(X3 AP) Boron Ray

[steelgrey75]

I have been very pleased with the Griffon Sentinel I have been using for quite some time. It packs a punch for a small ship and holds its own well against a fleet of enemy ships, although cannot handle the larger M2 ships sadly.
With that in mind I decided it was time to buy a more powerful ship to try and take out those larger enemies, so purchased a Boron Ray.
The problem I find is that the enemy ships have a habit of launching barrages against me and I just cannot protect against them. The smaller ships I can take out in seconds, but these barrages wipe me out completely.
I am flying solo, I have no other ships with me, and I am usually in the company of many Argon ships (fighting the Terrans).
So I am wondering what would the advice be for attacking enemy fleets? In particular the Terran fleets in Argon sectors. I'm not that keen on having other ships with me, but if thats the best way then what would be best? To have smaller, faster ships set to protect me? What ships would be best for that purpose?

[Sabrina Bergin]

Get a bigger ship the ray whilst good cannot face up to terran destroyers.

[steelgrey75]

Okay I will, but what would you suggest? I have no access to any Terran ships by the way. Just want to deal with fleets solo of possible, and be capable of withstanding those pesky barrages.

[Manks]

The Ray is a perfectly fine destroyer, one of the better ones even for its ability to get all of its left, right, and front turrets on a target for a total of 24 big guns.

The question is, what do you mean by barrages?

Missile barrages can be solved by configuring and outfitting your turrets correctly, and if needed having a stock of mosquito missiles plus the missile-defense-mosquito script running.

If you're talking about weapon fire, the solution is probably tactical. How are you flying it? One way that works is to slam it into reverse right before a target gets into range and then keep your turrets pointed at it. While you're duking it out, you can use the strafe and roll buttons to avoid all incoming fire. Things get interesting when you have to engage multiple targets, but if you've set things up they're all be coming from the same direction so dodging most of it should be doable.

Finally, it might help to know how you have the ship equipped.

[steelgrey75]

I meant missile barrages yes.
Yes I should have listed my loadout. Even though I've been playing the game for a while, 600 hours now logged, I'm not that clued up on weaponry and have stuck to whats worked best for me so far.

Front turrets & Back turrets- 4 x CIG, 2 x IPG, 2 x FAA
Left & Right turrets - 4 x CIG, 4 x IPG
Up & Down turrets - 3 x CIG, 1 x IPG

I carry 500 x wasp, 500 x thunderbolt, 500 x mosquito missiles
100 x Mk2 drones.

Turrets are all set to Missile Defence

Since I have no "real" control over the turrets I usually set to automatically attack enemies when I come across enemies. I know I can control the turrets myself but find that a bit of a pain to be honest.

Like I say, I am no expert at the game but have built up a large amount of ships and stations so far, I make all my own missiles, weapons and ship components.
I own 2 x Zeus, 4 x Titans, 4 x Cobras, 2 x Griffon Sentinels, 2 x Panther Raiders and have many many fighters stationed on all the ships that have hangars.

So far I have avoided flying with my other ships as I have found they get destroyed while I am distracted during battle, which annoys me.

[BurningMan]

The ideal loadout for a Ray would be 8xPPC in front,right and left turret all set to attack Capital ships or attack my target for the front turret. You should put Flak in the up, down and rear turrets and set them to attack Fighters or missile defence.
CIG isn't what you want to use on capital ships it is a good weapon for Corvettes, but it lacks the range and Fire Power you need for bigger ships. Flak is ideal to destroy enemy fighters and PPC/Gauss Cannons should be used against other capital ships.

Wasps and Thunderbolts are also not really good on capital ships as they are anti-fighter missiles and the Flak turrets generally deal with them fast enough. I would rather use heavier missiles like the Firestorm, Hornet, Hammerhead and Typhoon.

[steelgrey75]

Okay I will try out the loadout you suggested, have yet to use a PPC. As I said, I haven't really been taking on the larger ships, largest ships so far have been M6/7's as I have been using a Griffon Sentinel. For those ships I have found the CIG's to be really useful, combined with the IPG's. Have had some success at taking out larger ships with a Cobra, but they are useless for all other types of ship so I only use a Cobra for the odd boarding operation.
Have no stocks of Hammerheads and no way of getting hold of any.
I had set the turrets to missile defence because it was missiles that have been destroying me, so surely if I dont have them set to defence then I will only get destroyed even quicker?

[brownthomasw]

Terrans have some nasty missiles and i hear missiles are more common in AP. I'm playing TC so I should just stay out. The spectre, shadow and wraith missiles anyone of which could easily take down an m2. the terrans also have a hefty m8 class missile and m7m class.

Aside from your missile defenses: turrets and mosquitos. You can either not fight the terrans when it comes to missiles or get to those missile boats as quickly as possible to destroy them 1st. Many heavy terra missiles are also swarm compounding your problem.

These missiles may be slower or have poor turning capabilities but your m2 are slow too. You can keep turbo boost ready and be aware when missiles are fired at you, shoot them yourself, or jump away. I found mosquito missile defense does not work on capitol ships. they're the ones who need it as the rear turret can't cover the whole ship but I don't think they use it even if you set it. Not sure what the biggest size ship who can use mosquito defense so it might pay to have an m6 or even a ts following behind you with a load of mosquitos set with mosq misile defense and find out what the biggest ship who uses it is.

Also since mosq defense does not work from a m2 but you have wasps and mosquitos anyway then you can target the missile yourself and instead of shooting them with lasers launch your own mosquitos but again against a swarm of 8 250mj+ missiles shooting them all down manually sucks. better to try a missile defense boat of some kind who can use mosq defense and see what others have to say. It may work from an m7 you can keep in the area.

[Manks]

Also since mosq defense does not work from a m2

Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure that (in AP) I've used it successfully in the past. I usually turn it off though, because flak tends to do a good enough job and I'd rather save mossies for when they're really needed.


As far as turrets go, you can get some extra mileage out of creating your own under Gameplay -> Turret Command Configuration. For your top and bottom turrets, do as BurningMan said and use Flak Artillery Arrays set to either missile defense, or a custom script that has them only go after missiles and fighters asit is a waste of energy to fire them on the big stuff. Then as you fight, slightly expose your top or bottom to incoming missiles and they'll be vaporized. An alternative would be to carry extra weapons and simply enable weapon switching on the missile defense script.

With regards to your front, left, and right, you can go all PPC although the Ray has a relatively weak reactor. You might consider ion cannons in the front and a mix of PPC and Gauss cannons in the sides. The IC is the most energy efficient way to drop a target's shields while GCs eat through hull. The major downside is that they have less range.

[steelgrey75]

I play the vanilla game by the way guys, so these scripts you mention mean nothing to me.

[Sirrobert]

I play the vanilla game by the way guys, so these scripts you mention mean nothing to me.

Well there is your problem.
Download the bonus pack, load up the mosquito missle defence, and your ship will automaticly fire mosquitos at missles.

What, were you manually fireing them at missles? Ofcourse that doesn't work

[steelgrey75]

I play the vanilla game by the way guys, so these scripts you mention mean nothing to me.

Well there is your problem.
Download the bonus pack, load up the mosquito missle defence, and your ship will automaticly fire mosquitos at missles.

What, were you manually fireing them at missles? Ofcourse that doesn't work

No I had all my turrets set to missile defence like I said at the start. I dont manually fire any of the weapons on this Ray.
I don't think I'll be modding the game to be honest, I dont want to have to start the game all over again. Will just put up with it until X Rebirth comes out and then maybe one day in the future i will play this game again and install some mods.

[e1team]

thats a shame. the bonus pack is an official plugin. saved my life a hundred times! it will not *modify* your game and you dont have to start all over if im correct.

[steelgrey75]

thats a shame. the bonus pack is an official plugin. saved my life a hundred times! it will not *modify* your game and you dont have to start all over if im correct.

So the bonus pack is an official add on is it? I might well take a look at that then thanks.

[BurningMan]

Yeah the Bonus Pack is like an official Add-On that adds some features and is compatible with all save games and versions of the game.
It can be downloaded on the Egosoft website and contains the CAG/CLS software that is used by almost every advanced player to manage their traders better than with the standart MK1 and 2 trading softwares. It also includes the Hephaistos Corp station building service, the Turbo Booster upgrades that allows you to activate an afterburner on your ships for some E-Cells as well as the Mosquito Missile Defence that automatically fires Mosquitos against incoming missiles which is almost mandatory for AP.
As already said this won't make your game modified, you will still be able to get steam achievments and it is compatible with save games so you don't have to start all over, most people in the forum have installed this (it takes like 2 minutes) which is why everybody was assuming you already have this installed^^

I would really suggest you to check it out it adds a lot useful stuff to the game (especially the CLS softwares) and will likely solve you Missile problem.

[steelgrey75]

Nice one, just downloaded and installed and I'm about to fire the game up and test it out. Be nice not to lose traders anymore using that blacklist mod.
Have kept clear of modding as I didnt join this forum until I had played about 400 hours of the game and had a nice empire built up, was scared to screw it all up.
Cheers guys.

[TTD]

Wow... 400 hours without resorting to the forums ?

I think you will become an well schooled pretty quick.

But even after years of playing X, we still find some new players discovering things we did not know was there.

Oh and welcome to the forums.
There's a great bunch of stickies at the top.
Handy for guides and tutorials.

[steelgrey75]

Hmmm, well I have found the mosquito missile defence system to be utterly useless, havent seen them shoot down a single missile as yet so Im still getting blown up.
Only way I find to protect against missiles is by setting all flak turrets to missile defence.

[e1team]

did you switch the mosquito defense system on in the additional ship commands in command console?

[steelgrey75]

Yes I did, and the ship is firing the missiles, its just that they dont seem to be taking other missiles down. The missiles are only taken down by my flak turrets, although I suppose some of them have been shot down by the mosquitos. Perhaps its just the volume that is being fired at me, the mosquitos cannot cope.
I have also re-equipped my ship with a mixture of PPC and Ion Cannons as was advised and am finding it a breeze taking out enemy capital ships now, so thanks for the advice.