Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: GepardenK on November 29, 2008, 07:15:00 am
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The Perseus is one of my favorite fighters, with its only real drawback being a small secondary storage.
I usually load it up with harpoons to snipe turrets and dogfight. Sometimes also equipping the Tempest when flying intercept against bombers and cruisers.
However on the primary side I’m a bit unsure, mostly with the weapons available during the first half of the retail campaign.
What’s the best combination between a twin subach and one subach plus the prometheus (especially when only the S version becomes available).
Also, is there any benefit in firing only one of the primary banks?, the slight boost in firerate doesn’t seem to be enough.
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yes there is a benefit. Say you're in a herc mk1, with one primary bank with 4 guns, the other with 2. If you use them both, you double the time inbetween firing, but only get 1.5x more damage.
I'm playing with a hacked prommy R (level 7 hull damage, standard shield damage, slightly faster refire time. Makes it a decent weapon against capships (better than subach) so i can't really vouche for the retail one.
And yeah, i tend to go harpoons and tempests, harpoons for dueling maras and such, and then i whip out my tempests to deal with herc mk1s, bombers, cruisers, etc. I just hate the tempest's range though, only about 600m. SO you have to expose yourself to a lot of fire to make it a viable anti-cruiser weapon.
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In the Perseus, I usually use twin Subachs until the Prometheus S is available. And the Morning Star is excellent for intercepting bombs (long range, high firing rate, low hull damage) and it's pretty useful in Battle of the Wilderness.
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I have to admit that the Morningstar as a bomb interceptor actually has a lot to recommend it, especially the low hull damage, since friendly ships tend to end up accidentally backstopping your fire when you try to shoot down the bombs...
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Actually for these setups, it's 50% more time between shots with full damage, meaning that linking two Subachs together will give you 50% more damage then alone.
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really?
i knew there had to be SOME advantage to it.
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In a 2-2 setup, twin subachs has an advantage.
In a 2-4 setup, firing all six is the same as firing the quad bank - if you're very accurate and like sniping, then link them. Otherwise, just use the quad bank and save the dual for morningstars or maxims.
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One advantage of using twin Subachs is that the energy drain is so low when linked that you can shunt energy to shields and engines and you'll still never drain the weapon energy.
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you know, the one thing i hate about the perseus, it can't carry maxims. That means that it tends to have trouble making strikes against turrets, subsystems, and other hardpoints. Maxims are the only wiable option, seeing as it can only carry 10 trebs.
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That's why I use the Erinyes when flying the Blue Lion missions, especially the last one.
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you know, the one thing i hate about the perseus, it can't carry maxims. That means that it tends to have trouble making strikes against turrets, subsystems, and other hardpoints. Maxims are the only wiable option, seeing as it can only carry 10 trebs.
You're kidding, right? The Perseus can carry Stiletto missiles. You can fly an amazing surgical strike, dogfight and bomb intercept combo in The Sixth Wonder that way.
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you know, the one thing i hate about the perseus, it can't carry maxims. That means that it tends to have trouble making strikes against turrets, subsystems, and other hardpoints. Maxims are the only wiable option, seeing as it can only carry 10 trebs.
This has never annoyed me, I just use secondarys for capship strikes instead. Harpoons are good for sniping beam`s and flak`s. And if you want get close the Tempest work just as fine as the maxim when taking out turrets, not to mention bombers. Yeah, and of course the stiletto is nice. Though relying a lot on secondarys when preforming strikes, the speed of the Perseus makes “in space reloads” only a minor annoyance.
And as stated above, lesser primaries give you the opportunity to boost shields and engines. On the Perseus you really notice the difference.
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hmmm, good point...
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Much like my preferences. Subach/Prom S for dogfight missions if Prometheus S is available, double Subach otherwise. Actually, in fighter combat the double Subach is nicer to use because of better rate of fire. If long range bomb interception is needed, Morning Star/Subach combo, same as with "disable stuff" -missions.
Secondaries depend a bit more on mission type. Bomber intercept calls for Trebs/Harpoons, Trebs/Tempests or Harpoons/Tempests combo, depending on what kind of range and what kind of ships are needed to be destroyed. Treb/Harpoon for missions where you need long range against bombers and mid-range accuracy against fighters, Treb/Tempest if you're up against heavy bombers and range varies, Harpoon/Tempest against light bombers when range is typically short.
Against asasult fighters such as Basilisks launching those thrice-damned swarm missile salvos on some hapless cruiser or freighter, double Hornets or Hornet/Tempest are fine.
Surgical strikes... either one bank of Stiletto II and one bank of something depending on opposition (Trebs if you need to also destroy bombers long range, Tempests if you need close range help in destroying turrets since Stilettos are overkill for them, Harpoons if you need generic aspect seekers), or dual Stilettos if you really need to destroy a lot of subsystems.
Surprisingly, Rockeyes can be used with relatively good success against turrets and stationary gun platforms, since they have longer range than Harpoons and you can use them to steal kills like in the first FS2 mission where you can rob the Belisarius kill to yourself by launching a salvo of Rockeyes on it... :rolleyes: They can also be used to lure the escort fighters away from those annoying cruisers in the third (iirc) mission (where you would be wise to question the wisdom of your leaders).
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you know, the one thing i hate about the perseus, it can't carry maxims. That means that it tends to have trouble making strikes against turrets, subsystems, and other hardpoints. Maxims are the only wiable option, seeing as it can only carry 10 trebs.
It did in the demo. They probably took it out for balance purposes.
Incidentally, they also changed the cargo size of the Rockeye. Which makes it effectively useless IMHO, as normally the only time you carry that few missiles is when you're packing bombs.
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Oh, so rockeyes were useful before?
I've always wondered why they were so...wimpy for their cargo load.
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Surprisingly, Rockeyes can be used with relatively good success against turrets and stationary gun platforms, since they have longer range than Harpoons and you can use them to steal kills like in the first FS2 mission where you can rob the Belisarius kill to yourself by launching a salvo of Rockeyes on it... They can also be used to lure the escort fighters away from those annoying cruisers in the third (iirc) mission (where you would be wise to question the wisdom of your leaders).
Wow you can actually use rockeyes for something!? I never knew...
I have always hated those things, didn’t even know their range was that good. But I imagine hitting what you want at long range is next to impossible thanks to the automatic homing. Still, if its good at luring escort away from capships, then this thing might be useful after all. The third mission is always a pain in the ass on insane difficulty, but maybe the rockeye can make getting those escort`s attention a bit easier? I always used to load up with tempests only for that mission due to the lack of harpoon availability.
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you know, the one thing i hate about the perseus, it can't carry maxims. That means that it tends to have trouble making strikes against turrets, subsystems, and other hardpoints. Maxims are the only wiable option, seeing as it can only carry 10 trebs.
It did in the demo. They probably took it out for balance purposes.
Incidentally, they also changed the cargo size of the Rockeye. Which makes it effectively useless IMHO, as normally the only time you carry that few missiles is when you're packing bombs.
And the Tornado was a crappy, crappy missile in the demo
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The thing about the FS2 demo is that the weapons and loadout capacities of the fighters are different. You could carry, what, forty Rockeyes in each Herc II bank. Then there's the Tornado, which is rubbish, the Subach, which is almost as bad as retail Prometheus R, and the demo's Prometheus R, which is the best gun in the game (among itself, the Subach and the Maxim).
In addition, the aspect lock indicator is a fixed circle and not a rotating triangle.
In the demo, what I like to do is load out a Perseus with two banks of Rockeyes and two banks of Prometheus Rs. In retail, I load it out with a Subach HL-7, Prometheus R, a bank of Harpoons and a bank of Hornets. I stopped using the Perseus after Battle of the Wilderness.
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In retail, the Tornado is wonderful. (Well, I like it)
Its like a Hornet and a Harpoon...in one! Wonderful for smacking Nahemas when you don't have trebs.
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The hornet is still fantastic against Seraphims and Nephilims . . .
The magic about the tornado and the harpoon is that it homes for the front of the ship, not the back like the hornet does.
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The hornet is still fantastic against Seraphims and Nephilims . . .
The magic about the tornado and the harpoon is that it homes for the front of the ship, not the back like the hornet does.
What do you expect? The Hornet works pretty much like the Rockeye.
I do seem to think that the Hornet is a little more powerful, though, even though it probably isn't. :D
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The hornet is still fantastic against Seraphims and Nephilims . . .
The magic about the tornado and the harpoon is that it homes for the front of the ship, not the back like the hornet does.
What do you expect? The Hornet works pretty much like the Rockeye.
I do seem to think that the Hornet is a little more powerful, though, even though it probably isn't. :D
The hornet isn't really useful for much of anything. Hitting a fighter with it is nothing short of miraculous, and you can get more kills per secondary bank with a harpoon. The hornet can be effective against bombers and cruisers, but that's a task better suited to the tempest, in my humble opinion. Nothing pisses off a Naheema quite as much as having a Subach / Tempest cocktail rammed up its taipipe.
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The Hornet is has a much better range than the Tempest, meaning you don't need to stay so long in AAAf range.
Plus, the AI is much better at using Hornets than Tempests.
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I think that Hornets are best used against light cruisers to bombers. Usually I pick hornets over Tornados though - they get depleted to quickly by my style of flying.
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Hornets are amazing hit-and-run weapons when you're attacking a heavily defended convoy. You don't have to strafe as much as with Tempests, they have a nice long range, and can't be intercepted like bombs. I learned this the hard way (damned FS1 Basilisks.)
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Yeah, just load your Herc 2 wingmen with Hornets and tell them to destroy a cruiser or freighter, and start taking time from order to destruction of said ship...
Besides, swarm missiles look pretty cool launched en masse by the wingmen and make for a lot of pretty pictures. ;7
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Last Hope in FS1 was a great example of what a few Hornet-packing wingmen could accomplish. The Lightning and Thunder took all of about ten seconds to go down after I ordered everyone to attack them. :D
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Come to think of it, I don't think the AI uses the Tempest at all. They certainly don't seem to use the Trebuchet.
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Ah, yeah, I forgot to mention that. AI pilots don't use tempests right at all, they fire one shot every five seconds or whatnot. I think there's a flag somewhere in the ai_profiles.tbl to fix that...
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Its because of the range. The AI usually make strafing runs well outside Tempest range, I think.
They roast cruisers well enough with just hornets, so I doubt that's too much of an issue.
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The low firerate of the tempest on AI ships can be fixed by adding the "same turret cooldown" flag, I think. And the Hornet does more damage than the Tornado.
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The low firerate of the tempest on AI ships can be fixed by adding the "same turret cooldown" flag, I think. And the Hornet does more damage than the Tornado.
Really? :eek2:
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The Tornado's a lot more useful against fighters, while the Hornet is best used against Cruisers, Freighters, and other convoy craft.
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The Hornet does good subsystem damage, right?
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In my experience it does.
Coming to that, I'd recommend a bank dedicated to Stellito II's for the Perseus when the missiles are available. Nothing's like the relief of flying around without threat of AAA beams shooting at you.
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I don't think you can load out Stilettos on a Perseus...can you?
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You can. Check The Sixth Wonder, for example. But you can't load many of them.
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But that's still okay as it only takes one non-dual-wielded Stilleto's to take out a Levithan's AAA cannons.
But for the Lilith . . . :nervous:
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The Lilith has poor anti-fighter defenses. Just fly up close and blow up the turret with tempests. There won't be more than one SAAA firing at you. (if you've got wingmen, there'll probably be less than one firing at you).
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All the Shivan cruisers have only one SAAA if I recall correctly.
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I think the Moloch has none. I've never seen one fire an SAAA before. :nervous:
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I don't think I've seen the Moloch fire much of anything, its turrets are so weak.
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:lol:
The only things I see it fire are several Shivan Laser Turrets, a few Flak Cannons and two SReds.
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:lol:
The only things I see it fire are several Shivan Laser Turrets, a few Flak Cannons and two SReds.
Someone should make a Moloch with more firepoints. Something that scary-looking shouldn't be that weak.