New Player to Star Conflict

Best Gunship in T3 is the Desert Eagle. Best LRF is probably Sigurdr. Best Recon is possibly the Sai or the Empire Premium. Bear is the best Tackler. Koromac was rocking out with the Strong (T3 Premium Command) the other day and it was kind of scary seeing what he did. Blood Tormentor looks to be top Guard in T3 (disclaimer: “top Guard in T3” means “2nd best to Rakza’s Reaper”). Oh yeah, the Reaper is pretty amazing if you know how to build it.

Really, what makes the Black Swarm, Prom-X and Styx so good is that they are Empire ships, and Empire is the best faction hands down.

So Mauler isn’t near best? it’s average or bad?

 

I think ship with best dps in game can be counted as one of the best…

Mauler is cool, but i will pick Dragon family over it every single Sector Conquest game if i am taking it seriously

Pay 2 Win means if you paid real money you end up winning

 

Unfortunately, I fly Desert Eagle and Parallax in T3 and I do not win more times than I do when flying credit ships

 

P2W claims in T3 is dubious

 

Pro Inty pilots kill me in EagleB as often as they do in Kite.

 

If they start selling damage boosters for GS … now THAT is pay 2 win.

Mauler is cool, but i will pick Dragon family over it every single Sector Conquest game if i am taking it seriously

For serious games I’ll trade LRF for gunship everytime.

Best Gunship in T3 is the Desert Eagle. Best LRF is probably Sigurdr. Best Recon is possibly the Sai or the Empire Premium. Bear is the best Tackler. Koromac was rocking out with the Strong (T3 Premium Command) the other day and it was kind of scary seeing what he did. Blood Tormentor looks to be top Guard in T3 (disclaimer: “top Guard in T3” means “2nd best to Rakza’s Reaper”). Oh yeah, the Reaper is pretty amazing if you know how to build it.

Really, what makes the Black Swarm, Prom-X and Styx so good is that they are Empire ships, and Empire is the best faction hands down.

F - Styx is best “tanky” engineer

F - Prom X is miles best command in T3 at everything

F - Kite is best CovOp

F - Anaconda M > Reaper no matter what Rakza does to it, jericho Guards are just different and Blood Tormentor is easily comparable to Cruise S 

F - Ira Deus easily comparable to Crus A

F - Black Swarm and KrisAE > Spirit and Grim

 

P - Recon - Sai and Deimon

P - Emp LRF - Sigurdr

 

Desert Eagle and Nukem, just because they are gunships, doesn’t mean they are directly comparable to WolfM 1 to 1, they are better than phobos, but they are not better or worse than Wolf M so it is a point that goes both ways.

 

For tacklers, Bear is hardly better than Katana AE, parallax is just different from these 2 as well, so that point goes both ways as well.

 

So after all you have only 2 clear winners in premiums Recon and Emp LRF, while Free ships have way more.

 

F - point for free ships

P - point for premium advanatge

If there is equal prem and free  version, point goes for free, meaning there is no pay advantage

For serious games I’ll trade LRF for gunship everytime.

And if your team doesn’t have a EMP sniper you will get annihilated on certain maps.

F - Kite is best CovOp

Less max speed and damage than Eagle B but cheaper AB makes it the best? I’ll raise an eyebrow at that one. That aside they both suck for no EB.

+1 Kos

 

Also, it’s mostly better than average pilots that fly Prem. ships to begin with. Players who make the monetary investment will more than likely want to get good at the game and make the most out of their money.

Less max speed and damage than Eagle B but cheaper AB makes it the best? I’ll raise an eyebrow at that one. That aside they both suck for no EB.

 

They both have the same max speed but you’ll need lightweight hull on the kite though. Anyway the kite is better imo because you can actually afterburn AND use modules.

 

Also EB is just a crutch.

They both have the same max speed but you’ll need lightweight hull on the kite though. Anyway the kite is better imo because you can actually afterburn AND use modules.

 

Also EB is just a crutch.

EB is kind of necessary. I used to think it was a bad choice, but lately I’ve been changing my tune. It’s saved my xxxx a few times. Maybe it’s because I’m mainly flying CovOps / ECM when I’m inty now whereas I used to be Recon.

Less max speed and damage than Eagle B but cheaper AB makes it the best? I’ll raise an eyebrow at that one. That aside they both suck for no EB.

Eagle B becomes positive in Energy regeneration at ~120 Capacitor volume above and below that you are in negative (especially below that mark)

 

Capacitor total volume :333

Capacitor total volume :629 (with compact shield generator module) making energy stabilizing at 240-250

Orion - 107 energy to activate

Plasma Arc - 137

Adaptive Camo - 107

White noize - 130

Repair Kit S - 133

Shield Booster 133

 

If you are not playing defencive sniper plasma gun next to your engineer (which is wrong CovOp gameplay anyways, there are better ships doing so) and you are out of Energy regen reach, after some travel time you either have to slow down to recharge to activate more than a single module (losing AB) and delaying your attack, or you activate 1 module and you are out of energy and can not AB for ~3 seconds, because you need that time to regen over critical positive threshold. Thats why i use Shield Generator for at least having energy pool to activate my modules and do some AB to maintain single Adaptive. ANy smart Tackler will use that to make you disappear - wait for you to activate your module against someone - and tackle you - you can’t disable slow for a while, since you have no energy (only way to have flares that almost instantly ready, sacrificing something else), but after using a module to get immune to slow you are out of energy to actually AB gtfo , and by the time you reach your positive energy regen you are no longer immune to slow, and you are getting tackled again. Kite can use 2-3 modules simultaneously Orion+Plasma Arc+Shield regen for example, or 2 self heals in the same time, or heal and camo, depending on your build. I personally fly with passive armor, having ~90 energy regen with 57 consumption, it opens up enormous freedom and survivability.

 Of course Eagle B has some niche full dps glass canon builds that it will outperform Kite, like 2x infrared supernova RFB or Flat Reflector Pulses (those produce some very wtf experiences for pilots on receiving end)

They’re both glass cannons, might as well fly the bigger cannon. And I run even recons with compact shield gens most of the time, cap is life. You never need those multipurpose mods when you’ve got full cap after all, and those pesky ECM’s are everywhere. :wink:

Also EB is just a crutch.

Of course EB is a crutch, but one that keeps you alive. EB is what let’s you survive whatever gets thrown your way when an ECM grabs you, and on a recon it ensures you don’t die during the spool-up of your micro-warp. Also useful if you didn’t see that EM torp coming.

Of course EB is a crutch, but one that keeps you alive. EB is what let’s you survive whatever gets thrown your way when an ECM grabs you, and on a recon it ensures you don’t die during the spool-up of your micro-warp. Also useful if you didn’t see that EM torp coming.

 

It’s a gamble, you might go many matches without needing it and when it does activate then all it might do is delay your death by 2 seconds. For this you sacrifice a module that will be useful all the time.

It’s a gamble, you might go many matches without needing it and when it does activate then all it might do is delay your death by 2 seconds. For this you sacrifice a module that will be useful all the time.

I’ve never gone a match without needing it but that’s because when I know I have it I do actively use those 2 seconds of invulnerability in fights - even the look at the time when it activates to countdown the time until I have it again is just subconscious by now. And it never delays my death if I don’t let it - ECM’s can’t cloak and they’re the only thing that can prevent you from disengaging, so a bit of situational awareness is enough.

To the OP: the game is not P2W, please do not let that it put you off. Let me try to explain.

 

Now first the question is if you are a paying player or not, if you are, than I have good new for you: the game is certainly worth the money and there is no real P2W, except some slight improvements but that is meant for the serious players, if you just play cassualy and never spend a dime you will hardly notice any difference. 

 

The game certainly deserves to be paid for, and you get your moneys worth. It’s pay2grind less and pay4convenience and novelty, and prem ships are worth the investment and they are not even that expensive for a lobby mp f2p game. Today, you have to pay for ESO full price (50$) + monthly subscription which is a bit ridicolous. Here, you will buy these ships once and they will serve you forever; also purchased license time is about ~10$ a month roughly, but it is sometime on sale and you can get it for half price (ships too).

 

You cannot expect to play something for free forever, but it is also true that small ammounts of microtransactions can add up dangerously quickly. But if you’re a cheapskate, have fun grinding (if you have the time for it, because today time=money and it’s the basic principle of f2p business models, and sometimes the money spent is worth less than the time you would have to waste for slow progression), just don’t complain in the chat later that you lost because others have P2W ships, because that is often not the reason. If you find squads of players with fully fitted powerful ships wrecking everything it is not because their ships and equipment are so much better but because this is a group of serious and dedicated players that use strategy, teamwork and optimized min-max builds that are dynamically countering your teams layout and tactics on the fly. We could have done it with regular equipment just as well but since we are all taking this very seriously spending money on the game for players like these is a no-brainer and comes by itself, we just buy the premium ships because they look nice and have some nice quirks for min-maxing our builds (the spirit of the community is very competitive).

and optimized min-max builds that are dynamically countering your teams layout and tactics on the fly. We could have done it with regular equipment just as well but since we are all taking this very seriously spending money on the game for players like these is a no-brainer and comes by itself, we just buy the premium ships because they look nice and have some nice quirks for min-maxing our builds (the spirit of the community is very competitive).

 

So you say it’s basically pay 2 win. :facepalm:  (reminder: you say that the best, winning strategies rely on the slot distribution of the prem ships)

 

Also, how can you dynamically counter some team with a predetermined build?  :facepalm:   :facepalm:   :facepalm:

 

I can’t add enough facepalms to this post.

4 players x 4 slots = 16 ships, it’s not my fault if you fail to organize a variable team buildup in your squads within these numbers, I cannot facepalm enough at your post as well. It is not about “builds”, builds are static and you should be fully aware what current metagame is anyway, what is popular and even exact loadouts of some players; but it’s not even about that, it’s mostly about the ship roles and what they do. And countering any enemy team in every single game is something a regular player does not do, it is one of the reasons you can get “rolled”. This can be done because the game shows what the enemy is bringing, and you are able to adapt and counter that. By not knowing what the other side is flying and their easy radar pickup, it would be much harder to do this, it would also make things more balanced if you would bring, let’s say, only 1 ship per player per game. But by doing it this way things are actually more dynamic and interesting, but you have to use this part of the game to your advantage correctly, but not many people do.

 

And min-maxing is something a casual player does not do, if you are taking it serious why is spending a little bit of cash a problem? And it’s not like you can do this in T5 anyway, the interesting premium ships are in T3-T4 only. You can compete with regular ships in T3 and T4 just as well, the only major drawback is the fed tackler line that needs something real in R9 instead of the premium options.

So p2w is ok, because serious gamers do it. Wut.

I think there is a point in a F2P game where you have to invest something to continue fully enjoying it, and by the time you reach R9 T3 games, I think you have allready spent many hours and can decide by now that it is an appropriate time to buy a DLC and get those upgraded T3 ships, or just skip T3 and play T4 which is more balanced.

 

A good example of how they hanlded the balance between alternative type of gameplay but not being noticably better than non premium is:

 

The Valor

 

A prime example of an suitable alternative for a mobile squad oriented play. It’s counter part Anaconda R8 is not viable for real play because no Gigas II, so it makes an originally weaker model interesting for serious play in a different way. It is not as tanky as the Styx, and if you solo with this ship with no team to back you up when needed, it fails it purpose. It’s only advantage is fast mobility to support mobile squads around the map, and it is not even the most suitable for most game modes and situations, sometimes you want a more tanky engineer. It’s an interesting  alternative. Not P2W, but almost a fancy vanity ship with different style gameplay. It is not something needed to be better, for most players Styx is just as good, but organised squads like to ussualy have the main engineering pilots bring at least 1 backup engineering ship and Styx+Valor are a nice combo and you can also switch tactics depending on the map and game mode to equip appropriate ship. You don’t need this ship to be better, and you don’t need to fly T3, you could just skip it and go to T5 without complaining because T3 is for Aces, right? But if we are talking a hypotethicaly competitive T3 scenario where you need Gigas II on all ships and a possible 2nd backup, than how do you even expect playing with serious corporation or squad in the first place without investing a single dime into the game? Bottom line: it is not better in any form over the Styx, it just offers different gameplay variations, it’s not pay2win but pay2play differently - even Arena in Hearthstone costs real money to enter and you can buy card packs for constructed which is even worse. 

 

Now, there are other ships in T3 which stats aren’t too strong for their rank, but it is the lack of a non-premium conterpart that would offer similiar type of gameplay. Notably:

 

The Desert Eagle

 

The crit power-house. I have to say, there is no nonpremium counter-part in T3 that would offer 2 cpus and inherent 10% crit bonus. This ship has a really nice layout. But I personally still prefer Nukem, I like the reload rate, heating time and asthethics but yes, DE does more dps. Here we could really blame the game for not offering an equivalent Empire R9 gunship, the Wolf has it’s uses similiar like a Valor does, but you just cannot compare it in terms of raw dps, the DE comes dangerously close to P2W. But this ship is a part of a good value DLC that is often on sale, and the price for unlocking this type of play could almost be tolerable, but… I see where the complaints are coming from. Similiar goes for the Tacklers, having no R9 tacklers is really out of place, there should be something at least.

 

As I said earlier, in defense of the obviously better T3 premium ships (which are just a few, and even less better ones in T4, most are of equal or worse stats) you could consider this as an “entry price” to decide if you really like the game and keep playing it, because imho no f2p game can survive without some sort of income, and I don’t think that just a few of these ships in mid-tier are breaking the game. You could try entirely skipping out of T3, but it is the most populated part of the game, so you can’t really ignore it. And if it really puts off any new players that they will have to buy ships to be on the same level with everyone in the midgame (that is, that they want to fly specificaly a gunship or a tackler, because everything else is rather nicely balanced!), well what did they expect? Might as well quit now, if they never  expect to support a F2P game with some of their money. And complaining that someone bought power over you and you have no chance is just an excuse of a bad player. They bought the game and you didn’t, also you have other nice choices to play something else instead; you have the Kris-AE, the Kite, the Prometheus and Katana, the Styx, the Crus-S and the Anaconda-M. These are all great ships and probably still the best in their roles. And you can expect no less of a paying player with a premium ship that he will be good at the game, because he wants to get the most out of his investment, so it is nothing unussual seeing better players utilise the premium ships to their full potential. Also, since they maxed out all regular ones these also offer a bonus to free sinergy, and, well, you paid real money for them, it would be wasteful not to use them now.

 

It’s not full P2W because serious gamers do it, but those that actually bought the game DLCs unlocked additional content to play (like additional races in SW:TOR), you could compare it to a demo or a free trial. And I said, it’s not even that bad in the whole game, you don’t really have to play the most powerful gunship or tackler in T3, you can just play an ecm or other classes and screw them over, or go to T4/T5 and there will still be a room for you in a competitive team even in T3, you will just have less variety in your gameplay choices.