Play Style

#1

Just curious to know how everyone plays in regards to ship-juggling.

I use a hauler as my default ship, my plan was to turn it into a Millennium Falcon style, heavily upgraded weapons and shields type ship. This philosophy worked fine pre-Atlas Rises but with the additions and changes to ship combat, even with max shield upgrades, I’m still feeling a little outmatched.

I do have an A class fighter gathering dust in the hangar on my freighter, and seeing as I’m not really hauling a lot of stuff right now, I might switch to it and upgrade it to give me a more of a chance.

How I always wanted to play was I’d be bombing around in my hauler then a fight kicks off, I summon my freighter and jump into my fighter to deal with it. (Can you even summon your freighter mid-combat?)

I feel like I’m being pushed into having a maxed fighter as my default ship, and just use the hauler for ferrying goods from my farm to where I’m selling them.

So what type of ship does everyone use as a default?

I’m going to play at the weekend with the sole aim of getting the Rocket Blueprint plus the Economy and Conflict Scanners. This is in a hope to boost my haulers firepower and also find wealthy systems to hopefully get a better fighter.

Also I would be eternally grateful if people could share pictures of their tech load-out installations, how you’ve optimised all your upgrades to get the best possible bonuses.

Cheers

#2

No. In my experience, as soon as things go hot, you stop being able to call it.

You can however, call it while you’re being scanned/hailed by enemies, and, if you’re quick enough, call it and dock, which will stop the pirates attacking you.

#3

That’s very helpful. I’m suddenly feeling a little vulnerable! :fearful:

#4

If you continue your trip with only boost speed pirates will let it down after few minutes.

But you’re right, hauler is now a bit weak if you want to defend a freighter. If only 1 or 2 pirates you still can defeat them with only an upgraded mining beam.

Actually my default is my hauler too, due to it’s 48 slots ( a 1.0 version and no tech slots) but it will change since i found a crashed A class fighter with “only” 38 slots. The biggest reason is it’s tech slots

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I should be able to install secondaries weapons here and then save slots for ressouces. The other reason to use such ship is the speed when flying on planets, haulers are so slow in comparison.

#5

My primary ship is a 48 slot class A hauler (the large balls type :wink: )

I have installed all shield and photon cannon upgrades with a majority of the phase beam techs (no +1s) in my tech slots.

I have noticed that (besides the movement differences), that I have to aim better and hit the enemy ships with more laser bolts to down them. But I still don’t have too much trouble downing 3, 3-star pirates. The difference is maybe 1 shield recharge where I used to not have to recharge it pre-1.3.

My question to everyone is with your preferred ship styles and set up, what is your favorite fully upgraded ship weapon? I wouldn’t mind changing out my phase beam for something that damages quicker.

#6

I use a 48 slot S Hauler. Rectangle boxes on the side.
Rocket launchers.
Max photon cannon and cooling system.
Max Shields.
The new scanners.

I found that this is the best ship for defense and attacking.
If you have the iron or zinc, then space battles are fun.

I use this as my work horse.

#7

Since 1.3, I use a 20+6 Exotic as my main system exploration ship, with economy scanner, full Shield and Pulse Jet upgrades in the tech slots, and a maxed out Infra-Knife as the primary weapon. The cargo slots in my exosuit always have 1000 zinc and/or titanium for shield recharging. The damage bonus on the Exotic plus the infra-knife’s maxed damage, cooling, and fire rate make it a very capable fighter.

The maxed out Infra-Knife is a killer weapon. With full cooling upgrades and moderately careful aim, you can one-shot low level pirates without overheating. Never needing ammo is a nice bonus.

My freighter holds a Squid exotic with sick (+63%) warp bonus, both new scanners, rockets, and maxed Phase Beam-- I haven’t gotten shot down in it yet but it’s less burly than its exotic brother, so I mostly use it for long haul warping. The rest of the fleet is all uh, all yellow 48 slot haulers, one box wing, two quad balls, one circular-fan winged puppy. I use them for trade runs, base-rebuild materials, ship-repair materials, massive easy-access storage…I fill the tech slots with shields and Pulse Jet upgrades and if there are slots left over I add photon cannon upgrades until I run out of room. +3 Cooling, +3 impact damage, +3 fire rate, then +2s in the same order, etc.

#8

Well… I thinking haulers are plenty for all “regular” stuff. I’m using a 30-odd slots B class hauler with just +1 cooling/dmg/speed photon upgrades, and I can use it to rescue freighters (they attack in pairs of 2 anyway) or defend myself (against 3~4) just fine. All I have with me is an odd 2 stacks of iron for shield recharges.

For warping around, I have an old C-Class hauler, with fully upgraded photon cannons. Those really melt any ship you fire at. (Still looking to get something like a fancy exotic.)

@LordMarkov As far as I know there is no real use in having both lasers and photon cannons, since they can’t be used at the same time anyway. Just pick the one you like best, and then add the +1 upgrades as well, for max synergy bonus. Personally, I prefer the photon cannons, they’re doing really solid damage, but for sniping stuff, I hear the Cyclotron Ballista is quite decent as well.

Edit: I originally mentioned the infra knife weapon, but that’s actually the worst of the bunch, do not use it. The Cyclotron Ballista is the best weapon for sniping, but as with any sniping, your aim needs to be very true, otherwise other weapons will outperform it, since it overheats too fast for second shots.

#9

The second weapon was for back up in case of overheat, which seems to happen easily after 1.3 even if using a “Galaga tapping” technique. I was just keeping the +1s off of the back-up weapon for space management.

Thanks for the tip about the Infra-knife.

#10

For statistics on ship weapons, I would suggest to check this Reddit post/Google doc made by Ket:

#11

Looks like the cyclotron ballista was the one I meant. It does great damage, but overheats fast. Also, the spreadsheet @DevilinPixy linked clearly shows the positron ejector as the best source of damage, but only on very close range, and you’d need to keep in mind it does overheat very fast.

So it’s basically a few different play styles.

  • Use the Cyclotron Ballista to try and destroy ships in 1 shot at large range. The downside is, it overheats fast, so you need a good aim if you want to use this weapon.
  • Use the Positron Ejector to burst targets down once you get right behind them (very close range). The downsides of this weapon are its range (only about 1/3 of the others) and the fact it overheats within 2 seconds. So you can certainly blow a ship straight out of the water, but you need to be able to get close behind it, and aim true. A second thing to consider is that it has quite a large spread (like a shotgun), so the closer you get to your target, the more bullets will hit it. The theoretical damage it does is probably too high though, since you’re most likely to at least miss part of it. So the practical DPS will be slightly lower (not sure how much).
  • Use the photon cannon for longer sustained bursts of damage. It’s probably more forgiving if you’re not perfectly on target, or are having a hard time staying very close to other ships. With proper cooling, you can keep firing for about 5.7 seconds before letting it cool a second. (Pro tip, don’t let it overheat, that takes waaaay longer than just letting it cool by not firing for a second.)
  • The infra knife is a cool tool, but doesn’t cut it in any way shape or form, sorry I got that name wrong, but just don’t use that one. ^^
  • Same goes for the laser, it’s a mining tool, not a combat weapon.

That being said, any of the above weapons should be able to win you any space battle, they’re mostly just different ways of fighting, and which works best for you depends entirely on your style, and how you like to fly.

#12

:slight_smile:

I also checked out @DevilinPixy 's link and thought that the Cyclotron ballista may have been the answer to my question of upgraded weapon system.

I will obviously keep the photon cannon as the best general first answer to aggression. But I have to pause if the ballista overheats in practice more quickly than other weapon options. Perhaps keeping the Phase Beam as my kicker weapon (even without +1s) is good enough as the back up option.
I have checked out each of the newer 3 ship weapons to gauge their styles, but there is a bit more investment to strip out enough other techs to fully upgrade these other options. Thank you for helping out! :grinning:

#13

I don’t like changing my ships unnecessarily…and I especially don’t want to trade them for anything else unless absolutely have to. So I like to have my ship lineup to be perfect…all S class except for the OG fighter from the early game and all but one to be kitted to handle themselves in any situation. I also want every ship in my collection to have the max slots and max stats the class can possibly have. Right now I have that…if I want to scout or travel long distance I have a S class 20+6 slot exotic with +49/59/64% bonuses and all the appropriate tech…it can kick butt it has to and go as far as a ship is allowed to. Alternatively I have an S class explorer 38+12 slots with +0/22/61% that can go really far, kitted to handle itself in combat, and has the storage to haul some stuff. If I want to warp around with lots of storage for mass resource gathering without changing ships I have two S class haulers at my disposal, both 48+8 slots with +19/57/32 and +19/58/32 bonuses…they too are kitted to handle themselves in any combat situation. And last but not least I have an S class fighter for local scouting that has 38+12 slots and +59/21/0 bonuses. Then my OG C class fighter from the launch version of the game has 48 slots and no tech…its purpose is storage and going though black holes and galactic centers…the vast number of empty slots is ideal for carrying all the repair supplies I need through a galactic center.