right now it feels like keeping the Ai an Ui quite simple is how they are balancing it.
[/list]
What AI?? ? o.O
I think you are playing the wrong game..
There's two definitions of AI
Artificial Intelligence: the one folk strive towards
Artificially Inept: the one that cryptic end up implementing and poke at from time to time when they need to make themselves look busy on a friday afternoon.
Hangar Pets usually seem to work just fine for me. As long as I keep them in 'Attack' mode, they tear into anything I target quite reliably (sometimes before I even know there's a target to attack). Neither do I have any problems with the 'Intercept' and (usually) 'Dock' commands.
My Fleet Jupiter and its Callisto light Escort pets are doing great, they a actual keep with me in at full impulse now.
Did they fix that? The last few times I've used my Callistos on my Jupiter they struggled to actually keep up and they would never return to carrier then I would hit that command. If I put them on escort they did literally nothing.
My Fleet Jupiter and its Callisto light Escort pets are doing great, they a actual keep with me in at full impulse now.
Did they fix that? The last few times I've used my Callistos on my Jupiter they struggled to actually keep up and they would never return to carrier then I would hit that command. If I put them on escort they did literally nothing.
I think they fixed the inability to keep up quite a while ago, I often use a ship with at least one hangar and the pets pretty much always manage to keep up with me.
I can't say anything about the Escort command; I only ever really use Attack & Intercept.
Hangar Pets usually seem to work just fine for me. As long as I keep them in 'Attack' mode, they tear into anything I target quite reliably (sometimes before I even know there's a target to attack). Neither do I have any problems with the 'Intercept' and (usually) 'Dock' commands.
yeah i use them in attack mode now with 3 doffs that boost pet dmg, but the recall function is hit or miss...
Come on cryptic please take a look into our pets and let us use them universally wud like to use my bug ships on any carrier....
also see the baltim raiders, they have that ambush gateway ability IVE never seen them use it once! yeah ive seen them open a portal but never go thru it!!!
right now it feels like keeping the Ai an Ui quite simple is how they are balancing it.
[/list]
What AI?? ? o.O
I think you are playing the wrong game..
h what do you mean? Look at all of the smart intelligent people in the world that do stupid stuff, and have you seen some the self-driving cars that had accidents? Just because it has a AI does not mean it has to be smart, though it helps when they are.
Well the thing is hanger pets working fine, or adequately is a bit of a terrible state for them to be in. What I mean is we basically pay a weapon slot tax (per hanger mind you) for the use of a hanger/s on a ship, yet a fine or adequate pet might be worth how much compared to if we merely used that slot for a weapon instead. Which we could also actually directly buff using traits, console, and other such in-game mechanics.
No complaints about carriers here... my pets alone are parsing between 17-21K dps in ISA on 2 different carriers. That's enough to complete most advanced content on their own.
Added bonus - in a CSA one of the brave crews sacrificed their lives to intercept a plasma ball of death and save the mother ship. There names will not be forgotten. Either that or they beamed out at the last moment and are enjoying a beer at Quarks.
No complaints about carriers here... my pets alone are parsing between 17-21K dps in ISA on 2 different carriers. That's enough to complete most advanced content on their own.
Added bonus - in a CSA one of the brave crews sacrificed their lives to intercept a plasma ball of death and save the mother ship. There names will not be forgotten. Either that or they beamed out at the last moment and are enjoying a beer at Quarks.
So what carrier/pets are you using then?
see i have seen the elite swarmers and elite bug ships both doing 20K, biggest disappointment for me was the tzenkethi pets managed only 8K, although i know they are using the diffusive tet weapons which do lower the shield resists, no idea how it works as u cant really tell if its working as shield resists dont show up anywhere. but id like to see the pets achieve a higher number than 20K cause its only really 5K per bug ship, or about 2K per swarmer...
No complaints about carriers here... my pets alone are parsing between 17-21K dps in ISA on 2 different carriers. That's enough to complete most advanced content on their own.
Added bonus - in a CSA one of the brave crews sacrificed their lives to intercept a plasma ball of death and save the mother ship. There names will not be forgotten. Either that or they beamed out at the last moment and are enjoying a beer at Quarks.
So what carrier/pets are you using then?
see i have seen the elite swarmers and elite bug ships both doing 20K, biggest disappointment for me was the tzenkethi pets managed only 8K, although i know they are using the diffusive tet weapons which do lower the shield resists, no idea how it works as u cant really tell if its working as shield resists dont show up anywhere. but id like to see the pets achieve a higher number than 20K cause its only really 5K per bug ship, or about 2K per swarmer...
You can get the swarmers closer to 30k, but you need all the pet boosting traits you can find and an Advanced Obelisk Carrier. I'd love to know if anyone has got higher.
It's certainly fun to fly; bonus points if you've been patient enough to accumulate the EC needed to give it the complete Tholian Technologies package. Being able to run two copies of grav well (which benefits from the two-console exotic damage bonus, as I recall) means making sure that tangos find escaping the swarm... or the web cannon (and yes, its prefire animation actually changes depending on which ship it's mounted on)... difficult.
As for a T6 version... that'd be fine too; perhaps its starship trait would be somehow related to its energy grid ability? As for a T6 Orb Weaver: that's another interesting question -the Tarantula took first dibs on the trait that 'matches' it. Perhaps something like each 'tick' of exotic damage having a chance to slow the target for X seconds; subsequent procs in that timeframe stack the slowing effect and refresh the duration, with the slowing effect (not the duration refresh) having a maximum of Y stacks...
And I'll say it again: if they're going to make T6 versions of existing T5(U) ships, it would be logical for a new upgrade token to be available as well which turns any T5(U) ship into its T6 counterpart, provided the latter exists.
I scrimped and saved and got a Jem Hadar Attack ship from the last Phoenix box, which allowed me to buy the T6 Carrier and get the pets from my Fleet, so now I have 4 Jem Hadar Attack ships ripping everything apart whilst I tank and shoot off my beams, I don't use quite all the boosting pet damage stuff, but I do use a few and a few for me. It seems to go well.
You can get the swarmers closer to 30k, but you need all the pet boosting traits you can find and an Advanced Obelisk Carrier. I'd love to know if anyone has got higher.
Lol? you dont need the advanced obelisk carrier.
Regularly? How? What's the build? Or is it just on special runs with stacked Recluses?
You can get the swarmers closer to 30k, but you need all the pet boosting traits you can find and an Advanced Obelisk Carrier. I'd love to know if anyone has got higher.
Lol? you dont need the advanced obelisk carrier.
Regularly? How? What's the build? Or is it just on special runs with stacked Recluses?
You said that to get the swarmers to perform nicely you need the obelisk carrier... i fail to understand why that will be a factor. Also, anyways ive been using elite swarmers from the spire for a long time for several of my toons and i dont need anything extra. Just two carrier traits and the final skills from the skill tree. Thats all.
The Advanced Obelisk Carrier 3 piece set can give the Swarmers "Emergency Power to'x'", it's the only ship that can do that (to my knowledge).
I find giving them a lot of 'EPtW' very helpful, with the occasional 'EPtS' to keep them alive longer.
I't not 'essential' in any way, but to my mind it puts the AOC in 1st place as far as buffing Swarmers goes, despite it not being the best ship in the carrier class in terms of it's own performance.
Assuming someone wants to build a pet focused ship not the ship weapons. Is there a list someplace of all the useful items?
So far I know about the x3 part Ancient Obelisk Technology with EpTW, Superior Command Frequency for an extra battleship and Frigate. Defense Drone Guardians give more pets. Doffs that boost pet damage in Escort mode, the 3 skills at the bottom of the tree that boost pets, Wing commander, dominion coordination & Scramble fighters traits.
What else would be good to either put out more pets or boost pets?
I am aware of Reactive repair nanite but it doesn’t seem very useful compared to Scramble fighters.
With the Advanced Obelisk set isn't that one of those set you can put on any carrier?
My Romulan's scimy isn't a carrier per say but it's drones do well.
yeah and were limitied to their use only 1 carrier in which they can be used - kelvin timeline carrier! wud love to use ANY pet on any carrier! i just cant see why we cant
I don't mind the carriers having exclusive pets but DAMN Cryptic free the bug hangars for the Jemnaughts. that or put the T5 bug in the C-store although if i ever do get the bugs, I will truely miss the wall of high yield plasma torpedos headed toward the bad guy
My Fleet Jupiter and its Callisto light Escort pets are doing great, they a actual keep with me in at full impulse now.
Did they fix that? The last few times I've used my Callistos on my Jupiter they struggled to actually keep up and they would never return to carrier then I would hit that command. If I put them on escort they did literally nothing.
if you have pets out and you hit dock, then full impulse long enough for them to drop of the minimap, they will launch from the carrier if you hit the deploy button. escort does nothing? did youread the description? they will attac incoming distructible, mines torps nd fighters thats all they are SUPPOSE to do in that mode
My Fleet Jupiter and its Callisto light Escort pets are doing great, they a actual keep with me in at full impulse now.
Did they fix that? The last few times I've used my Callistos on my Jupiter they struggled to actually keep up and they would never return to carrier then I would hit that command. If I put them on escort they did literally nothing.
if you have pets out and you hit dock, then full impulse long enough for them to drop of the minimap, they will launch from the carrier if you hit the deploy button. escort does nothing? did youread the description? they will attac incoming distructible, mines torps nd fighters thats all they are SUPPOSE to do in that mode
That's Intercept, Escort is the 'defend the currently selected target' command.
No complaints about carriers here... my pets alone are parsing between 17-21K dps in ISA on 2 different carriers. That's enough to complete most advanced content on their own.
Added bonus - in a CSA one of the brave crews sacrificed their lives to intercept a plasma ball of death and save the mother ship. There names will not be forgotten. Either that or they beamed out at the last moment and are enjoying a beer at Quarks.
So what carrier/pets are you using then?
see i have seen the elite swarmers and elite bug ships both doing 20K, biggest disappointment for me was the tzenkethi pets managed only 8K, although i know they are using the diffusive tet weapons which do lower the shield resists, no idea how it works as u cant really tell if its working as shield resists dont show up anywhere. but id like to see the pets achieve a higher number than 20K cause its only really 5K per bug ship, or about 2K per swarmer...
I'm using standard (rare) S'kul Fighters on a Kar'Fi for 17K but also have the Elite Elite Fer'Jai Frigates but haven't parsed them. They are evil The 21K (so far) parse was from the Elite Xindi Aquatic Mobulai Frigates and was the best of only a couple runs on a Xindi-Aquatic Narcine Dreadnought Carrier (T5). The only thing buffing them are the engineering and tactical skill tree unlocks and points into all 3 coordination protocols. I'm running fairly high aux power on both ships, perhaps that helps a bit as well. Overall though am pretty satisfied as pets were nerfed a few years ago and now they seem to hold their own again. Pets alone are parsing more than many in ISA.
Funny thing... looks like Carriers and pets got some significant mention in the patch notes a while back October 15 2010 Patch Notes
Assuming someone wants to build a pet focused ship not the ship weapons. Is there a list someplace of all the useful items?
So far I know about the x3 part Ancient Obelisk Technology with EpTW, Superior Command Frequency for an extra battleship and Frigate. Defense Drone Guardians give more pets. Doffs that boost pet damage in Escort mode, the 3 skills at the bottom of the tree that boost pets, Wing commander, dominion coordination & Scramble fighters traits.
What else would be good to either put out more pets or boost pets?
I am aware of Reactive repair nanite but it doesn’t seem very useful compared to Scramble fighters.
With the Advanced Obelisk set isn't that one of those set you can put on any carrier?
No definitive list I know of.
There's also Coordinated Assault (from a Heavy Escort Carrier) that give pets an extra BO or CRF when you use it.
Reactive Repair Nanites works well with Non-Linear Progression, (if you can spend enough time going backwards).
Also if you've got a Pilot seat, there's Reinforcements Squadron.
The Reactive Antiproton Cascade Emitter console (needed for the 3-piece set) can only be fitted on the Advanced Obelisk Carrier.
For me the hangar pets are still pretty wonky, the dock command works about 30% of the time but not on all of the pets, if I'm using frigates I may get 1 or 2 to dock, fighters ... if all 12 are out I'll have anywhere from 1 to 7 just flying behind me weaving around trying to dock.
I've noticed that in the tzenkethi R.A. I have to launch when the countdown ends and I'm flying to the satellite otherwise the pets just hang out where we start and don't show up until the second wave of targets appear. Attack and intercept are both working fine (for me) when the pets are in range. I'd love to see a console or trait that lets us use any pet on any carrier... that would be a slice of awesome!
Been using carriers and single hanger ships for years, before the skill revamp even my beloved Plesh Breks were poor, they followed the commands without issue, but their DPS was so low that the carrier took point while they provided limited backup. Since the skill revamp that position has dramatically changed, now it's a five ship assault that melts stuff.
I think one of the issues with pets is that they all behave differently depending on where and how you first launch them. Some pets don't care where you launched them, most however do care, which is why you see people complain about their pets just sitting there. My advanced Plesh Breks don't care where I launch them, if I hit recall they dive back into the hanger, if I start to move off they follow, if I see a hostile at 25k+ distance I can target it and tell my pets to attack. At that distance they don't charge off after the target, instead they stick with me until we get to 15k from the target, which is when they start to move ahead of the carrier and start popping abilities just before they get into weapons range.
Sadly most pets don't act like that at first launch, some will follow you waiting on you telling them what to do, then stop dead when you do, some wont even follow you. Basically most of the pets need a kick up the backside, for most that means getting into what I call the hot zone (15k to 17k from a target), select the target and the command and then launch the pets for the first time, once they get to within 15k of the target they will start going after it.
I noticed someone saying the FE wasn't carrier friendly, most story missions in the past three years are carrier friendly, problem is that you need to hit recall and get your pets docked before you change maps, when they are docked they are classed as being part of the equipment on your ship, and will go with you when you go from one space map to the next. If they aren't docked then they are just seen as part of that map, and are deleted when you exit the map. Some times they can still be in the hanger even when you go space map to ground map and back to space map, but not always.
Docking is a problem for some hangers, not sure if it's hanger only or if the ship has something to do with it as well, but some hangers just can't find the hanger door. There is also another issue with some hangers (fighters mostly), using recall breaks the docking system for the hanger, a couple of the pets just wont dock, and when you relaunch the rest some of them refuse to leave the hanger.
I've always shyed away from the things that increase the speed of pet levelling. Partly due to how fragile fighters can be and partly because they are often never close enough to actually make use of the xp they leech off my kills.
I've had good results with coordinated assault trait from the heavy escort carrier and if I'm curious to know if the [over] mod to weapons can cause it to proc.
For the kethi RA what I tend to do is shift power to max my aux and spawn the first wave on the way to the satellite so they are actually useful and the second is ready much faster. Then shift the power back to "normal" and set the pets on intercept which is enough to cover the protomatter bombs. The power shifting is something that I got into the habit of doing during one of the many times when cryptics efforts to fix pets broke them even more.
My theory on the docking issue is that the pets have to interact with a specific point on the ship but the ship designers often end up placing that inside the model rather than just outside which is why you often see pets with a dock order issued bumping into your ship as they try to get the angle of entry right.
If that is the case then the fix would be to simply set the docking point to use the ship shield's radius as the docking trigger so it becomes a more universal setting and not need tweaking for every size and shape of carrier.
Thanks to this thread I am going give carriers another go. I wasn’t aware we could recall level uped frigates and take them to the next zone. That’s a game changer. Also I missed a few things not tried Coordinated Assault + 30% damage doff escort mode + 25% damage Scramble fighters + dominion coordination 33% damage. With the skill tree points. Not sure how it all stacks.
Thing is i have tried this got my pets docked, at rank 5 swapped maps and the pets weren't there anymore had to start again and get them ranked back up, that's why i use wing commander to get them to R5 faster, and the main reason i do it is for the extra 10% dmg boost to the pets. but i really wud like to have the pets unlocked universally as i love the tzenkethi carrier but the tzenkethi pets are so lame not much i can do with them, what Cryptic should do if they WONT make pets universal is gives us a new universal pet frigate that has both beams and cannons, only pet in game that has both is the bug ships, id also like a new trait to come out that would allow you to put ur boff skills onto your pets, a bit like the trait from the heavy escort carrier for BO and CRF....so when i click a heal, or weapon enhancement they wud all get them, OR if people think that's overkill, let SCI/ENG/TACT team to actually apply to pets, whats the point of have these called TEAM when it really only effects myself, UNLESS i actually click another friendly entity and the ability goes to them..
Another handy trait is the tachyon beam aoe shield heal that I think is from the lukari triangle.
Buried behind the vonph is a rather nice one thats a bit more indirect as it reduces your boff cooldowns as long as you're over 80% health. More overloads for you means more for pets as well. Not a fan of buying a ship for the trait but felt it was worth looking at a second purchase for my rommies t'laru and drones.
Off the top of my head the only fix to hangar pets that cryptic got right first time was back when carriers were kdf only and the issue they sorted was that you could summon a full wing of bops then swap to another pet such as the slavers without the original wing of bops despawning. (insert conspiracy theories about their success and pro-fed stance as you will)
Comments
There's two definitions of AI
Artificial Intelligence: the one folk strive towards
Artificially Inept: the one that cryptic end up implementing and poke at from time to time when they need to make themselves look busy on a friday afternoon.
Don't get me wrong it's great watching quad cannons/photon x 12 ripping into a ship but it's one and done.
Did they fix that? The last few times I've used my Callistos on my Jupiter they struggled to actually keep up and they would never return to carrier then I would hit that command. If I put them on escort they did literally nothing.
I think they fixed the inability to keep up quite a while ago, I often use a ship with at least one hangar and the pets pretty much always manage to keep up with me.
I can't say anything about the Escort command; I only ever really use Attack & Intercept.
yeah i use them in attack mode now with 3 doffs that boost pet dmg, but the recall function is hit or miss...
Come on cryptic please take a look into our pets and let us use them universally wud like to use my bug ships on any carrier....
h what do you mean? Look at all of the smart intelligent people in the world that do stupid stuff, and have you seen some the self-driving cars that had accidents? Just because it has a AI does not mean it has to be smart, though it helps when they are.
Well the thing is hanger pets working fine, or adequately is a bit of a terrible state for them to be in. What I mean is we basically pay a weapon slot tax (per hanger mind you) for the use of a hanger/s on a ship, yet a fine or adequate pet might be worth how much compared to if we merely used that slot for a weapon instead. Which we could also actually directly buff using traits, console, and other such in-game mechanics.
Added bonus - in a CSA one of the brave crews sacrificed their lives to intercept a plasma ball of death and save the mother ship. There names will not be forgotten. Either that or they beamed out at the last moment and are enjoying a beer at Quarks.
So what carrier/pets are you using then?
see i have seen the elite swarmers and elite bug ships both doing 20K, biggest disappointment for me was the tzenkethi pets managed only 8K, although i know they are using the diffusive tet weapons which do lower the shield resists, no idea how it works as u cant really tell if its working as shield resists dont show up anywhere. but id like to see the pets achieve a higher number than 20K cause its only really 5K per bug ship, or about 2K per swarmer...
You can get the swarmers closer to 30k, but you need all the pet boosting traits you can find and an Advanced Obelisk Carrier. I'd love to know if anyone has got higher.
As for a T6 version... that'd be fine too; perhaps its starship trait would be somehow related to its energy grid ability? As for a T6 Orb Weaver: that's another interesting question -the Tarantula took first dibs on the trait that 'matches' it. Perhaps something like each 'tick' of exotic damage having a chance to slow the target for X seconds; subsequent procs in that timeframe stack the slowing effect and refresh the duration, with the slowing effect (not the duration refresh) having a maximum of Y stacks...
And I'll say it again: if they're going to make T6 versions of existing T5(U) ships, it would be logical for a new upgrade token to be available as well which turns any T5(U) ship into its T6 counterpart, provided the latter exists.
Regularly? How? What's the build? Or is it just on special runs with stacked Recluses?
The Advanced Obelisk Carrier 3 piece set can give the Swarmers "Emergency Power to'x'", it's the only ship that can do that (to my knowledge).
I find giving them a lot of 'EPtW' very helpful, with the occasional 'EPtS' to keep them alive longer.
I't not 'essential' in any way, but to my mind it puts the AOC in 1st place as far as buffing Swarmers goes, despite it not being the best ship in the carrier class in terms of it's own performance.
So far I know about the x3 part Ancient Obelisk Technology with EpTW, Superior Command Frequency for an extra battleship and Frigate. Defense Drone Guardians give more pets. Doffs that boost pet damage in Escort mode, the 3 skills at the bottom of the tree that boost pets, Wing commander, dominion coordination & Scramble fighters traits.
What else would be good to either put out more pets or boost pets?
I am aware of Reactive repair nanite but it doesn’t seem very useful compared to Scramble fighters.
With the Advanced Obelisk set isn't that one of those set you can put on any carrier?
That's Intercept, Escort is the 'defend the currently selected target' command.
I'm using standard (rare) S'kul Fighters on a Kar'Fi for 17K but also have the Elite Elite Fer'Jai Frigates but haven't parsed them. They are evil
Funny thing... looks like Carriers and pets got some significant mention in the patch notes a while back October 15 2010 Patch Notes
No definitive list I know of.
There's also Coordinated Assault (from a Heavy Escort Carrier) that give pets an extra BO or CRF when you use it.
Reactive Repair Nanites works well with Non-Linear Progression, (if you can spend enough time going backwards).
Also if you've got a Pilot seat, there's Reinforcements Squadron.
The Reactive Antiproton Cascade Emitter console (needed for the 3-piece set) can only be fitted on the Advanced Obelisk Carrier.
I've noticed that in the tzenkethi R.A. I have to launch when the countdown ends and I'm flying to the satellite otherwise the pets just hang out where we start and don't show up until the second wave of targets appear. Attack and intercept are both working fine (for me) when the pets are in range.
I'd love to see a console or trait that lets us use any pet on any carrier... that would be a slice of awesome!
I think one of the issues with pets is that they all behave differently depending on where and how you first launch them. Some pets don't care where you launched them, most however do care, which is why you see people complain about their pets just sitting there. My advanced Plesh Breks don't care where I launch them, if I hit recall they dive back into the hanger, if I start to move off they follow, if I see a hostile at 25k+ distance I can target it and tell my pets to attack. At that distance they don't charge off after the target, instead they stick with me until we get to 15k from the target, which is when they start to move ahead of the carrier and start popping abilities just before they get into weapons range.
Sadly most pets don't act like that at first launch, some will follow you waiting on you telling them what to do, then stop dead when you do, some wont even follow you. Basically most of the pets need a kick up the backside, for most that means getting into what I call the hot zone (15k to 17k from a target), select the target and the command and then launch the pets for the first time, once they get to within 15k of the target they will start going after it.
I noticed someone saying the FE wasn't carrier friendly, most story missions in the past three years are carrier friendly, problem is that you need to hit recall and get your pets docked before you change maps, when they are docked they are classed as being part of the equipment on your ship, and will go with you when you go from one space map to the next. If they aren't docked then they are just seen as part of that map, and are deleted when you exit the map. Some times they can still be in the hanger even when you go space map to ground map and back to space map, but not always.
Docking is a problem for some hangers, not sure if it's hanger only or if the ship has something to do with it as well, but some hangers just can't find the hanger door. There is also another issue with some hangers (fighters mostly), using recall breaks the docking system for the hanger, a couple of the pets just wont dock, and when you relaunch the rest some of them refuse to leave the hanger.
I've had good results with coordinated assault trait from the heavy escort carrier and if I'm curious to know if the [over] mod to weapons can cause it to proc.
For the kethi RA what I tend to do is shift power to max my aux and spawn the first wave on the way to the satellite so they are actually useful and the second is ready much faster. Then shift the power back to "normal" and set the pets on intercept which is enough to cover the protomatter bombs. The power shifting is something that I got into the habit of doing during one of the many times when cryptics efforts to fix pets broke them even more.
If that is the case then the fix would be to simply set the docking point to use the ship shield's radius as the docking trigger so it becomes a more universal setting and not need tweaking for every size and shape of carrier.
Buried behind the vonph is a rather nice one thats a bit more indirect as it reduces your boff cooldowns as long as you're over 80% health. More overloads for you means more for pets as well. Not a fan of buying a ship for the trait but felt it was worth looking at a second purchase for my rommies t'laru and drones.
Off the top of my head the only fix to hangar pets that cryptic got right first time was back when carriers were kdf only and the issue they sorted was that you could summon a full wing of bops then swap to another pet such as the slavers without the original wing of bops despawning. (insert conspiracy theories about their success and pro-fed stance as you will)