[Guide] Capital Ships, Equipping and General info

[Augustini]

The following is the Tutorial i finished working on earlier. To view the Tutorial the way it was intended, you will need to view it at X Development Center

Introduction

So, you finally got the reputation and credits needed to buy your first capital ship and you're probaly wondering about one or several of these questions:

- What is the best capital ship?
- Should i buy an M1 or M2?
- What race should i buy from?
- What weapons should i install, what is the "best" loadout?
- How do i handle combat in my M1/M2 ?

This guide will answer all of your questions, and many more as best as my experience allows it!

The very first thing to consider when buying a Capital ship is: Do i want to get up close and personal with the enemy or do you want to fight safely from a distance?

M2's have more turret mounts and can therefore equip more weapons, usually twice as many weapons as their M1 counterpart. They also have a substantially larger Lasergenerator to power the weapons. The M2 can also equip more shields than the M1.

M1's have the distinct ability to load up massive amounts of fightercraft. They are enourmous flying hangars. As the M1 has less turrets, weapons, lasergenerator and shields than the M2, the M1 relies on it's fighter support to protect the ship and to attack the enemy.

In a head to head battle between an M1 and an M2, the M1 will loose most of time since it is not designed for heavy capital battle. Whereas this is the speciality of the M2.

Keep in mind that in order for the M1 to be really usefull, you will need to be able to fill it up with fighters. This can cost from around 3-5 million to more than 260 million credits so choose wisely before placing your hard earned credits in one of these behemoths.

Differences between the races

Each race has it's advantages and disadvantages. But the difference between most of them is not large. The Capital ships are fairly balanced against each other. There is however one ship that stands out in this equasion and that is the Paranid. Their Capital ships are the only ones able to mount the Gamma Phased Shockwave Generator (GPSG).

The GSPG is a truly devasting weapon but think it through before buying and equipping the ship with this as it is an area-effect weapon. Everything caught up in the blast radius will take damage and eventually be destroyed. Exellent for venturing in Khaak, Xenon or Pirate sectors but not very good when engaging an enemy in a race sector. You will probaly end up destroying passers by and your reputation will drop like an apple falling from a tree!!

The Split Capital ships are the fastest, they can mount the most powerfull weapons in all turrets, but they are also the least shielded and the ships with the least turrets available. They do however make exellent ships in combat because of their size. They are the smallest Capital ships and can dodge incomming fire easier than it's rivals.

The Teladi M2 is The most heavily shielded ship in the X Universe. It carries a single 10 Gj shield. The recharge rate of the shield is far superior to any of the other Capital ships. It is, however, also the slowest and largest M2 available. Being so big means being an easy target to hit. If you fancy protection above speed, then the Teladi are the race of choice.

The Argon Capital ships lie in between the other races and excell at nothing! Harsh said but true. This is not a bad thing, on the contrary it is an excellent thing! It means that the Argon Capital ships are heavily shielded, heavyly equipable and have a fairly good speed. The Argon Capital ships would be my recommendation for the first purchase.

The Boron Capital ships look very nice and they have the possibilty of being very powerfull... Sadly there is currently a Turret bug and untill this is corrected i advise against buying these ships as a personal ships as some of the turrets will simply not fire when in-sector!

Equipping your Capital ship

Lets' begin with equipping an M2

Think about what role you want your M2 to fill out ie Capship killer, fighter killer, all-round.

To make a good loadout for being a Capship killer, you will need nothing more than simply equip the most powerfull weapons available ie BPPC and GPPC in every turret. This is also the optimal loadout for an oos patrol ship, but for a personal M2, this idea is not so good.

To make a good loadout for a fighter killer, you would place AFLAK and BFLAK in all turrets (where applicable, BPAC in remaining turrets) This will ensure you total and complete victory against any and all incoming army of fighters. It is allmost safe to say that against fighters... you will not die !! There is a downside to this loadout and that is the ineffectivity against other Capital ships. Although possible to beat a Xenon K with this loadout, you would need very good experience in avoiding incoming fire, get really really close and also possess a good portion of luck! (most of the time, as said it is possible...)

The balanced all-round loadout is the tricky one, how does one equip the brand new M2 with weapons that are effective at both taking out fighters and Capital ships alike? Well, my preffered setup is this:

Front Turret: Most powerfull ie B or GPPC
Up Turret: Most powerfull ie B or GPPC
Left: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Right: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Down: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Back: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)

To fully use this loadout, you will also need to have different turret commands:

Front & Up turrets: Attack my target
Remaining turrets: Attack all / Missile protection (dependent on situation)

That was the M2, now we'll take a look at a good loadout for an M1:

The M1 relies on it's fighters to do it's fighting (as earlier stated) But you still need to think about the role your M1 will fullfill. Same thoughts as above.

The thing to note about the M1 versus the M2 is that the M1 has a much higher topspeed than the M2, this means that it is often able to outrun it's Capital ship opponent. So a good place to mount the PPC's on the M1 would be the back turret. Bombard the enemy M2 while you run away. Effective tactic indeed. Still one needs to remember to get Anti fighter weapons ie FLAK's & PAC's

Please note that I am very much aware that there are other weapons available but these weapons are the ones that I have had the greatest success with. They are the ones that keep my Capital ships alive!

Capital ship combat

You should now possess a fully equipped M1/M2 so let's focus on how to do battle!

The thing to note is that it is neccessary to use a different angle than the one used when piloting any fighter. The main reason being that you have no main guns you can fire from the cockpit view, you are totally dependent on your turrets to do the shooting for you!

There's not really much to pay attention to when you're up against a group of fighters. You can plow right through and let your turrets blast away. The fighters will probaly make several attack runs at you but just ignore them. Consider them insects, unless you're being attack by 150+ fighters at a time i wouldn't worry about them!

Combat against other Capital ships, now this is where it gets interesting! The main thing to keep in mind here is to have the enemy ship targeted (remember you've put 1 or 2 turrets on "attack my target" command) A good knowledge of how to strafe up/down, left/right and make rolls is needed in successfully taking down the enemy.

My favourite approach is this:

- Steer directly towards the enemy
- Roll and position your ship so you will pass below the enemy, this is because there are useally less turrets in the downward facing turrets!. If the enemy is equipped with PPC, they useally are!, you will need to strafe up and down in order to avoid incomming fire. Also steering up and down will work wonders!
- When you have the enemy ontop of you, begin climbing and rolling slightly either left or right, whichever side you're more comfortable with!
- Keep turning and climbing around the enemy, this in it self will results in you avoiding the main portion of incomming fire.
- Keep circling the enemy untill he is destroyed.
- Latter, rinse, repeat... go get the next one!

If this tactic is used correctly, you're able to take out a Xenon sector alone in any M2 without ever getting your shields below 20%

A word of advise though: If your shield levels drop below 20% and you're swarmed with enemies, jump to the nearest sector or a sector with either an Equipment Dock, or ShipYard.

Recharging from combat

When you have just either won or fled from a massive battle, your ships shields will probaly have taken a beating. The really annoying part now is that the shields don't recharge from 1 instance to the next.

1 Gj shields take a very, very long time to recharge. Having more of them doesn't exactly speed thing up! They can take up to several hours to be fully recharged while the ship is either flying through space or sitting still.

There is a trick to recharging the shields however. Make sure you have a secondary ship you can beam or transfer into and then order your Capital ship to dock at any Equipment Dock or ShipYard. When it's docked, simply dock at the station too and switch ships. The shields will now be instantly recharged to 100%

The 10 Gj shields behave a little differently. They recharge at more than 10 x the speed of the 1 Gj shield. There is however only 1 ship in the unmodded game able to carry this shield! You will probaly never have to do the shield recharge trick with a 10 Gj shield as it recharges extremely fast.

Before seeking another battle, make sure that you have eneugh Energy Cells to jump back to safety if needed. A quick jump can be a real life saver.

-------------------------------------------------

Hope you liked it Any feedback is welcome

The following is the replys to the original thread:

As the M1 has less turrets, weapons, lasergenerator and shields than the M2, the M1 relies on it's fighter support to protect the ship and to attack the enemy.

Partially true though I find the Split Raptor more than capable to defend it self as it can outrun just about any cap ship out there and packs enough FAA's to get rip of those pesky fighters.

In a head to head battle between an M1 and an M2, the M1 will loose most of time since it is not designed for heavy capital battle. Whereas this is the speciality of the M2.

in head to head fight I win, regardless which of the 2 I'm flying and whatever the enemy has, Raptor can mount GPPC and given 8 GPPC (4 front and 4 right) it is more than capable to give hell to enemies. (in players hands)

Not to mention that I'm now testing the full extend of missile fighting as my complex produced enough missiles to make first tests and boy were those J's screwed with couple dosen typhoons (that split into 100+ warheads)

Poll added!

That oughta give you guys the opportunity to totally trash my work!

Seriosly, i want straight answers!

This is version 1 of the Tutorial, so changes are bound to be made!

So i've noted that i need to correct the part about M1 vs M2 when M1 player controlled!

Its nice, good work, nothing I personally didn't know already, but will be good for people who are less 'combat orientated', and newer to the game. Go through it again for spelling mistakes...(There aren't many to be fair, but I can't be arsed to point them out to you)...

Well done, no reason why this shouldn't go on the guides thread, IMHO...be nice if a mod deleted all the spam that had occurred prior to him posting it properly too...

A word of advise though: If your shield levels drop below 20% and you're swarmed with enemies, jump to the nearest sector or a sector with either an Equipment Dock, or ShipYard.

Recharging from combat

When you have just either won or fled from a massive battle, your ships shields will probaly have taken a beating. The really annoying part now is that the shields don't recharge from 1 instance to the next.

1 Gj shields take a very, very long time to recharge. Having more of them doesn't exactly speed thing up! They can take up to several hours to be fully recharged while the ship is either flying through space or sitting still.



There is a trick to recharging the shields however. Make sure you have a secondary ship you can beam or transfer into and then order your Capital ship to dock at any Equipment Dock or ShipYard. When it's docked, simply dock at the station too and switch ships. The shields will now be instantly recharged to 100%

The 10 Gj shields behave a little differently. They recharge at more than 10 x the speed of the 1 Gj shield. There is however only 1 ship in the unmodded game able to carry this shield! You will probaly never have to do the shield recharge trick with a 10 Gj shield as it recharges extremely fast.

Before seeking another battle, make sure that you have eneugh Energy Cells to jump back to safety if needed. A quick jump can be a real life saver.

liked the advice but there are some other methods of recharge shields that are much faster.
to recharge all shields to max from nothing takes about 1 min on my oddy. i dont have a jump drive as i never use it so i can't jump in and out and any way that takes credits and time.
BTW i have never fled from a battle and have never lost one.

the shields don't recharge from 1 instance to the next.

just tried it out it take 42secs

Front Turret: Most powerfull ie B or GPPC
Up Turret: Most powerfull ie B or GPPC
Left: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Right: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Down: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)
Back: FLAK (if available, BPAC as replacement)

Never needed more than front turrets with GPPC, although against khaak I would want more firepower against them to keep shields in condition.

To fully use this loadout, you will also need to have different turret commands:

Front & Up turrets: Attack my target
Remaining turrets: Attack all / Missile protection (dependent on situation)

Bonuspack changed that, as mosquito defence if far better to use than turrets on missile defence.

There's not really much to pay attention to when you're up against a group of fighters. You can plow right through and let your turrets blast away. The fighters will probaly make several attack runs at you but just ignore them. Consider them insects, unless you're being attack by 150+ fighters at a time i wouldn't worry about them!

That's actually totally incorrect, Capital ships are target practise, fighters a problem as they don't willingly come withing FAA range to be obliterated. Not to mention they have a nasty habit of cathering on the rear....

Combat against other Capital ships, now this is where it gets interesting! The main thing to keep in mind here is to have the enemy ship targeted (remember you've put 1 or 2 turrets on "attack my target" command) A good knowledge of how to strafe up/down, left/right and make rolls is needed in successfully taking down the enemy.

My favourite approach is this:

- Steer directly towards the enemy
- Roll and position your ship so you will pass below the enemy, this is because there are useally less turrets in the downward facing turrets!. If the enemy is equipped with PPC, they useally are!, you will need to strafe up and down in order to avoid incomming fire. Also steering up and down will work wonders!
- When you have the enemy ontop of you, begin climbing and rolling slightly either left or right, whichever side you're more comfortable with!
- Keep turning and climbing around the enemy, this in it self will results in you avoiding the main portion of incomming fire.
- Keep circling the enemy untill he is destroyed.
- Latter, rinse, repeat... go get the next one!

If this tactic is used correctly, you're able to take out a Xenon sector alone in any M2 without ever getting your shields below 20%

ehh, I need exactly one pass against any non khaak capital ship, if I'm going to overshoot (which is rare)I make full stop or even reverse. usually keeping nose towards target while strafing in very big circle (just wait with strafing before the incoming PPC fire is bit closer).

Also worth noticing is the position of other enemy capital ships as you may want to start turning towards next one even before current one is down (dodging ppc fire from one enemy is easy, dodging fire from half a dosen all around is near impossible)

Anti fighter operation requires makeing full stops, reversing, strafing, turning (or just missiles).

ehh, I need exactly one pass against any non khaak capital ship, if I'm going to overshoot (which is rare)I make full stop or even reverse. usually keeping nose towards target while strafing in very big circle (just wait with strafing before the incoming PPC fire is bit closer).

All true. Additional hint: do not strafe continuously. Your turret crew seems much better at hitting, when you keep strafing to the minimum. Wait until the last possible moment, then strafe a short burst, just enough to dodge the stream and then wait the adjusted stream to get close.


@geoffrey: 42 secs in Oddy? Now I am baffled.

@geoffrey: 42 secs in Oddy? Now I am baffled.

just tried again it can be done in under 30 secs
just another exploit i am afraid just like the decoplex scanner, which allows me to see all ships and stations in any sector at once, so there is no hiding place for bonus ships, capped ships or hidden equipment.

@jlehtone
Never noticed any incompetence on my PPC's tracking cabability, only times when my fire misses is if the target is on limits of the PPC range and turning+accelerating to face me.

Though your not incorrect either, it is more accurate if you don't strafe...

@geoffrey:
Let me quess, you jump to a sector where you have EQ dock next to a gate and do a swap on the station after docking with docking computer?


I tend to leave my ship in Thyn's Abyss north gate to recharge shields (after a sector wipe that is, while I hop on Raptor to collect leftovers from the clensed sector)

Never needed and never will use a exploit to speed that up (but that's just me, I play fair even if AI and others don't)

Thank you for all the feedback so far When i have the time i will make the suggested adjustments.

Especially the part about the missile defence mosquito, i haven't really played with the bonuspack yet so i didn't really know that, so that's extremely usefull to get added !

@geoffrey:
Let me quess, you jump to a sector where you have EQ dock next to a gate and do a swap on the station after docking with docking computer?

try doing that & be back fighting in under 30sec
NO chance.
if you read my post a little better you would realize that i do not have a jumpdrive and the only station i own is the poxy 1 given to me during the game.
is it my fault that the game allows me to do it?
this is no more an exploit than docking at an e.d. to recharge just less hassle.
i have only 1 fighting capship which i use for capping k's.
that & my percy is all that i require.

Oddy and Percy. Quite a puzzle. It may be better if you do not reveal the exploit quite yet. Likewise, the scanner I have not heard of before.


The Tur.M.Def is not very effective on capital ship. It is not trivial to get the missile into turrets firing arc. And the turret will not shoot first at ships. I do ignore missiles most of the time. They do not tend to be a threat. Naturally, many small things do accumulate. That is why the fighters are a threat too.

That's it so far, please everybody give their advise so this can be the most comprehensive capship guide available

[Rischel]

Good guide, nice job. There are a few inconsistensies which have already been pointed out such as the M1 vs M2 part. Other than that, nice job should be valuable for newbies!

[jlehtone]

Can you say more about why to have a capital ship, and what to do with it?

It should be clear that every ship may be used in three ways:
1. Personal ship.
2. OOS (patrol).
3. Part of in sector fleet.
But not all ships suite to all roles.

Naturally, the first Capital is a "big thing". There has been a big effort to gain credits, reputation, and equipment for it. The 4-5 first Capitals of mine, I personally jumped into Xenon/Khaak sector directly from the shipyard. But that does not necessarily pay back the invested money. However, flying the ship personally tends to keep it alive, and can be rewarding in many ways.

But how about out of sector (OOS) duty? These ships have the shields and the guns to fight threats OOS. Is that a good use for a 100 million ship? They are slow to catch fighters. But if you do not use them personally, isn't that the convenient place to store them in? "Idle ship makess no profitsss."

And then the "wingman" role. You have to trust on the auto-pilot on this one. That is a challenge one should not take lightly. But when you are ready and willing to pay a billion just for fun, this is the option.

[Augustini]

Can you say more about why to have a capital ship, and what to do with it?

It should be clear that every ship may be used in three ways:
1. Personal ship.
2. OOS (patrol).
3. Part of in sector fleet.
But not all ships suite to all roles.

You've got a good point there! Hereby noted

[BurnEternal77]

@ Augistini

Why have a capital ship? Firstly, it's a display of your financial prowress. Secondly, when fully loaded, it is quite formidable. I actually chose a completely different loadout using a mix of HEPTS PBE's and PPC's. I have seen my titan obliterate up to 6 fighters with no assistance and lose NONE of it's shields. The biggest purpose to have one of these things is the fact that they do have a large amount of shields. ( titan has 14.400 shield with 9 x 1Gj ) The laser capacity is incredible (Titan, again, has 304.000Mw's / 4,555 recharge ) So you can see, on paper, these ships look quite formidable. Also, another thing to note, is that some of these destroyers actually double as rediculously small station carriers ( Paranid Odysseus only carries 8,000 cargo, but it's ST class instead of XL ) The biggest reason for any one cap ship is as simple as any naval fleet mechanics. They are heavy gun support. They're heavily armed cause they're big and slow, but that heavy armament equals LOTS of pain. Consider it a piece of the bigger picture in battle mechanics. However, if you're a budding trader and already have some lasertower factories in a complex producing, then lasertowers are certainly a cheap alternative. Albeit quite a bit less mobile.

[Tha_reaper]

im loking for a setup for a capital ship which allows me to send it in a pirate sector, fly behind it in my M3, and let it fight all the enemies and making them bail. I know its possible because my M7 has also done it a couple of times, but i cant think of a good setup for a capital ship to do that without instantly destroying the enemy ships.

anyone any expeience with this?

[raceguysg]

wad abt paranid capships??

[ThommoHawk]

Good luck with your work. I only tend to use guids if I am really stuck.

Generally I prefer to find out from first hand experience - the old trial and error, regarding what ship, weapons etc seems best for me. I found flying them myself was the best way to appreciate any ship.

Latest case to point (not capital ships - just example): I have been using Split Elephants for quite sometime as OOS patrols and specialised weapons supply carriers. Recently I purchased a pair of Orcas to carry a huge stock of PPC's, and discovered they can mount alpha FFA's, so I am now trying them out with great success as OOS patrols (all have fighter escorts of course).

[pjknibbs]

This thread is more than six months old. Please do not resurrect ancient threads for no good reason.