Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N10 24-Nov-2024 Aurora's Dawn

[Solarius Scorch]

It's funny, seeing this after having listened Surrealistik from the Discord server singing hymns to the absolute supremacy of Jellyfish over everything else for years straight.

[cc]

Doom Armor in the Yeoman production is one of the greatest eggs in the game.

I'm not familiar with the "greatest egg" expression. Is that in the opposite sense of a bad egg, meaning something that's really nice?

[Dakkdakk]

Speaking of codex craft, my overall experience with the gold codex goes somewhat like this:

The hawk could use a slight buff, maybe, damn thing is fast, sure, but basically serves no purpose since you can't really do anything with all that speed. The range is too short to be used as troop transport for anything much beyond double the the HWD range (which isn't exactly a small area, but much shorter then pretty much any other craft), it doesnt make a good interceptor since its really fragile AND takes a good while to repair AND is one of, if not the most expensive codex craft. I'm kinda on the edge about this one though, since to me it looks like one of those craft that really need you to stuff the right STC into it to become useful, and I haven't got to the point I can actualy craft STC yet, though by that time I'll probably have vessels that fill every role better than the hawk, so I don't see much of a point for the hawk atm.

The turtle is a pretty useful troop transport, and despite being so slow, its still way, way better than the skyranger merely for the fact it has actual doors, has pretty decent layout, and can go underwater. The three STC slots are intriguing, and could be used to maybe increase its speed and make it even better.

The shadowbat is the shadowbat, IE, its pretty great, though I do miss the conversion launcher.

I never actualy used the jellyfish so I can't give an opinion on it. I always saw the snake as the better choice, since not only can it go underwater, its also a pretty decent troop transport and decent interceptor.

[Abyss]

I'm not familiar with the "greatest egg" expression. Is that in the opposite sense of a bad egg, meaning something that's really nice?

An Easter egg, placed within the game so oldfag like me can cry with happiness.  :

[legionof1]

Well to be fair, Surrealistik actively remodels the interior of his craft with terrain demo to make them suit his needs better. Surreal only uses the very upper floor of the jellyfish after chopping up the furniture so the whole crew can stand around that one hole. 6 gals one door vs the average persons 6 gal 4 holes.

The fish for the average player is pretty poor for defensive strats, without being obvious about it.

[Eddie]

The hawk could use a slight buff, maybe, damn thing is fast, sure, but basically serves no purpose since you can't really do anything with all that speed. The range is too short to be used as troop transport for anything much beyond double the the HWD range (which isn't exactly a small area, but much shorter then pretty much any other craft), it doesnt make a good interceptor since its really fragile AND takes a good while to repair AND is one of, if not the most expensive codex craft. I'm kinda on the edge about this one though, since to me it looks like one of those craft that really need you to stuff the right STC into it to become useful, and I haven't got to the point I can actualy craft STC yet, though by that time I'll probably have vessels that fill every role better than the hawk, so I don't see much of a point for the hawk atm.

The speed of the Hawk allows you to get to any point on the globe in under 3 hours. This is especially useful for assaulting landed UFOs. Other craft have to shadow them to get there in time. With the Hawk, you can wait until you actually see an UFO land and then launch. Very useful for areas covered by pigeons, which are usually areas far from your bases.

For aircombat, the Hawk is a dodge tank. See here:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6406.msg99007.html#msg99007

The Golden Hawk seems to be the only shadow craft with long term potential. The Gatling Lascannon is the ideal weapon due to the hit bonus. The dodge bonus is just high enough, that you can get an almost invincible craft with a fully trained Loknarr pilot.
The combination Golden Hawk+Gatling Lascannon+Loknarr single-handedly kills everything up to bombers. If at some point you will also be able to get shadowtech, it will be even better with shields and possible complete invulnerability due to dodge. The Golden Hawk could be the best tank in the game.

[Dakkdakk]

Problem is, with just a single blast from anything larger then a fighter, you lose your 1.2 mil craft and the well trained pilot you put inside. Not saying its useless, mind you, I have shot down several ships using the hawk + the flamecannon, but I'm gonna hold out on using it on any ships that can one shot it until I can stuff some STC into it to increase its survivability, either with shields or extra dodge.

[Martin]

Hawk is great. Scarab is also nice, not really a primary tank or interceptor, but the 25% damage bonus, two heavy slots, one light slot and one shadowtech slot has some serious long term potential too. Team it up with crab and it will brng shit down even without shadowtech! Turtle is good transport, even better with the extra fusion reactors.

Rest of the codex drafts are not very good, being any combination of slow, fragile, low capacity, awful layout and their gimmicks are not all that good. Well, three out of four codices get at least one decent craft and Gray is considered overpowered

[Hadza]

Well to be fair, Surrealistik actively remodels the interior of his craft with terrain demo to make them suit his needs better. Surreal only uses the very upper floor of the jellyfish after chopping up the furniture so the whole crew can stand around that one hole. 6 gals one door vs the average persons 6 gal 4 holes.

The fish for the average player is pretty poor for defensive strats, without being obvious about it.

The concept is really great, don't get me wrong, but I do wonder if making your gals fish in a barrel is a necessary nerf for an otherwise decent all-rounder craft with a cool weapon (which often misses in very unintuitive ways). If I were to compare it with other craft (I've only really used green and gray codexes so far), the Worm has a different critical flaw in that if a stray shot dares hit any of its systems while you're camping the doors then your gals are as good as fresh steak.
Do other codex craft share a tendency of frantically driving their gals out of them? Is this Dioxine's way of punishing door camping? 

[legionof1]

The flaws to the worm have more to do with the way the hallucinogen charges are made. Its pretty hackish so there are some flaws that ideally would not exist.

[Hadza]

The flaws to the worm have more to do with the way the hallucinogen charges are made. Its pretty hackish so there are some flaws that ideally would not exist.

Ah, it's not just forgetting about those charges I'm talking about, that is understandable, but all the decoration-y tech panels inside it. They are literally made of explodium. If one of them gets hit (and believe you me they love to) the entire room goes ablaze ,_,

[Martin]

Do other codex craft share a tendency of frantically driving their gals out of them? Is this Dioxine's way of punishing door camping? 

Not really. The Scorpion is designed  for aggresive playstyle while Shadowbat, Turrle and Snake are great for indoor camping

[Dakkdakk]

I think the scorpion actualy somehow makes enemies spawn closer to the craft, which while pretty useful against ratmen and whatnot, is kinda terrible against anything else. Its the craft for anyone that wants to go balls to the wall and get to the enemies immediately, or lose an entire team and craft to someone carrying a portable mortar with a mininuke. Its one of those things that sound pretty cool on paper but is terrible in practice unless you know what you're doing. Its good for raiding downed/landed ships fast, though.

Turtle is amazing for door camping and is easily the best troop transport you can get for a good while. Its basically a faster skyranger that doesnt burn chems and trades 4 unit slots for lots of moving space and actual doors, AND it can go underwater.

[Solarius Scorch]

I think the scorpion actualy somehow makes enemies spawn closer to the craft,

Yes, you are right!

which while pretty useful against ratmen and whatnot, is kinda terrible against anything else.

No, you are wrong!

[legionof1]

Ah, it's not just forgetting about those charges I'm talking about, that is understandable, but all the decoration-y tech panels inside it. They are literally made of explodium. If one of them gets hit (and believe you me they love to) the entire room goes ablaze ,_,

Well to be fair lots of things in the shadowtech craft are explodium. The turtles topside engines for example. If those go off the eat the entire rear of the craft. Worm's actually a little bit lucky in that aspect the most serious explodes are inside. but YMMV.