Nebulous: Fleet Command

[wet root]

Since bombers are losing their built-in CMD channels (they can buy them back, but it's expensive)

C53s are also getting a reload buff then!

[supple sonnet]

Oh nice

[toxic scaffold]

Now to find a way to rightsize this fleet

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Four Riders' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3120 points:

King of Conflict : 'Marauder' class Line Ship [Gun Sensor PD]
 Jack of Endings : 'Marauder' class Line Ship [Gun PD]
  Ace of Pleanty : 'Marauder' class Line Ship [Gun PD Sensor]
Queen of Glutony : 'Marauder' class Line Ship [Gun PD]
```This fleet uses only one missile type:
```yaml
SGM-106 Ember : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]

[supple sonnet]

I like how she shows the curent point coust for the fleet but has the one from when they were last modified on the ships

[wet root]

Gah I had forgotten about these accursed things

10 million 450mm until you die

[supple sonnet]

TBF they needed the nerf

LIke to keep them under 3k at this pont i need to take out some radars or lower there fire rate

[mint sinew]

Most locked in Cuda pilot. 1v4'd a group of Tanto's somehow

Unsupported too, just S1s, jam pods and 20mm

I think the 5th was a claymore I cleaned up too

[toxic scaffold]

Maybe chousing RoF over burn trough was a mistake, maybe it will be fine

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Four Riders' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

King of Conflict : 'Marauder' class Line Ship [Gun Sensor]
  Ace of Pleanty : 'Marauder' class Line Ship [Gun Sensor]
 Jack of Endings : 'Marauder' class Line Ship [Gun]
Queen of Glutony : 'Marauder' class Line Ship [Gun]

[wet root]

Can always lock the jam LoB

[supple sonnet]

and it's not like accuracay matters tomuch wiht the volume of fire that fleet puts out

[supple sonnet]

I think we just saw a new player bring a 1.5k railstone.

...I am confused about how they managed to make it cost that much.

[quiet quiver]

Missiles?

[supple sonnet]

I'm unsure. :P

[mint sinew]

You can spend a lot of points on citadel CICs and premium PD if you try

Or maybe they just filled their mag with rail ammo

[supple sonnet]

I know one of their railstones had Sarissas and Auroras. :P

[quiet quiver]

"I accidentally bought 200 pts of sarissa ammo" can also happen

[wet root]

Weirdly less common than flak though

[junior heron]

<@&942093958551588904> anyone for some mid-week neb?

[wet root]

I could do one Neb

[supple sonnet]

We could too!!

[junior heron]

if you hurry, we're in ERI 5 ANS

[mint sinew]

That feels ambitious on power

Time to sneak a micro in there

[wicked mirage]

yuh

Still looking?

[glad aurora]

bottom text

RIP to the one guy who died aboard the In Moonlight

[mint sinew]

Died heroically jumping in front of the bow thrusters

[glad aurora]

his sacrifice will be remembered

[junior heron]

<@&942093958551588904> no longer mid-week nebulous, now slightly-past-mid-week nebulous?

[supple sonnet]

Tragically we just started a Lancer session.

[junior heron]

Peri and I are in ERI 7

have fun!

[oak shell]

Have fun Lancing!

[supple sonnet]

I... do not think we have the bandwidth to play Nebulous and keep up with a combat at the same time.

Oh, we will. This campaign is awesome. :)

Perijove, (He)xagon Understander ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Have fun Lancing!

[toxic crag]

who up lance they er

[wet root]

I missed the Pingulous :(

[glad aurora]

all good, was just one match that didn't go well

[supple sonnet]

...huh.

[quiet quiver]

Validator does nothing for it (and possibly makes the missile worse)

[junior heron]

if it rejects unvalidated it should stop it from wiggling under jamming.

[quiet quiver]

It will stop it from wiggling under EO jamming but also prevent it from acquiring targets under radar jamming

A secondary seeker does the former (unless decoyed or double-jammed) but not the latter

[supple sonnet]

Quick question: we're reworking some of our fleets to be better now that we know how to build better, and we're seeing if we can fit SDMs into our carrier's void superiority loadouts. We keep running into people using them and when that happens our fighters just... die.
We've been running with an SDM missile we borrowed from Pyrope on our ships; do fighters want a different SDM setup or is it pretty much fine to just copy the same design over and load our fighters up with them?

[glad aurora]

it's the same missile

there's one SDM Mathblob spent like 100 hours testing and it works on everything

I have a different variant because I'm a contrarian and I'm anticipating having to kill lower-maneuver craft

[quiet quiver]

There's a variant that works slightly better on Tanto but it's marginal

[oak shell]

Can someone hook me up with this Good SDM?

[junior heron]

I believe it's the SDM-2 in TF Maple, but this should just be a copy of it.

[lime jungle]

SDM-207 Phalanx is a size 2 missile that costs 5 points.

[junior heron]

this one is ACT/WAKE, I have another one that's 7 points CMD that's also quite good

[oak shell]

<@&942093958551588904> boat time

[supple sonnet]

Be there STAT!

[glad aurora]

I should be able to fit one game in if we start quick

[oak shell]

Get in here then

[glad aurora]

let me know what server we're in

[oak shell]

ERI 8

Waiting on you @glad aurora

Never mind, we're full

[junior heron]

<@&942093958551588904> anyone for some midweek neb?

[glad aurora]

I could potentially wrangle some if we find two more

[wicked mirage]

I'll be there in about 10 minutes, if you can wait.

[supple sonnet]

We have to hop onto a Lancer session in about... fifty minutes or so. Do you think game 1 will be done by then?

If so we can probably drop in for a game. Otherwise we'll unfortunately have to skip this one.

[junior heron]

I think that comes down to "does the game start in the next 20 minutes"

[supple sonnet]

Right.

We'll... stop by and see if it does.

[junior heron]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3724880677

unrelated to the current looking for game, but this seems like a nice mod to have

Match History, lets you pull up old AARs in game and includes an auto-save feature

[glad aurora]

if pyrope hops on we have four, so that'll solve that

which lobby are we stacking

[junior heron]

in ERI 7

[wicked mirage]

omw

A true saiyan always sprinkles when she tinkles

[supple sonnet]

We…may be able to hop on. Supper is ready in about half an hour

[edgy dove]

honh

[wicked mirage]

https://tenor.com/view/fact-check-check-fact-saiyan-vegeta-gif-5695960218127155444

[wooden veldt]

\

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Fifth Winter (v2)' is composed of 6 ships that cost 3000 points:

 Fifth Winter : 'Levy' class Escort Carrier [PD Gun]
 Quiet Stream : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun PD]
 Rolling Hill : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun PD]
Idyllic Glade : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun PD]
  Gentle Wave : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun PD]
 Looming Tree : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun PD]
```This fleet uses 8 different missile types:
```yaml
     SDM-25 Starstreak : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR)/PSV(WAKE) - HE FRAG [5pts]
        SGM-103 Eraser : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
      SGM-111 Demister : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
SGM-123 Arming Missile : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
     SGM-134 Eye Poker : DIRECT - ARAD(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [3pts]
    SGM-135 Refactorer : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [2pts]
       SGT-329 Offhand : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR)/[ARAD(RADAR)] - HE SHAPED [13pts]
        SGT-329 Onhand : DIRECT - CMD/ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [14pts]

[wooden veldt]

\

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Void Spirit Carriers' is composed of 2 ships that cost 3000 points:

     Spirit of Fire : 'Levy' class Escort Carrier [PD Gun]
Spirit of The Storm : 'Levy' class Escort Carrier [PD Gun]
```This fleet uses 6 different missile types:
```yaml
        SGM-103 Eraser : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
SGM-123 Arming Missile : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
     SGM-134 Eye Poker : DIRECT - ARAD(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [3pts]
    SGM-135 Refactorer : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [2pts]
       SGT-329 Offhand : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR)/[ARAD(RADAR)] - HE SHAPED [13pts]
        SGT-329 Onhand : DIRECT - CMD/ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [14pts]

[glad aurora]

should be CMD/HOJ, not CMD/ACT

[supple sonnet]

sadly too big to use as a hull badge at present

[mint sinew]

I think I went with CMD/ACT as I was getting fed up with my Claymores dropping the locks after torping isolated cappers without another track to pick it up again. CMD/HOJ makes more sense for a pure levy fleet

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Blake Belladonna {BB}' is composed of 1 ship which costs 3000 points:

Blake Belladonna : 'Solomon' class Battleship [Beam Gun PD EWar Missile Sensor]
```This fleet uses 4 different missile types:
```yaml
SDM-1-4 'Rosethorn' LRACM-F-EX : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [6pts]
       SDM-2-2 'Ice Spear' ACM : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE FRAG [8pts]
      SDM-221 'Gambol' ACM-T1E : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR)/PSV(WAKE) - HE FRAG [7pts]
  SGM-219 'Black Ribbon' MRM-F : DIRECT - PSV(EO)/PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [12pts]

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Ruby Rose {BB}' is composed of 1 ship which costs 3000 points:

RUBY ROSE : 'Solomon' class Battleship [Gun PD Missile EWar Sensor]
```This fleet uses 8 different missile types:
```yaml
      SDM-1-1 'Petalburst' LRAM-F : DIRECT - CMD - HE FRAG [5pts]
   SDM-1-4 'Rosethorn' LRACM-F-EX : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [6pts]
          SDM-2-2 'Ice Spear' ACM : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE FRAG [8pts]
               SGM-113 'Aero' ACM : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
         SGM-13 'Diaga' Rapid AMM : DIRECT - CMD - HE FRAG [5pts]
SGM-H-232 'Silver Flash' Anti-FFL : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [12pts]
     SGM-H-362 'Truesilver' AC-EX : CRUISE - PSV(EO) - HE SHAPED [40pts]
       SGM-H-376 ROSE PETAL HELIX : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR)/[CMD] - HE FRAG [19pts]

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Weiss Schnee {BB}' is composed of 1 ship which costs 3000 points:

Weiss Schnee : 'Solomon' class Battleship [Gun Missile PD EWar Sensor]
```This fleet uses 7 different missile types:
```yaml
              SDM-2-2 'Ice Spear' ACM : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE FRAG [8pts]
                 SGM-232 Kaleidoscope : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - NONE [7pts]
SGM-H-3-7 'Arma Gigas' TRP High-Yield : CRUISE - CMD/ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [25pts]
         SGM-H-331 'Snowblind' ECM-AC : CRUISE - PSV(EO)/ACT(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [33pts]
            SGM-H-333 'Schnee' ACM-EX : DIRECT - CMD/ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [18pts]
        SGM-H-390 'Myrtenaster' DL-AC : CRUISE - PSV(EO)/ARAD(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [40pts]
        SGM-H-393 'Solitas' A-Orbital : CRUISE - ACT(RADAR)/[PSV(EO)] - HE SHAPED [22pts]

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Yang Xiao-Long {BB}' is composed of 1 ship which costs 3000 points:

Yang Xiao-Long : 'Solomon' class Battleship [Beam PD Missile EWar Sensor]
```This fleet uses 5 different missile types:
```yaml
SGM-177 'Orichalcum' Omni AMM : DIRECT - CMD - HE FRAG [9pts]
 SGM-H-3-6 'Sun Dragon' HS-AC : DIRECT - CMD/HOJ(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [22pts]
            SGT-3-0 Heat Sink : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - NONE [8pts]
      SGT-349 'Firefly' HVT-1 : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [9pts]
      SGT-349 'Firefly' HVT-2 : DIRECT - CMD/SAH(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [9pts]

[supple sonnet]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OSTf3kBqytY

[mint sinew]

R drive supremacy

[junior heron]

<@&942093958551588904> slightly early boat night ping!

How many players do we have today?

[supple sonnet]

Forgot to post this screenshot we got yesterday:

R2cuda spam.
So many R2cudas.

[noble zodiac]

nahhhhhhh not the dual purpose plasma 💀 💀 💀

[mint sinew]

Had to drop off, but it's really cool seeing that levy halfcap evolve to your tastes wyvern

[supple sonnet]

Mhm!
Fitting SDMs was pretty easy after we dropped the cheapest capper, honestly. We've been very happy being able to fire them off from maximum range and explode people.

We no longer instantly lose to SDMs, and we feel that's worth going down to 5 gun cappers. The missile capper basically fell over to any significant resistance anyways.

[mint sinew]

Yeah, seems to be working quite well

[wet root]

This tug is structure broken

[wary flame]

I'm sure that's just what the insurance company says

[supple sonnet]

Wow, look at that!

[junior heron]

sliced through by the beam katana

[supple sonnet]

TRUE-

question does anyone know how we'd turn this into the required file size for use as a hull badge?

it's currently 263kb and 500x500 size

47864 | experimental cryptid ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) sadly too big to use as a hull badge at present 📎

[wet root]

When setting up mine I just used Krita and messed with the export settings

[mint sinew]

Needs to end up as 256x256 exactly, so you'll need to resize it using your image editor of choice (paint.net works pretty well)

[supple sonnet]

*bweh

[wet root]

I see

[supple sonnet]

well it's the right dimensions but not the right file size

and we can't compress any further

hmm

[junior heron]

this should work, reduced the number of colors was my usual trick

[supple sonnet]

Thank you!

[wary flame]

damn I just missed the neb

[supple sonnet]

s2cello vs The Autumn test results: our first salvo nicked the Floodlight and the SAH followed. 😭

[junior heron]

isn't it like 1:30 AM for you?

[wary flame]

yeah, I was engaging in the Misc tradition of late night gym

normally when people do that it's because they're fighting some kind of inner demons but in my case I genuinely just forget until everyone's asleep

[junior heron]

Hmmm...
I know the start time has migrated, mostly because none of the europeans were playing as much, but if there's a better time and you're still interested we can try that in the future.

[wary flame]

oh I could probably have made it at the current time without sweat if I wasn't bouncing between other stuff all night

[junior heron]

I'll also be around tomorrow if you'd like to try and get some group games in.

ah

[wet root]

...darn it, Misc's name doesn't work for the "Xulous" jokes

"Misculous" is just Miscellaneous misspelled

Anywho it would be fun to have you around for a boats at some point Misc, we've actually had enough for in-houses again recently! And hopefully will have even more when campaign part one drops

[junior heron]

Miscellanulous

I'm really excited for the campaign drop, pretty much equally split between campaign itself, the editor, and the balance changes.

[wet root]

I kind of want to avoid playing the campaign until the whole thing is out but I know I won't

[glad aurora]

oh, right, this is part one

neat

[wary flame]

I honestly got quite burned out on Neb over the few months post-carrier-update, but it's been a while so I should give it another go

[wet root]

I was pretty much in the same boat, I've slowly rotated back into it since

[supple sonnet]

We're diving RIGHT IN!

Lark ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) I kind of want to avoid playing the campaign until the whole thing is out but I know I won't

[misty storm]

Can rails soften up/damage the pd of an opposing ship?

[oak shell]

If they damage the PD turrets, yes

[oak shell]

Join us! Pnet internal games are pretty chill.

[wet root]

Apart from directly damaging them, they can be particularly problematic against energy-based PD, since a Main Bus Short in the reactor usually means you don't have the power to run the full grid

I think PDTs are vulnerable to the turret traverse rate debuff as well which is pretty crippling

[mint sinew]

It's been nice regularly getting back up to full internal games again

[misty storm]

Are mixed CLNs (as in, mixed craft and containers) common or is it usually one or the other?

[glad aurora]

one or the other

[misty storm]

Is there any tech with lining up a craft strike with a yub strike or is that too complicated to pull off in a real match

[glad aurora]

too complicated + doubling down on the yub or the craft is better

[misty storm]

Ok

[supple sonnet]

Question because we see the term thrown around a lot

What does yub even mean?

[quiet quiver]

Going all in on long range cruise missiles

Classically “yub nub” was doing blind cruise missiles based on game sense and typical player habits

After a guy whose user name was Yub Nub and would say yub nub in chat after doing it

The name itself comes from the Ewoks in ROTJ

[supple sonnet]

Ty

[wet root]

I wonder if it would be feasible to use the Hangup Device (2-4 Hangups) to cover craft from CMD SDMs at long range

The Hangup ignores terrain IIRC

[glad aurora]

You'd have to have the craft pretty much right between the hangup and the missile, iirc

falls off pretty sharply to either edge of the cone/oblique angle at the missile

[wet root]

Huh, didn't actually know it had the same edge falloff mechanic as illuminators

[glad aurora]

https://wiki.hoodedhorse.com/NEBULOUS_Fleet_Command/Electronic_Warfare#Communication_Jamming

from reading this, I think it does?

could just be that there is no edge falloff and the comms jammer didn't actually catch it at whatever angle/wasn't powerful enough, since my personal experience with hangups is very anecdotal

[wet root]

I think it's just talking about distance from the jammer and between the two communicators

Hangup is just disappointingly weak IME

Which admittedly might well make it infeasible to actually jam out SDMs, considering SDMs only have like 7km range

Oh, and I was wrong about them ignoring terrain, which makes it even less feasible

[mint sinew]

Because missiles only check for comms to their launching ship it might be more possible than it seems. I believe craft comms are pretty weak so that probably gives reasonable ranges against craft launched missiles

Per the radar/comms calc it's actually better than I thought against a CR10. 1 hangup at 7k of your craft jams out incoming missiles ~4km from the launching ship (2 hangups brings that down to ~2.9km)

You aren't stopping SDMs from an Ocello, but you can shut down TALS tugs/LNs surprisingly well

[wet root]

I was thinking mainly of shutting down TALS-launched SDMs, but not penetrating terrain makes it a lot more awkward - you can't just sit a Sprinter in a crevice near the center of the map, it needs to be in orbit

Though actually even with just 2 hangups at 12km, you jam out a CR10 at <5km

[mint sinew]

Very map dependent I think. I might try a variant of my frontline fleets with a hangup to try covering allied strikes. I often have LoS on allied bombers and if I'm heading into 120mm range anyway that buys them a lot of safety

[wet root]

Which is enough to allow a standard 7km SDM to fizzle

[mint sinew]

What's the NEZ on a 7km SDM? The listed range is a lot less than it gets fired at, though I guess if you double back to make it use that range it might work

[wet root]

I hadn't considered the fact that missiles only care about their source comms, that really helps a lot

[wet root]

I would guess like 6km but I have no idea

[mint sinew]

And you only need LoS to your craft which helps a bit with your offset positioning too

[supple sonnet]

oh heavens

...also apparently ANS is losing SDM-2s in PTB??

(What are they supposed to do without them..?)

[glad aurora]

as mentioned in match: RPF, sarissa, ???

[mint sinew]

Also S2H/S3H work well enough

With the ptb agility nerfs dual purpose CMD HEI hybrids were also seeing success against both craft and shuttles

[wet root]

I think Breadsticks work if you really want something to stick in a VLS-2 as well

[mint sinew]

True, much harder to dodge in ptb

[wet root]

Hopefully Remises will make fighters be more viable as a defense against bombers as well

[glad aurora]

The main problem with the "fighters as a defense for craft" archetype is that the missiles that let them do it are too expensive and they themselves also die to sarissa/RPF/etc while hovering on escort duty; it hasn't worked on OSP, I doubt it'll work on ANS either

Lark raises an excellent point about the breadsticks, though

I personally haven't seen the CMD hybrids so I can't comment on Fluffy's, but if he's seen it I'd definitely defer to him on the matter

@wooden veldt sorry for softkilling your missiles lmao, I was hoping if I kept throwing out the ADtainers and EO jamming you'd kill the MDLN guy instead and I could get a second to breathe
You and your team was really putting on the pressure

[mint sinew]

Here's a version of it I've seen shared. Hits pretty reliably (on PTB) off of a bullseye track. That obviously limits your throughput to 1 at a time (ish)

[lime jungle]

SGM-H-213 ADASh Block II is a size 2 missile that costs 10 points.

[supple sonnet]

I was getting told nothing by my team. I didn't even realize there was an MDLN until the Autumn ate some to the observation deck. :P

Ash And Gold ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) @wooden veldt sorry for softkilling your missiles lmao, I was hoping if I kept throwing out …

[glad aurora]

oof

frustrating game for both of us then lmao

[glad aurora]

Neat, I'll take a peek - thanks

[supple sonnet]

Better than my last game. A blue brought two hyperinvested 1.2k railstones with ACT S2s.
And someone on the enemy team brought a Marauder with 349 ACT/HOJ S2s, as seen above.

Ash And Gold ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) frustrating game for both of us then lmao

(When I say ACT, I mean pure ACT.)

It was... a shitshow for both sides.

[glad aurora]

The Nebulous Merry-Go-Round

[glad aurora]

I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[misty storm]

Ok so I’m looking at the vanilla+ format on the modded server

And there’s a c3 beam

that you can put on a sprinter

(And the power works out exactly)

[supple sonnet]

It's... yeah.

Nevermind the fact that engineering such a small beam turret would be prohibitively difficult and expensive, and the reactor output required to run a beam should almost certainly not be available on such a small frame. (The Keystone being a notable exception because it was built specifically to carry spinal weapons that punch above its weight class. And engineering a fixed spinal beam is certainly easier than a turreted one.)
But from a balance perspective a c3 beam is ridiculous. Either it's good, in which case sprinter/frig blob becomes even more oppressive, and it will overshadow most other options in its weight class, or it's an incredibly niche option due to some combination of factors, in which case no one will use it.
What were they thinking?
(Perhaps they weren't.)

[glad aurora]

well, it's modded, so presumably "when everybody's OP, nobody is"

[quiet quiver]

IIRC the damage output is stupposed to be tuned down comparatively (and on a sprinter it can't take FPAs) but I personally doubt that the mod is as balanced as it's trying to be

Let along the huge discrepancy in Alliance gear vs OSP gear the mod has

[rigid bison]

Yeah it’s…an issue

While the beam itself is a ticklebeam, the lack of a good osp expansion mod does hurt

Enough that I might get into the modding process to rectify it

[quiet quiver]

Yeah and there was a modded AvO fight night a few weeks ago and if you look at the mod list you can see it's not just an issue with Vanilla Plus

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3703207745

[rigid bison]

I do love the holland for being such a Contraption

[quiet quiver]

Going down the list:

• AvO Expansion: 2 AN ships, 2 AN craft, 1 OSP ship, 1 OSP craft
• SC Reamer: 5 AN ships, 1 OSP* ship
• Vanilla Plus Refit: 5 3 AN ships, 1 OSP ship
• Vesperia Class Dreadnought: 1 OSP* ship
• Damen Shipyards: 1 AN ship
  *OSP ship that takes AN gear

[rigid bison]

Osp being pigeonholed as technicals was a mistake

[wet root]

Honestly OSP feels like it has a bigger design space, it's just... never been as popular as ANS

[quiet quiver]

No one brave enough to add the Brick-class

[wet root]

Modifying the Monitor so it has a triangle like the missile design one, divided between armor, speed, and guns

Max armor moves at 2m/s and mounts one T20 but has 180cm armor

[rigid bison]

Swapping the armor for tug speed makes the v+ stonefish, aka “what if the rl36/modded c4 r3 turrets had a good platform”

[wet root]

This is what happens when you take a Rocket Liner and put it in a hydraulic press

[rigid bison]

More making a Large Ruttle

[supple sonnet]

Big Aurora, Large Ruttle, Big Skiff...
What's next, Big Keystone? Big Defender? Big Sarissa?

(Big Levy will soon exist, at least. :P)

[mint sinew]

Yeah, a lot of OSP's design language lends itself to a lot of design space that goes unused.

Weird ammo types, restricted firing arcs and hull variability could open a lot of interesting designs that I've not really seen explored

250mm Bombshell and airburst MD rounds were both good examples (although airburst MD died before the could be tuned)

[misty storm]

ruttle?

but yeah there's clear ANS favoritism in the vanilla+ format

it IS cool since it gives me the battlecarrier ive wanted since forever

and the finley is a fucking Creature but yeah

[misty storm]

vanilla+ is only 3 ANS ships i believe

[quiet quiver]

Oh I misread things and counted the Frost and Typhon on top of the Frostmoor and Tyhphus, whoops

[mint sinew]

Rocket Shuttle

[misty storm]

oh fair

[quiet quiver]

(I also think the Frost/Frostmoor is just a better Raines)

[misty storm]

but yeah the power level is def higher

[misty storm]

the frostmoor is classed as a destroyer but i see what you mean

[quiet quiver]

Yeah but you can use it for basically any combat role you can the Raines and IIRC 2 of them will be better + cheaper than 3 Raines

[misty storm]

thats fair

[junior heron]

I'm imagining a colony ship with a gravity ring that necessitates spinship liner

[misty storm]

ok you say that, there's a faction mod called beeple shipyards that has a corvette with a c4 mount on it

and its just

a rectangular brick of cargo containers with a bridge and thrusters on the back

[olive blade]

as uninterested in mods as I am, one that had like a different number of things for each faction would be a hard no for me

[warm gulch]

i unironically feel this in my heart

i hate the ocello out of principle for this reason, not because it has actual tech but because anything more advanced than fleet design past 1897 has to be silo'd off as being ANS equipment

i think it's a wonderful and flavourful ship otherwise

[rigid bison]

osp ship ideas:
betel baron's yacht (armed with ans equipment incase the 8 ball belt miners ever get uppity)
baron's security cutter (ditto)
maratime militia that's moved on from ramming
some kind of rushed-out-the-door warship for a "field army"
a smaller mothballed ship (possibly even oldsprinter)

[mint sinew]

Shuttles and tugs do a good job of covering the small end of town and I really don't think you want to give OSP small ships that can take bullseyes

If there is a gap that I think could use exploring it's either bigger than an LN e.g. Tom's colony ship idea

Or in the destroyer weight class as a faster, lighter monitor. Something like half a CL. Could be a nice spot to add an example of a locally produced warship with the smaller size justifying the turn around.

[wet root]

There's also somewhat of a gap for medium-cost ships with good mobility after all the LN cost increases

[supple sonnet]

...yeahhhhh.
Honestly, the big thing we want is either a sidegrade to the Marauder or, more realistically, better controls for them. It absolutely sucks when we get stuck fighting the controls trying to get the broadside to turn to where we want it to while the ANS turrets smoothly turn to track the LN and begin shredding it.

[wet root]

I was too slow at phone typing ;_;

[supple sonnet]

We've had at least a couple matches where we have to resist yelling at the screen like "WHY AREN'T YOU TURNING, I EXPLICITLY TOLD YOU TO LINE UP TO FIRE ON THAT TRACK AND YOU'RE FACING THE WRONG WAY-"

[mint sinew]

Kind of what I was imagining as the destroyer yeah

[supple sonnet]

We can manage a single Liner okay. But multiple makes us want to court martial their crews. :P

[wet root]

I almost always avoid LNs due to this, which is a lot of why I don't enjoy OSP that much

[mint sinew]

Some kind of anti-piracy overmatch vessel. Trade the spinal, armour and XL compartments off a monitor for speed, agility and a few C1s

[supple sonnet]

Same...

Lark ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) I almost always avoid LNs due to this, which is a lot of why I don't enjoy OSP that much

[wet root]

A ton of OSP's interesting buildcraft is on LNs but I hate fighting against my ship

[supple sonnet]

Yeah, exactly...

If they made it easier to spend less time fighting the controls we'd play LNs way more.

[wet root]

Tbf they have improved LN controls, they just used to be worse :P

[supple sonnet]

But as it stands we basically only play Ocellos and Liners occasionally. We've never tried a monitor ball or a tug/ruttle blob, and we're waiting for PTB to merge and the meta to settle before we build a CLN or CVLN.

They *** w h a t ***

Lark ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Tbf they have improved LN controls, they just used to be worse :P

[rigid bison]

yeah, something designed for "winning the next 8 ball belt conflict"

[mint sinew]

Yeah, I learned to pilot LNs before the fixes so I have very few problems these days

[wet root]

They would rotate instead of roll to bring guns on target, IIRC?

[mint sinew]

Pretty much, they took the path of least angular change rather than shortest time

[supple sonnet]

o h .

[mint sinew]

They still freak out occasionally, but as long as you aim your heading so you stay broadside to what you want to fight it works well

[wet root]

Speaking of the spinal, I feel like having a hull with two big mounts and adding some more spinal options would increase flexibility in interesting wsys

[mint sinew]

Adjusting so your next target only needs a roll is the big secret sauce, but can be a challenge

Monitors having more than a single real option would be nice

[wet root]

Or just run bowtank LN :P

I just tweaked mine so it's faster!

[mint sinew]

(I'd also love to see a third option for keystones, but I doubt we'll see that soon)

[oak shell]

Fucked idea: have two LN sized side mounts but only on one side

[wet root]

Spinal torpedo launcher, I would do dumb things with SAH

[mint sinew]

"we have beams at home" - OSP torpedo supplier

[wet root]

Asymmetric ships my beloved

[glad aurora]

I had a weird-ass hitscan chem laser idea for the Keystone third mount a couple years back

[oak shell]

Can it be battleshorted?

[wet root]

At one point I was toying with a suggestion for a long-range, low-damage, armor-stripping pulse weapon for Keystones

[mint sinew]

Make sure to offset them a little so both can shoot forwards as turrets

[glad aurora]

Yes, but it also takes physical ammo (the chemical part of the laser)
Enjoy emptying your rmag

[wet root]

That would hit everything in a like 12km cone

[oak shell]

No, aftwards

[mint sinew]

True so we can finally have the double R-drive tank

[wet root]

Wait now I want a hull with two forwards-facing and one rear-facing Spinal

[mint sinew]

Who needs QoL like the heading command? Not OSP!

[wet root]

I stand by my suggestion in the nebcord where you should be able to set the preferred heading direction in the formation editor

[mint sinew]

Downside of the existing spinal being continuous fire, no reason to build a spin ship. If you are going to do that setup at least put the spinal forwards so you can have spinal+two backpack C4s or triple turrets

[wet root]

And using the heading command aligns using that

[mint sinew]

Yeah, would do a lot for LNs. I suspect it would get weird with the main thrusters being off axis and so deviating from your preference in the absence of orders to move forward

[wet root]

I'm not quite sure what you mean? It would just be the equivalent of setting the heading sideways rn

Oh, do you mean if you don't set a heading and order a move? I was thinking it would only apply when you've set a heading

[mint sinew]

Yes, but when not under any heading commands neb ships align their drives with the direction of travel

[wet root]

Basically just an offset for the hdg command

[mint sinew]

It makes sense, I just think it might get unintuitive but I guess no more so than the current situation

[wet root]

Hm, an R3 launcher for the MN could be funny

The true OSP beam

[quiet quiver]

Contemplating an OSP destroyer that's basically a mini-liner, a broadside of 3 tug casemates on each side

[wet root]

More Tug casemates would be neat

[mint sinew]

I do often find myself wanting an extra half lineship

[wet root]

They're what, 2x5x2? The Ocello should get their side C1s replaced with them

It would allow for some exceptional creaturecellos

[quiet quiver]

And maybe combine that with a shallow C4 on the top? (Like MN has top/bottom) Lets it bring a pike or container decoys (or just another gun)

[mint sinew]

Yeah, the 5 depth gets you C30s and bloodhounds

[junior heron]

Monitor Armor/Speed/Maneuver triangle looking like an even better idea...

[wet root]

Also allows for Plasma turrets I think?

[mint sinew]

Giving it access to a T81 changes the threat profile yeah

[quiet quiver]

True! Well, depending on the internals setup for power

[mint sinew]

(I'd like it because "yay more plasma")

But giving tug balls easy access to fast+small plasma is a notable impact

Given my original destroyer pitch had the two shallow C4s of a monitor I think this a great idea, but still

[wet root]

I forget, can C30s fire sideways?

[quiet quiver]

IIRC, 45 def traverse, 0 deg elevation

[mint sinew]

I'm still of the opinion that because unplasma'd ANS capitals can eat so much 450mm OSP teams really need to bring either backline to kill them or at least some plasma

[oak shell]

A single Big compartment for DCX or hangar would be interesting

[wet root]

Ah so no bringing all 6 to bear dead ahead

[mint sinew]

No, you'd need to widen the mount a little to allow T20s for that

[wet root]

One big compartment, two shallow C4s but one of them is placed so it can only fire directly forward. You can try to plas ahead with both then rotate to bring C30s to bear or bring a hangar/container stack/whatever on the traverse limited slot and have a more straightforward but less plasma rpm ship

[rigid bison]

https://tenor.com/view/glorp-noted-glorp-noted-glorp-noting-this-down-alien-cat-gif-11958671377507601335

[misty storm]

Be the osp vanilla+ mod you want to beeee

[mint sinew]

I'm very tempted to mess around with the campaign editor once that's out. If that leads into wanting more OSP options then we'll see how that goes

[rigid bison]

Yeah that’s what I’ve been lurking on this convo for

[misty storm]

It’s just that the vanilla+ format is kinda tough to balance since theres not a centralized team for it

[mint sinew]

That's the nature of mod balance really, especially those trying to tie into vanilla

[misty storm]

Yeah

[wet root]

Saaaame, very hype for campaign editor

[misty storm]

But remedying the clear ans favoritism would be nice

[misty storm]

The power level is ovbs gonna be higher, and at least hoping for VAGUE parity between the factions is the best you’re gonna get lol

[wet root]

Weirdly, my observation from other games (Starsector, Rimworld) is that anything marketed as "Vanilla+" or such tends to be significantly less balanced compared to vanilla than other mods

I haven't played enough of it in Nebulous to know if Neb's V+ follows that trend

[misty storm]

Give me a smaller LN you can’t skill issue with /j

[rigid bison]

If and when I do buckle down and make the mod, I’ll assume most of the existing v+ type stuff might exist. So a c4 might have a 250mm casemate or a r3 launcher from the relevant mods…or it could have a vanilla rl36 or t81

[misty storm]

Yeah

Tough to thread that needle

[mint sinew]

I suspect it comes from ambition. Modders that can make whole new factions probably know enough to do a decent balance pass while "I just wish there was a bigger 250mm gun" type mods have a lower barrier to entry

[supple sonnet]

Yeah back when we first bought Neb liner controls sucked

Sierra (she/fae) | Wyvern Silver Dragon (Dawn Subsystem) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) They *** w h a t *** 📎

[quiet quiver]

They used to be very prone to a gimbal lock-like state while rotating, and also preferred turning yaw-wise instead of roll-wise for large rotations

[olive blade]

Tbh some liner style bulk tanking smaller ships would be interesting

Like a medium passenger ship about cl size but with only slightly more than tug mounts maybe somewhere between tug and monitor, a bunch of hp and internal slots and good speed

Say

Alternatively more weird osp craft would be fun

[oak shell]

I've been synthesizing this discussion into a more detailed design, just for fun

[quiet quiver]

I feel like this just runs into the classic tank (RPG) problem where if you're not a threat people just shoot you last, Neb doesn't have aggro tools

[supple sonnet]

Hmm... I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment here. If this thing has reasonable mounts, good speed, and solid hit points and damage control capability, that puts it in a prime position to hunt ANS light assets and vulnerable backline, using its speed to minimize how long it takes sustained fire from larger assets that can kill it in reasonable time, damage control and HP to shrug off hits from the assets it hunts, and mounts to eliminate said assets quickly.
I'd wager that if you let this hypothetical vessel run amok, ANS would soon find themselves without a capfleet, which feels like a somewhat good incentive to focus it down before it munches everything lighter than a Vauxhall.

Beamstones would be... a problem, to be fair. Though at close ranges the Keystone would assumedly not have the maneuverability to keep the beam on target, and/or would be killed quickly if caught out of position, which would somewhat leave the question of who wins up to who detects the other first, I would wager.
I'm no game designer, and we only have about 160 hours in Neb to our name. But I can see a place for such a hull in OSP's ranks.

[wet root]

It doesn't have to be a DPS threat though, there's utility options it could support while having limited offensive capabilities - sensors, PD, EWAR

Unrelated, some fascinating science courtesy of the Nebcord: apparently HoJ[pARAD] on reject prestages on jamming then does not track anything

[mint sinew]

Much like frigates for ANS, tugs are a very efficient sensor/ewar platform. It's hard to compete on that front without just making a sidegrade

[wet root]

Yeah, that's the tricky part

[mint sinew]

Tugs are also fast enough to keep up with OSP frontline so you don't have the Vauxhall problem where you need to use sprinters to keep up

[wet root]

Making the hull actually add texture instead of just being better for certain roles

[supple sonnet]

Y'all, we just woke up and we dreamed of something horrific in Neb. Writing it down before we forget.
Containercello.
It's like torpcello but it has containers instead of S3.
I don't know how. Or why. But somehow it brought like 100 CMD containers.

(Also Fluffy was there. I think. I also think they got nuked by something. Like, literally nuked. Apparently in this dream OSP gets thermonuclear fusion warheads.)
(It was wild.)

Other highlights include:

• the ability to "look inside" and see enemy DC boards
• vaguely beam battleship shaped hull that moved ridiculously fast
• weirdly shaped asymmetric asteroid field map
• ANS gets a five cap and still nearly loses somehow

[misty storm]

hm. one thing vanilla+ just did was add a "radiation decoy" which is just a killjoy really

so codifying killjoys basically

[misty storm]

huh

do killjoys jam the ship that launched it?

[glad aurora]

no, same way you don't get jammed by your own team's blankets

[wet root]

RIP Fluffy ;_;

[rigid bison]

this was #part-suggestions for like 6 months before and after osp release

[junior heron]

up there for funniest part-suggestion

[warm gulch]

survey says: no

[misty storm]

These radiation decoys in the mod actually has indiscriminate jamming

Which seems counterproductive?

[junior heron]

I wonder if that's for the same reason Chaff shows up as a hostile track.

so it counts as an "enemy"

(but I think Active Decoys show up as friendly? dunno...)

[mint sinew]

Was about to say, the native dumb softkill decoys (chaff/flares) don't have IFF

So I guess that applies if you give them a jammer

[misty storm]

Yeah

Idk why you would ever want that over an actual killjoy

Although this travels waaaaaay slower

[mint sinew]

I assume it's unintentional

[misty storm]

No it’s coded to do that

[mint sinew]

I mean they just copied chaff's stats and stuck a jammer on it

[misty storm]

It’s like an active decoy

[mint sinew]

But if that's a design decision then killjoys are likely better unless they are a lot cheaper/more efficient

Jamming your own pd as missiles fly in is certainly a choice

[misty storm]

its 6 points

[glad aurora]

nah, base kj is 6pts, 7pts with cold gas, 8pts with cold gas and cruise

objectively worse

[supple sonnet]

Six points for- yeah.

[misty storm]

yeah

[rigid bison]

Yeah its only good for automation

But I am collecting these notes to send in as suggestions to the v+ dev team

[misty storm]

I feel like either make it not jam your own ships or make it like 3 points ig

[glad aurora]

just make it not jam your own ships

if you're going to codify the killjoy for ease of use make it literally the killjoy

[olive blade]

I was more thinking it could bully small stuff even with missiles and be an obnoxious blob threat

But true

[misty storm]

Yeah

I do wonder why there’s no missile casements for OSP

[oak shell]

That's what the rolloff launchers are, though?

[misty storm]

No like

Launch perpendicular to the mount

Reloadable like a torpedo tube

[chrome forge]

As a new player, is there some kind of tip for setting move commands? I really feel there has to be a better way to handle navigating 3d space

It almost feels the system I am currently handling is specifically designed to let perspective mess with you

[glad aurora]

honestly, it's mostly a You Get Used To It sort of thing

go into the tacmap, move (not plot a course, plot a course is awful), set waypoints as appropriate, pan around the tacmap while setting waypoints so you can see where you're going

generally you never plot moves in the real view

[chrome forge]

I figure, real view seems better suited to quickly temporarily setting course for like, missile evasion or whatever the tutorial was teaching me

[glad aurora]

yep, or just looking at the cool graphics while tooling about

[mint sinew]

In the tac map you also get the elevation lines on terrain which I find really helps with perspective

[chrome forge]

Must just be the fact the tutorial wanted me to specifically set move commands to relatively precise specific positions where ingame it's probably simple enough to plot tactical movements as needed

Rather, I was attempting to hit precise spots on the locations they wanted me to go to

[mint sinew]

You'll eventually want to get good at that sort of precise positioning as your relative positions to cover and enemies is quite important. However most movement doesn't need to be the tight

The habit I learned when starting out was to roughly align your horizontal position where you need to end up and then adjust the vertical into place.

[supple sonnet]

you're going to what

[restive monolith]

[junior heron]

Palolike! When is a good time to ping the role/you to try and get you to play with us (if you're still interested)?
(I'm assuming it will have to be some time on the weekend due to timezones.)

[restive monolith]

Weekend uhm idk the words for timezones but I could do the evenings from 7pm Amsterdam time

Auberon is a friend of mine and they recently got the game so I think that'll help be a motivation to play as well

[junior heron]

How far is 7pm Amsterdam from now?

[supple sonnet]

It's about 6pm there right now.

[restive monolith]

Rn it's 17:49

Wait 58

Technically I could play today

[supple sonnet]

Hmm... we should be around!

[oak shell]

I could do one game

[restive monolith]

I can't promise I'll be there but I'll consider. I'm in my head about stuff

[oak shell]

If you're up for playing, @ the Nebulous role

[restive monolith]

Oh wait I just remembered I left my laptop on campus

So I can do sunday and maybe Saturday if I decide to go to campus then already

[humble lagoon]

Campaign co op when?

[oak shell]

Fantastic news: Caltrop is an optional mission

[shut ridge]

Hehehehehee

Is it?

[junior heron]

1 week

[supple sonnet]

So anyways, a weird jammer creature CLS-3 Axford with CCKs just spent 16 CCKs trying to kill one of our CCs.
...it was side on.
It's fine. :P

Lost the ammo elevators, most of our DC lockers, and one each of our reinforced mags and CICs. We have two of both, so we're fine.
Still have power and all the guns.

...they did also bring two beam Solomons, no capfleet, that weird creature, and... something, so they've kind of lost. :P

Also a new player brought s2cello and farmed half the enemy team for 42k damage. Good stuff!

We're totally going there!
Gotta see what they hid in that accursed place.

Perijove, (He)xagon Understander ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Fantastic news: Caltrop is an optional mission 📎

[ivory juniper]

hooboy time to get back into NEB, is there anything important too look out for? as i have noticed that most of my old fleets yearn for power

[oak shell]

How long has it been since you last played?

[ivory juniper]

hooo a long while, i think last time was while the campaign was being made

[quiet quiver]

Campaign is still being made

[ivory juniper]

fair

but i think it was around late 2024

mabye early 2025?

[wet root]

Well, the main thing to be aware of is carriers and container liners, but their counterplay is probably going to change pretty drastically in a week

(Or. Well, ConLs will have the same counterplay [softkill and pray] just be less punishing if a few containers leak)

[ivory juniper]

yeah i remember trying a game against carriers getting a headache and then not playing again

but hey, no better time to relearn the game than now

[supple sonnet]

Very rude of them tbh

Athena (she/it) | Wyvern Central AI ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) you're going to what 📎

[supple sonnet]

It's time to be evil.
...Sprinter swarm, rolling out.

[supple sonnet]

So anyways we did 33k damage, absolutely fucked up several people's days, massively overextended, didn't get punished, rolled onto their backline, ate some ships for lunch, and then we won the game with a 5 cap.
This is evil but also so, so, so satisfying.

[wooden veldt]

\ ...here's the fleet, if anyone's curious.

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Battlegroup XERES' is composed of 8 ships that cost 3000 points:

    Starlit Ice : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Missile Gun PD]
  Starlit Sword : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Missile Gun PD]
 Starlit Shield : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Missile Gun PD]
  Starlit Watch : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Missile]
   Starlit Wind : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun EWar]
Starlit Blanket : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun EWar]
   Starlit Fire : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun Sensor PD]
   Starlit Song : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Gun EWar PD]
```This fleet uses 8 different missile types:
```yaml
                         SDM-225 Tornado : DIRECT - CMD - HE FRAG [8pts]
SGM-101 Solitary Lights In An Empty City : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
                  SGM-299 Shallow Creeks : DIRECT - NONE - NONE [2pts]
                   SGM-H-257 Cyclone ASW : DIRECT - CMD - HE FRAG [13pts]
                   SGM-H-321 SEA Ranseur : CRUISE - ACT(RADAR)/[PSV(EO)] - HE SHAPED [23pts]
         SGM-H-346 DH Morningstar A-CARD : DIRECT - CMD/ARAD(RADAR) - HE SHAPED [31pts]
         SGM-H-346 DH Morningstar B-CWAD : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [29pts]
              SGM-H-360 DK Spinal Injury : DIRECT - CMD/ARAD(RADAR) - HEKP [51pts]

[supple sonnet]

…all we can think of is that one gif that goes “the abominable horde writhes with malice”

[wooden veldt]

\ <@&942093958551588904> We're just grabbing a quick lunch, but would anyone want to get a stack rolling sometime this afternoon/evening?

[oak shell]

I could

[plain ice]

\ may be able to. Should be done with helping the neighbour by around <t:1779487229:t>

[wet root]

I might be a bit tired but I should be around in about 3 hours

[supple sonnet]

Hell yeah!
Sound like we've got a stack and a time, then. :)

[wooden veldt]

\ @wet root@oak shell Cryptid and us are here; we still stacking? No pressure if something came up.

[mint sinew]

The ventral mk65 looks so wrong

[glad aurora]

well.
it has an e70

[junior heron]

no, Peri's axford does

[glad aurora]

ah

[junior heron]

@wet root https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7F_6SLuohs

[mint sinew]

Frigblob can't die soon enough

[quiet quiver]

Frigblob will never die

[mint sinew]

Maybe not, but it can stop being a near autowin in pubs

I'm just sick of it being on the other side of my pubs

With the pilot acting like they are top shit because they beat an uncoordinated pub team with it

[glad aurora]

yeah, real.

[supple sonnet]

That, and honestly, we hope sprinter ball (or as we call it, sprinter swarm) gets a counter at some point.
It's an incredibly fun fleet to bring out, we find. Not even because it's good, just because we like being this fast and maneuverable swarm of stuff that can harass people, rotate around quickly to adapt to a changing battlespace, cap points early with a few detached assets, all that. It's fun- but bringing it in pubs is considered bad form, we don't like styling on uncoordinated teams with it, and the competitive/stack play lobbies don't fill as frequently as the casual play lobbies. And when they do... it's often a gold ANS stack.
We need to try out monitor blob at some point, yeah, but... monitors are a different beast altogether.

If sprinter ball was less oppressive, we'd genuinely like that. It would mean getting to bring it out more often- and we'd feel less bad about doing so.

[junior heron]

<@&942093958551588904> Early* Boat Night ping today, hoping to maybe catch Palolike today because she hasn't been able to make the new usual time.
I'll still ping and be around for regular boat night time later!

[supple sonnet]

And to think folks used to say that the sprinter swarm was a bad fleet for a while. also if you split the sawrm into two 1500 point half swarms you will have less overmatch ageist some soft skinned forntline fleets

And i think we are going to have to pass on this weaks boatnight, just feeling a bit under the weather

[junior heron]

:( take care all!

[supple sonnet]

Thanks

And good luck

[edgy dove]

who tf said sprinter ball is bad

[supple sonnet]

Oh no one recentaly as far as we know. but like Brickuluss era, it was a thing

[edgy dove]

Oh I can see that

[junior heron]

@restive monolith are you around today? and who was your friend?

[supple sonnet]

(I think it was Auberon?)

[restive monolith]

My laptop is on campus for this weekend

So I cant play

Also yes auberon

They'd possibly want to play

[junior heron]

@chrome forge howdy, fellow maybe-Nebulous-er, any interest in joining us?

You'll need to grab the role in #bot-stuff to see the boat night channels

[chrome forge]

I'll look into it, I am so horrible at the game right now

I only did my first actual combat scenario yesterday and it was the basic tutorial one and I feel like I won only because I feel like the enemy was half lobotomized lol

[restive monolith]

There were some tips I got from friends here

That helped me a lot

[chrome forge]

I mean I assumed I did well enough in theory lol, I had the big armored ships, I adjusted heading toward the thing that was shooting scary stuff at me, and then I launched missiles and shot guns at them

I got an excellent rating at my missile warfare so that means I did good

[supple sonnet]

Oh yeah no, that combat is honestly kind of a lot. They throw like 4 different hulls at you in as many minutes.

Auberon ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) I only did my first actual combat scenario yesterday and it was the basic tutorial one and I feel li…

[oak shell]

If you figured out how to bow tank, you're ahead of most blues

[junior heron]

<@&942093958551588904> Alright, boat night ping 2! Now at the new-usual-time instead of the used-to-be-usual-but-is-now-early time!

[supple sonnet]

Be there in a bit, currently making food!

[wet root]

@misty storm are you playing or spectating? Need to know whether we should swap to a 4v4

[misty storm]

Spectating

[mint sinew]

Have a stream then

[junior heron]

Bonus rabbit

(he was spectating, and is therefore on topic)

[mellow lagoon]

Just watched both epsodes of this and campaign mode looks far better than I had dared to hope
Haven't played neb since before the carrier update, sounds like there's a lot for me to catch up on

[junior heron]

We have a role!

and a weekly boat night!

(that is winding down for now but starts at about 1 hour 40 before now)

[mellow lagoon]

What command do I type to get the role in bot-stuff?

[wet root]

?rank Nebulous: Fleet Command

[mellow lagoon]

ty!

[chrome forge]

I have learned how to plot courses with missiles, I can see how sneaky and mean these can be with sufficient intel

[wet root]

Cruise missile pathing is a ton of fun, nothing more satisfying than a well-placed salvo landing precisely as planned

[restive monolith]

This is why I wanna get better at missiles

[wet root]

But also nothing sadder than watching a poorly-planned one go slamming into a rock because your targets moved in a different direction than you expected ;_;

[restive monolith]

That said id have to travel 60km just to play nebulous today

[restive monolith]

I travelled 60km! @chrome forge wanna play?

[wooden veldt]

\ Just finished putting this monitor ball together, and we're about to try and take it out for the first time; any glaring issues with it that y'all can see?

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Battlegroup Nova' is composed of 5 ships that cost 3000 points:

 Nova Song : 'Flathead' class Monitor [Gun Plasma EWar]
Nova Flash : 'Flathead' class Monitor [Gun Plasma PD]
 Nova Echo : 'Flathead' class Monitor [Gun Plasma PD]
Nova Glint : 'Flathead' class Monitor [Gun Plasma PD Sensor]
Nova Spark : 'Flathead' class Monitor [Gun Plasma Sensor PD]
```This fleet uses 4 different missile types:
```yaml
                 SDM-2-2 'Ice Spear' ACM : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE FRAG [8pts]
SGM-101 Solitary Lights In An Empty City : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
                        SGM-111 Ricochet : DIRECT - ACT(RADAR) - HE FRAG [2pts]
                       SGM-211 Killjoy-D : DIRECT - NONE - NONE [6pts]

[mint sinew]

A single bastion is very unlikely to actually shoot down any missiles, flak tends to need volume to work

[junior heron]

looks solid to me, aside from the lone bastion.
Do they need the boosteds for power?

oh it's just the 2
Yeah seems pretty good, though I'm not in a particularly high thinking mood at the moment.

[supple sonnet]

Hmmm, noted. I might swap it for either a third Pavise or a Blackjack in that case.

Lord Fluffy (he) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) A single bastion is very unlikely to actually shoot down any missiles, flak tends to need volume to …

[mint sinew]

Either would be a better use of mounts, unsure about how the points work out

[supple sonnet]

We'll figure something out.

...honestly, this is gonna be the first time we've ever brought the Blackjack. Gonna be weird not panicking at the sight of EO. :P

[mint sinew]

Oh you'll panic, I guarantee that the blackjack will never be in arc

[junior heron]

Right up until fluffy is playing against you that is :P

[supple sonnet]

_<

Lord Fluffy (he) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Oh you'll panic, I guarantee that the blackjack will never be in arc

Two need the Boosteds, the other three are fine. One's 20kW over power but that's negligible.

TomZero (Tommy, he/him) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) looks solid to me, aside from the lone bastion.
Do they need the boosteds for power?

Oh, and should we ever fire 600mm Bomb at anything? :P

Also, sidenote: having never touched Monitors until now, we think they look kinda cool!!

(Oh shoot, blue on blue violence going down in ERI #2. Gonna spectate it and see what shenanigans ensue. )

[junior heron]

600mm Bomb is for blobs mostly, but I guess also if you can't get a lock on corvettes or frigates.

[supple sonnet]

Having played monitor ball you’re mostly going to be shooting HESH

Moon (she/her) | Wyvern Pearlescent Dragon ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Oh, and should we ever fire 600mm Bomb at anything? :P

[junior heron]

has it started or is there still time to spectate

[supple sonnet]

Still time!

Someone's still in fleet editor, so if you're fast...

nyoom

Ah darn wasn’t fast enough

Will have to ask for highlights afterwards

[mint sinew]

Groups of small tracks and poor tracks on small ships

[supple sonnet]

Pretty sure Dragonbender is smurfing. 😐

47864 | experimental cryptid ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Ah darn wasn’t fast enough

Will have to ask for highlights afterwards

agh

[junior heron]

further investigation looks like this is just a really similar name

[mint sinew]

You can usually spot a smurf by the fleet quality/structure

[junior heron]

pop quiz: what do you think killed this Ocello

(or, "is killing" because it's technically alive)

[mint sinew]

That's a lot of fires and crits. Rail spam?

[junior heron]

I realized after posting that the fires really do give it away

[mint sinew]

It's even technically armed if the ventral cls-3 has anything left

[mint sinew]

The crits are the bigger give away to me (and that you are asking). The fires could have just been a massive HEI strike

[junior heron]

yeah, this game is making me want to play rail array with finisher HEKP

is it good? probably not

will it be funny? probably

[mint sinew]

Probably better than a rail array without them tbh

[supple sonnet]

Friendship ended with sprinter ball. Welcome back halfcap Levy.

[junior heron]

Friendship gained with S3H HEKP Railstones

[supple sonnet]

Friendship being gained with monitor ball!!

Durable little bricks.
Took tons of hits and they just would not die.
Maybe we got lucky, but... they Felt great to play that round. :)

[wet root]

7 chaff across an entire MN ball feels very greedy, and I'm a bit skeptical of the Yards just because MNs are already so painfully slow, but I'll freely admit I don't play enough MNs to have a good idea of what drives are standard on them

[supple sonnet]

The starter fleet ball runs with Yard drives; it makes them turn and accelerate fast, but we might switch to another drive type for higher speed.
Though we don't know exactly what drive we'd switch to...

[supple sonnet]

Would offer some of our fleets as ideas but we’re having supper so I can’t access our laptop

Moon (she/her) | Wyvern Pearlescent Dragon ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) The starter fleet ball runs with Yard drives; it makes them turn and accelerate fast, but we might…

[wet root]

If I ever build an MN ball I think it would have to be Sunyard for my own sanity

But that's expensive

[mint sinew]

Yeah, one of the reasons I can't stand playing monitors. Pentabrick just doesn't have budget to dual drive but monitors just so slow that if you deploy on the wrong side of the map you don't do anything all game

[supple sonnet]

Yeahhh...
Building a ball is an exercise in dealing with mount pressure, point pressure, and internals pressure, all at once.

They're... fun though, honestly. You get a lot of close-up firepower, plenty of plasma, you can fit omnisoftkill, including EO dazzlers, you can get redundancy for critical components, your single-point vulnerability is low, you can hide behind jamming...

It's... yeah. Quad MN might have the budget to dual-drive, but penta just... doesn't.

Lord Fluffy (he) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Yeah, one of the reasons I can't stand playing monitors. Pentabrick just doesn't have budget to dual…

[supple sonnet]

Us: "We need sensor assets."
"It's casual, it'll be fine."
Seven beamstones later:

[supple sonnet]

"I'm playing halfcap Levy, I have the whole match ahead of me!"
The evil and nefarious six Liners plus a ruttle coming for our ass:

(They all went under the map, curbstomped three vauxhalls to get to me, exploded our Levy, then went and death blobbed our frontline one by one. 😔)

[glad aurora]

#yep

that's why having Sundials in the right spots is so crucial

[random grove]

Ough...
Two years away from neb makes all the language sound so esoteric 😭

[edgy dove]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1386573495563190403/1504209111623930026/image.png?ex=6a15f967&is=6a14a7e7&hm=4404e11c10aee6e91bdbad37ed83da549068e171968b709c4cf688b767d8df49&

Could be worse (the outer circle is all ruttles)

[supple sonnet]

Ruttle migration pattern...

[oak shell]

Prior to the Bethel rebellion, OSP members commissioned a line of patrol cutters to provide system security independent of the Alliance Navy. Upon the outbreak of the war, the ships were refitted, trading their stores and crew facilities for casemate armament.

[wet root]

Oooooh that's super nifty

Looks like it has very weak braking thrusters, which is interesting

The backpack being a C1 is a bit unusual, means it can't mount Warbler/Killjoys/Lyrebird/VLS-1-46

Or wait, actually what is the backpack? I think it's missing from the mounts list

The Pinpoint and PDT are in the C1s, the side mounts are the next set of 3, and there's the big belly gun for a total of 10 mounted weapons vs 9 listed mounts, so I think it's absent

[supple sonnet]

Ohhhh that is funky. We like it!!

[wet root]

I feel like swapping a couple of the 2x2x2 modules for 3x3x3s might lead to more interesting build options, since then you could dual-drive it, and I'm not sure what you would put in the 5th and 6th 2x2x2 already (note that RCCs are 3x3x3)? Though you do have room for a JRR if you want to dual-drive it already, which is always fun to incentivize

I really like the side mount setup, I'd need to look at weapon sizes to know for certain what the options are but I'm already really appreciating the different tradeoffs you have to make

Broadsider with missile backpack? Nosetanker with T20s and PDTs? Revolver C56/C30s? So many tasty choices

I guess from the compartment slots one of the 6x1x3s is lengthways, is that the bridge compartment?

[wet root]

I really like this design choice the more I think about it, good at being an aggressive little ship with some significant durability options between its slim profile, space for a DCX, and two nice nose compartments for Auxes, but once it's in it's pretty committed - you're not backing out of a fight quickly

Whereas if you're playing it more broadside-focused you can zip between cover faster but you're going to be eating more shots on the way, and presumably you're thick enough to fuse 450mm

[oak shell]

You can dual drive it with a jury rigged reactor

which is why there are no 3x modules

[wet root]

I guess I really don't see what the 6th 2x2x2 is for specifically

You've got radar, up to 4 AEs if you really want to invest, and ... ?

[oak shell]

It's to bring the module count up to par with Keystone

The backpack is missing from the mounts list. Should be 2x2x2 qty 3

I didn't draw any guns on the left broadside

so I guess those are empty in this fitting

[wet root]

It does give you some nice flex room for stuff like Scryers, I just feel like you'll often have excessive

[wet root]

I'm actually a big fan of it the more I think of it, incentivizes using the broadside backpack for warblers/likewise

[oak shell]

yep

and it means if you do bow tanking, you don't get a useful backpack

The forward broadside mount is C1 like the tug's nose mount, because I thought 6 T20s and a T40 was an excessive amount of 100mm fire to be available

[wet root]

Yeah I like that a lot

Very nice distribution of broadside sizes

[olive blade]

I really dig this

cool ass ship

[mint sinew]

Might even enable this ship to bring a correlated huntress which is a fun little niche for it

[sharp crow]

that looks really good peri, nice job

[oak shell]

Thanks, folks

[gentle cloud]

Thinking of getting back into neb, but it feels very 'meta heavy'

Like you have to build a soecific setup to be good

[glad aurora]

yeeeeah, kind of

[gentle cloud]

So then its more strategy?

[supple sonnet]

It's mostly strategy, though you need certain kinda of fleets (cap, Frontline, backline) and you can build a ship wrong, like putting wepions to small for a mount is mostly a bad idea

[wet root]

I would say the meta itself is mostly optional, a competent player playing a well-built fleet will be effective whether it's a popular fleet from now or from three years ago (as long as the old fleet has been tweaked to adjust for entirely some new threat vectors that have been added, namely craft), but it does have a minimal functionality floor for fleets, which is somewhat meta-adjacent

You don't need to keep up with current trends, but you do have to have good fleetbuilding fundamentals, which are timeless

(Or just use fleets others have built, it's an entirely reasonable strategy)

[glad aurora]

yeah, the minimal functionality floor is more what I mean

if you're not bringing an E70 or are sticking 50 S1 AMMs on a battleship or are running an uncorrelated spyglass axford then, well,

[edgy dove]

Uncorrelated spyglass Axford is fine? I run a pair one has para other has spyglass

And if I have one operate independently it’s Para every time

[glad aurora]

yeah, I mean independent no bullseye no nothin

[wet root]

I assume Ash&Gold is referring to Spy as the only source of tracks, no Parallax neighbor/offset/etc

[glad aurora]

yep

[supple sonnet]

Brought a MN ball.
...the enemy brought a 9k Axford ball and sniped our cappers with yub.
Suffering. 😔

[wet root]

Ah, beefulous

[supple sonnet]

It didn't help that one of our teammates brought a plasmacello with MN escorts and then ran off without saying anything.

[mint sinew]

Brickulous' post nerf cousin

[supple sonnet]

Also, I think they had a Prowler Sprinter that they used to cap A, and the giant pile of Axfords were covering all the points.
It was Pillars, I think.

...honestly, very smart, just awful to play against. Cap 3 points, cover all three with 24 barrels of 450 (there were some broadsiding Axfords in there), add in jamming, and... anything we tried just died.

[mint sinew]

Oops all greedfords is a traditional way to win games

[supple sonnet]

Actually it was 34 barrels, I recounted.

Yep...

Lord Fluffy (he) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Oops all greedfords is a traditional way to win games

[mint sinew]

Also classic pillars game: "we lost A in the initial engagement, the enemy didn't fuck up, we lose"

[supple sonnet]

It was three golds and a silver so we knew it was going to be rough, but... eugh. We all surrendered ten minutes in.

But at least it wasn't double frig blob.

[glad aurora]

EWR is your friend. Treasure EWR. Bring EWR. Have BRN and lock, pillars A is within pinpoint range from cover

[wet root]

Honestly Pillars is a map where that sort of strategy is pretty punishable, the places you can sit a capital blob that cover 3 points are close enough to terrain a coordinated OSP team can within range for plasma to chew them apart

But the keyword there is "coordinated"

[mint sinew]

Not for yard pentabrick I don't think. At least not before A is captured

[supple sonnet]

We had two EWR tugs.
I... don't know what they were doing. Their player did not coordinate.

Ash And Gold ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) EWR is your friend. Treasure EWR. Bring EWR. Have BRN and lock, pillars A is within pinpoint range f…

[wet root]

Yeah, when it comes down to it if they're investing that much in capitals you can't let them get A as well, sounds like they just outplayed your cap player there

[supple sonnet]

Our cap player got sniped by S2H from their cap player.

[wet root]

It happens, it sounds like their main failure was not denying the A cap in return

[supple sonnet]

Mhm.

[wet root]

If it's a classic Pillars standoff with nobody holding A you have time to do a push up one of the eponymous rocks, but if they have both the initiative and the giant capital blob you're in a pretty bad spot

[supple sonnet]

Now they're on OSP.
...I'm willing to bet they brought "oops all Liners".

I was trying that push.
Unfortunately they then started taking E as well, so it was curtains.

Lark ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) If it's a classic Pillars standoff with nobody holding A you have time to do a push up one of the ep…

[wet root]

Oof, yep, just a case of outcaps leads to outpositioned

[glad aurora]

whoops all liners is what made me invent the foul and detestable orbital s2h frigs

whoops all ocellos is what made me invent the nefarious and cruel low-stage-range dual-purpose s3h

there are secrets for those with eyes to see (and many hours to waste) in the missile editor

[supple sonnet]

Update: flares seem like Liner ball. 😔

[glad aurora]

womp

[supple sonnet]

...and I don't think we have the foul and detestable orbital frigs. 😔

[wet root]

Just gotta snipe their caps with hybrids, return the favour

[junior heron]

Just reach in and rotate their liners away from your ships.

[supple sonnet]

That did just happen! We got their cap player.

Lark ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Just gotta snipe their caps with hybrids, return the favour

(As in, their cap player is on OUR team now. :P)

[wet root]

That's the true power of Revolvers, when the enemy player does this they actually just reload your liners for you

[supple sonnet]

Update: we killed their s2cc pretty early, dueled with the triple LN for a while, stopped their cappers, and won pretty handily. :)

Shoutout to Televized for bringing the really evil capfleet with S2H, S2, a bit of jamming, and some guns. They exploded all the enemy cappers. :P

[wooden veldt]

\ We also had a pretty good time with this fleet we've been testing.

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Starlit Horizon (v2)' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

Starlit Horizon : 'Axford' class Heavy Cruiser [Gun EWar PD Missile Sensor]
    Starlit Ark : 'Raines' class Frigate [PD]
   Starlit Song : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Sensor Gun EWar]
  Quiet Horizon : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Sensor Gun EWar]
```This fleet uses 3 different missile types:
```yaml
                 SDM-2-2 'Ice Spear' ACM : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE FRAG [8pts]
SGM-101 Solitary Lights In An Empty City : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
                       SGM-211 Killjoy-D : DIRECT - NONE - NONE [6pts]

[supple sonnet]

Escorted Axford with jamvettes and a PD Raines, modified from an escorted Ax Pyrope helped us build a while back.
Trades the firepower of an ax pair in exchange for jamming, utility, and straight-line speed.

Plus sidearms on the jamvettes for dealing with small stuff.
Though we're considering pulling the CMD jammer off the Ax, shoving it on one of the escorts, and replacing it with a backpack hangar so we can carry a coilgun Tanto with jam pods, which seems like it'd be handy for sniping at bombers, decoying HoJ/ARAD, and all that.

(Especially once campaign drops and craft changes presumably drop.)

[mint sinew]

Are you running the corvettes both alongside the Ax?

[supple sonnet]

Yep.

[mint sinew]

Might be worth cutting a pinard

[supple sonnet]

Yeah, we figured. Working out what we can afford with one gone.

[mint sinew]

I don't know how I'd feel running a raiderless Axford, but I guess you're not looking to take fair fights

[supple sonnet]

Honestly? Someone in here offhandedly brought it up while we were fiddling with the drives, I decided it sounded interesting, if nothing else, and figured I'd throw them in and give it a shot.
We're kinda just experimenting with things with this fleet, feeling out what works and what doesn't. We... haven't deviated far from the meta up until now, and mostly used either borrowed meta fleets, lightly modified (also borrowed) fleets, or (modified) starter fleets.
But we feel like we know enough about the game now to start dipping our paws into fleet design.

If we try odd things and they don't work? Then we've learned they don't. :P

[mint sinew]

Oh yeah, not a critique just making an observation

Might even be one of the rare fleets to want a hangup

[supple sonnet]

Oh yes, we've considered the Hangup. Still figuring out how or where we could fit one, if at all.

...huh, we did not know Ammo Elevators sped up craft arming speed.

The more you know.

[mint sinew]

Nice little bit of QoL for backpack craft (or guns on a jman)

Really feel the difference between craft on gun vs MD liners

[supple sonnet]

...and coilgun Tantos only get six rounds, wow...

[mint sinew]

Yeah, but that's usually like 5 dead missiles

[glad aurora]

yep

[supple sonnet]

Indeed!

[wet root]

Ooh, nifty fleet! I think if I were to build it I might swap one of the escorts for a Railstone or some hybrids, something to give it a bit more punch, because having nothing outside your 5 barrels of 450mm (and two unbuffed mk62s I guess) is pretty light for firepower when it comes down to it for a 3k fleet, but my viewpoint on that might admittedly be a little warped by like 100 hours of playing Ocellos designed pretty much specifically to counter builds like this

[supple sonnet]

Mhm, yeah, we did feel that in the matches we've taken it out in. Backpack hybrids honestly feels like the play for us: reliable firepower from guns, plus some S3H and maybe a few CCKs for sniping out Ocellos.

[wet root]

The big missile backpack is one of the things that's hard to afford but if you can it's just super nice, especially with the Axford's built-in command channels

[wet root]

I thiiiink you can get the power to run 2xBlanket + 1xHangup on a Sprinter?

Getting a Floodlight in could also be nice, but it would probably cost you your Scryer, since I think the only way you could afford the power would be swapping one of the Defenders for it

And again a matter of warped perspective on my end, because you usually won't be running up against the Jamcellos

Though partly it would be nice against CMD/SAH from S2Cellos/craft (and straight-runner containers)

[supple sonnet]

nod
I keep re-writing this message to figure out how to word it right, but basically we just threw on the jamvettes to see if we could hide an Axford under jamming in an actual match (without having to do a massive internals refit), and now that we know we can make it work, we might end up trying to either basically re-create your Jamcellos on ANS, or try to figure out a way to fit in an S3H backpack.

We definitely want more firepower; we just need to figure out how.

[wet root]

I should try building a variant of my Axford/offset Raines/Railstone fleet with the Raines swapped out for a jamvette and Sarissa box

[supple sonnet]

...granted, this does kind of feel like re-inventing the Vauxhall but with 450, but... it's been interesting to experiment with, and we can always make a dual Vaux fleet once we're done getting silly with it. :P

(We've been Normal for 190 hours. I think we've earned a bit of Fuck It, We Ball.)

[wet root]

Depending on how attached you are to the Auroras, you could lose them and swap the blankets from one of your escorts to the Raines

[wet root]

Entirely reasonable to have your own build preferences by now! There's a reason almost every single fleet I play has at least one jammer in it lol

And I'll freely admit my ANS fleets are heavily warped by the question of "does this answer my Ocellos, specifically, despite the fact I almost certainly won't run into them" :P

[mint sinew]

A lot of my equivalents to this fleet either run a railstone or a gun frig as the extra punch

[supple sonnet]

Not super attached. We're mainly attached to the Sarissas, given that PTB is merging in a few days and they should be an excellent craft deterrent once they are more reliable. Plus they snipe people's missiles if they forget to Sarissa wiggle. :)

Lark ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Depending on how attached you are to the Auroras, you could lose them and swap the blankets from one…

[wet root]

The Axford should get the backpack mount sized up so you can fit a beam turret on it

This can only go well

[supple sonnet]

HAH-

Soon it'll be a Small Solomon at that rate.

[mint sinew]

That's where the cringed masquerade BB comes in

[wet root]

If you bounce the Blankets to the Raines you should double check that the Sarissas still fire while the Blankets are on their recharge cycle, I think they do but I'm not 100% on it

[supple sonnet]

Just need ANS to invent smaller beams so you can have Beam Ax with only beams.

[wet root]

Well, you can put Auroras on all the slots other than the bottom one...

[mint sinew]

Recharge cycle costs power I think

[wet root]

It does but PD has higher power priority

[wet root]

I do love Sarissas, my Axford actually has cheek Sarissas in addition to the one on my offset Raines

Definitely my favorite PDT

[supple sonnet]

Athena (she/it) | Wyvern Central AI ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Escorted Axford with jamvettes and a PD Raines, modified from an escorted Ax Pyrope helped us build …

...huh, we're pulling a CCK template from the Discord and apparently they're running CMD/pARAD...

[mint sinew]

I remember seeing discussion about that innovation. It's to minimise getting hooked by killjoys

The intended use case of pARAD actually, though that came about from the perspective of containers

[supple sonnet]

Hmm...
Also hot-launched? Almost never seen anything be hot-launched that isn't a torpedo or defensive...

[mint sinew]

Interesting, I find hot launch the more common. Especially when you care about specific salvo spacing

E.g. support container spacing

[supple sonnet]

Maybe we're just used to TF Hemlock. :P

[mint sinew]

Outside of containers cruise tends not to care as much

[supple sonnet]

...so anyways, we've pulled the Ares template from the Discord and it has A, B, and C variations. Are they all meant to be fired together as a salvo?

[mint sinew]

Yeah, in that order too

They work by having the hardened skin missile overtake the others before impact to spread the aurora damage over the different missiles

Hence not tolerating cold launch messing with your spacing

[supple sonnet]

...ahhhhhhh! Spread damage, add BSSJ and decoys... righttttt.
And since an Axford has three programming channels at base, you fire them three at a timeeeeee.

(And Vauxhalls have three as well. Right.)

[mint sinew]

Yeah, probably important to check if the set is functional as a salvo of 3 and not 6 (3x2 Vauxhalls)

[supple sonnet]

Will do!

...gosh these are expensive.

152 points per salvo, no wonder "HEKP broadside memed" is a term...

By "check if the set is functional", do you mean "throw together a quick stand-in Axford pair with four Auroras each, go into the test range, fire and see if they make it through?"

[mint sinew]

Ocello pair, but yeah

[supple sonnet]

...wait, you can test range against OSP ships with an ANS fleet??

[mint sinew]

Yeah, you might just need to navigate the folders when loading your test fleet

[supple sonnet]

...ohhhh my god.

I don't know how we didn't know that.

...have we never gone into the testing range??

...dangit okay, I think they're meant to be launched as 3x2.

[glad aurora]

fwiw this is generally done with two railstone escorts for the axford, cassie chase is kind of famous for running that fleet

[mint sinew]

Last I saw Cassie only runs a single railstone with the other a pure ewar/pd device, but that could have just been a variant

[supple sonnet]

(Hmm, if we cover the CCKs with helljamming they make it through with only three...)

[mint sinew]

I think they are designed to be covered by jamming, they are made for Vauxhalls after all

[supple sonnet]

Mhm, yeah. Going to fiddle around and see just how much jamming they need.

...two jammers seems to be the minimum; four gets them through easily.

[mint sinew]

You testing with a flood from the CCs?

[supple sonnet]

...did not know we could, so no. :P

[mint sinew]

F2 -> dbgEnableEnemyControl y

[supple sonnet]

[mint sinew]

dbgSuspendVisibilityMatrix y (or something like that) is also handy so you can always see the target fleet

[junior heron]

I believe it's just dbgSuspendVisibility

[mint sinew]

I'd believe it, pretty sure I just type dbgSus and tab complete

[supple sonnet]

...heh, just enough budget for 2 volleys of 3 CCKs. >:)

[mint sinew]

Do the set you grabbed have cruise?

[supple sonnet]

Yep!

[mint sinew]

Neat, great for corner shotting LNs

[supple sonnet]

And for Sarissa weaving.

[mint sinew]

True

Were they not CMD primary

[supple sonnet]

CMD/pARAD, CMD/pARAD, CMD/SAH.

[mint sinew]

Yeah, so CMD primary need to use a TRP to cruise so only get 1 wobble

[supple sonnet]

Wait, no, the second one is full ARAD, not just pARAD. My mistake.

Right. Still better than nothing, and, as stated, you can corner shot LNs with them.

Lord Fluffy (he) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) Yeah, so CMD primary need to use a TRP to cruise so only get 1 wobble

...we may end up going down to one ACA on both the jamvette and EWAR/Sarissa box, so we can fit some more general S3H for striking targets that don't have eight Auroras. :P

We don't need all four running all that often; they're mostly just for jam-flashing out Bullseye locks. So having just one each should be fine.

[mint sinew]

One aca buys you a lot of uptime anyway

[supple sonnet]

It really does.

[wet root]

Blankets have very solid base uptime already as well

Bellbirds make me sad

[supple sonnet]

...hmmm, now we need to think about drives again.
Power isn't really the issue; we're just torn on whether to stick with big Dragonfly plus two small Whiplashes, or if we wanna do something weird like big Whiplash, small Prowler+Raider.

[wet root]

Well, you probably want small Whip big Raider for the latter, small Whip is a lot better than big whip

Even if big Raider I think has a bigger sig size penalty

[supple sonnet]

Right, yeah...

[wet root]

Huh, yeah, big Raider is strictly worse than small Raider in terms of drive stats, it's just to a much lesser degree than big vs small Whip

[supple sonnet]

Funnily enough, big Raider plus one Prowler still comes out to -2% radar signature, even though both are 25%. :P

[wet root]

Interesting, stacking wonkiness I guess

[supple sonnet]

...to make sure I understand right: Linear Thrust helps with acceleration and orbit dodging, right?

[wet root]

Correct

[supple sonnet]

...we may go with this weird setup, then. Acceleration is... sorely needed, from our last few matches, and we still come out slightly ahead in terms of radar signature.
Guess this is the big trade-off when it comes to trying to hide an Ax under jamming; you can't exactly boost your signature much.

Turn rate has been absolutely gutted- but we're not planning to take fair fights, and the ones we do, we'll stick our nose on target and keep it there.

[glad aurora]

also make sure you're turning on bshort and command jam when you're doing what fluffy mentioned to activate player control for the ocellos - across both ocellos, both need to be bshorting to replicate combat conditions

[supple sonnet]

Campaign tomorrow!!

[chilly yoke]

[gentle cloud]

when does boat night start on Saturdays?

[mint sinew]

Usually at <t:1780002000:t> or a bit before

[sharp crow]

I will try to join again this week

[gentle cloud]

yikes

11pm for me

[mint sinew]

If you throw a ping a few hours earlier you'll probably get people, especially if you mention ahead of time. (not me, boat night is already 7am for me)

[gentle cloud]

what's the role?

[supple sonnet]

@/Nebulous: Fleet Comand. also you will need it to see the boat night voice chanle

[gentle cloud]

how do I get muyself the role?

[mint sinew]

?rank Nebulous: Fleet Command up in the bot channel

[supple sonnet]

I think it's ?rank

[gentle cloud]

worked this time

I am definitly rusty tactics wise tho

not sure what to do there

[mint sinew]

Play more Neb I guess

You could also spectate a few games to get the feel for things again

[gentle cloud]

how do I ensure a gunsup has front towards without messing up LOS form the gus?

[wet root]

For hulls other than Marauder Lineships, you generally only put guns on the forward-facing mounts

You can build for broadsiding, which gets you a bit more damage output, but it's usually not recommended because you lose a ton of survivability in exchange

There's situational exceptions, and Marauders specifically are almost exclusively broadsiders, but it's a good rule of thumb

Mechanically you can set your heading towards a specific track or direction and your ships will face that way

[chrome forge]

It's fine if I just show up to spectate on boat night, right?

[supple sonnet]

Mhm!! We did so a couple of times before we even bought the game. :)

[chrome forge]

I more so just want to absorb some gameplay and this game's online presence is otherwise quite small it seems

[supple sonnet]

Alsooooo, for the Neb knowers here... what's some good seeker setups for a CLN? We've got one built and we're just fiddling with seeker combos now.

Currently we've been fiddling around with ACT[WAKE] (slash ACT[THERM] if the math works out that they cost the same) on our pen aids, but we're a bit stuck when it comes to triple seeker setups on our primary "damage" containers.
It's... hard to know what'll work in an actual battle from just the test range.

...we've also heard things about CMD containers and things like CMD/SAH (forgetting the third seeker) with an illuminator pike/shuttle/tug/whatever, but the discussions about those were old so we're not 100% sure what to do here.

[mint sinew]

If you are firing blind ACT[THERM] variants are your premium seekers, ACT[CMD] or even CMD work if you want to be striking engaged targets

CMD/SAH was a specific build that used illum/EO pikes to designate targets. The pike illum nerf has made it notably worse

[wet root]

Absolutely! Just try to be careful about what info you share if you're in the voice call, spectators have access to information that players don't

[chrome forge]

Oh yea I already considered that

[gentle cloud]

Maruder?

[mint sinew]

The OSP line ship

It's a refitted cargo ship and makes up the bulk of OSP capital ships

[wet root]

I think CMD/SAH is also mixed into strikes as straightrunners sometimes

[supple sonnet]

Right! Hmm...

I kind of want to try blind fire, and we can't really rely on pub teammates to keep things locked, so ACT[THERM] variants it is.
...hmmm.

[mint sinew]

Not all your boxes need to be ACT[THERM] only a few getting through will do

[supple sonnet]

Rightttt...
How many different seeker combos would you recommend mixing in?

[mint sinew]

So a mix of things like ARAD/ACT[WAKE] and ACT/HOJ[ARAD] will do the job

I haven't CLN'd in a bit but I used to run three seeker sets on my damage boxes with a 4th set just for the decoy boxes

[supple sonnet]

ACT/HOJ[ARAD] is the weirdest seeker combo we've ever heard of and I love it, personally.

[wet root]

Extremely annoying to kill between valmem and HoJ, you have to have either a well-timed Killjoy or flash jamming during EMCON

[mint sinew]

"What beats ACT[ARAD] that my ACT[THERM] boxes wouldn't already be hitting?" = jamming

[wet root]

ACT/ACT/[ARAD] is my favorite lol

[supple sonnet]

Also, if you have a validator at the back of a stack, like the one I just mentioned... does it validate everything ahead of it?

Or just the seeker directly in front of it?

[mint sinew]

Order doesn't actually matter, I just prefer the convention

[supple sonnet]

FOR REAL??

[mint sinew]

For validators specifically. Seekers check in order

[wet root]

(Used with rocket boxes, you have EACT to acquire target and have it immediately deploy rockets when the non-EACT ACT gets in range, so if chaff is behind the target it gets effectively ignored)

[supple sonnet]

Right, but- that's huge! I thought validators were basically "attached" to the seeker in front of them and only validated that specific seeker.

[mint sinew]

Validators are just a check applied and get funky if you have two

Nah, so the real premium seekers set is ARAD/ACT[THERM]

Because in absence of thermval it's just ARAD/ACT (a good set) and jamming won't even save you from ACT[THERM]

[supple sonnet]

And should we be setting unvalidated targets to ACCEPT or REJECT?

[mint sinew]

(and small ships struggle to trip [THERM] so you can't even catch it on a Corvette easily if you mess up)

I tend to use ACCEPT for this sort of work, don't want to lose the salvo for free because they didn't hit your validators

Reject is mostly useful for validators you control like [CMD]

[wet root]

For ARAD/ACT[THERM] reject is maybe worth considering to avoid killjoys, but it makes them a lot less flexible

[supple sonnet]

ACT/HOJ[ARAD] is giving us a warning in the fleet editor page.

[wet root]

Probably because the warnings aren't designed for 3 seeker slots and HoJ[ARAD] is identical to base HoJ, if I had to guess? What's the warning?

[mint sinew]

That'll be the HOJ[ARAD]

If you pull HoJ off it the warning should clear so you know that it's still good on the ACT seeker

[wet root]

Technically a bug, if anyone cares to report it in the Nebcord

[supple sonnet]

Hmm, okay, we've got this built.
...butttt we're not very good at executing ToT strikes yet, even just practicing in training mode.
Should probably try to practice double ToT strikes in real matches before we try to pull off a triple ToT. :P

[glad aurora]

use enable enemy control to make the ship you're shooting at move around

[supple sonnet]

Did so.

[glad aurora]

excellent

[wet root]

I usually give my target a wide, oddly-angled orbit command

[supple sonnet]

I wish I could convince a Raines crew to get out an push. :P
They're just barely too slow with a Whiplash to keep up with a Whiplash'd Vauxhall. 😔

[mint sinew]

They accelerate slower too I believe so it's worse than the max speed suggests

[supple sonnet]

Painnnnn... 😔

[mint sinew]

I suspect we're going to run into this issue a lot in campaign as I doubt we'll be getting issued ewar sprinters for our Vauxhalls

[wet root]

Could always run the double Whip Raines

[supple sonnet]

Can't do that with 4 jammers on it. :P

[wet root]

But yeah, Vauxen are unreasonably nippy

[supple sonnet]

Unless- hmmmmmmmmm.

...ahahaaaaaaa, jam in a micro reactor and a PCC, and we can get an EWAR Raines that's less than 1 m/s slower than a Vauxhall in a straight line!

[mint sinew]

How's that compare to doing the same thing to a sprinter?

[wet root]

(Or two Sprinters)

[supple sonnet]

It's... hmm. Interesting.
Turns out you can indeed fit 4 jammers on a Sprinter and have just barely enough power to run them if you get really greedy and only run 1 small DC locker.
An EWAR Raines can do the double Whiplash trick and still have enough room for good DC and plenty of power for ACCs.

Two Sprinters is... also a thing. They're... a bit expensive, however, and splitting the jammers means any ACCs can only buff two jammers at a time. They're not really needed but we've found them to be a big help when we need to keep repeatedly jamflashing to keep FCRs off us.

But if we get super greedy two greed-jam-vettes cost exactly the same as a tough EWAR Raines.
I guess it comes down to if 4x buffed jammers and a durable platform for them is superior to two super greedy jamvettes that don't marginally slow down the Vauxhalls.

...okay yeah we're gonna go with double jamvettes, they've got free mounts for stuff so we can scoot things off the Vauxhalls.

[wet root]

Jamvettes need less DC as well for a few reasons

Better redundancy, better at hiding under their own jamming, better at dodging, highly resistant to 450mm

Though presumably tomorrow they'll be more vulnerable to 250mm bombshell

[wet root]

One trick with jammers is you can turn on bshort then turn it back off to get your jammers running with as much of their cycle as they've recharged

I.e. if they're halfway through the recharge cycle, flickering bshort will turn them on for half of a duty cycle

Blankets are also just highly bshortable in general

[glad aurora]

Why jamvettes plural?

Vauxhalls come as 3V or 2V1S, anything else sacrifices too much killing power

[wet root]

2V2S is fine, loses missile capacity but more flexibility

[supple sonnet]

We need 4 jammers to break FCR locks, and if we put 4 on one Sprinter we don't have room for a CMD jammer or a VLS-2.

I'll grab the fleet file and you can look it over, 1 sec.

(Maybe we've made a mistake somewhere in building these.)

[wooden veldt]

\

[lime jungle]

Fleet 'Dawn Under Heaven (WIP)' is composed of 4 ships that cost 3000 points:

 Dawn Under Heaven : 'Vauxhall' class Light Cruiser [Gun Missile PD Sensor]
Horizon Under Dusk : 'Vauxhall' class Light Cruiser [Gun Missile PD Sensor]
       Horizonsong : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [Missile EWar]
        Heavensong : 'Sprinter' class Corvette [EWar]
```This fleet uses 7 different missile types:
```yaml
                 SDM-2-2 'Ice Spear' ACM : DIRECT - CMD/PSV(WAKE) - HE FRAG [8pts]
SGM-101 Solitary Lights In An Empty City : DIRECT - PSV(WAKE) - HE SHAPED [1pts]
                       SGM-211 Killjoy-D : DIRECT - NONE - NONE [6pts]
                     SGM-H-316 Cyclone-A : CRUISE - CMD/ARAD(RADAR) - HEKP [55pts]
                     SGM-H-316 Cyclone-B : CRUISE - CMD/ARAD(RADAR) - HEKP [45pts]
                     SGM-H-316 Cyclone-C : CRUISE - CMD/SAH(RADAR) - HEKP [52pts]
                     SGM-H-321 Nighthawk : CRUISE - ACT(RADAR)/[PSV(EO)] - HE SHAPED [23pts]

[wet root]

2V1S is common because it gives room for Ocellokiller salvos

Seems reasonable to me

[wet root]

Personally I would probably do the internals slightly differently, I like my auxes and secondary CICs and don't like spending on RDCs, but that's just preference

Looks like compared to a "standard" 2V1S you're trading the second CCK salvo for a second jamvette

[supple sonnet]

And anti-medium S3H, for sniping anything lighter than an Ocello.

[wet root]

Do toss a 2pt arming S2 on the VLS2 Sprinter though, you will need it to cap at some point

[mint sinew]

Or if I'm spending RDC money I'd by an LDC in the rearmost compartment

[supple sonnet]

(Do any of you have an example of a "standard" 2V1S fleet? I'd like to see how people have built those, just as a comparison.)

[wet root]

I do not, unfortunately

[supple sonnet]

Okay, figured out why people go with 2V1C.
We don't actually need 4 jammers! With 2 shifted to a jamvette, we can break a Bullseye lock with just 2 at about... 7km? So if we kite at close to our maximum range we're completely unlockable. :)

[wet root]

Vauxen can also fit jammers in their shoulder slots if you're confident in your softkill

[supple sonnet]

Which we are... not very. :P

Also having them on a jamvette gives them greater ability to jam multiple targets if we are at near-maximum jammer range but still being spotted, or to quickly reposition them around. Shoulder-jammers, in our experience, are a pain because of how slow the Vauxhalls roll and slew. We smack the button only to see:
"BEARING TO TARGET"
"BEARING TO TARGET"
"BEARING TO TARGET"

[glad aurora]

yep, which you always want to be doing in vauxen because they'll hit you anyway at any shorter distance

[olive blade]

@junior heron I remember always had lots of xV1 fleets

[junior heron]

I think that's 2 Vauxhall 1 Corvette/Sprinter, which I do have one of! I just haven't played it in forever.

[chilly yoke]

Oh shit oh fuck it's happening

[tulip vault]

SDM2s being osp only is interesting

[junior heron]

heck

[junior heron]

<@&942093958551588904> IT'S HERE

[supple sonnet]

We're out here.
Behind enemy lines.
Facing the entire Protectorate Navy.
...

Let's give 'em hell.

ACTION STATIONS, ACTION STATIONS.
SET CONDITION HYPE THROUGHOUT THE FLEET.

[junior heron]

hmmm

the link is wrong...

[jagged nest]

FYI. ALL modded craft are broken. Or at least AGMLIB might be.

[junior heron]

I don't know who all messed around with the starcraft or warcraft map editors, but this is legitimately such a nostalgic error to see.

[supple sonnet]

Wait what??

TomZero (Tommy, he/him) ↩️

[Reply to:](#1164000873031151637 message) the link is wrong...

Is the campaign broken??

[junior heron]

the link in the forwarded post goes to an error

[supple sonnet]

Ohhhhhhhhhhh.

[junior heron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/887570/view/716780409378047464

but the steam preview is correct I think

[junior heron]

so if you want to look at the Worden and Mercator, you can use
ShowFleetEditorHiddenin the console

[noble zodiac]

even funnier

put large mounted hangars in it

get yourself a casual

6 bomber pads. for free

(because strikedown slots can ready any kind of plane :D)

[junior heron]

oh yeah

ANS should get the DCX So I can bring the 7 DCX Worden

[supple sonnet]

OWwwweieeeeee...
No spoilers, but oof, even Medium difficulty is not playing around.

[junior heron]

lol, good to know

I also appreciate no spoilers!

[random grove]

Neb AI is pretty mean now..

[junior heron]

The third faction!

[supple sonnet]

Okay so uh...
We literally had to restart after two missions on Normal.

And I don't mean "took too much damage and wanted to do better."
We genuinely lost.
Annihilated.

[elfin island]

what route did you go?

[supple sonnet]

|| Cruiser then Factory. Didn't have the fuel to hit both the CL and Raines. ||

[elfin island]

||Odd i wonder if fuel consumption is tied to difficulty ||

[supple sonnet]

|| CL took a bad hit in the first engagement- then the S2 tugs showed up and dumped their entire magazine loads. ACT[CMD]- nothing we could do without a CMD jammer. ||

|| May need to start investing heavily in fighter cover for our frontline. ||

HARDKILL WILL SAVE MEEEEEEEE-

[mellow lagoon]

You can ||resupply on fuel in the raines mission so you can get both the CL and the raines before hitting the factory||

[supple sonnet]

Whatttt?? Damnnn.

[glad aurora]

genuinely better beam angles than a BB

I expect modded fighting groups to have Beam Wordens

[glad aurora]

||yeah, this is exactly what I was worried about as soon as I was told the campaign had no customization||

||no omnisoftkill = oh guess I'm dead lol||

[sharp crow]

||you have a carrier with 50 tantos. shoot them||

[glad aurora]

FIX: Fixed carriers being able to launch craft without power.
this is interesting, I don't think that it affects my giga cringed fm200 levy builds but I'll have to check

I believe that they aren't over power because they have no radar, but if not that's a 10pt nerf

[oak shell]

Does this bring the ptb updates into main for multiplayer games, too?

[junior heron]

yeah, SSM-1 and craft maneuverability nerfs

and MD fragmentation

Also, I'll note for everyone playing the campaign: you can Edit Loadouts of craft mid-mission to add jammers or illuminators

[glad aurora]

`- CHG: Decreased SGM-H-2 body point cost to 3 (was 4).

• CHG: Decreased HEKP warhead base cost to 1.75 points (was 2).`

https://tenor.com/view/pixy-ace-combat-zero-ac0-no-solo-wing-pixy-gif-23893027

This Patch... It Was Made For Me

[wary flame]

....fine, I'll bring back the S3H duelist corvs

they're a gross overexpense in a world with craft in it but they're fun as hell

[glad aurora]

effectively ends up as buying a free escort sprinter on my s2h sCL and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the s3h CL even

because it already has an escort

going to see what I can afford on the orbital s2h frigs, maybe I can offload some ewar to a sprinter so I can buy more VLS space

[junior heron]

Actually, this seems to just be a universal change. You can build loadouts mid-skirmish.

[glad aurora]

and a much-appreciated one

huge apm tax but makes it so much less clunky to make fighters

[supple sonnet]

Personally, we're a big fan of how they've changed the ammo-switch method.

[glad aurora]

(as this is the Fighter Pushing Update, it seems)

[supple sonnet]

It's... nice to be able to switch ammo types without issuing new fire orders.

[wicked mirage]

<@&942093958551588904> Anyone want to get a Pub going on the new patch? Campaign is cool and all but MP just got a whole slew of improvements too lol