[TC] Teladi opinion on Cerberus (a story of heroism without proper tools)

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delray
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Teladi opinion on Cerberus (a story of heroism without proper tools)

Post by delray » Sun, 31. May 09, 02:46

I decided to do Final Fury on Assassin flying only Argon ships.

So here I am, sitting in my new shiny Cerberus (40 million I paid for the ship and equipment so it better be pimped!) with his 2x FAA up/down/left/right (which coverage by the way is very good and pretty much preventing AI fighters from approaching from either side), 2x CIG rear, 4x CIG + 4x IPG up front and 6x Eclipse with PBG and EBC in the hangar. I think it's pretty good layout but feel free to suggest a better one.

I'm in the mission when you are supposed to follow a Khaak Scout to a station and then wreck that station. I come close to the station remembering how fast I completed this mission before in ships like Tiger, Thresher, Agamemnon, Deimos, Shrike and even Vidar...

I come and just like in those other ships I UNLEASH all my firepower on the station expecting to go home soon after. To my surprise and amusement there's only like 20s of unleashing, target loses 4% of shields and I'm at 0% energy.

"HORNETS!" I scream to the crew and they quickly torpedo the thing with whole stash of my favourite missiles... I stopped counting around 30, dozens of hits, epic sounds of explosion (I wonder why my science teacher lied there's no sound in space while I can clearly hear it!) but station still well over 70% shields.

So I order "UNLEASH AGAIN" since my energy is back at 100%. BAM! BAM! BAM! IPG+CIG salvos pound at the station mercilessly... and they lower the shield by another 4% before I'm out of energy again. Crap!

Next order is "TYPHOONS!" and half a hundred Typhoons lighten dark space around me bringing shields down to around 20%. I start counting the cost of this operation, still remembering how fast Shrike, Tiger or Thresher can wreck such a station. But since I'm here and since I have the ship I have there's no going back. I have to finish the job or the Angry Split General will kick my buttocks upon returning and have me executed for desertion in face of enemy.

Luckily, during Typhoon salvo my energy went up to 100% again and I could UNLEASH all my firepower to bring another 4-6% of shields down. After that station is still standing happily at more than 10% shields, I'm out of missiles, out of energy, have nothing more to UNLEASH, Teladi support is chasing scouts and I pretty much want to give up and call my Truelight Seeker with GCs to finish the job...

When Teladi Condor's captain who watched my whole struggle from the bridge of his floating nearby ship decides it's great time for a punchline and says:
"Can't you afford better weapons?
And I think that's the best summary of Cerberus firepower ever.

That's why I alt+tabbed to tell you the story.

kurush
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Post by kurush » Sun, 31. May 09, 02:54

Well, in X3:R I used mass drivers to kill Xenon stations from a Dragon. I guess you can do the same :)

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thiosk
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Post by thiosk » Sun, 31. May 09, 03:25

For some reason all I can think of is the exchange delray is having with the engineering crew.

SCOTTY! WE NEED THOSE GUNS FIRING NOW!

"I CAN'T DO IT CAPTAIN! I JUST DON'T HAVE THE POWER"
Fear the dreaded carousel beast!

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Post by someone else » Sun, 31. May 09, 04:25

yep. If a ship has no energy you must use ammo based weapons.

Mass driver is good because passes shields, and enemy does not have an enormous hull.

anyways... you can kill that station in a Nova equipped with 8 MD instead of paing loads of cash to buy and arm a Cerberus.

(now.... you said you had 6 eclipses in the Hangar... why did you leave there sleeping? UNLEASH them!)
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delray
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Post by delray » Sun, 31. May 09, 04:37

- Eclipses were chasing Khaak fighters to help Teladi ships. I never attack Khaak stations with fighters since they are all messed up with arms in all directions and that's too much for autopilot even at 130 speed. My fighters miss almost all their shots and also crash into that station like all the time.

- Cerberus has BETTER GENERATORS THAN TIGER! Seriously, it does. But DPE of CIG and IPG is like 1/5 of IBL's DPE... and it shows in combat. I learned Cerberus is like Galleon, doomed to use HEPT and EBC.

- Why Cerberus? I finished this campaign in so many different ships I wanted to try something I didn't use there yet. Plus after doing Terran campaign in Yokohama, I felt like upgrading to a stronger ship (and stronger than Yokohama Cerberus certainly is).

- Why not MD? No ammo fab. :-)

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Post by someone else » Sun, 31. May 09, 04:41

felt like upgrading to a stronger ship (and stronger than Yokohama Cerberus certainly is)
I would not be so sure of this... a Yokohama can mount MAML, that can shoot forever; SSC that instant-kills Kha'ak; has an insane amount of shielding; is faster and more nimble.
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pjknibbs
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Post by pjknibbs » Sun, 31. May 09, 07:47

I'd have to agree there--Terran weapons may be poor, but a Cerberus is even worse IMHO.

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LocTheToker
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Post by LocTheToker » Sun, 31. May 09, 08:01

Quote:
"Can't you afford better weapons?
LOL!!!!!
For some reason all I can think of is the exchange delray is having with the engineering crew.

SCOTTY! WE NEED THOSE GUNS FIRING NOW!

"I CAN'T DO IT CAPTAIN! I JUST DON'T HAVE THE POWER"
Now im really laughing :lol: :lol:

Thats a hard break that makes you want to exec_selfdestruct 1

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Post by delray » Sun, 31. May 09, 08:52

pjknibbs wrote:I'd have to agree there--Terran weapons may be poor, but a Cerberus is even worse IMHO.
- Cerberus can mount FAAs on sides, Yokohama can't (and Yoko's side turrets don't help much in combat since they don't shoot forward Shrike's way, arms they are placed on are a bit too wide for that).

- Cerberus can use Typhoons and Hornets while Yoko's Spectres and Wraiths are still seriously bugged.

- Cerberus can dock 6x Eclipse while Yoko has to run solo. 6x Eclipse with PBG and EBC costs as much as Cerberus but doubles the firepower (and makes convoy missions much easier).

- 8x EBC deals 8x 8900 shield damage per second which is 71200 dps total, 8x M/AM-L deal 8x 10000 dps (side M/AM-L don't help forward action much and leave one of your sides completely undefended if they do which in a situation of a Khaak-spawning mission makes you basically a free frag from one side). So your actual DPS isn't that much higher at all in Yoko.

Yoko still has better shields and speed than Cerberus but I think it's a fair deal to lose some shields, speed and 8-10% of firepower to get a hangar bay, ability to use good missiles and FAAs on sides that can cover you while you're a sitting dock pounding at that sad station.

So... the worst frigate award goes to Terrans, at least as far as my playing style is concerned....

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Post by Frostynso » Sun, 31. May 09, 08:56

I think the error here was letting your fighter cover (a significant force multiplier in the case of your command ship), wander off when you could have used them to help take out the target.

But then, you already knew that.

delray
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Post by delray » Sun, 31. May 09, 09:08

Yeah. But it was a conscious decision to send them away...

Khaak Stations are built in such an annoying way that autopilot is completely helpless when attacking them. It often misses shots (firing between arms at weird angles)... or just crashes into the station. Eclipse is very tough but after a crash shield would be down and there was like Khaak hell roaming around shooting Needs and crowding single ships all the time.

I paid for my Eclipses 5 million a piece, took a while to arm them with EBCs and PBGs (I need a complex btw) and don't feel like losing them due to to autopilot's craziness!

Seriously, you can see for yourself if you don't believe me (it may seem ridiculous to someone who hasn't tried it), even slow dudes like Falcon Haulers and Eclipses will be crashing into that station on regular basis. It's something with that particular model, if it was any other station, I'd have no objections to send them... but this one, it just doesn't work that well.

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Post by Cactus-Soup » Sun, 31. May 09, 13:13

To be fair, it's a bit mean to compare any other frigate to a Thresher in taking out a station, it's like the number one thing it was made for...

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RLHDLW
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Post by RLHDLW » Sun, 31. May 09, 13:46

most of your problems are addressed by the Combat Mod available over in the scripting forum.

The fundamental problem is that CIG and IPG put insufficient energy on target while draining too much energy from the generators - not enough bang for the buck. In the previous X sequels, balancing across alpha/beta/gamma PPC was much more adequate.
Same goes for the terran weapons. M/AM Launcher is short in range and short in effect on target. Yokohama and and Aegir are great versus fighters, but toast against a Xenon Q (yeah I know you can do better when in the drivers seat, I can easily kill a Xenon K with a Yokohama, but OOS?)

As I said, this is nicely addressed by the Combat Mod. Also rebalances weaons versus shields, so combat is longer and more fun while being more demanding. Best thing is that all the missile stats are cleaned up and more reasonable, especially for the Terran ones. Also seems to solve the problem that Tyrs and Osakas may get destroyed by a lone M3 in OOS combat.

Or just take the mod which turns CIGs into A-PPC. You'll love it. Of course, enemies will make use of A-PPCs as well :twisted:

Can't wait for X3TC Extended.
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MadGizmo
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Post by MadGizmo » Sun, 31. May 09, 15:53

A Cerberus? That's a challenge in that sector. I'll have a look if it is still in my game. As far as I know that sector is much like "Groundhog Day". So, I might be able to try it out.

I am planning to go in with CIGs and FAA and 4 IBLs as backup (left and right). You tell us that you ran out out of energy with CIGs, so maybe IBLs are not a bright idea. The problem with CIGs is that it is also doing maximum damage at maximum range I think. Not sure. At least I see it explode there. Good against fighters. So I am also taking 8 IPGs with me. Those don't do much hull damage, but a little less than twice the shield damage. I can switch back later when the shields are down. Just build a fab for them, so it is nice to try them out. ;)

Edit: Planning to bomb it with Firestorm Torpedoes.

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Post by Cactus-Soup » Sun, 31. May 09, 16:11

Well on my Thresher I found the main thing to drain my power is all those FAA going berserk, you are sure that there weren't fighters nearby?

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Post by delray » Sun, 31. May 09, 16:24

MadGizmo: Cerberus can't mount IBLs and that's his main problem I think. If there was IBL capability up front (just like in Panther), no Tiger could match
with Cerb in combat (since Cerb's turret coverage is much better than Tiger's).

Sadly Egosoft decided that Argon and Terran people aren't allowed to have a good M7 and nerfed Yoko and Cerb mercilessly. Gazz had a nice post on Cerb in L3 a while back, I hope it's taken into account in future patches cause now this ship is exactly what Teladi captain said about it.

Cactus-Soup: My FAAs were resting, I had whole Teladi fleet engaging tangos in that sector and also my 6 PBG-armed Eclipses sweeping around me. There weren't many Khaak around anyway since I Hornetted most Clusters.

RLHDLW: I kind of used too many mods in my previous games so I decided I need a break from it and restarted to play unmodified for a while. This mod sounds like a wonderful idea but it's not for me, at least not in the current game.

Everyone: Soon I will be switching to Titan (I plan to make it BORING: 49 speed, 4x2GJ shields, 8x PPC up front, 8x GC on sides, FAA up and down and 4x CIG + 4x IPG rear). Any advice here? :-)

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Post by Cactus-Soup » Sun, 31. May 09, 16:46

Mainly because I spam Hammerheads myself and have become paranoid to it, I usually stick an Ion Disruptor or two to cover as much of the area around my capitals as possible.

One on the back anyway, I know the Titan can fit one there.

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Post by MadGizmo » Sun, 31. May 09, 18:14

Yes it can mount 4 IBLs. I've just used them. At the left and right.

Have a look: Cerberus.

The first time I went in with 8 IPGs (front), 4 IBLs (left/right) and 2 CIGs (back) and 4 FAAs (up/down). I used Tempest in the first phase to get rid of the small stuff. But against the Corvettes they were merely a decoy. Once these were gone, I switched to Firestorm Torpedoes and needed 34 missiles to destroy the base.

The second time I switched the IPGs for CIGs in the hope they would do more hull damage. In fact, it doesn't really matter. The IBLs keep pounding on the Corvettes. Once I started bombing the base, I got into trouble after 40 missiles. The shields of the base were not even half way down.

So, I guess the IPGs weren't a stupid idea after all. Gonna try it again, to see whether it was luck or not.

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Post by MadGizmo » Sun, 31. May 09, 19:36

Once the shields are down it takes two Firestorm Torpedoes to destroy the base. Seems to me that IPGs do make a difference. And yes, you have to take breaks to recharge the lasers. Very annoying. I just sat there, not moving at all, firing torpedoes until I could fire IPGs again. Scouts, Interceptors and Fighters buzzing through the Flaks. ;)

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