Corrections/Additions: +Atropos have more HP than harpoons so they end up being much better at longer range and against faster ships +The Cyclone Reaper shoots in a burst of 2 shots which makes it ideal for overcharging shields so the second missile makes contact with the armor +Hammers are good for blitzing enemies down with high damage spam, and I didn't touch on that in the video
Proximity mines imo are a sleeper pick and at least B tier, if not A tier main reason is they deal AoE damage in a decent area allowing them to wipe out fighter wings and missiles too, and allowing near missies to score good damage on enemy ships.
When I started playing Starsector I was missile doubter, but after acquiring a deeper understanding of the game I evolved in to missile enjoyer. They are just so fun and satisfying to use... Unless it's dragon fire. Poor things are so over balanced they are largely unusable despite how insanely cool they are supposed to be.
In 0.95 i fell in love with Locust + Pegasus, but now it was nerfed - from 40 missiles per salvo to 30. Its still works but not so fun as before, especially with REDACTED buff.
Dragon Fire are quite decent when they hit. They do hit quite often. Just the amount of missiles is a bit lacking. SO Champion with Hammer Barrage is the shit. Kills really really fast. Prometheus Mk 2 with the Hammer (and a decent setup) used to be my favourite ship.
Truly one of the tier lists of all time. Cyclone Reaper in C-Tier is egregious. They're S-Tier imo. They succeed where the normal reapers fail. That is actually doing damage to armor. With the AI being somewhat competent at keeping its shield up to do tank HE damage, single reaper shots often lead to an overload. Since the Cyclone Reaper fires two at once, you easily get the overload and the armor damage/kill. They're especially good on ships like the XIV Legion that have two front facing mounts. They basically delete anything in front of them even in the hands of the AI that can actually use reapers rather well imo. Also Atropos>Harpoon is a hill I'd die on. Harpoons are often too slow to catch faster ships and they often need a ship to be overloaded to hit properly. Atropos are a lot more reliable and can hit faster ships which imo makes them better overall. The medium Harpoon mount can be cool though. I'd also move the Annihilator pods up a tier each. They're good pressure weapons when used in mulitple mounts. The Enforcer, Dominator and Onslaught are pretty good for this where you can just keep firing them, forcing the AI to keep its shield up. Imo the AI's tendency to just use them is a strong suit. They also tear through armor and hull when they do connect to it. Gazer and Gorgons are also pretty great. They're great anti-frigate weapons due their guidance. B-Tier overall seems fine, but they're my favorite weapons to use on frigates. Gorgons remove frigates very quickly though they run out of ammo and a Gazer allows a frigate to basically tip the flux war in its favor versus another frigate.
Thanks for the comment! I've done some more testing, and all your points hold up nicely. I was particularly impressed by how much work the Cyclone Reaper does on my flagship. At least one reaper gets through every time, and the armor gets stripped.
Missiles are imo the most confusing part of the game, and I can never decide what type to use. I always just go with dragonfire or reapers lmao This helps
The Typhoon Reaper is the gold standard for me. The AI is gonna hit something with all those shots. For the large mounts though, I love the spammy stuff, Squall and Locust all the way.
H A R P O O N if you don't know what missile to use, use Harpoon. It's the easiest type of missile to use, just shoot when the enemy flux is critical or when they overload. If you know what you're doing a little, use Sabots on your ship and ships that have a close range, and use Harpoons on everything else.
@@vesperflute9030 you can ask on the starsector discord, but personally I feel like much of the fun of this game is figuring out what works thru trial and error.
Small Annihilators are good to pair with Reapers on ships with a lot of small missile mounts, because it helps the later to get past enemy PD, prime example would be an Aurora with all small Annihilators and Typhoon Reapers. I'ld put them slighly above for that. For medium I also think you are a bit underselling them, they are amazing on low tech capitals because they synergize well with all kinetic firepower they can output, and with proper captain and module builds they last long enough. Other than that I generally agree with this tierlist. Some notes: Gazer works differently compared to Sabot not only because it is a beam, but also because it works like a small graviton beam i.e. it increases damage dealt to target shield, which benefits ships with a lot of gun/laser firepower. I do trust AI Cyclone Reapers on Champion, meme builds aside. Salamander is also a good PD distraction tool for your more powerful limited missiles, and they often cause enemy ships to turn after it to cover their engines.
I am a four year in gamer of starsector both no and with lots of mods. I should suggest you do energy weapons (vanilla) if not go cursed modded missiles. Some are balanced, some are trash, some are... *SEMIBREVE*
4:24 - Grumpy put out a video using vigilances and dragonfires. I think they deserve a little more than D tier considering how high you can scale their damage.
-Generally small single missiles are used for Missile Autoloader Mod setups like on the Eagle. Putting them straight into D is a bit harsh. -Atropos are homing torpedos. They act as super beefy finisher harpoons, they are great you should experiment with them more. Definitely higher than C but they do suffer from that there are so many other great small missiles. -Poor Hurricane MIRV Launcher had so many nerfs that its kinda mediocre now. Its a jack of all trades for large missile but there are almost always a better option. I personally wouldn't give it any higher than A and that's also mostly because of ease of use. - Large Hammer Barrage is the goat of the ludds. That boy has more dps than the Cyclone Reaper Launcher with the trade off that it fire several missiles and has lower ammo. One of the best options on aggressive Flagships. Dirty cheap too. A tier imo. -Proximity Charge Launcher were giga meta before the recent nerf, so much so that they halved the firing rate. They are still one of the highest dps machines in terms of explosives dps while flux free. Just dont give them to your AI. -Salamanders are great until they aren't. They are Slow with average HP and try to target the engine. Great, too bad that once battles getting bigger there will be way more point defence on the field making already niche missiles useless. After early-mid game they one of the few things that truly belong in the trash.
I truly believe there has been an injustice made to Jackhammers on this list, the AI uses them pretty well and I do love to see them mounted on Manticores, Wouldn't use them late game much though, they are C tier at a minimum, and frigates with SRM's go on the A tier for me they dish out so much pressure on smaller ships, again keeping the AI very much in mind
I feel like you need to differentiate between if these missiles have eccm paired with them or not. A lot of missiles go down a tier or two otherwise because eccm is that good and makes them so much better if you have that hullmod.
You forgot to mention how Salamanders become useless in large fights, due to the large amount of PD weapons covering each other. In a duel they're great versus front shielded ships but realistically you'll never want to gamble having a fair 1v1 versus a vulnerable ship in late game when you could just equip a missile dealing pure old simple damage. And I'm a puzzled by the B ranking of the medium one especially, since you mentioned medium missiles have serious competition. I'd rather have a Dragonfire in there, which is saying a lot.
I mostly agree with everything here except I think Atropos are quite good paired with missile autoloader on something like a Tempest. They are fast, guided and hard hitting, something that very few missiles offer in one package. For me they are perfect during pursuits for putting out a threat that cannot be ignored. They are also decent as finishers.
@@paulrogersgaming The ratings of all the smaller missiles had to heavily factor in Missile Autoloader into the equation to be relevant, since some of them are mainly useful with that in mind. For example on an Eagle (i have a Flagship XIV), with just 2 small missile slots, Missile Autoloader suddenly transforms 2x Reaper Class Torpedo at only 4op (2+2) from having 2 missiles (1+1) to 10(!) total missiles due to the reloads (so over 2.5x the return of what Expanded Missile Racks would do increasing it from 2>4 total missiles). So its almost like having 2 Medium Missiles in Typhoon Reaper Launcher (6ammo per, 10op each) from ones small missile slot, except that besides the OP saving (which will be used to cover the OP cost of Missile Autoloader assuming one doesn't burn it in) one also gets the half refire time advantage of the smaller regular Reapers (5 seconds vs 10 seconds). It's on things like Cruisers with 2x Small Missile slots where Missile Autoloader shines brightest (Capitals w/ 3 slots is another good breakpoint, or up to 6 slots still gets solid benefit from Missile Autoloader), and depending on the amount of reload points one has and the cost of reload per missile, some of the seemingly anemic small missiles, in particular the Single variants, suddenly become more worthwhile. For instance one would normally say that Atropos Rack with its 2 ammo and 3op cost is drastically better than Atrops Single w/ its 1 ammo and 1op cost, however with missile autoloader the former will grant a total of 14 ammo versus the latter at 12ammo. Suddenly they become much more competitive when factoring in the OP cost.
Some cases I don't agree, but in general this list is logical and explained well. Good job! My only nitpick is that survivability of missiles against pd is not mentioned much, a hidden projectile hp stat can vary a lot. Harpoons, for example, are paper thin and will struggle to reach their target if enemy is not overloaded.
I fought a Persean League deserter bounty flying a missile- and bomber-heavy midline fleet with a TON of Gorgons and Hydras...and I was flying an Afflictor with a Conquest as an anchor and Omens as escorts. I was completely destroyed, over and over again. In my last couple attempts I made a beeline for one of the Champions with the Hydras, but the Conquest with its puny 90 degree shield was almost dead by the time I was able to help it with the other. I had looked down on all of the DEMs up until that point, but at least in this case it was a perfect counter to my fleet, which normally punches well above its weight. That's kind how Starsector goes. Everybody can make arguments about moving things up and down because even "bad" weapons can be good in some situations. I've been trying out Atropos on Eagles with S-modded Missile Autoloader and the AI seems to do pretty well with them...or at least it doesn't waste them like it loves to do with Reapers and Sabots. I'll have to try Breaches as well! I agree with all the single shot ones in the bottom tier, too. I'm a hoarder but those I sell immediately. I can't think of a reason I'd ever use them unless there's a mod or a future release that lets us equip fighters or something.
You've never played Starsector if you never been on both sides of an entire fleet firing their entire load of Harpoons when a capital ship starts to have critical flux. Sounds of Harpoons being mass launched by AI is usually the sign of an engagement about to swing drastically.
Dragonfire are exelent at specialized misile boats that launch all they have and retreat or blow up. These are excellent alpha strikers, but wont cary entire battle, of course.
For some reason my brain thought this was "starsector with ONLY rockets" I gotta play this again I haven't played since the update that added the new missiles.
Pilum spam is a strategic tool that forces the AI into certain behaviour. The added through the shield EMP and hull hits are welcome too. Both Pilums are A-Tier IMO, mainly due to their OP discount and utility.
Hello Mr. Hamster, i have a question. Is there lategame in Starsector? It might sound silly but its actually pretty important. Do everything you do in the game lead to something like... colonizing planets, making your own faction, going to war, destroying faction, conquering planets etc? You already mentioned you can colonize planets but before i would consider buying Starsector i would need to know if its interesting. If you only fly and do missions so you can buy more ships and supply and do more missions then its kinda dead. Game mechanics seem pretty deep but that just means there is more to learn and so far, watching your videos i feel like i would not have much fun struggling to learn "how to" and after i learned i would get bored bcs its just flying around doing same things i already know. So in short, i am more interested in what you can do, what you can achieve. Is owning a colony/planet usefull (do you just get money or can you grow it, customize it) etc.
There are story quests and yeah, endgame is when you have a big fleet and a commision/big colony to sustain the fleet. After that you generally just fight [redacted] ships you find in high danger systems and search for the ultra [redacted].
There is a mod called Nexerelin if you're interested into going to war with the factions of yhe sector. Otherwise there's a lot of challenges hidden into the game to face as end game bosses.
The dragon fire is a solid A tier missile. You use it to support burst weapons like the tachyon lance on midline ships which can’t sustain the flux cost. Another great use is making the executor viable. It’s not for every fleet though.
i'd put PCL up higher, at least b or maybe a, even s tier on something like an onslaught, legion or falcon p. they're actually pretty overpowered and overlooked they explode in an area of effect, which makes them surprisingly good at actually hitting their target. they also give you FIFTY 500 damage missiles at a respectable 250 dps; i don't know any missile that can match the amount of flux-free damage you're getting from one of them. the fire rate of 1 shot ever 2 seconds means that with expanded missile racks, a PCL can be shot continuously for 200s. with their relatively low range, the ai is actually able to use these continuously throughout a battle. a single PCL is better than two heavy maulers for DPS and armour penetration and it doesn't produce flux
> putting breaches above dragonfires says you would only experiment with them well EXPERIMENT with them, and THEN make a video. because they perform admirably in active combats.
HOLY SSHII--- putting hammer barrage in bottom tier? lmao next time put it in your title that you are ranking these based on how you think the AI USES THEM putting breaches above hammer barrage smh wtf haaahaha
Reapers, Hammers, Proximity Mines, and Locusts are best used in player hands due to being more situational than others. Proximity mines are great HE weapon alternatives for high tech ships, and can screen fighters due to its blast radius and durability. Locusts are versatile given they can pressure damaged ships that lost armor, or saturate point defenses and fighter screens for Reapers and Hammers. Hurricane, Harpoon, and Atropos are reliable ship sinkers for most ships. But not to be used against ships built for heavy point defense or high top speed that can outmaneuver them; Gorgon, Hydra, and Dragonfire are most effective on nimble targets and staying just barely out of point defense range; bane of more aggressive frigate flanking builds. Gazer missiles are great to have for low tech ships in need of a Graviton bean, as kinetic weapons can leverage the weakened shield efficiency. Pilum and Catapult are better used as cooperative saturation. When paired with fighters, it influences the behavior of most officer personalities to approach with caution. Reckless type would also try to avoid closing in for the kill if there are enough in the field. Breach missiles are a notable case. They are most effective against high armor ships and counters officers with polarized armor as the secondary charge ignores armor calculations for damage res
You don't quite understand the concept of single missiles. Single missiles for SMALL slots means using "Missile Autoloader", not "Expanded Missile Racks" Ideal ships for this build have the minimum number of SMALL missile slots for their size: Omen, Tempest, Apogee, Eagle, Falcon, Grendel, GRYPHON, Paragon. (Destroyers are not very suitable, they have at least 2 small missile slots and a small number of reloads for their size class). With the Missile Autoloader, you don't want to have a combat skill for missiles, you don't need it, unless of course you fly a Griffon or entrust it to your lieutenant. So auto-assigning all missiles with the minimum ammo to Tier D shows that you are still a beginner.
@@paulrogersgaming Use with Omen and Tempest. Atropos-class Torpedo (Single) will give 5 launches. Hammer-class Torpedo (Single) will give 9! launches. Reaper-class Torpedo will give 4 launches Harpoon MRM (Double) (I don't remember exactly) will give 10 launches for 2 OP with long reload intervals, so it probably makes sense to install the 4-point version here, but then the number of missiles will be 9 for 4 OP. The AI is very good at using FINISHING missiles, always using as many missiles as needed and is poor at using anti-shield missiles. Aggressive lieutenants are better at using missiles that fly in a straight line without homing. Legendary Pirate Falcon with 2 small missile slots, oh boy, here we go. Paragon with 4 small missile slots also likes the missile autoloader. There are other hulls, for example Apogee with 1 small missile slot, but a side missile, which clearly implies the use of homing missiles, but the cruiser class will give a lot of reloads, I just don't use it, it's boring. There are also Grendel and Griffon, I haven't tested them, but they look interesting. As before, the autoloader is a feature of Omen and Tempest.
Great job! Salamander could be A tier since you can use elite Target Analysis to make 1 missile shutdown engines but you missed the Omega missiles. Antimatter SRM Launcher B tier (A if you have the flux). Resonator MRM Launcher S tier (replacing Squall in damage) Rift Torpedo Launcher B tier. All with elite Missile Spec to reduce cooldown.
You can't reliably get Omega toys, so they are a lot less useful for tutorials like this. I'd say that showing them would only confuse new players (target audience) more.
I would add the caveat that Hydras become opressive vs basically anything if you have 4 or more of them fire at one ship; almost impossible to defend against and the damage adds up very quickly to the point even capitals die decently quickly. On it's own or in smaller numbers it's pretty meh though.
I have two of them on a Pegasus right now, and those things will make even a capital ship think twice. Regular point defense just doesn't have the range to shoot them down.
B tier for annihilators? Did you ever tried using them in mass low tech fleets? such as Eradicator Dominator Manticore and Enforcer spam? 1 on 1 they are dogshit, but in fleets they suppress and armor damage too good for their OP and 0 flux. Edit: officer skill that doubles missile ammo is required tho
Didn't make that connection but they definitely help en masse against high tech ships. Keeps the energy beams off armor/shields allowing for safe approach. Also, thanks for mentioning the "spam" factor. 1-3 Annihilator pods? Meh. Three ships with 9 pods between them? Armageddon
The disrespect for the hammer barrage is unreal. The damage output is only modestly worse than the cyclone reaper at 6k vs 8k which is a perfectly fair trade when it costs 10 entire OP less but it doesn't even stop there because it ALSO fires THREE times faster than reaper at 5 seconds vs 15 which makes the dps between them overwhelmingly in the hammers favor(a great benefit when dueling capitals). Speaking of dueling capitals, those ships tends to have an immense amount of PD and return fire that makes finding opportunities to shoot reapers at them difficult without the missile getting eaten, something that the hammer barrage remedies by shooting four missiles at the same time to guarantee your damage gets through. The spread is most definitely a downside but against the cruisers and capitals you want these large missiles against that's not really a big deal and the spread can even have some actual benefit for popping annoying frigates and destroyers at ranges where a reaper would be nigh impossible to aim. Really, the only true negative of the hammer compared to the reaper is that you can and will chew through your ammo reserves but in a certain sense I'd argue that even THAT is a good thing because you're actually getting the full value of your missiles. With how slow the cyclone reapers reload and how relatively rare their optimal firing conditions are you're going to end 90% of fights without even using up half the ammo you have available which is a lot of wasted dps on the floor. This only goes for the barrage though, the medium and small hammers suck ass but they get a hell of a glow up in the large slot. I think people get too fixated on the "high points" of the reapers because that's how our monkey brains remember things but on paper the hammer is a damn good weapon and I'd heavily suggest you try using it instead of defaulting to cyclones.
Another thing, try to add more points towards players using the weapons than the AI since most of the time people just do autofit so it doesn't matter much what they equip. It's the AI that sucks, not the weapons. Even a light machine gun can be deadly on player hands.
I actually disagree. Most of the ships in the game are piloted by AI, so it's more important to account for that and not for the almighty player. And I don't think any player that knows what he's doing would use an autofit.
@@Propietario283 i autofit all the time, and i know what i'm doing. but i also have a job and stuff. most autofits can use just a couple tweaks and it's good. having a variety of builds on multiple ships (even with "sub-optimal" builds) is often better than having similar builds everywhere. my playstyle leans on effective piloting to determine battle outcomes. whether i'm piloting a wolf, eradicator, retribution, oddyssey, etc. i'm looking to make the impact there instead of fretting over whether my frigates are squeezing an extra 5 op out. this is just a strategy of play, and i'm just arguing against your assertion that people that know what they're doing don't autofit. it's a game.
Ugh, i just knew you'd overvalue MIRV's for their cool factor - just like Squall, anything that has mobility (whether through abilities or high innate speed) can dodge it easily and thus completely negate them. Even battlecruisers have enough speed to dodge MIRV strikes, not to mention Radiant just jumping out of the way. They're not useless, for attacking a station they are great. But hardly top tier for overall use. Swarmer SRM aswell, is not as good as you make it out to be in practice. It's no "smol Locust" since it fires 4x100 HE damage with a 5.6 second delay, that's not enough to kill even a single unshielded fighter. What makes the Locust great is that a single Locust launcher can chew up 3 fighter wings in a single launch before the fighters even reach you and then the remaining missiles have enough fuel to catch nearby targets too. Even a Broadsword - the heavy fighter type this should be countering the most with its low targeting range and low missile lifetime can sometimes eat two full volleys of Swarmers and need just a tad bit more to finish it off. A single fighter. It helps to strip armor off of tough fighters so your frag damage pd can do full damage and thats about it. Atropos i quite agree with you in principle - while they're working okay, its their high OP cost coupled with low ammo count that holds them back. But they are guided torpedoes. Their specialty of reliably hitting heavily armored ships isn't just good to counter Retribution, Legion or Onslaught when they do their burn drives. These suckers can even chase down some frigates. That said, adding some Dagger or Trident bombers to your fleet is a better choice for Atropos delivery than building a missile boat.
I am rather disappointed with your verdict on the Hydra. Yes, the clusters have less hp individually, their point (in part) is to give enemy PD too many targets. And in this role it shines if combined with other missiles - or multiple Hydras. A Pegasus with a 50/50 split between squall and hydra essentially doesn't care about enemy PD. Similar rule applies to Legion-XIV.
Attempt 2, sorry for spam: I'm absolutely garbage at the strategic battle mode in Star Sector despite being a decent Total War player. Maybe I focus too much on piloting. Can you make a video on advice for strategic battles? I feel like it's the bottleneck for me to get to higher level play now.
It's all in how you build your ships you gotta get in the mind of the ai, practice with the practice made and see how it does on auto pilot and change the ship from there
@@MisterG_Gaming I'm not sure how much my problem is on ship building because I can fly really well and do good against mid pirates. Things just start falling apart when I get multiple cruisers on both sides and I'm fighting for my life with a capital. That said I did read people writing about "matching ranges" on the fleet so a degree of standardization could make my strategic battle a little more consistent. But every time I touched that screen I lowered my odds of victory so far.
For sure will make some tactics/builds guides. If you play Total War, then you can definitely learn Starsector. My favorite Total War is Shogun 2 btw 😏
Annihilators are 50 seconds of free pressure. Toss them on your escorts and you'll have overloads in half the time you would using anything else. Autoloaders give you essentially the CR time of a phase ship's worth of continuous fire
Corrections/Additions:
+Atropos have more HP than harpoons so they end up being much better at longer range and against faster ships
+The Cyclone Reaper shoots in a burst of 2 shots which makes it ideal for overcharging shields so the second missile makes contact with the armor
+Hammers are good for blitzing enemies down with high damage spam, and I didn't touch on that in the video
another correction: dragonfire are at least b tier lmao
Proximity mines imo are a sleeper pick and at least B tier, if not A tier
main reason is they deal AoE damage in a decent area allowing them to wipe out fighter wings and missiles too, and allowing near missies to score good damage on enemy ships.
When I started playing Starsector I was missile doubter, but after acquiring a deeper understanding of the game I evolved in to missile enjoyer. They are just so fun and satisfying to use... Unless it's dragon fire. Poor things are so over balanced they are largely unusable despite how insanely cool they are supposed to be.
I had exactly the same thing. Maybe I was just scared by the large number of missiles weapons compared to other weapons.
In 0.95 i fell in love with Locust + Pegasus, but now it was nerfed - from 40 missiles per salvo to 30. Its still works but not so fun as before, especially with REDACTED buff.
Dragon Fire are quite decent when they hit. They do hit quite often. Just the amount of missiles is a bit lacking.
SO Champion with Hammer Barrage is the shit. Kills really really fast. Prometheus Mk 2 with the Hammer (and a decent setup) used to be my favourite ship.
Truly one of the tier lists of all time.
Cyclone Reaper in C-Tier is egregious. They're S-Tier imo. They succeed where the normal reapers fail. That is actually doing damage to armor. With the AI being somewhat competent at keeping its shield up to do tank HE damage, single reaper shots often lead to an overload. Since the Cyclone Reaper fires two at once, you easily get the overload and the armor damage/kill. They're especially good on ships like the XIV Legion that have two front facing mounts. They basically delete anything in front of them even in the hands of the AI that can actually use reapers rather well imo.
Also Atropos>Harpoon is a hill I'd die on. Harpoons are often too slow to catch faster ships and they often need a ship to be overloaded to hit properly. Atropos are a lot more reliable and can hit faster ships which imo makes them better overall. The medium Harpoon mount can be cool though.
I'd also move the Annihilator pods up a tier each. They're good pressure weapons when used in mulitple mounts. The Enforcer, Dominator and Onslaught are pretty good for this where you can just keep firing them, forcing the AI to keep its shield up. Imo the AI's tendency to just use them is a strong suit. They also tear through armor and hull when they do connect to it.
Gazer and Gorgons are also pretty great. They're great anti-frigate weapons due their guidance. B-Tier overall seems fine, but they're my favorite weapons to use on frigates. Gorgons remove frigates very quickly though they run out of ammo and a Gazer allows a frigate to basically tip the flux war in its favor versus another frigate.
I was thinking exactly like you said watched this.
Thanks for the comment! I've done some more testing, and all your points hold up nicely. I was particularly impressed by how much work the Cyclone Reaper does on my flagship. At least one reaper gets through every time, and the armor gets stripped.
Missiles are imo the most confusing part of the game, and I can never decide what type to use. I always just go with dragonfire or reapers lmao
This helps
You can't go wrong with reapers 😍
The Typhoon Reaper is the gold standard for me. The AI is gonna hit something with all those shots. For the large mounts though, I love the spammy stuff, Squall and Locust all the way.
H A R P O O N
if you don't know what missile to use, use Harpoon. It's the easiest type of missile to use, just shoot when the enemy flux is critical or when they overload.
If you know what you're doing a little, use Sabots on your ship and ships that have a close range, and use Harpoons on everything else.
Putting Cyclone reapers on a XIV Legion goes so hard. Hyper cavitation guns + some broadswords and you got yourself a battle carrier that melts ordos.
Ever since I put Cyclones on I haven't taken them off! Good call 👌
Hey! I just found a Legion xiv and I'm new to the game. Is there a place where I can check some builds?
@@vesperflute9030 you can ask on the starsector discord, but personally I feel like much of the fun of this game is figuring out what works thru trial and error.
@@vesperflute9030 I found a lot of builds in the starsector unofficial discord.
Small Annihilators are good to pair with Reapers on ships with a lot of small missile mounts, because it helps the later to get past enemy PD, prime example would be an Aurora with all small Annihilators and Typhoon Reapers. I'ld put them slighly above for that. For medium I also think you are a bit underselling them, they are amazing on low tech capitals because they synergize well with all kinetic firepower they can output, and with proper captain and module builds they last long enough.
Other than that I generally agree with this tierlist.
Some notes:
Gazer works differently compared to Sabot not only because it is a beam, but also because it works like a small graviton beam i.e. it increases damage dealt to target shield, which benefits ships with a lot of gun/laser firepower.
I do trust AI Cyclone Reapers on Champion, meme builds aside.
Salamander is also a good PD distraction tool for your more powerful limited missiles, and they often cause enemy ships to turn after it to cover their engines.
I'm loving these Starsector videos of yours. Please keep them coming.
Will do!
When flying anything smaller than a cruiser, I respect an incoming salamander almost as much as an incoming reaper
I sometimes go for 360 shield coverage for this reason. I don't want to lose my speed near an enemy ship.
I am a four year in gamer of starsector both no and with lots of mods. I should suggest you do energy weapons (vanilla) if not go cursed modded missiles. Some are balanced, some are trash, some are... *SEMIBREVE*
4:24 - Grumpy put out a video using vigilances and dragonfires. I think they deserve a little more than D tier considering how high you can scale their damage.
-Generally small single missiles are used for Missile Autoloader Mod setups like on the Eagle. Putting them straight into D is a bit harsh.
-Atropos are homing torpedos. They act as super beefy finisher harpoons, they are great you should experiment with them more. Definitely higher than C but they do suffer from that there are so many other great small missiles.
-Poor Hurricane MIRV Launcher had so many nerfs that its kinda mediocre now. Its a jack of all trades for large missile but there are almost always a better option. I personally wouldn't give it any higher than A and that's also mostly because of ease of use.
- Large Hammer Barrage is the goat of the ludds. That boy has more dps than the Cyclone Reaper Launcher with the trade off that it fire several missiles and has lower ammo. One of the best options on aggressive Flagships. Dirty cheap too. A tier imo.
-Proximity Charge Launcher were giga meta before the recent nerf, so much so that they halved the firing rate. They are still one of the highest dps machines in terms of explosives dps while flux free. Just dont give them to your AI.
-Salamanders are great until they aren't. They are Slow with average HP and try to target the engine. Great, too bad that once battles getting bigger there will be way more point defence on the field making already niche missiles useless. After early-mid game they one of the few things that truly belong in the trash.
I truly believe there has been an injustice made to Jackhammers on this list, the AI uses them pretty well and I do love to see them mounted on Manticores, Wouldn't use them late game much though, they are C tier at a minimum, and frigates with SRM's go on the A tier for me they dish out so much pressure on smaller ships, again keeping the AI very much in mind
Hammers are a C-tier for sure. I did them dirty.
I feel like you need to differentiate between if these missiles have eccm paired with them or not.
A lot of missiles go down a tier or two otherwise because eccm is that good and makes them so much better if you have that hullmod.
You forgot to mention how Salamanders become useless in large fights, due to the large amount of PD weapons covering each other. In a duel they're great versus front shielded ships but realistically you'll never want to gamble having a fair 1v1 versus a vulnerable ship in late game when you could just equip a missile dealing pure old simple damage.
And I'm a puzzled by the B ranking of the medium one especially, since you mentioned medium missiles have serious competition. I'd rather have a Dragonfire in there, which is saying a lot.
I mostly agree with everything here except I think Atropos are quite good paired with missile autoloader on something like a Tempest. They are fast, guided and hard hitting, something that very few missiles offer in one package. For me they are perfect during pursuits for putting out a threat that cannot be ignored. They are also decent as finishers.
I definitely underrated them. They end up being perfect against small, fast ships while the harpoons are less reliable in those situations.
@@paulrogersgaming The ratings of all the smaller missiles had to heavily factor in Missile Autoloader into the equation to be relevant, since some of them are mainly useful with that in mind. For example on an Eagle (i have a Flagship XIV), with just 2 small missile slots, Missile Autoloader suddenly transforms 2x Reaper Class Torpedo at only 4op (2+2) from having 2 missiles (1+1) to 10(!) total missiles due to the reloads (so over 2.5x the return of what Expanded Missile Racks would do increasing it from 2>4 total missiles). So its almost like having 2 Medium Missiles in Typhoon Reaper Launcher (6ammo per, 10op each) from ones small missile slot, except that besides the OP saving (which will be used to cover the OP cost of Missile Autoloader assuming one doesn't burn it in) one also gets the half refire time advantage of the smaller regular Reapers (5 seconds vs 10 seconds).
It's on things like Cruisers with 2x Small Missile slots where Missile Autoloader shines brightest (Capitals w/ 3 slots is another good breakpoint, or up to 6 slots still gets solid benefit from Missile Autoloader), and depending on the amount of reload points one has and the cost of reload per missile, some of the seemingly anemic small missiles, in particular the Single variants, suddenly become more worthwhile. For instance one would normally say that Atropos Rack with its 2 ammo and 3op cost is drastically better than Atrops Single w/ its 1 ammo and 1op cost, however with missile autoloader the former will grant a total of 14 ammo versus the latter at 12ammo. Suddenly they become much more competitive when factoring in the OP cost.
Some cases I don't agree, but in general this list is logical and explained well. Good job!
My only nitpick is that survivability of missiles against pd is not mentioned much, a hidden projectile hp stat can vary a lot. Harpoons, for example, are paper thin and will struggle to reach their target if enemy is not overloaded.
That's probably why atropos are an even match for harpoons. Didn't realize harpoons have low health.
I fought a Persean League deserter bounty flying a missile- and bomber-heavy midline fleet with a TON of Gorgons and Hydras...and I was flying an Afflictor with a Conquest as an anchor and Omens as escorts. I was completely destroyed, over and over again. In my last couple attempts I made a beeline for one of the Champions with the Hydras, but the Conquest with its puny 90 degree shield was almost dead by the time I was able to help it with the other. I had looked down on all of the DEMs up until that point, but at least in this case it was a perfect counter to my fleet, which normally punches well above its weight.
That's kind how Starsector goes. Everybody can make arguments about moving things up and down because even "bad" weapons can be good in some situations.
I've been trying out Atropos on Eagles with S-modded Missile Autoloader and the AI seems to do pretty well with them...or at least it doesn't waste them like it loves to do with Reapers and Sabots. I'll have to try Breaches as well! I agree with all the single shot ones in the bottom tier, too. I'm a hoarder but those I sell immediately. I can't think of a reason I'd ever use them unless there's a mod or a future release that lets us equip fighters or something.
You've never played Starsector if you never been on both sides of an entire fleet firing their entire load of Harpoons when a capital ship starts to have critical flux.
Sounds of Harpoons being mass launched by AI is usually the sign of an engagement about to swing drastically.
Can you blend in the missile you are talking about?
I do not know every missile in the game by name, and I do not think than everyone else does?
I'll add more visuals on future tier lists. Thanks for the feedback!
3:50 you got me there
You're the first to comment about it! Here is your award > 🏆
Dragonfire are exelent at specialized misile boats that launch all they have and retreat or blow up. These are excellent alpha strikers, but wont cary entire battle, of course.
Sabot round also do a surprising decent dmg to hull that has its armor stripped
For some reason my brain thought this was "starsector with ONLY rockets"
I gotta play this again I haven't played since the update that added the new missiles.
Missile autoloader builds ONLY
Very informative without being boring, I love these sector guides!
Thank you kindly Erik!
Very nice guide!
Pilum spam is a strategic tool that forces the AI into certain behaviour. The added through the shield EMP and hull hits are welcome too. Both Pilums are A-Tier IMO, mainly due to their OP discount and utility.
IV Battlegroup Legion is my favorite capital to find early, and 2 MIRV's with hypervelocity drivers make them slap!
Hello Mr. Hamster, i have a question. Is there lategame in Starsector? It might sound silly but its actually pretty important. Do everything you do in the game lead to something like... colonizing planets, making your own faction, going to war, destroying faction, conquering planets etc? You already mentioned you can colonize planets but before i would consider buying Starsector i would need to know if its interesting. If you only fly and do missions so you can buy more ships and supply and do more missions then its kinda dead. Game mechanics seem pretty deep but that just means there is more to learn and so far, watching your videos i feel like i would not have much fun struggling to learn "how to" and after i learned i would get bored bcs its just flying around doing same things i already know.
So in short, i am more interested in what you can do, what you can achieve. Is owning a colony/planet usefull (do you just get money or can you grow it, customize it) etc.
Hello, I am playing vanilla for at least 30 playthroughs and I am still able to do new builds. With mods, you cant get bored.
There are story quests and yeah, endgame is when you have a big fleet and a commision/big colony to sustain the fleet. After that you generally just fight [redacted] ships you find in high danger systems and search for the ultra [redacted].
@@batuarganda728 Did TH-cam redact word "penis" two times?
There is a mod called Nexerelin if you're interested into going to war with the factions of yhe sector. Otherwise there's a lot of challenges hidden into the game to face as end game bosses.
Yes, there's exploration, blueprint collection, colonization, and a personal favorite of mine is weapon testing!
Mods too. Loads of great mods.
The dragon fire is a solid A tier missile. You use it to support burst weapons like the tachyon lance on midline ships which can’t sustain the flux cost. Another great use is making the executor viable. It’s not for every fleet though.
That Hammer placement is criminal
i'd put PCL up higher, at least b or maybe a, even s tier on something like an onslaught, legion or falcon p. they're actually pretty overpowered and overlooked
they explode in an area of effect, which makes them surprisingly good at actually hitting their target. they also give you FIFTY 500 damage missiles at a respectable 250 dps; i don't know any missile that can match the amount of flux-free damage you're getting from one of them.
the fire rate of 1 shot ever 2 seconds means that with expanded missile racks, a PCL can be shot continuously for 200s. with their relatively low range, the ai is actually able to use these continuously throughout a battle. a single PCL is better than two heavy maulers for DPS and armour penetration and it doesn't produce flux
> putting breaches above dragonfires
says you would only experiment with them
well EXPERIMENT with them, and THEN make a video. because they perform admirably in active combats.
HOLY SSHII--- putting hammer barrage in bottom tier?
lmao
next time put it in your title that you are ranking these based on how you think the AI USES THEM
putting breaches above hammer barrage smh wtf haaahaha
Thank you!!
Reapers, Hammers, Proximity Mines, and Locusts are best used in player hands due to being more situational than others. Proximity mines are great HE weapon alternatives for high tech ships, and can screen fighters due to its blast radius and durability. Locusts are versatile given they can pressure damaged ships that lost armor, or saturate point defenses and fighter screens for Reapers and Hammers.
Hurricane, Harpoon, and Atropos are reliable ship sinkers for most ships. But not to be used against ships built for heavy point defense or high top speed that can outmaneuver them; Gorgon, Hydra, and Dragonfire are most effective on nimble targets and staying just barely out of point defense range; bane of more aggressive frigate flanking builds.
Gazer missiles are great to have for low tech ships in need of a Graviton bean, as kinetic weapons can leverage the weakened shield efficiency.
Pilum and Catapult are better used as cooperative saturation. When paired with fighters, it influences the behavior of most officer personalities to approach with caution. Reckless type would also try to avoid closing in for the kill if there are enough in the field.
Breach missiles are a notable case. They are most effective against high armor ships and counters officers with polarized armor as the secondary charge ignores armor calculations for damage res
You don't quite understand the concept of single missiles.
Single missiles for SMALL slots means using "Missile Autoloader", not "Expanded Missile Racks"
Ideal ships for this build have the minimum number of SMALL missile slots for their size: Omen, Tempest, Apogee, Eagle, Falcon, Grendel, GRYPHON, Paragon. (Destroyers are not very suitable, they have at least 2 small missile slots and a small number of reloads for their size class).
With the Missile Autoloader, you don't want to have a combat skill for missiles, you don't need it, unless of course you fly a Griffon or entrust it to your lieutenant.
So auto-assigning all missiles with the minimum ammo to Tier D shows that you are still a beginner.
Have you found a missile autoloader build that works?
@@paulrogersgaming Use with Omen and Tempest.
Atropos-class Torpedo (Single) will give 5 launches.
Hammer-class Torpedo (Single) will give 9! launches.
Reaper-class Torpedo will give 4 launches
Harpoon MRM (Double) (I don't remember exactly) will give 10 launches for 2 OP with long reload intervals, so it probably makes sense to install the 4-point version here, but then the number of missiles will be 9 for 4 OP.
The AI is very good at using FINISHING missiles, always using as many missiles as needed and is poor at using anti-shield missiles.
Aggressive lieutenants are better at using missiles that fly in a straight line without homing.
Legendary Pirate Falcon with 2 small missile slots, oh boy, here we go.
Paragon with 4 small missile slots also likes the missile autoloader.
There are other hulls, for example Apogee with 1 small missile slot, but a side missile, which clearly implies the use of homing missiles, but the cruiser class will give a lot of reloads, I just don't use it, it's boring.
There are also Grendel and Griffon, I haven't tested them, but they look interesting.
As before, the autoloader is a feature of Omen and Tempest.
@@777CHEKIST777 whoa what the hell?
nice.
next, this guy is gonna say that he understands the ballistics rangefinder lmao
Great job!
Salamander could be A tier since you can use elite Target Analysis to make 1 missile shutdown engines but you missed the Omega missiles.
Antimatter SRM Launcher B tier (A if you have the flux).
Resonator MRM Launcher S tier (replacing Squall in damage)
Rift Torpedo Launcher B tier.
All with elite Missile Spec to reduce cooldown.
You can't reliably get Omega toys, so they are a lot less useful for tutorials like this. I'd say that showing them would only confuse new players (target audience) more.
Would like to see demonstrations of how each of them works on the side. For those of us, for whom names dont tell everything. In the future of course
Your comment is well timed! I can add more visuals to the next tier list.
I would add the caveat that Hydras become opressive vs basically anything if you have 4 or more of them fire at one ship; almost impossible to defend against and the damage adds up very quickly to the point even capitals die decently quickly. On it's own or in smaller numbers it's pretty meh though.
I have two of them on a Pegasus right now, and those things will make even a capital ship think twice. Regular point defense just doesn't have the range to shoot them down.
B tier for annihilators? Did you ever tried using them in mass low tech fleets? such as Eradicator Dominator Manticore and Enforcer spam?
1 on 1 they are dogshit, but in fleets they suppress and armor damage too good for their OP and 0 flux.
Edit: officer skill that doubles missile ammo is required tho
Didn't make that connection but they definitely help en masse against high tech ships. Keeps the energy beams off armor/shields allowing for safe approach. Also, thanks for mentioning the "spam" factor. 1-3 Annihilator pods? Meh. Three ships with 9 pods between them? Armageddon
I like the laser missiles a lot
The gazer/gorgon beams are pretty dang cool
The disrespect for the hammer barrage is unreal. The damage output is only modestly worse than the cyclone reaper at 6k vs 8k which is a perfectly fair trade when it costs 10 entire OP less but it doesn't even stop there because it ALSO fires THREE times faster than reaper at 5 seconds vs 15 which makes the dps between them overwhelmingly in the hammers favor(a great benefit when dueling capitals). Speaking of dueling capitals, those ships tends to have an immense amount of PD and return fire that makes finding opportunities to shoot reapers at them difficult without the missile getting eaten, something that the hammer barrage remedies by shooting four missiles at the same time to guarantee your damage gets through. The spread is most definitely a downside but against the cruisers and capitals you want these large missiles against that's not really a big deal and the spread can even have some actual benefit for popping annoying frigates and destroyers at ranges where a reaper would be nigh impossible to aim. Really, the only true negative of the hammer compared to the reaper is that you can and will chew through your ammo reserves but in a certain sense I'd argue that even THAT is a good thing because you're actually getting the full value of your missiles. With how slow the cyclone reapers reload and how relatively rare their optimal firing conditions are you're going to end 90% of fights without even using up half the ammo you have available which is a lot of wasted dps on the floor.
This only goes for the barrage though, the medium and small hammers suck ass but they get a hell of a glow up in the large slot. I think people get too fixated on the "high points" of the reapers because that's how our monkey brains remember things but on paper the hammer is a damn good weapon and I'd heavily suggest you try using it instead of defaulting to cyclones.
YAY
Another thing, try to add more points towards players using the weapons than the AI since most of the time people just do autofit so it doesn't matter much what they equip. It's the AI that sucks, not the weapons. Even a light machine gun can be deadly on player hands.
I actually disagree. Most of the ships in the game are piloted by AI, so it's more important to account for that and not for the almighty player. And I don't think any player that knows what he's doing would use an autofit.
@@Propietario283 i autofit all the time, and i know what i'm doing. but i also have a job and stuff.
most autofits can use just a couple tweaks and it's good. having a variety of builds on multiple ships (even with "sub-optimal" builds) is often better than having similar builds everywhere.
my playstyle leans on effective piloting to determine battle outcomes. whether i'm piloting a wolf, eradicator, retribution, oddyssey, etc. i'm looking to make the impact there instead of fretting over whether my frigates are squeezing an extra 5 op out.
this is just a strategy of play, and i'm just arguing against your assertion that people that know what they're doing don't autofit. it's a game.
Dragonfire D tier? have you played the game?
Ammo limit 😪
👌
Ugh, i just knew you'd overvalue MIRV's for their cool factor - just like Squall, anything that has mobility (whether through abilities or high innate speed) can dodge it easily and thus completely negate them. Even battlecruisers have enough speed to dodge MIRV strikes, not to mention Radiant just jumping out of the way.
They're not useless, for attacking a station they are great. But hardly top tier for overall use.
Swarmer SRM aswell, is not as good as you make it out to be in practice. It's no "smol Locust" since it fires 4x100 HE damage with a 5.6 second delay, that's not enough to kill even a single unshielded fighter. What makes the Locust great is that a single Locust launcher can chew up 3 fighter wings in a single launch before the fighters even reach you and then the remaining missiles have enough fuel to catch nearby targets too. Even a Broadsword - the heavy fighter type this should be countering the most with its low targeting range and low missile lifetime can sometimes eat two full volleys of Swarmers and need just a tad bit more to finish it off. A single fighter. It helps to strip armor off of tough fighters so your frag damage pd can do full damage and thats about it.
Atropos i quite agree with you in principle - while they're working okay, its their high OP cost coupled with low ammo count that holds them back. But they are guided torpedoes. Their specialty of reliably hitting heavily armored ships isn't just good to counter Retribution, Legion or Onslaught when they do their burn drives. These suckers can even chase down some frigates. That said, adding some Dagger or Trident bombers to your fleet is a better choice for Atropos delivery than building a missile boat.
Locust and MIRV are my favorite. MIRV for the big boys and Locust for annoying fighters/frigates.
I am rather disappointed with your verdict on the Hydra. Yes, the clusters have less hp individually, their point (in part) is to give enemy PD too many targets. And in this role it shines if combined with other missiles - or multiple Hydras. A Pegasus with a 50/50 split between squall and hydra essentially doesn't care about enemy PD. Similar rule applies to Legion-XIV.
Attempt 2, sorry for spam: I'm absolutely garbage at the strategic battle mode in Star Sector despite being a decent Total War player. Maybe I focus too much on piloting.
Can you make a video on advice for strategic battles? I feel like it's the bottleneck for me to get to higher level play now.
It's all in how you build your ships you gotta get in the mind of the ai, practice with the practice made and see how it does on auto pilot and change the ship from there
If you struggle, some TH-camrs like me already did builds for the current patch. Maybe it can help you on that.
@@MisterG_Gaming I'm not sure how much my problem is on ship building because I can fly really well and do good against mid pirates. Things just start falling apart when I get multiple cruisers on both sides and I'm fighting for my life with a capital.
That said I did read people writing about "matching ranges" on the fleet so a degree of standardization could make my strategic battle a little more consistent. But every time I touched that screen I lowered my odds of victory so far.
@@MisterG_Gaming Thanks for leaving a comment Mister G!
For sure will make some tactics/builds guides. If you play Total War, then you can definitely learn Starsector. My favorite Total War is Shogun 2 btw 😏
cool video…. don’t care still slapping harpoons on every slot i can
You should make a playthrough, id watch that! (づ ◕‿◕ )づ
say annihilator 10 times
Dragon fire in d, objectively bad video
In any serious battle the dragonfire's ammo count is debilitating
Annihilators are 50 seconds of free pressure. Toss them on your escorts and you'll have overloads in half the time you would using anything else. Autoloaders give you essentially the CR time of a phase ship's worth of continuous fire
U forgot endgame reaper from redacted redacted hypershunt thing