(AP) Help a Novice with Panther & Python Loadouts

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Shaggy420
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(AP) Help a Novice with Panther & Python Loadouts

Post by Shaggy420 » Thu, 19. Feb 15, 07:48

I'm pretty new to the X universe and am planning out a small fleet. At the heart of the fleet I want a Panther and Python with the rest being some M6 escorts and a Panther load of fighters.

I don't have much experience with the larger classes of ships and am looking for some help/advice with the Panther and Python loadouts particularly. I'm hoping for a general purpose, all-round loadout with good fighter/missile defence that can also do good damage to capitol ships.

Here's what I've been thinking based on the web-browsing I've done:

Panther:
Frnt - 6x IBL
Bck - 2x FAA & 2x PRG
Lft/Rgt - 4x IBL or 4x PALC
Top/Btm - 8x FAA

Python:
Frnt - 8x PPC
Bck - 3x PBE & 3x ISR
Lft/Rgt - 3x GC & 3x IC or 6x PPC
Top/Btm - 3x PBE & 3x ISR

Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance :)

P.S.
The Python will probably be AI controlled 100% of the time and the Panther 50% AI 50% me. If that influences the loadouts.

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Post by ancienthighway » Thu, 19. Feb 15, 08:50

In my opinion, the use of any AOE weapon isn't worth the risk of damaging or destroying friendly ships. Like the fighters based on the Panther. Or the massive Argon deployments in the war sectors. There are times the AOE weapons are very useful, like going into Xenon sectors to lay waste to anything that moves, but for general use you are better off with CIGs. If you do plan on using IBLs, make it on the player ship as main guns. Turrets randomly fire and you have no control over the friendly fire damage. At least with the main guns, you have the choice of firing or not.

I'm not understanding why you would want to split turrets between 2 different weapons. If you destroy targets at a distance, you don't need special up close weapons. FAAs should meet your needs just fine, but if you want some fast rounds for missile defense, the PAC works just fine and will stop anything the MDM might miss.

lighters
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Post by lighters » Thu, 19. Feb 15, 11:09

I'm currently running a Tiger (which is a sister of Panther) with a basic setup of IBLs in the front, FAAs everywhere else. Haven't had any desire to change it. There's no better fighter defense than FAA, and with a good turning rate of this ship there's no problem in aiming front IBLs at the targets, so don't see much point in IBL at the sides. Haven't tried PALC really because they mess up my frame rate.

The only thing to worry about is energy management. Both FAAs and IBLs starve the energy, so when fighting a capship and a lot of fighters, need to prioritize - either let FAA kill fighters first, or turn off the turrets, kill the capship, then turn on the turrets.

Shaggy420
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Post by Shaggy420 » Thu, 19. Feb 15, 23:51

Thanks for the input, I've been going off of suggestions I've found on the internet but a lot of the time their posts were rather confusing. I read a post were someone said the FAA/PRG combo worked well for anything chasing the Panther. On the Python I thought that splitting the turrets would help even out the shield and hull damage but i just remembered the PBEs short range would make the ISR/PBE combo pretty crappy and the Python cant use the IC so no IC/GC combo lol.

For the left/right turrets my thoughts were that I would set them to attack my target and position it in front of me. Because of the large firing arc of the Panthers weapons I thought this would allow me to fire 10 IBLs at forward targets instead of 6. Lol, I have more experience with naval combat games and I guess I'm thinking too much of boats and their broadsides with large numbers of guns :P.

With what was said about AoE I may ditch IBL altogether and go with CIG as you suggested. Will FAAs pose a threat to my fighters as well?

Should I maybe outfit the Python to focus completely on capitol ships and rely on the Panther and/or M6s and fighters for defending it from missile/fighters?

ancienthighway
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Post by ancienthighway » Fri, 20. Feb 15, 00:12

Understand that my comments about using the CIG refer only to the Panther to minimize friendly fire. A Tiger with IBLs up front, but still not on the turrets, and again player ship, would be sweet. I'd probably split it to 1/2 IBLs and 1/2 CIGs and control which is used with the weapon groups.

Depending on the M2, a few will allow the side turrets can fire straight ahead, but most won't. I don't remember what it is for the Python. In any case you can fly your ship to allow both front and one side to attack at the same time.

Keep in mind also that the PPC is most effective if you are in the turret, able to charge the shot, and manually fire it. The low weapons energy usage of the GC is nice and in prolonged battles could be the deciding factor. PPCs are easier to obtain than GCs, but either weapon will do the job quickly.

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Post by Triaxx2 » Fri, 20. Feb 15, 03:19

The way the hull values have been increased in AP, you'll definitely want the IC/GC loadout for maximum kill speed.

As for the Panther, remember that fighters constitute a portion of it's firepower. All that plus twenty EBC/HEPT armed fighters is a formidable weapon combination. Of course they're expensive to replace, but no more than PPC's.
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Post by pjknibbs » Fri, 20. Feb 15, 09:34

If you're going to have a fleet like that, I wouldn't fit anti-capital weapons on *both* ships--you'll presumably be using the Python to take down capital ships, so the Panther needs weapons that can defend it from enemy minnows while it launches its fighters and stays clear of the main battle. A Panther won't last long against a "proper" capital ship under AI control in any case--it's not smart enough to keep its distance and avoid incoming enemy fire, and the IBLs will drain its weapons banks pretty fast.

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Post by lighters » Fri, 20. Feb 15, 10:08

Shaggy420 wrote: For the left/right turrets my thoughts were that I would set them to attack my target and position it in front of me. Because of the large firing arc of the Panthers weapons I thought this would allow me to fire 10 IBLs at forward targets instead of 6. Lol, I have more experience with naval combat games and I guess I'm thinking too much of boats and their broadsides with large numbers of guns :P.
10 IBLs is too much for its generator to handle properly.
Shaggy420 wrote:With what was said about AoE I may ditch IBL altogether and go with CIG as you suggested. Will FAAs pose a threat to my fighters as well?
FAA *should not* pose friendly fire problems because they're not actually AoE. Once in a while I do hear friendly fighters complain, but that's because they get into line of fire.
Shaggy420 wrote:Should I maybe outfit the Python to focus completely on capitol ships and rely on the Panther and/or M6s and fighters for defending it from missile/fighters?
That does make sense because Panther can only fight with capitals with careful positioning and smart energy usage. Which is not needed when an M2 is around.

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Post by Nanook » Fri, 20. Feb 15, 20:48

Shaggy420 wrote:...
With what was said about AoE I may ditch IBL altogether and go with CIG as you suggested. ...
IBL's are not AOE weapons. But they are anti-capital ship weapons. CIG's are not. They're designed for anti-fighter and anti-corvette uses. They have nowhere near the power to take out capital ships. By replacing all your IBL's with CIG's, you're demoting your ship to being little more than an anti-fighter platform. Bad plan, IMO.
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Post by ancienthighway » Fri, 20. Feb 15, 21:10

My bad. I thought a big fiery ball of death would be AoE.

So are you saying that you would in fact mount IBLs on Panthers?

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Post by Nanook » Fri, 20. Feb 15, 21:32

Of course! What else would you use to kill other capital ships?
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Post by hisazul » Fri, 20. Feb 15, 21:58

I'll chip in just a little bit here. Imo you should never mix turret guns. It's a rather bad idea due to weapons having different ranges, turret turning speeds, fire rate, etc which in the end results in only one group doing anything and the other just shooting air, sometimes when weapon class is far apart all weapons may end up not doing anything.

Only AOE weapons in AP are PBG and PSG. Exceptional weapons and devastating... enough PBGs will melt even a Q. But they should never be used in a fleet. PSG ships are missile defense blockages at best when used in fleet and require a lot of micro management. Ideally they should be used to clear out fodder. As example when I wage big wars... with entire race and such... when I waltz into a sector I use Agamemnon to simply mop up deployed fighters and exhaust missile supply on M8s and M7Ms.
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Post by Nanook » Sat, 21. Feb 15, 02:02

hisazul wrote:...
Only AOE weapons in AP are PBG and PSG. ...
Don't forget Ion Disruptors. :wink:
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Post by pjknibbs » Sat, 21. Feb 15, 07:25

hisazul wrote:I'll chip in just a little bit here. Imo you should never mix turret guns. It's a rather bad idea due to weapons having different ranges, turret turning speeds, fire rate, etc which in the end results in only one group doing anything and the other just shooting air
That's only half true--provided you have auto-aim enabled for the turret (and why the heck would you not?) the different guns in it will have their firing angles adjusted so they both hit the target. There is an issue in that the impact of the faster-moving shot will encourage the target to take evasive action, thus causing the slower-moving one to miss, but the two guns would have to have *very* widely differing speed of shot and range for that to be significant.

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LocTheToker
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Post by LocTheToker » Sat, 21. Feb 15, 12:13

pjknibbs wrote:
hisazul wrote:I'll chip in just a little bit here. Imo you should never mix turret guns. It's a rather bad idea due to weapons having different ranges, turret turning speeds, fire rate, etc which in the end results in only one group doing anything and the other just shooting air
That's only half true--provided you have auto-aim enabled for the turret (and why the heck would you not?) the different guns in it will have their firing angles adjusted so they both hit the target. There is an issue in that the impact of the faster-moving shot will encourage the target to take evasive action, thus causing the slower-moving one to miss, but the two guns would have to have *very* widely differing speed of shot and range for that to be significant.

Some weapons have good synergy IMO. IBL and PPC for instance have similar range, and projectile speed, and in my experience work fine together.

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Post by hisazul » Sun, 22. Feb 15, 03:25

LocTheToker wrote:
pjknibbs wrote:
hisazul wrote:I'll chip in just a little bit here. Imo you should never mix turret guns. It's a rather bad idea due to weapons having different ranges, turret turning speeds, fire rate, etc which in the end results in only one group doing anything and the other just shooting air
That's only half true--provided you have auto-aim enabled for the turret (and why the heck would you not?) the different guns in it will have their firing angles adjusted so they both hit the target. There is an issue in that the impact of the faster-moving shot will encourage the target to take evasive action, thus causing the slower-moving one to miss, but the two guns would have to have *very* widely differing speed of shot and range for that to be significant.

Some weapons have good synergy IMO. IBL and PPC for instance have similar range, and projectile speed, and in my experience work fine together.
Thats true. When they are similar then yeah some do wonders. Use one that mostly deals with shields and another that deals mostly with hull.
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Post by Monkeyfister » Mon, 23. Feb 15, 16:23

My Pather load-out works pretty well as an all-rounder:

Front: IBL
Left: FAA
Right: FAA
Top: Ion Shard Railgun
Bottom: Ion Shard Railgun
Back: Phased Repeater Gun (FAA can share the back, as only .1km range difference. But PRG's 2.3km range is great for missiles)

With this set-up, I seem to have all the weapon energy that I need... unless very hard-pressed.

Front on, at 3km, 6 IBLs and 8 ISRs are in play on the target.

I filled it up with Aamon Prototypes, and missiles.

It's a wicked little scrapper.

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