A Viable Endgame Ship Setup(pre-heretic).

[Kourtious]

Communities opinion on viable end-game setup. List the prior setup then final end-game setup(pre-heretic).

This is from my experience:
Prior Setup:
E1500 Freighter
Enhanced Fusionfire Howitzer Cannon, Enhanced Mag Launcher(from Ingenuity) with ZG24 Cluster Mag(which is surprisingly common).
Enhanced 4 V300 power armor segment
Enhanced Ion Reflector
ICX-Missile Defense Turret, Enhanced Hyperion Reactor, Enhanced Titan 440 Drive, Heisenmachines Quantum CPU

End-game Setup:
Enhanced Ares Plasma Archcannon(from Ingenuity), Enhanced Ares Launcher(from Ingenuity)
Enhanced 4 V300 power armor segment(too reliable to throw away)
Enhanced Nephren X1
ICX-Missile Defense Turret, Enhanced Hyperion Reactor, Enhanced Titan 440 Drive, Heisenmachines Quantum CPU

Why this setup?
First, Fusionfire Howitzer Cannon is easily found and is very useful. Next, I kept the mag launcher, because it was very help in dealing with Ares gunships. Furthermore, the V300 armor segments are very GOOD. They regenerate and saves the trouble of getting patch spiders. The ion reflector, because it helped against the Ares.

The endgame setup was very easy to get. The Ares Plasma Archcannnon can be gained from Phobos Dreadnaughts which are fairly easy to kill with Fusionfire Howitzers. By equipping this weapon, one become invincible(3-5 shots icroym sentinels and 15-20 shots Icroym Command Ship) Next, Ares Launchers are basically thermo versions of mag launchers and I love how the shockwave dissipate enemy projectiles. Furthermore, its ammo is not heavy in comparison to missiles of similar levels. You can easily get an Ares Launcher either from a Teraton Fabricator or from killing Cometfalls. The enhanced Nephren X1 is great in general and has resistances to majority of endgame damage types. Furthermore, its regeneration rate can hold its own against Icroym Quantumsphere rounds.

[FourFire]

Weapon: Anything with Tier III and > 60ls range
Armor: Anything level VIII that allows a shield
Shield: Any level IX or greater which isn't the lazarus
Devices: Longreach I Autocannon, Drive to >= 0.20c, Patchspiders. (cargohold)

I've beaten the boss with a Starcannon, Iocrym Veil and level VII Gosuko armor.
It's basically possible so long as you fly smart and get the required data before everything gets blown up.

[Song]

I generally go for the Ion9 (enhanced to +150%), a backup hecates cannon with all possible upgrades, hexacarbide or octocarbide, and a random shield of some sort.....usually a Taikon or Kaidun model, but I'm starting to rather like the Nephren X1. APA is awesome if you can get it, but usually you can't because the ion9 kills devices in compartments quite a lot.

If Near Stars/Eternity Port stuff is loaded (not an option for heretic now, but the bridging extension in future will make it viable for registered games), the Baihu archcannon is easily the best gun in the game once you enhance it, I think.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

This is my final setup from my high-score run. I'm kind of proud of it since I never installed any reactor on this run. It's back from 1.0X when you had to self-destruct after killing the ICS if you wanted to post a high score.

What do people think of Corporate Command's [spoiler=chimeric graviton cannon][/spoiler]? I haven't had a chance to play around with it.

[PM]

Graviton cannon is weak. Requires two slots to install, has slow fire rate and low DPS (54 * 1.5), and no WMD.

[Song]

Graviton cannon is weak. Requires two slots to install, has slow fire rate and low DPS (54 * 1.5), and no WMD.

Pretty much. It's useless.

[JohnBWatson]

Graviton cannon is weak. Requires two slots to install, has slow fire rate and low DPS (54 * 1.5), and no WMD.

Pretty much. It's useless.

Against everything but the player, that is. Those things are hell when you've got no internal HP.

[sun1404]

Yeah. Most Chimera weapons are almost like they're specially made as pilgrim-killer.

[JohnBWatson]

Yeah. Most Chimera weapons are almost like they're specially made as pilgrim-killer.

The ion blaster and launcher are somewhat useful. The laser cannon isn't so much only useful to the enemy as it is not really useful at all past a certain point. The seeker cannon is quite good for swarmbusting and turret - hunting, if you can get an intact one. I've never used the Centurions' gun, so I've no idea about that one.

[Song]

Yeah. Most Chimera weapons are almost like they're specially made as pilgrim-killer.

The ion blaster and launcher are somewhat useful. The laser cannon isn't so much only useful to the enemy as it is not really useful at all past a certain point. The seeker cannon is quite good for swarmbusting and turret - hunting, if you can get an intact one. I've never used the Centurions' gun, so I've no idea about that one.

The ion gun is a great little early-game weapon, but you do have to replace it quite early since the damage is very low....it'll reliably damage things for a while, but won't do enough DPS to really handle bigger things. Ion resistance completely kills it, of course.

The launcher is reasonable but, again, there's better stuff around. And the ammunition is a problem. I've had some fun with it before though.

The seeker cannon is absurdly hard to get, but it's easily the best of the chimeric weapons when it turns up. Specifically for constellation pilots: this is one of the best, if not the best auton weapons in the game. Not as good as it was when autons were even more crippled than they are now, but it's still a truly exceptional weapon to slap onto a basic (but shielded) auton.

And yeah, I've never touched the C!Centurion's gun either. It looks reasonable, but with the usual low-ROF, low-DPS, screw-the-player design of the lategame special enemies caveat. It'll have WMD though so that's something decent at least.

------------

Now, I do not advise the following setup, but it should be viable if you really, really want to get set for heretic as early as possible. There's probably room to improve this, but it's the worst setup I can think of that will still be able to take out the ICS. I've tested it on a friendly ICS with G.O.D, so if anyone's crazy enough this should work:

Sapphire
Shuriken Neutron Blaster+150% or +Fast +Bushido Enhancer (actually, the enhancer is useful regardless)
Penitent Cannon + Fast (you can do it with the normal one, but you really don't want to)
Any stupidly bad low-level shield
Tissue paper armor
ICX or Longreach (several units may be advisable)
Tritium Propulsion upgrade (improves agility, does not increase speed, does increase TWR). If you're feeling fancy, get a titan.
Any reactor that can power all that
As much fuel as you can carry without weighing down the ship (really, you'll need it. Maybe even leave a mule nearby full of more fuel)

Instructions

1. Fit this gear in heretic after getting drunk, sleep deprived, or bored of actually doing well. This should preferably be after you get the containment system dropped. For an extra challenge, try doing the iocrym AI, ares mission (good luck with Antarctica!) and the MRAD probe experiment with this setup.
2. Blast away with the Shuriken to drop the shield. This doesn't take all that long if you're careful.
3. Hope you like dodging lobsters!
4. Use the penitent cannon to slowly chip away the armor. Note that you will need to hit at a consistant angle (not place) in order to knock out an armor segment. This is impossible, so good luck.
5. Swap back to shuriken every time the shield comes up.
6. Hope you like internal hitpoints!
7. Did I mention that the penitent cannon in un-enhanced SM&M++ format takes about 13-14 minutes to shoot through the armor and internals of an ICS that's standing still? An enhanced vanilla gun should be able to do it about the same time, possibly a little faster.
8. Oh and the lobsters will still be trying to kill you.
9.?????
10. Profit!*


If anyone actually manages to do this, I'll be suitably amused.



In terms of actual endgame setups...I generally go for the Ion9, EIPC, or APA. Haven't done it for a while thought since I've been testing SM&M++ (which adds the option of the heavy ion blaster to the table).

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

The seeker cannon is comparable to the guaranteed Smartcannon in Eridani but has much shorter range. I would rank it below the xiphon cannon. I hadn't considered applicability to autons, but that really makes sense. The chimeric armors are pretty decent. Most of the faction-only weapons and armor are not really balanced for or intended for player use at the levels they show up at (Centauri and Ares weapons are an exception.)

Shrike, can the Penitent cannon really deal damage faster than the Iocrym healer will repair it?

[Song]

Shrike, can the Penitent cannon really deal damage faster than the Iocrym healer will repair it?

Just