Glaives (Hunter class ships) are overpowered and...

[Kallipar]

Why would you do that when MRPs in military slots have lowest priority?

Exactly. Balancing load out. It's maximising usage of mrp's. Leaving the best to last makes a difference.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Exactly. Balancing load out. It's maximising usage of mrp's. Leaving the best to last makes a difference.

That's wrong. See my explanation above. There is a reason why everyone including AXI tell you to never put your largest MRP in a mil slot.

 

[Kallipar]

To elaborate: If you put a larger MRP in a military slot, say a C4 one, for integrity and smaller ones, say C1 in normal slots to up the percentage, all damage is taken by the MRPs in the normal slots first. In effect, first your protection percentage crumbles, and then your modules get destroyed along with the now weaker large MRP in the military slots.

That is a perception, there are other posts that disagree with this perception. Commonality does not mean that it is right. Percentage or absolute values in fdev speak can often be interchangeable.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Exactly. Balancing load out. It's maximising usage of mrp's. Leaving the best to last makes a difference.

That's a very poor decision, losing >30% of your protection before the MRP with the most integrity starts taking damage.

 

[tolm]

Take EVAC missions as an example. They are very much high reward (with my Python, I can easily earn 40 G5 mats per run, 50 if I get good RNG with the passenger count for the missions), and before the Glaives, they were very much low risk. Preparing for the war I built my rather tanky Python for EVAC missions, and the more I flew, the more I got tempted to dismantle protection for performance - higher passenger count, higher jump range - because they were so low risk that even flying through a battle field to dock at a station I really didn't need any of the protection I fitted whatsoever. It is a good thing that this has changed. Low risk high reward sounds wrong.

I can see your point to an extent.

But it was only low risk because you built a fast enough ship. Now that won’t work so you’ll need a warship to do anything whereas before you could have chosen fight vs flight. It seems a backwards step to remove player options instead of adding more.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I can see your point to an extent.

But it was only low risk because you built a fast enough ship. Now that won’t work so you’ll need a warship to do anything whereas before you could have chosen fight vs flight. It seems a backwards step to remove player options instead of adding more.

I can still do it in pretty much the same Python. The only difference is I put in an ECM (I decided to ditch the SFN for it as I never ever needed it) and put on some guns along with lowering my armor in favor of a weapon stabilizer (to be able to fit five MCs). And that ship is just borderline fast enough, if it gets interdicted by a Basilisk, I have to do some maneuvering to get away, it only did 477 before adding the guns, now it does 470.

 

[Kira Goto]

That is a perception, there are other posts that disagree with this perception. Commonality does not mean that it is right. Percentage or absolute values in fdev speak can often be interchangeable.

The logic is backwards for your case. You have 94% protection for modules(half that for weapons and utility mounts iirc) with three module reinforcements. Say you lose the two smaller size reinforcement ones, reducing it to 60% protection.

So now, your modules will take 40% damage instead of 6%, which is over six times as much. And by that point, they will already have taken a fair bit of it because Thargoids wreck them like nothing else.

So you could have 94% protection for the duration of the size 4/5 reinforcement lasting, but instead you’re choosing to have only 60% by throwing the smaller ones under the bus first. In which world is that the logical or preferable choice?

 

[Kallipar]

Not everything in fdev world is logical. I will try to find the information pertaining to this, it may indeed have changed since the original post, please be open minded at least considering that there are at least 3 parameters concerned in regards to defence stacking.

Please also note Neds fair comment about mil slot priority. This is something that many are not aware about, and it does have an effect.

I am remote at present and search is limited to connect some dots. Will be able do the digging later this week.

 

[tolm]

I can still do it in pretty much the same Python. The only difference is I put in an ECM (I decided to ditch the SFN for it as I never ever needed it) and put on some guns along with lowering my armor in favor of a weapon stabilizer (to be able to fit five MCs). And that ship is just borderline fast enough, if it gets interdicted by a Basilisk, I have to do some maneuvering to get away, it only did 477 before adding the guns, now it does 470.

Unfortunately, I simply don’t have room for an ECM on my AX FAS.

 

[Krash]

You must have missed the days when a Cyclops was impossible to kill. Now n00bs kill them in gib boats

What's a gib boat?

 

[Kira Goto]

What's a gib boat?

You take an Anaconda, throw six modshards(modified Guardian shard cannon, size 2 to be specific) on it with a size 5 experimental weapon stabilizer, and pull the trigger on center of mass until the Cyclops starts to explode.

It’s super cheesy and I’ve never used it, but it’s there if you enjoy that kind of thing. My personal impression is the Glaive(or the Guardian neutralizer field it has) kinda exists because of those.

It would be a simple thing to just spawn more higher tier interceptors. I personally got tired of seeing the Cyclops spam in AX CZs about one or two months into this war, regardless of where I went. It makes the non-Cyclops/Hydra kill missions almost impossible to complete because you just have no guarantee whether one will show up.

(And then there was that issue of the kills not counting in Open randomly. Which I don’t know myself whether it was fixed - patch notes might say so but the issues don’t always go.)

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Not suggesting otherwise. Everything is just "the story so far". Getting a few reports now, still quite rare and random compared to the number of times it doesn't happen. We'll keep an eye on it as we work. Non CZ stations - unattacked or damaged - seem unaffected so far, all reports are from attacked ports, still mostly ground ports but in the last 24 hrs a couple of outposts have been reported. They may appear at unattacked and damaged ports if you hang around long enough, we don't know yet, but there seems no reason why they would turn up more than any other Thargoid and rescue ships don't hang around so if there is a delay before they show it should be less of an issue there.

Understood. It is a game of chance getting them. Just like with the other Thargoid ships.

Good information here.

I make no assumptions about anybody's level of skill in my posts. You're not the only one reading the thread. If it applies, it applies, if not it might be useful to someone else.

Point taken. And it is useful advice for more unexperienced CMDRs.

It doesn't mean it's a certainty either, or even a regular occurrence, which is the other side of the coin. People who say you can't rule something out often forget this also means you don't automatically rule it in either. It's a two way process. What needs investigating now is the frequency. So far we have cleared 6 systems in 6 days with rescues and deliveries, with Glaives being the least of our concerns.

The important conclusion that we can take about this is that it is possible, therefore everyone will have to change builds and tactics to cope with it, no matter how rare that Glaive hyper / interdiction occurs.

So far they exist as a potential but rare threat, not the Sword of Damocles people have been claiming, so I think a bit more time learning how to work round them is required before deciding it's all hopeless and unfair and calling for the nerf bat.

"Sword of Damocles"

That is surely an exaggeration, in regard to what I have implied in my original post...

Regarding the "nerf bat", I do not think that my suggestions were strong enough to make them silly enemies. That was never my intent.

And I have no problem about investigating them more before action is taken.

I was commenting on people saying you need 800m/s after it has already been established that this is not true. Like people who still claim clean drives help you with fuel scooping despite it being debunked years ago, or that a cold ship is difficult to engineer. I can comment on this directly as I have tested it myself and built a AX reactivations ship for the purpose that can outrun them even if they jump you and hit you with a missile before you can move. 740 and being able to boost every 5 seconds will do it but it's marginal so 760 or more should be safe. I'm doing 787 on boost after a slight rework, dropping to 740 before boosting again, and getting away just fine. The hardest part was balancing it with enough protection to take Revenant damage while taking off and landing at the settlement.

Great info you got here.

Glaives also appear to be significantly easier to kill inside a CZ then outside them. For example, one MC will take one down in a CZ, slowly but it will do it, yet three MCs in a space encounter take the hull down far more slowly. Indicating that the threat they pose is situational and not just applied indiscriminately everywhere.

I can confirm this impression.

I alone destroyed a 3 Glaives "wing" in a planetary AX CZ at Marriot Installation in Muruidooges last Sunday, with the same ship that got interdicted by a single one in that same system.

In Marriot, they did not all focus on me and I was able to attack them one by one. My Mod Shards got killed quickly but the other weapons (3x S LR TV Beams + 1x L EN AX MC) did their job. I was able to avoid being shocked but once, and it was all over in 2-3 min.

Very different result when that single Glaive interdicted me in space. I believe I wasn't fast enough to do the standard Boost + Silent Running + Heatsink and got hit immediately by a FSD Reboot missile. Then, right away, it closed in within about 1,5km and started zooming past me, so I couldn't get a Shard shot before the weapons' destruction. After that it closed to within 1km and started zapping me with the Lightning Attack, as well as hitting me with several salvos of 4x caustic missiles. Then it became a cyclical game of trying to get separation but getting damaged in the process, while its shield got recharged fast. I decided that I wasn't going to last long, being unable to break the cycle, and was able to run with 29% hull, while the Glaive still had 52%, IIRC.

I believe they seem more aggressive in situations of Hyper / Interdictions precisely because they only have a single target to focus upon. They seem to loose focus more frequently in AX CZs.

So, IMO, they are much more dangerous in Hyper / Interdictions than when they drop in to AX CZs, even when in wings of 3.

The roll part I've never done, will try that. Thanks for the tip.

For AX Reactivations a small fast ship can easily be built to do them that can outrun Glaives all day.

Ok. That situation might be sorted out then.

Now more info has come in we're getting a better picture of exactly how big of a threat Glaives are to rescues, and it's not the major hindrance it has been blown up to be. For rescue ships, if you can land fast enough and jump away fast enough it's simply an extra risk to escape from, while accepting that there may be times you don't get away but that's been true since the start.

I might have an issue with the highlighted part of your text.

Before U15, a fast cold Dolphin/Orca was nearly untouchable in all Evac/Rescue situations, as long as the CMDR knew how to react.

Now, after U15, a fast cold Dolphin/Orca is most probably dead if it gets Hyper / Interdicted by a Glaive, even if the CMDR knows how to react.

They will likely be a bigger headache for AX and anyone hanging around to fight them than for rescues and deliveries.

I disagree with this impression, because of what I have experienced myself.

Our tests will be ongoing but despite the prophecies of doom we have had one of our most productive weeks, with the potential to clear all Invasions and Alerts around Taranis by tomorrow.

That must be me, the Doomsayer !...


EDIT: Typos...

 

[Hanerib]

So, don’t engage in any of the new content being added that up until last week you could?

yeh, that seems like a solution …

They said in Galnet that Glaives attacking pilots is likely a response for breaching the Maelstrom. So, now pilots need to get good or give up.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

It was two Glaives simultaneously, while occasionally being shot by a Cyclops, as well as the ambient scouts I was ignoring to focus the Glaives.
The AX NPCs did a decent job of distracting the Cyclops, but seemed to be unable to even hit the Glaives at all.

If I was all that bothered, I could fly my Krait MkII, or FDS, with all human ax weapons. But I'm flying a meme Mamba for fun.
Also, after my first encounter with the Glaives at a CZ earlier, I was Interdicted while fuel scooping in an Invasion system by another Glaive, and that one I was able to get down to 17% before my shards died, if I had hit a few more shots they may have survived.

You mean "died" ?

 

[Northpin]

What's a gib boat?

You take an Anaconda, throw six modshards(modified Guardian shard cannon, size 2 to be specific) on it with a size 5 experimental weapon stabilizer, and pull the trigger on center of mass until the Cyclops starts to explode.

It’s super cheesy and I’ve never used it, but it’s there if you enjoy that kind of thing. My personal impression is the Glaive(or the Guardian neutralizer field it has) kinda exists because of those.

It's fine.
And it's fun.

You can nail a Cyclops with 4 trigger presses - and that takes like 6s or so starting with the Cyclops at full health and will all hearts intact
This setup also works for 1-shotting scouts - assuming you are under 1km range and they present you their wide top/bottom

However, it does not work for anything higher - you still have to exert and kill any individual heart for Basilisks, Medusas and Hydras (in a solo scenario)

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

If it’s designed to be an inescapable foe that you have to fight, having it interdict ships and destroy your best weapons with a passive magical ability is incredibly poor gameplay design.

Very much this.

Sure, if it does only operate in Controlled systems I guess that’s something but sometimes you can’t avoid those in order to get to whoever the mission / CZ is.

But that would actually force CMDRs to prepare navigation and choose wisely the "enemy territory" they would travel through. Not a bad gameplay situation.

But, personally, I would make them slower and remove the Guardian destruction field thing.

Agreed.

(Or, alternatively, put them in specific “high risk” locations only)

Exactly, with a jump warning like "Extreme Danger > Hunter Class Ships sighted in System"

At present, those two things just make them incompatible with the kind of ship builds used for other AX activity: if you don’t build for Glaives, you are hugely vulnerable should they show up (even if you survive you’ll have lost weapons and a massive chunk of hull) and if you do build for them then your ability to accomplish the task you were actually wanting to do for will be compromised.

Precisely.

And if one goes for an intermediate build, you are effectively always fighting at a disadvantage.

In short, they’re FDev‘s “Fun Police” - intentionally designed to stop you playing the game you were trying to play.

I want my ball back.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Unfortunately, I simply don’t have room for an ECM on my AX FAS.

I don't have either. In my dedicated AX build I carry all the AX toys: One heat sink, one caustic sink launcher, one scanner, one SFN. Utilties full. If I take this build to where Glaives are to be expected, I would probably be prepared to forego the ECM and just tank the damage until the Glaives are dead. My experiments have shown I can deal with two of them, albeit with some significant damage; upping my piloting skills and learning to judge their attack patterns will help reduce the damage I will have to tank.

In my EVAC build, I don't need all the AX toys. Right now, it carries two shield boosters, the ECM and the caustic sink launcher. The last one is the only mandatory one. And with the ECM, I will be able to either wake on multiple Glaives or take out a single one. That's a purpose built ship adapted for the new challenge, if you ask me.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

I find this an interesting topic: on one hand you have AX combat being seen as mowing down Thargoids using ever advanced Guardian weapons, on the other Thargoids that break this dependency and force you to be more prepared / use alternatives.

If the Glaives did not exist then would people complain Thargoid combat is little more than Space Invaders? I kind of feel for FD as it seems people want challenge but then get bent out of shape when something presents that challenge.

The people who say one thing, are not the people that say the opposite.

There are several views on every matter, just like in this one.

On one side, we have the CMDRs that like the new challenge no matter what, on the other the CMDRs that think the implementation (not the concept) of that challenge is flawed.

It is only natural not having a unanimous view on the matter.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

We need some Huge AX weapon batteries …

That would be interesting.

But my point is more that if you did run your Krait - with all human AX weapons - then taking out Interceptors becomes less optimal, which makes completing CZs less optimal … which is the thing you were actually trying to do.

We all spent however many collective hundreds of hours grinding for the best weapons to take on the enemy and I think it’s a very poor decision by FDev to introduce a ship that even just a single one has the potential to negate those weapons and interrupt your enjoyment of their own game!

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Levels of challenge so everyone can engage with the new content.

We had that.

They broke it.

If the Glaives are to stay with the current “powers” they have, put them only in the Maelstrom and new “Hazardous” rated CZs.

Then CMDRs can (again) choose the level of challenge they are comfortable with.

Very much this.