Tribal Proton Beam Cruiser

#1

A player can field a tribal cruiser with 8 proton beams and somewhere around speed .26 for around 2,000 points. This ship has a lot of firepower. It’s basically 8 beams, 4 engines (2 superpowered and 2 type 1), 2 power generators, and a crew compartment.

I’ve been experimenting with giving this ship type orders to attack cruisers and frigates at 700 range, and fighters at 2000 range (1% priority), with keep moving, and sending them into action.

The proton beam is cheap at 73, but requires a lot of power compared to missile-type weapons. The proton beam is fairly light at a weight of 88.

The proton beam might have problems against fleets which are fielding extensive shields. The weapon seems very effective against other tribe fleets, since these usually have minimal shields.

To watch multiple ships fielding 8 of these beams apiece is quite a spectacle.

#2

It’s because of people like you that Most of my ships have reflective shields…

Otherwise proton beams cut through any other type of shield. In every other way they’re inferior to Cruiser Beams, but I’ve started using them. I’m tired of waiting for shields to crack so my beam lasers based ships can tear things apart.

#3

hi,

for 2000 and without a single repair module this seems very fragile and expensive.
once a turret is lost, which happens fast without protection, the firepower is dramatically decreased.

greetings
driver

#4

To get really existential…what’s the point of any post (this one included)?

mrblitz had a ship design that he wanted to share. He got some comments on it. I may try the design to see how it works with respect to some of the other Tribe ships I’ve done. We’re all a little bit better off. Hooray!

#5

Ya, no one is allowed say anything negative without it being trolling. Usually a forum is for discussion. This is a post about information found in the game. The post wasnt “How good is this ship?” or “How effective” or even “Best ship design ever” it was just easily obtanable information.

Reflective shields have 27 resistance. Weapons with shield penetration lower than 27 bounce off them. I equip my ships with these shields, sometimes.
/thread

#6

It’s just that this ship is interesting. Yes, I’ve been experimenting with a lot of ships which are pretty much only engines and weapons; just to see if they have any utility.

I do tend to pay a premium for a lot of engines. With the tribe, it’s an experiment in seeing whether raw hit points can eliminate the need for scramblers or damage repair.

This design shredded 3 challenges in a row; two tribal and one federation. So I figured if anyone else hadn’t thought of it, they might be interested.

When this ship design took out a missile fleet; this design having no damage repair or missile scrambler of its own; it looked like there might be something to it.

I am definitely not the best player at this game, but enjoy making posts about ship ideas all the same.

edit: As for the ‘engines as hit points’ idea, it appears that the cheapo engine gives the most hit points for the engine cost, something like a .75 ratio. Another experiment is to install pairs of supercharged engine and micro crew module. The combination of one micro crew module, and one supercharged engine appears to be a bit less effective than simply 2 cheapo engines.

If you can get the proton beam engaged at 700 meters, its still out of range of the 490 max of the cruiser laser. yada ymmv

#7

I give you the right to say negative things without considering you a troll, however thats not what you did.

You instead ignored the content of the first post (everything after the first paragraph) and then slammed away. Your comments make no sense considering the content which you have willfully and purposefully ignored, making you a troll and a jerk.

Looking at your post history, I just dont see where you could have suddenly and mistakenly believed that you were the forum police. And as irrational as your attempt at policing is, I can only conclude, and I believe I am wholly accurate in this conclusion, that you have failed to get your daily quota of trolling someplace else.

Drop it. K? Drop it.

#8

Yes, the Proton beam is quite interesting… But it does have the horrible flaw of lulling you into thinking it’ll serve your shield-breaking needs, when in practice players ‘in the know’ will usually mount one Reflective Shield module, then any additional shield stength using Multiphasic Shield modules - which means the Proton Beam can’t break them, so against these players you still need to rely on your cruiser laser / plasma / missiles etc to crack the shields. So don’t rely 100% on the Proton Beam :slight_smile:

I’d also suggest switching from superpowered engines to lightweight engines.

#9

Prehaps the purpose of a forum eludes you, dust. The topic wasnt set up as a discussion.

And yes i slammed it.
Trolling is trying to get a rise out of something, an activity i now suspect you of.

Mrblitz, flying weapons (just engines and weapons) have loads of utility. I use them all the time. If you are against another large laser fleet, i tend to use less engines, and against missiles, two engines. But i only mount 4 weapons on a ship. Keep the cost under 1000, and swarm every opponent you meet. For something that cheap and weak, its gonne die fast, under focus fire. So no point repairing, in my opinion.

The other small changes you make can be light shield of many rockets attack you, scrammbler for missiles, tractor beams with CLs. Thats covers all the types of counters, really. Say if i missed some

#10

the other flaw, is that has a tracking of 0,64. Anything with engines won’t really need to rely on reflective shields.

#11

Yeah! That one’s a biggie. It’s nearly as bad as plasma, except all the misses are a little less obvious to the eye than watching the wasted plasma sailing off into the distance :smiley:

One weapon I’ve gained a lot more respect for lately… The humble Cruiser Pulse Laser. Low damage, high fire rate… DPS doesn’t look that great until you notice the tracking: 2.60. It can assist with antifighter… Against normal frigates it’s actually comparable to the cruiser laser… Against fast frigates it’s superior. I mix these in about a 1:1 ratio in my rush fleets now (you still need the cruiser laser for breaking shields, and the cruiser laser remains on top when it comes to delivering dps to cruisers.)

#12

What kind of speed would a cruiser require in order to cause the proton beams to miss? .20 or thereabouts? I’d thought that the proton beam’s tracking wasn’t too bad; for firing at cruisers at least.

I’ll have to revisit the cruiser pulse laser.

#13

The remaining not-exactly-a-flaw, but definitely a design constraint, of the proton beam that I haven’t seen here is that it isn’t just a power hog, but it requires a lot of crew. I have thrown these in more than once without thinking because part of my brain says, “Hey! Cheap long-range beam!” only to immediately shoot the crew bar into the red. Drat.

But I admit I do like it. Contrary to the description, its purple beam is not its only positive characteristic.

It is pretty though. :slight_smile:

#14

You know, that gives me an idea for another weapon…

#15

That sounds suspiciously like an evil version of the chaff gun that so many folks are eager to see (myself among them).

I like it. We could call it the Mutineer Gun.

#16

Since the proton beam is not the be-all, end-all, but is cheap, light and has good firepower in many situations; I made a variant on this ship. The new design has beam laser, 2 proton beam, pulse laser, cruiser laser, quantum blaster, and autocannon. It’s roughly 2200 points, with shields, auto-repair, and speed .27 or thereabouts, and has around 3200 hit points if memory serves.

The quantum blaster is to fill out the design with an inexpensive weapon. The autocannon is mainly for anti-fighter duty. Another thing about the quantum blaster and autocannon is that - whatever their effectiveness in given situations - they give the cruiser a tribal flavor.

The cruiser laser, pulse laser, and beam laser give a mixed blend of firepower against cruisers.

As listed on this thread, purely proton beam ships are ineffective against specific shielding configurations. Varying out the weapons complement, while retaining 2 proton beams is a new experiment.

#17

The howitzer is pretty much a massive zero-penalty upgrade to the quantum blaster. If you’re tribe, definitely use howitzers instead. The price and operational costs are the same as the QB - making the howitzer an amazing low power consumption option.

#18

Yes! It’s the howitzer I’m after. Thanks for the clarification. 85 points. Just 4 crew, 3 power consumption, 82 weight, cost 85. Nice shield penetration in the 40s, and excellent fire interval of 60. With 1.1 tracking, can contribute against slower fighters. As mentioned on another thread, it does seem like a good way to fill out a fleet with a sort of moderately effective weapon, fairly cheap and low in resource (crew and power) consumption.

#19

Don’t be fooled by these stats.
It’s a salvo weapon:

damage = 6 fire_interval = 60 salvo_size = 6 salvo_interval = 1200
Still, that gives nearly the double (1.7) raw dps than quantum blaster for the same cost. While the laser cannon has exactly (2.02) the double raw dps than the howitzer.

#20

I hadn’t looked at the ‘salvo’ aspect of the howitzer. That would explain the disparity between the ‘60’ reload time in the information panel, and what I was witnessing in the actual play of the game.

Quick question: How is DPS calculated?

When you mention ‘laser cannon,’ are you typing of the cruiser laser?

Anyway, assuming that the ‘laser cannon’ is the cruiser laser and the DPS between laser:howitzer is 2.02:1, it appears as though the cost is roughly 1.32:1, so the laser puts out more firepower for less.

An appealing aspect of the howitzer becomes its low crew/power requirements. Of course, even factoring in the additional crew/power requirements of the laser; it appears that it would still be cheaper overall firepower than the howitzer. The howitzer does weigh quite a bit less.

Were you indeed talking about the cruiser laser when you typed, ‘laser cannon?’