The Rules Have Changed... What Will This Mean for the SCARAB?

[@Aavak]

Be sure to let me know which 'solution' we should go forward with, as per the end of the episode... I may pop a poll up on the community tab later, too, for those who don't have time to type out long answers and just want to click a button instead ^^

[@bramfire229]

Don't you find it strange that the video is so new, everyone who's already watching it hasn't reached the end yet?

[@cenakaze]

what will you do now that ion beam range is nerfed? still use them or switch to another main weapon? I think a nuke flanking ship would be great to see, nuclear fire ant?

[@B1llsy4ll]

I want deck cannons for artillery

[@drbleblo]

You should upgrade the Scarab turn her into a battleship make those ions at the side usable so you can fire at ships on either side of you and get some deck guns too you can have them each fire independently and take down tons of enemies even when you are completely surrounded then you can have the scarab sit still and fire in all directions the AI will mostly stay still too and then you can use nukes on the Fire Ant and be fairly sure they will be accurate

[@Petq011]

Just letting you know, there are apparently larger asteroids of the more valuable resources closer to the sun, and mostly inside the "danger zone". So you'd need a shield on the front that never goes down no matter what, and a tractor beam... or a couple to pull out said asteroids outside so you can mine them and then your people can go out and collect the resources without combusting as soon as they open the door.

[@PleegWat]

33:40 "We're one crewmember short of a fully staffed fleet" and then he flies off without letting the new crew come on board.

[@zarnox3071]

46:36 I can't help but notice the Hercules is suspiciously missing those 8 crewmembers you hired and then immediately left behind at the station…

[@XistenceX1]

As he did it I busted out laughing because I knew he'd never notice

[@Ziggout]

it hurts my soul every time he leaves his sailors abandoned while away. i counted 10 this time. B(

[@jozi9440]

I would like to see the fire ant turn into a ship capable of an absolute storm of missiles.

[@DragonKnightJin]

I would even go so far as to give the Fire Ant some capability to make its own ammo, to extend the time it can be active between needing to be resupplied by the Hercules. It would also help keep it stocked better, thus giving it a better shot at unleashing a Macross Missile Massacre.

[@johnstone1332]

That would be fun. I know he was trying to keep the cost down when he started building it but the fire ant always seemed weak to me. A missile storm would be entertaining if a bit resource intensive

[@angieulaka]

Harrington, and no mercy!

[@david2869]

I would go so far as to say a SWARM of missiles from the Fire Ant!

[@MrHamof]

34:00 Just casually leaving behind the new recruits.

[@lotuse2003]

After making a comment about being fully-staffed, no less!

[@ITomocska]

You should always test all weapons by setting them to auto-fire and seeing if they can sustain constant fire

[@nommy8599]

I've been trying to tell him this for last few episodes. Really hope he sees this and tries it. 4 hours to redesign and with 1 more bunk bringing power the railgun would be so much more useful... How long would it take to see that just by auto-firing it?

[@zuthalsoraniz6764]

Funnily enough neither of the damages you attributed to the railgun around 17:00 were caused by it. The port side exploding was just the ions melting through, helped along by the ammo explosion - and when the starboard side blew up at 17:47, that actually started at the aft end of that "missile prong", so I would say it was caused by out-of-control fire.

[@bl4cksp1d3r]

Yeah, those rocket ships tend to chain explode

[@Virsteinn]

Which isn't to say that the railgun isn't capable of causing that kind of damage, but yeah, glad to see that the actual cause is apparent to more than just me.

[@SkarmoryThePG]

One consideration for the Hercules: You may want to give each hypedrive a dedicated capacitor. It can also fuel other stuff but it's gonna make your hyperjumps much faster.

[@Solusphere]

33:31: "Wait, you just hired us! You can't abandon us here!" "The rules of your employment have changed!"

[@ExtraRaven_]

Hey Aavak, i think the reason your ammo makers weren’t working at the front of the scarab was because your crew were ordered to service the factories, not the storages. I think the storages work similar to reactors, where you assign crew to the reactors, and tell the reactors what the crew should service. I would recommend checking all factories to make sure the crew are correctly done like this. ALSO, you should put capacitors next to your hyperdrives on the Hercules so it can GTFO much faster

[@divedweller4295]

2:00 - Why are they blinking? Why? My dead~ 40:00 - For all the space the ion beam takes, you'd hope it's still superior.

[@ayasekaru]

Hey Aavak, at 18:00 the ship didn't lose it's weapons by a railgun shot, but by the big ammunitions depot exploding! Sadly, anyway. Wish it'd been the railgun. at 18:38 the cockpit got destroyed by 4 missiles that flew past and looped around.

[@BalthazarB2]

Ah yes, it's finally here! I've already started to miss this series only after a day. I believe you've gotten me addicted, Aavak! Judging by the new Scarab design, you've been a busy little bee (or beetle?). But blehg, seem it would be that sleep has me firmly wrapped in it's grasp, I'll have to postopone watching till the morning.

[@BalthazarB2]

Side note after watching: From what I've experienced personaly, Renegade Pack ships seem to come in ways that their levels add up to the mission level. So if you have a level 7 pack mission with 2 ships, you could have a level 4 ship joined by a level 3 ship.

[@commandertoastcz6256]

Seeing the Peccadillo at the pirate base made me like the Scarab more... You can see it´s a lot bigger than when it was facing them last time

[@AlteroPax]

Just wanted to say that I really appreciate the stream recap parts of the videos. Its super nice to get a high-level overview of all the stuff that changed, without needing to worry about catching up on a super long VOD, and streaming stuff like that seems like a great way to avoid "wasting" the hours of footage that you otherwise be cut out to make the content youtube friendly.

[@ExtraRaven_]

Another plus to this is that it doesn’t spoil watching the vods, as it’s very brief and the vods still offer the commentary and chat interaction while it was happening

[@A..n..d..y..T]

Cannon ship called the Demented Drummer. Just couple rules: Diagonal, huge delta wedge front with thick weave armor and only minimal reverse thrust to back off from stations and the corpses of your enemies. Minimum of 4 Deck Cannons. No other wepons. None. This one has an additional rule of use. No targetting subsystems. Why? Just to live up to its name :D They are idiots inside this one.

[@jaythomas4443]

Quality over quantity on this channel; "After Hours" being where you can share in depth discussions and meticulous planning :p Both cuts of content have a place on the interwebs! xD Ultimately, so long you are proud of your content that's what counts. All the love for the channel. Cari Ti xxx

[@axelord4ever]

Dedicated missile carriers are FUN. Got one with 12 launchers, some boost thrusters and a sensor array. It's about a third the size of the fire ant too. It's not heavily armored and it's definitely not meant to take on anything directly above threat level 4-5 unless you are very lucky. Above that you start encountering interceptors and they'll catch up to you eventually. In any case, it's really fun to see all 36 missiles fly off before the enemy has even realized they are under attack. Once they do, you've long since put the missile barge behind a much heavier mauler ship, like your scarab. Currently in a [7-9] system, with six ships now. One superheavy (which is also the factory and hauler ship, so it's not as powerful as its tonnage might suggest). Two heavies (one has four deck guns and lots of armor, and the other has 13 heavy laser batteries and a few PDS). One medium ship (the missile barge). Two light crafts (one is a small rail gun and a few PDS and the other only has 2x nuke launchers). Bear in mind I do play the game modded, though all of the designs are functional vanilla-wise.

[@sirbaconeater]

Absolutely loving this series Aavak! Picked up Cosmoteer after watching the first couple of episodes. My vote is definitely for the Fire Ant. We need missile swarms!

[@Rebound1234]

Can't wait till you start working on the cannon ship! I wanna see a thundering cannon volley that will instantly shatter their shields and peel off a layer of armor in one go. Very curious to see how powerful the deck cannons are.

[@BalthazarB2]

They are somewhat like railguns, just less accurate.

[@LordDamokles]

I say the scarab should decide what it wants to be, either a close range brawler, or a long range artillery. Railgun fanning works best when the target is farther away, as the angle the shells hit is more acute. I think the shape of the Fireant looks like it could fit one or two railguns, and while the broadside looks nice, it is not really necessary with missiles.

[@Kyrinson]

ouch... hiring 8 new crew and racing off without them @33:47 ... also probably replace 2 of those forward point defense with disruptors.. or just make the scarab's mandibles wider.

[@PedroMM193]

Give Fire Ant some missile production. It doesn't need more missile launchers, it needs more crew to feed the missiles to keep a consistent barrage. At max range before the first barrage hits the target another will be already on the way, you just need the missiles and the crew to make it consistently firing throughout the battle. And she seems lacking of crew and reloading efficiency. It is a flanking ship, so you can choose the angle of engagement and face less or no PDCs at all. So volume of fire, although amazing to watch, is less of an issue.

[@KuroroSama42]

16:45 Not a railgun shot. The ion just got through the armour and luckily didn't get blocked by the debris - then it just dug from explody bit to explody bit. 17:45 That one wasn't the railgun either. There was no shot. I think they just blew up from fires, caused by the previous railgun shot on the other half. Your ion wasn't through the armour this time. Honestly, the railgun didn't do all that much this episode. It just keeps getting shot into armour and just dealing a bit of damage to it, which would be fine if it didn't so much time to shoot. It seems it's best against lightly armoured vessels to just punch through that armour and deal damage to the important bits behind and that's not what you're seeing. The one shot it really shone was the one where you broadsided an opponent and blew off a quarter of their ship (the 3 stern port side missiles)

[@Pepperkaas6]

I made a 18 deck cannon 12 tractor beam face smasher ship. 12 tractor beams do not always seem enough for turning the biggest ships though. One side of six TB's will pull and the other side of 6 will push. Sometimes the other ship is so strong I can only turn it by using their own trusters against them and switching around push and pull. I have no shields , sometimes struggling with the biggest missile ships. All available building space is filled with engines, mind you the deck cannons need 6 meters of free space around them so the ship also has many empty holes in it, firstly from the engines red/yellow exhaust path and secondly the space around the deck cannons. It can still do about 85m/s and is an ugly as sin block/brick ship.

[@BanditKieth]

Let the Fire Ant rain down upon it's enemies with the liquid metal heat of it's sting!!

[@gothicpando]

wish there was an auto delegate crew mod, that just put enough crew at each station and assigned them roles accordingly. yea that'd take out half the work but I'm smoothed brain over here...

[@Grauer1510]

You can right click on the pickaxe-icon to filter for items. For example you can loot/mine everything except steel and coils.

[@jonojjt6]

Dude, you are an excellent designer of ships, they look truly amazing and are clearly staggeringly effective... but my god the way you go about dispatching enemy ships is beyond inefficient. I just can't decide what you're trying to do, if you're going for high salvage, you don't tactically eliminate the cockpit asap, and you don't go for a quick as possible kill, targeting power. It's like death from a thousand cuts because you change target every 5 seconds. I really like your videos, and you've essentially convinced me to buy the game and taught me everything i know about it, so i don't say this out of malice or to disparage... i just find myself fast forwarding the battles...and i LOVE the battles.

[@heirofcarnage1782]

I think a third, slower and tankier ship would be very useful. Perhaps deck guns and heavy armor and shields. More of a classical battleship design. Then you could send the scarab and the fire ant forward to bait in the enemy, and leave the new ship behind. They can bait the enemy towards it, and then fan out to the sides while the tankier ship pounds the enemy with heavy fire. I think specializing ships is vital. A jack of all trades and master of none ship is sub optimal, and doesn't perform well in my experience. Fire Ant is clearly a destroyer, with heavy fire power but little defense. It clearly isn't designed for brawling, but to instead bite the heels and hit the flanks. Scarab works well as a heavier destroyer with good fire power and great defense (for a destroyer). A second rail gun would be a great choice to help reinforce that sniper role. I will say, your rail gun set up needs a rework to work more efficiently, as it isn't charging on both sides. A heavy battle ship would give you a much sturdier ship that can face tank while Scarab and Fire Ant flank and rip apart the enemy from the sides.

[@ColonelVermel]

Aavak build a „Typhoon-class submarine“ spaceship, you madlad!

[@kholdanstaalstorm6881]

Let's see that ship builder in action and deliver a truly ludicrous amounts of missiles! Next perhaps a broadside flanker cannon boat? I'm excited nonetheless, it's a blimmin' Aavak series of course!

[@cosmicfox3267]

As you mentioned your ships have a problem with maneuvering and speed, which for what I see the main issues that is causing this the fact that you are stacking multiple layers of armour in some areas up to 5 layers thick which is some areas is not need. For example between space where the ion crystals are and the forward compartments is 4 layers thick, you will not being shot in that area unless everything is going wrong so only 1 maybe 2 layers is enough. Also since you want to everything to be in there own compartments that is also not helping as you are applying armour to the internal of the ship that will not get hit unless the ship is basically destroyed at that point.

[@TheToric]

If your gonna do big railguns make a dedicated ship. Make the scarab into a brawler, remove or *drastically* shorten (down to 0-1 acells) the railgun (perhaps adding 1-3 more guns), add disruptors and cannons. Make the scarab damn near a melee ship. Long railguns are wasted with any other non-pd weapon, they should get their own platforms.

[@pakornwattanavrangkul2550]

I built your design and discovered that the rear truster cluster is too big a weak point and you dont have nearly enough armor on the sides (needs at least 1-2 extra layers of armor). Also the rear side shield generator is kinda redundant if you just cover that hold with armor, and you can save on crew if you just build one big command center instead of 2 medium ones and use the spar space as a factory or more storage. I also replaced the flak cannons for emp missiles to deal with shields. And to finish it off, a healthy coating of point defense all around.

[@demos74dxs]

Hi Aavak. I have a suggestion for the ion clusters. What if you rotate them to face outboard? This would allow you to be far more efficient with your crystals and percentages, you can follow the rule of binary addition for ions, so 2 crystals focus into the single crystal at the front, instead of having a redirection crystal at the side that costs you efficiency.

[@TallinuTV]

He is, in fact, using the optimal 2:1 ion beam merge pattern. Any DPS lost to falloff distance is extremely minimal over those short ranges.

[@demos74dxs]

@@TallinuTV oh I didn't realize. Wouldn't the suggested setup at least reduce one redirecting crystal?

[@0shii]

The redirecting crystals don't cost damage, only merging crystals do!

[@KainYusanagi]

...Wha...? Aavak, the ions have always had a range of 300 meters. The last time ANYTHING modified the ion beam range was when the ion beam prisms were introduced back in 2019, as they reset the range of ion beams to use their location as the start point (though damage falloff caused by distance the laser has had to pass through still applies to the damage value that final prism passes on to targets fired upon).

[@londoeblack]

Two thumbs up! Great video. Thanks!

[@ITomocska]

Is it just me or is the railgun almost never firing after the first shot?

[@Ericshadowblade]

Its the reloading of energy cells he needs crew dedicated to just refueling it

[@sindahir3]

problem is the angling of the railgun. the laser rearrange itself. for the railgun you need a direct line to the target. when the ship is strafing the gun wont have theperfect line so no shot. for railgun you need to fly straight or maneuver manual so you can wiggle the ship to get the perfect shot. much worser when you have more barrels. most of the time only the one in the middle will fire but not those far outside cause of the angle

[@rey890]

@@sindahir3 rail fanning is the solution for that

[@loub.redcap3524]

Looking at the Hercules as you close out this episode, I can't help but notice that rail canon shaped gap in the middle. Might be worth considering giving it the long range support role as well.

[@ExtraRaven_]

I would be very nervous seeing such a valuable and important ship anywhere near the front line, it would take a single enemy ship with a rail gun to core the herc immediately given its non-combat armour and 0 shields

[@jeandelaloza4317]

Hey, finally first comment! You are an amazing creator I've been following for years, but you deserve all the credit for what you do! The quality and commentary has improved every year. I hope you're around for a long time!

[@Nevir202]

I still think best role for Fireant would be a fast strike, nuclear ship. Something that can quickly strafe past the enemy, then unload onto its vulnerable rear with a barrage of rear facing nuke launchers. I think that would end a good number of the ships you've been facing in the opening salvo.

[@stephenvarholy3755]

Now that ion beams are no longer hold the range advantage, perhaps it's time to switch armaments or create a new ballistic focused vessel. Much like how the A10 Warthog had to be designed around the gun. Though wildly impractical, a vessel specifically designed launch massive broadsides could be a solution.

[@griffinhatchling]

Like the new concept of fast forward construction process with your summary explaination over it.

[@strawberry-parfait3922]

I see a couple of possible problems with the build, mainly most of your firepower relies on the Ion lasers and railgun, weapon systems that both need you to be in a specific orientation to the enemy to apply damage. Later on you will encounter enemies that will deny you control over your position by pulling you in with tractor beams or just being super fast and trying to get behind you or kite you. They can literally glue your ship sideways onto them while you have no weapon systems facing in that direction. If you play on standard difficulty with standard ressources/crew cost ect or higher, you should also decide what method you want to use to tank, speed, shields or armor, rather then having a wild mix of all. Armor slows you down, which requires you to put on more thrusters, which require alot more crew and energy supply, which means less crew is available to supply shields and weapons and you need more heavy reactors that slow you down further and add weakpoints. Ships that have a railgun as their main damage source usually shed off most armor in exchange for speed and maneuverability and use point defense systems and shields as their main defense while at max range. The faster you are the slower missiles are relative to you and the more time you have to shoot them down while staying out of range of other weapon systems. Generally but especially on missile boats and canon armor ships you want as much crew on the weapons as possible and therefore as little thrusters or other energy hungry systems as possible. You would only use heavy shield generators around thrusters or other places where its difficult to install bulky armor, if even at all. On torpedo boats, one single missile launcher with H.E missiles requires an insane amount of 12-14 Crew to keep up the max dps because for each missile fired 4 missile parts need to be carried over. So you need 12 crew each carrying 1 part for each of the 3 missile to reload it in one single trip to the cargohold and another 2 if its supposed to stay manned. So unless you play on an easy difficulty setting that allows you to have an abundance of crew you really dont have the luxury to just spam loads of large thrusters with engine rooms to make up for your weight and even if so, you could build a second ship with the same size instead if managed correctly. Also you have way too many reactors for your ship size too (since you also have way too many thrusters) and 0 capacitor batteries. Reactors are very expensive, hard to repair and highly explosive, you should have as few of them as possible, just barely enough to cover the energy demand. Capacitors are cheap and do not explode for 2-4 times their tile size upon destruction but require some clever management in exchange. For example instead of a reactor you could put 1-2 batteries near each shield generator, then group all shield generators and turn them off when you are out of combat, they will not lose their energy while they are off and the crew will recharge the batteries. Then when you are about the enter combat you press your hotkey to turn all shields on, they will immediately be at full power and start using the buffer energy from the batteries, which should be able to supply them for a limited time until combat is over. If done right combat should be over right as the batteries are getting empty. You could also consider pointing the railgun backwards, that way you wouldnt need all those forward thrusters to keep you at range from your enemy and could just use your regular travel engines. 2-4 forward facing boost engines are usually enough for breaking and reversing. Enemies chasing you will also have reduced weapon range. Of course you can just spam crew and reactors too and reload save when they explode but wheres the fun in that? :P

[@PhoenixianThe]

Definition of "Railgun fanning" for those who wish to know and read the comments: Basically, it's a method of placing multiple railguns in parallel on the same ship, setting up their targeting so they aim for the same point (and only shoot when they're on target,) and then waving the ship back and forth, "fanning" it akin to a paper fan, so their all launch and hit the same hit the same spot in quick succession. In purpose, it's the railgun equivalent of how the Scarab now has multiple ion beams concentrated at the same point instead of a single combined beam. Difference being that in railfanning the key to it isn't just the build, but the targeting and piloting.

[@robindude8187]

With the Fire-Ant, I think I'd make it asymmetrical. Have it with weapons only on one side, facing the enemy, so it's not launching missiles the other way which then have to curve around the ship to get to the front. Also, don't limit it to just missiles. Put some cannons on that thing. Then the entire 'back' (away from the other ship) can be storage to hold more missiles and also ammo factories to make ammo for those cannons. Then you can broad-side the enemy with a serious barrage of nasty.

[@wolf2403]

Honestly, going with only rail and then defense and some lesser weapons to stave off smaller foes could be very interesting. The main point being maintaining range. Oh yeah and please just put hallways connecting all your sections. I don't wanna see you lose entire crew sections.

[@12463trf]

I love the modular set up! I am doing something similar for my ship (8 deck cannons, 4 rail guns, 6 HE missile launchers), my problem is them deciding to jump out of the airlock to do something elsewhere... while i'm flying across the system -_-;

[@TheGhostAvatar]

You need to setup the crew quarters to only serve modules within their own section. That should stop that.

[@blumoogle2901]

I enjoyed the episode, as always, especially the balance between building and action. I would love to see a heavily shielded, cannon armed ship designed for knife fighting distance with a lot of close range maneuverability, though not necessarily a lot of forward speed. Something optimised for short ranged jerky movement and taking missiles on the chin with forward shields, very little storage, a lot of reactors for its size. I'd also like more structural scaffolding rather than armour to give it structure. On the other hand, I would like to see a ship class which is unarmed but just a block of armour and shields, hyper drives and tractor beams, half moon shaped and wide enough to serve as a mobile shield for the rest of the fleet to engage from, with enclosed thrusters. Bonus points for combining the two, designing them to separate in battle and reattach afterward.

[@staoutlawx1007]

If you want lots of resources for free just push space stations into the sun, to do this just press ctrl+d to use wasd to control one of your ships and ram the space station into the sun, but in order to use those resources you can't collect them because your crewmates just die when they hit the ring of death around the sun, so you have to build while they are in sight and that will use them because you are close enough to them.

[@empressbulby3761]

Now the scarab is a true insect. With 6 "legs" aka the thruster clusters.

[@ArjenSmits]

I cant wait for him to meet a squad of Ostrich that will absolutely obliterate his entire front end. Those shields will look like cardboard paper once a cluster of 8+ nukes come zooming in. Would be interesting to see how he solves that :P

[@shoulderpyro]

I might be wrong about it but, an improvement for the ion beams regardless of the patch notes Never combine more than 2 beams in one crystal Never combine two lasers of different strength in a single crystal They can get scarily strong, but also get exponentially more expensive. A 32 ion beam "screw everything in this general direction" system can munch through roughly anything rather quickly. ... Bit expensive though

[@thejdpopthegamer6555]

Hey aavak the 2x2 bunks are more efficient in holding people with a 1.5 person per tile extra compared to the 1x2

[@ThorDog81]

seems like you need a pair of small picket ships to guard the capital ship. just lots of PD and maybe light weapons.

[@Darquirrin]

@Aavak I think you should take a serious look at at the Fire Ant. If you moved to a diagonal ship design with 'petals' of missiles and shields you should make it into a mid-range beast.

[@SyberSqueegy]

You should install a Double-Barrel Max-size Railgun on the Hercules....

[@GiantSavage117]

By the Way Aavak, I found out you can Rename, change hair style and color, skin color, and favorite specific crew. To do so, open the crew management screen, left click on the roster button at the bottom left of the UI, A menu with the entire crew will pop up, you can now right click on any crew member in that list and customize, favorite, or remove them. I think you can also follow them about their duties, but I only did it once and cant remember how. Beware, due to the "expendable" nature of the crew, keeping specific crew alive in the more challenging battles is difficult. Maybe someday the Dev will give us a reason to keep certain crew alive, like a veterancy or XP system for the crew.

[@eighttimesnine]

honestly the engineering evolution of the Scarab has reminded me a lot of the digivolution ofthe digimon MegaKabuterimon, or the evolution of the spectrobe Vilanox

[@mememonvonmon7344]

You can have the rail gun fire at will so it can shoot more

[@FrostWolfPack]

Hmm came to mind maybe borrow some ideas of real world navy and build few support ships dedicaded to give cover to the big hitters. Like flack ship to keep missiles or some specialised ships

[@sebaty5]

Yay i can listen to aavaks voice again soothing me to sleep so i may wake in the morning feeling refreshed and able to watch the video again so i dont miss anything

[@TheRedBrain]

Video turned out quite good! I hope your tea did too! :)

[@QuirkyView]

33:33 rip those 8 crewman

[@jacobh9241]

I've had luck with side-mounted beam ships like this by independently targeting opposite sides of the enemy ship. Many ships have weak points on either side that aren't easily reachable with spinal mounted weapons, but side-mounted beams have a better angle. However, I made the mistake of trying this tactic on a ship that lacked sufficient frontal armor to engage at the somewhat closer ranges needed to make this trick work, so I ended up going back to a spinal-mounted beam to maximize pinpoint damage.

[@Mk-ms3oq]

22:33 missed a door on the reactor, eastward

[@geoffreyentwistle8176]

I really like the compartmentalized design of this ship... Though it does mean that if one section is shot up and the crew is killed, that section can't be shored up by crew from other sections, doesn't it?

[@TheGhostAvatar]

You know what would be a good candidate for a missile boat. Build another Hercules and retrofit it. Replace the the outer most cargo bays on each prong with missile bays (HE and nukes) facing out each side, so they can arc in to the enemy from each side. Keep the inner bays for missile storage to supply them. Refit the mining lasers with deck guns (just because it fits the theme of retrofitting a cargo ship). Keep the central manufacturing and refit it to purely missile/ammo factories to replenish used ordnance. Use the rear bays as raw resource storage to supply the factories. Then up armour, shield, point defence the hull as needed. And finally upgrade the engines. As for the Fire ant, refit that with just EMP missiles. And use it a nimble disabling harasser boat. That can resupply from the new Hercules class missile boat. Alternatively you can take that idea of retrofitting a cargo ship. And turn it into a gun boat with mass broadside potential on each prong. With a few deck guns for good measure. Cant have to many, as they stun nearby crew when fired.

[@kylestein6657]

The front of the scarab if I really thought about it might go better if you put the large cannons on it instead of the large flack guns and leave the shields and point system defense. You haven’t had expensive repairs or non after the fights are over and I would think it needs more offensive ability to penetrate armored targets.

[@nikolausharju6388]

I am among the first Edit: while I would like like to see even more scarab redesigns, this episode was mostly about testing the changes you just made. The fire ant also has an... outdated arsenal, only four h.e. launchers & no nukes. We've seen the possibilities.

[@sugarpacket7251]

Amoung?

[@CarlGorn]

I was thinking you triple up the rail gun, replacing the ion beams and moving the Scarab's control centers and sensors toward the rear of the ship to make room for the port & starboard acceleration tubes. That would allow for a 3-point rail fan, which should prove deadly to even the most robust ships and bases.

[@gothicpando]

id be hilarious if you put two railguns in the hollow space of the freighter. unassuming freighter goes boom.

[@Angel90011]

A masterfull deck gun ship would be real fun to see next :D

[@User-md3ul]

I think I'd also like to see more "daily work" of farming, selling & co. It feels a little bit too much focused on the ship designs, if nearly the whole video is on that (and the next already replaces everything again) - like, I also enjoy seeing them in use. You did also show that, but I'd love to have more of it.

[@brandoncarter3136]

Fire ant, 20 launchers. Disrupters on the port and starboard.

[@DemonKing19951]

I definitely think your upgrades to scarub depend a lot on the designated role of your 3rd combat ship. If your kinetic weapons ship is going to end up being designed as an omni directional brawler meant to grab a lot of attention and just kind of kill in mass without specific direction; I'd personally say focusing mostly on scarub's single target damage capabilities (rail gun fanning, disrupter arrays) makes a lot of sense. As it's more limited range does make it perfect for picking the biggest target among the enemy fleet and getting its attention. I definitely think keeping your frontal large shield projectors will be important for it to do that job, since they've been allowing the ship to survive full missile barrages your point defense couldn't hope to take care of with no damage early in the episode, but you might have noticed more about how that all was behaving than me. My vote in that regard is to focus most of your redesigning in the next episode into the fire ant. Since it seems like if you get a third ship any time soon, both the scarub and that ship will end up eating up a lot of your brain power. Best to get the easy ship out of way first since the fire ant with its something like 400+ range really isn't going to run into a lot that'll push you to improve it compared to the other two... Side note, gettin' concerned for the hercules being out on its own now. May want to consider giving it some better defenses even if it's just shields. Give you a little more time to notice someone's trying to destroy it rather than just randomly paneling over to discover someone's spent their entire cash of missiles on it at some point.

[@ExtraRaven_]

I think the developer will be adding some QOL feature to alert the player when stuff like that happens, it has been mentioned on the discoed a couple times

[@lawrencet.74]

FINNALLY been checking KZbin every hour for the past 2days for another video. Love the stuff aavak, keep up the good work

[@naseweis6105]

i fell in love wit rail fanning right before the patch 👍

[@yobgodababua1862]

Scarab's still in a good place. Bring the fire ant up to spec.

[@anotherkenlon]

You have to turn in bounties by going to the station you took them from, right? Wouldn't it make sense to build a small, super-fast, cheap to hyper courier ship that could turn them in as soon as you complete them, without needing you to move the rest of your fleet?

[@benja_mint]

I also questioned whether my super shields on my nose were very effective. Level 17 enemies destroy my front shields every time... so they're basically just sacrificial and every conflict costs me a few diamonds... but diamonds are cheap in later game

[@MrNovaStreams]

It's unfortunate that there aren't true diagonal options. I would use diagonally forward facing missile tubes with a spinal railgun directly down the middle, but the options of the game don't allow for that v_v

[@sindahir3]

what is better than 1 railgun? 4 railguns ;) will be a bit tricky to maneuver to get the shots out but you will deliver a big hit and can take out most ships in 1 volley

[@gwydionml6479]

Spinal rail launcher seems quite good. The only thing that might be better is two of them 😈

[@bramfire229]

I can't tell if I'm stupid or not but is a word missing from the title? "The rules of have changed..." The rules of what? Haha, PS) love the videos and i recently have discovered Aavak after hours and I am hooked! (All the building and random chats!!)

[@KainYusanagi]

Not stupid, it's missing at least a word, yes. X3 Even now.

[@AkiUwUx3]

“The Rules Of Have Changed” Classic.

[@dominusbalial835]

Loving the series, I decided to purchase the game for myself because of your content and i've been enjoying my time strip mining the starting sector for resources.

[@StevenHouse1980]

Aavak there are a few mods that I think you might like, one is called "Twin linked point defense turret" another is called "Autocannon" or perhaps you need a "UV Laser" for more protective fire power. Also Aavak I hope you try new run thrue of this game with only one Dreadnought. it would be intresting think of one large fying V or a U with guns along the iner-edge talk about a flying kill-box. Criss cross bouncing an Ion-beam cats-cradle would be far to eazy.

[@tropicalvikingcreations]

I'm voting for the Fire ant upgrade. I'm a sucker for a good support craft.

[@yaymixzey9988]

Build 2 small ships that are dedicated to being point defence, call them mosquitos

[@PleegWat]

I think the fireant needs more strafing capability

[@AsbestosMuffins]

the railgun doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot

[@RANGER2255000]

dont know if you knew it but the lil Picture of the other ship in the top right is exactly like the main view. IE you can target enemy rooms or select your weapons from it

[@pakornwattanavrangkul2550]

Why are you using bunks instead of quarters? is it a function thing or just aesthetics?

[@peterjackson4491]

I'm quite curious about this railgun fanning you speak of

[@JeneralMills]

I took over two of the onrush missle cruisers and made slight defensive tweaks and they are beastly

[@ernestlam5632]

The rail gun is probably the most powerful but it cost the most to use and has a big vulnerability if a shot goes right down the barrel. Fire ant should have every type of missile possible. It seems really well designed the way it is when you make it bigger make sure to increase its thrust to maintain it's maneuverability

[@dariuspatiserul2087]

the fier ant needs a redisign try to make the front side and the balk side the same like a pair of mandibals and i saw how you use it and it sood masivly help with movment cuz the front haz just 1 truster or just use it on the other side like you alredy do + needs more storage and fier power

[@dariuspatiserul2087]

Aavak this is not true 2 of my coments got this on the same video

[@gaberielpendragon]

The main issue on the scarab is needing twice the crew it currently has.