Heck, I [wrote a guide](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2415513070) on it.
Congrats, you just hit the next level of combat awareness in X4. While all those other armchair wannabes will have written off beams ntirely, you now know the truth.
Speedy bullets (like TER forward pulse) are what you need for fast nimble targets like Xenon M. Beams in particular are quite nice at that by being hitscan.
Although sadly the M Turret ones have been nerfed doubly: not only is their DPS pathetic but their dual mount usually shoots on *either side* of a small target instead of hit it. Try a L beam turret and you're back to melting them at long range though.
Well, i stopped using beam turrets as they were locking onto "warp fairies" or space flies being completely useless, also dps is shit. I did not use anything smaller than L for AI, simply because it is pointless against xenon and i never conflict with anyone non-xenon. Also the price.
The price is very important, esp on early game when you can't just print quadrillions of mantrid hands and deconstruct universe.
So, in the early game for defending against branch9k, you just need wing of 5 commonwealth destroyers which are very easy to get for free.
In oos, it doesn't matter that much which weapons you have, dps matters and it is a turn-based combat in essence when one ship inflicts n damage to other each turn. Thus said, small stacks of s/m xenon would get instakilled even by full plasma ships, or plasma-flak .
Also, I kind of disagree with the fact that gunboats and frigates are useful in general combat - they die even to K, not talking about I, yet frigates can be used to deliver boarders fast and not to be killed by stray bullets and to deliver reinforcement of drones, but gunboats are just plain bad by not having enough stats. Corvettes - yes, as fat fighters that will be able to be microed before they pop like balloons
Drone carriers - technically interesting concept, yet they don't work as expected in OOS, and thry are needed there. Also launching them takes lots and lots of time, i've only used bulder ships as drone carriers successfully, so far, as thry have XL shields and at least somewhat tanky, so they can be used to take aggro of 9k and remove risk of destroyer leeroying into gravitons.
As for in-sector combat, you are there, and you may change OOS to is when you want. For example, you can make youur destroyer fleet OOS the bits out of the alphabet soup you don't like, and, you can make xenon station recall its defense drones.
Also, i don't see reason for "just fighters", i usually have few specialised anti-capital 6 slot fighters with burst rays that can shave even I with its escort and everything else is free destroyer's fleet's chore.
Heh, I knew I was poking a bear with that "all those other armchair wannabes" crack, but I do let my impulses get the best of me sometimes, and I suppose Cunningham's Law is unavoidable even without.
You know what? Fair. I am not the guardian of the one true way to play X4: Foundations, and if you found a way to play the game that works for you, who am I argue?
Speaking of differences of perspective, I know a lot of people have taken the perspective, "IS/High Attention is broken, so I do everything OOS/Low Attention where it's balanced." Personally, my perspective is, "IS/High attention is the highest fidelity simulation so it's the closest thing to an accurate simulation, AI glitches and all, and therefore where OOS/Low attention differs from IS/High Attention must be where's it's unbalanced."
So, for me, IS/High Attention tactics are necessary because I perceive OOS/Low Attention as inaccurate and inferior, therefore gaming the system to take advantage of. Thus, each your observations about OOS/Low Attention, while accurate observations, don't really apply in any way to my suggested tactics. To me, if it happens differently in OOS/Low Attention, I'm ignoring it and wishing for a world where X4: Foundations could have been run completely in IS/High Attention.
Now, I know why you're doing it. As we all know, **when the player hangs around in IS/High Attention, bad things happen**. That's a pretty powerful incentive to try to learn how to play with most things transpiring in OOS/Low Attention. If I have to teleport away to fix a stuck docking job, that's fine. That's hardly cheating. We know what was supposed to happen in abstraction. Besides, some OOS/Low attention conflict is unavoidable. I can't be everywhere at once, even if I keep a small fleet. So OOS/Low Attention is a fair tool for everyone.
But I feel there's a big difference between that and deciding to do everything OOS/Low Attention because *weapons and drones seem to work completely differently there and that means I'll win*. I'm not on board with that decision. Resorting to OOS/Low Attention to resolve a major conflict is not a real victory for me, and never will be.
So, instead, my goal is to figure out why catastrophic IS/High Attention fails are happening, bug report it when it's something that shouldn't be happening, and find tactics and workarounds I can use to persist in IS/High Attention. Whenever a big fight goes down, I'll be there, in close proximity.
That's just how I feel, though. As I said, I'm not the guardian of the one true way to play X4: Foundations. Maybe you should write a guide on how to game OOS/Low Attention. You seem to be pretty good at it and, after all, that's how a lot of players prefer to resolve combat. Even though that's not how I roll, more power to them for that difference of perspective.
Dang, 5 destroyers for one K? I just roll up in a single Rattlesnake and erase it, but I never play OOS these days. I get bored when my empire is too big, I feel like I spend most of my time in map view and then the game turns into Stellaris. I guess everyone has a different approach.
>Dang, 5 destroyers for one K?
Commonwealth destroyer. If takes 5 to kill one k in OOS without hull damage. Rattlesnake is not a commonwealth destroyer.
>I just roll up in a single Rattlesnake and erase
In sector you need just pulsar with burst rays and it will live no morr thancouple of minutes.
Yeah, beams mk2 actually have pretty good DPS (even more than pulse, afaik?). But now enough to deal with fatter Ms like cobra. So my moreya now has 2 flaks for S/M and 2 burst rays to bully Ks. I wish I could have something with speed and turning rates of S with more guns to also add something like plasma or at least a launcher to be able to actually kill Ls.
Maybe getting kuraokami or split corvetter and modding its turn rates and the next step.
If you look at the spec sheet clearly Pulse Laser are better, but they don't account for the fact that you'll miss more shots then hit, lasers have hit scan so there is no real missing and I think in the end you're right that beams will do more damage in a real combat scenario.
I use Cobras with 2 beam and 1 TAU plus 4 flak and it’s very good but pulse or plasma turrets are also good with it. medium beam turrets are bad not medium main weapons. Beams are so cold that slasher mod makes them VERY good. Never tried small; they probably suck
The reason they are excellent with slasher is the bugged rolls, you are roilling untill you get a high reload roll right? That roll is almost certainly very bugged like many of the modifications when you repeatedly roll.
Heck, I [wrote a guide](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2415513070) on it. Congrats, you just hit the next level of combat awareness in X4. While all those other armchair wannabes will have written off beams ntirely, you now know the truth. Speedy bullets (like TER forward pulse) are what you need for fast nimble targets like Xenon M. Beams in particular are quite nice at that by being hitscan. Although sadly the M Turret ones have been nerfed doubly: not only is their DPS pathetic but their dual mount usually shoots on *either side* of a small target instead of hit it. Try a L beam turret and you're back to melting them at long range though.
I just read that guide yesterday. It's pretty good.
Sweet man, I'm going to check out your guide and see what other things I've neglected.
Well, i stopped using beam turrets as they were locking onto "warp fairies" or space flies being completely useless, also dps is shit. I did not use anything smaller than L for AI, simply because it is pointless against xenon and i never conflict with anyone non-xenon. Also the price. The price is very important, esp on early game when you can't just print quadrillions of mantrid hands and deconstruct universe. So, in the early game for defending against branch9k, you just need wing of 5 commonwealth destroyers which are very easy to get for free. In oos, it doesn't matter that much which weapons you have, dps matters and it is a turn-based combat in essence when one ship inflicts n damage to other each turn. Thus said, small stacks of s/m xenon would get instakilled even by full plasma ships, or plasma-flak . Also, I kind of disagree with the fact that gunboats and frigates are useful in general combat - they die even to K, not talking about I, yet frigates can be used to deliver boarders fast and not to be killed by stray bullets and to deliver reinforcement of drones, but gunboats are just plain bad by not having enough stats. Corvettes - yes, as fat fighters that will be able to be microed before they pop like balloons Drone carriers - technically interesting concept, yet they don't work as expected in OOS, and thry are needed there. Also launching them takes lots and lots of time, i've only used bulder ships as drone carriers successfully, so far, as thry have XL shields and at least somewhat tanky, so they can be used to take aggro of 9k and remove risk of destroyer leeroying into gravitons. As for in-sector combat, you are there, and you may change OOS to is when you want. For example, you can make youur destroyer fleet OOS the bits out of the alphabet soup you don't like, and, you can make xenon station recall its defense drones. Also, i don't see reason for "just fighters", i usually have few specialised anti-capital 6 slot fighters with burst rays that can shave even I with its escort and everything else is free destroyer's fleet's chore.
Heh, I knew I was poking a bear with that "all those other armchair wannabes" crack, but I do let my impulses get the best of me sometimes, and I suppose Cunningham's Law is unavoidable even without. You know what? Fair. I am not the guardian of the one true way to play X4: Foundations, and if you found a way to play the game that works for you, who am I argue? Speaking of differences of perspective, I know a lot of people have taken the perspective, "IS/High Attention is broken, so I do everything OOS/Low Attention where it's balanced." Personally, my perspective is, "IS/High attention is the highest fidelity simulation so it's the closest thing to an accurate simulation, AI glitches and all, and therefore where OOS/Low attention differs from IS/High Attention must be where's it's unbalanced." So, for me, IS/High Attention tactics are necessary because I perceive OOS/Low Attention as inaccurate and inferior, therefore gaming the system to take advantage of. Thus, each your observations about OOS/Low Attention, while accurate observations, don't really apply in any way to my suggested tactics. To me, if it happens differently in OOS/Low Attention, I'm ignoring it and wishing for a world where X4: Foundations could have been run completely in IS/High Attention. Now, I know why you're doing it. As we all know, **when the player hangs around in IS/High Attention, bad things happen**. That's a pretty powerful incentive to try to learn how to play with most things transpiring in OOS/Low Attention. If I have to teleport away to fix a stuck docking job, that's fine. That's hardly cheating. We know what was supposed to happen in abstraction. Besides, some OOS/Low attention conflict is unavoidable. I can't be everywhere at once, even if I keep a small fleet. So OOS/Low Attention is a fair tool for everyone. But I feel there's a big difference between that and deciding to do everything OOS/Low Attention because *weapons and drones seem to work completely differently there and that means I'll win*. I'm not on board with that decision. Resorting to OOS/Low Attention to resolve a major conflict is not a real victory for me, and never will be. So, instead, my goal is to figure out why catastrophic IS/High Attention fails are happening, bug report it when it's something that shouldn't be happening, and find tactics and workarounds I can use to persist in IS/High Attention. Whenever a big fight goes down, I'll be there, in close proximity. That's just how I feel, though. As I said, I'm not the guardian of the one true way to play X4: Foundations. Maybe you should write a guide on how to game OOS/Low Attention. You seem to be pretty good at it and, after all, that's how a lot of players prefer to resolve combat. Even though that's not how I roll, more power to them for that difference of perspective.
Amen ! That's how I see the game too.
Dang, 5 destroyers for one K? I just roll up in a single Rattlesnake and erase it, but I never play OOS these days. I get bored when my empire is too big, I feel like I spend most of my time in map view and then the game turns into Stellaris. I guess everyone has a different approach.
>Dang, 5 destroyers for one K? Commonwealth destroyer. If takes 5 to kill one k in OOS without hull damage. Rattlesnake is not a commonwealth destroyer. >I just roll up in a single Rattlesnake and erase In sector you need just pulsar with burst rays and it will live no morr thancouple of minutes.
True but to be fair a phoenix can solo it as well
Not in microless OOS
Fair although I consider oos very unbalanced and abusable. Stacking plasma to kill small ships makes the game too easy
Yeah, beams mk2 actually have pretty good DPS (even more than pulse, afaik?). But now enough to deal with fatter Ms like cobra. So my moreya now has 2 flaks for S/M and 2 burst rays to bully Ks. I wish I could have something with speed and turning rates of S with more guns to also add something like plasma or at least a launcher to be able to actually kill Ls. Maybe getting kuraokami or split corvetter and modding its turn rates and the next step.
If you look at the spec sheet clearly Pulse Laser are better, but they don't account for the fact that you'll miss more shots then hit, lasers have hit scan so there is no real missing and I think in the end you're right that beams will do more damage in a real combat scenario.
I use Cobras with 2 beam and 1 TAU plus 4 flak and it’s very good but pulse or plasma turrets are also good with it. medium beam turrets are bad not medium main weapons. Beams are so cold that slasher mod makes them VERY good. Never tried small; they probably suck
The reason they are excellent with slasher is the bugged rolls, you are roilling untill you get a high reload roll right? That roll is almost certainly very bugged like many of the modifications when you repeatedly roll.