Ask me anything / Training

[Verain]

What advice can you give to someone that really doesn't want to play the big 3 (Flashfire/Sting, Mangler/Quarrel, Razorwire/Rampart), but still wants to be competitive?

 

I would say, play the Flashfire/Sting, Mangler/Quarrel, and Razorwire/Rampart.

 

Bolo answered your question correctly- play some Warcarrier/Legion. You can also play some Condor/Jungoran.

 

But the reason I say just play meta ships is, if your plan is to "find out what the meta ships are, then avoid them", then no correct answer will really help.

 

The T1 scout is perfectly viable as well, though admittedly inferior to the T2.

And this is also correct.

 

 

 

 

But what's your reason for avoiding the top three ships? They are very different playstyles from each other. Do you like scouts, but hate that the type 2 scout is really good at it? Do you like gunships, but hate that the type 1 gunship has really great resource management and two great railguns that you have to switch between correctly? Do you like bombers, but dislike the parts where you are playing geometry games? What possible reason could there be to avoid solid builds, and once you have a good build on another ship, would you just start avoiding that too?

[Drakkolich]

What advice can you give to someone that really doesn't want to play the big 3 (Flashfire/Sting, Mangler/Quarrel, Razorwire/Rampart), but still wants to be competitive?

 

I've been racking my brain all day on how to answer this.

 

I'm just not sure what to suggest without any context on why you don't want to play those 3 ships.

 

Is it playstyle? Is it trying to separate yourself from others? Are you just curious what other ships out there can perform decently? Maybe it's some other reason I can't even think of.

 

Anyways I'm not trying to discourage you or anything, I would just need to know the context of why you don't want to play those ships to suggest alternatives.

[Nightmaregale]

Hey Drak,

If you start over at a newe server (without character transfer ^^), which ship is the cheapest / fastest to purchase and upgrade to a somehow competitive level?

[DarthBubba]

I edited my post because I finally found the answer I was looking for. I didn't know what ship mastery was and was wondering if you bought a ship in the Cartel Market if it came with everything fully unlocked. I just found out that Mastery is like an xp boost of 10% so I'll probably still buy one. Plus I want to get any more xp bonuses unlocked via Legacy before I begin.

 

So my new question is which ship would be the easiest for a beginner? Does it matter? I was thinking about just getting the basic ship that goes faster. Seems like speed may help me out more in the beginning than anything else. Plus I like the idea of having a fast ship to harass people. I figure I can start there and then decide once I'm more familiar with everything. I know it's pretty brutal and I will die....a lot before I ever start getting the hang of it....if I ever do that is.

 

I look forward to getting blown to pieces by you all.....over and over and over lol. I don't mind dying one bit Sometimes it's fun just to harass an enemy. A lot of times in pvp I just run interference and try to piss off as many people as I can. The more people chasing after me, the less there are doing the actual real objectives in pvp.

I don't know if that will work here but I'll have to find out.

 

I think I'm going to start on my new Bounty Hunter. I think the role fits him pretty well.

Edited October 15, 2015 by DarthBubba
I found the answer to my question

[OKonst]

Hey Drak,

If you start over at a newe server (without character transfer ^^), which ship is the cheapest / fastest to purchase and upgrade to a somehow competitive level?

 

For you, I'd say buy a T1-Bomber and put the usual CP/Seismic/Interdiction-Stuff on it

 

Ok that was mean, sry

 

I'd suggest you buy a T2-Scout and try Quads'n'Pods for example - that should more or less come close to your feeling as a main-bomber-player. Even with very little upgrades, that build performs really well against carefully chosen targets.

You might want to watch Drak's "Starting over on Red Eclipse"-Videos for inspiration and early buy/upgrade-order.

[OKonst]

Hello, I was wondering, if you buy a star fighter from the Cartel Market then does it come with everything unlocked?

 

I am just gonna answer to that particular question and leave the rest to the professionals

 

Absolutely don't buy a Cartel Ship - they are not worth the cost in any way! Mastery only means that you gain 10% more requisition points flying that ship over the normal ones you buy with fleet requisition.

Cartel Market Ships come with the same stock components as their counterparts and have to be upgraded just as well and in the same manner.

[Nightmaregale]

Guess I earned that comment =D

I meant in generall and not jsut my case and yes I guess the T1 Bomber is rather cheap to upgrade it to somewaht competitive.

Also wouldn't be the T1 Scout cheaper than the T2 since you save 5000 fleet reqs?

[OKonst]

Technically speaking, I think on any new server you would probably perform best in a Type 1 Gunship (Mangler/Quarrel) from the start. Requisition gain is mostly rather high in that ship.

 

Long-time subscribers have one already unlocked for free, others buy it after their very first game.

Edited October 15, 2015 by OKonst

[nyghtrunner]

Technically speaking, I think on any new server you would probably perform best in a Type 1 Gunship (Mangler/Quarrel) from the start. Requisition gain is mostly rather high in that ship.

 

Long-time subscribers have one already unlocked for free, others buy it after their very first game.

By and large, I agree. If you don't have the T1 GS, I like that one quite a bit as a starter, although it can take a while to get into truly competitive range. I guess it depends on your build, and how quickly you want to get Disto if you'd rather have Disto's extra break over Troll Shield. Disto on a GS for me is something of a crutch, so I miss it a lot when I don't have it, and often go for it before Ion AoE and Slug's Armor pen.

 

The T1 Bomber doesn't take very long to get competitive, though. At least, I don't think it does. Most of the power is in the lower tiers of your components, and the only real grind is getting armor pen on the heavies.

 

The Sting is kind of difficult for me to answer. I'm I think about about 70-75% peak once I get Retros (+2 points, 5k), Basic BLCs (2k), 1 point in Regen Thrusters (1k), and 1 point in Clusters (1k). At that point, and while the extra break from Disto is a nice thing to have, the only thing I ever hate not having is the armor pen. I'm easier to kill, but sans CP or turrets, I'm nearly as lethal. But also keep in mind, I've mastered 9 or 10 Type 2 Scouts from scratch at this point, so I'm not sure my observations on it will really be representative.

[nyghtrunner]

Also wouldn't be the T1 Scout cheaper than the T2 since you save 5000 fleet reqs?

This also depends. I'll make the difference in fleet reqs up a lot faster on the T2 Scout than the T1, simply because it will take me much less to get the ship to a personally competitive point. I probably need a half mastered T1 to start pushing 20 kills and such in a match, where I've had it happen on my first match in a new T2. Certainly not always, and not as much against really good teams, but I've been able to average 12 or so over the first dozen games a couple of times, and even against those good teams, I'm usually pushing 45-50k damages. So at that rate, I'll gain that 5k req via performance well before I'll get it in a T1.

 

For the T1, I don't feel that comfortable until I have a couple points in BR, TT with a couple of points, S2E with a couple of points, power thrusters at max, and light armor at max. And I need to swap out the lasers, get a point or 2 in pods... I can do the stay alive thing pretty well in a largely stock T1, but I can't kill things easily until I've put some serious req into it.

 

I guess I'll put it to you this way... Lately, when I start a new toon and go GSFing with it, I do the first match on a Strike. Once that one is done, I'll farm the extra req from the T1 GS and T1 Scout (usually 1 mission to get it). Buy the T2 Scout. Pop the daily. Spent like 80-100 cartel coins to convert the ship req to fleet req, get an offensive crewmate that has Pinpointing, dump the rest into the T2 Scout, finish the weekly, pop it, and at that point, I'm pretty much already where I alluded to in the prev post. That's my "formula" for starting up a new Sting. It works for me quite well. It might not work for others who aren't as comfortable in that ship.

 

EDIT - I also personally think it's a mistake to use that 5k token on upgrades to the starter ships, rather than buying other ships with it. I don't fault anyone for getting a T1 GS and T1 Bomber over the T2 Scout with it. Or spending half to get one of those, and saving the other half for the Sting, or even using it on crewmates. But I don't think it's a good idea to use 2k of it to get regular lasers, 1k for armor pen on pods, and then the rest on S2E on the T1 Scout or something. Having more ships makes tokens better, even if you're just spending the req on things you don't fly often. You will eventually master ships with nothing but tokens. Buy at least 1 ship with that intro token.

 

RE-EDIT - Also, w/regards to my T2 Scout formula... If I push the scout that hard early, it's at the cost of other ships. As such, I tend to start saving daily/weekly tokens until I've picked up the T1 Bomber and maxed out my crew options. I often also get a T3 Strike before popping those tokens, just to maximize their value. If I get frustrated, and feel I need to push for Disto (missile heave server) or armor pen (bomber/CP heavy server), I will sometimes pop some of them and use some cartel coins to push one of those grinds over the top, but I don't like to do it. And once I have that initial 9k into a T2 Scout, I'm largely content to just level up as normal until I'm nearly maxed, at which point I sometimes let my impatience get the better of me.

Edited October 15, 2015 by nyghtrunner

[Greezt]

Drakkolich, I seem to recall I saw your reply to someone on shield recently consumed rates (specifically you said that it doesn't exist). You also had a dev's not attached (Can't find the comment, though). What does the that mean for overcharged shield's "Shield power recently consumed regeneration rate"?

[RickDagles]

If I start a new toon I usually get to level 10 on ground game before flying. I got the Mangler/Quarrel for free so I usually just fly that for the first game and then buy the Razorwire/Rampart and deflection armor crew passive (for charged plating build). I usually also get wingman active (pub) or pinpointing passive (imp). I fly those 2 ships until I get my weekly, and then I pop the daily/weekly and convert the starguard/novadive ship req into fleet req and buy the flashfire/sting and condor/jugoran. Usually I buy the spearpoint/bloodmark and legion/warcarrier the same way (cartel coins) a few days later.

 

I'll usually fly Rampart in domination and Condor in TDM for the first few weeks until I've popped enough tokens to make the other 3 ships worthwhile. For example, I don't bother flying Quarrel until Ion AoE is unlocked since IMO that's the main reason to pick it over the Condor.

Edited October 15, 2015 by RickDagles

[RickDagles]

Alright I'll bite.

 

I have a few of questions for you. ^^

 

1: Why do you think Directional shields are better then Distortion on a Sting/Flashfire in Domination? What situations do you think they help more in?

 

2: How did you come to the conclusion that they are strictly worse in Team Deathmatch then in Domination?

 

3: When you play with Directional shields on your Sting/Flashfire what does the rest of build look like? I'm especially interested in the armor minor and crew defensive passives.

 

4: Is it better on certain Domination maps more then others? I would think Retro would be awful on Denon Exosphere as lacking a travel ability on that map seems so annoying.

 

 

I understand you said "quite good" and not like the best thing ever, I just keep trying to think of situations where Directional shields would be better in Domination and I keep coming up empty. I figure I must be missing something, really looking forward to your answers!

 

 

1. I don't think they're better than distortion field, I just said they're quite good .

Reasons directional shields are quite good in DOM:

A) Beginner and intermediate pilots shoot you and see numbers fly up, which makes them want to joust you (i.e. they play into your trap and they die).

B) Railgun drones, interdiction drones, concussion mines, seeker minesx2, interdiction mines, and cluster missiles hurt a bit less. The double shields is about 1200 extra damage - which equates to almost 2 clusters or 2 seekers; DF break only deals with 1 cluster or 1 seeker.

C) Killing turrets is easier and doesn't require you to blow cooldowns and/or be in F2.

 

When starting a new toon I often picked directional shields with level 1 upgrade (only 3000 req). Once I had full evasion armor and level 4 TT evasion, then I'd start upgrading DF (note: even though I was upgrading DF I still wouldn't switch to it until the missile break was unlocked). IMO Directionals is way better unless you have the full synergy of evasion working for you. The DF missile break is critical as well, obviously. In total that's roughly 37,000 requisition before things really definitely get better for the evasion build.

 

 

2. Reasons why I think directional shields are more viable in DOM than TDM:

A) In TDM you often have multiple gunships targeting you at the same time. It's not uncommon to have 4+ GS on you, especially if you are the only "name brand" player in the game. In Domination it's rare to have more than 2 GS targeting you. It's the same reason I think running interference is mandatory in TDM but I prefer wingman in DOM. Every time you add another enemy shooting at you, the usefulness of evasion increases dramatically. If there are only 1 or 2 ships shooting at you (more common in Dom) then it's less necessary to have the evasion. If you were building a ship designed strictly for 1v1 against targets with evasion, wingman would be exactly 5% better than running interference. And the 5% evasion debuff on TT would be exactly 3% worse than the 8% personal evasion buff.

B) In domination you can be very useful for your team by simply avoiding LoS at a friendly, neutral, or even (sometimes) enemy node. In TDM your job is to constantly make gunships move, and you're really not doing that if you're worried about LoS too often.

C) In domination it's pretty easy to keep targets in front of you. In TDM there's more risk of getting hit by a gunship or railgun drone in the back and suffering instant death.

 

 

3. Like I said before, I don't run the directional shields long term, so I don't invest any requisition to change any of the passives. And I don't buy any ship upgrades that would increase synergy with the directional shield build. The one advantage would be that choosing the 5% evasion debuff on TT over the 8% personal evasion would be less of a penalty, but honestly I hate having to get into 5000m range to activate that properly anyways. But I'm a range capacitor guy, so that might be easier to swallow for anyone that uses damage capacitors.

 

I think having the 10% base evasion + 9% lightweight armor + 5% crew evasion + 8% TT evasion synergizes pretty nicely with the 24% retro thruster evasion anyways, so I doubt there is a better combination. I mean that's 32% evasion when TT is running and 56% during a retro thruster. That ship still has way more evasion than the popular Clarion/Imperium wingman build (19%), Warcarrier/Legion with lightweight armor/running interference (29%), and even the T1 GS when DF is down (23%). And I don't know about you, but when I play GS I make sure I perfectly center shots on all three of those aforementioned ships or I expect a miss.

 

4. As Hawke stated, retro isn't too terrible with the 20% engine upgrade and full regen thrusters. I really do miss power dive on Denon, though. I'm not sure how this is any different with the typical quad/pod/retro/DF build.

 

 

Overall the biggest weakness of directional shields build is ion railgun. Once you're hit by ion you're basically in no better shape than a Strikefighter because you can't even pop DF. In the end, this build with range capacitors is very similar to the Starguard HLC freq capacitor/directional shield/retro/concussion missile build that you've run in the past except a bit shorter effective range (5750m vs 6250m). As you know, that build can be quite lethal but it ultimately falls a bit short. The increased engines and maneuverability of the scout frame really help. The extra evasion and DPS are nice bonuses as well.

Edited October 15, 2015 by RickDagles

[Archonitek]

Guess I earned that comment =D

I meant in generall and not jsut my case and yes I guess the T1 Bomber is rather cheap to upgrade it to somewaht competitive.

Also wouldn't be the T1 Scout cheaper than the T2 since you save 5000 fleet reqs?

NEVER EVER SPEND FLEET REQ TO UPGRADE.

 

Ship req comes easily, fleet req doesnt. It's more efficient to spend fleet req to buy new ships than waste them on upgrading components

[Drakkolich]

Hey Drak,

If you start over at a newe server (without character transfer ^^), which ship is the cheapest / fastest to purchase and upgrade to a somehow competitive level?

 

Hey Nightmaregale, when I'm starting over on a new server my go too is usually get to level 10 grab the intro quest play 1 game and buy a Sting/Flashfire and just play that until it's mastered.

 

I do this for a few reasons I really like playing Sting/Flashfire but usually when I play with my team I don't fill this position. My job is often to play Bomber or Gunship for the team, it's just how the team is organized in our strategies. I do play Sting/Flashfire if the match calls for it, but it just usually doesn't. Most of the time when I start on a new server I'm branching out alone and for playing Solo and trying to carry the Sting/Flashfire really shines.

 

 

Now you ask the cheapest way to get competitive fast. I'd have to say get that introductory quest and buy a Mangler/Quarrel and Razorwire/Rampart. Since they are both 2500 fleet req you can do this right after the first game played. The Razorwire/Rampart takes very little requisition to get it into fighting for, it becomes an amazing Domination ship very fast. The Mangler/Quarrel gives you something to play in Team Deathmatch that you can almost always field. Very few teams field entirely anti Gunship comps because most of those comps are countered by 1-2 well played Bombers.

With this strategy you can use fleet requisition as you gain it to purchase the much needed crew choices to make those passives stronger and even use your daily tokens to upgrade your Blackbolt. I'd suggest a Laser cannon/Rocket pods build on the Blackbolt giving you a Gunship hunter in your line up if you needed it.

 

 

As someone else pointed out you should never use Fleet requisition to purchase upgrades until you have all the ships/crew purchased. You only get 15% of the requisition you earn as Fleet requisition meaning if you blow that 5000 fleet requisition you start with on upgrades you will have to earn 33333 more requisition before you get it back.

[Drakkolich]

Thanks for the write up Siraka you made some great points, it seems like it could be really helpful while leveling a new Sting/Flashfire I'll have to give that strategy a shot when I level a new one.

 

As for the retro comment I know you can have enough energy to fly with retros and that it's kind of the same as a Distortion field quads/pods build. What I was really thinking about is that on a Map like Denon traveling from node to node with no travel ability and no evasion to help stop those Ion shots just sounds awful to me. You mentioned in your post how crippling Ion can be to the build so that pretty much answers that.

 

 

As for the reason you said it was good in Domination I can't help but notice that other then killing turrets, killing newer players easier and dealing with clusters every other "good" reason to take them was Bomber related. In my mind Bombers are the counters to Scouts and I'd never fly one on a node vs a team fielding them.

 

As I've said many times I like all my ships to be super specialized at one job, and using Directionals in Domination just seems to try to lessen things that already counter you and make your favorable match ups that much harder. (Like fighting Gunships, which is usually the Scouts job in Domination)

 

Still though I guess if you wanted to make a Scout that did try to kill Bombers this does sound like it's probably your best bet.

[gsummers]

Is the Firehauler really the exact same ship as the warcarrier, just available on the CM instead of with fleet req?

[nyghtrunner]

Is the Firehauler really the exact same ship as the warcarrier, just available on the CM instead of with fleet req?

Should be, yes. There might be a slight difference in the starting components (I know, for instance, the Ocula starts with Blaster Overcharge rather than Targeting Telemetry like the Sting), but the ships stats and such are all the same.

[Drakkolich]

Is the Firehauler really the exact same ship as the warcarrier, just available on the CM instead of with fleet req?

 

Yes they are the exact same ship, they start with and have access to the same components and also have identical chassis stats.

 

The only difference is that the Firehauler is considered masters from when you purchase it. Having a ship mastered gives you a +10% requisition bonus with that ship. To get a ship mastered you have to upgrade to max a component in each slot on a regular ship. Assuming on a Warcarrier you choose a build and poor all earned requisition into said build the cartel ship only really earns you 15000 requisition over the course of mastering it.

 

The real reason most of purchase the alternate ships is because it lets us use two different builds of a particular ships on our loadout bar. Because you can have both the Warcarrier and Firehauler on your loadout bar.

 

I hope that helped.

[btbarrett]

What do you think the strongest stock ship is and why?

[Drakkolich]

What do you think the strongest stock ship is and why?

 

Tough question to answer.

 

Lets see best Stock ship for Domination I'd say the Razorwire/Rampart. Even with 20 second mine cooldowns you can still do some hefty damage to anyone on the satellites and with it having Overcharged shields and Shield power converter it is still really hard to take down. (Stock it comes with a whopping 2250 shields per arc, and that's not counting either of your 2 shield restore cooldowns)

 

For Death match I'd have to say the Mangler/Quarrel. I mean most of the stock ships are very fragile and atleast with this ship you can make up for that with insane range. It conveniently comes with Regeneration extender in it's magazine slot and the Reinforced armor isn't bad on a Stock ship since you don't have any Evasion to make use of Lightweight. Feedback shield and Fortress shield are probably the best stock shields possible so it's got that going for it too.

 

 

I've found after playing stock quite a bit that the Scouts gain way more out of their upgrades then the other ships. So while they are pretty close to balanced when they are all mastered Bombers feel much stronger in a low requisition game then they would when everyone is mastered. Just like Scouts feel much better while everyone is mastered then in a low requisition setting.

 

On stock night I might actually recommend the Dustmaker/Cometbreaker because in an environment where everyone was stock Fortress shield actually seemed pretty good, especially in the Gunship heavy games.

[Greezt]

When you lock missiles on your streams you always do a sort of wiggle with your ship (I noticed this with the long-lock ones). Does that help the lock?

[nyghtrunner]

When you lock missiles on your streams you always do a sort of wiggle with your ship (I noticed this with the long-lock ones). Does that help the lock?

Not sure what "wiggle" you're talking about, but my guess is he's probably trying to center the target, and... how to describe this in text... Get the target's trajectory in line with Drako's North/South movement (on the screen, not according to the map). You turn fastest pitching up or down, so that will allow you the best possibility to keep a target in center and not lose the lock as they go evasive. As such, use your roll to try to get them in that center line.

 

Again, I'm not 100% sure of what you're talking about, but that would be my guess.

[Greezt]

Thanks, that makes sense. I have another question I've asked before, but was missed. Since shields have no "recently consumed" regen rate, what's the use of turbo reactors? Half their ability is wasted.

[nyghtrunner]

Thanks, that makes sense. I have another question I've asked before, but was missed. Since shields have no "recently consumed" regen rate, what's the use of turbo reactors? Half their ability is wasted.

I've never done the math on this... I think Verain has... So my answer won't be specific in terms of numbers, but...

 

There's no effective "recently consumed" rate for shields, but there is a delay before they start recharging. I forget how long it is, but effectively, every time you get hit on an arc (front/back), the shield takes that damage, and doesn't recharge for a second or 3. If you're hit again, the recharge delay is reset.

 

Turbo Reactors reduce the time before the shields start to recharge. If you have a maxed turbo reactor, it will start to recharge 60% faster, so if the delay is 3s, then it becomes something in the ballpark of 1.37s.

 

The Regen reactor increases the speed at which they recharge.

 

Then just the basic Large Reactor adds to the shield size.

 

That's a simple sum of the differences between the reactors.