Starsector 0.96a: New Remnant Ordos fight (against new ships)

Starsector version 0.96a
Hege XIV fleet vs 3 Remnant Ordos with all new Remnant ships added in the game.
Chapter
0:00 Fleet build
0:38 Battle start
7:40 Radiant fight
11:06 Battle finish and loots
- BGM1: Miami Nights 1984 - Ocean Drive
- BGM2 : It's Our Fight (From "Transformers: Dark of the Moon")
- BGM3 : To Glory (Two Steps From Hell)

[@edmundlange3998]

I do love how the optimum build is just "as many heavy machine guns as you can fit" and then waltz into punching range so you can overload any ship that tries to engage before popping them with reapers.

[@tgF321jikko]

Against high tech and remnant yes. The counter to that strategy is to do a butt load of emp damage, so half their weapons are repairing by the time they get in range.

[@VisibleNoises]

@@tgF321jikko Or heavy PD + armor build. Shrug off the machine guns and shoot down the Reapers.

[@stalwartteakettlepotato9879]

This is a battle straight out of the AI wars.

[@SargentGunnery]

Having your guys in a circle meant that the enemy couldn't isolate your ships. Big brain move. What kinda made the fight a bit harder, was those ships at the start getting in front of the Onslaught. I have to say, I am impressed by the number and size of the ships you take down with such a small fleet. Also, Two steps from Hell has some banger songs.

[@-NB7979-]

I was trying to make a more horizontal frontline, but yeah being in a circle is definitely better than isolated. Also, my Eagle build and AI of Eagles were not very great so I think that's also one of the big reason why fight went harder than it suppose to be. About the size of battle, actually enemy Ordos were smaller than before (I think after patch 0.96, the maximum size of Remnant Ordo is reduced. Can't find a super large Ordo like 3 Radiant + 6 Brilliant in previous video anymore) so this was more like vs 1.5 Ordo but yeah XIV capitals fought well, and demonstrate the danger and weakness of new Remnant ships at the same time! Especially about the Nova, I'm happy about what it did to Eagle and how it get killed, It just showed the perfect example of it's strength and weakness. Anyway, thanks for the comment!

[@erwins_arm]

True, but also it's very minmaxed with officers, may elite skills and 3 spods on all ships even the frigates

[@-NB7979-]

​@erwinsarm9010 Every ships in this fleet already have 3 S-mods, and the reason why Frigates don't have an officer on them is to get a DP reduction bonus from Support doctrine. Thanks for the comment though!

[@KnightNave]

@@-NB7979- try positioning the eagle on the flanks, they do well as "linebackers" keeping ships from flanking you.

[@_Some_Random_Dude]

If you want to kill ordors try this: 20 lp brawlers(Heavy machine gun, chaingun, 2x swarmer) 5 scintillas(lux bombers, LR pd lasers, breach missiles) 3 monitors(no weapons other than built-in ones) This kills all types of ordo fleets in about 3-4 minutes including ones with multiple radiants.

[@kwcamp4487]

You can now turn off the white out effect from the settings menu. Those big white blasts hurt the eyes. I liked the video.

[@-NB7979-]

Thanks for letting me know! From next I will turn that off, because I don't like them neither. Sorry for that!

[@kermitthefrog1176]

I, the founding member of the 14th Battlegroup Enjoyers, now grant you access to this prestigeous organisation.

[@kermitthefrog1176]

we only like Onslaught and Legion, lets praise the battlegroup to give us XIV Eradicator

[@thefatbob3710]

Dude I love how you explain everything, wish more gameplay vids did that

[@erwins_arm]

Good video, thanks for including literally ALL of the relevant information!!

[@bigbrainenergyguy]

Interesting fleet... my biggest gripe is the tempests with double ion pulser are already overfluxed before s-modding magazines which makes the extra recharge rate kinda useless, but otherwise this looks pretty fun! Cyclones already had a decent niche before with eccm and missile spec but now they seem unstoppable. That being said, you should really try the newly buffed reality disruptor; if anything qualifies as the "ultimate weapon," that thing would be it.

[@-NB7979-]

I personally don't prefer omega weapons just because simply they are not my taste, and which one I will get is almost random in every seed so I've never put importance on them and actually used them before but hey thanks for the suggestion! About the Cyclone Reaper, it is indeed extremely powerful but the issue is there are really few ships actually can fully utilize it. Currently, only Radiant and Legion XIV can properly use it and both of them are hardest to get. Also, Legion XIV with Reaper loadout naturally exposes herself to enemy fire due to the brawl range of this build, so it is actually quite risky and unstable. (This battle went well, but when things go wrong, Legion gets EMPed or fluxed and killed easily) I think that's the weakness and downside of this build. Thanks for the comment, by the way!

[@mathr015]

@@-NB7979- with the new laser weapons the gryphon is a dangerous creature, shove sabots, gazers and a hammer/cyclone on that and it can take down capitals quite happily. needs a strong frontline though.

[@Kain987]

With regards to the tempest, I'm currently fancying the new IR autolance on its second med mount. My current early-game tempest build (no s-mods) is ion pulser + mags & IR autolance. Rest in shields, vents & caps. The thing is, the tempest is fast enough to go in and out, but lacks punch when finishing stuff off if it's out of drones. This one goes in, emps the sh*t out of stuff, sends a drone to remove armor then melts hull as it backs off (and it can melt hull from a long way away). It's definitely better than a graviton beam on it... And it can handle the flux even without s-mods.

[@master7july]

@@Kain987 That's a good alternative to what i was using, my tempest build is more of a strike type using an ion pulser with a anti-matter blaster, the pulser and drones to overload the enemy and finish it with an antimatter, then retreating to vent the flux and strike again if it isn't dead

[@digitalizedmind6784]

Brilliant my beloved used to have a fighter bay but it got removed. i kinda dont mind since it didnt have much utility plus they removed remnant ship's ability to use fighters that require crew, so i can't put xyphos on brilliants anyway :(

[@Alexandragon1]

Thx for the video! Epic fight and great win!

[@-NB7979-]

Thanks for the comment!

[@Alexandragon1]

@@-NB7979- ;)

[@LordDivine1]

Awesome vid

[@grundlemaster1691]

I keep moving my mouse over the enemy ships to try and see what their hull/flux levels are at, lol.

[@TheZholvar]

Somehow I feel like I just watched Dakka dakka Orcs vs Pew pew Eldars

[@thangbui6383]

I was surprised by your HMG range, and then I search the wiki and Holy S*!. HMG (The strongest balistic weapon in the game) is counted as Point defense and benefited from Elite PD :o

[@-NB7979-]

Yeah Elite PD + HMG is the reason why low-tech exist lol

[@atatatatatagsad]

Yep it got a poop base range, but if you consider hullmods like ITU + Integrated PD AND office skills like Ballistic especialization + and the blue implant officer skill (forgot the name lol) you get decent range at the cost of being insanely flux efficient

[@hotdog9262]

I think longer range build would be more effective on the eagle, as its slow. for example 2 heavy autocannon(or HVD/needlers) and 1 heavy mauler. 3 lr pd and 2 gravitons and 1 ion beam. then the enemy have to come to the eagle if it want to beat it

[@-NB7979-]

Yeah I am currently using what you as described too, It is fairly good against most type of the enemy. But against Remnant you can't avoid of being overwhelmed, so need to figure out how to win the close quarter combat once Nova and Brilliant come to us. I am still working on Eagles, wish it has 3 small hybrid not energy lol

[@hotdog9262]

@@-NB7979- we`re in the same boat:) tunes are great btw

[@hotdog9262]

@@-NB7979- tested sarissa on your hmg/reaper legions yet

[@HotDog14500]

My man. You should show us a Beam missile build against bounty fleets or something. Loving the videos

[@-NB7979-]

Haha thanks for comment! Unfortunately, new beam missiles are really bad and inefficient, so I don't think it work well against Ordos. Bounties are weak compared to Remnant so I think I can, but overall those missiles are just really bad in every aspect. Definitely will make a video about Pegasus, though! Just don't know about the proper build of it yet, that's all.

[@HotDog14500]

@@-NB7979- the bean missiles are so cool as a concept, but they do suck. If the dragon fire torpedos had more ammo than reapers, and a faster fire rate, then they’d be decent.

[@-NB7979-]

@jakeembry3154 And low damage too, one dragonfire torp deal a 3000 dmg while hurricane deals total 3500 (4500 before 0.96, pre nerf), hammer 6000 and Cyclone Reaper 8000 is a joke. Should be at least 4000 or higher, being the most expensive missile weapon at 28 OP and have total reserved dmg 15000 (3000×5, while hurricane has 35000 and cyclone has 80000) only tells us to not use it until it get buffed.

[@Kingofdragons117]

Yea I feel like they all need like double ammo. The small gorgons are nice to spam though.

[@mathr015]

@@-NB7979- the gazer beams are supprisingly good value i've found. small and medium gorgons are also reasonably efficient. I've been putting them on a gryphon with hammers or cyclones on the large slot, put in missile auto loader and expanded racks gives you a lot of ammo when combined with the gyphons forge ability. really strong damage output, shame its a squishy ship compared to eagles.

[@ioandorokhov]

overdriven eagle with 3 ion pulsers, 2 m anti shield PD guns, 1 machine gun. imba

[@mortache]

Nova feels very fragile tbh, gave it s-modded extended shields for 210 degree coverage. With Auto Pulsar they jump away but then dive in again without venting, and then keep repeating that lol

[@virescentmorsmordre9568]

2:21 Where Shockwave and Optimus

[@Mewobiba]

Coming back to this video after playing with the current version and having some ships & officers similar to what you have here, I'm wondering: What's the reasoning for Railguns over Light Dual Machine Guns? Given the DPS per flux, the Elite Point Defense skill etc, it would seem on the surface that LDMGs are a lot more efficient. But I'm much more of a newb, so I assume there's something below the surface that I'm missing. (Also, while LDMGs was the thing that seemed obvious, I'm also curious on your view on Railguns vs Light Dual Autocannons; maybe I'm overvaluing Autocannons, but for me Railguns have mainly been for either maximizing range on a frigate or for when I have spades of flux but am running low on slots, which doesn't seem the case here unless I'm mistaken?)

[@-NB7979-]

1. The answer is Range, since LDMG only has 300 base range while Railgun has 700. This is a huge difference, even with Elite PD skill, range 500 is still too short against Remnant. We need something at least over 600 range, because their small and medium energy weapons have range around that area. 2. Light duel autocannon is indeed extremely efficient and has quite a decent range too as a small weapon. But there is a main downside - terrible spreads. Due to the horrible accuracy, actual DPS against the target is drastically reduced so even when considering the OP and Flux Railgun is better in almost every situation. I will upload the new video soon, I think it can help you a lot when making an XIV fleet!

[@Gebunator]

Man, I need to get more big hsips in my fleet. I have this one high system that is ABSOLUTELY filled with funny AI fleets. Radiants and Novas galore. My current fleet can handle one fight, maybe two if Remnants just go extra stupid in a fight

[@kappa5324]

Im curious what you think of the new update as a whole, do you like the changes? (Great video btw)

[@-NB7979-]

Except for the new colony threat progression system and nerf against existing missiles, I am overall quite satisfied about the balance changes. About new contents, Invictus and Pegasus are great ship, but Retribution is horrible in my opinion. New weapons are generally disappointing, and especially new missiles are just really bad. Still, great update and awesome content addition! If we don't like about the balance, we can simply just mod them or don't use certain contents so not a big deal.

[@-NB7979-]

Ah, I just checked the new 5/13 RC-9 hotfix. Just don't use Pegasus, use Executor instead XD (Executor is a good ship, trying to make a video about it soon) Also, new patched colony threat system is better than before so I'm quite satisfied about it too.

[@Kingofdragons117]

@@-NB7979- I just kept the previous Pegasus and pasted it into the new update.

[@hotdog9262]

ballistic rangefinder would be nice on the onslaught. id maybe drop eccm and exp mag to make it happen. also makes a few hybrids guns viable

[@-NB7979-]

HMGs can't get a benefit from Ballistic Rangefinder since it is a PD weapon. Yeah the fleet build in this vid is not 100% optimized, so as you said there are a lots of possibilities can be made to improve it better!

[@hotdog9262]

@@-NB7979- sure

[@user-pr2rr9sf8j]

great build you've got here m8! what do you think of a 5 hypervelocity driver + 2 hurricane + 4 wasp legion XIV? will it still stand?

[@-NB7979-]

It's generally a quite good long-range build and will work well in most of situation, but against Remnant I don't think it's good. I don't know the last fleet composition and other small mount weapons on Legion, but with 5 HVD and 2 Hurricane it is impossible to beat Radiant and Nova in 1v1 situation and if it get surrounded by Fulgents and Brilliants it will quickly get overwhelmed and killed. New Remnant ships are extremely mobile and fast so there needs to be the way to quickly deal with them once they close the distance, otherwise things will get rough. Also, Hurricane get nerfed horribly in 0.96a so I think now Cyclone Reaper is generally better. Thanks for the comment!

[@user-pr2rr9sf8j]

@@-NB7979- thanks for the tip, I appreciate your good content!

[@Mewobiba]

Neat! Are those regular Warthog fighters? They look like they have XIV coloration, but I can't find anything about there being a Warthog XIV in the game.

[@-NB7979-]

Yes, they are all regular Warthogs. At patch 0.96a, Warthogs became low-tech from midline, and their sprite and design got changed. So yeah they look like Hegemony version but it is actually default now. They got the insulated engine hullmod buff, so they actually now have better stats than before though.

[@Mewobiba]

Also, do you find the 5 OPs saved by S-modding Expanded Missile Racks rather than the ITU to be clearly worth the 20% ROF penalty? Intuitively it feels like it shouldn't be worth it, but maybe ammo constrictions make it so you can't really benefit from 25% faster firing anyway?

[@Mewobiba]

@@-NB7979- Ahhh thanks! Haven't had the chance to play for a while. Makes sense to make them low-tech though, given everything about them.

[@-NB7979-]

@@Mewobiba About the Expanded Missile Racks, this vid was made before RC9 hotfix at 5/13 so the penalty was 10%, not 20%. So yes I thought it is worth to save 5 OPs by s-modding it but now I think it is actually better to do as what you said. Honestly speaking, after I do enough vanilla play I will move to a modded verson and will remove the penalty itself (I think it is a really bad idea to give penalty to such hullmods, rather than just simply give cheaper ones stronger bonus) so not a big deal for me haha

[@rpscorp9457]

bro..how could you let that poor eagle die like that....

[@FurrKnight]

I raid and raid the Heg and I cannot get the Legion XIV bp to drop, everything else does... Answer (2-4 spawn as derelicts per game, no BP exists unless you can get it from a "researcher")

[@Akhi_Furqan]

It was a great battle! Did Alex just nerf the remnant?

[@-NB7979-]

No, actually they become much stronger than before lol Solar shielding get nerfed, new Nova and buffs to Fulgent and Brillaint make fight much harder than before. This is a lucky battle, I usually lose around 8/10 of fights. The biggest issue is Low-tech can't tank as much as before and capture enough points to deploy ships, only Eradicator and some mobile high tech flee can do it now.

[@SusanoRipper]

Damn man, You are skilled. I cannot create fleet thet powerfull cause i dont play low tech, i pilot doom/harbringer, though i have juet started fun with dominator Xiv which is an amazing tank.

[@-NB7979-]

Haha this was actually a lucky battle, currently Ordos are too powerful to beat without mods and 9/10 of battle I had were failed. New Remnant Nova, Solar shielding nerf and S-mod debuff are extremely critical to Low-tech ships and make them suffer a lot compared to pre 0.96a

[@thermonuclearwarhead]

How the heck do you make the AI use cyclones like that? I have aggressive captains and they almost never fire them.

[@-NB7979-]

With aggressive officer and other weapons on ships to pressure enemy shield, they tend to fire Reaper more motivately. Also, for XIVs, making a proper frontline is the most important thing because it will give them more chances to properly engage enemy ships. To fire Reapers, you need a chance and well-established frontline increase those chances for XIV capitals.

[@Kingofdragons117]

Have you found the [Redacted] ships guarding the hidden cache yet? Might be useful in this fleet.

[@-NB7979-]

Yeah I found them, and I was in hegemony duty at the moment so was able to skip the fight. I've heard that you can recover those ships if you win the fight and using story points, but in the early stage of game it is really hard to beat them imo (They are almost around an Ordo level enemy) so haven't had chance to actually use them as my fleet ships.

[@ImJustJass]

Will there be an update to this build for 0.97a ?

[@-NB7979-]

I'm currently busy for work in my real life, but when I have some free time later, I would try, of course

[@ImJustJass]

@@-NB7979- then you are going to enjoy the gremlin

[@nixriviera932]

How do HMG have range this big?

[@-NB7979-]

Thanks to the all range bonus from Elite PD and other range bonus stuffs!

[@nixriviera932]

@@-NB7979- Elite pd is a mod or a new feature in the vanila?

[@-NB7979-]

@nixriviera932 It's an officer skill in Vanila

[@Sir_Bucket]

Honestly, yes the Apex sucks, but it's on purpose. It's description states that Tri-tachyon fuck up with this ship. In order to attract more costumers, they tried to put as a lot of impressive weaponery on it at the cost of combat effectiveness. In that context, terminator drones absolutly make sense, and show that the Remnant are still not totally free from their former masters' influence.

[@toneysebits8458]

did you intentionally get caught here?

[@-NB7979-]

Excuse me, I don't understand your question. Are you talking about the ship formations?

[@toneysebits8458]

@@-NB7979- I am talking about in the galaxy map not the actual battle. Noticed you had no bulk transporter nor any tugs so you must have been slower than ass.

[@friendlyroughai3319]

reaper on onslaught kinda huge waste, it very likely the onslaught not even used half of them in battle, try to consider using PCL on onslaught because not only it work as DP cover it can also work as pressure missile that made enemy keep their distance. idk why you choose using warthog, warthog are horrible fighter that have low overall dps and often die without doing anything because how slow it was, try to reconsider using sarissa(new support fighters) it equip with 2 atc in rach their wing and can give you nearly equal to lasher in overall dps just from a single wing/bay, consider legion have 4 bay it can give you additional 4 frigate like fire power just by using it in each bay. pulse laser on eagle are bad idea, because energy weapon are way inferior compared to ballistic, other alternative was using graviton beam mix with ion beam, it give -8% shield efficiency debuff to the enemy and up to 10% if you using 3 of them, added bonus was when you using CH + sarissa fighter on eagle, not only graviton beam made enemy at bay your fighter also cab freely deal dps to enemy without cost you any additional flux which made you able to mount mining blaster which cab deal up to 1k burst dmg to enemy. you may also reconsider using reaper on eagle when having MA hull on it because with MA you gain same additional number of missile as breachers does which in overall damage potential that very obvious +15 more reaper are way better that +15 breacher.

[@-NB7979-]

Reapers on Onslaught is actually a very good choice, I've seen Onslaught one-shot Radiant and other capitals at duel with them countless time. It is the ultimate high-alpha finisher, with enough ammunition even can support a large battle. PCL is bad on AI hand because AI will waste it on fighters and missile, I've tried it already. I would use ARP as a alternative if I don't choose the Reapers. Warthogs is actually good with Legions, I've seen a Radiant and other remnant ships get killed only by them many times. They also use flares to distract enemy turrets, let Reapers from Legion hit target without being intercepted. I am currently working on Sarissa though, It is indeed a very good fighter. About the Eagle, I'm trying to find a best build of it as a line-escort cruiser and thinking of changing it to the short range build with HMG and Assault Chaingun, since Remnants always try to make a close combat. Thanks for suggestion, let's see how Eagle will work with new 0.96a patch.

[@randomly-genrated]

@@-NB7979- I put 4 annihilators on my onslaughts, I'll try the reapers.

[@0kisshun0]

maybe some invictus video? please 😅

[@-NB7979-]

Actually, my plan is covering some Executor videos, but I will definitely try Invictus too! The issue is Invictus requires a completely different officer skillset compared to other capitals, so I need to get rid of some of my existing officers for doing that. But anyway I will try it someday, I'm also thinking about a certain build of it now.

[@erwins_arm]

​@@-NB7979- look for the "officer extension" mod, with it you can put officers on hold and get more, but still only use the same amount at the same time. So you can "store" officers, but only "use" the same amount as normally

[@-NB7979-]

@@erwins_arm I'm afraid mods are all died due to the recent update, of course will use it when things become fine.

[@erwins_arm]

@@-NB7979- The mod has been updated, I'm using it myself atm in 0.96 :)