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Post by whiteweasel on Jul 4, 2018 19:30:28 GMT
I have been trying to beat the vesta overkill mission for four hours, and yet the closest I got was trying to spam the enemy with missiles, however, my computer frequently crashes when too many nuclear missiles are used. Any advice or guides on how to beat this mission?
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Post by bigbombr on Jul 4, 2018 19:49:57 GMT
Lasers, missiles, drones.
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Post by whiteweasel on Jul 4, 2018 20:24:44 GMT
One of the guides I found used the 13 MW 286mm turreted coilgun in it's build, but I cannot seem to find it in the ship builder.
EDIT: Eh, i've conceded, and downloaded a ship from the workshop. That said, I'm still having trouble with the mission since any meaningful amount of nuclear missiles might crash the game on me.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jul 4, 2018 22:21:37 GMT
I just made a highly manoeuvrable, gunship sized vessel made mostly of gun. Alternatively, a fleet of small, highly manoeuvrable ships spamming conventional guns works just as well.
I am currently busy fixing my designs following the latest patch, so I have temporarily taken the former off Steam, and haven't uploaded the latter back when it worked.
Making highly manoeuvrable stuff out of stock modules is only going to be easier now, as there are new, quite beefy multi-engines available - back then you had to resort to chemical RCS and afterburners on your nuclear ship.
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Post by Rocket Witch on Jul 4, 2018 23:45:54 GMT
One of the guides I found used the 13 MW 286mm turreted coilgun in it's build, but I cannot seem to find it in the ship builder. Electric guns used to violate conservation of energy by hundreds or thousands of percent, the 286mm coilgun especially (iirc it was 8000% efficient). Last year this was fixed and all such guns were replaced. There isn't a true stock equivalent to it anymore, since it launched 5kg slugs very rapidly, which you just can't do anymore without gigawatt power levels (entirely possible once you unlock custom modules though!). Here's another thread on beating Vesta which might contain a useful solution for you: childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/1872I think there was another longer one, but I can't find it.
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Post by whiteweasel on Jul 5, 2018 1:55:06 GMT
Dang it, it seems like anytime I have a good chance of winning, the game just crashes on me and I have to start all over. I really wish this game had save states or something. I spent six hours on this mission, I just want it to be over. EDIT: Seems like turning down the options to as low as they can go helps. Hopefully I'll get lucky one of these tries. For anyone wondering, my current strategy is to use a fleet of 10 of these ships from the workshop. I stay in my orbit and let the enemy send in their drones and missiles, and deal with them with my rather generous supply of nuclear missiles. Then the voitenko's fleet makes a beeline for me. I send in two 200 missile striker nuclear missile waves to try and intercept the capitol fleet, sometimes they dodge the intercept and go right to mit capitols, or the missiles waves do modest damage. (can't have more than two large waves active at once, as even on low it could crash my game). Sometimes I get lucky and their silo ship spontaneously detonates. I just need the stars to align and have everything go right all in one mission. Another problem when they beeline me is that they have a tendency to eject themselves from vesta, making me unable to pursue them and finish them off as they are pretty badly damaged by this point. But sadly the game doesn't count mission kills for vesta overkill.
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Post by picklesthedrummer on Jul 5, 2018 5:48:44 GMT
I found it pretty easy to brute force that mission with several ships that had relatively low firepower but good accuracy and enough armor to continue soaking up incoming fire even after getting disarmed. I deleted the design but I used 5 ships that each had one 60.4 MW reactor with a couple extra radiators for redundancy, 8 sniper coilguns for redundancy, and a sharp conical nose with about 25 cm boron filament armor (only 1cm on the rest of the ship). You don't need to move in that mission so they only need about 300 m/s delta-v for basic turning.
The combat strategy is to set them all to point forward and ignore range then spend the rest of the time choosing targets. Make sure to target the guns on drones and railguns/coilguns/60mm cannons on capital ships. The sniper coilguns should be able to disable drones before they can fire if you ignore range and target their guns. Incoming nukes should all be shot down with no action. In the capital fight your ships will probably lose about half their guns, but if you targeted all the guns on the enemy ships you should outgun them in no time. The Corvette and/or Fleet Carrier will most likely dodge enough that you can't take out their last gun or two, so you might need to retarget some other module that makes the shots go into the ship and hit something important. I find the Fleet Carrier is extremely vulnerable if you target its center rocket when it's pointing at you. The Corvette can be more challenging to finish off but shouldn't pose much of a threat by that point.
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Post by AdmiralObvious on Jul 5, 2018 7:00:04 GMT
Vesta is pretty difficult when you don't have the module editor. However, I've found that a sufficient volley of stingers into their capital fleet, after you've nuked their lasers off tends to be an extremely simple to do combo.
You don't even need the nukes to he close to melt off the mirrors of the lasers, assuming they're firing at you, which they should be.
The hard part is beating off the waves of nukes and drones she throws at you first.
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Post by whiteweasel on Jul 5, 2018 14:04:05 GMT
I found it pretty easy to brute force that mission with several ships that had relatively low firepower but good accuracy and enough armor to continue soaking up incoming fire even after getting disarmed. I deleted the design but I used 5 ships that each had one 60.4 MW reactor with a couple extra radiators for redundancy, 8 sniper coilguns for redundancy, and a sharp conical nose with about 25 cm boron filament armor (only 1cm on the rest of the ship). You don't need to move in that mission so they only need about 300 m/s delta-v for basic turning. The combat strategy is to set them all to point forward and ignore range then spend the rest of the time choosing targets. Make sure to target the guns on drones and railguns/coilguns/60mm cannons on capital ships. The sniper coilguns should be able to disable drones before they can fire if you ignore range and target their guns. Incoming nukes should all be shot down with no action. In the capital fight your ships will probably lose about half their guns, but if you targeted all the guns on the enemy ships you should outgun them in no time. The Corvette and/or Fleet Carrier will most likely dodge enough that you can't take out their last gun or two, so you might need to retarget some other module that makes the shots go into the ship and hit something important. I find the Fleet Carrier is extremely vulnerable if you target its center rocket when it's pointing at you. The Corvette can be more challenging to finish off but shouldn't pose much of a threat by that point. Alright, this is what I have come up with so far. Not sure how you fielded 8 sniper coilguns and stayed with in cost limits, but hopefully things will go well for me next time I have some time to play!
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Post by picklesthedrummer on Jul 5, 2018 16:19:16 GMT
Not sure how you fielded 8 sniper coilguns and stayed with in cost limits My design had a shorter nose cone so the armor cost less. I think my nose cone was about twice as long as it was wide. It also doesn't need a full 25cm of armor. I just made it as thick as possible once everything else was in place. If you have to choose between a cm or two of armor and a gun, choose the gun. It's much better to have 4 than 3 after taking some damage. I also recommend moving the guns much farther back so they don't get hit by ricochets off the cone. I used 8 smaller radiators so less cooling is lost when one breaks, but that should be good enough.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jul 5, 2018 17:03:44 GMT
You might find those two threads relevant to your interests:
Both contain blueprints, screenshots, and lengthy explanations of design and strategy.
Blueprints are severely outdated and will be badly mangled by the current patch (a lot of very fine tuned module packing), but you might be able to salvage or reverse engineer something useful.
Note that all of them consist of stock modules only, so they fit the bill for beating Vesta legitimately. Also note, that with the latest patch we've got relatively beefy, if demanding methane NTRs so chemical RCS/boosters are no longer needed for my design philosophy.
I am currently in process of repairing my ships, so expect modernized versions to start (re)appearing on the Workshop as well.
My designs generally focus on agility and firepower - kill the enemy early and be able to dodge much of their fire. If not dodging they use armour slope rather than sheer mass to deflect incoming fire. They are not specialized for specific missions.
If you have to choose between a cm or two of armor and a gun, choose the gun. It's much better to have 4 than 3 after taking some damage. Guns are also a kind of armour in a way - if you manage to get the enemy to stop shooting early, they won't do as much damage.
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Post by whiteweasel on Jul 5, 2018 17:18:23 GMT
AT LAST! THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER! The above model of ship didn't quite work alone, but a fleet of four lawn darts and two boikys (that workshop ship that spams missiles) was able to overcome voitenko's invasion force. Just as pickles said, my fleet demolished any drone or missile waves they sent at me. Then their capitols came into range, what gave my fleet the edge to win were having two of the boiky missile spammers creating a continuous screen of missiles heading down range, causing the enemies' fleet to be more preoccupied shooting down my missiles than really going at my fleet, allowing them to break their guns and deal with them at my leisure. Overall, I lost two ships, and completed this mission on the second try with the new fleet. Here's a pic of the glass cannon duo:
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Post by lawson on Jul 5, 2018 22:58:48 GMT
Sorry I'm a bit late to the party but the Missile Schooner was always my go-to for stock combat missions. 1-2 missiles can intercept and disable any drone or missile wave. (initiate combat, then trigger the missile wave or dodge the drones until the AI's fuel runs out) While 20-40 missiles in a wave would inflict significant damage on any stock fleet. (cutters and gun-ships needed the most missiles) I usually went with Cutters in the anti-missile anti-drone role, but the Laser Frigate should do just as well. Finally, be patient and only move in once all the enemy ships are glowing and/or tumbling. For armor I use a sloped nose with Diamond/amorphous-carbon facing layer <3cm total thickness, 20-30cm of carbon aerogel, 2-4 cm of magnesium, 20-30cm of carbon aerogel, 2-4cm of magnesium, etc all over. Borrowed the armor pattern off the old thread on armor. It's cheap and holds up to lasers and kinetic weapons really well. I also always fit 5-10 remote control units so any zombie ships keep fighting and drawing fire till the bitter end.
P.S. huh, the cutter got a LOT better at popping stock missiles... Oh, boy I am so out of date on this mission...
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Jul 6, 2018 20:32:59 GMT
Overall, I lost two ships, and completed this mission on the second try with the new fleet. Here's a pic of the glass cannon duo: Congrats. That's some seriously awful delta-v, though.
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Post by antonindvorak on Jul 11, 2018 16:48:26 GMT
Just be careful with that. Speed is armour, they used to say, but egg shells, even with huge hammers, are still egg shells. And if they are squished before they get to use their guns in an effective way, they contribute nothing of their guns' power. That can be a valid tactic --- sort of torpedo boats against battleships --- but torpedo boat destroyers and light & fast-firing secondary guns countered that quite well in the wet navy, and it took stealth (submarine, Long Lance from far outside what they expected possible) or surprise and little if any reaction time (airborne torpedoes, CAPTOR mine (releasing a torpedo)) to be a hard to contain danger. So you run your heavily armed egg shells and I run a few secondary lasers (destroyers or even drones) taking out the less-armoured egg shells before the egg shells have the time to use their hammers a lot. In which case it degrades to you using swarms of hardly armoured drones and me having sufficient anti-drone systems. PS: how do your egg shells handle a handful of nuke missiles bearing down on them or a stinger type drone swarm attack? (That is the quandary, isn't it? You build a jack of all trades ship (or fleet) and it will be master of none and outperformed by a specialised enemy. But said specialised enemy will lose outside his special case to even a jack of all trades.)
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