Best S & M ships

[Koritnaciino]

Best player ship in game is Nemesis Vanguard on the moment for me. Crazy bitch - 5 front guns 2 turrets and operational. With modification far far front of others

[A5PECT]

The Nemesis is a actually a corvette, not a frigate or bomber (check its encyclopedia entry).

The Argon bomber is the Minotaur, and the Teladi bomber is the Peregrine. Maybe I just haven't encountered them yet, but it seems the Paranid don't have a bomber, and the Argon and Teladi don't have corvettes.

I've only used the Minotaur so far. The main differences I can see between it and the Cerberus are better turret coverage and a lower price tag. The Cerberus has a large blind spot below and behind it. This isn't much of an issue for the player, but in AI hands, the Minotaur is better at keepings guns on its target.

[Tadas]

I think in players hands, nothing beats pyranid ships, speed is just too good. Nodan is probably best overall S ship for everyday use - doing missions, discovering sectors, killing some pirates or xenons, very fast and having 2 guns is so much better than just 1. Personally I like having light smart missiles to quickly deal with small ships and a regular weapon just for sustained output, opening lockboxes.

[Baldamundo]

I have a maybe silly question, what exactly is the point/special "thing" of bombers?

Yeah, Minotaur has 2 forward slots that I can put torpedo launchers in. So does Cerberus. Or Discovery for that matter.

Honestly this is mystifying to me. The two ships classed as "bombers" only get two slots for missile weapons (and four for non-missile turrets), while the Paranid equivalent is classed as a Corvette but has more than twice as many possible missile weapons! Doesn't make any sense at all. Honestly all the M class ships seem weirdly balanced. The frigates all look like a waste of money (except maybe the Paranid one, just because it's so fast) - expensive, really slow (especially the Teladi one, that thing's literally a brick), and not really having a lot going for them other than larger hull size than the smaller ships - they aren't even better armed than the corvettes/bombers. The Teladi bomber looks decent as an AI anti-fighter patrol ship though - if a bit slow - well shielded, and four turrets with good coverage all round.

The Paranid Nemesis, however, stands out as insanely good and probably one of the best ships in the game. Heavier frontal weaponry than literally any other ship in the game (has drawbacks, but 5 plasma cannons or torpedo launchers is much higher damage than even a destroyer's frontal armament!), extremely manouverable, and yet somehow faster than 95% of the game's fighters...As a personal ship for dogfighting, I literally can't see any reason why you'd pick anything else. Not that I'm complaining, but it seems like absolutely mad balancing - definitely the new Hyperion. One of the nicest looking ships in the game as well imo.

Capital ships seem ridiculously balanced in favour of the Paranids as well. The shields are a bit weaker, but not outrageously so, but they're much faster and more heavily armed. The Zeus also has weirdly huge amount of hitpoints - way more than the Argon Colossus. Also for reasons that I can only explain as a dev making a typo, the Paranid destroyer has got TEN docking slots for M-class ships!!! Which is as many as a carrier - none of the other destroyers can hold a single M-class. It also seems to have at least twice the amount of large turrets as the other destroyers, and significantly more medium turrets. They also get more crew slots than the other races, I think. Unless you want the full on tankiness of the Teladi, I really can't see why you wouldn't go for the Paranid capitals. Certainly struggling to see any advantages to the Argon capitals.

For fighters, the Paranid roster seems pretty weak imo - low shields and poorly armed. The Perseus and Pegasus are pretty fast, but those are the only pluses really. Seems to me like Argon have hands down the best fighters with a mix of really heavy armaments, decent shielding, and less than awful speed. For a light fighter, the Nodan is extremely good though - not massively well armed (but respectable), but one of the fastest ships yet with shielding and hull comparable to a heavy fighter.

[Baconnaise]

The Paranid couriers/miners are also quite peppy. Question is if they're more profitable due to less time traveling. Sure you can get maybe 1000 or so more storage on a Teladi/Argon version but they're much much slower. Magpies, for example, are similar cargo for half speed almost.

BTW is it me or does the Nemesis look good because it's similar to other ship stylings? Klingon BoP/fighters, Romulan (TNG/DS9 versions), Cylon (04' BSG) and more.

[Tadas]

In conclusion - Paranid will die last

[Baldamundo]

btw, has anyone checked out the stats on weapons? Teladi, Argon and Paranid all technically have different versions of the weapons, I think, but I don't know if they actually have different stats

[SirDeity12]

Anyone know which ship(s) in each class have the biggest shields? I'd rather have shields than speed any day.

[Baconnaise]

Anyone know which ship(s) in each class have the biggest shields? I'd rather have shields than speed any day.

Best shields are Teladi. Engines are Paranid. Argon might be thrusters or bobbleheads dunno.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Traditionally:

Paranid were speed demons.
Split was Firepower and speed at the cost of defensive capability.
Teladi were defenses and storage at the expense of speed.
Boron had average ability, but I forget what the negative trait was. Maybe cheaper with slightly below average all-rounded stats.
Argon were all-rounders.

And Terrans just didn't share because they were Better Than You. (And they were, too. Considering how HARD they gave the Khaak the Shaft.)

[Osbot]

Anyone know which ship(s) in each class have the biggest shields? I'd rather have shields than speed any day.

Best shields are Teladi. Engines are Paranid. Argon might be thrusters or bobbleheads dunno.

I think you might be mistaken. My experience is, Argon have the best engines. Go to trinity sanctum, and then compare travel engines on any S ship. The Argon travel engines will put out the highest speed. Basically, Argon are faster in travel, and Paranid are faster in standard mode. Which you value is up to you. Personally I find travel is more important for NPCs. The loss of 20 or so m/s in standard is made up for by the gain of 300+ m/s in travel mode.

[Baconnaise]

Anyone know which ship(s) in each class have the biggest shields? I'd rather have shields than speed any day.

Best shields are Teladi. Engines are Paranid. Argon might be thrusters or bobbleheads dunno.

I think you might be mistaken. My experience is, Argon have the best engines. Go to trinity sanctum, and then compare travel engines on any S ship. The Argon travel engines will put out the highest speed. Basically, Argon are faster in travel, and Paranid are faster in standard mode. Which you value is up to you. Personally I find travel is more important for NPCs. The loss of 20 or so m/s in standard is made up for by the gain of 300+ m/s in travel mode.

It's primarily about player combat/dogfighting. NPC trade/mine fleets you go with different weapons and even engines. Player travel speed isn't that important since you have teleport or can be driven around while you sit on the porcelain throne.

[Osbot]

Best shields are Teladi. Engines are Paranid. Argon might be thrusters or bobbleheads dunno.

I think you might be mistaken. My experience is, Argon have the best engines. Go to trinity sanctum, and then compare travel engines on any S ship. The Argon travel engines will put out the highest speed. Basically, Argon are faster in travel, and Paranid are faster in standard mode. Which you value is up to you. Personally I find travel is more important for NPCs. The loss of 20 or so m/s in standard is made up for by the gain of 300+ m/s in travel mode.

It's primarily about player combat/dogfighting. NPC trade/mine fleets you go with different weapons and even engines. Player travel speed isn't that important since you have teleport or can be driven around while you sit on the porcelain throne.

Marginal gain in regular speed, vs a significant increase in travel speed. Teleport is broken, I personally don't use it beyond level 1 which is just a few kilometers in range. I can see how you might value 20 m/s more when you just teleport across the galaxy to travel everywhere.

[letwolf]

Paranid, teladi, argon...
WHERE ARE BORON AND SPLIT?
No their ships and sectors!!!
I miss my borons...

[mr.WHO]

Argo fighters seems to field more weapons:
- Eclipse 4 weapons and better shields
- Quasar 4 weapons (dunno what is the point of this ship as Pulsar and Eclipse are superior to it)
- Pulsar 6 weapons

Boths Paranid and Teladi fighters seems to field 3 weapons max.

[Paddyy]

Traditionally:

Paranid were speed demons.
Split was Firepower and speed at the cost of defensive capability.
Teladi were defenses and storage at the expense of speed.
Boron had average ability, but I forget what the negative trait was. Maybe cheaper with slightly below average all-rounded stats.
Argon were all-rounders.

And Terrans just didn't share because they were Better Than You. (And they were, too. Considering how HARD they gave the Khaak the Shaft.)

Borons had and maybe will still have a regenerative hull (green) on their ship.
Once all races will be implemented with their ships, there will probably one with ships that are just more expensive as a tradeoff, and others will be cheaper compared to the rest.

[Baldamundo]

Traditionally:

Paranid were speed demons.
Split was Firepower and speed at the cost of defensive capability.
Teladi were defenses and storage at the expense of speed.
Boron had average ability, but I forget what the negative trait was. Maybe cheaper with slightly below average all-rounded stats.
Argon were all-rounders.

And Terrans just didn't share because they were Better Than You. (And they were, too. Considering how HARD they gave the Khaak the Shaft.)

Borons had and maybe will still have a regenerative hull (green) on their ship.
Once all races will be implemented with their ships, there will probably one with ships that are just more expensive as a tradeoff, and others will be cheaper compared to the rest.

I think Boron also generally had better shields, ion weapons, and decent speed, at the cost of normally having way fewer weapon slots than other races.

[letwolf]

Boron had sheetty laser generators and too huge sizes.

[TheShear]

Well the Boron where pacifists so them having ****** shooties is expected but yeah the ships where often big.

[bubbabenali]

Well the Boron where pacifists so them having ****** shooties is expected but yeah the ships where often big.

The Megalodon not only was big, it was a moon. But it came with that firepower too.