FFKs are amazing anti-fighter weapons, but how are the PBE's?

[CraftyPilot]

Hi,

I have a Boron Ray now after spending 2mill on their charities to get to Boron Kings Protectorate. I now have 12 Titans and 2 Collosus filled with Pirate M3's repaired. I now have my first Ray, it is huge, it is awesome, it is expensive, I planned on buying two Titans with the latest profits but I wanted to diversify my fleet.

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However, the Ray cannot mount FFK's much to my dissapointment. Due to it's size and strength, I got to realize it is an anti-capital ship weapon, am I right? However, it can pack bPACs and a/bPBE's. Are PBE's any good, for fighters?

Gonna build a decent fleet of these Rays to assign as multiple sector patrollers, I already have my Titans and Colossus on patrols in nasty sectors such as Split Fire to Hakivaths Faith and LooManckStrats Legacy, and Bala Gi's Joy. There is now decent commercial traffic in those sectors. Planning on expanding outwards from Boron space near Kingdom end and every Argon sector near Argon Prime, and Boron space near Depths of Silence. NearCardinals Domain, however I had to blow stations up as I had bad pirate problems there as well as the Teladi homesectors near Siezewell. I learnt that Paranid are easy to filter profits out off, so I plan on setting up stations with the 50mill I have left after buying a Titan and Ray and outfitted them at HQ (I have HQ Mercuries to keep stock of capital ship equipment up so don't have to spend 1hr outfitting a new purchase) in Paranid sectors and assign those new destroyers to protect my assets by patrolling the Paranid sectors. Should work out ok.

[JTressy]

Consensus seems to be that PBEs aren't the greatest on capital ships, they have such a short range that fighters attacking you will turn away due to their collision avoidance before they ever get in range.

[philip_hughes]

I hear the ray is only good oos for fighters whatever the config, but as an anti capital weapon... awesome. been trying to suck up to the boron for some time now as I want what you have.

[JTressy]

Anything that packs a good number of GPPCs up front is an 'anti-capital' ship IMO. The ray is good for OOS because you can fill the turrets with a lot of heavier guns, so statistically it's better than most others.

[jlehtone]

The only 'anti-fighter' weapon that works in my personal Ray are missiles. PBE lacks range and CIG is too slow. OOS, 40 GPPC is nice.

[CraftyPilot]

Has anyone ever capped Kha'ak capital ships? better with gKyons still mounted? I heard people can capp Xenon K's.

[JTressy]

Nope - you can cap all ships apart from M1/M2/M6 and probably a couple of other random ones (ie UFO).

You can cap a Xenon K - but only when your fighting rank is v. high, and even then only in the 'Save me from the Xenon' taxi mission. There are mods/scripts that let you have a Khaak M2, but tbh get a Python

[CraftyPilot]

I heard the python is fast, but I much prefer the Titan and Ray, I already have a fleet of titans and my first ray. I will try the python as soon as my race rank is high enough.

[gunman127]

I used LVs Heavy Assault Capture Tech script to get a Kha'ak Destroyer...

They are unstoppable in a players hands!!

Very fast for it's class, then I put the Pandora extensions on it and got to 161M/s...

It's a tiny target, and can fire 9 GKyons at any given point within 5 KM range.

And with 10 1GJ shields even if you do get hit, you wont notice!

[Daveofthewood]

Mate you wanna start sucking up to the Split to get a Python, best destroyer in the game bar none, 8GPPC's up front alpha/beta Flak every where else, unstoppable, with pandora extensions pretty nigh invincible.

PBE's are rubbish dont waste your time, use the ray as an anti capital ship titans can cover it from fighters with their FFA

[LennStar]

Nope - you can cap all ships apart from M1/M2/M6 and probably a couple of other random ones (ie UFO).

You can cap a Xenon K - but only when your fighting rank is v. high, and even then only in the 'Save me from the Xenon' taxi mission. There are mods/scripts that let you have a Khaak M2, but tbh get a Python

You can cap a M6 in Kill-missions, but it's extremely seldom. Never done it myself.

[WhiteStar1]

I noticed that you have a 6800 and 2 gb of ram. I have a 7800gt with 2gb ddr ram along with an oc amd 3800 at 2.5mhz. I still suffer from low frame rates wit sectors with lotsof activity with my stations, ships and ncp. How can you cope with such fleet

[JTressy]

Turn the settings down?! I've got less than that and I only get low FPS when I've got several cap ships in a Xenon sector all firing PPCs everywhere.

[jlehtone]

You can cap a M6 in Kill-missions, but it's extremely seldom. Never done it myself.

In X2, but not in X3. No ship in X3 assassination mission ever bails.

[crgray]

Mate you wanna start sucking up to the Split to get a Python, best destroyer in the game bar none, 8GPPC's up front alpha/beta Flak every where else, unstoppable, with pandora extensions pretty nigh invincible.

PBE's are rubbish dont waste your time, use the ray as an anti capital ship titans can cover it from fighters with their FFA

I'm on exactly the same loadout. 8 GPPC set to attack my target mean you take out a J or K without getting hit. I do find the short range of the Flacks quite annoying though. Set to protect my ship they're no where near as good as if you cycle through the turrets shooting at anything in range yourself. I'm tempted to try 6xBPAC on the rear turret to see if that works better.

[pjknibbs]

Try setting them to Attack Enemies instead. Set to Protect Ship they'll only shoot at ships that have actually hit you with their weapons already, and it's quite possible most of the fighters won't have done that. The range of BFLAKs is fine, incidentally--it's the AFLAKs that usually can't shoot at an enemy before it's turned away to avoid a collision.

[CraftyPilot]

I have a dual core CPU, 3.4GHz times two with 2mb cache times two, thus 4mb total cache and 3.4 x 2 GHz. I have 2Gb DDR2 RAM 533MHz. Graphics cards help with the graphics management and reduce load on cpu thus a better supported card reduces load on cpu. My Pentium D945 also has hyperthreading. The graphics card however is XFX 6800GS, not a normal 6800GS. It has an arctic cooler installed with an Artec Truepower Trio 430Watt to support overclocking. That is why I can have a fleet at max graphics. Argon Prime with an extra 15 stations in it runs at 85fps.

[CraftyPilot]

Try setting them to Attack Enemies instead. Set to Protect Ship they'll only shoot at ships that have actually hit you with their weapons already, and it's quite possible most of the fighters won't have done that. The range of BFLAKs is fine, incidentally--it's the AFLAKs that usually can't shoot at an enemy before it's turned away to avoid a collision.

My titan seems to do find with aFKKs in Mi Tons Refuge, it ripped through 150 pirate fighters before I jumped out.

[Tiedyeguy]

I am currently about 20% below getting cap ships with Argon, Boron, and Split and just over 50% before I can get them from Teladi or Paranid (Running Ashley's XXL Fabs mod, First official script pack, and 2.0.0.2). I can't wait to get some firepower higher than my M7 or Elephant with BPPC all around.

I have a dual core CPU, 3.4GHz times two with 2mb cache times two, thus 4mb total cache and 3.4 x 2 GHz. I have 2Gb DDR2 RAM 533MHz. Graphics cards help with the graphics management and reduce load on cpu thus a better supported card reduces load on cpu. My Pentium D945 also has hyperthreading. The graphics card however is XFX 6800GS, not a normal 6800GS. It has an arctic cooler installed with an Artec Truepower Trio 430Watt to support overclocking. That is why I can have a fleet at max graphics. Argon Prime with an extra 15 stations in it runs at 85fps.

This game does not support Dual Cores anyways. Also unless you have 2 CPUs in your machine (also not supported in X3), you seem to have been taken by a popular CPU myth. Having a DC CPU at 3.4 GHz does not mean that you have 2*3.4GHz, it means you have a TOTAL of 3.4 between the 2 cores. Same with Cache. Of course, if you do have 2 dual core CPUs on you machine then I have just made an ass of myself.
Brian H.
:EDIT: Also, ANTEC is the company that makes the good power supplies, Truepower etc., not ARTEC .

[CraftyPilot]

Oh, my bad, Thanks for the corrections, yes Antec truepower. It helps to have dual core as your game utilises on other programs teh other, each 3.4Ghz and 2mb total cache with hyperthreading. It helps a lot, I had 6 titans pick out pirates once, no slowdown to speak of.