Yeah, he clearly confused it with Recovery Shuttles, since he mentioned it being for "saving crew". It should be an A at minimum, and S more correctly, due to how essential it is on carriers.
Its really fun to see the viewpoint those mods from a rather high tech perspective. I mostly focus on low tech so naturally the importance for specific mods shift quite a bit for me personally. 3 things to add: 1.Heavy armor is imo a S tier mod on any ship that will want to armor tank even a tiny bit because of how armor is calculated. At specific break points it can more or less nullify small arms damage like light machine guns. 2.I think solar shields is Top tier because how much it does for such a little point investment. Most endgame dangers do energy damage and as far as I know the damage reduction is calculated before anything else and it works for your shields. 3. Shield shunt will change your officers behavior drastically though its only viable on the very high armor ships, It has its niche but when it works it works.Give it a rekless officer a shield shunt onslaught 14th and watch the dakka dakka.
To supplement this, Low Tech / High Armor ships are best under officers whose skills make the most out of their armor and turret survivability. Polarized Armor, Impact Mitigation are a must, Elite Damage Control, and Elite Combat Endurance are a must for an armor tank, particularly with Shield Shunt ships since their armor and hull are the only things keeping them alive. Elite Damage Control is to make sure those high damage per hit weapons like Hellbores, Reapers, and Hammers won't take a big chunk of the hull HP if the PD failed to stop them, even if the Onslaught is carrying nothing but PD. armored turret mounts and automated repair units are advised to keep the ship downtime at a minimum with the Damage Control stacking. That being said, the future Church battleship can't take advantage of damage reduction due to Ablative Armor, so take that into account when having a long-range artillery platform that takes the most crew in the game to use.
This hullmod tier list, is definitely for high tech/midline ships. Almost all hullmods are amazing and are incredibly useful in different scenarios (except neural integration, nobody uses that unless they want to fly a brilliant for a meme)
Example, heavy armor is great on super slow capitals (Legion for example) because they can't get out to vent shields so they need the armor. (And it's more effective than he gives it credit for in the short length of a battle) Militarized subsystems primary use is to remove the sensor profile debuff of civ grade systems. If you want to sneak with civ ships, it's mandatory. Nothing beats smuggling drugs with an Atlas. Integrated point defense is useful if you want to do a tac laser pd ship because tac laser are not by default pd weapons.
Automated repair with resistant flux conduits is a must have for lowtech though, let's you ignore EMP damage and instantly repairs engines and weapons.
IPDAI is not garbage and here's why - it converts all your small ballistic and energy weapons into PD as in it gives them the PD tag so now they fully benefit from the PD skill including the elite +200 range portion. Congrats - you now have 600 range AM blasters, just keep them in fixed mounts so that they don't waste shots at fighters. As you can imagine this is preeety busted with some of the "balanced" weapons from certain mods. But besides that it's still useful for the damage bonuses against fighters and missiles, which is still worth it if you're having trouble surviving the initial huge swarm at the start of every vanilla fight ever.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming For vanilla it's a solid B imo. The main issues are not with the hull mod but more with the enemy fleet comps and as you've proven with your vids - you can play fine without having PD at all. Outside of AMB abuse you're probably better off just adding more Vulcans + the PD skill to put them at 450 range and call it a day. In the end it comes down to how you've setup your officers and which of their skills are you making elite. The best case for it is probably auto ships Glimmer spam and just have 4 smalls all with +200 range. What made me appreciate having good PD (read "forced me into it") was facing some of the modded boss factions like the Agni, the Legio or the Blade Breakers. Their fleet comps are so well made... I don't know how you survive an alpha strike from the Blade Breakers without it.
Reinforced bulkheads also makes a ship almost always recoverable as well as the +50% hull. So it can be really good on an important ship or a reckless ship.
Ballistic Rangefinder does not affect PD weapons like Dual Machineguns and furthermore, PD Mastery combined with IPDAI turns all small weapons into PD and gives 200 range flat. I only use the Rangefinder when I do not want smalls to shoot down missiles and have a large ballistic slot.
Shield shunt is amazing on dominators and onslaughts its ok on enforcer particurly 14th legion versions but is good even on normal versions of these ships it is garbage on pretty much every other ship. The low tech ships high base armor combined with there bad to luckluster flux stats means you are trading your shield for front loading your ablity to shoot no losing flux ro enemy fire means you acualy have the flux to hit them very hard and both the dominator and onslaught have tremendous damage potential. The enforcer could maby use it in a safty overides build with the terrible flux stats using there shield is difficult to begin with and the fast agressive style works well on the otherwise lackluster enforcer this just gives it some survivalbility particurly in destroyer and frigate fights even lets you trade with cruisers.
54:00 Safety Override and unstable injector is perfect combo, what are you on about. Eagle XIV version Heavy armor, hardened shields, Nav relay (4% fleet speed boost) those 3 as built in Smods. safety override, unstable injector, integrated targeting unit as normal mods 3 chain guns, 1 ion beam in the middle and 2 phase lances on the side, 2 Atropos torpedos, you can add point defense if you want or put the 17 in vents. Have a officer with Energy weapon mastery 30% bonus damage under 600 range, I also use endurance and field modulation, target modulation for max damage, remember that the officers has to be aggressive for this to work properly.
The range reduction just feels really punishing when you stack them together. It becomes a real issue when your target is about to explode across the bow of your ship 😂😂
I think Integrated Point Defense can be good, mostly for AI, but I didn't really look into it. I am going to build a Hammerhead around it, it's a brawler with good PD, and I envision it as a sort of fighters disablers. As you target a ship, I believe, your *hybrid* PD is going to prioritize on your target, and thus it removes the big no-no that you mentioned. Although, as I said, I didn't test it yet at this time, but I believe that's how it should work. And my other guess is that the AI is good at microing and will target ships and thus focus all weapons on targets when needed (that's assuming that the AI does use the targetting feature). But now, if my previous guess are good; it will give my Hammerhead such a boost, it's going to give it a net +200 range to its Railguns, it's going to make them more accurate, and always at 100% efficiency regardless of Performances. And the +200 range on Railgun is going to make sure that the HH works on ships shield before its Assault guns come to range. Because otherwise both Railguns and Assault Guns are at 700, and thus, the HH has to come in range for the Railguns to work on enemy shields. I think this little edge of the Railguns is going to be very sweet. Also to note, but I went for a Machine Gun in the rear PD spot. And it has only a native 300 range, which makes sure that it's mediocre, even in its role. But now, with +200 range, it's going to intercept missles and fighters, much easier. I think this whole thing is really only valid for the HH I had in mind, and again, that's assuming that AI use targetting and the railguns would prioritize on targetted ships. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and uploading Starsector content!
Hey Grumpy, any chance of having a let's play focused solely on Automated Ships skill in Technology tree? I'd love to see a [REDACTED] only run, except your first ship of course.
Doesn’t militarized subsystems invalidate the penalties of a civilian-grade hull? I always militarize my freighters just so they don’t have the additional supply consumption when I strap expanded cargo holds on…
-Expanded Deck Crew on C is an absolute crime, being such a must have mod for carriers. But clearly you didn't really remember what it does and probably confused it with the Recovery Shuttles mod (that being the bod that decreases crew fighter casualties), when what it actually does is increase the fighter replacement rate. Obvious misremembering, S tier. -Hardened Subsystems is absolutely necessary on most high tech ships (especially the phasing ones, and the small specialized ones like the Omen or the Tempest). Should be A at the very minimum, and S more rightfully. But then again, understandable (albeit biased) view if you are Safety Overrides type of player, as in that case it doesn't matter that these ships can't stay in the fight for long since you are supposed to blitzkrieg, so... -It's not that Militarized Subsystems decreases sensor profile, it's that all civilian ships have a 100% sensor profile penalty (and a 50% ship sensors penalty). Basically, making them double bright on sensors and lowering your stealth, and providing very little help for your own sensors. So by "militarizing' the ship, that malus is nullified. It's actually quite worth, if you are really bothered by the Atlas and Prometheus you may be lugging around making you shine like a star on enemy sensors. And also very worth if you wanna add the cargo/fuel/crew expansion mods on a civilian ship, since on civilian hulls they increase maintenance by 50% (which on ships like the Atlas and Prometheus is a massive drain), so with the Militarized mod, that malus is nullified. Should probably be a high B tier, or even A. -Reinforced Bulkheads also makes the ship it's put on almost always recoverable if it gets blown to bits, so very worth to put on important ships you may have with S mods and the likes. High C, or probably B. -It's not Survey Equipment that increases sensor range, it's High Resolution Sensors. Understandable mix-up, as they have pretty similar icons.
I understand that using a mod that disables security is worth it if your fleet consists only of frigates, for example, the Wolf. Take the skill that increases the hiring of officers and just carry out a blitzkrieg by teleporting behind them. Nothing personal kid!
lol figured when I looked at the title, video got getting eviscerated in the comments by people familiar with lowtech builds, I instantly thought this is a way too subjective of a title since hull mods are objectively better or worse depending on fleet comp. Shoulda just titled it hightech hull mod tier list or something like that.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming Yeah never used SO and unstable injector on some brawler ships, however SO with unstable injector is good for torpedo ships and LP brawlers though so they can unload everything instantly.
13:58 Expanded Deck Crew reduces the fighter replacement time and is quite mandatory on carriers I'd say.
Yeah, he clearly confused it with Recovery Shuttles, since he mentioned it being for "saving crew". It should be an A at minimum, and S more correctly, due to how essential it is on carriers.
Its really fun to see the viewpoint those mods from a rather high tech perspective. I mostly focus on low tech so naturally the importance for specific mods shift quite a bit for me personally.
3 things to add:
1.Heavy armor is imo a S tier mod on any ship that will want to armor tank even a tiny bit because of how armor is calculated. At specific break points it can more or less nullify small arms damage like light machine guns.
2.I think solar shields is Top tier because how much it does for such a little point investment. Most endgame dangers do energy damage and as far as I know the damage reduction is calculated before anything else and it works for your shields.
3. Shield shunt will change your officers behavior drastically though its only viable on the very high armor ships, It has its niche but when it works it works.Give it a rekless officer a shield shunt onslaught 14th and watch the dakka dakka.
To supplement this, Low Tech / High Armor ships are best under officers whose skills make the most out of their armor and turret survivability. Polarized Armor, Impact Mitigation are a must, Elite Damage Control, and Elite Combat Endurance are a must for an armor tank, particularly with Shield Shunt ships since their armor and hull are the only things keeping them alive.
Elite Damage Control is to make sure those high damage per hit weapons like Hellbores, Reapers, and Hammers won't take a big chunk of the hull HP if the PD failed to stop them, even if the Onslaught is carrying nothing but PD.
armored turret mounts and automated repair units are advised to keep the ship downtime at a minimum with the Damage Control stacking.
That being said, the future Church battleship can't take advantage of damage reduction due to Ablative Armor, so take that into account when having a long-range artillery platform that takes the most crew in the game to use.
If only the onslaught could get a safety override...
This hullmod tier list, is definitely for high tech/midline ships. Almost all hullmods are amazing and are incredibly useful in different scenarios (except neural integration, nobody uses that unless they want to fly a brilliant for a meme)
Example, heavy armor is great on super slow capitals (Legion for example) because they can't get out to vent shields so they need the armor. (And it's more effective than he gives it credit for in the short length of a battle)
Militarized subsystems primary use is to remove the sensor profile debuff of civ grade systems. If you want to sneak with civ ships, it's mandatory. Nothing beats smuggling drugs with an Atlas.
Integrated point defense is useful if you want to do a tac laser pd ship because tac laser are not by default pd weapons.
Automated repair with resistant flux conduits is a must have for lowtech though, let's you ignore EMP damage and instantly repairs engines and weapons.
IPDAI is not garbage and here's why - it converts all your small ballistic and energy weapons into PD as in it gives them the PD tag so now they fully benefit from the PD skill including the elite +200 range portion. Congrats - you now have 600 range AM blasters, just keep them in fixed mounts so that they don't waste shots at fighters. As you can imagine this is preeety busted with some of the "balanced" weapons from certain mods. But besides that it's still useful for the damage bonuses against fighters and missiles, which is still worth it if you're having trouble surviving the initial huge swarm at the start of every vanilla fight ever.
oh yeah, they would benefit from PD bonuses. I guess I would move it up a tier.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming For vanilla it's a solid B imo. The main issues are not with the hull mod but more with the enemy fleet comps and as you've proven with your vids - you can play fine without having PD at all. Outside of AMB abuse you're probably better off just adding more Vulcans + the PD skill to put them at 450 range and call it a day. In the end it comes down to how you've setup your officers and which of their skills are you making elite. The best case for it is probably auto ships Glimmer spam and just have 4 smalls all with +200 range. What made me appreciate having good PD (read "forced me into it") was facing some of the modded boss factions like the Agni, the Legio or the Blade Breakers. Their fleet comps are so well made... I don't know how you survive an alpha strike from the Blade Breakers without it.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming IPDAI with tactical lasers is an amazing combo. Longer range+more damage for a point defense
Reinforced bulkheads also makes a ship almost always recoverable as well as the +50% hull. So it can be really good on an important ship or a reckless ship.
officer ships are also almost always recoverable, also anything with an s-mod
I’m keen to see a low tech only play through, shield shunted SO’d dominators by ludd
Niice, I love these videos
Ballistic Rangefinder does not affect PD weapons like Dual Machineguns and furthermore, PD Mastery combined with IPDAI turns all small weapons into PD and gives 200 range flat. I only use the Rangefinder when I do not want smalls to shoot down missiles and have a large ballistic slot.
Call out to Vanilla! Thanks for the video!
Shield shunt is amazing on dominators and onslaughts its ok on enforcer particurly 14th legion versions but is good even on normal versions of these ships it is garbage on pretty much every other ship. The low tech ships high base armor combined with there bad to luckluster flux stats means you are trading your shield for front loading your ablity to shoot no losing flux ro enemy fire means you acualy have the flux to hit them very hard and both the dominator and onslaught have tremendous damage potential. The enforcer could maby use it in a safty overides build with the terrible flux stats using there shield is difficult to begin with and the fast agressive style works well on the otherwise lackluster enforcer this just gives it some survivalbility particurly in destroyer and frigate fights even lets you trade with cruisers.
54:00 Safety Override and unstable injector is perfect combo, what are you on about.
Eagle XIV version
Heavy armor, hardened shields, Nav relay (4% fleet speed boost) those 3 as built in Smods.
safety override, unstable injector, integrated targeting unit as normal mods
3 chain guns, 1 ion beam in the middle and 2 phase lances on the side, 2 Atropos torpedos, you can add point defense if you want or put the 17 in vents.
Have a officer with Energy weapon mastery 30% bonus damage under 600 range, I also use endurance and field modulation, target modulation for max damage, remember that the officers has to be aggressive for this to work properly.
The range reduction just feels really punishing when you stack them together. It becomes a real issue when your target is about to explode across the bow of your ship 😂😂
I think Integrated Point Defense can be good, mostly for AI, but I didn't really look into it.
I am going to build a Hammerhead around it, it's a brawler with good PD, and I envision it as a sort of fighters disablers.
As you target a ship, I believe, your *hybrid* PD is going to prioritize on your target, and thus it removes the big no-no that you mentioned.
Although, as I said, I didn't test it yet at this time, but I believe that's how it should work.
And my other guess is that the AI is good at microing and will target ships and thus focus all weapons on targets when needed (that's assuming that the AI does use the targetting feature).
But now, if my previous guess are good; it will give my Hammerhead such a boost, it's going to give it a net +200 range to its Railguns, it's going to make them more accurate, and always at 100% efficiency regardless of Performances.
And the +200 range on Railgun is going to make sure that the HH works on ships shield before its Assault guns come to range. Because otherwise both Railguns and Assault Guns are at 700, and thus, the HH has to come in range for the Railguns to work on enemy shields.
I think this little edge of the Railguns is going to be very sweet.
Also to note, but I went for a Machine Gun in the rear PD spot. And it has only a native 300 range, which makes sure that it's mediocre, even in its role.
But now, with +200 range, it's going to intercept missles and fighters, much easier.
I think this whole thing is really only valid for the HH I had in mind, and again, that's assuming that AI use targetting and the railguns would prioritize on targetted ships.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and uploading Starsector content!
Hey Grumpy, any chance of having a let's play focused solely on Automated Ships skill in Technology tree? I'd love to see a [REDACTED] only run, except your first ship of course.
We'll see 😉
Doesn’t militarized subsystems invalidate the penalties of a civilian-grade hull? I always militarize my freighters just so they don’t have the additional supply consumption when I strap expanded cargo holds on…
it does invalidate it. I didn't realize this at the time of recording.
-Expanded Deck Crew on C is an absolute crime, being such a must have mod for carriers. But clearly you didn't really remember what it does and probably confused it with the Recovery Shuttles mod (that being the bod that decreases crew fighter casualties), when what it actually does is increase the fighter replacement rate. Obvious misremembering, S tier.
-Hardened Subsystems is absolutely necessary on most high tech ships (especially the phasing ones, and the small specialized ones like the Omen or the Tempest). Should be A at the very minimum, and S more rightfully. But then again, understandable (albeit biased) view if you are Safety Overrides type of player, as in that case it doesn't matter that these ships can't stay in the fight for long since you are supposed to blitzkrieg, so...
-It's not that Militarized Subsystems decreases sensor profile, it's that all civilian ships have a 100% sensor profile penalty (and a 50% ship sensors penalty). Basically, making them double bright on sensors and lowering your stealth, and providing very little help for your own sensors. So by "militarizing' the ship, that malus is nullified. It's actually quite worth, if you are really bothered by the Atlas and Prometheus you may be lugging around making you shine like a star on enemy sensors. And also very worth if you wanna add the cargo/fuel/crew expansion mods on a civilian ship, since on civilian hulls they increase maintenance by 50% (which on ships like the Atlas and Prometheus is a massive drain), so with the Militarized mod, that malus is nullified. Should probably be a high B tier, or even A.
-Reinforced Bulkheads also makes the ship it's put on almost always recoverable if it gets blown to bits, so very worth to put on important ships you may have with S mods and the likes. High C, or probably B.
-It's not Survey Equipment that increases sensor range, it's High Resolution Sensors. Understandable mix-up, as they have pretty similar icons.
I understand that using a mod that disables security is worth it if your fleet consists only of frigates, for example, the Wolf. Take the skill that increases the hiring of officers and just carry out a blitzkrieg by teleporting behind them. Nothing personal kid!
Vanilla skill tier list ? its a hull mod list right ?
changed the title 👍
lol figured when I looked at the title, video got getting eviscerated in the comments by people familiar with lowtech builds, I instantly thought this is a way too subjective of a title since hull mods are objectively better or worse depending on fleet comp. Shoulda just titled it hightech hull mod tier list or something like that.
Dont mix SO with unstable injector... wwhhaatt???
that range is really really small 😂
@@GrumpyThumperGaming Yeah never used SO and unstable injector on some brawler ships, however SO with unstable injector is good for torpedo ships and LP brawlers though so they can unload everything instantly.
Without sounding bias, ballistic range finder on a wayfarer can solo cruisers
I'm going to need to see the math on this one lol
Man tjis guy likes shields
Id say that most of those suck lol never used conversion shield front, the way is armor hull hull armor