Tritach blacksites are overrated. The afflictor is the only ship you'll ever need. #starsector #lore #videogames #game #memes #pcgaming #gamers #gamingcommunity #youtube #follow #videogame
I really appreciate Thaago, who's a big name on the forums, for correcting my math. He says: "Yup, a lot of solid points in this one, although it understates the damage by a lot: AM Blasters do 1400 damage a shot base, not 900. Between Wolfpack (20% vs destroyers and up), Energy mastery (0-30, but probably around 10%), CR (10%), Target Analysis ( 5-20% depending on ship size), and cybernetic (2x combat skills %, so say 14% ish? Totally variable), the ship system (50% which stacks I believe as it applies on the receiving end rather than the firing end), and phase time recharge boost, the number of damage boosts on top of 1400 is VERY large. I believe also that testing by someone revealed that Target Analysis and Wolfpack tactics damage boost is in a separate "pool" than energy mastery/CR/cybernetic, because it is target-size dependent, so the full modifier vs a capital would be more like (1+.2+.2)*(~1.4 (varies a lot based on skills and flux level)) ~= 1.96, rather than the normal additive ~1.8. All the above also applies to harbingers and phase lances by the way - phase anchor, advanced optics, ITU, and escort package mean that you can fly a harbinger with triple lances next to a friendly capital and have a shockingly good fire platform." No idea where the hell I got the 900 number from. Also, all the math i did was multiplicative when most of it should've been additive, ah well. Anyway, so I guess the numbers should be closer to... 2800 base damage from 2 antimatter blasters *~1.96 multiplier for larger vessels Averaging around 5488 per volley giving roughly 2744 Dps if run optimally. Considering a Paragon is 18000 hp, this is all pretty busted
i prefer using adaptive phase coils on AI afflictors since in my experience AI pilots can't utilise phase anchor to the fullest potential, so i prefer them being much more mobile and acting as very potent distractions for my fleet and as frigates that cap points. in my modded playthrough with exotica technologies added my afflictors can get up to 400 speed and combining that with APC is pretty busted
Thats smart, I never really experimented with how the AI operates with other designs. I'd always just thrown phase anchor on in case the AI found a way to get itself killed. I kind of rag on adaptive phase coils in the video, but that's more for people who use it on their own piloted ship. I feel like people watch a kuba k video where he takes out a entire station with an afflictor and it gets assumed that it must also be the best build for normal combat. And that's nothing against Kuba k, he just built the ship specific to the task, but dear Lord, reload times without phase anchor make me want to die. Definitely could see how the AI would do better with the additional mobility over the reload speed that they aren't really capable of taking advantage of
Not what i usually make, but the more I play starsector, the more broken I realized the afflictor was, and had to put a video out about it. Its damn near the fastest ship in the game, and has the tendency to rip apart everything in its way. Playing with it honestly feels a bit like cheating. i wrote this script like 3 or 4 times, and even now prattling on about it I feel like I still didn't do it justice.
Vayra's ship pack is a mod i used to use that had a bunch of balanced vanilla-like ships and weapons. One of them was a small mining laser that was a beam weapon (no hard flux generation) explosive (so less shield damage and more armor damage) and it had a longish (nearly 8 sec) recharge with short range. While Vayra is gone and there's no more updates on their mods, you can see how that weapon would fit an Afflictor, right? Well, it gets better. Because of the explosive+no hard flux combo, ai tries to manouver around shields to utilize this weapon to its fullest potential. Thus you get Afflictors who will stalk a target in phase space and only phase in to unload a high alpha into an unshielded part of a ship. So, if you grab yourself both Wolfpack and Phase ship skills, modify the ships with Hardened Subsystems, crew them with officers who have elited Combat Endurance and Field Modulation... You get up to 7 (because you start reducing bonuses after 6th Pirate Afflictor) (P) Afflictors who will constantly harass enemy blobs, swarm isolated ships, regenerate hull when phased with elite CE and are rather hard to catch out of phase due to elite FM. All while 2-3 shotting destroyers and cruisers with endless ammo and applying the Damage boost to your mainline. In my case i just used 1 battlecruiser as my main line. Once you get to later stages of the game and are up against huge fleets, (P) Afflictors were the only frigate that could reliably work while keeping the fleet logistics footprint low.
Damn it works so good with hyperions and scarabs. Usualy I tend to ignore afflictors and never take them to my fleet, but that ability to amplify damage in combination with heavy blasters from hyperion turns both of frigates into absolute monsters and it's so fun, thank you so much for showing me this :)
This is an excellent video. Barring some wrong math, (which only makes the Afflictor better lol) it was nice to listen to. I'll still spam capitals until I die, Grug like big boats.
Ammo count could be mitigated with expanded magazines, but personally, I find that I'm running out of deployment time before I'm empty. Biggest threat is blowing yourself up when you pop the bigger ships, I probably should have tagged on integrated targeting systems
Tbh, i dislike phase ships just because its own kind of challenge i dont like, and imo some numbers are really unfair. At least the re-cloak timer, or any counterplay.
I pilot the Harbinger as a Phase Hunter. And usually have a Heron on reserve in the fleet meant to pressure phase ships with fighter presence that can peel thin armor and create a zone of denial with burst beam weapons like the Phase Lance. So long as there's a mobile frigate group that can keep the phase ship isolated from any relief ships, they go down easy as long you maintain cohesion of the battle line and deal with pinched off clusters without being flanked.
To me a new player, these tiny pocket nuke, glass cannon ships are pretty daunting to use. The game looks like bullet hell sometimes, one wrong move or one missile out of nowhere is all it takes to ruin your day. I only ever used it as an escort for my capital ships.
Pretty much every phase ship is busted if I'm being honest. Afflictor is basically a very oversized bomber. Load it with either antimatter blasters and you will have a ship that can single-handedly deal with almost everything. Shade works similarly well, but has built in anti-strikecraft capability instead of ability to buff damage against target ship. Harbinger is a wonderful disabler - quantum disruptor combined with dual ion pulsers can lock down just about any enemy ship. Doom - despite all the nerfs is still insanely capable - quad needlers and 2 lances of a typical build are no joke. And minestrike is a wonderful distraction and occasional damage, though it also tends to catch your own afflictors. Hell, you can get very decent results from Gremlins and Grendels. Generally speaking - phase fleet, for singular battles tends to be nearly unbeatable, even in wonky hands of the AI (I honestly suck at flying ships myself, so AI ability is a major factor to me). The only problem is rapidly declining combat readiness between fights.
Yeah! Hell, I remember seeing a video of the Grendel take on the ziggurat single-handedly. I'm sure it's just really hard to balance the ability of phase, time dilation coupled with invincibility: it's just insane, especially trying to account for the player. And I know the Doom has been nerfed, but honestly I prefer it the way it is now. Again, the phase anchor just makes it way more fun for me.
Today i found luddic path fleet full of gremlins (20 - 25). I just flew away scared to fight that thing, because it would be an absolute pain in a ass.
@@user-kd8th8gd6k I'm usually running a battlegroup with a Conquest, 4 Eagles, 4 Hammerheads and 2 monitors. It usually can handle just about anything the game throws at you... But 20 Gremlins? I would run.
Same, but I also love it the way it is. It's amazing, but it takes a lot of playing with it before you realize just how broken it is. But yeah, now I have to play without it or only when I'm crippled during challenge runs
Less hatred, more boredom. I prefer diving into the thick of combat and narrowly blocking missiles and fire with good shield placement rather than the prolonged maneuvering of phase ships. They're not bad, just not what I play the game for.
Unsure if its from vanilla or Nexerelin, but if you press B while in battle, you toggle 'Bullet-time' on/off. This seems to be specifically for phase ships or any shio that speeds itself up. So ypu can see yourself fly a crackaddict Afflictor
Gonna add, if you like the afflictor, just use the afflictor(p) which is cheaper, yet functionally just as powerful. The extra missile slots are not necessary when you have 2 AM or 3 AM. Entropy amplifier does more than enough to help defeat the enemy. Use the extra OP else where, even capacitors alone help in the long run. To add, like any other phase ship, Afflictor is weak against beams/sustained fire (AI tendency to phase cloak to defend, so they can be easily fluxed out. This also means the Afflictor, and other similar ships are weak against fighters who would just hover over them, flux them out, then mob them(hello thunders). Regardless, Afflictors, specifically, are still super useful and viable against mod-content ships. Afflictors are never bad to have around. Also, for damage calc, I assume you did raw numbers. Do not forget about Armor Damage Mitigation. Just looking at DPS alone is not the end all, be all. A comparison example would be the Hellbore vs Hephaestus, to which I would also add, I have seen high DPS guns also do 1 damage and take much longer to kill heavily armored targets rather a big slow heavy hitter gun. Point being, don't worry about DPS calcs too much.
Yeah, the beautiful autists on Reddit set me straight on the math lol. Just started trying out the mod now, definitely helps against the fast movers Didn't get it across as well as I was hoping, the DPS was meant more to show "hey, your doing a ton on damage mostly straight to hull, if you land your shots, you can turn a paragon to mush in about 20 normal time seconds". In comparison to other phase ships where you aren't moving fast enough to whittle down shields, or the harbinger which is on a long ass cool down. I agree DPS ain't the most useful metric though. Time to kill would probably be more apt. I really like the double reapers, but the pirate variety seems like it'd work plenty good for AI use, which don't really take advantage of phase anchor/missiles/SO I'll have to do some testing and get to the exact numbers, I'm not even entirely sure how well antimatter blaster do against armour. In player hands fighters kinda become a non-issue, you can train them around cause you go so much faster, tritach lances scare the shit outta me though
Afflictors are a beast, but I prefer to give them adaptive phase coils; I just love the speed. I also prefer to give them 4 antimatter blasters and use two at a time( I also add a mining PD laser but it doesn't need it, I just use it to know if there is a missile near me). Although it rarely happens, losing a afflictor is no big deal as they are cheap to make and rather easy to find. I honestly don't like safety overdrive as it just cuts the remaining performance by too much, it large battles I need all the seconds I can get because most often than not, you are fighting large, large battles. I also give them expanded magazine, and integrated targeting units because I have seen 3 range(which I presume is like 300 units of range) give my afflictor a splash damage when something explodes, especially capital ships but 4 range(400 units) is just the right amount of distance to avoid this. Neural link is cool too, I add them to my doom capital and like two afflictors for myself and when one afflictor is about to reach its max performance seconds I bring the other and start again. Remaining points go to capacitors, which you need though I do try to get to 5000 flux if possible.
I like your build. Seems like it'd be better for longer later game battles, compared to speedmaxxing mine. Never felt the phase slowdown all too much because of SO, but yeah, the deployment time is like 90 seconds lol, it forces you to turn and burn. I have started to throw on itu on my builds, due exactly to what youre saying: capital blasts have a habit of taking you out with them
frigate phase ships are deadly but overpowered capital ships are standard, fun, but repetitive imo best in-between are cruiser phase ships. Not agile enough to duck behind enemy ships but just agile enough to perform complicated dodging maneuvers. i swear this shts actually peak. there's genuinely something special and charming about weaving through enemy missiles at the last moment or doing armor calculations to see what shots I can tank
It is one of those ships that is godlike in player hands, but much less powerful in AI hands. Makes you wonder if the player is some special phase wizard... with the hearing strange music and all that
For me personally I enjoy deploying those with only a mining blaster with an AI officer to escort my bigger ships. Its active ability of +50% damage is just amazing at making a very tough battleship like radiant vaporize. It is just amazing as an escort as well
Its awesome. Can't sleep on 50% extra damage, it's almost the equivalent of all the other damage skills combined. Why the mining blaster though? Does it keep the AI in check? They just better at using it than antimatter blasters?
Might make this a series, a big hurdle for new players is having the right load out on ships. I like the tempest build you suggested, if you got anything else solid I'd love to hear it
every ship can achieve incredible things in the player's hands, but i still stick with odyssey or conquest for longer operational time + faster real world completion of fights.
Actually its still a flux battle because you can't stay in phase for ever, you still have to come out of it because of flux so there fore its still a flux battle, just a much different one
Is there a mod that makes phased time a normal time? Cause honestly yeah it fun to fly phase ship, I don't really the fact that it makes the battle way longer cause you essentially slowed down the time.
This is cute for a single battle, but if you're fighting one large fight after another you can just throw the clock out the window. Completely out of the question.
And despite decently good performance, your Afflictor isn't even optimized or optimally controlled. Example: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9J2RPBqutec.html
Afflictor is so fucked its not even funny, despite being my favorite ship i definitely feel like i didnt get a good first playthrough because of it. Low tech doesnt seem that appealing when in your mind you just have flashbacks of every onslaught youve killed in the first 15 seconds of a fight because "lol no omni shields"
Exactly! I feel so exposed when I'm not in phase space or Omni shielded now, cause I know what the enemy should be able to do. In the back of my mind, I think, "why is this enemy gremlin dealing with my battle lines? He has a top speed of effectively 645, he is on the other side of the enemy fleet and yet is still only 3 seconds away from delivering those reapers directly to my carrier, he's basically closer to my heron than I am."
Autolances have a habit of being mistaken for their much deadlier cousin, phase lances I can understand the mistake, took me a couple times before I realized myself
Says it's the best then nukes his own frontal armor and does 1/4 damage to his own health. There are no "best ship" in Starsector there are several "worst ships" but even if your running a broad generalized fleet all ships are either situational or general. There was a time that phase ships were excessively powerful (still mostly in the players hands) but they have been heavily balanced now. You also didn't show anything I would consider a tough fight in this video, so I don't agree to your claims it can kill literally anything (show some of these don't just say something: how well does it handle the ziggurat or a hypershunts Tesseracts? how about in multiple lager Ordo fights, you know show something around the mid game at least.). The Afflictor is a good ship worth trying at the very least.
A little snippy, aren't ya? Who need frontal armour anyway? :P I agree that my clips in this aren't demonstrating end game play, they aren't meant to. They are just what I had on hand from my recent phase/salvage only challenge playthrough that fit with my script. I made this so that newer players might try out an cheap early game ship I really like, not to try and make an airtight point to win an argument with someone But to be fair to myself, half the videos I've made have been the afflictors killing ordo fleets, and I was ready for something different. I don't think I need to cheese on remnants anymore than this channel already has but if that's what you want we certainly have it! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3P3Fz8Y7lHs.htmlsi=ruY8vNIHuBqZPv7y The caveat is always the zig fight, but I already said that in the video. The motes are fast enough and have a long enough range that they prevent it from working well with my build. Carriers and missile saturation is better for that fight, something the afflictor has none of. Adaptive phase coils builds like kuba K's are going to do way better than mine with zig and station fights, and in general are technically superior. Tesseracts are a hard fight, but they also don't have a price or DP equivalency to judge it in a "pound for pound" comparison. I can do it with only afflictors, but it's just a slog and it takes like 8 each. Also, kinda disagree, there is a solid argument for best ship. It'd be the tesseract if you could pilot it, followed by the Zig which stands pretty far above all the rest playing a lot like prerework phase ships, followed by the radiant which is an absolute terror. but those are all way late game and essentially priceless ships. If have those, you have kinda already won. What makes the afflictor special is that you can get it the first 5 minutes of play for less than the cost of the hammerhead and proceed to dominate the rest of the game with it. Just calling it a good ship worth trying doesn't do it justice. A eradicator is a good ship worth trying, an afflictor is an unstoppable bullet that can throw a 16000 damage salvo directly to the enemies hull
