A thread for little questions

[Dioxine]

How so? I admitted it's a troll ship, instead of saying that all is good and balanced about it... But some players get to a point where they crave greater challenge, that is what troll ships are for. And the prize for defeating a troll ship is real, which IMO makes up for the effort.

[Marza]

Are you using the latest version of the mod? When extra shield damage was introduced, a typo in the ruleset caused the bonus not to take effect. When that was fixed, the regen on the towers was also lowered a bit.

Last time I shot down Silver Towers was with version F.3.

4 sabres all firing tesla cannons probably would put out enough damage to collapse a Silver Towers' shields, but I've never seen that in practice due to return fire blowing the sabres out of the sky. Note that this happens without the sabre firing missiles, just the tesla cannons. With missiles enabled and synchronised with the tesla cannons, 4 sabres can usually down a Silver Towers without an interceptor getting destroyed.

[legionof1]

Your phrasing is what upset me. Trolling has extremely negative connotations for me. I deal with people being jerkwads and trying to cover there asses by trying pass it off as humor as part of daily life(joys of being a forum moderator). Using trolling in relation with something that had my screaming in frustration already?

[Blackbeard2090]

ok, here is my save game. 4 sabres already engaged the silver tower ship, another sabre follows and the dragon is also in close range. I tested it several times, the dragon can join the fight because the silver tower flys with low speed.

Even with luck (1 dragon as tank and 3 sabres) i could not destroy their shields.

When the silver tower ships were first introduced, i normaly shot them down with 4 sabres with avalanches and lasers.

[wolfreal]

Hello!.

I have a question about early game ships guns. What is the best strategy to use spike balls?. I found then very hard to use. For civilian traffic I have to wait until 25mm cannons because when the balls hit, they destroy the vessels. And for small ships well, is not common in the very early game to survive with an aircar a vessel interception. If somebody could give me some tips about then, thanks in advance.

[Marza]

Craft airballs are a great option for (very) early game civilian shipping. As you've found out, they're not very good at it since they're liable to outright destroy the target or miss all three shots. Since airball ammo only costs a little scrap metal and chemical, a successful downing and looting of a single civilian vessel will pay for itself.

That said, 25mm cannons are way better. Airballs fill a niche role when the player has rushed to unlock and build interceptors, but doesn't have any real guns for them yet. On paper, airballs punch through enemy armour better than most light craft weapons; theoretically downing a super early military gunboat/escort is possible (although pretty insane!).

Spoiler:

Never used spike balls myself. 12 tiles doesn't justify Lo Wang's Bang for me. 

[Scorrpio]

Looking at things, ST shield regains 63 points/sec, which is exactly average Tesla vs shield damage.   Teslas have 5 second refire so you need 5 teslas to just keep up with shield regen.  But you still need to go through about 2800 worth of shield and di it fast.   If each Sabre also carries 2 avalanches, with 3 sabres it is anywhere between 1800 and 3600 damage, average 2700 - not enough even for shield, and there is also about 1000 damage to be done to hull.   So, on a statistical average, 3 sabres with avalanches and teslas ought to handle the shield, and do it fast.  The fourth craft ought to be a dragon with extra plating and 1 plasma cannon and 2 fusion launchers.  Dragon engages first with plasma only, soon as ST fires, Sabres go all out ramming speed, with Avalanches hopefully kicking down the shield.    Once Teslas engage, turn on the Dragon's fusion launchers.   At least on paper, this ought to work, RNGesus might say otherwise...

[ohartenstein23]

The shield shouldn't recharge once it's down (if I didn't make a mistake writing the code), even if you exit Interception, so you can first attack with sabres carrying tesla cannons + meteors for the shield, then disengage and attack with avalanches + tank craft.

[Blackbeard2090]

Thanks folks! I shot it down, its hard and you need luck but with 7 teslas, 7 avalanches, 1 Implosionlauncher and 1 plasma spitter i made it (4 Sabres). The fight against the star gods with anihilator armor and power maces is no problem thanks to the high psi-defence bonus of the armor.

[Scorrpio]

The shield shouldn't recharge once it's down (if I didn't make a mistake writing the code), even if you exit Interception, so you can first attack with sabres carrying tesla cannons + meteors for the shield, then disengage and attack with avalanches + tank craft.

It would.be interesting to take a peek at the code, but I found your post from Nov 2016 describing shields, and the recharge part says nothing about shield recharge stopping when shield reaches 0.  Mind, I have not encountered an ST yet. Most other crafts have meager recharge (i.e 250 on a Bomber) which is a non-factor at 100 bleedthrough...

[ohartenstein23]

It would.be interesting to take a peek at the code, but I found your post from Nov 2016 describing shields, and the recharge part says nothing about shield recharge stopping when shield reaches 0.  Mind, I have not encountered an ST yet. Most other crafts have meager recharge (i.e 250 on a Bomber) which is a non-factor at 100 bleedthrough...

Here's the check in the shield commit that makes sure shields only recharge on UFOs if they aren't 0, and here's where geoscape recharge is handled... hmm.  I guess the shields do get a chance to recharge even if you take them down and want to try another interception - you'd need to have the follow-up craft already there on the scene if you wanted those shields to stay down.  Perhaps this should be changed, since they can then quickly recharge in the next dogfight even if you got them to 0 in the first one.  I'll think about what to do for this case.

Edit:  This is working as intended, Dioxine wanted the challenge with shields to be that you have to take them in one go or have follow-up very close behind.  The lorewise rationale being that as soon as intercepting craft aren't a threat, the UFO crew can divert their attention and the power of the craft to recharging the shield.

[Marza]

I guess the shields do get a chance to recharge even if you take them down and want to try another interception - you'd need to have the follow-up craft already there on the scene if you wanted those shields to stay down.

That's exactly the behaviour I've observed.

Were completely collapsed shields not supposed to recharge? 

[ohartenstein23]

That's exactly the behaviour I've observed.

Were completely collapsed shields not supposed to recharge? 

It's intended that the recharge in geoscape still occurs even if the shield collapsed, I misspoke earlier.  While your craft are engaged though (geoscape time paused), you needed worry about collapsed shields recharging on you.

[Scorrpio]

Yeah definitely looks that way.   And with ST Geoscape recharge sitting pretty at 31500, it will completely regen in 9 ticks.   (A bomber will take about 80 ticks)   

[ohartenstein23]

Don't let it get away the first time then