Guide to capitol ship combat (long)

[Wolvan]

Range... PPCs are almost 4 k, HEPTs are like 1 k. when you're in a cap ship with Hepts you have to go almost point blank to hit anything.

[Warioc]

And for GPSG, one blast hit multiple times on the target and on multiple targets if there are any in the way. Think of the GPSG as a very efficient grenade launcher. That is how it works; it’s not a beam like the other lasers but rather a targeted explosion.

One warning though, you will hit friendly if they are close too

[Creston]

Only 2 weapons count to be used on capitol ships: GPSG and GPPC. These are the biggest and best turret weapons you can get. The GHEPT is there only for the poor turrets that cant fit one of the other two.

I don't own any high-end ships yet, so I've never used PPC. But I'm curious why GPPC is better than GHEPT.
According to Argonpedia :
1) GPPC does 2500 shield and 2000 hull damage
2) GEHPT does 3000 shield and 2000 hull damage

So why is GPPC better?

And what's even more confusing is that it lists :
3) GPSG does 1000 shield and 90 hull damage

So why is GPSG better?

GPPC have a range of almost 5 km, the HEPT fizzle out at 1.5 (I know some peeps say three, but I've never seen them shoot at anything above 2 km away from my ship). Furthermore, the PPC bolts travel approximately twice as fast as the HEPT bolt. A HEPT will NEVER hit a Gnat M5 ship, whereas the PPCs blast them out of the sky like no tomorrow. Firing rate for the PPC is also higher, I believe.

The PSG is better because it is, essentially, broken. A single PSG shockwave will hit a single target MULTIPLE times. I also think I've finally discovered WHY it does that, btw. It seems that a PSG shockwave will hit a ship on every one of its facings, meaning the areas where you can fire at. You might have noticed that destroyers' shields never light up fully when they get hit, it's always a section. I think that PSG wave simply hits every single one of those sections (which is probably around 10 or 12 on a destroyer), and all the damage gets added up.

This is, in my opinion, definitely a bug. The gun is already effective in that it hits multiple targets. It doesn't NEED to also drain a Xenon K's shields inside of three seconds.

Creston

[Kryten]

If you want to kill capital ships you might as well just get the Odyseus, GPSGS are definately broken or just overpowered, you don't even need to think about tactics, just point and hit accelerate you can take on 4 xenon k's at once with GPSGS, you can't do that with anything else so this makes the Odyseus the best cap ship by a long shot.

Take them away and use tactics, strafe is the best tactic when fighting in capital ships, even the python wich is by far the most inferior capital ship can easily take on a couple of Ks using strafe.

The Pheonix can turn on a dime, its the only capital ship I actually use my joystick with. A pleasure to fly, now if it only had a psg loadout as well

For the pirate bases, just park outside, aggro it and then put all turrets on defence, after all defenders are launched and killed then obliterate base, I've seen a base respawn within an hour in the same sector so you might as well kill the base too.

If you like lots of combat then clear out Xenon 534, 596 and 597, then sit in thyns abyss and be prepared for a stream of xenon ships and capital ships, don't clear xenon 472 as you need the shipyard in there to keep the K's and J's coming. You will not be able to keep the sector clear, I tried with 2 other capital ships protecting me and eventually there was so many xenon ships that I had to leave and let OOS combat take over to relieve the lag caused by 100s of ships

Someone also mentioned the Rays cargo capacity, if you use only GPPCs and Ghepts then it has more than enough cargo for jumping etc. its only when you try and mount PPCs all round you come into problems and lets face it, you don't need the range of the ppcs on your rear facing turrets.

[Gribble]

while the PSG weapons are devastating, i have decided that they do not exist in my universe due to beardiness reduction rules and so my cap ships wil be mounting all PPC's.

This decision was made one day in Argon Prime (i think) when i was racing to intercept a pair of pirate ships. An Argon titan beat me to it and so i watched in awe as stream after stream of brilliant blue PPC bolts leapt out of the Titan and converged on the hapless pirate vessels. It was at this moment i resolved to buy me an M2 with and all PPC loadout.

And despite the Python being the weakest M2, its also the grooviest looking IMHO, so i'm going for that. To stop myself losing in cap ship vs cap ship battles, i'm gonna get two and tag team my enemies.

[Kryten]

An Argon titan beat me to it and so i watched in awe as stream after stream of brilliant blue PPC bolts leapt out of the Titan and converged on the hapless pirate vessels. It was at this moment i resolved to buy me an M2 with and all PPC loadout.

Hypnotic, i can dig this

And despite the Python being the weakest M2, its also the grooviest looking IMHO,

groovy on the outside but the cockpit view is horrendous if there was ever the feeling of trying to peer over the dashboard because it was too high it'd be with the python

[ToxicityD]

i have a questions and an idea

heres the question

how usless is a TL in anti M3 and below combat cuz im pretty sure that a teladi albatross can mount 7 GHEPTs which is nice firepower for a TL
(is it a turret position thing or whut)

and heres the idea

some one shud try out all M2s and map out their turret positioning and post. In my opinion that would be theperfect addition to a capital combat guide
(I wud but i just updated and lost all o my $$, ships, stations, etc. )

o and by the way thx for the gr8 info

[Bishop149]

Agreed, the pirate bases give you combat rating, I would still leave them alone though, the fighters inside respawn quicker than the base itself so leaving it makes for good sense.

#

Don't give you much money from a Police licence mind

I think I'm gonna buy a Pheonix next, these are often negelcted due to the fact they can't mount and 'special' weapons (IonD's PSG's etc) and its snail like speen but having observed the AI handling one in a Xenon Invasion I am very impressed, they do seem to turn on a dime, their turrets are in good posisitions and this combined seems to make the bringing weapons to bear thing (which as rightly said is the most impotant thing for M2's) quite easy. . . I think I'm a convert!

[Dunners]

One thing has always bothered me with M2's. Why are there no people sitting in the little chairs on the flight deck?? How dare they leave their posts! It would be nice to watch them, as you could in I-War.

Dunners

[Bhruic]

Do the BPPCs have the increased range as well? Is it worth throwing them in instead of GHEPTs?

Bh

[Sorasil]

i too wonder about this. I personaly use a pheonix with PPC loudout. But i wonder should i use Bppcs or Ghepts on the turrets that can not mount GPPCs? An example is the pheonix back turret. It can only hold alpha PPCs but Gamma HEPTS. the range on the PPCs are longer but the damage is far lower than the hepts. Speed of the PPC bullets are faster too. Wich really matters for this turret placement in your opinion?

[Mon Mothma]

What I didn't see listed (Though I might just have missed it) is the effect rolling has.

When your turrets are low on power, they do terrible damage. So if you keep a constant slow roll so that your turrets move out of range just as they run out of power, and new ones are brought into range at that time you can really kick some ars.

[chankung]

Personally I use a perseus with 3 bpsgs. The k or js' ppc rarely hit me but I can hit them at 97%. Strave of course. But I have to be careful about incoming missiles, when there are smaller ships around. If that's a hornet I have to turn to bomb it first. I am not in a high speed when dealing with a j or k.

[pjknibbs]

What I didn't see listed (Though I might just have missed it) is the effect rolling has.

When your turrets are low on power, they do terrible damage. So if you keep a constant slow roll so that your turrets move out of range just as they run out of power, and new ones are brought into range at that time you can really kick some ars.

I've never seen the turrets on a cap ship run out of power enough to slow down their fire rate, to be honest, although this happens all the time in smaller vessels like M6s.

[JungleJim]

i too wonder about this. I personaly use a pheonix with PPC loudout. But i wonder should i use Bppcs or Ghepts on the turrets that can not mount GPPCs? An example is the pheonix back turret. It can only hold alpha PPCs but Gamma HEPTS. the range on the PPCs are longer but the damage is far lower than the hepts. Speed of the PPC bullets are faster too. Wich really matters for this turret placement in your opinion?

I never use HEPTs on my cap ships.

The whole point of the cap ships is to bring as many turrets to bear on your target as possible. You can only bring multiple turrets to bear on a target only if you use PPC (PSG & ION are still viable) since the HEPT shot range is <1/2 of the length of your vessel.

If you do place HEPT in your turrets, you force yourself to engage enemy ships at a range of <1.5Km, in a cap ship this could result in your ramming the other ship.

Honestly, the weapons & ship maneuver could be a lot better with a bit of tweaking. I'd like them to use the FreeSpace games as a good guide, since I really like the "feel" that those gave. For instance you never had an enemy ship perform a 180 and ram you from the front like many X2 fighters, TSs, and even the K do!