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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ส.ค. 2024
- Hi, I compared the combat performance of medium and small ships, and here are my test results and opinion on it.
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00:00 Intro
00:19 How I compared M with S Ships
01:27 Price Performance of Medium Ships compared to the Kyd
03:26 Quick run-through of my tests
03:56 Some M ship advantages
04:36 Frigates for Drone Swarms
Kind of tempted now to use more osprey frigates for larger battles. Give them long range weaponry, and full sets of defense drones on escort. Their slow speed might actually help keep them alive from charging in and engaging.
I've liked the gorgan if im doing early boarding for money, with using stronger marines to take over much larger and heavily manned units.
I use pretty much every size of ship in X4, but for different purposes. The unfortunate truth is that M sized ships rarely belong in large engagements.
Corvettes certainly do not. I use them mainly for anti-piracy and anti-Kha'ak patrols. Their speed, resilience and firepower make them perfect for such roles. Deploying multiple small wings of them in sectors in which I mine or trade heavily has saved me some headaches. They can be expensive, but unless they attack a Kha'ak station, they always survive teheir encounters, are fast enough to make it to distressed miners, and save me a lot of time and attention, which ma,es their price worth it. They also make good personal ships for myself.
Frigates can also engage in patrols, deploying drones to add that little bit of firepower and distraction. Otherwise, I use them to deploy laser turrets. Might also be good at laying mines. As such, I have few of them, but they have their uses.
Gunboats basically have one job: escort larger ships to add their turrets to those of capital ships in case they get caught in a swarm. They don't always survive large encounters, but their sacrifice were usually enough to save my capital ships. And that works for me. Of course, I don't tell their crew that they are expendable. 😅
When I compare to X3, corvettes are generally more useful than their M6 counterparts, thanks to their good speed and the near constant threats of Kha'ak raiding parties.
Frigates, however, are significantly less impressive than the M7s. Those were either good brawlers, small carriers, impressive escorts with amazing anti-fighter capabilities, seriously powerful missile lobbers, or a decent combination of the above. Some of the old M7s were capable of taking down swarms of fighters with those flak weapons of theirs. The flak turrets in X4 are seriously underwhelming. In the end, we're missing a size of vessels between L and M for frigates, with the corresponding weapons and emphasis on mainly defensive turrets.
Gunboats are new, so... yay?
M8s are missing, however. Those were great at anti-capital ship strikes. Keeping them and M7Ms supplied with missiles was a challenge really only met by building seriously huge factories. I would replace the M "frigates" with bombers like that.
I like all your videos, good information, thank you Immi.
Mediums are rapid response units. A properly,organized attack squadron can be redeployed super fast due to the high travel speeds. They are easy to get, maintain and handle. They can play stand in when deploying a patrolforce of carrier and destroyers is not available or feasible.
They can beat down most patrols and roaming enemys. Their utility for droping lasertowers ensures firepower in crunch moments.
They will never compete against a strikeforce of fighters in a bang for buck comparison.
Personally, I like the gorgons for spoecific roles. They're tanky. But they require micromanagement to get the most use out of them.
S swarms if you have no L ships
In my playthroughs i typically only use Jian's for M combat ships and always as defend on my L and XL ships but typically by this time I am pumping out Jian's myself anyway from my shipyards and there is a steady steam of replacements when needed.
I see M ships more as either player mission ships or for specific types of combat, for example 20 dragons is 120 guns pointed at who ever dares come by.
A sector attack force of 5 rattlesnakes and 20 dragons will make almost any sector peaceful really quickly so that my asguard+syn+jian fleet can come in and deal with the stations.
But for home sector defense to deal with pirates its typically chimera's roaming around to on sector patrol(modded order) to hunt for S ships and ares/gladius for taking out M ships with the same type of order in groups of 30 each.
When I do get an navy like this going I typically self produce everything I need for my ships but early game when I get my first processing station I typically play as a pirate against the split to steal as many chimera's as i can from them for protection of my station and once they are no longer needed they are send to have fun with the xenon in hatikvah's choice until they are all gone.
If you got the money a katana literally maneuvers as fast as a fighter but has more guns AND more shields and health. S ships even 100 of them can't take down an L ship without a destroyer it just doesn't happen ( especially since what update 5?) The only benefit of fighters you can fit more into a carrier and are literally built in the game to only operate well with one ( because it will heal/restock your s ships) I can have a band of 20ish m ships do what an entire compliment of fighters can. Fighters are utterly useless until recently they got a small bit better ( mainly because 80% of them won't smack into the side of a destroyer or carrier and just hang out there. Since update 7.. but I don't think the fix has made the s ships any more relevant than a smaller pack of m class.
I was messing around with frigates thinking that a swarm of cerberus each with 10 or 12 defense drones would be pretty similar to the cheesy old "big pile of mk1 laser towers" - just more mobile.
Didn't know you have to set them to escort. Good to know. I think i'll give them another chance.
Might give them a couple of beam turrets with "shoot missiles first" and a couple pulse or flak with shoot fighters, and then tracking launchers with heavy smart missiles as main weapons.
Nearly all my medium military ships are for myself and not AI pilots. The AI can't make effective use of their features. However, I do jave one fleet of traders entirely comprised of captured Minotaur Raiders, which I use in low security space. Whenever I get an alert in those secotrs I can just select the raider fleet amd have it attack enemies in range of the alert. Perfect for cleaning up Kha'ak incursions or swatting down small/medium pirates.
I enjoy your vids, very helpful and great comments as well. I dont know anything about content creating but if its relatively easy you should add subtitles. Just a suggestion. I can see you already put alot of work into your analysis and and of course speak whatever and however you want. I just thought it would be helpful spead your quality content.✌️
Once all of your S hangar space is full, adding M ships is more ships on the carrier. This is all bonus (except money).
I think survivability in small scale, prolonged skirmish engagements is where M ships really shine. Kha'ak, pirates, sector security, etc.
I'm glad you made a drones shout out! Having a couple frigates deploying last towers to control the battlefield while the S ships deal damage is fun too
what if price is not a factor?
From that angle - medium ships bring more versatility and survivability, no?
2000+ hours into X4 and i never once thought about using a frigate as a repair drone carrier and transfer those over to captured/disabled ships. Gosh-darnit :)
Your video was not listed in my feed and I am a subscriber all notifications on. I don't get you TH-cam. It makes me hate the word algorithm. Algorithm is synonymous with non-sense or BS.
Thank you for the video Immi, and sorry for my rant. Do you post these scenario results to DevNet? I can only hope Egosoft will buff M ships to make them relevant beyond raider hunting.
Hi, could be possible that I deselected to announce in the ABO feed. So, my fail.
I don't know if this is BETA relevant. But, in case they are not aware of these balancing problems, I should mention these things at least the in the normal Forum.
I also think we shouldn't expect changes to ship costs in 7.0 because changing the production cost could completly destroy the faction balance.
I have known this for a while. 20 heavy fighters (with 1 weapon slot each for heavy missiles) set to prioritize surface elements will about bring down a Xenon I with minimal losses. You can buy 3-4 corvettes for that price which will barely going to scratch it. And this is quite a common issue early-mid game when the Xenon Is start to roll out.
I exclusively use M ships for mining and trading, as they are more nimble to fill smaller orders than L class. Combat wise, I will typically only include frigates for 3 purposes;
1) is for small engagements that I want a bomber force, but I don't have, or it is not worth, assigning a carrier.
2) As of 7.00, I use Frigates as rescue ships for pilots and crew, as they are fast enough to get almost anywhere in the network quickly, and have a large crew size, so they can collect a number of pilots if needed.
3) As a marine task force for ship boarding when I am pirating.
Worst thing on M ships is the extremly bad shield regen which makes them totally useless against more than 2 or 3 enemies while controlled by the AI. S class ships can be totally fine with gun and run while M ships cant do that but still trying which results in even less dps and more incoming dmg
Great work, great info! I wish medium ships weren't so pricey or just performed better. It seems like all my combat fleets are just carriers with small ships and I only need destroyers for stations. Maybe if they had an easier way to automatically deploy combat drones, we could get a little more use out of mediums.
I think I saw on the Beta Patchnotes, that they work a bit on Drones right now. Im curious how their state will be with the release of 7.0.
Noob here. I have a small fleet of three Behemoth Class Destroyers fittet with Flak-turrets and an Asgard (which the former crew generously donated to me by flying through my sector~) and up until now they have handeled everything thrown at them. The Flak-turrets mopped up S/M-swarms pretty quickly and I even destroyed a K with the Asgards main battery alone. For what purposes are S-heavy fleets used exactly?
@@kalamir93 It depends a bit on your playstyle and the state of the game you are in. If you must fight a K in the early game and you don’t want to control your destroyer by yourself, you should have bought a swarm fleet instead.
The AI can’t take on a K with a single destroyer. But with 100 Kyd’s equipped with e.g. Plasma guns the AI can do it with easily replaceable losses. For 100 Kyd’s you pay around 11 million.
I don't really use Medium that much either. I love my cobras for boarding though - the 25 crew capacity is perfect for it since it's 5 crew per boarding pod, and pods that aren't full will often end up outnumbered in a combat round with defending crew because of that because of how the combat rounds are matched between defenders and attackers.
I do appreciate having the few Ms I do have though. If Khaak build up and start threatening larger ships in a sector I travel thru, I send a off a detachment of M ships to deal with them. For ease, I just give them a few attack enemies in an area where I see/saw khaak, and forget about it. The M ships can take the beating they will get inevitably arriving one by one from 4 sectors away, where I would risk taking losses with S ships doing the same without first rallying them outside the sector at issue. Also, their sustained firepower is better for taking down xenon construction sites, which often don't merit a response from destroyers. M combat ships are good for Patrols, and the ever important repeat orders Collect drops.
Personally I use Elite Vanguards to collect drops. But using M-Ships to deal with pirates in a sector sounds like a good idea.
@@kindledashling3610 collecting drops often leaves the collector stationary, or nearly stationary, which can result in the loss of the collector ship in scenarios where a group of xenon come thru a gate and target the collector. I used to use S ships for this, but after taking too many losses, I switched to something more durable.
I sailed through the Xenon Crisis with 100 Kats and a support ship. When its end game and moneys no object, huge fleets on M class ships are as good if not better than slugging about in asgards
Drones are good but have to be in big groups for best effect. I use a Monitor with 100 defence drones as a patrol ship.
Corvettes are pretty meh imo. I don't even fly one myself anymore. Frigates are ok, but not worth the money imo. Gunboats are where it's at though. A destroyer with 2-3 gunboats makes a very good patrol group.
Informative video! What is your recommendation for S class commonwealth ships to purchase in large quantities instead of medium ships?
Many like to use Kyd swarms. Because they are extremely cheap and still have 2 guns.
The Vigor Syndicate sells them.
@@immi9748 OH shoot I need some reps with them.
@@High_Goblin_King
My smart excel sheet tells me that the Nodan Vanguard could be good alternatives
I run a few tests on fighters. The asp, balaur, mamba are all real good options. The argon ones are meh, the eclipse is probably the best. Teladi ones are and are supposed to be bad. Paranid fighters are okay as well. I hate the syndicate design so i dont use their ships. As a frontline fighter you can dump on something and forget about it: gladius, kalis, mamba, eclipse, ares, balaur, mako. As a bomber: irukandji, chimera, takoba. Interceptor(against few ships, not for big slugfests) :takoba, asp, kukri, maybe the faster teladi one, theseus, mako. The ones i think are the best: gladius/kalis(kings of slugfests), mako(best all rounder), irukandji/chimera(point them at something big you dont like and they make sure it will be turned into hull parts/claytronics). The ones you should avoid imo: víg ships bc they ugly af, the barracuda bc its so goddamn slow, kukri bc all other terran ships are better, asp raider/pulsar, quasar bc its like a wet cardboard, the teladi ones. Keep in mind all fighters can do their job, if you drop 700 elite vanguards on an I, they will probably still win. Hope you got some help out of my long ass rant. I can do one about every class if u want it😅
Doh. I just got my first wharf set up to print Teladi Falcons and Buzzards. Oh well, at least they're free now.
I remember my first game of X4 getting my first medium combat ship the cerberus after an hour of scratching my head and trying to like it I went back to a small ship to this day I'm not sure what role that ship is any good at. I play with mediums from time to time thinking it was me being stupide but apparently not. Mediums do not make good escort ships for larges at all and that's what I thought they would excel at.
Yeah the cerberus is pretty terrible.
Thanks for video...
This is one of the reasons I like VRO. Because vanilla balance is weird
Also, about the comparison you've made at 1:40, medium ships can't dodge incoming fire like S ships, so comparing it's hull and shield to an equivalent fleet of S ships isn't really meaningful.
The dodge advantage of the S ship only exists if the player is within 40km. But I agree, I actually often finds S ships actually outlive M ship in battles where player is present as M ship will get more easily hit due to larger hitbox and slower shield recharge. I only use M ships for special very long range weapons to snipe turrets
Now do defense drones vs fighters
Vanilla has bad balance. M class works for Classic mode mod or VRO.
Nope they aren't, unless going to war with the other factions. Xenon K just swat them out of the sky. S perform much better vs all targets and way cheaper even bombers/torpedo bombers. Only thing you should use M class ships is for personal ship and to sit on top of carriers to provide extra turrets. Shame egosoft has never rebalanced the game, X3 has much much more ship classes and they were way more balanced.
oh and i also use fast M ships on repeat orders to collect drops at gates like hatikvahs choice, good little money maker plus extra modification parts and with my fleet guarding the gate i've not lost one yet.
And in x3 they actually looked like spaceships.... unlike those things we have in x4.
Honestly S ships have way too much firepower in this game.
Medium are dumb. Once you can have large