[TC] M6 Skiron - Review & Tactics

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Post Reply
XanII
Posts: 2403
Joined: Thu, 29. Dec 05, 15:07
x4

[TC] M6 Skiron - Review & Tactics

Post by XanII » Thu, 10. Nov 11, 09:00

What's this: a review on M6 Skiron from a personal point of view.

Who should read it: New players who have found this game late and are looking for good reasons to buy a M6 or it's heavier M6+.
Experienced X-gamers: go ahead and point out if you find something that is not true. :)

This is the next part in the series. Previous one: M6 Truelight Seeker:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=


Authors note: Noticed that new users that arrive late to the TC scene
are still looking for info on M6 ships so i decided to release some of
my reviews which i never quite polished up for release. So here's one:
M6 Skiron. Enjoy!


Introduction

Lets define something right of the bat here: This ship cannot be reviewed entirely on it's own merits such as the Truelight Seeker which is a unique ship. This ship has evolved from Argon way of thinking and it's therefore not alone in that department.

Good candidates to compare to? Why yes thats easy: M6 Centaur and M6+ Heavy Centaur are the most obvious ones to compare to.
Theese ships all share the same ideology that all-rounding all of their corners and not worrying too much about specialities will bring forth the best results in active duty and to some extent this seems to work quite well since all of the before mentioned ships have seen quite a lot of action in the TC universe.

Skiron shares some basic form factors from the Centaurs: It is longer than Argon Centaur but not that wide as the Heavy Centaur. In combat it's long and slender form allows it to easily strafe away from fire coming in from the front and the rear which makes it a good head-on attacker and hit-hard-and-run-away ship. It has some aerials portruding from the hull but theese are too short to have any kind of significance. It's long hull makes it more vulnerable to close quarters fighting as it's not fast enough to strafe away from fire coming in from close range and the shots hit it's rear hull area when the player rotates the ship around and attempts to strafe away from enemyfire. It is however not hopeless in this department like the old Teladi Osprey is in the rough TC universe. Sleek form combined with good top speed helps to survive fight somewhat and by aggressive strafing it can evade shots pretty decently but i personaly find it lacking in this compared to the old basic Centaur. It's 1GJ shielding is probably designed to counter this 'staying power' problem in fights. Centaur has 600mj and Heavy Centaur 800mj shielding so it's by no means weak in comparison. In fact the oldest Centaur tends to melt away fastest if not piloted by a competent human pilot. Do note that Skiron has the weakest hull of theese ships so whatever tactics you have it better be executed with the shielding in mind. Once hull gets damaged you better think fast as this otherwise impressive ship gets eaten up quickly after that. Even the old Centaur design can take more hull punishment than the Skiron.

Skiron is protected by three turrets. two on the sides facing up on the ship hull and one in the rear placed on the top of the ship thrusters. Turrets can be equiped with pretty standard weapons that Argon prefer including the Mass Driver. Plasta Burst Generator is the only weapon i would classify here as 'special'. The rest of the options are the basic PAC,PRG,HEPT guns.

While testing the turrets in combat i noticed that the turrets are some of the best ones on a M6 ship. Reason to that is that the turrets are not restricted the way they should be according to ship model. For instance all of the turrets are able to 'look into the ship' and shoot through. for example the rear turret can look down through the thrusters and fire down at a target a human eye cant really see anymore without help from a red targeting box provided by the ships targeting computer. Now on earlier ships that i reviewed there has always been some dead areas for turrets in M6 ships, some important to know, others so small and insignificant that it really didnt matter much in combat. For the M6 Skiron it's the latter this time: Turrets are able to cover excelently the entire half of the ships back. Only if enemies would somehow attack precisely from above or below would they not be able to fire a single shot but this is so narrow it doesnt matter at all. The only thing worth mentioning when it comes to turret blind spots is that it's possible for a missile or torpedo to sneak up on the player if fired at the ship from the front/below. It did happen to me once that i ignored a torpedo that i expected either left or right turret to shoot down but it came in from a low angle from the front and neither was able to pick it up apparently since it got very close before i noticed something was wrong and fired it down myself.

Skiron has a pretty decent cargobay. 975 units to be precise. Heavy Centaur has 975 too but the old Centaur has 1250. This poses a bit of problem if you intend to load a lot of e-cells, missiles and ammo boxes for your weapons. You may need to choose which ones to drop.

Skiron seems to be quite popular among people who want to have a good M6 ship to fly around and are not particulary fond of the Vidar ship that usualy is the work-horse for many as it's free. Skiron is also one of the better ones to have as AI patrols flying either as a wingman for the player or patrolling a sector for pirates. it's 1GJ shielding coupled with heavy weapons and good interception speed make it one of the safer bets for a M6. It's price at 14.3 million is not that bad either for such a solid multipurpose ship.


Equiping the ship for active duty

Tested the ship turrets with a variety of weapon types which didnt take long as this ship doesnt support any 'real' speciality weapons except the lovely Plasma Burst Generator. In this case the PBG is anything but good for turret use and reason is the ship max-speed which is 149. PBG needs a little close-up and personal time to land enough hits so with the Skiron you easily just fly around at max speed and strafe around and wont notice you are out of range most of the time. In my opinion one can hit better with PBG on Heavy Osprey turrets than on this ship as Osprey is slower and lingers around more on the spot.

Old classics such as PAC guns on all turrets was a good choice. Didnt kill much but warded of enemies and created the desired 'keep of my back' zone near the ship. PRG is good but wastes energy so dont be fooled by the relatively big weapon energy generator, you will need a lot of juice for your forward weapon batteries so i recomend using some ammo based weapons on the turrets too. Here are some good setups that worked well:

Config 1:
Side turrets - PAC
Back turret - EBC

Load atleast 10x20 crates (2000 rounds) for normal flying around and double that to 4000 if you go on missions. EBC will fire constantly as it's range is long.

Config 2:
Side turrets - PRG
Back turret - EBC or PAC, Or maybe even IRE if set to Missile defense. I used this very rarely except when i know that i am going to be whacked by a lot of missiles and mosquitoes dont fit the cargo bay.

Main weapon banks: Note that i try to avoid energy hogging weapons in all turrets because i want maximum firepower for the front when needed. 14500mj laser energy generator is not bad but it cant power both main weapons and turrets all for long and it's really nasty to be out of juice in a big nasty space furball. One of my favorite weapon configurations in the main banks is to use heaviest possible weapons. Currently thats 8xCIG. Which means i dont really fire them that much except when i am close enough to discharge them all and hit for massive damage up close. I do have a little variation to the CIGs as i have configured them so that firing mode 1 fires them all, mode 2 fires some of them (good for taking out near-dead targets or TS ships in a furball without wasting energy in space) and firing mode 3 fires just one CIG gun which i use to snipe/annoy a target far away. Mode 4 is the 'safety ON' mode i.e. all weapons disabled. (I have a kid who likes to push ctrl key on the keyboard :roll: ) Against transports and fighters this is an ideal sniping weapon as it sends them spinning around gaining you more time to act in case there is chance a counter attack is coming. Going all PBG is something you can try but this is not efficient unless you learn to drop your speed from 149 to something slower. Rememeber: PBG needs time to put in the shots and the range is short. I personaly dont use PBG on this ship as i dont want to manualy toggle the speed that much just to land some PBG slamdowns from the front weapons/combined with turret fire.

On the missile department the Skiron doesnt have any weaknesses or strengths. Just load up some wasps for anti M5 use, silkworms, thunderbolts and tempests for heavier fighters if needed and typhoons for everything else/distraction if you get into trouble.


Verdict

Get one. it doesnt really matter in which stage of the game you are. This ship is quite usefull in all stages of the game. Early on it gives you good abilities to reach the more tumultuous places in the X-universe, mid-game it works good as a support ship/alternate ship for missions and late-game it's a solid patrol ship. re-engineering it at a HQ and having it crank out more Skirons for patrol duties is also not a bad idea.
X3:TC Heavy M6 guide : : : Let's pretend you are an addict, lets pretend that you are a X-games player... but i am repeating myself here.

Capt_Newbie
Posts: 668
Joined: Sun, 19. Aug 07, 03:09
x3tc

Post by Capt_Newbie » Fri, 11. Nov 11, 10:10

I use ut with IDs to strip shields and equipment for boarding. It takes a bit of a beating in the process, though, due to being quite slow.
"Once you figure out what a a joke everything is, being the Comedian's the only thing that makes sense."

User avatar
Geek
Moderator (Français)
Moderator (Français)
Posts: 10820
Joined: Sat, 1. Oct 05, 23:12
x4

Post by Geek » Fri, 11. Nov 11, 10:41

Good review.
I would rather use HEPT than CIG in the main guns though. CIG drains energy way too fast on a M6. 8 HEPT can still kill at a good rate.

EDIT: spelling
Last edited by Geek on Fri, 11. Nov 11, 10:47, edited 1 time in total.
Right on commander !

XanII
Posts: 2403
Joined: Thu, 29. Dec 05, 15:07
x4

Post by XanII » Fri, 11. Nov 11, 10:44

Geek wrote:Good review.
I would rtaher use HEPT than CIG in the main guns though. CIG drains energy way too fast on a M6. 8 HEPT can still kill at a good rate.
Here the good weapon energy generator plays a role. It is good enough to make CIG usefull. Though one needs to have restrain on the trigger finger. Thats why i mostly only use some of the weapons and rarely fire all 8 at once unless sure about hitting with them all.
X3:TC Heavy M6 guide : : : Let's pretend you are an addict, lets pretend that you are a X-games player... but i am repeating myself here.

deca.death
Posts: 2939
Joined: Mon, 28. Feb 11, 19:50
x3tc

Post by deca.death » Fri, 11. Nov 11, 12:47

.

I flew one for a long time in my first playthrough. Well rounded ship with few drawback which you haven't mention. First it cannot mount EBC on spinal, unlike most of other M6es. Second it steers quite poorly, but heavy shielding and good turret coverage remedy this to certain point.

PRG are most useful in turrets, they are most precise and deliver steady damage to whole dome around you. High speed bullet is most appropriate for sideways moving targets, i.e. almost any turrets. I, like you, also love CIG, but having 8 of them is just overkill. Even 4 are somewhat stretched, I like being able to fire at will. To other 4 places PBG is best choice, due to high damage and low energy requirements. I had some very tough patrol missions with skiron, where khaak corvettes would come one after other, 3-4 in a row. With your setup you could kill one and that's it.

Triaxx2
Posts: 7229
Joined: Tue, 29. Dec 09, 02:15
x4

Post by Triaxx2 » Fri, 11. Nov 11, 17:32

Yeah, for most ships, Missiles are vital for knocking down Kha'ak vettes. Particularly when there's more than one of them hanging around.

That said, having the ability to separate them is vital, and so you'll need weapon balance.

I don't really like it because of the lack of ISR's, which are my favorite weapon to use on M6's. Sheer rate of fire does a lot of good.
A Pirate's Revenge Completed Now in PDF by _Zap_
APR Book 2: Best Served Cold Updated 8/5/2016

The Tale of Ea't s'Quid Completed

Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

AgamemnonArgon
Posts: 2758
Joined: Thu, 19. Nov 09, 22:12
x3tc

Post by AgamemnonArgon » Fri, 11. Nov 11, 17:49

Skiron is my M6 of choice, only other ship I like more is the Heavy Centaur as it looks great....
Two Skirons Escorting most things mean player advantage.
It's not really possible to have enough of this ship.
Handy for tugging around station with a tractor beam too.
Argon Patriot and Battlemaster
Peace - Through Superior Firepower

User avatar
TTD
Posts: 11165
Joined: Sun, 6. Jul 08, 10:29
x4

Post by TTD » Sun, 13. Nov 11, 10:18

I use the Skiron when I can't get a Hyperion.

It is very useful for towing 'roids etc too.

Nice shape.
nice workhorse.

keeps me out of trouble.

Coupaholic
Posts: 261
Joined: Mon, 18. Jul 11, 20:04
x3tc

Post by Coupaholic » Sun, 13. Nov 11, 13:59

The review convinced me to buy it, and I decided to go with 8 CIG in the main too - set in 2, 4 and 8 gun configurations so I can deal with whatever comes after me.

The turn rate is a bit slow but honestly I quite like it, In the heat of a fight I tend to overcompensate through the turnings so the slower rate works in my favour. Strafe and roll keys certainly get a workout though.

And it could just be me, but I think every corvette should handle like this - I mean it is a corvette after all, it's not meant to twist and turn like a fighter.

User avatar
StarSword
Posts: 2963
Joined: Fri, 31. Dec 10, 02:04
x3tc

Post by StarSword » Sun, 13. Nov 11, 17:39

I've got a Skiron guarding one of my complexes. It's very good at clearing away the odd pirate fighter group.
TC unless otherwise specified. | Find me on Steam! | My X3TC Links | X and X Rebirth @ TVTropes

Joe McCracken
Posts: 397
Joined: Sat, 22. Aug 09, 18:55
x3tc

Post by Joe McCracken » Sun, 13. Nov 11, 17:41

it could just be me, but I think every corvette should handle like this - I mean it is a corvette after all, it's not meant to twist and turn like a fighter.
I agree. I use it the most of any M6. It is a solid ship.
I'd like to shoot you in the butt with a EBC gun, hide in the asteroids and laugh at what I done, put a blood blister upon each bun, I'd like to shoot you in the butt with a EBC gun.
Some people are like slinkies, not worth a whole lot, but they bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

Post Reply

Return to “X Trilogy Universe”