volley of 64 into the nose of stock TF Oak

note nose, considering the damage to the reactor sections

[wet root]

Yyyeah that's terrifying

[tulip vault]

I mean for a volley of 64 that’s not like… a dead axford in either case, but also it cost 128 points

and it’s a very sad axford

[wet root]

And that's split across two axfords

[junior heron]

have you tested against reinforced components?

i'm not seeing anything redded out ever, always just grey

oh, value judgement has a red compartment there

[wet root]

I'd been assuming the missiles were just arriving in close enough prox to double tap reinforced stuff

[tulip vault]

Honestly if it was made a bit more consistent, as an antiship weapon Im not sure tom’s joke of 2.5 points a tick would be that out of line

[wary flame]

vauxhall after 25 hits

damage is very idiosyncratic

[wet root]

Same price as normal HE honestly seems like it'd be fine

Except maybe vs sollies and monitors

[tulip vault]

I mean being able to grey components like it does is a very strong ability for a missile is my thing

[junior heron]

yeah

[wet root]

Absolutely, but also inconsistency is pricey

[junior heron]

a regular well-built missile volley that hits already mostly kills you and leaves you incredibly vulnerable to any finisher gunfire

[wet root]

And failing to kill a Vaux with 25 gales is pretty bad

[rigid bison]

My take is that a cost makes it a high cost but specialized AMM to complement it’s power.
Maybe have it so it’s very new conceptually

[olive blade]

I shot a whole bunch of gales in the nose

that was about 60 in the nose

with 5 size warheads

[tulip vault]

Yeah that’s not what one would hope for from 60 missiles hitting

If the anti ship ability stays in in some form I do hope they get more consistent in some way, though I don’t know how you’d do that while keeping the gimmick

[olive blade]

its not the worst in that it did mess up the drives and guns

[wet root]

Tbf, a Sollie can tank 60 normal Gales to the nose as well

You really want to get a side or back hit

[olive blade]

yeah I'll fire similar at the front with regular gales

and test some side hits and stuff

[tulip vault]

I guess it depends on how plain nose on you’re firing

[wet root]

Yeah, even a bit of angle changes things a lot for normal Gales

[tulip vault]

in the testing range there’s a solid like, 10ish degrees by my reckoning the formation gets offset by default, so that might skew things

[supple sonnet]

I wonder how well wake KKM's would work, as the drive section tends to be packed wiht imporent thigns

[olive blade]

same missiles with HEI

[tulip vault]

Hmm

I dunno, what do other people think in comparison?

[olive blade]

very similar actual damage value

[wet root]

That's a BB that can limp away and fix up if left alone, but the second salvo will kill it

[olive blade]

yeah like the first one actually had a bunch of things broken which is interesting

comparatively

[wet root]

Sadly wake is still quite unreliable, I was trying hard to get wake HEKP to work

[quiet quiver]

And they also gotta go through the thrusters first so you'll need more than one

[wet root]

The first one pays more in restores if they both get away, but I would prefer to be driving it any day of the week

Because it actually might make it out

[tulip vault]

Yeah that’s kinda what Im thinking

[wet root]

I expect a top down KKM volley just removes a solly though

[supple sonnet]

I do think throwing rocks at an axford might be better value then HEI at the same pont value just from how it's repair bonus works

[tulip vault]

Im wondering what a mixed salvo would look like

[oak shell]

Does a KKV Ceremonial Arming Missile work as intended? Is it any cheaper than the HEI version?

[wet root]

I feel like you need the KKMs to be faster, because if they hit second the damage from the HE is wasted

[tulip vault]

Can you have a 0 point missile?

[supple sonnet]

Curently the KKV warhead is 0 points,

[tulip vault]

Because otherwise no they aren’t I think

[wet root]

Either one is 1pt but yoy can make the KKM actually effective

[wet root]

No

It rounds up

[oak shell]

I am away from my normal rig and thought the arming missile was 2pts

[supple sonnet]

the less ceramonial ones are

[wet root]

Not unless you overpay

[tulip vault]

I feel like that beats the point of the ceremonial arming missile

It must be so useless as to never warrant being fired

[supple sonnet]

I think that might be part of the point, so you don't have a complealty useless missle siting on ever ship with a VLS-1 as part of best pratices

[wet root]

I have killed a tug with an arming missile before

[wary flame]

I find that cranking the warheads is almost irrelevant because anything over 1000 is going to insta-grey basically anything it hits anyway

OK, FM500R drive has 1500hp and is the tankiest thing in the game

anything north of 2500 in damage is gilding the lily

[wet root]

Also big drives are big, they'll probably eat a few

[wary flame]

so containers get it free, S2s have to try a tiny bit

[olive blade]

how much warhead do they get per bit?

[wary flame]

depends on speed but my size 5 does 1200 damage

which is plenty for anything

maybe I'll nudge it up to 1250 so it two-taps the big boy drive

perfect

8k range but it's a 2pt gale, you get what you pay for

[wet root]

so that's what, 750 for a minimum warhead? Probably more, since extra fuel means more speed

[glad aurora]

how fast can you get an insta-stage s3h kkm

[wet root]

1 km/s IIRC

Definitely double check that though

[wary flame]

a normal drive only has 1000 and that's the next tankiest thing in existence, if you want to two-shot that you can go all the way down to a size 3 warhead and nearly max the speed

nobody runs 500-R drives

[wet root]

Don't you need 835 damage?

[olive blade]

side hits kinda weird

with same missiles

its not thaaaaat much better than front hits tbh

[wary flame]

why 835?

[tulip vault]

That can’t move or shoot at least

[wet root]

1667 EHP

[wary flame]

oh, yeah, 40% DR

so yeah

actually very well rounded

[wet root]

Top is what seems terrifying, could see it just killing every compartment

Does the armor pen care about angling?

[olive blade]

56 doesn't break bb armour right?

[wet root]

(Side is terrifying for HE)

[wary flame]

fixed

[wet root]

Still curious if it's like HE or HEKP for angling

[olive blade]

I wonder if these bounce with armour angling

yeah

I turned the warhead and pen way up

34 hits from the front

so I wonder if things do bounce

[oak shell]

It would make sense if armor angling mattered.

[olive blade]

also my illuminators keep doing this

I wonder if its just an angling issue with nose illums

[wet root]

Illums can't angle straight up, it can be an issue with nose illums on Monitors

I've lost salvos to it before 😭

[olive blade]

it doesn't even want to angle the monitor

to fix it

I shot 105 big ones into the front,

definitely kills it

[wet root]

Apparently 80 degrees max, which is less than I'd thought

[olive blade]

I wonder if you can structure break ships fast

[glad aurora]

Can't say I'm especially thrilled

18 S3H KKMs to the nose (six-missile salvos), 12 of which hit

[wet root]

Bet a lot of them did literally nothing

Easy to whiff all compartments and structure when hitting the nose of an Ocello

[glad aurora]

Planning to try side shots next, I think

[wet root]

There's a reason HEKP has the AoE

Top is still I think the thing that really kills, since all the compartments are much larger hitboxes from that aspect

[misty storm]

lightshow :)

[olive blade]

these things seem to suck if they hit at a weird angle

I think front on might actually be one of the better angles

[glad aurora]

it turns out that top-down is the perfect angle for my ocellos to just shoot down all the missiles

side-on, 36 missiles in three salvos of eight and one salvo of four

(almost all of which hit)

relatively normal missile

if I shot this cruiser's normal warload at an ocello side-on like that, it'd be dead - albeit the version that uses these is something like 300pts cheaper

[olive blade]

yeah I don't think these are like worthwhile on big expensive chassis

[glad aurora]

I mostly just find it very strange that it's redding out a CIC but not killing it - if it actually could snipe, then I'd see a use for it over conventional torpedo designs

These things obliterate a reactor and a large drive in a single shot, but a CIC's too much armor?

[junior heron]

dunno if it was posted here yet, but this has floated around the main neb server:

[wet root]

Reinforced tag

Can't be killed in one shot

[glad aurora]

Oh, ew. You're never going to hit a CIC with two of these.

Well, that's a shame. The days of slinging telephone poles at people are delayed.

[olive blade]

awww

damn these kinda looked interesting

[wet root]

I do hope Mazer decides to make an antiship version

[olive blade]

hmmmmm

[wet root]

More warhead types = more fun

[glad aurora]

👁️ very cheap torpedo

[misty storm]

If we do testulous this week I’m assuming we should gentlepersons agreement to only use KKM on defensive missiles

[glad aurora]

joining the main neb server to post "make anti-ship KKM actually have a cost, s2 or larger only, ignore the Reinforced tag" and then never elaborate

[olive blade]

I think they are genuinely interesting

and I kinda like them

I can see a cool role where you shoot a spread at a big ship to mostly break the turrets and engines but not really kill the ship

and thats kinda interesting as a space

[misty storm]

Offensive KKM is just HEKP and yall aren’t ready to admit that

[olive blade]

its just kp

no he

its a big boxing glove made of metal shoved in the warhead slot

[glad aurora]

HEKP does not have the right telephone pole energy

[supple sonnet]

I want to bring boxes of rocks to ship fights

[rigid bison]

Make it an OSP tool for sniping capitol CICs, mags, and whatnot.

[arctic magnet]

I want my space LOSAT dammit

[olive blade]

it mostly doesn't hit those

it hits like drives and turrets and big things

but thats still like

pretty useful imo

[glad aurora]

consider the following:

fast KKMs to kill drives and reactors, then hit them with slow torpedoes for the kill

can't dodge, can't power PD

[olive blade]

yeah

[glad aurora]

(shame that wake doesn't work or "the engineering stack sniper rifle" would be the perfect candidate)

[olive blade]

they seem quite nice against beamers actually

you hit the drives or the beam real easy

[glad aurora]

Beam Solomon? Yeah, side-on

[olive blade]

beam dd I mean

[glad aurora]

... huh.

[rigid bison]

If I were mazer I’d cap max pen on KKMa at just above Defender pen. Useless against ships, usable on missiles

[glad aurora]

counterpoint: we want the AShKKM

[wary flame]

the main issue with them as as defensive missiles is that they're completely dismantled by decoys until they get CMD seekers, at which point they immediately ignore decoys and would completely negate containers as a going concern for 4pts each if they could reliably hit things

as is they still get half a salvo quite a lot

so you can't make them hit stuff and they're not great if they can't hit stuff other than for bullying torp sprinters, who already had a hard time against OSP scoutfleets

[rigid bison]

Frankly they exist in a weird space

[quiet quiver]

It also sounded like CMD tends not to be great at directly hitting most missiles, but I didn't see the actual tests

[wary flame]

they're not, but containers are so massive they do all right as long as it's head on

you see lots of very strange clipping effects and then all of a sudden half the salvo randomly dies, and not the front half, just random chunks of container

I think the KKVs are kind of half-baked and pointless, considering the stated reason was "have ANS use AMMs more", and they already use plenty

in the process you make a weapon that can only be useful if it competes with softkill to beat torp sprinters and containers into the ground

and torp sprinters being good is very important because otherwise you die to the OSP shuttlewaves

[rigid bison]

Yeah I agree that they are pointless. ANS already uses AMMs enough as is.

[glad aurora]

I mean, these balance changes seem like they're for a meta Not Ours

ConL nerfs/reworks, "you people need to use AMMs more," etc

hell, I walk into our meta and I hear "bring eight SSJ AMMs if you have anything larger than a DD"

[wary flame]

I got my AMM habits for both SSJs and S1s from playing stacks with some of the best players out there, I didn't invent that tech, if anything we use less

It's just a very strange addition all around

Me and Pyrope played the anti-container function out in testing and it's either overpriced or unreliable compared to "press Z for bowling ball", I still need to try S1 KKV against torps but if containers are any indication then terminals should work well.

[glad aurora]

Eh, I don't just mean our meta, but the metas our meta evolved from

these patch notes have increasingly reminded me of WoWS patch notes insofar as the realization creeps up that they're balancing for an entirely different common denominator

[wary flame]

I think this may be more a case of "the dev team is one guy" because everyone else seems equally confused

this patch nerfed direct missile tugboats (they've been nerfed a lot lately, directly and indirectly, so meh, unsurprising even if I think it was unnecessary), containers, which are already locked down by bowling ball and torpedoes , which are the main ANS capgame weapon

[glad aurora]

It does make sense that there's some kind of group of low-skill (I do hate phrasing it like that, but it's true) players that are getting wrecked by ConLs and don't know how to build/use AMMs in favor of just piling defenders on or some such thing, but if that's not what's apparently happening...

[wary flame]

the last change goes directly against the first change, it's a bit odd and in all cases but CMD vs containers you seem to be able to solve KKV AMMs with SSJ, so the new toys just mildly tax an assortment of random and generally unobjectionable builds

I do know that Mazer has actually seen the SSJ AMMs shutting a container liner down completely so presumably if those stick around he's good with that

In the pocket of Big Ball

[misty storm]

Torp sprinters are actually a thing that is good?

[noble zodiac]

for capping yes

[olive blade]

yeah if they beat torps thats pretty brutal

[olive blade]

at a quick test they can't hit my torps pretty much at all

the railguns fucking hurt now damn

6 minutes of firing of which I had to manually posfire the railguns and angle it all right and stuff

both reactors out, about half the guns

[quiet quiver]

Just with the change where the PID aims better?

[wet root]

Rails deal twice as much damage now

(There was a bug where their overpen multiplier got applied twice)

[quiet quiver]

Oh I just saw that b/c I didn’t read the bugfixes before

[wet root]

Yeah, Mazer has a tendency to put major balance changes under bug fixes

(Looking at you, plasma)

(Not to say they aren't bug fixes, they're just also balance changes)

[supple sonnet]

Maybe we should make a modern railcello and moniter fleet

Plasma moniter*

[quiet quiver]

Can’t wait for us to find out wake was bugged and the entire missile meta shifting again

[wet root]

I might need to give my Railcello+MD liner fleet an update

[quiet quiver]

Oh no

[wet root]

Hm, they do 24 effective damage to the first component at 40% DR

[quiet quiver]

Okay that’s less scary

[glad aurora]

Yeah, I pulled the railcello + MD liner of mine out of storage last night and wasn't particularly impressed

[wet root]

That breaks basically all the squishy modules and non-gun surface mounts, and I think radar panels and thrusters

Also much scarier vs lower DR hulls ofc

[tulip vault]

40% is BB DR?

[wet root]

BB, Axford, Ocello

Lineships are 35% IIRC

[tulip vault]

Huh

[wary flame]

the bug that halved damage was accidentally introduced in the OSP rework update, it's not that old

[tulip vault]

I mean being able to break off PD seems pretty good

[wary flame]

but it does mean Railguns are back to Fairly Mean rather than the month or so they've spent solidly Meh

[quiet quiver]

Time to put a rail on the 3k missile Axford

(You’re probably still better off with keystones)

[wet root]

Oh, nvm on trying Railcello again then lol

Since I think last I tried it was before that

[bitter furnace]

Railgun damage ignores DR

They’ll deal 40-20-10 consistently to any target

[dark dawn]

Wait so them doing garbage damage was a bug?

[wet root]

Only very recently: #1164000873031151637 message

[wet root]

Ohh right

[dark dawn]

Ah, okay

I only started playing railguns recently though, no wonder they felt weak

[wet root]

Don't expect too much to change, but you can grey more compartments now

[dark dawn]

I'll take that, I will do anything to make railguns work because I think they're Really Cool and I'm lazy and just want to click an enemy and deal big number

[noble zodiac]

rails don’t really do big number tbf

the main threat from them is the 3000 fires

with the actual damage of the rails themselves mostly serving to crack DTs that the fires cant

[dark dawn]

Huh

I mean, I guess the issue is that is really hard to notice

[noble zodiac]

they do deal a decent bit of damage on their own but

they don’t usually rack up particularly massive numbers in the AAR

[dark dawn]

Got it, that's kind of my only visible measurement of power besides 'getting shot by them myself', and since basically no one uses them

[noble zodiac]

what they do is royally fuck shit up irregardless of damage numbers

[olive blade]

they are the misery cannon

[junior heron]

@wary flame 🌊

[misty storm]

are yub fleets on ans side super needed/a valuable niche in this meta rn?

[misty storm]

also does osp need to be worrying about taking defensive SSJ too?

[oak shell]

Pumpkin looking pretty ripe

[rigid bison]

I will say that, no matter what happens in this testulous patch command cycle, I like the move to posting test branch changelogs outside of BALCON

in response to "buff defender again" arguments.

[mint sinew]

They work pretty well for OSP. They aren't the panacea that they are on ANS because of CMD and EO but seduce the very common ARAD/ACT threats.

OSP also has an alternative in decoy containers which do the same sort of thing pretty well.

[dark dawn]

Wait, defenders are good though(?)

They basically vaporise anything that's not protected by decoys/jamming

Well, 'anything'

Most Things

[supple sonnet]

Nah cork torps can slip trough them, and weave s2's ignore them as well.

[olive blade]

Defenders are pretty solid imo

Stop cheap missiles

They don't do everything but they shouldn't

[wary flame]

that's the third time today that I've started a game only for someone to immediately vomit an entire fleet's worth of cruise S3H at us, get softkilled and then DC

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Double heavy cruiser fleet question mark' is composed of 2 ships that cost 3000 points:

  Dawnline Strider : 'Axford' class Heavy Cruiser [Gun EWar Missile PD Sensor]
Twilight Sojourner : 'Axford' class Heavy Cruiser [Beam Rail PD EWar Sensor]
```This fleet uses 2 different missile types:
```yaml
         SGM-112 AMM : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
SGM-202 Super Saiyan : DIRECT - NONE - NONE [7pts]

[arctic magnet]

messing round with the PD fit on my weird double CH fit

and by "messing around" I mean "replace PD with jammers and SSJ S2 AMM"

these used to have two Stonewalls and four Defenders each

(i don't know how to actually build an SSJ AMM)

[junior heron]

is the plan to keep the two of them together?

[arctic magnet]

yeah

[junior heron]

right, only saw the 1 interruptor

here's my Activer Decoy, can optionally cut the CGB to save 1 point

[lime jungle]

SGM-299 Activer Decoy is a size 2 missile that costs 8 points.

[junior heron]

as it is, you need to be sure the missiles are on their final approach, because there's no tracking, so you'll lead wherever the volley is coming when you fire it

[arctic magnet]

oh okay, that's basically the S2 I've made, plus the gas bottle

kinda debating whether to put that on, +1 point is not that much when I have four of these

[junior heron]

I admittedly haven't tested with/without CGB

but my main use case is having these loaded onto one side of a solomon, and I want them to be able to clear to the other side pretty quickly

[wet root]

If you're going to mostly softkill, I recommend bumping up your chaff counts a fair bit

Since you really don't want to run out

[wary flame]

I would make sure each cruiser has at least one reinforced DC so it can daisy chain rebuild, give one cruiser all the actdecoy and one all the S2 SSJ

maybe cut one jammer on each but maybe not, four jammers can actually hide you some of the time

[arctic magnet]

I think I'll keep the jammers until I test the fleet at least once

[wary flame]

just did 30k as a capfleet, killed every single dispersed small ship the enemy had and won on caps despite my team including a terrible CLN and a terrible dual Ocello fleet that did about 20k between them

feels good

enemy did get greedy and pass up an easy B cap after killing the CLN to hunt mass drivers, which helped

the guy who did that had the temerity to complain that his teammates were bad

[wary flame]

I am really liking rocket shuttles, I'm never sure if the second rocket pod is worth it

it does reliably get kills even if there's a hotshot Defender on the target and you can usually missile two small things, which I suppose does really help

[tulip vault]

I think the second rocket pod is generally worthwhile

Makes them about 300 points, which is comparable to an ANS cap vette and they can punch up pretty well with two

[junior heron]

yeah, I definitely think the second pod is good

[wary flame]

absolutely horrifically annoying levels of MLS2 Tug/rocket shuttle swarm in this game I'm watching

[junior heron]

especially because it lets you do a volley of 35, and leaves 1 in reserve

[wary flame]

it's just tricky to fit the requisite four MMTs and torp MN into my capfleets and still get a good rocket shuttle count

I think I can do two double pod, one single pod and two meat capshuttles

[supple sonnet]

In our experince, a second pod of rockets meens that you can punch up more reliabaly, but grape kills sprinters fast enough and has a better range

[oak shell]

<@&942093958551588904> anyone up for some games?