In a way the gryphon did get hit already with the change to missile autoforge. Not a heavy nerf, but hopefully good enough that no more missiles need to hit the chopping block.
some of the changes were definitely heavy handed but I think overall missiles are in a really good place where there's solid use cases for most of them, or at the very least make for interesting gameplay against (such as persean league's gazer/gorgon spam)
"The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't." - John Harpoon, on his way to completely annihilate a poor fluxed out kite.
I always find it funny how truly "balanced" missiles are. All of them have some use in some situation, especially if you have a missile gunboat that you can load a bunch onto. Even the bad missiles that arent that useful are still better than nothing most of the time (if for nothing more than harassing frigs or getting flux-free dps).
When you're playing with modded battlesize to effectively unlimited pilum turn into S tier when you're bringing enough ships with them to make your pc turn into a turbine
the added gameplay clips made this a delightful experience. If you ever remake the other tier lists please make use of this for those too. Thanks for the great starsector content! also, do you have any plans to edit down your streams or do a modded fleet video, where it would be something like instead of a lowtech fleet fighting ordos, it could be VIC or diable. would love to see what your take on those endgame fleets would be
Not a single S tier? I think that's the first time I've ever seen someone have that kind of restraint. Especially with the squall and hurricane right there.
I am loving these "guides" i just recently got back into the game and found that ship loadouts always escaped me. I tend to use the autofit builds but with these tier lists I feel a lot more confident in building my own ships that actually fit their niches in my fleet. And I use ships i dont normally use as well because of the build ideas i get from these. Thanks for the help Spingus!
I think hammers also benefit a bit more from the extra ammo from expanded missile racks and missile specialization because their reload speed is so good. So an enforcer with 4 small hammers and 24 total rounds can burn up to something that's fluxed out and shit low tech armageddon down its throat. Last time I ran low tech, enforcers delivered the killing blow to a lot of big targets that way
I've enjoyed your tier lists. I randomly got one in my feed a few weeks back despite having never played starsector and only watching Seth's video on it years ago. Was looking for a new game, so I bought it. Been no-lifing it a few weeks, and can win fairly high XP bonus fights now. Hearing the rationale for what goes where helped conceptualize how things in combat work. For example, "AI doesn't use it enough" in a 1v1 context doesn't matter if your current fleet setup is for ships to work together using escort package + advancing as a line, but on a ship that's built to flank, win capture points, and often see 1v1 scenarios it needs to end quickly, you'd want to equip missiles it will use (or link missiles it would otherwise be reluctant to use to another weapon, although that comes with some risks too). Harpoons are incredible AI missiles in fleet context, especially if you invest in things like racks + ECCM. Another thing that helps harpoons a lot is using carriers, because that also distracts point defense and tends to build flux on enemies...creates the exact scenario that makes the AI want to use harpoons. I've been meaning to try a spam strategy that takes advantage of clean disengage.
You always make very well structured videos ;D And I always am the peanut gallery. I actually think it may have been useful for you to briefly note what type of PD is best against each missile as you brought them up. Like how certain pd weapons do not so great vs. sabots and DEMs. Just a thought. ECCM is worth the OP for Breach for sure, though it's more of a 'fit it if you got the spare OP (usually due to S-mods). For breach, they strongly benefit from the enhanced tracking and speed, either to hit nimble targets or get more breaches onto the target before being shot down. On the note of swarmer there's some rare funny builds that use mass swarmers for their HE DPS - Aurora, Enforcer and Eradicator mostly. The build actually doesn't work very well without ECCM, too many might get shot down before it reaches destroyers and cruisers. Since Gazers are DEMs, they are considered way more threatening to the AI than they should be. Combined with its long duration and decent ammo, I'd basically rank it in the same place as the Gorgon. Powerful in their niche of... somewhat cheesily, confusing the enemy omni shield AI. Medium mounts are more competitive so I don't know if medium gazers are worth it compared to small gazer. "I'm mainly avoiding missile spam" Hehehe, good call. In case anyone's curious, missile spam just works via the best combination of refire rate/burst size, range, ammo and damage, in that order of importance. Do whatever missiles you want with the best combo of those 4 stats and just spam it a ton. If Alex wants to balance gorgon pods to not be spammable, he could also just hit its refire rate instead of its range. Would make the medium more valuable that way. I really wish annihilators had a lower refire rate or did not shoot at ships with low flux. I feel the same way for both small and medium, more so for the small. Just wanted to mention that, it's my second biggest gripe with vanilla missiles, DEM omni shield behavior being my biggest gripe. I almost think Salamander pod should be C tier - there's such thing as having 'too many' salamanders and you can always downsize a medium mount into a small, when thinking about salamanders. Regarding sabot pod, I think the 'they're a bit too good on high tech ships' should be a hint that maybe they deserved S tier. They are just so insane in their use case and still good outside of their use case. I strongly disagree with the Hydra ranking. - I believe it is C tier at best. If it didn't have the DEM omni shield cheese, I would rank it D. It's held back by its 500 hitstrength per beam and, more importantly, held back by how it flanks around to do its damage. I feel like that extra range it has over the Locust doesn't help it get value over the Locust - if it's a frigate or destroyer they're usually going to be in Locust range, which is cheaper in OP and generally more reliable, I feel. I would much rather if Hydra didn't try to flank around its targets but instead just behaved like the Gorgon.
Nonono, you are mistaken. There is only the double shot sabot, other variants don't exist. There is no single hammer, there is no double harpoon, and there is no Easter bunny.
Appreciate the video(s). Your explanations and reasoning for each placement is super helpful. The effort you put into this one really shows too, thanks Big Brain
A few things you might like to try: 1. 6 swarmers on a retribution basically make a locust with high explosive damage. It's great. 2. AI Pegasus with 4 hydras hard counters a player Wolfpack tactics build.
i think ai is so hesitant with atroposs because they're so much weaker impact than even a hammer against shield, much less a reaper. it tries to make sure to fire them when it thinks it's REALLY going to hit armor/hull unless it's panicking/about to die or it just has nothing else to work with (like a kite with atroposs blows its load too early)
The AI is very queasy about using "finisher" type missiles for some reason. It either panic dumps them on someone when at super-high flux, or they kill-dump them at the first ship that overloads within range. This last part is sorta good, but also kinda bad. If the overload is on a Conquest or something, great. If it's a Vigilance, then it's bad. Still, Harpoons do reacquire targets if the original one is blown up so you can have a giant swarm going around hitting shields and exposed areas. Point is: Harpoon and its kind needs mass. No mass, no finishing.
Hammer barrage my beloved, I don't even look at cyclone reapers anymore. I was surprised it didn't made A tier, but it's fair, not enough ships support them.
Personally I have concerns with trusting my AI ships with limited ammo missiles. "It was very very strong, right up until it ran out of missiles, then it was terrible!" Yeah, vanilla missiles...
The reason they have ammo is because it would be giga-busted and meta if they did have unlimited ammo. Zero flux cost to fire, can travel otherside of the map and still burst down a target.
@@WhiteFang103 They can be shot down, its really not that busted to regenerate ammo. In an earlier version of the game, I've heard ballistic weapons had limited ammo as well.
People complaining about Dragonfires is fascinating because I think they’re really really good, almost too good on specialised ships, mainly modded ones, but also stuff like the Falcon (P). They’re a side grade to reapers but functionally because they’re guided they’re a lot more versatile in where you can mount it.
Another bonus point for Gorgons is that they have a very "sideways" movement similar to Salamanders in how they kinda tease the PD while flying out to the sides instead of straight forward, even the AI will somewhat often benefit from it by shooting some Gorgons baiting the PD out towards the sides of the ship while more direct fire missiles/torps can get through at the front. So like either some nice saturation spam missile like Swarmer/Annihilator/Locust/Squall or favourite flavour of torpedo. Enforcers for example can have some fun loadouts with them, they are wide enough that 2 Gorgons on the outer left and right will almost guarantee the missiles will split to the left and right, then you put another payload missile/torp in the other 2 more central slots that takes advantage of the gap in PD. That way the Gorgons are nice missiles against fast irritating frigates and also quite decent against larger ships with good PD cover.
Gazers deserve a bit more discussion - they can sit inside the shields of larger ships like nova or onslaught and the pressure on enemy shields is constant and immense with no option for point defence to stop them, and at longer range than sabot. They are essentially graviton beams and when deployed en masse will also deflect enemy missiles which gives them defensive properties too.
also, Salamander on player ships with burst beam damage like tachyon is useful because salamanders can convince enemies to swap shields or turn to allow a tachyon volley to hit hull and armor for free. You only need 1 launcher for this.
Lol, what the hell? Your energy tier list video popped up in my recommended, and I was thinking, "I wonder if he'll do a missile tier list." Well, I guess I got my very expedient answer.
- Small Gorgons and Typhoon Reapers are honestly even better than what you gave them credit for, small Gorgons don't belong in B tier with those other missiles, they just don't. - On Annihilator Pods I'd argue faster rate of fire from the missile skill is actually worse because you're burning ammo faster (and you really don't need even faster Annihilators). - You're overvaluing Hurricanes, they fell from grace hard, and in fact they got nerfed (again) solely because Pegasus got introduced. Since player piloted Hurricane spam was strong, now we have both a meh large missile AND a meh AI Pegasus. But I am glad you recognized the potential of medium Dragonfires, people sleep on them. This is the list I currently seem to agree with the most, which goes to show how missile weapons are in fact properly balanced.
I treat tier lists as opinions. And people's opinions are often tied to their rationalizations and feelings. This is also an opinion, but it is academic. Thank you. Thank you for giving yourself time to gain experience and only then expressing "opinions".
Good video, I might try out the Dragonfires and Hurricanes now that you've shown one way to properly use them. Would like to add my humble comments tho. Firstly, Hydra spam. Not fun when you're the target. Made me respect the Gorgon DEM. And a very hard lesson learnt about layered point defense. Secondly, your views on missiles differ from the Fossic views. Even accounting for the PvP nature of the guide, you still acknowledge that the Hurricane MIRV is still good, while the Fossic people are bemoaning the heavy nerfs to the Hurricane (11 bomblets in 0.90!) And I think I quite prefer yours, even if you wrote it as a text guide. Thirdly, I've always found Harpoons to be too fragile for my tastes. Especially when you factor in the AI. Yes, there's the odd accident when the stars align and the Harpoons absolutely wreck an overloaded ship, but it happens too rarely for me. I play almost exclusively in RTS mode and uh, I don't think I can react as well as most people. My Lasher skills are mediocre at best on a good day and I avoid piloting a flagship where possible.
love your tierlists, love your advice for improving ingame and whats good for AI versus players and will we be getting a ship tier list at some point? i'd love to hear your thoughts on each ship in a context of early game to endgame, varying fleet sizes and job efficiency, punching up or down during bounties versus non combat fleets and with all of that some build recommendations would be great, i know its asking for a lot but sometimes i look at the shipyard and go "i have no idea whether you're good for me so il buy another lasher or hammerhead"
New player here When I discovered the dragonfire it became me favorite missile. Period. I slapped two on a pirate light eagle with a elite missile specialist officer, expanded missile racks and eccm and it has results. Granted in longer fights it had issues but man whatever it decided to attack just died. And I love it's concept and aesthetic as well. Is it effective? Probably not. Is it cool? Hell yeah brother.
11:20 I feel like it has something to do with missile health and speed. Hammer and reaper are hard to shoot down for health and speed reason, so it's fairly safe to shoot them from higher range. Atropos and harpoons on the other hand have lower speed and HP than either, so AI is just afraid they get shot down. It would be nice if AI first checked the amount of pd on the enemy and, for torpedoes, enemy speed, but it just doesn't
Can you post that conquest build you use at 45:30? I want to give it a try, but I'm not sure what hull mods you're using / would be good, beyond the obvious integrated targeting unit and expanded missile racks.
Jackhammer on Dominator is godly! Put on Expanded Racks and you can fire four times. It's crazy. AI launches them quite often and cruisers get blown apart hardcore. Potentially 36 Hammers per Dominator means good mass, which means PD struggles. It's great!
Time for me to get started on that missile focused run, I kinda wanna just push things with all the bonuses I can slap onto them and see how funny it can go.
The times I've been frustrated with the AI not firing missiles was when I was running LP Kites with Atropos. They had a weird tendency not to unload like I would gave expected
ok, finally I can watch. I must say, if swarmers arent B tier (id probably accept low A) then ima jump off the nearest bridge (dw, its not a large bridge, just over a tiny creek, but for real, swarmer is so nice, full of ammo, great against the survey drones, throw them on a wolf a kite an omen, etc, useful on eagles for a cheap OP cost that doesnt require any other investment and helps with shredding armor and pd, obviously they fall off much later, and against capitals they kinda just... dont do anything, but the little guy deserves love for all the early game and small ship support and pd utility they can manage at just 3op and no need for missile skills or hullmods to make them better or have more ammo)
Really good presentation of your points, and combat examples. I would only disagree on two points. As someone who mainly uses hyperion/doom/[redacted] but has flown other ships, the reapers are invaluable from a player use. I would also say the annihilator medium are insanely useful for eating flak, random fighters, shields, armor and hull.
Thank you this is the perfect conclusion to my very big brain day, I spend the afternoon playing factorio (which is as we all know a very big brain game) while listening to Angela Collier in the background (who is also very smart and has a Ph.D in physics) now as the climax of my big brain day I will watch this smartest video by the smartest TH-camr. Hopefully if a keep doing this my own smartness will increase.
I also watch Angela sometimes. I really liked her video about silicon aliens (a popular scifi concept), and why in reality silicon-based biology is extremely unlikely compared to carbon-based.
Proximity Charge Launchers have one huge issue: when you've got a big fleet going and slot in the PCL for AI use, you're essentially stabbing yourself in the foot if your enemy has flanking frigates and fighters. PCL will fire at them, they will dodge or die to some of the shots and then the remaining bombs will merrily drift towards your other ships who will never shoot at proximity charges launched by your own ships. So, for solo ships its fine as a hybrid of a PD/armor pressure against slow ships. Something like a flanking frigate or destroyer can use them well. On a capital that's got destroyer escort? pass.
I like to use kinetic weapon+explosive missile for my mid/long range ship and sabot+explosive weapon for my close range ship. Somehow most of the time I use torp it either miss or being shot down so I only use it if I don't have any other choice.
Swarmers on heg kites with a railgun is my goto early game frigate, a small pack of these guys is 10 dp, and brings 800 shots or more with some choice officers, and has enough kinetic punch to work shields, and fast as heck But being able to kill fighters as a side is so good for no flux, en masse, 2 wings of broadswords doesnt survive 10 swarmers at once All for 10dp and 30 op, my little wolfpack
Yeah missiles are way easier to balance since they are 0 flux. cheap=less damage, expensive = more damage. Guns are very different because every ship wants more flux and has no flux to spare on sub-optimal weapons.
Inclusion of demonstration gameplay clips is a great addition, very appreciated.
Ditto
Time for him to redo the entire series! But yeah agreed, this stuff is getting better and better
I blame the Pegasus for the fall of missiles. 11 -> 7 Hurricane is just so sad.
I'm sure Squall + Harpoon Gryphon would be next in the chopping block.
In a way the gryphon did get hit already with the change to missile autoforge. Not a heavy nerf, but hopefully good enough that no more missiles need to hit the chopping block.
some of the changes were definitely heavy handed but I think overall missiles are in a really good place where there's solid use cases for most of them, or at the very least make for interesting gameplay against (such as persean league's gazer/gorgon spam)
Sabot + dragonfire gryphon is just getting started however
"The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't."
- John Harpoon, on his way to completely annihilate a poor fluxed out kite.
my neurons hurt
I always find it funny how truly "balanced" missiles are. All of them have some use in some situation, especially if you have a missile gunboat that you can load a bunch onto. Even the bad missiles that arent that useful are still better than nothing most of the time (if for nothing more than harassing frigs or getting flux-free dps).
When you're playing with modded battlesize to effectively unlimited pilum turn into S tier when you're bringing enough ships with them to make your pc turn into a turbine
5 pilums annoying, >10 pilums and it's a problem, >20 pilums and it's Armageddon.
Less so now that theyve changed from a bunch of HE into a spike of frag and EMP, but theyre overall better now.
True that, I love playing modded low tech campaigns and filling the entire battle map with Pilums.
Really all you need is Fleet Size by DP and a bunch of Vigilances.
the added gameplay clips made this a delightful experience. If you ever remake the other tier lists please make use of this for those too. Thanks for the great starsector content! also, do you have any plans to edit down your streams or do a modded fleet video, where it would be something like instead of a lowtech fleet fighting ordos, it could be VIC or diable. would love to see what your take on those endgame fleets would be
Not a single S tier? I think that's the first time I've ever seen someone have that kind of restraint. Especially with the squall and hurricane right there.
I am loving these "guides" i just recently got back into the game and found that ship loadouts always escaped me. I tend to use the autofit builds but with these tier lists I feel a lot more confident in building my own ships that actually fit their niches in my fleet. And I use ships i dont normally use as well because of the build ideas i get from these. Thanks for the help Spingus!
I think hammers also benefit a bit more from the extra ammo from expanded missile racks and missile specialization because their reload speed is so good. So an enforcer with 4 small hammers and 24 total rounds can burn up to something that's fluxed out and shit low tech armageddon down its throat. Last time I ran low tech, enforcers delivered the killing blow to a lot of big targets that way
It also works on the eradicator which is awesome
I've enjoyed your tier lists. I randomly got one in my feed a few weeks back despite having never played starsector and only watching Seth's video on it years ago. Was looking for a new game, so I bought it. Been no-lifing it a few weeks, and can win fairly high XP bonus fights now.
Hearing the rationale for what goes where helped conceptualize how things in combat work. For example, "AI doesn't use it enough" in a 1v1 context doesn't matter if your current fleet setup is for ships to work together using escort package + advancing as a line, but on a ship that's built to flank, win capture points, and often see 1v1 scenarios it needs to end quickly, you'd want to equip missiles it will use (or link missiles it would otherwise be reluctant to use to another weapon, although that comes with some risks too).
Harpoons are incredible AI missiles in fleet context, especially if you invest in things like racks + ECCM. Another thing that helps harpoons a lot is using carriers, because that also distracts point defense and tends to build flux on enemies...creates the exact scenario that makes the AI want to use harpoons.
I've been meaning to try a spam strategy that takes advantage of clean disengage.
Commenting for the Gamma Ai algorithm so this video stay relevant. Ludd bless 🙏
WAKE UP STARBABE NEW TIER LIST JUST DROPPED
Hello I'm gamer and this is the moment I've been waiting for.
Thanks for enlightening me to the Dragonfire DEM ! Currently doing a midline playthrough. Might give it a shot this time around.
You always make very well structured videos ;D And I always am the peanut gallery.
I actually think it may have been useful for you to briefly note what type of PD is best against each missile as you brought them up. Like how certain pd weapons do not so great vs. sabots and DEMs. Just a thought.
ECCM is worth the OP for Breach for sure, though it's more of a 'fit it if you got the spare OP (usually due to S-mods). For breach, they strongly benefit from the enhanced tracking and speed, either to hit nimble targets or get more breaches onto the target before being shot down. On the note of swarmer there's some rare funny builds that use mass swarmers for their HE DPS - Aurora, Enforcer and Eradicator mostly. The build actually doesn't work very well without ECCM, too many might get shot down before it reaches destroyers and cruisers.
Since Gazers are DEMs, they are considered way more threatening to the AI than they should be. Combined with its long duration and decent ammo, I'd basically rank it in the same place as the Gorgon. Powerful in their niche of... somewhat cheesily, confusing the enemy omni shield AI. Medium mounts are more competitive so I don't know if medium gazers are worth it compared to small gazer.
"I'm mainly avoiding missile spam" Hehehe, good call. In case anyone's curious, missile spam just works via the best combination of refire rate/burst size, range, ammo and damage, in that order of importance. Do whatever missiles you want with the best combo of those 4 stats and just spam it a ton. If Alex wants to balance gorgon pods to not be spammable, he could also just hit its refire rate instead of its range. Would make the medium more valuable that way.
I really wish annihilators had a lower refire rate or did not shoot at ships with low flux. I feel the same way for both small and medium, more so for the small. Just wanted to mention that, it's my second biggest gripe with vanilla missiles, DEM omni shield behavior being my biggest gripe.
I almost think Salamander pod should be C tier - there's such thing as having 'too many' salamanders and you can always downsize a medium mount into a small, when thinking about salamanders.
Regarding sabot pod, I think the 'they're a bit too good on high tech ships' should be a hint that maybe they deserved S tier. They are just so insane in their use case and still good outside of their use case.
I strongly disagree with the Hydra ranking. - I believe it is C tier at best. If it didn't have the DEM omni shield cheese, I would rank it D. It's held back by its 500 hitstrength per beam and, more importantly, held back by how it flanks around to do its damage. I feel like that extra range it has over the Locust doesn't help it get value over the Locust - if it's a frigate or destroyer they're usually going to be in Locust range, which is cheaper in OP and generally more reliable, I feel. I would much rather if Hydra didn't try to flank around its targets but instead just behaved like the Gorgon.
The entire week I've been waking up and checking the channel for the missile tier list. FInally, the day has come!
@Big Brain Energy
The single Atropos is missing, isnt it? :P
I mean, its just Atropos rack but worse and for only slightly less DP.
Isn't there also single sabot and hammer?
Nonono, you are mistaken. There is only the double shot sabot, other variants don't exist.
There is no single hammer, there is no double harpoon, and there is no Easter bunny.
@@bigbrainenergyguy I didn't even notice those xD
It's so weird that single hammer/atropos/etc exist but not medium atropos
Glad it came out before I got out to sea. Looking forward to watching the new videos when I get back!
_It's time_
Pro job on this one with the in game examples of the weapons in action.
Appreciate the video(s). Your explanations and reasoning for each placement is super helpful. The effort you put into this one really shows too, thanks Big Brain
A few things you might like to try:
1. 6 swarmers on a retribution basically make a locust with high explosive damage. It's great.
2. AI Pegasus with 4 hydras hard counters a player Wolfpack tactics build.
Im incredibly new to this game and honestly these videos really help me get stuck into a long run. Much appreciated!
Had to get my finest coat on for this upload, I will have more community service for my heinous crimes of stealing the coat now but worth it.
i think ai is so hesitant with atroposs because they're so much weaker impact than even a hammer against shield, much less a reaper. it tries to make sure to fire them when it thinks it's REALLY going to hit armor/hull unless it's panicking/about to die or it just has nothing else to work with (like a kite with atroposs blows its load too early)
The AI is very queasy about using "finisher" type missiles for some reason. It either panic dumps them on someone when at super-high flux, or they kill-dump them at the first ship that overloads within range. This last part is sorta good, but also kinda bad. If the overload is on a Conquest or something, great. If it's a Vigilance, then it's bad. Still, Harpoons do reacquire targets if the original one is blown up so you can have a giant swarm going around hitting shields and exposed areas.
Point is: Harpoon and its kind needs mass. No mass, no finishing.
Hammer barrage my beloved, I don't even look at cyclone reapers anymore. I was surprised it didn't made A tier, but it's fair, not enough ships support them.
I appreciate all your tier list, with so many weapons to choose from in this game it can be hard to find what fits.
Personally I have concerns with trusting my AI ships with limited ammo missiles.
"It was very very strong, right up until it ran out of missiles, then it was terrible!" Yeah, vanilla missiles...
The reason they have ammo is because it would be giga-busted and meta if they did have unlimited ammo. Zero flux cost to fire, can travel otherside of the map and still burst down a target.
@@WhiteFang103 They can be shot down, its really not that busted to regenerate ammo.
In an earlier version of the game, I've heard ballistic weapons had limited ammo as well.
As always, thank you for the video BigBrainEnergy!
People complaining about Dragonfires is fascinating because I think they’re really really good, almost too good on specialised ships, mainly modded ones, but also stuff like the Falcon (P).
They’re a side grade to reapers but functionally because they’re guided they’re a lot more versatile in where you can mount it.
They are probably the most dangerous missiles when fired en masse. Persean fleets prove it.
Another bonus point for Gorgons is that they have a very "sideways" movement similar to Salamanders in how they kinda tease the PD while flying out to the sides instead of straight forward, even the AI will somewhat often benefit from it by shooting some Gorgons baiting the PD out towards the sides of the ship while more direct fire missiles/torps can get through at the front.
So like either some nice saturation spam missile like Swarmer/Annihilator/Locust/Squall or favourite flavour of torpedo.
Enforcers for example can have some fun loadouts with them, they are wide enough that 2 Gorgons on the outer left and right will almost guarantee the missiles will split to the left and right, then you put another payload missile/torp in the other 2 more central slots that takes advantage of the gap in PD. That way the Gorgons are nice missiles against fast irritating frigates and also quite decent against larger ships with good PD cover.
Some really nice analysis here, and the demonstration video is a really great idea.
Gazers deserve a bit more discussion - they can sit inside the shields of larger ships like nova or onslaught and the pressure on enemy shields is constant and immense with no option for point defence to stop them, and at longer range than sabot. They are essentially graviton beams and when deployed en masse will also deflect enemy missiles which gives them defensive properties too.
also, Salamander on player ships with burst beam damage like tachyon is useful because salamanders can convince enemies to swap shields or turn to allow a tachyon volley to hit hull and armor for free. You only need 1 launcher for this.
Lol, what the hell? Your energy tier list video popped up in my recommended, and I was thinking, "I wonder if he'll do a missile tier list." Well, I guess I got my very expedient answer.
- Small Gorgons and Typhoon Reapers are honestly even better than what you gave them credit for, small Gorgons don't belong in B tier with those other missiles, they just don't.
- On Annihilator Pods I'd argue faster rate of fire from the missile skill is actually worse because you're burning ammo faster (and you really don't need even faster Annihilators).
- You're overvaluing Hurricanes, they fell from grace hard, and in fact they got nerfed (again) solely because Pegasus got introduced. Since player piloted Hurricane spam was strong, now we have both a meh large missile AND a meh AI Pegasus.
But I am glad you recognized the potential of medium Dragonfires, people sleep on them. This is the list I currently seem to agree with the most, which goes to show how missile weapons are in fact properly balanced.
I treat tier lists as opinions.
And people's opinions are often tied to their rationalizations and feelings.
This is also an opinion, but it is academic.
Thank you.
Thank you for giving yourself time to gain experience and only then expressing "opinions".
Calling Typhoon sidegrade of Jackhammer is heresy, its objectively superior in every role torpedo can be used in.
I will always shill Reaper cyclone launcher. They are my sledgehammer to any problem. Even in a heavy modded game.
Love the showcases of each weapon, bro cooked up frfr 🔥🔥🔥
Thanks!
45 seconds is diabolical
What?
Good video, I might try out the Dragonfires and Hurricanes now that you've shown one way to properly use them.
Would like to add my humble comments tho.
Firstly, Hydra spam. Not fun when you're the target. Made me respect the Gorgon DEM. And a very hard lesson learnt about layered point defense.
Secondly, your views on missiles differ from the Fossic views. Even accounting for the PvP nature of the guide, you still acknowledge that the Hurricane MIRV is still good, while the Fossic people are bemoaning the heavy nerfs to the Hurricane (11 bomblets in 0.90!) And I think I quite prefer yours, even if you wrote it as a text guide.
Thirdly, I've always found Harpoons to be too fragile for my tastes. Especially when you factor in the AI. Yes, there's the odd accident when the stars align and the Harpoons absolutely wreck an overloaded ship, but it happens too rarely for me.
I play almost exclusively in RTS mode and uh, I don't think I can react as well as most people. My Lasher skills are mediocre at best on a good day and I avoid piloting a flagship where possible.
love your tierlists, love your advice for improving ingame and whats good for AI versus players and will we be getting a ship tier list at some point? i'd love to hear your thoughts on each ship in a context of early game to endgame, varying fleet sizes and job efficiency, punching up or down during bounties versus non combat fleets and with all of that some build recommendations would be great, i know its asking for a lot but sometimes i look at the shipyard and go "i have no idea whether you're good for me so il buy another lasher or hammerhead"
Don't know when I'll have them done, but I've got ship tier lists in mind.
@@bigbrainenergyguy Yippey :D many thanks for all your hard work and big brain knowledge
New player here
When I discovered the dragonfire it became me favorite missile. Period. I slapped two on a pirate light eagle with a elite missile specialist officer, expanded missile racks and eccm and it has results. Granted in longer fights it had issues but man whatever it decided to attack just died. And I love it's concept and aesthetic as well.
Is it effective? Probably not. Is it cool? Hell yeah brother.
11:20 I feel like it has something to do with missile health and speed. Hammer and reaper are hard to shoot down for health and speed reason, so it's fairly safe to shoot them from higher range. Atropos and harpoons on the other hand have lower speed and HP than either, so AI is just afraid they get shot down. It would be nice if AI first checked the amount of pd on the enemy and, for torpedoes, enemy speed, but it just doesn't
I LOVE THE PILUMS
I LOVE THE PILUMS
I LOVE THE PILUMS
I LOVE THE PILUMS
I LOVE THE PILUMS
I LOVE THE PILUMS
I LOVE THE PILUMS
I LOVE THE PILUMS
Can you post that conquest build you use at 45:30? I want to give it a try, but I'm not sure what hull mods you're using / would be good, beyond the obvious integrated targeting unit and expanded missile racks.
i.imgur.com/PGr9kwv.png
Just make sure to switch the hydra's fire mode from "Alternating" to "linked"
@@bigbrainenergyguy Thank you!
Missiles, my favorite weapon system. Fighters are a close second.
Finally, it's big brain time!
4:48 ai really just blasted drone/figter with full volley of misses
Jackhammer on Dominator is godly! Put on Expanded Racks and you can fire four times. It's crazy. AI launches them quite often and cruisers get blown apart hardcore. Potentially 36 Hammers per Dominator means good mass, which means PD struggles. It's great!
Good vid, might as well do a tier list on hull mods to end things (totally not because I'm a total dummy on which one is actually decent)
Time for me to get started on that missile focused run, I kinda wanna just push things with all the bonuses I can slap onto them and see how funny it can go.
Looks like we don't have conclusion what is best. I guess we should be happy that game is balanced. Good that you included footage
Very interested to see your thoughts on the various missiles. It's a weapon type I use very little, to my detriment no doubt.
Oh I have been waiting for this
Kite reapers my beloved
Praise Ludd, my Brothers
Best New year present. Thanks!
The times I've been frustrated with the AI not firing missiles was when I was running LP Kites with Atropos. They had a weird tendency not to unload like I would gave expected
ok, finally I can watch. I must say, if swarmers arent B tier (id probably accept low A) then ima jump off the nearest bridge
(dw, its not a large bridge, just over a tiny creek, but for real, swarmer is so nice, full of ammo, great against the survey drones, throw them on a wolf a kite an omen, etc, useful on eagles for a cheap OP cost that doesnt require any other investment and helps with shredding armor and pd, obviously they fall off much later, and against capitals they kinda just... dont do anything, but the little guy deserves love for all the early game and small ship support and pd utility they can manage at just 3op and no need for missile skills or hullmods to make them better or have more ammo)
wait, how did this youtuber knows that it is the moment that i've been waitnng for?
I think the most fun I've had in my limited time with starsector was piloting a legion with dragonfires. Just fire and forget.
I remember spamming harpoons on eradicators and wiping out entire fleets in one missile salvo. Just Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh and everything is dead.
Really good presentation of your points, and combat examples. I would only disagree on two points.
As someone who mainly uses hyperion/doom/[redacted] but has flown other ships, the reapers are invaluable from a player use. I would also say the annihilator medium are insanely useful for eating flak, random fighters, shields, armor and hull.
The one gripe I have with these videos is that my brain yeets this info out the window the moment I boot up starsector.
Thank you this is the perfect conclusion to my very big brain day, I spend the afternoon playing factorio (which is as we all know a very big brain game) while listening to Angela Collier in the background (who is also very smart and has a Ph.D in physics) now as the climax of my big brain day I will watch this smartest video by the smartest TH-camr. Hopefully if a keep doing this my own smartness will increase.
I also watch Angela sometimes. I really liked her video about silicon aliens (a popular scifi concept), and why in reality silicon-based biology is extremely unlikely compared to carbon-based.
when BBE uploads an angel gets its wings back
This is truly the masters piece
Hammer barrage really does work when you're fighting stations, i find
Okay, okay...FINE. I'll sub to the channel.
I actually was waiting for that yeah
thank you gamer
Proximity Charge Launchers have one huge issue: when you've got a big fleet going and slot in the PCL for AI use, you're essentially stabbing yourself in the foot if your enemy has flanking frigates and fighters. PCL will fire at them, they will dodge or die to some of the shots and then the remaining bombs will merrily drift towards your other ships who will never shoot at proximity charges launched by your own ships.
So, for solo ships its fine as a hybrid of a PD/armor pressure against slow ships. Something like a flanking frigate or destroyer can use them well. On a capital that's got destroyer escort? pass.
now it's time to rate every ship in the game, good luck
(Morpheus Voice) "At last"
and the torpedoes finally hit!
That is THE tier list
90% into the video i was screaming "Which rocket will you put in S then?!" and it sounded a bit wrong.
now you should rate modded missiles based on how balanced they are
I like to use kinetic weapon+explosive missile for my mid/long range ship and sabot+explosive weapon for my close range ship. Somehow most of the time I use torp it either miss or being shot down so I only use it if I don't have any other choice.
Reaper missile is love
Reaper missile is life
you know what they say, D is for Dragonfire, anyway time to watch the video and see where it goes
Swarmers on heg kites with a railgun is my goto early game frigate, a small pack of these guys is 10 dp, and brings 800 shots or more with some choice officers, and has enough kinetic punch to work shields, and fast as heck
But being able to kill fighters as a side is so good for no flux, en masse, 2 wings of broadswords doesnt survive 10 swarmers at once
All for 10dp and 30 op, my little wolfpack
Yeah missiles are way easier to balance since they are 0 flux. cheap=less damage, expensive = more damage.
Guns are very different because every ship wants more flux and has no flux to spare on sub-optimal weapons.
Ah yes, finally
I'm one of those people that run 4 hydras on a Pegasus with 4 hvd 4 ion and a Mauler but I use it to anchor the line while I kill a flank
Heyy i was waiting for this
ITS HERE
the prophecy has come true!!
the clips are great
we will have a tier list for ships good sir?
yes. when?
...yes
Hm... I think this video is about missiles
King ngl
well, this isn't a missile tie- holly shit.
Peak has hit
Now...
Ship Hull Tier List?
Oh my gyat
yummers
skibidilicious
Finaly! Thank you!
Audio seems a bit too low.
Finally it's out