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Post by combinedfleet on Mar 22, 2016 12:14:59 GMT -8
Hello there,
As you may or may not have read in the title I need some help clearing this mission on Captain difficulty. I am referring to the first mission in the Helion system in which you need to survive 6 turns before you are able to warp. I tried fighting but I might be lacking in something. Camping could work for me if i buy as many repair drones as possible but the problem with that is that i will most likely lose my alliance cruiser. And since im camping i'll barely make any cash. I managed this mission before on Captain difficulty but i ave know idea how. Can anybody give me some very useful tips or perhaps a good walktrough(video)
Thanks in advance
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Post by Ardanis on Mar 22, 2016 13:13:39 GMT -8
Depends on what upgrades you have purchased, really. My setup is as follows.
Turn 1.
Starting with vanguard cannon is an option, but opening the battle with Full Forward appears to inflict just about as much damage, if not more.
Sola snipes out both Supports.
Somebody else kills Ironhogs - Asaga is good at that, if she's proficient with lasers.
Chigara can disable one capital ship, and Kryska can kill another.
If Claude assists with gravity gun, Icari can kill two Elites and retreat back into your shield/flak protective range.
The remaining ships provide finishing shots to the above mentioned targets, if necessary, and concentrate the remaining firepower on another capital ship, preferably the one with shields lowered by Union Frigates.
Turn 2.
Enemies may manage to avenge the two Elites and kill Icari on their turn, but doing so will waste most of their attacks on her.
If she survived, or if you don't care to resurrect her, then it's Warp+Vanguard time.
Kryska should kill another cap ship, and the others should handle a couple more.
If you didn't leave any cripples to finish, you can awaken Sola for the next turn's wave.
Turn 3.
If Vanguard was fired, enemies tend to concentrate on Sunrider, but with all torpedos already shot in previous turn, they shouldn't be able to sink her.
If hull damage is low, then another Vanguard can kill or cripple 3-4 cruisers and remaining cap ships. Otherwise fire weapons at point blank range and warp back to safety.
From this on, enemy numbers should be low enough to kill new reinforcements as they come.
The last big wave may be tough, but it's also possible to kill all of them in one turn, if you don't fancy losing credits.
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Post by combinedfleet on Mar 22, 2016 13:41:42 GMT -8
Depends on what upgrades you have purchased, really. My setup is as follows. Turn 1. Starting with vanguard cannon is an option, but opening the battle with Full Forward appears to inflict just about as much damage, if not more. Sola snipes out both Supports. Somebody else kills Ironhogs - Asaga is good at that, if she's proficient with lasers. Chigara can disable one capital ship, and Kryska can kill another. If Claude assists with gravity gun, Icari can kill two Elites and retreat back into your shield/flak protective range. The remaining ships provide finishing shots to the above mentioned targets, if necessary, and concentrate the remaining firepower on another capital ship, preferably the one with shields lowered by Union Frigates. Turn 2. Enemies may manage to avenge the two Elites and kill Icari on their turn, but doing so will waste most of their attacks on her. If she survived, or if you don't care to resurrect her, then it's Warp+Vanguard time. Kryska should kill another cap ship, and the others should handle a couple more. If you didn't leave any cripples to finish, you can awaken Sola for the next turn's wave. Turn 3. If Vanguard was fired, enemies tend to concentrate on Sunrider, but with all torpedos already shot in previous turn, they shouldn't be able to sink her. If hull damage is low, then another Vanguard can kill or cripple 3-4 cruisers and remaining cap ships. Otherwise fire weapons at point blank range and warp back to safety. From this on, enemy numbers should be low enough to kill new reinforcements as they come. The last big wave may be tough, but it's also possible to kill all of them in one turn, if you don't fancy losing credits. Hmm this is awkward. Sola is just 2 upgrades away from firing her weapon 2 times. And how does Kryska take a captial ship out on her own? If you are talking about cruisers than yes but she can only fire twice. Also I dont have any union frigates but I do have 2 alliance Cruisers. Ill see if i can mange to make it work otherwise ill just go backt to the escort mission and try to earn more cash there/not lose an alliance cruiser. Ill tell you how it goes. |
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Post by Ardanis on Mar 22, 2016 14:42:28 GMT -8
Ah. Well, that sort of explains the difficulty with this mission  By this time it's advisable to already have double-shot Sola and triple-shot Kryska, otherwise there's just too many enemy hit points to take down. The escort mission can certainly help with cash, though it may be hard to kill all of them with your setup. |
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Post by Marx-93 on Mar 22, 2016 15:02:00 GMT -8
Hum, double shot Sola is certainly a priority, but triple hit Kryska is not necessary in my experience. Now, however, I went by using the Union Frigates a lot (all 4 of them); combined with double laser BlackJack that can be a surprisingly powerful combination, specially in 7.2.
A healthy use of missiles may help too, though for that you would require some previous upgrades.
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Post by Ardanis on Mar 22, 2016 15:20:26 GMT -8
Lasers are certainly viable, but even with multiple damage upgrades Black Jack is still lagging behind Paladin. I currently have both of them fire thrice per turn, and consistently find it harder to find viable targets for lasers than for kinetics. Not saying you shouldn't go for lasers - they're definitely worth it - but not at the expense of kinetics.
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Post by 白龍 on Mar 22, 2016 15:22:33 GMT -8
If you don't mind, could you post what upgrades and purchases you've made so far? I'll see what I can do.
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Post by Drath on Mar 22, 2016 19:52:27 GMT -8
Yea this is one of the trickier MoA battles. Nicely discussed already by Ardanis and Marx-93 , so I don't really have too much to add. Personally I used Vanguard Cannon in turn 1 on the Battleships and got Bianca to reposition the Elites into the path of the beam. If you don't have enough damage from your other units to follow up and kill off most enemy units in turn 1, this can prove really risky though. Generally speaking, optimizing offensive output via improving reactor energy and cost reduction for that attack type is one of key considerations when tackling the game at Captain difficulty or higher. All the mercenary ships (both Alliance Cruisers and the 4 Mining Union Frigates) are good bang for the buck and it is nice to have all of them with you at this stage of the game. I do think a double kinetic Seraphim and a triple kinetic Paladin both have their merits. Seraphim's advantage mostly lies in its high accuracy and in taking out priority targets placed to the back of the enemy's formation which may be consequently quite hard to hit. These include units like Pirate Ironhogs, which do vastly disproportionate rocket damage relative to the amount of hps it has, and PACT supports which can wreck your defenses if allowed to free cast. Paladin's triple kinetic is probably a bit ahead in terms of bang of the buck (raw damage gained per funds invested), but is less flexible in terms of choosing potential targets. As for the Laser/Pulse vs Kinetic argument, if you're playing on v7.2, it might surprise you how strong energy weapons can be when well upgraded in terms of damage and cost reduction. There's a reason why these were significantly nerfed in Lib Day. If you haven't updated the game and are still on v7.1 for MoA, then I would probably favor Ardanis's stand on prioritizing kinetics. Also consider heavy missile and rocket tactics on turn 1 (Marx and Graph will probably elaborate further) as effective burst damage. If you're not disabling one of the Assault Carriers/Battleships, one option is using 3 FlakOffs if you have Liberty at 120EN and focussing heavily on missile damage. As usual, if you can reduce enemy flak coverage by utilizing kinetics first and destroying enemy units that boast heavy flak values, that will make it easier to use missiles as follow up. |
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Post by combinedfleet on Mar 22, 2016 22:59:11 GMT -8
If you don't mind, could you post what upgrades and purchases you've made so far? I'll see what I can do. Yeah ill post the screenshots soon of what stuff i have |
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Post by combinedfleet on Mar 25, 2016 3:24:40 GMT -8
If you don't mind, could you post what upgrades and purchases you've made so far? I'll see what I can do. ![]() How do I insert my own screenshots in this reply? I cant find the button for it |
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Post by Nemjen on Mar 25, 2016 3:36:36 GMT -8
If you don't mind, could you post what upgrades and purchases you've made so far? I'll see what I can do. ![]() How do I insert my own screenshots in this reply? I cant find the button for it Upload it to imgur.com/ and then copy and paste the the 'direct URL' into the 'image URL' of this tool.  |
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Post by combinedfleet on Mar 25, 2016 8:20:00 GMT -8
![]() How do I insert my own screenshots in this reply? I cant find the button for it Upload it to imgur.com/ and then copy and paste the the 'direct URL' into the 'image URL' of this tool. There we go: imgur.com/a/DHqXa |
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Post by Xechran on Mar 25, 2016 11:56:54 GMT -8
I see. What we want: Double tap on Seraphim ($3,990), double repair on Liberty ($5,440), and triple tap on the paladin if we can afford it($7,100). These figures are a bit off, got them from skirmish and theres a bit of a bug there I guess? Once I sell the upgrades I have it slightly alters the price for buying them so the numbers are off in the singles place, might add up to $10 here or there. The double tap on Sola keeps you from getting overwhelmed by Support ryders, mangle cruisers and carriers, and generally clean house. The double repair on Chigara should be obvious, and triple kinetics for Kryska keeps your flanks open. Regardless, you want about $9.5k. I doubt we can scrounge up the extra 7k for the paladin, but it is helpful. To get that were going to brutally cannibalize your fleet for spare parts. Personally? I sell the wishall. Because raisins. I don't know if you kept it or how you intend to play that. I have to say, the way the wishall is presented I would never use it. What happens to THIS reality? It just keeps on spinning. Are you removed from it? Does that Sunrider have to carry on without Kayto? Or does it not work from the apparent perspective of the user and both boot you over and keep you present? Effectively the only one who moves is me, if thats true. In as much as its possible to role play this, I figure hes the "down with the ship" type. See a bit of that when Veniczar Porkchops has them against a wall. My captain would want to see it out in his universe with his Cera, his ship, his family/crew. I see no reason to keep it unless I am metagaming for the "optimal" route. So ya, I sold it and ordered Ava down to the switch. I hope she pulls through. Down with the ship type? Hah! Called it. Anyway... Sunrider: Chop the hull plating back to say, rank 2 or 3. All the way to 1 if you need. Drop the energy weapon upgrades. Nothing wrong with lasers but it helps to focus a weapon type and were going to be a bit short on funds here. Liberty: Drop the hull plating to rank 1. Drop the weapons upgrades. Drop the armor to 1. Bianca: Drop hull, evasion and weapons and armor. Phoenix: Drop the melee upgrades. Keep the kinetics upgrades you have if you can and put Icari on point. Use her to finish off any and every thing you can manage to, this generates a great deal of agro. Another point of evasion would be good, but is a low priority atm. Blackjack: Strip off everything. A point of flak can help but is also a low priority. Check your funding and prioritize what you can accomplish from the list. After that its a matter of how you are setting your placement. By default mine looks like so:  As a matter of fact, I did not realize it but the save I opened to work with all this? Ya, it was right at that mission on Captain. So I just played it. Turn 1: Full Forward. Sola shoots both Supports, has 96% to hit on them. Blackjack double lasers north Hog. South Cruiser and one Frigate damage south Hog, Icari finishes it. Chigara disables north Assault Carrier. Sunrider double kinetics mid battleship. Kryska hits mid battleship with kinetics for the kill, fires twice into south battleship. 3 shield jam into carrier, one into north battleship. 3 frigate lasers into carrier. Aim down both battleships and south assault carrier. (Claude only has 100 energy). Spend any remaining energy on assault guns into best hit chance target(always). In this case its the battleships, but at 30-35% I'll shoot at ryders that can be damaged. Otherwise I use it to whittle hp and armor. Seen too many ships live with 1-3 hp not to.
Enemy turn: Everything fires on Kryska. Four torpedoes and numerous missiles intercepted by flak. A single pirate torpedo and a number of missiles connect. Kryska at 215/900 hp. South assault carrier moved a hex grid closer and spawned a support ryder.
Turn 2: Repair Kryska once, 680/900. Paladin Tripple fires at south Ass. Carrier. South cruiser kinetic strikes the south battleship. Icari finishes the south B.Ship with two gun salvos. Sunrider kinetic strikes south ass. carrier for the death blow. Sola snipes the single support and hurts the nearest Elite ryder. South cruiser assault guns same ryder. Icari finishes. Aim down new, rear battleship and two nearest elites. Sunrider kinetic strikes the carrier. North cruiser kinetics the battleship. 3x shield down carrier, 1x shield down near b.ship. 4x frigate laser assault carrier. 2x Blackjack laser on ass carrier. Repair Kryska, 900/900.
Enemy turn: Battleships missile/torpedo the Sunrider. The torpedo actually connects? Shocking. One elite lasers Kryska. Other tries to melee Icari. And connects? Wtf? Assault carrier missiles Sola, only one missile survives flak net and hits. Pirate bombers missile Seraphim, light hits. Pact bomber torpedoes Kryska. And connects? Oy oy! Ass carrier spawns a support. New elites missile Sola as well. Sola 132/475, Sunrider 707/1500, Icari 139/500, Kryska 542/900. Those odds...
Turn 3: Both cruisers kinetic the wounded b.ship. Icari returns the favor, and melee kills the elite that deigned to lay hands on her. Both cruiser assault the b.ship. Icari assaults the b.ship twice more and finishes it. Sola snipes the support and the carrier. Sunrider fires on carrier, 79% to hit, misses. Fires again for the fireworks. This exposes the ass.carrier by removing all nearby shielding. 4x frigate lasers to kill. Kryska kinetics two nearest elites, 69% and 55%, hits both. Assaults both, kills one. Asaga pulse lasers the wounded elite, lasers a nearby pirate bomber. Aim down the 2 pirate and 1 pact bomber that spawned on enemy's turn. Repair Icari and Kryska. Pray to Claude. (could have used repair drones, opted to chance it)
Enemy turn: Pact and Pirate bombers torpedo the Sunrider. 2/3 connect. Sunrider at 56 hp. Ava recommends abandoning ship.
Turn 4: Aim down two newest b.ships. Awaken and repair Seraphim 475/475. Repair Sunrider. Repair drone Sunrider, 1257/1500. Kryska double kinetics nearest cruiser @ 84% chance, both hit cruiser down. Icari assaults the pirate bomber Asaga wounded, collects bounty. Refresh aim down on older b.ship. Frigate laser nearest pirate bomber. Attempt to finish with Icari assault, 12 hp left. Kill with south cruiser assault. 3x frigate laser into nearest elite. Icari assaults to kill. Kryska resumes hostilities, kinetics nearest cruiser @ 69% chance, hits. Asaga and north cruiser 3x laser remaining nearby elite, kill. Sunrider fires on older b.ship with 69% to hit, connects twice. South cruiser attempts low chance 45% shot on nearest wounded cruiser, connects and kills.
Enemy turn: Pact battleships go first, torpedo Kryska, all flak batteries fire with no intercepts. Savescum! Sunrider intercepts both torpedoes before any other flak battery gets to roll. Some lasers hit, Kryska at 640/900.
Turn 5: Kryska kinetics the old, wounded b.ship. Surives with 70 hp, Icari gets the coup de grace. Sola double strikes the newly spawned south ass carrier, south cruiser and a frigate follow up with lasers for the kill. Disable north ass carrier. Kryska fires twice on center b.ship with 69% to hit, no joy. Sunrider lasers north ass carrier, pulse lasers nearby pact bomber. A frigate lasers it and Icari assaults it for the kill. Asaga double lasers north ass carrier. North cruiser and both remaining frigates laser the same carrier. Aim down the two last cruisers and a random bomber.
Enemy turn: Everything fires at Icari. Much laughter ensues.
Turn 6: Full forward. Asaga double lasers north wounded ass carrier, Chigara finishes with a single strike. Kryska triple strikes nearby battleship, Icari clinches. Sola double taps the remaining, freshly spawned north ass carrier. North cruiser and a frigate follow up for the kill. Sunrider double strikes and kills a cruiser. South cruiser kinetics a cruiser with a 60% chance to hit, scores. 2x shield jam and frigate lasers later, Icari assaults it for the kill. Last frigate lasers nearest bomber. Claude aim downs the new battleship, then drags that bomber in one hex. Both cruisers and then Icari assault it for the kill. Repair on Paladin, 900/900. Aim down on last, south ass carrier.
Enemy turn: Everything fires at Icari...
That wasn't Luck, that was skill! Ahem. $8005 from destruction less $78 repair bill with 8807 cmd points earned, 2250 spent. Could have done a number of things differently/more aggressively. If the paladin takes too much combined fire you can swap its position with the Sunrider. Can loose Icari on the ryders, and can expend order points on Vanguard to push out ahead more quickly. |
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Post by Ardanis on Mar 25, 2016 13:15:10 GMT -8
I wouldn't go for double repair. It is quite expensive on its own, and investing these funds into weapons can let you kill enemies faster, which in turn will reduce the damage they inflict.
Agreed about dropping some hull plating on Sunrider - with 25 armor you don't need to worry much about stray lasers and missiles, and enemy torpedoes are limited in supply.
Also I'd drop its shield upgrades - with 2-hex coverage Bianca and Liberty, if placed strategically, can shield most of your formation just fine. The 80% mitigation is sufficient to reduce most of the laser attacks to minor scratches.
Stripping Liberty and Bianca of everything except shields and energy should also be high priority - they're better at casting than attacking, and if they don't generate aggro then enemies will also ignore them.
Paladin can do without evasion and flak. It's tough enough to take an extra hit or two, and the alliance cruisers provide decent flak coverage.
Black Jack has way too much hull as well - it may come in handy in the last battle, but until then it's overkill.
Phoenix is lacking energy to be effective as melee build - with 130+ it can fly into range, kill a couple ryders that Bianca drags towards it, then return to safety. If not, it's a waste of funds.
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Post by Marx-93 on Mar 26, 2016 4:05:49 GMT -8
I agree mostly with Ardanis. No need to drop laser upgrades, they can be very helpful, but the hull plating seems very excessive on most Ryders and the Sunrider. The shield power upgrades are not bad per se, but already having range 2 in both shields you can probably drop the power of one to get some money; with 75% SHD already the A.I. will simply stop shooting lasers at you. The upgrades on the Liberty and Bianca also feel a waste; any turn they spend shooting is a turn they lose. With this you can easily scrounge 3000+$ to get double shot Seraphim. To be honest, more than Double-repair Liberty, which I never used, I feel inverting on making the Phoenix decent (more EN) and preparing for 3-hit Paladin is the best if you have leftover money, though that depends on your strategy. If you're more defensive then surely double repair will help you. |
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Post by Xechran on Mar 26, 2016 5:35:07 GMT -8
Over all, I agree with that too. Offense is the best way to limit damage. However, looking at the upgrades he has, as focused into HP and armor as he is double repair would likely fit into his existing play style easily is what I figure. That and I doubt he can scrounge the funds for the triple shot Paladin. Its a matter of what he can rearrange and get hold of to help him now, with this mission. Like I said, "Check your funding and prioritize what you can accomplish from the list."
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Post by combinedfleet on Mar 27, 2016 1:43:56 GMT -8
That is all helpful advice. Hmm. And yes i did sell the wishwell so I suppose im going to go back to the point where i finished wishwell mission and spend my money far more differently this time around. I'll tell how it goes.
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Post by combinedfleet on Mar 28, 2016 10:10:53 GMT -8
imgur.com/27q6edI "Hang on... I can get a couple more units" That went better then expected.
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Post by Xechran on Mar 28, 2016 16:06:47 GMT -8
For posterity, what did you do different this time around?
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Post by Drath on Apr 1, 2016 4:16:37 GMT -8
Sorry for the late post. Been really badly tied up in work last week. I guess you could say RL caught up with me somewhat. Anyway it's good to see lots of sound advice here, Xechran , Ardanis , Marx-93 It's great to see more people offering their views on gameplay! I think the upgrades have already been very nicely discussed so I'm just going to chime in on why players decide the way we do on certain choices. On reactor energy and energy cost reduction upgrades: The general goal here is to have a rough idea on what the costs are for the next shot via optimizing reactor energy and energy cost reduction upgrades. A Seraphim which can do 1.9 shots per turn is functionally similar to a Seraphim which can do 1 shot, so it's somewhat of an all or nothing affair. Yes with a little more reactor energy and energy cost reduction you might be able to get an extra hex of movement out of Seraphim while making that 1 shot per turn, but is it really worth the funds spent in doing so. Seraphim should generally not have accuracy troubles if properly placed in turn 1. Upgrading from base values, a double kinetic Seraphim costs roughly 10.9k but is still fairly good bang for the buck towards the endgame and makes dealing with PACT Supports a good deal easier. This applies to other units as well when making such upgrades, so you would explore the costs of getting say the next Pulse or the next Kinetic for Sunrider, damage gained per turn and decide accordingly whether affordable/worth it. On defensive upgrades: Honestly I'm not a big fan of these. Generally these only come into play when said unit is attacked as opposed to offensive upgrades which are useful every single turn as long as you're using said attack. Knowing which unit tends to be attacked (which depend largely on the damage said unit puts out and how well protected it is) should limit the number of defensive upgrades you need to dole out. No doubt these will be important for units which need to expose themselves to deal damage (ie Phoenix). Generally things are weighted a little better for offense so do consider improving offense to limit incoming damage instead of improving passive defensive stats such as Hull and Armor. On missile/rocket upgrades: I note that you have put no upgrades into any of these on any unit and would urge that you consider getting some. A little surprised that Marx didn't strongly lobby for it  Missiles and rockets are great for burst damage and therefore reducing incoming turn 1 damage, but their use needs to be coupled well with use of Flak Off/Disable to achieve the desired effect. Open with kinetics first to reduce armor on units with high armor. Every missile gets armor deducted from its damage. Use missiles with higher damage first to reduce total enemy armor mitigation. I am unable to check your store purchases but will just generally say that in both MoA and Lib Day, mercenary ships are worth every bit in terms of bang for the buck both offensively and defensively and should be automatic purchases. |
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Post by 白龍 on Apr 1, 2016 7:19:10 GMT -8
On missile/rocket upgrades: I note that you have put no upgrades into any of these on any unit and would urge that you consider getting some. A little surprised that Marx didn't strongly lobby for it Missiles and rockets are great for burst damage and therefore reducing incoming turn 1 damage, but their use needs to be coupled well with use of Flak Off/Disable to achieve the desired effect. Open with kinetics first to reduce armor on units with high armor. Every missile gets armor deducted from its damage. Use missiles with higher damage first to reduce total enemy armor mitigation. Unless, you have a personal vendetta against missiles/rockets. It's okay, I understand. We Kineticians will never bow to missiles/rockets! We praise RNGesus for gracing us with successful hits and tremble in fear when he causes our shots to bounce... |
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Post by Marx-93 on Apr 1, 2016 12:18:25 GMT -8
On missile/rocket upgrades: I note that you have put no upgrades into any of these on any unit and would urge that you consider getting some. A little surprised that Marx didn't strongly lobby for it Missiles and rockets are great for burst damage and therefore reducing incoming turn 1 damage, but their use needs to be coupled well with use of Flak Off/Disable to achieve the desired effect. Open with kinetics first to reduce armor on units with high armor. Every missile gets armor deducted from its damage. Use missiles with higher damage first to reduce total enemy armor mitigation. I've kinda given up on super-specific cases like this one emoticon_ava_small . I mean, on general strategies, I'm all for it and Graph has again shown us that the more extreme missile/rocket build continues being very viable on hard even in Liberation day, but on super-specific cases where I can see from the upgrades that he probably hasn't touched his missiles much I'll kindly shut up  . Missile play just requires a fairly different way of playing; due to all the multiple calculations and steps you'll need (you'll want to fire your missiles in bursts which means at least 3-4 attacks, all of them with amour, flak and HP management to optimize them) you're basically playing 10 movements ahead; the potential for enormous damage is there, but for that you'll need to see through to all the planning and decide it's worth it more than usual play (and due to being consumables, some of the first instincts are "never use!"). For most beta testers this sounds normal, but for people who don't take the combat system that seriously they may prefer to go without it. |
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Post by Ardanis on Apr 1, 2016 20:59:05 GMT -8
Missiles are useful in early missions, when there're enough enemies without overlapping flak protection. But after that they're imo only really good as emergency or in specific situations, like vs Ryuvian cruisers. The cost of upgrading for extra shots also becomes prohibitively expensive very soon, unlike regular weapons.
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Post by combinedfleet on Apr 7, 2016 11:01:10 GMT -8
For posterity, what did you do different this time around? I was able to take out 2 supports thanks to double shot sola. I could also do more with Chiagara thank to 140 energy (Double repair rocks especially in the next battle(s)!). Trip shot kryska helped by taking down a battle ship while asaga took out those little monsters AKA Nidhoggs. Thanks to both chigara and an upgraded Phoenix i was able to one shot elites with a full forwarded melee strike. With sunrider and Alliance cruiser i took out a assault carrier I think and of course using the immensely useful gravity gun and aim down curse from Bianca. That left including next turn reinforcements maybe 7 units left or so? Maybe even less. Annoying is that the reinforcements spawn relatively far to the right. But after the first two turns the main threat from the chapter was removed. I might still take some hp upgrades on Bianca and Seraphim cause I found they were often the target of missiles and such. Especially Bianca became a target of hate during my fight against the legion where in he took her down because just 2 missiles came through. But my god does that kinectic hurt. 1000 dmg to my sunrider who had 25 Armour in just one hit  |
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Post by warmach1ne32 on Sept 13, 2016 19:11:04 GMT -8
I didn't know you could triple tap with the Paladin, I mean it is possible but would be hugely expensive, so I didn't try that. I did have Sola double shot, but not have Chigara double repair cause I rarely needed repair on more than 1 unit other than facing Alice with her 30k health Nightmare. In the 1st Turn I use Full forward and give aim and damage buff to Sola as a sort of makeshift awakened to shoot down any support or those aoe missile destroyers(I forgot the name of that ship) or whittle down carriers. When Sola is awakening and the carriers deploy support, I warp right next to it and have Bianca move it around the Sunrider so the free auto attack would kill it. Then have Chigara flak off the carrier for missile barrage or just Savior cannons point blank. Since I didn't get 3-tap Paladin/BlackJ or double repair I spent the intel on more damage and a little accuracy on Sola (2:1 ratio), upgrade kinetics on the Sunrider (3:1 ratio of damage and accuracy), try to get the Sunrider to double shoot and flak, and give damage, accuracy, and energy upgrade to pheonix since I use her and the gunships a lot to finish of capital ships and mooks. The ones with the big guns like Sola and Kryska along with Sunrider and the A.cruisers job is to whittle the armor down to 0 or <4 armor. Sola's shots I generally use on carriers and high HP units and use Sunrider's warp to hit ad run, and the amount of kills done from the ships would replenish the 1750 CMP easily.
Also did you know that All Guard's flak buff also increases the damage of counter-attack fire? I found that by accident in MoA when I warped next to a support and 1 shot it when All guard was active. In LibDay when you can get Summon Battleship is also really good, I usually summon on after Full Forward expired so I can summon and give it Full Forward afterward along with an Aim Up from Chigara and damage buff from Claude to maximize the chance of hitting the cannon shot and cause HUGE damage (1500 x Full Forward's 30% increase x Claude's Damage buff = 2000+ damage enough to 1 shot a Pact BShip). I also tried the Ongessite half-move cost power and the distance covered is awesome and 5 move cost per hex on Pheonix means I could cross the map with her in 1 turn, but isn't worth it on the units that won't be moving like Sola and the supports.
That is basically how I've been playing, Sunrider as short-range heavy damage with kinetic when you warp in on support and use Bianca to cause counter-attack flak and use Sola on the big fish is probably the unique style to my strat, everything else I'll assume is normal kill them before they kill us strategy with the big guns shredding armor and bug bites to finish them off. Also if I have a lot of enemies clumped together I could MIRV that after a few flak off on the back line to replenish the CMP of warping to and back.
If anyone have any ideas on how to improve my performance I would really appreciate it when I play though on Admiral next week. Any help would be appreciated.
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Missiles and rockets are great for burst damage and therefore reducing incoming turn 1 damage, but their use needs to be coupled well with use of Flak Off/Disable to achieve the desired effect. Open with kinetics first to reduce armor on units with high armor. Every missile gets armor deducted from its damage. Use missiles with higher damage first to reduce total enemy armor mitigation. 
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