- Joined
- Jan 27, 2016
- Messages
- 169
- Reaction score
- 195
I just fought my first few PVP duels and I'm not going to be able to go to sleep without first putting them down here 
I was dueling one of the Admins on the GenXNova server and getting in some live fire practice and testing on my refit of The Harvest of Fire. What made the duels so interesting was that we obviously had different ship design doctrines and the outcome of the two duels we managed to complete was completely situational.
First the ships, both ships were designed as destroyer level escorts for use by AI in a fleet.
The first fight.
Things did not go well for me, in the first few seconds of the fight I got hit with a massive ion weapon and the follow up shots punched through 6 AA blocks, 10 system blocks, and holed my aux reactor which immediately started cooking off. From my perspective, my AMS turrets didn't seem to be firing and I was taking massive hits from unopposed missiles. Still, I had managed to get the other ships shields down 2-3 times despite being forced into a much lower rate of fire then my ship was designed to maintain due to the power loss. During the few times I got his shields down, I managed to light up the starboard flank of his ship with several long burst from my cannons before I died.
From my opponent's perspective, I never got his shields down nor caused any damage and he was very surprised at how quickly I had died. It's possible the server was getting buggy and my damage wasn't properly registering, but it's just as probable I just really sucked at my first try at a pvp duel. I was maneuvering harder than I should have, and I was having trouble keeping the prow of my ship pointed at the opforce vessel.
We took a break for a scheduled server restart and went into round two.
In this round, I had decided to play things a little more cautiously and engage in a longer range missile dual, ion beam sniping, and long range cannon fire. I suspected my heavier AMS system and beam-beam ion weapons would give me an advantage at longer ranges despite the heavier missiles coming my direction.
This fight went much better for me. I had started to figure out that whatever the other ship was using to one shot my shields was a close range weapon, and after a few hits from my ion beam his shields went down and every time I managed to walk my fire over the other ship at range with my 9 output cannon system, I would see turrets shed. I also found out that a 9 output cannon system makes a fantastic manual AMS system. I could right click, walk my fire through incoming salvos and dramatically reduce the targets my missile defense grid had to take down.
As turrets on the other ship went down, more and more of my missiles were getting through, and my 8 tube 4000 Missile-400 Beam-4000 Pierce missile battery was devastating. There were a few passes where I got too close and my shields went down, but I was usually backing off at that point and trying to keep up the missiles as I was flying in reverse.
When the other ship started to overheat, I closed the range to allow both of us to inspect the damage on our respective vessels. I had lost a handful of AMS turrets and taken some smaller craters. As we chatted, I found out I had managed to pop both the aux reactors in the target on the first pass. My missiles had killed one and my cannons had gotten the other. This is also when I found out that the extremely nasty anti shield weapon I had been hit with was actually a pulse-ion system. I can't remember the block count, but it would take down 2.3 million shields with a 60% ion boost in one hit
. Likewise, the pilot of the other ship REALLY hated my cannon array 
.
On the the third dual, I was firmly convinced that I needed to keep the range open to stay the hell away from that ion-pulse system and rely on ion boosted shields and heavy AMS array to manage my damage while wearing down the other ship with long range fire until I could reliably get missile hits in from extended range. It was working very well, but we ended up canceling that dual. The server was getting buggy and my opponent couldn't turn off his radar jammer or turn on his aux reactors due to poor connection.
We traded some advice, and I think he's going to add some decoy missile systems and try exchanging his pulse-ion system for a beam-pulse-ion weapon that I am NOT looking forward to dealing with the next time we do a little pvp practice. I came away with the thought that I need to increase the firepower of my dedicated anti shield weapons in future builds and given that the sector size is 30km on the GenX server, I may change by beame-beam-ions into beam-pulse-ions as well and see what happens.
Secondly, I really need to get into some more PVP duels. So much fun!
The third thought I had was that Starmade is a freaking awesome game where two ships of almost identical block count but very different tactical doctrines and design can go toe to toe and the outcome of the fight is mostly situational and dependant on the skills and tactics of the pilot. Have I mentioned before how much I love this game about lego spaceships ?
Ok, time for bed now.
I was dueling one of the Admins on the GenXNova server and getting in some live fire practice and testing on my refit of The Harvest of Fire. What made the duels so interesting was that we obviously had different ship design doctrines and the outcome of the two duels we managed to complete was completely situational.
First the ships, both ships were designed as destroyer level escorts for use by AI in a fleet.
- Both ships had a 1.2 T/M Ratio
- I had 2.3 Million Shields with 38k recharge and full ion effect
- The admin's ship had 2.5 million shields with 55K recharge, but no defensive effects
- My ship had a Total Block Count of 213,000, the other ship was 220,000
- Firepower, the first big difference, I had 10% of my Total Block Count devoted to my main battery. The other ship had 20%.
- My ship had twice the armor pool of the other ship
- Power, we were both running AUX reactors, I just needed one, and the ship I dueled had 2.
- I had 23 twin barreled AMS turrets, but only 2 Offensive Turrets. The Opforce had 16 AMS turrets, and around 10 smaller offensive turrets.
The first fight.
Things did not go well for me, in the first few seconds of the fight I got hit with a massive ion weapon and the follow up shots punched through 6 AA blocks, 10 system blocks, and holed my aux reactor which immediately started cooking off. From my perspective, my AMS turrets didn't seem to be firing and I was taking massive hits from unopposed missiles. Still, I had managed to get the other ships shields down 2-3 times despite being forced into a much lower rate of fire then my ship was designed to maintain due to the power loss. During the few times I got his shields down, I managed to light up the starboard flank of his ship with several long burst from my cannons before I died.
From my opponent's perspective, I never got his shields down nor caused any damage and he was very surprised at how quickly I had died. It's possible the server was getting buggy and my damage wasn't properly registering, but it's just as probable I just really sucked at my first try at a pvp duel. I was maneuvering harder than I should have, and I was having trouble keeping the prow of my ship pointed at the opforce vessel.
We took a break for a scheduled server restart and went into round two.
In this round, I had decided to play things a little more cautiously and engage in a longer range missile dual, ion beam sniping, and long range cannon fire. I suspected my heavier AMS system and beam-beam ion weapons would give me an advantage at longer ranges despite the heavier missiles coming my direction.
This fight went much better for me. I had started to figure out that whatever the other ship was using to one shot my shields was a close range weapon, and after a few hits from my ion beam his shields went down and every time I managed to walk my fire over the other ship at range with my 9 output cannon system, I would see turrets shed. I also found out that a 9 output cannon system makes a fantastic manual AMS system. I could right click, walk my fire through incoming salvos and dramatically reduce the targets my missile defense grid had to take down.
As turrets on the other ship went down, more and more of my missiles were getting through, and my 8 tube 4000 Missile-400 Beam-4000 Pierce missile battery was devastating. There were a few passes where I got too close and my shields went down, but I was usually backing off at that point and trying to keep up the missiles as I was flying in reverse.
When the other ship started to overheat, I closed the range to allow both of us to inspect the damage on our respective vessels. I had lost a handful of AMS turrets and taken some smaller craters. As we chatted, I found out I had managed to pop both the aux reactors in the target on the first pass. My missiles had killed one and my cannons had gotten the other. This is also when I found out that the extremely nasty anti shield weapon I had been hit with was actually a pulse-ion system. I can't remember the block count, but it would take down 2.3 million shields with a 60% ion boost in one hit
. Likewise, the pilot of the other ship REALLY hated my cannon array .On the the third dual, I was firmly convinced that I needed to keep the range open to stay the hell away from that ion-pulse system and rely on ion boosted shields and heavy AMS array to manage my damage while wearing down the other ship with long range fire until I could reliably get missile hits in from extended range. It was working very well, but we ended up canceling that dual. The server was getting buggy and my opponent couldn't turn off his radar jammer or turn on his aux reactors due to poor connection.
We traded some advice, and I think he's going to add some decoy missile systems and try exchanging his pulse-ion system for a beam-pulse-ion weapon that I am NOT looking forward to dealing with the next time we do a little pvp practice. I came away with the thought that I need to increase the firepower of my dedicated anti shield weapons in future builds and given that the sector size is 30km on the GenX server, I may change by beame-beam-ions into beam-pulse-ions as well and see what happens.
Secondly, I really need to get into some more PVP duels. So much fun!
The third thought I had was that Starmade is a freaking awesome game where two ships of almost identical block count but very different tactical doctrines and design can go toe to toe and the outcome of the fight is mostly situational and dependant on the skills and tactics of the pilot. Have I mentioned before how much I love this game about lego spaceships ?
Ok, time for bed now.
