Hammerhead - Special Module & Thoughts

[37723266]

I really don’t like the idea, because it’s already been done with the Waz’got, and it has arguably better upgrades, but the Hammerheads has unique features that it does not sooo.

Basic Stats

• Repair Speed
  • Needs to be higher, right now it drains too much energy for what speed it repairs at, and I found that in a medium firefight, it will always be destroyed rather quickly, where as the Waz’got’s has a some damage resistance so it lasts much longer. Either this OR increase it’s HP/damage resistance.

Upgrades

• Weapons
  • Severely lacking, feels like an unfinished module to be honest. The misses deal little damage and have trouble damaging tracking enemies  and firing below(no turrets on the bottom???) unlike the waz’gots station. Needs more options, a lot more.
• Drones
  • Nanodrone
    • I like the Nanodrone option, but the creation time needs a little buff, and the radius to take it needs to be higher. 
  • Combat
    • Nice, but again; needs a creation buff, its too long, perhaps a damage nerf or more drones to compensate for the creation speed.
  • Supply Drone
    • Way too slow. In every mode I used it in, the drones couldnt keep up to any ally, and in a firefight this is  NOT  a good thing. You have to stop, wait for it to track, and fly to you. Badly needs a speed upgrade, make it weak, but speedy.

Module

• Mobile Barrier
  • A nice module, I really like it, I’ve saved many a team members with it, but it needs more visual effects, the host cant see it. 
  • The stats are nice, but maybe some damage resistance, since its so big. 
  • The size needs a MASSIVE increase. 350m is not as big as you think, I’d say 500m would be better. 
• Need to get the rest to add them.

 

 

 

[rakza]

Spoiler

The HammerHead itself is pretty weak compared to other Engineers.

 

I. In terms of healing efficiency, it’s limited to the Standard Engineer’s Modules:

•  It doesn’t have access to new Healing Tools through modules.
• The Special Module can only repair Hull.
• The special Module needs time before being able to repair Hull
• Over 3 Options : Only 2 can Repair Hull. One needs to be manually activated (Forcing to stay close to the Combat Station) / One needs to limit speed/movements to allows the Delivery Drone to reach target
• The weapon is locked behind an Iridium BP Cost (1000 Iridium) then Crafting Materials (Including Monocrystal and Xenocrystal)
• The Weapon Healing Mechanics are lock behind 3 “IF” conditions :
  • “IF” critical Hit
  • “IF” Ally at 250m range from the Hitting Point
  • “IF” Ally needs Hull repairs.
• No Shield Recharge Modules / Mechanics

Brokk and Waz’Got > HammerHead

 

 

II. About the Special Module “Autonomous Combat Station”

• Module looks good on the Paper / Not so much in real situation
• Takes too much times to be fully Operationnal (Level 1 and Level 2)
• WAY TOO MUCH BLINDSPOT
• Only the Base Weapon (Kinetic Cannon) is reliable
• Kinetic Weapon’s Range is Low (2000m)
• Missiles Launchers seems to be clumsy and innefective :
  • Thermal Missile
    • Damage are correct (2000 thermal Dammage)
    • Range is correct (3000m)
    • Rate of Fire is low (20rpm)
    • Missiles have incredibly huge difficulties to hit Target
    • Missile’s Velocity and maneuvrability are too low
  • EM Missile
    • No point using them
    • Sacrifying 600 damage for 500m Range is pointless
    • No different mechanics than Thermal Missile
    • Unreliable as Thermal Missiles
• Upgrading the Combat Station to Level 1 takes too much time
• Level 2 Upgrades are extremely differents and don’t seems to have the same efficiency overall
  • Option 1 : Nanodrone Generator
    • Not reliable
    • There is no direct information about the charge of Nanodrone ready to be used
    • Accessing the Nanodrone is difficult and slow down the Gameplay
    • Only impacting one Player? 
  • Option 2 : Combat Drone Generator
    • Correct Option
    • Drones don’t last long
    • Players have to come to the station and wait an usual amount of time if they want 3 Drones
  • Option 3 : Delivery Drone
    • Less effective than Amazon Drone (At least Amazon can target Delivery Location Properly)
    • Clumsy as hell (I followed one trying to reach an IMPERIAL Gunship Strafing without Success)
    • What is “Protection Mode”?

 

This special Module is extremely dissapointing due to multiples factors :

1. WAZGOT BATTLESTATION HAS MORE OPTIONS AND EFFECTS THAN A SPECIAL MODULE ! A COMMON MODULE HAS MORE THAN A SPECIAL MODULE !
2. WAZGOT BATTELSTATION HAS NEARLY DOUBLE HP COMPARED TO THE AUTONOMOUS BATTLESTATION ! (39.5k Health vs 25k Health)
3. WAZGOT BATTLESTATION HAS WAY BETTER SELF-REPAIR STATION (UP TO 4 TIMES AT MAX REPAIR SPEED) (422-969 vs 160-250)
4. WAZGOT BATTESTATION AS LOWER COOLDOWN (28 sec vs 35 sec)
5. WAZGOT STATION EFFECTS ARE PASSIVE ! NO NEED FOR PLAYERS TO USE THE “INTERACTION KEYBIND”
6. AUTONOMOUS COMBAT STATION HAS A NICE ANIMATION !
7. WAZGOT BATTLE STATION IS WAY BETTER !

 

And Ho boys, I’m not Finished ! We need to talk about the “Unique Modules” of this ship too !

 

III. About the “Mobile Barrier” and the “Mobile Portal” :

• Cost 800 Iridium to Unlock the BP. Each. And you will still have to craft them
• Both are “Neutral Modules”, they don’t do damage, they don’t heal. Have Fun!

I’m not going to make a list of point for the “Mobile Barrier”,

it’s pretty much a BIG  BASTION SHIELD. With a Twist !

When you activate the “Mobile Barrier”, it’s creating a 350m Radius Shield around your Ship. This shield has no resistance (like all the other Over-Shield) and a pretty nice Volume of 55000 pts for Mk4 version.

Activating the Shield Provide you a +20% Max Speed Bonus and Provide a +50 to all resistances for Allies inside the Shield (Including Yourself) for 20 seconds.

BUT HERE THE TWIST !

ACTIVATING A MODULE, USING WEAPONS OR MISSILES AND  TAKING DAMAGE   DISABLE THE SHIELD  !

Once activated, you can’t do anything and if you take damage while trying to keep the shield activated, IT’S BREAKING THE SHIELD ! AND OMFG THEIR ARE PLENTY OF STUFF THAT BYPASS THE SHIELD! (Pyro Emitter / Singularity Cannon / That’s Fighter’s HitScan Lazor / An interceptor / A Stingray ectect).

The Hull/Shield +50 to all Resistances stay for 20seconds even if the shield disappears, which is nice I guess.

 

The Module itself is pretty “Meh” it’s a mix of already not really used existing mechanics that does not bring a lot for the HammerHead.

 

Regarding the “Mobile Portal”,

It’s just a more mobile and more cheesy “Warp Gate”. It can be fun to use and save your life sometime.

The main problem with it is : You know where you put the first Gate and you know the situation at this gate but you never know in what condition you will drop the second.

Trying to escape an enemy with it? Not going to works, cause your enemy can also use your portal !

 

Fun module, lack of something incentive to motivate people passing through the Portal. And no visibility about what’s happening at the exit.

And since enemies can use it too, they can just decide to jump behind you if you advance too much compared to where the HammerHead dropped it.

 

 
 

 

TLDR;

 

The Module configuration is really really Poor. The 2/2/2/1/2 slot distribution isn’t working due to its base low Hull/Shield Values.

The lack of customization regarding Bonuses and Slots make it way weaker than it should be for a R17 Ship.

The Weapon’s Slot create multiples and Huge BlindSpots, increasing the weakness of the HammerHead.

The Poor efficiency and reliability of the Special Module, combined with the low Resistance of this ship are making it extremely vulnerable, don’t expect to be able to use the full mobility of this ship at the same time as the Autonomous Battle Station.

The HammerHead is LARGE, it’s taking a lot of unwanted Collision Damage even with a Collision Compensator.

Uniques Modules aren’t that exceptionnal and not really rewarding.

 

We already have ingame way better engineers compared to what can do the HammerHead.

If you are looking for an Engineer able to impact the Battlefield with construction and deployable objects, The Waz’Got can do better than the HammerHead and can do much more than the HammerHead with a simpe module.

Waz’Got and Brokk are better at Healing (More tools, better Reliability).

An Octopus will offer you a better Engineer at less cost with more customization and more reliability than the HammerHead.

 

Overall :

3/10 for the HammerHead.

4/10 for the Custodian

5/10 for the Pilgrim / Dyrnwyn

7/10 for the Singularity

8/10 for the Granite / Project 1011

8.5/10 for the Spike / Wolfhound

BROKENPREMIUM/10 for the Boremys

[42001379]

I think it’s safe to say that Hammerhead is not going to be a close competitor to Brokk or Waz’Got. Rather, it is much closer in terms of stats and modules to the R15 SP ship (Octopus).

 

When the R16-17 ships were first released, they were really satisfying. We’ve got Granite, Wolfhound, Spike, etc, all of which are quite powerful. Not to the point of broken, but it’s quite likely that they are among the top 5 or even top 3 of their respective ship class.

 

Then the Devs gave us Boremys, a Guard frigate that is brokenly powerful. I think they realized they went a bit too far on making Boremys powerful, hence the remaining T6 ships are obviously much less powerful. Too much, I might add. They probably intend them to be replacements or “alternatives” to the original R15 SP ships. And indeed, this can be seen quite clearly from the base stats of the recent two ships: Custodian & Hammerhead:

 

(Internet connection is a bit wonky, not sure if images can be uploaded properly so I’m leaving the pics as attached files. Anyway you get the idea)

 

Custodian is almost an exact replica of Ronin, with identical stats. Custodian has its own unique modules while Ronin has none; on the other hand Ronin can have customizable slots, but Custodian’s are pre-determined.

 

Same trend can be observed in Octopus and Hammerhead. Although it may seem Octopus has a bit higher base hull & shield, and Hammerhead is slightly faster, this difference is because of the base rank bonus on both ships. Same idea applies: Hammerhead = unique modules + pre-determined slots; Octopus = only vanilla modules + customizable slots.

 

All in all. We can all agree that Custodian and Hammerhead are not going to be the top of the top like Boremys is (and probably will be for a good amount of time). They are on par with their R15 SP counterparts, and ever since the introduction of ship-specific modules and premium ships’ exemption from the rule, the SP ships have seen a huge decline in popularity. The reason is clear, they simply don’t have the cutting edge advantage that premium ships have access to.

 

For the foreseeable, I doubt the Devs are going to address this disparaity among R16-17 ships. After all, the SP ships haven’t received love from them for a long long time.

[42001379]

To extrapolate, the Empire R17 Engineer Frigate, when it eventually arrives, is either going to be an above-average but not top-tier SP ship, like Hammerhead; or it’s going to be a premium component ship like Boremys. If it’s the former, then be prepared to be disappointed; if it’s the latter, which it most likely will be, there is still hope for it to be a competitor with Waz’Got and Brokk.

 

In all honesty, I think the R15 SP ships are better than the aforementioned duo. Having customizable slot allocation can lead to a variety of playstyle. It allows the pilot to think and plan, to develop specific strategies for using a specific setup. What Custodian and Hammerhead did, is to take away this planning stage, bringing in unique modules at the cost of customization. Frankly half of the special modules are confusing (initially, takes time to be familiar with their usage), and almost all are highly situational.

 

Is it worth sacrificing the customizable slots? Some may say yes, some no. It is definitely unique.

Is Custodian worth the 4 month grind? Heck no! Luckily they learned from that, this event is much shorter and easier.

 

With that said, I’d go with Hammerhead regardless. I am a zealot to unique things, and the name just sounds cool ”)

 

 

[3835727]

Even without fancy stats or a real competitive edge, I’ll probably still build it just in the hopes that some of its issues get fixed in the future. Regardless it’s a pretty cool looking ship with some pretty cool looking features.

[72439168]

After some hours to fly with the hammerhead,

Good feeling

• I like the extra speed combined with the module mobile barrier .

That help to go through the map in OS or to do some quick move on the battlefield to drop a shield regenerator and heal allies.

 

• The unique weapon is not bad combined with bonuses 4 to increase critical hit chance, seedchips dedicated to increase kinetics damages and to reduce heap. Good at long and medium range.

 

 

• The shield with extra component to boost its regeneration is good

 

Bad feeling

However, It is not a so good ships moreover I done some mistake while building it.

As example I choose the special module combat dronesbelow

 

Quote

Every 31,5 s. produces drones with 3339 durability pts., no more than 2 at a time. The drone attacks the enemy at a distance of up to 1950 m. If the player’s shield volume is less than 50% , then the drone, instead of firing, will restore the 205 pts./s. shield to it. When the module is activated, one of the drones restores 4648 shield pts. to the allied ships within a radius of 1000 meters and turns off.

 

This special module use drones to heal and protect you but is not done really well. So it is better to take the other one (Autonomous battle station) and help allies or yourself to heal hull. Moreover drones deal thermal damages (when they are used as a remote mines by pressing the space key) so it it better to use as main weapon a thermal one too in order to maximise bonuses from seed chips.

 

Quote

I hope that dev will switch thermal damages to kinetics which would be  more logics as  the unique weapon for hammerhead  (RepK2) deal kinetics damage. That make no sense to use a thermal weapon! Federation’s engineer would use kinetics weapons to maximise damages or EM weapons to balance damages on hull and shield but not thermal …

And as drones works at close range we can think that an opponent vessel would have their shields already low when drones start to attack. Thus kinetics damages is the best options.

 

 

• Federation ships have approximately the same amount of hull and Shield . So once the shield is done often you have not enough time to regen hull and you die really quickly (few seconds).
• The ships is slow too rotate and the special module combat drones is too low to really protect you  at closer range against any fighters/interceptor ships.

 

 

Overall at this time it is better to spent time on another ships