I really appreciate Thaago, who's a big name on the forums, for correcting my math. He says: "Yup, a lot of solid points in this one, although it understates the damage by a lot: AM Blasters do 1400 damage a shot base, not 900. Between Wolfpack (20% vs destroyers and up), Energy mastery (0-30, but probably around 10%), CR (10%), Target Analysis ( 5-20% depending on ship size), and cybernetic (2x combat skills %, so say 14% ish? Totally variable), the ship system (50% which stacks I believe as it applies on the receiving end rather than the firing end), and phase time recharge boost, the number of damage boosts on top of 1400 is VERY large. I believe also that testing by someone revealed that Target Analysis and Wolfpack tactics damage boost is in a separate "pool" than energy mastery/CR/cybernetic, because it is target-size dependent, so the full modifier vs a capital would be more like (1+.2+.2)*(~1.4 (varies a lot based on skills and flux level)) ~= 1.96, rather than the normal additive ~1.8. All the above also applies to harbingers and phase lances by the way - phase anchor, advanced optics, ITU, and escort package mean that you can fly a harbinger with triple lances next to a friendly capital and have a shockingly good fire platform." No idea where the hell I got the 900 number from. Also, all the math i did was multiplicative when most of it should've been additive, ah well. Anyway, so I guess the numbers should be closer to... 2800 base damage from 2 antimatter blasters *~1.96 multiplier for larger vessels Averaging around 5488 per volley giving roughly 2744 Dps if run optimally. Considering a Paragon is 18000 hp, this is all pretty busted
i prefer using adaptive phase coils on AI afflictors since in my experience AI pilots can't utilise phase anchor to the fullest potential, so i prefer them being much more mobile and acting as very potent distractions for my fleet and as frigates that cap points. in my modded playthrough with exotica technologies added my afflictors can get up to 400 speed and combining that with APC is pretty busted
Thats smart, I never really experimented with how the AI operates with other designs. I'd always just thrown phase anchor on in case the AI found a way to get itself killed. I kind of rag on adaptive phase coils in the video, but that's more for people who use it on their own piloted ship. I feel like people watch a kuba k video where he takes out a entire station with an afflictor and it gets assumed that it must also be the best build for normal combat. And that's nothing against Kuba k, he just built the ship specific to the task, but dear Lord, reload times without phase anchor make me want to die. Definitely could see how the AI would do better with the additional mobility over the reload speed that they aren't really capable of taking advantage of
Not what i usually make, but the more I play starsector, the more broken I realized the afflictor was, and had to put a video out about it. Its damn near the fastest ship in the game, and has the tendency to rip apart everything in its way. Playing with it honestly feels a bit like cheating. i wrote this script like 3 or 4 times, and even now prattling on about it I feel like I still didn't do it justice.
Vayra's ship pack is a mod i used to use that had a bunch of balanced vanilla-like ships and weapons. One of them was a small mining laser that was a beam weapon (no hard flux generation) explosive (so less shield damage and more armor damage) and it had a longish (nearly 8 sec) recharge with short range. While Vayra is gone and there's no more updates on their mods, you can see how that weapon would fit an Afflictor, right? Well, it gets better. Because of the explosive+no hard flux combo, ai tries to manouver around shields to utilize this weapon to its fullest potential. Thus you get Afflictors who will stalk a target in phase space and only phase in to unload a high alpha into an unshielded part of a ship. So, if you grab yourself both Wolfpack and Phase ship skills, modify the ships with Hardened Subsystems, crew them with officers who have elited Combat Endurance and Field Modulation... You get up to 7 (because you start reducing bonuses after 6th Pirate Afflictor) (P) Afflictors who will constantly harass enemy blobs, swarm isolated ships, regenerate hull when phased with elite CE and are rather hard to catch out of phase due to elite FM. All while 2-3 shotting destroyers and cruisers with endless ammo and applying the Damage boost to your mainline. In my case i just used 1 battlecruiser as my main line. Once you get to later stages of the game and are up against huge fleets, (P) Afflictors were the only frigate that could reliably work while keeping the fleet logistics footprint low.
Relatively new to the game myself; just realised how badly I was underutilizing phase ships, I am definitely inspired - cheers o7 Also you have a badass voice/narrative my friend, you could probably make a whole overview on the Kite and it'd be interesting
This is an excellent video. Barring some wrong math, (which only makes the Afflictor better lol) it was nice to listen to. I'll still spam capitals until I die, Grug like big boats.
Damn it works so good with hyperions and scarabs. Usualy I tend to ignore afflictors and never take them to my fleet, but that ability to amplify damage in combination with heavy blasters from hyperion turns both of frigates into absolute monsters and it's so fun, thank you so much for showing me this :)
Gonna add, if you like the afflictor, just use the afflictor(p) which is cheaper, yet functionally just as powerful. The extra missile slots are not necessary when you have 2 AM or 3 AM. Entropy amplifier does more than enough to help defeat the enemy. Use the extra OP else where, even capacitors alone help in the long run. To add, like any other phase ship, Afflictor is weak against beams/sustained fire (AI tendency to phase cloak to defend, so they can be easily fluxed out. This also means the Afflictor, and other similar ships are weak against fighters who would just hover over them, flux them out, then mob them(hello thunders). Regardless, Afflictors, specifically, are still super useful and viable against mod-content ships. Afflictors are never bad to have around. Also, for damage calc, I assume you did raw numbers. Do not forget about Armor Damage Mitigation. Just looking at DPS alone is not the end all, be all. A comparison example would be the Hellbore vs Hephaestus, to which I would also add, I have seen high DPS guns also do 1 damage and take much longer to kill heavily armored targets rather a big slow heavy hitter gun. Point being, don't worry about DPS calcs too much.
Yeah, the beautiful autists on Reddit set me straight on the math lol. Just started trying out the mod now, definitely helps against the fast movers Didn't get it across as well as I was hoping, the DPS was meant more to show "hey, your doing a ton on damage mostly straight to hull, if you land your shots, you can turn a paragon to mush in about 20 normal time seconds". In comparison to other phase ships where you aren't moving fast enough to whittle down shields, or the harbinger which is on a long ass cool down. I agree DPS ain't the most useful metric though. Time to kill would probably be more apt. I really like the double reapers, but the pirate variety seems like it'd work plenty good for AI use, which don't really take advantage of phase anchor/missiles/SO I'll have to do some testing and get to the exact numbers, I'm not even entirely sure how well antimatter blaster do against armour. In player hands fighters kinda become a non-issue, you can train them around cause you go so much faster, tritach lances scare the shit outta me though
Less hatred, more boredom. I prefer diving into the thick of combat and narrowly blocking missiles and fire with good shield placement rather than the prolonged maneuvering of phase ships. They're not bad, just not what I play the game for.
Ammo count could be mitigated with expanded magazines, but personally, I find that I'm running out of deployment time before I'm empty. Biggest threat is blowing yourself up when you pop the bigger ships, I probably should have tagged on integrated targeting systems
@@maiLman__ I use afflictor without SO, so running out of ammo with expanded magazines, is very feasible during long battles. This frigate submarine stealth killer was so strong, they were the reason they were semi neerfed with the ephase coil mods and other stuff.
Pretty much every phase ship is busted if I'm being honest. Afflictor is basically a very oversized bomber. Load it with either antimatter blasters and you will have a ship that can single-handedly deal with almost everything. Shade works similarly well, but has built in anti-strikecraft capability instead of ability to buff damage against target ship. Harbinger is a wonderful disabler - quantum disruptor combined with dual ion pulsers can lock down just about any enemy ship. Doom - despite all the nerfs is still insanely capable - quad needlers and 2 lances of a typical build are no joke. And minestrike is a wonderful distraction and occasional damage, though it also tends to catch your own afflictors. Hell, you can get very decent results from Gremlins and Grendels. Generally speaking - phase fleet, for singular battles tends to be nearly unbeatable, even in wonky hands of the AI (I honestly suck at flying ships myself, so AI ability is a major factor to me). The only problem is rapidly declining combat readiness between fights.
Yeah! Hell, I remember seeing a video of the Grendel take on the ziggurat single-handedly. I'm sure it's just really hard to balance the ability of phase, time dilation coupled with invincibility: it's just insane, especially trying to account for the player. And I know the Doom has been nerfed, but honestly I prefer it the way it is now. Again, the phase anchor just makes it way more fun for me.
Today i found luddic path fleet full of gremlins (20 - 25). I just flew away scared to fight that thing, because it would be an absolute pain in a ass.
@@Мыслитель-ы9ф I'm usually running a battlegroup with a Conquest, 4 Eagles, 4 Hammerheads and 2 monitors. It usually can handle just about anything the game throws at you... But 20 Gremlins? I would run.
Its also worth mentioning that elite combat endurance gives a huge buff to afflictor (and other phase frigates) survivability. Since the extra 2000 hull can effectively triple your hull once/if armor gets stripped. And with the time dilation of phase ships you're repairing that hull back faster than other vessels. Helps make the afflictor even more busted, even in ai hands
Actually its still a flux battle because you can't stay in phase for ever, you still have to come out of it because of flux so there fore its still a flux battle, just a much different one
Fair enough. All I'm getting at is that it just feels very different. Soft flux barely matters with the build, hard flux mostly acts as a timer to force you to pull out and vent some of it. Typically highly important aspects such as weapon efficiency become irrelevant.
@@maiLman__ Pull out.... giggity xD I did say at the end it was a much different type of flux battle, so I understood cha, I just wanted to chime in was all x3
Same, but I also love it the way it is. It's amazing, but it takes a lot of playing with it before you realize just how broken it is. But yeah, now I have to play without it or only when I'm crippled during challenge runs
To me a new player, these tiny pocket nuke, glass cannon ships are pretty daunting to use. The game looks like bullet hell sometimes, one wrong move or one missile out of nowhere is all it takes to ruin your day. I only ever used it as an escort for my capital ships.
phase ships have time dilation, so it actually is very good training for a new player to fly, as it slows things down. You just need the player shield modulatoin skills to extend the phase cloak time. It is like a steaelthy instead dodge. Everything can be dodged via phasing.
Unsure if its from vanilla or Nexerelin, but if you press B while in battle, you toggle 'Bullet-time' on/off. This seems to be specifically for phase ships or any shio that speeds itself up. So ypu can see yourself fly a crackaddict Afflictor
It is one of those ships that is godlike in player hands, but much less powerful in AI hands. Makes you wonder if the player is some special phase wizard... with the hearing strange music and all that
every ship can achieve incredible things in the player's hands, but i still stick with odyssey or conquest for longer operational time + faster real world completion of fights.
For me personally I enjoy deploying those with only a mining blaster with an AI officer to escort my bigger ships. Its active ability of +50% damage is just amazing at making a very tough battleship like radiant vaporize. It is just amazing as an escort as well
Its awesome. Can't sleep on 50% extra damage, it's almost the equivalent of all the other damage skills combined. Why the mining blaster though? Does it keep the AI in check? They just better at using it than antimatter blasters?
Afflictors are a beast, but I prefer to give them adaptive phase coils; I just love the speed. I also prefer to give them 4 antimatter blasters and use two at a time( I also add a mining PD laser but it doesn't need it, I just use it to know if there is a missile near me). Although it rarely happens, losing a afflictor is no big deal as they are cheap to make and rather easy to find. I honestly don't like safety overdrive as it just cuts the remaining performance by too much, it large battles I need all the seconds I can get because most often than not, you are fighting large, large battles. I also give them expanded magazine, and integrated targeting units because I have seen 3 range(which I presume is like 300 units of range) give my afflictor a splash damage when something explodes, especially capital ships but 4 range(400 units) is just the right amount of distance to avoid this. Neural link is cool too, I add them to my doom capital and like two afflictors for myself and when one afflictor is about to reach its max performance seconds I bring the other and start again. Remaining points go to capacitors, which you need though I do try to get to 5000 flux if possible.
I like your build. Seems like it'd be better for longer later game battles, compared to speedmaxxing mine. Never felt the phase slowdown all too much because of SO, but yeah, the deployment time is like 90 seconds lol, it forces you to turn and burn. I have started to throw on itu on my builds, due exactly to what youre saying: capital blasts have a habit of taking you out with them
@@maiLman__ the meethod I used before they nerfed speed phasing with the hull mods recently, was uncloak first, then get into range or uncloak and wait for the phase timer to go off cooldown. Then "drift" quickly out of range or fir eand theen hit cloak immediately. This often times avoids the splash damage.
The start of the video reads like something presented to a board of investors at Tri-Tachyon which is quite fitting. I would like to say that I agree with you and that I too am a based afflictor enjoyer. I would like say that I think your afflictor build isn’t quite as optimized as I think could be and suffers in long battles against vastly superior forces (which is the only kind a Chad afflictor captain should bother with). You mentioned that using three antimatter blaster is unfeasible due to the fact the hard flux will build up and you only get like 2-3 shots with all three. This is true, and it doesn’t matter because you’re still firing two antimatter blaster shots (which I note is the maximum the build you showed can do). The initial shots with all three blasters are usually enough to take out anything that isn’t a capital anyways. The reapers you used only get two shots and in my opinion having a third antimatter blaster is better than having two easy kills with the reapers. As for my biggest gripe: safety overrides. The afflictor is already fast as fuck (boi) doesn’t need S.O to outpace literally every other ship in the game. One thing the afflictor struggles with is long battles because of its faster than normal CR decay. The absolute last thing this ship needs is its peek performance time getting reduced by two thirds. Finally S.O takes 15 op which is way more than the afflictor can spare. This leads into my final issue: the lack of capacitors. The percentage of hard flux determines the speed of the ship in faze space therefore more flux capacity means you can stay in faze for longer and be faster while you’re at it. More flux capacity means you also get more amb shots before you need to vent. Finally I’d like to lay out what i believe to be the most effective afflictor build. 3 AMBs 27op, phase anchor 37op, 14 capacitors and flux coil adjunct for a total of 55op. If you are using S-mods I’d say S-mod in flux coil adjunct and expanded missile racks and put the reapers back in. If you’ve got best of the best for a third S-mod (assuming you don’t just mod in solar shielding) I’d probably do either hardened subsystems or unstable injector. damn it I wrote another essay about the silly space warlord game WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING
I'm guilty of accidentally writing essays in comment sections as well. A lot of times it makes for good video ideas though. I'll give your build a shot. I might do a pseudo remake of this video because there's a lot that came up in the comments section that I wanted to address and to correct some math. And most of the comments are very kind and insightful like yours, and I want to give the ship the video it deserves. Even the mean comments have a point, I should probably include some of the end game combat that's in my other videos to hammer the point home.
I've been meaning to learn how to pilot for years. Says a lot about Starsector, that you can completely ignore one aspect of the game and still have hundreds of hours of fun.
Tbh, i dislike phase ships just because its own kind of challenge i dont like, and imo some numbers are really unfair. At least the re-cloak timer, or any counterplay.
I pilot the Harbinger as a Phase Hunter. And usually have a Heron on reserve in the fleet meant to pressure phase ships with fighter presence that can peel thin armor and create a zone of denial with burst beam weapons like the Phase Lance. So long as there's a mobile frigate group that can keep the phase ship isolated from any relief ships, they go down easy as long you maintain cohesion of the battle line and deal with pinched off clusters without being flanked.
Comfiest ship in the game to flagship has to be odyssey though. Plenty of dakka, enough speed to get out of any situation and enough shields to handle anything smaller than it.
Might make this a series, a big hurdle for new players is having the right load out on ships. I like the tempest build you suggested, if you got anything else solid I'd love to hear it
Afflictor is so fucked its not even funny, despite being my favorite ship i definitely feel like i didnt get a good first playthrough because of it. Low tech doesnt seem that appealing when in your mind you just have flashbacks of every onslaught youve killed in the first 15 seconds of a fight because "lol no omni shields"
Exactly! I feel so exposed when I'm not in phase space or Omni shielded now, cause I know what the enemy should be able to do. In the back of my mind, I think, "why is this enemy gremlin dealing with my battle lines? He has a top speed of effectively 645, he is on the other side of the enemy fleet and yet is still only 3 seconds away from delivering those reapers directly to my carrier, he's basically closer to my heron than I am."
Is there a mod that makes phased time a normal time? Cause honestly yeah it fun to fly phase ship, I don't really the fact that it makes the battle way longer cause you essentially slowed down the time.
they need a level 6/7 officer with helmsman and shield modulation, preferabl both elite. The higher the level an officer is, the more calculations they can do to evade fire and time the cloak.
@@chryssalidbait8765 yes, it makes a huge difference at lvl 6 or 7. I have not tested 5v6 though. Every decision is smarter, such as range control and knowing when to flux dump. The Lvl 0 and lower level AIs will dump flux, but it is slower to act than the level 6/7. Same with omni shield controls and torpedo firings.
The reality disruptor is in the game, it's just an omega weapon that's hard to get. Its vanilla though, and only for large weapon slots. Not in the video though. If youre talking about the antimatter blasters, those are also vanilla, and you can generally find them in trip tach systems. My game is very lightly modded, just about everything you see here is vanilla.
This is cute for a single battle, but if you're fighting one large fight after another you can just throw the clock out the window. Completely out of the question.
Autolances have a habit of being mistaken for their much deadlier cousin, phase lances I can understand the mistake, took me a couple times before I realized myself
frigate phase ships are deadly but overpowered capital ships are standard, fun, but repetitive imo best in-between are cruiser phase ships. Not agile enough to duck behind enemy ships but just agile enough to perform complicated dodging maneuvers. i swear this shts actually peak. there's genuinely something special and charming about weaving through enemy missiles at the last moment or doing armor calculations to see what shots I can tank
Your saying the doom and the Grendel I'm guessing. That shit is pretty prime. I enjoy them a lot as well, and are usually my go to for later in the game. Pcl on the doom are amazingly busted. I just think it's funny to run up to a orbital station with a afflictor with double reapers and nuke the place 5 minutes into the game.
Says it's the best then nukes his own frontal armor and does 1/4 damage to his own health. There are no "best ship" in Starsector there are several "worst ships" but even if your running a broad generalized fleet all ships are either situational or general. There was a time that phase ships were excessively powerful (still mostly in the players hands) but they have been heavily balanced now. You also didn't show anything I would consider a tough fight in this video, so I don't agree to your claims it can kill literally anything (show some of these don't just say something: how well does it handle the ziggurat or a hypershunts Tesseracts? how about in multiple lager Ordo fights, you know show something around the mid game at least.). The Afflictor is a good ship worth trying at the very least.
A little snippy, aren't ya? Who need frontal armour anyway? :P I agree that my clips in this aren't demonstrating end game play, they aren't meant to. They are just what I had on hand from my recent phase/salvage only challenge playthrough that fit with my script. I made this so that newer players might try out an cheap early game ship I really like, not to try and make an airtight point to win an argument with someone But to be fair to myself, half the videos I've made have been the afflictors killing ordo fleets, and I was ready for something different. I don't think I need to cheese on remnants anymore than this channel already has but if that's what you want we certainly have it! ua-cam.com/video/3P3Fz8Y7lHs/v-deo.htmlsi=ruY8vNIHuBqZPv7y The caveat is always the zig fight, but I already said that in the video. The motes are fast enough and have a long enough range that they prevent it from working well with my build. Carriers and missile saturation is better for that fight, something the afflictor has none of. Adaptive phase coils builds like kuba K's are going to do way better than mine with zig and station fights, and in general are technically superior. Tesseracts are a hard fight, but they also don't have a price or DP equivalency to judge it in a "pound for pound" comparison. I can do it with only afflictors, but it's just a slog and it takes like 8 each. Also, kinda disagree, there is a solid argument for best ship. It'd be the tesseract if you could pilot it, followed by the Zig which stands pretty far above all the rest playing a lot like prerework phase ships, followed by the radiant which is an absolute terror. but those are all way late game and essentially priceless ships. If have those, you have kinda already won. What makes the afflictor special is that you can get it the first 5 minutes of play for less than the cost of the hammerhead and proceed to dominate the rest of the game with it. Just calling it a good ship worth trying doesn't do it justice. A eradicator is a good ship worth trying, an afflictor is an unstoppable bullet that can throw a 16000 damage salvo directly to the enemies hull
I really appreciate Thaago, who's a big name on the forums, for correcting my math. He says:
"Yup, a lot of solid points in this one, although it understates the damage by a lot: AM Blasters do 1400 damage a shot base, not 900.
Between Wolfpack (20% vs destroyers and up), Energy mastery (0-30, but probably around 10%), CR (10%), Target Analysis ( 5-20% depending on ship size), and cybernetic (2x combat skills %, so say 14% ish? Totally variable), the ship system (50% which stacks I believe as it applies on the receiving end rather than the firing end), and phase time recharge boost, the number of damage boosts on top of 1400 is VERY large.
I believe also that testing by someone revealed that Target Analysis and Wolfpack tactics damage boost is in a separate "pool" than energy mastery/CR/cybernetic, because it is target-size dependent, so the full modifier vs a capital would be more like (1+.2+.2)*(~1.4 (varies a lot based on skills and flux level)) ~= 1.96, rather than the normal additive ~1.8.
All the above also applies to harbingers and phase lances by the way - phase anchor, advanced optics, ITU, and escort package mean that you can fly a harbinger with triple lances next to a friendly capital and have a shockingly good fire platform."
No idea where the hell I got the 900 number from. Also, all the math i did was multiplicative when most of it should've been additive, ah well.
Anyway, so I guess the numbers should be closer to...
2800 base damage from 2 antimatter blasters
*~1.96 multiplier for larger vessels
Averaging around 5488 per volley
giving roughly 2744 Dps if run optimally. Considering a Paragon is 18000 hp, this is all pretty busted
we don't "hate" phase ships, we just suck at piloting (at least I do)
binding the "strafe to mouse cursor" to a mouse button that you can hold while firing, works wonders for this.
@@karimsonsafehold9233 Alternatively you can set it to toggle in settings rather than have to hold it down
Weakest Player Afflictor gameplay:
i prefer using adaptive phase coils on AI afflictors since in my experience AI pilots can't utilise phase anchor to the fullest potential, so i prefer them being much more mobile and acting as very potent distractions for my fleet and as frigates that cap points. in my modded playthrough with exotica technologies added my afflictors can get up to 400 speed and combining that with APC is pretty busted
Thats smart, I never really experimented with how the AI operates with other designs. I'd always just thrown phase anchor on in case the AI found a way to get itself killed.
I kind of rag on adaptive phase coils in the video, but that's more for people who use it on their own piloted ship. I feel like people watch a kuba k video where he takes out a entire station with an afflictor and it gets assumed that it must also be the best build for normal combat. And that's nothing against Kuba k, he just built the ship specific to the task, but dear Lord, reload times without phase anchor make me want to die.
Definitely could see how the AI would do better with the additional mobility over the reload speed that they aren't really capable of taking advantage of
@@maiLman__ I recommend you give a try maxxing out the speed an afflictor can get to and playing around that, it's really fun
seems level 6 and 7 officers aggressive makes a huge difference in how much they can calculate/dodge.
Not what i usually make, but the more I play starsector, the more broken I realized the afflictor was, and had to put a video out about it. Its damn near the fastest ship in the game, and has the tendency to rip apart everything in its way. Playing with it honestly feels a bit like cheating. i wrote this script like 3 or 4 times, and even now prattling on about it I feel like I still didn't do it justice.
Vayra's ship pack is a mod i used to use that had a bunch of balanced vanilla-like ships and weapons. One of them was a small mining laser that was a beam weapon (no hard flux generation) explosive (so less shield damage and more armor damage) and it had a longish (nearly 8 sec) recharge with short range. While Vayra is gone and there's no more updates on their mods, you can see how that weapon would fit an Afflictor, right?
Well, it gets better.
Because of the explosive+no hard flux combo, ai tries to manouver around shields to utilize this weapon to its fullest potential. Thus you get Afflictors who will stalk a target in phase space and only phase in to unload a high alpha into an unshielded part of a ship. So, if you grab yourself both Wolfpack and Phase ship skills, modify the ships with Hardened Subsystems, crew them with officers who have elited Combat Endurance and Field Modulation... You get up to 7 (because you start reducing bonuses after 6th Pirate Afflictor) (P) Afflictors who will constantly harass enemy blobs, swarm isolated ships, regenerate hull when phased with elite CE and are rather hard to catch out of phase due to elite FM. All while 2-3 shotting destroyers and cruisers with endless ammo and applying the Damage boost to your mainline. In my case i just used 1 battlecruiser as my main line. Once you get to later stages of the game and are up against huge fleets, (P) Afflictors were the only frigate that could reliably work while keeping the fleet logistics footprint low.
You have an Really nice narrator voice wich helps to whatch the video till the end
this and the helicopter player ripping apart everyone in battlefield have the same energy
Relatively new to the game myself; just realised how badly I was underutilizing phase ships, I am definitely inspired - cheers o7
Also you have a badass voice/narrative my friend, you could probably make a whole overview on the Kite and it'd be interesting
This is an excellent video. Barring some wrong math, (which only makes the Afflictor better lol) it was nice to listen to.
I'll still spam capitals until I die, Grug like big boats.
Damn it works so good with hyperions and scarabs. Usualy I tend to ignore afflictors and never take them to my fleet, but that ability to amplify damage in combination with heavy blasters from hyperion turns both of frigates into absolute monsters and it's so fun, thank you so much for showing me this :)
try assigning aggressive level 6/7 officiers to afflictors, they pilot them very well.
Amazing video man, love your vibe a lot
Wow you’re breakdown was great! I went from “huh I may need to try this” to “oh I HAVE to try this” when the Barracuda montage hit tho😂❤️
I'm glad it hit the chord I was looking for!
Gonna add, if you like the afflictor, just use the afflictor(p) which is cheaper, yet functionally just as powerful. The extra missile slots are not necessary when you have 2 AM or 3 AM. Entropy amplifier does more than enough to help defeat the enemy. Use the extra OP else where, even capacitors alone help in the long run. To add, like any other phase ship, Afflictor is weak against beams/sustained fire (AI tendency to phase cloak to defend, so they can be easily fluxed out. This also means the Afflictor, and other similar ships are weak against fighters who would just hover over them, flux them out, then mob them(hello thunders).
Regardless, Afflictors, specifically, are still super useful and viable against mod-content ships. Afflictors are never bad to have around. Also, for damage calc, I assume you did raw numbers. Do not forget about Armor Damage Mitigation. Just looking at DPS alone is not the end all, be all. A comparison example would be the Hellbore vs Hephaestus, to which I would also add, I have seen high DPS guns also do 1 damage and take much longer to kill heavily armored targets rather a big slow heavy hitter gun. Point being, don't worry about DPS calcs too much.
Yeah, the beautiful autists on Reddit set me straight on the math lol.
Just started trying out the mod now, definitely helps against the fast movers
Didn't get it across as well as I was hoping, the DPS was meant more to show "hey, your doing a ton on damage mostly straight to hull, if you land your shots, you can turn a paragon to mush in about 20 normal time seconds". In comparison to other phase ships where you aren't moving fast enough to whittle down shields, or the harbinger which is on a long ass cool down. I agree DPS ain't the most useful metric though. Time to kill would probably be more apt.
I really like the double reapers, but the pirate variety seems like it'd work plenty good for AI use, which don't really take advantage of phase anchor/missiles/SO
I'll have to do some testing and get to the exact numbers, I'm not even entirely sure how well antimatter blaster do against armour.
In player hands fighters kinda become a non-issue, you can train them around cause you go so much faster, tritach lances scare the shit outta me though
Less hatred, more boredom. I prefer diving into the thick of combat and narrowly blocking missiles and fire with good shield placement rather than the prolonged maneuvering of phase ships. They're not bad, just not what I play the game for.
The Afflictor is basically a space U-boat. And I loven it.
You're great at explaining! Would be cool to see more ship and gameplay explanations like this.
Well shit. I gotta carry a couple of these in my back pocket then. Never realized how strong AMBs were, always was too worried about the ammo count.
Ammo count could be mitigated with expanded magazines, but personally, I find that I'm running out of deployment time before I'm empty.
Biggest threat is blowing yourself up when you pop the bigger ships, I probably should have tagged on integrated targeting systems
@@maiLman__ I use afflictor without SO, so running out of ammo with expanded magazines, is very feasible during long battles. This frigate submarine stealth killer was so strong, they were the reason they were semi neerfed with the ephase coil mods and other stuff.
Pretty much every phase ship is busted if I'm being honest.
Afflictor is basically a very oversized bomber. Load it with either antimatter blasters and you will have a ship that can single-handedly deal with almost everything.
Shade works similarly well, but has built in anti-strikecraft capability instead of ability to buff damage against target ship.
Harbinger is a wonderful disabler - quantum disruptor combined with dual ion pulsers can lock down just about any enemy ship.
Doom - despite all the nerfs is still insanely capable - quad needlers and 2 lances of a typical build are no joke. And minestrike is a wonderful distraction and occasional damage, though it also tends to catch your own afflictors.
Hell, you can get very decent results from Gremlins and Grendels.
Generally speaking - phase fleet, for singular battles tends to be nearly unbeatable, even in wonky hands of the AI (I honestly suck at flying ships myself, so AI ability is a major factor to me). The only problem is rapidly declining combat readiness between fights.
Yeah!
Hell, I remember seeing a video of the Grendel take on the ziggurat single-handedly. I'm sure it's just really hard to balance the ability of phase, time dilation coupled with invincibility: it's just insane, especially trying to account for the player.
And I know the Doom has been nerfed, but honestly I prefer it the way it is now. Again, the phase anchor just makes it way more fun for me.
Today i found luddic path fleet full of gremlins (20 - 25). I just flew away scared to fight that thing, because it would be an absolute pain in a ass.
@@Мыслитель-ы9ф I'm usually running a battlegroup with a Conquest, 4 Eagles, 4 Hammerheads and 2 monitors. It usually can handle just about anything the game throws at you... But 20 Gremlins? I would run.
Its also worth mentioning that elite combat endurance gives a huge buff to afflictor (and other phase frigates) survivability. Since the extra 2000 hull can effectively triple your hull once/if armor gets stripped. And with the time dilation of phase ships you're repairing that hull back faster than other vessels. Helps make the afflictor even more busted, even in ai hands
Actually its still a flux battle because you can't stay in phase for ever, you still have to come out of it because of flux so there fore its still a flux battle, just a much different one
Fair enough. All I'm getting at is that it just feels very different. Soft flux barely matters with the build, hard flux mostly acts as a timer to force you to pull out and vent some of it. Typically highly important aspects such as weapon efficiency become irrelevant.
@@maiLman__ Pull out.... giggity xD
I did say at the end it was a much different type of flux battle, so I understood cha, I just wanted to chime in was all x3
That's cool.
I'll stick to auto battling with carrier fleets.
Space mount and blade play style is the meta
afflitor is so busted that I stopped using altogether tbh
Same, but I also love it the way it is. It's amazing, but it takes a lot of playing with it before you realize just how broken it is.
But yeah, now I have to play without it or only when I'm crippled during challenge runs
Really nice video
Turns out the answer to the Ziggurat fight was just "more Afflictor."
To me a new player, these tiny pocket nuke, glass cannon ships are pretty daunting to use. The game looks like bullet hell sometimes, one wrong move or one missile out of nowhere is all it takes to ruin your day. I only ever used it as an escort for my capital ships.
phase ships have time dilation, so it actually is very good training for a new player to fly, as it slows things down. You just need the player shield modulatoin skills to extend the phase cloak time. It is like a steaelthy instead dodge. Everything can be dodged via phasing.
Unsure if its from vanilla or Nexerelin, but if you press B while in battle, you toggle 'Bullet-time' on/off. This seems to be specifically for phase ships or any shio that speeds itself up. So ypu can see yourself fly a crackaddict Afflictor
Thats awesome. thats a run idea right there: crackhead afflictor only
Its the speed up mod
@@kelvino.s.9992 i don't have the speedup mod. All it does is that you only notice it when you directly pilot a phase ship
Great one
It is one of those ships that is godlike in player hands, but much less powerful in AI hands. Makes you wonder if the player is some special phase wizard... with the hearing strange music and all that
The Alpha AI core could only have 7 combat skills, 9 for Omega. Guess how many levels does the player have?
couldn't agree more,
This game is one of the most unreal space rpgs ive ever played and its still beta❤
every ship can achieve incredible things in the player's hands, but i still stick with odyssey or conquest for longer operational time + faster real world completion of fights.
the aflictor is also great to smuggle and put spycast on so with just an afflictor you can make a lot of early game money
For me personally I enjoy deploying those with only a mining blaster with an AI officer to escort my bigger ships. Its active ability of +50% damage is just amazing at making a very tough battleship like radiant vaporize. It is just amazing as an escort as well
Its awesome. Can't sleep on 50% extra damage, it's almost the equivalent of all the other damage skills combined.
Why the mining blaster though? Does it keep the AI in check? They just better at using it than antimatter blasters?
@@maiLman__ sorry I meant to say mining laser , I think burst PD will work as well , I just used mining laser to save OP
@@ripmorld9909 oh ok, gotcha! That makes more sense
Afflictors are a beast, but I prefer to give them adaptive phase coils; I just love the speed. I also prefer to give them 4 antimatter blasters and use two at a time( I also add a mining PD laser but it doesn't need it, I just use it to know if there is a missile near me). Although it rarely happens, losing a afflictor is no big deal as they are cheap to make and rather easy to find. I honestly don't like safety overdrive as it just cuts the remaining performance by too much, it large battles I need all the seconds I can get because most often than not, you are fighting large, large battles. I also give them expanded magazine, and integrated targeting units because I have seen 3 range(which I presume is like 300 units of range) give my afflictor a splash damage when something explodes, especially capital ships but 4 range(400 units) is just the right amount of distance to avoid this. Neural link is cool too, I add them to my doom capital and like two afflictors for myself and when one afflictor is about to reach its max performance seconds I bring the other and start again. Remaining points go to capacitors, which you need though I do try to get to 5000 flux if possible.
I like your build. Seems like it'd be better for longer later game battles, compared to speedmaxxing mine. Never felt the phase slowdown all too much because of SO, but yeah, the deployment time is like 90 seconds lol, it forces you to turn and burn.
I have started to throw on itu on my builds, due exactly to what youre saying: capital blasts have a habit of taking you out with them
@@maiLman__ the meethod I used before they nerfed speed phasing with the hull mods recently, was uncloak first, then get into range or uncloak and wait for the phase timer to go off cooldown. Then "drift" quickly out of range or fir eand theen hit cloak immediately. This often times avoids the splash damage.
The start of the video reads like something presented to a board of investors at Tri-Tachyon which is quite fitting. I would like to say that I agree with you and that I too am a based afflictor enjoyer. I would like say that I think your afflictor build isn’t quite as optimized as I think could be and suffers in long battles against vastly superior forces (which is the only kind a Chad afflictor captain should bother with). You mentioned that using three antimatter blaster is unfeasible due to the fact the hard flux will build up and you only get like 2-3 shots with all three. This is true, and it doesn’t matter because you’re still firing two antimatter blaster shots (which I note is the maximum the build you showed can do). The initial shots with all three blasters are usually enough to take out anything that isn’t a capital anyways. The reapers you used only get two shots and in my opinion having a third antimatter blaster is better than having two easy kills with the reapers.
As for my biggest gripe: safety overrides. The afflictor is already fast as fuck (boi) doesn’t need S.O to outpace literally every other ship in the game. One thing the afflictor struggles with is long battles because of its faster than normal CR decay. The absolute last thing this ship needs is its peek performance time getting reduced by two thirds. Finally S.O takes 15 op which is way more than the afflictor can spare.
This leads into my final issue: the lack of capacitors. The percentage of hard flux determines the speed of the ship in faze space therefore more flux capacity means you can stay in faze for longer and be faster while you’re at it. More flux capacity means you also get more amb shots before you need to vent.
Finally I’d like to lay out what i believe to be the most effective afflictor build. 3 AMBs 27op, phase anchor 37op, 14 capacitors and flux coil adjunct for a total of 55op. If you are using S-mods I’d say S-mod in flux coil adjunct and expanded missile racks and put the reapers back in. If you’ve got best of the best for a third S-mod (assuming you don’t just mod in solar shielding) I’d probably do either hardened subsystems or unstable injector.
damn it I wrote another essay about the silly space warlord game WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING
I'm guilty of accidentally writing essays in comment sections as well. A lot of times it makes for good video ideas though.
I'll give your build a shot. I might do a pseudo remake of this video because there's a lot that came up in the comments section that I wanted to address and to correct some math. And most of the comments are very kind and insightful like yours, and I want to give the ship the video it deserves.
Even the mean comments have a point, I should probably include some of the end game combat that's in my other videos to hammer the point home.
Amazing video - but, your math on the 4:37 mark is wrong. AM Blasters actually do 1.4k dmg a pop, not 900. So the theoretical DPS is nearly 2.5k 😂
Yeah... Woops lol. My pinned comment has the corrected math, thaago put me back in line
@@maiLman__ oh right! sorry, I didn't notice the pinned post. my bad 😅
@@przemysawerdman9640 no worries, definitely on me! probably shouldve checked my math before publishing disinformation online
*laughs in harbinger*
I've been meaning to learn how to pilot for years.
Says a lot about Starsector, that you can completely ignore one aspect of the game and still have hundreds of hours of fun.
Tbh, i dislike phase ships just because its own kind of challenge i dont like, and imo some numbers are really unfair. At least the re-cloak timer, or any counterplay.
I pilot the Harbinger as a Phase Hunter. And usually have a Heron on reserve in the fleet meant to pressure phase ships with fighter presence that can peel thin armor and create a zone of denial with burst beam weapons like the Phase Lance. So long as there's a mobile frigate group that can keep the phase ship isolated from any relief ships, they go down easy as long you maintain cohesion of the battle line and deal with pinched off clusters without being flanked.
The really busted thing is the antimatter blasters. Without them, you only have half an afflictor.
Comfiest ship in the game to flagship has to be odyssey though. Plenty of dakka, enough speed to get out of any situation and enough shields to handle anything smaller than it.
Tempest with ion pulsers and safety overrides still best ai small ship
May not kill everything quickly but they sure as ludd aren't shooting back
Might make this a series, a big hurdle for new players is having the right load out on ships.
I like the tempest build you suggested, if you got anything else solid I'd love to hear it
The problem is find is the same with other hulls, fighter wings and other phase. In long battles keeping up with the AI overwhelming is harder
I also suck with them
also can you attempt to make a video about shield shunts next? It will be funny
Never done any low tech, but I'll see what I can do, just cause you asked
Afflictor is so fucked its not even funny, despite being my favorite ship i definitely feel like i didnt get a good first playthrough because of it. Low tech doesnt seem that appealing when in your mind you just have flashbacks of every onslaught youve killed in the first 15 seconds of a fight because "lol no omni shields"
Exactly! I feel so exposed when I'm not in phase space or Omni shielded now, cause I know what the enemy should be able to do.
In the back of my mind, I think, "why is this enemy gremlin dealing with my battle lines? He has a top speed of effectively 645, he is on the other side of the enemy fleet and yet is still only 3 seconds away from delivering those reapers directly to my carrier, he's basically closer to my heron than I am."
Is there a mod that makes phased time a normal time? Cause honestly yeah it fun to fly phase ship, I don't really the fact that it makes the battle way longer cause you essentially slowed down the time.
Yeah. I think nexirellian has it built in. During battle hit the b button, and it'll disable bullet time effects
😀
Glad you liked it :P
I recall having a hard time giving these to the AI and have them survive.
they need a level 6/7 officer with helmsman and shield modulation, preferabl both elite. The higher the level an officer is, the more calculations they can do to evade fire and time the cloak.
Wait, the level actually affects how well they time things, and not just how many perks they have?!?
@@chryssalidbait8765 yes, it makes a huge difference at lvl 6 or 7. I have not tested 5v6 though. Every decision is smarter, such as range control and knowing when to flux dump. The Lvl 0 and lower level AIs will dump flux, but it is slower to act than the level 6/7. Same with omni shield controls and torpedo firings.
I got a question is reality disruptor for mod only or its in the game?
The reality disruptor is in the game, it's just an omega weapon that's hard to get. Its vanilla though, and only for large weapon slots.
Not in the video though. If youre talking about the antimatter blasters, those are also vanilla, and you can generally find them in trip tach systems. My game is very lightly modded, just about everything you see here is vanilla.
@@maiLman__ ty
And despite decently good performance, your Afflictor isn't even optimized or optimally controlled. Example: ua-cam.com/video/9J2RPBqutec/v-deo.html
that video is of afflictors befor ethey got nerfed. harder to do the same thing now.
This tactic should be illegal lore wise lol
This is cute for a single battle, but if you're fighting one large fight after another you can just throw the clock out the window. Completely out of the question.
7 Fuking reapers??!!
Still hate phase ships
This video is fake. at 1:53 the Afflictor FRIGATE survives 2 Phase Lances which is impossible without some hacks or mods with op armour ordnance.
You got me ;)
Autolances have a habit of being mistaken for their much deadlier cousin, phase lances
I can understand the mistake, took me a couple times before I realized myself
frigate phase ships are deadly but overpowered
capital ships are standard, fun, but repetitive
imo best in-between are cruiser phase ships. Not agile enough to duck behind enemy ships but just agile enough to perform complicated dodging maneuvers.
i swear this shts actually peak. there's genuinely something special and charming about weaving through enemy missiles at the last moment or doing armor calculations to see what shots I can tank
Your saying the doom and the Grendel I'm guessing. That shit is pretty prime. I enjoy them a lot as well, and are usually my go to for later in the game. Pcl on the doom are amazingly busted.
I just think it's funny to run up to a orbital station with a afflictor with double reapers and nuke the place 5 minutes into the game.
"most players despise [phase] ships"
yeah okay bud.
you are definitely the captain of pulling stuff out of your butt
You sound like you're the captain of shoving sticks up your own.
Says it's the best then nukes his own frontal armor and does 1/4 damage to his own health. There are no "best ship" in Starsector there are several "worst ships" but even if your running a broad generalized fleet all ships are either situational or general. There was a time that phase ships were excessively powerful (still mostly in the players hands) but they have been heavily balanced now.
You also didn't show anything I would consider a tough fight in this video, so I don't agree to your claims it can kill literally anything (show some of these don't just say something: how well does it handle the ziggurat or a hypershunts Tesseracts? how about in multiple lager Ordo fights, you know show something around the mid game at least.).
The Afflictor is a good ship worth trying at the very least.
A little snippy, aren't ya?
Who need frontal armour anyway? :P
I agree that my clips in this aren't demonstrating end game play, they aren't meant to. They are just what I had on hand from my recent phase/salvage only challenge playthrough that fit with my script. I made this so that newer players might try out an cheap early game ship I really like, not to try and make an airtight point to win an argument with someone
But to be fair to myself, half the videos I've made have been the afflictors killing ordo fleets, and I was ready for something different. I don't think I need to cheese on remnants anymore than this channel already has but if that's what you want we certainly have it! ua-cam.com/video/3P3Fz8Y7lHs/v-deo.htmlsi=ruY8vNIHuBqZPv7y
The caveat is always the zig fight, but I already said that in the video. The motes are fast enough and have a long enough range that they prevent it from working well with my build. Carriers and missile saturation is better for that fight, something the afflictor has none of. Adaptive phase coils builds like kuba K's are going to do way better than mine with zig and station fights, and in general are technically superior.
Tesseracts are a hard fight, but they also don't have a price or DP equivalency to judge it in a "pound for pound" comparison. I can do it with only afflictors, but it's just a slog and it takes like 8 each.
Also, kinda disagree, there is a solid argument for best ship. It'd be the tesseract if you could pilot it, followed by the Zig which stands pretty far above all the rest playing a lot like prerework phase ships, followed by the radiant which is an absolute terror. but those are all way late game and essentially priceless ships. If have those, you have kinda already won. What makes the afflictor special is that you can get it the first 5 minutes of play for less than the cost of the hammerhead and proceed to dominate the rest of the game with it.
Just calling it a good ship worth trying doesn't do it justice. A eradicator is a good ship worth trying, an afflictor is an unstoppable bullet that can throw a 16000 damage salvo directly to the enemies hull