The absolute retardation of L/LX capship combat [1.60]

[mr.WHO]

I spotted the Xenon I attacking HOP, so I decided to help them with my Colossus and 2 x Behemoth.

To make it easier I disarmed and disable the Xenon I first, then issued an attack order to my ships.
The things that hapened later seriously make to wanna puke.

First of course I had to manually change the turret orders on all my ship to "attack all enemies" from "defend" because of course AI is too stupid to shoot on their own.

The Behemoth 1 decided it's great idea to report "missions accomplised" and cancel attack order every single surface element (e.g. turret, shield) he destroyed. Why only he and not other two is beyond my comprehending (all 3 ships were 0 star captains). Also he decided it would be great to stay at maximum weapon range...except he forgot to point his main guns towards "Xenon I". In rare case he managed to open fire he was able to miss some shots on literally the disabled the biggest ships in universe.

The Behemot 2 on the other hand decided that using main guns is too easy and went close for broadside with his 2 tiny pulse turrets. Despite this stupidity he was MVP of this battle of special olympics.

The Colossus on the other hand decided to run circles around the Xenon I, but because the size of both ships it was never been able to get into the range of it's turrets.
My 3 ships plus about 10 HOP fighters and it took 20 minutes to kill disabled and disarmed Xenon I. For some moments Xenon I was able to regenerate faster that my ships was able punch damage.


WHAT THE ACTUAL F*** is this shit!

All non-missile turrets should have range extended at least by 50% or even 100%! Otherwise there is no point in engage in XL ship-to-ship combat (fortunately L ship-to-ship is a bit better).
I could go for plasma turrets for a bit longer range, but they plasma bullets are so slow that even XL ships are able to dodge them.
I could go for missiles, but as someone forgot to implement missile resupply I would have to retreat my ship to nearest shipyard for resupply (which is not very ast and flexible in case of L and XL ships).
I could go for torpedos for biggest bang per warhead, but someone decided that only dumbfire and tracker are allowed on the capitals.


Aparently 2.0 will fix the weak dammage on the turrets, but I this will not solve anything if ships will still not be able to get into range to use them!

[Shehriazad]

Non missile turrets are purely means of defense on capships...you also cannot buff their range because it would also buff M ships to become snipers and have turrets with more range than the main guns....to fix that they'd have to make M turrets on smaller ships be something different than M turrets on capships...spiraling down into a whole different dilemma.


So long story short, while I agree that normal M turrets are stupid on capships if you want to ATTACK...this might be by design.

Missile turrets work super well and AI needs some fixing still to get them to not derp out if equipped with the more defensive turrets. Plasma might be the one exception as they almost have 4KM range on their turrets and good dps (for turrets that is) against cap ships...which is also about the only thing they can hit reliably

[mr.WHO]

Non missile turrets are purely means of defense on capships...you also cannot buff their range because it would also buff M ships to become snipers and have turrets with more range than the main guns....to fix that they'd have to make M turrets on smaller ships be something different than M turrets on capships...spiraling down into a whole different dilemma.

OK so you have turrets for defense...but if they pose no offensive thread then why would you need to field the ship at all?
Carriers are useless not only as transport ship, but also as combat ships (only one L-size turret).
As I mentioned wih OP the sheer size of XL ships also make L-size destroyer useless because they are able to engage only with main guns and also have problem with it due to XL ship collision avoidance.

Plasma might be the one exception as they almost have 4KM range on their turrets and good dps (for turrets that is) against cap ships...which is also about the only thing they can hit reliably

Maybe they are able to hit stationary XL, but moving XL might be able to avod it and there is no chance to reliably hit L-size destroyer (unless it's driven by retarded captain that stay stationary).

[Thecrippler]

Non missile turrets are purely means of defense on capships...you also cannot buff their range because it would also buff M ships to become snipers and have turrets with more range than the main guns....to fix that they'd have to make M turrets on smaller ships be something different than M turrets on capships...spiraling down into a whole different dilemma.

OK so you have turrets for defense...but if they pose no offensive thread then why would you need to field the ship at all?
Carriers are useless not only as transport ship, but also as combat ships (only one L-size turret).
As I mentioned wih OP the sheer size of XL ships also make L-size destroyer useless because they are able to engage only with main guns and also have problem with it due to XL ship collision avoidance.

if feel your pain unfortunately we gona have to wait a hole year maybe 2 before we will get something from devs and ther rushd game ya capital ships are a joke and not to mention we dont have manually L/XL turrets control only auto WOW

[GCU Grey Area]

Agree with Shehriazad re Plasma turrets. IMO these are essential anti-capital weapons for Colossus etc if you prefer not to use missile turrets.
When I was using Colossus as my primary anti-capital vessel in 1.6 these were the only ones which could be relied on to have sufficient range - sometimes the anti-fighter Pulse turrets would also get close enough to have a go but their much shorter range was often an issue.

Problem with capitals reporting 'mission accomplished' every time they shoot a subsystem appears to have been fixed in 2.0 (have not had any such problems in the beta). Workaround I used in 1.6 was to queue up multiple attack orders for each capital I wanted my Colossus to hunt - typically for each target I would give Colossus 3 attack orders then a follow order so, worse case scenario, if my Colossus ran out of attack orders it would still stay near the target & turrets would continue to fire.

Finally, suggest getting better captains for those ships - can't really expect 0* captains to be anything other than utterly incompetent at flying their ships. Might be able to get away with them in control of mining ships etc, but there's no way I'd ever let such people anywhere near my frontline warships.

[EvanRath]

My argon carrier and destroyer are pimped out in white paint just patrolling around my sector with 50 ships in fleet.

Other than that eye candy they are completely useless.

After I tried them out I realized it was a waste, so I stick to M ships.

When I go looking for trouble I take a wing of 10 nemesis fully modded with bolts.

Capital ships in X4 are for lookin sexy, thats it.

[ReverieSwimming]

Plasma might be the one exception as they almost have 4KM range on their turrets and good dps (for turrets that is) against cap ships...which is also about the only thing they can hit reliably

Because of how huge the Xenon I is, it can dodge most plasma fire just by turning. When it turns, the nose of the ship actually moves ridiculously fast. Faster than some fighters even, it seems. I am sure there is a gemoetric / mathematical reason for this, but it looks goofy in game, and is a major pain in the booty. Plus, the thing is super long, so if you are nose to nose with it, a lot of the time your turrets won't fire, because the center of the hitbox (which apparently determines the range to target? Someone needs to confirm this for us) is actually out of turret range, even though you are slamming your faces against each other.

This leads to a really annoying situation, where you want to be on its broadside or below it, so your turrets will be in range, but it moves so much when it turns (due to its size) that plasma fire ends up missing all over the place. I've found its easiest to destroy its engines in a Nemesis so that you can hit the damn wiggly thing, but even then, it can turn so fast that it can be hard to line up an attack run.

However, if you can get the thing to sit still, a plasma Zeus will absolutely brutalize it. Those firing angles are gorgeous.

[werewolves?]

My argon carrier and destroyer are pimped out in white paint just patrolling around my sector with 50 ships in fleet.

Other than that eye candy they are completely useless.

After I tried them out I realized it was a waste, so I stick to M ships.

When I go looking for trouble I take a wing of 10 nemesis fully modded with bolts.

Capital ships in X4 are for lookin sexy, thats it.

Preach brother.

It still isn't very good in the Beta: case in point have a fleet set to protect position near Faulty Logic/HOP gate, never ever stays in anything like formation (seriously what is the point there), noticed my destroyers and frigates dropping, realised for some idiotic reason they have been flying through the gate... with stupid stuff like "Fly To" commands, all their defense drones have been destroyed from.... flying through the gate already.

The flagship,my carrier, just flies around in circles doing not much, all ships have around a 4* captain. Lucky I have fighters and frigates because if a K comes though, the destroyers fly around in circles.

I'm not a coder but it can't be that hard to make the ships actually stick together.