X3TC M2 question

Skillzfire · Post by **Skillzfire** » Fri, 15. Jul 11, 17:09

Ok, so ive been looking on the wiki at some M2 battleships, and i want to know what your personal experience are
the ones i am interested in is the:
titan
Ray
boreas
pheonix
and the brigintine

What i meen by personal expirances is, for example turning rate speed and anti everything capability

heratik · Post by **heratik** » Fri, 15. Jul 11, 17:56

Personally I would not recommend any M2 as a player ship. I have a Brigantine, a Ray and a Titan.

Apart from using the Titan for the last FF mission I have never piloted any of them for more than 5 mins, it's just too dull, they move slowly, turn slowly, you don't have direct control of the guns...

All three of mine are guarding the gates to my base of operations (the US between Montelaar and New Income)

Edit - they are worth having to add to your fleets gross firepower, but as a player ship, there are many M7s that will be just as devastating and a heck lot more fun to pilot than any M2

Master of the Blade · Post by **Master of the Blade** » Fri, 15. Jul 11, 18:14

Titan - middle of road, standard setup for an M2 (24 PPC guns spread across the L/F/R turrets, up/down flak etc.) Meh speed, average shields. Reliable and fairly manouverable, but boring.

Ray - fairly quick for a destroyer, it also has a cookie cutter turret layout at first glance, but its heavy firepower is very concentrated towards the front of the ship, making it very powerful. It's pretty huge, so it eats rather a lot of fire. Reasonable turning rate. Lots of cargo space for Gauss cannon ammo, missiles and jump fuel. I like it a lot.

Boreas - Very small, but heavily shielded and armed. Pretty fast and manouverable too. Capable of using capital weapons in all turrets. Ugly as sin. I dislike it, but most seem to find it best for their purposes.

Phoenix - Very, very slow and very very large, at 40m/s and over 4km long. Standard turret layout for the most part, but only flak compatible in front and rear. 10GJ shielding. Technically not vey good, but it does the job and is quite inexpensive for the class. Due to its size and exceptionally poor manouverability, it is very clumsy.

Brigantine - unusual. Weaker frontal anticapital array (4 instead of

, but stronger up/down antifighter arrays (8 each instead of 4). Its shielding is only 6GJ, the same as carriers and Paranid frigates, making it comparatively fragile. It's also not especially fast. If you want something like the Brigantine, it's probably better to get a Yaki Akuma, which is similar in layout but faster.

You don't want to be always flying around in a destroyer. Frigates make the best general-use ships, and you will only ever break out a destroyer when severely outgunned.

PLX · Post by **PLX** » Fri, 15. Jul 11, 19:15

M2 is f big and slow ship. But with lots of guns, in particular, anti-capital guns.
I've tried Boreas long ago when I found it difficult to do anti-khaak patrol missions when several M1s/M2s spawn. Thanks to Boreas enormous weapon generator and lots of PPC, those combats turned much easier.
Overally, Boreas has one of the best stats: 10 GJ shields, great compatibility with anti-capital weapons in all turrets, fast, small. I wold prefer it over most of the other M2s. Ir takes forever to fly somewhere, but as a bonus you can watch spinning radar on top of the Boeras while traveling

I've tried Oddy, it's shape is more specific (like a plate), it is slower, but can mount PSGs, great against fighters.

deca.death · Post by **deca.death** » Fri, 15. Jul 11, 21:48

Skillzfire wrote:Ok, so ive been looking on the wiki at some M2 battleships, and i want to know what your personal experience are
the ones i am interested in is the:

titan
Totally average which is good and bad thing. Looks great, reasonably lean hull, medium maneuverability, PPC 8/8/8 front-left-right, IBL 8 at back 4 flaks up down - mediocre anti fighter abilities.

Ray
Good cargo, good lateral turrets that can fire directly forward, quite unique among M2s. Ugly and extremely huge. Like 2-3x bigger hull then some smallish M2 representatives. If you transfer this to "will be hit 2-3 times more then some other ships" you are correct.

boreas
Strong shielding, PPCs at back, fast maneuverable and small. Statwise best CW destroyer. Ugly. Don't like it too much, I find that I can do with other destroyers same as I can do with him but more elegantly.

pheonix
Extremely huge, very slow, very slow turner. Flaks at back only. Looks actually quite mighty. Not as bad in combat as man would expect, still outperformed too often to be recommended.

brigintine
One of my favorites. Very thin and lean hull. Awesome looks. With some skill avoiding being hit is her primary advantage. Deadly vs fighters (IonD+FLAK+FAA combo), on paper looks not as good as in combat.

BarneyMcGrew · Post by **BarneyMcGrew** » Fri, 15. Jul 11, 22:02

You've missed two big ones here,

1 - The Terran Osaka, the second most powerful ship in the game and the best shields (12Gj). It looks good and can wipe out entire sectors on its own.

2 - Based on the fact you have said Brigantine I take it you are looking at Capping too in which case there is the most powerful ship in the game the ATF Tyr, is a good ship with good turn rate (for an M2) and 12PSP's each side plus the SSC in all the other Turrets excpet the front, however, it has a serious problem almost no cargo space left once you've fitted it out with guns and shields so you will need to have a something follow you around full of Energy, missiles and ammo.

garv222 · Post by **garv222** » Fri, 15. Jul 11, 22:18

One possible thing to consider is the ability to use cluster flak and ion disruptors which I've heard is good fun. I believe the brigantine and the titan can use that, and probably the boreas as well.

Also the Phoenix is pretty awesome to behold, but if I remember correctly it has a very poor shield generator, so it has trouble with drawn out battles. It may also be difficult to dodge with it considering it's size. One good thing I've heard about it is that the extra length of the ship gives it an advantage of firing earlier, while the AI of hostile ships are supposed to target the center of the ship. I think it has something to do with them only opening fire once the center is within range. I've heard the extra length gives about an extra km of engagement range.

SIMON POPPLEWELL · Post by **SIMON POPPLEWELL** » Fri, 15. Jul 11, 23:16

If it's for personnel usage then go with what you like the best as in the hands of the player any M2 is a real killing machine. If you want it for defence then go with the Boreas, with 32 PPCs it will keep your assets safe and prevent hostiles encroaching into friendly space.

ancienthighway · Post by **ancienthighway** » Sat, 16. Jul 11, 00:57

I don't have a problem with the way the Boreas looks. In fact I think it's one of the better looking ships in the game. But in any case, you shouldn't judge a ship by what its looks.

There's a lot of good things about the Terran M2s, but arming them isn't one. Buying 2 lasers per station when they are in stock is a real pain you don't get rid of until you can build your own Terran factories.

One of my biggest fears about flying into Teladi or Boron space is seeing the bottom side of an M1, M2, or TL 3km out from the gate. For some reason those ships seem to idle in front of gates more than any other ship. Long and wide, with a healthy dash of slow tossed in, they are a crash waiting to happen.

The only way to decide what ship to buy is to know what you want in a ship. Speed? Cargo space? Shields? Weapons strength and power? While you're at it decide what you don't want. Then its just a matter of making a short list and see what you like.

Test drive them. Save the game, buy a ship, put some guns on it, fly to Xenon space and fight with it. Then reload buy a different ship and do the same thing.

Skillzfire · Post by **Skillzfire** » Sat, 16. Jul 11, 03:34

Decided to go for the phoenix

it is a absolute monster got it loaded up with PPC and GC with ion shard rail guns from my old heavy dragon and ia few FAA for fighter defenses, it does nasty nasty things to destroyers, carriers and almost anything, is a tad bit slow though

Terry Duncan1 · Post by **Terry Duncan1** » Sat, 16. Jul 11, 04:52

Of the ships you mention the Boreas is best, with good everything including speed. Its main advantage over the other M2 I would say to use is it is easy to get weapons for.

The other is the Osaka, I have used one for ages and never suffered any problems and have also set up patrols of a couple near Xenon gates and never lost one yet in fights with multiple enemy capitals. Armine them can be a real pain though.

deca.death · Post by **deca.death** » Sat, 16. Jul 11, 07:43

ancienthighway wrote: There's a lot of good things about the Terran M2s, but arming them isn't one. Buying 2 lasers per station when they are in stock is a real pain you don't get rid of until you can build your own Terran factories.

Moon sector + weapon cloning.
Send ship to moon sector mil. base with 2 PSPs and 2 SSCs. Sell weapons to base. Buy 5 baldrics, improve their cargobay and start filling them with weapons (sell one back buy two, repeat as needed)

I had to procure large number of terran capital weapons because of my gate blockade business and large number of terran ATF M2 ships I had to steal. I bought at least 200 PSPs/SSCs in described way (which had cost me nearly 200 million, by the way ; )

vr01 · Post by **vr01** » Sat, 16. Jul 11, 08:10

Why not just buy a MMBS from the Moon shipyard for storage and then buy the Baldrics 10 at a time, transfer weapons to MMBS, sell Baldrics, rinse and repeat?

(Keep 1 Baldric the first time, fill it with the appropriate amount of weapons and send it to the Military Base so you can keep buying Baldrics 10 at a time whilst refilling the Military Base.)

deca.death · Post by **deca.death** » Sat, 16. Jul 11, 08:39

vr01 wrote: Why not just buy a MMBS from the Moon shipyard for storage and then buy the Baldrics 10 at a time, transfer weapons to MMBS, sell Baldrics, rinse and repeat?

I don't need MMBS, but when you done cloning you can do with your baldrics whatever you like, sell them back or just make them STs. Or buy MMBS if you want to but TL is expensive if you don't really need it.

vr01 wrote: (Keep 1 Baldric the first time, fill it with the appropriate amount of weapons and send it to the Military Base so you can keep buying Baldrics 10 at a time whilst refilling the Military Base.)

There is no really need for that 2+2 weapons is all you need. You will leave base full at the end of cloning session of course, you could buy 10+10+10 baldrics for as long as you like, though 10 baldrics filled with terran weapons can carry ALOT and do cost substantial amount of credits.

BarneyMcGrew · Post by **BarneyMcGrew** » Sat, 16. Jul 11, 09:21

I found it far easier to just manufacture my own capital class weapons. I make PSP, PPC, SSC and FAA and just sell what I don't use.

Hubert99 · Post by **Hubert99** » Mon, 18. Jul 11, 08:18

Skillzfire wrote:Decided to go for the phoenix it is a absolute monster got it loaded up with PPC and GC with ion shard rail guns from my old heavy dragon and ia few FAA for fighter defenses, it does nasty nasty things to destroyers, carriers and almost anything, is a tad bit slow though

I bought one to collect stuf in a certain Xenon sector, where many argon and boron convoys use to pass by.(HUB gate realignment's consequence, I did not make it on purpose, I swear) I chose it because the shields and the big cargo. But all CW M2's are monsters, weapons wise. I mean ... 24 PPC ? or Gauss Cannons ?

Downside: even 12 GJ shileds melt quickly under the constant fire from respawning Q's.

Hubert99 · Post by **Hubert99** » Mon, 18. Jul 11, 08:29

Ah, don't bother, they will quickly explain how slow that is, and how much better is to just clone them.

But an advice to manufactureres. I used Xadrian to build my terran weapon complex. It says that SSCs and PSP's have roughly the same build time (3 every hour form 5 factories) In reality, SSC's are built fast as twice. So insted of going 5 PSP and 5 SSC forges, it's better to go 7 and 3 if you want them made at the rate they are used up by equipping ships. Also I have 5 Poltergeist and 5 EMPC forges. The latter is a good number if you plan going carriers, otherwise a single one is enough, and 5 Poltergeists fabs are way overkill, unless you like to set very high missile fire rates for your fighters.

Hubert99 · Post by **Hubert99** » Mon, 18. Jul 11, 08:35

BarenyMcGrew wrote: I found it far easier to just manufacture my own capital class weapons. I make PSP, PPC, SSC and FAA and just sell what I don't use.

Ah, don't bother, they will quickly explain how slow that is, and how much better is to just clone them.

What is true, still.

But an advice to manufactureres. I used Xadrian to build my terran weapon complex. It says that SSCs and PSP's have roughly the same build time (3 every hour form 5 factories) In reality, SSC's are built fast as twice. So insted of going 5 PSP and 5 SSC forges, it's better to go 7 and 3 if you want them made at the rate they are used up by equipping ships. Also I have 5 Poltergeist and 5 EMPC forges. The latter is a good number if you plan going carriers, otherwise a single one is enough, and 5 Poltergeists fabs are way overkill, unless you like to set very high missile fire rates for your fighters.

BarneyMcGrew · Post by **BarneyMcGrew** » Mon, 18. Jul 11, 13:53

I actually have one of each factory operating, bit slow but once the initial run was complete it keeps up with my purchases / caps of M2's and M1's and M7's with very little wastage so its easy to store in my Aran or sell any excess.

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