A couple of questions on Ship design (v Unbidden) Kinetic Artillery v Cloud Lightning

[unmerged(350868)]

I just got the X5 Unbidden crisis. This time it did not spawn in the L Cluster, so I have some time to contain it.

Unfortunately, all of my ships are configured with energy weapons, so I know I need to swap out for kinetic arty and Focused Arc Emitter. But is the KA better than Cloud Lightning?

Just a couple of questions on ship loadout...

1. Do the increases in firing rate and damage show up in the "average damage" stat in the ship builder? It looks to me like not (I already answered my own question).

2. Now... I just spent over 2 hours writing a post breaking down the numbers of why KA was better than Cloud Lightning in a 31 ship Battleship Fleet, without taking into account the FAE. Then I realised that I did not know how many shots I would get off with KA and FAE before the CL came into range... so I deleted it all to ask the question... how many shots could you get off (roughly)?

I am assuming it is better to keep distance as the smaller unbidden ship have a shorter range.

I am trying to salvage this post.

Where is my life going...

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

I'd say KA: with enough ships conentrated in one place (4-6 BB fleets, adjusted for tech) you'll end up killing a single X5 Unbidden stack before it gets in range. Not sure if mixing in Ark emitter is justified if you going to chew through their shields anyway.

Of course if your industry can't afford that, something with maxed out evasion and penetrating weaponry is, probably, your only bet (most of Unbidden firepower comes from large guns, after all).


PS there are also strike craft, no idea if they are currently up to the task, tho.

 

[Oculument]

I just got the X5 Unbidden crisis. This time it did not spawn in the L Cluster, so I have some time to contain it.

Unfortunately, all of my ships are configured with energy weapons, so I know I need to swap out for kinetic arty and Focused Arc Emitter. But is the KA better than Cloud Lightning?

Yes KA is better than cloud lightning. This is because KA range is 120 and Cloud Lighntning is only 60. Crisis weapon damage is 5X, so you don't want them to get in range to hit your ships, kill them from far away and use cautious admirals, artillery combat computers and the war doctrine for +10% range (Rapid deployment I think) which stacks together for +50% range on the 120 base.

 

[Zagreb 887]

I just got the X5 Unbidden crisis. This time it did not spawn in the L Cluster, so I have some time to contain it.

Unfortunately, all of my ships are configured with energy weapons, so I know I need to swap out for kinetic arty and Focused Arc Emitter. But is the KA better than Cloud Lightning?

Just a couple of questions on ship loadout...

1. Do the increases in firing rate and damage show up in the "average damage" stat in the ship builder? It looks to me like not (I already answered my own question).

2. Now... I just spent over 2 hours writing a post breaking down the numbers of why KA was better than Cloud Lightning in a 31 ship Battleship Fleet, without taking into account the FAE. Then I realised that I did not know how many shots I would get off with KA and FAE before the CL came into range... so I deleted it all to ask the question... how many shots could you get off (roughly)?

I am assuming it is better to keep distance as the smaller unbidden ship have a shorter range.

I am trying to salvage this post.

Where is my life going...

If you are already committed into energy repeteables, you should go for FAE+CL, you can add some carrier because Unbbiden have 0 PD and armour.

At 0 repeatable, kinetic is better than bypass weapons, but it's far mor easy to go for the energy ones, as the engeenering tree is way more cluttered than physics. Imho, in the long run, energy weapons are more effective than kinetic.

 

[Archael90]

I was calculating what design is better and it seems that kinetic is far better than penetration due to much higher damage (including unbidden shields, and kinetic shield and hp bonus damage), yet on field my lighting battleships perform much better, killing more unbidden ships, and taking less damage than kinetic/strikecraft (this was an option too)