Escort Ship

[argyle]

I've been experimenting with different ships to find the "ultimate" escort ship. There's no one point in particular that I'm interested in, but rather the overall performance.

Light Fighter:
My first attempt: the idea was a ship that's virtually impossible to shoot down while flown evasively, and still enough of a danger that it can't be ignored while the pirate focuses on the trader. In the end, this fell on one point - lack of firepower. I simply couldn't make it dangerous enough. Now, my computer is a piece of crap, with low fps, and this may be why it's not effective enough - maybe I simply can't hit enough.

Gunship:
So I tried super-heavy... Another approach - stay in formation with the trader, and use a ship with superior firepower to the rear. Of course, this fell through big time: As the trader activates the cruise engines, so do you, and your guns go offline. If the trader thrusts - you do NOT... leaving your ship hopelessly behind, with insufficient speed to catch up. To top it off, you now have to somehow hit a small fighter spinning around a trader - hitting the fighter and NOT the trader... Only way I could see this being feasible is some kind of missile boat. Anyway. Bad idea. This really doesn't work, other than as a scare tactic.

So, now I'm thinking and in need of advice:
I think what I'm after in the end is something small, agile, with overwhelming firepower. Hehe... easier said than done, right? Looking over the wiki over and over, I'm having trouble deciding on what to do next. A cruise disruptor isn't really that useful, except to kick a player from engine-off into engine-on mode. A better option might be a mini-razor. More oomph.

Now, a light fighter makes the mini-razor a non-option, as they don't have torpedo mounts.

A VHF certainly has survivability, but I'm not sure it's really agile enough to be a real pest to deal with. Besides... there's something about VHFs that just rubs me the wrong way. Too big. Too obvious. Boring.

I've considered a standard heavy, something like the Civilian Marauder. There's room for a mini-razor, and the 7 (!) hardpoints make plenty of room for both pulse weapons and things that rip off armor. Being a heavy, it's hopefully small enough and agile enough to be a royal pain to take out. Still, I worry that it's unable to deal with pirate gunboats. Then again, what can you really do? A bomber only makes a good escort if all the enemies fly gunboats, and they just don't...

Anyway, before I set up my next experimental characters:

What's your experience? What, in your opinion, makes the ultimate escort?

Argyle

[Drake]

Nothing really works well as an escort. A pirate bomber will still likely be able to destroy the transport before the escort can destroy him.

[BaconSoda]

A bomber generally is a good escort. In this game, the bomber is really omni-potent. I would suggest the Havok II or the Roc Civilian Bomber if you'd like to be neutral.

If you'd like to defend vs Fighters and Bombers, though, a HF or agile VHF would work. Eagle, Wasupu, Kingfisher are all good choices.

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[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.

[Corsair]

Kingfisher, not so much. Go with an Eagle if you want a good neutral VHF.

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[BaconSoda]

Kingfisher, not so much. Go with an Eagle if you want a good neutral VHF.

Why not the Kingfisher? There is nothing wrong with it. It may be a little less powerful than the Eagle, but it certainly is a good Heavy Fighter. Just enough maneuverability to match easily with Bombers and more firepower than LFs to actually take a bomber down.

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[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.

[argyle]

Mmm. This is sort of the answer I was worried I'd get, simply because it's true: bigger is better. what do you all think is the "cause" of this? The game mechanics? The balancing? VHFs being too small and agile to make an even smaller and more agile ship competitive relative to the huge drop in firepower?

I've always liked the idea of light fighters having a real, defined role, as the space superiority fighters: the scourge of bombers and VHFs. But it feel like the light fighters are mostly just... light. I've encountered the occasional player that can fly a VHF so experty evasively, that they are harder to hit than your average liberator.

Oh well, just thinking...

[Boss]

Bombers and gunships need defined roles, as it is, they're uber and lame respectively. See my balance thread.

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Just go play the game and have fun dammit.

all in all the conclusion is that disco doesn't need antagonist factions, it doesn't need phantoms, it doesn't need nomads, it doesn't need coalition and it doesn't need many other things, no AIs, the game is hijacked by morons to confuse the game with their dickwaving generic competition games mixed up with troll-of-the-day.

[BaconSoda]

Well, flying Light Fighters takes two things:

1. Practice
2. Time (to actually kill things)

Light Fighters are space superiority fighters. They can kill VHFs and Bombers with ease if flown right. I, personally, enjoy hunting smaller transports in mine. It just takes a lot of practice and a lot of time to whittle things down.

The way the balancing is, though, is around the omni-potent bomber, instead of the way it was in vanilla (around fighters). As such, fighters have a much harder time killing large things than bombers, even though bombers didn't exist in vanilla. In vanilla, putting a Starkiller or a Sunslayer on your ship made you a bomber. In Disco, not so much. Because of this new balance, fighters have lost a lot of their role, but steps are being made to rectify the situation and give fighters their sovereign place as the mainstay of a fleet.

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[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.

[mjolnir]

Primary goal of an escort ship is to make sure the trader escapes, not to kill the attacker.

Light fighter can do exactly that. Against a bomber use 2 shieldbusters and keep firing them on hull once his shield is down, it will drain his energy so that he can fire SN only at some 1/4 of the rate before, maybe even not at all. This is enough for the trader shield to stay up and if the trader tries to cruise often enough it will get to cruise eventually.. and you "win".
After that the bomber is hopeless in trying to kill you, so you just leave as well.

Heavy fighter might a be a compromise if you wish to hurt the bomber a bit more.

None of these ships work against GBs though.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[Elsdragon]

You arent supposed to win.

a LF spammming 4 debs wil keep his Powercore down enough that you can slowly thrust to saftey.

or, just hire starfliers to go ahaed of you, if they encouter a pirate, you go around, or they chat them up until the lane comes back, then TL right thru the lane before they realize they have been Cheated outr of a kill by a Starflea

EDIT: dont use the marauder. 2 class7, 2 class 8, 2 class 9's, and one backfireing turret

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No longer a slave to the man!