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Is there a downside to a small ship build?
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Author:  Borg0001 [ Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Is there a downside to a small ship build?
Hi everyone,

I have been playing this game for a long time, since just after started. I hadn't heard of the small ship build when I started and by the time I had, it was far too late to give it a try.

However, I have been wondering, besides not having many decks, are there any real disadvantages to a small ship build? I'd like to be able to offer some useful advice to any trainees we get, and I can't offer advice about something I have never tried.

Thanks for any responses.
Author:  juiceman [ Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
The main downsides are lack of space for scan modules and having to swap out items a lot. Also you have to be very picky on which items to install. There are numerous threads on the SSB (small ship build) and how to construct it.

I'm sure some very decent ssb's will post here to answer your question from their personal experience.
Author:  DarkMar [ Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
depends a bit on where you go SSB or just small

2 main weakness are....

1. Scan and cloak

scan beeing the most importained of them, but you can usealy work around that one by swarping modules around - bringing your scanners online only when you need to scan for planets

and once you get to rank 900+, you will usealy have enougth space to run the 5000+ scan needed to find NPC like
Sha'din Hyperport(Cloak: 3,000), Silthion Hybrid Cluster (Cloak: 2500), Kelethor, Crimson Hauler(Cloak: 4,500), Attiroth, Lazuli Carrier(Cloak: 3,000) etc, and if you are in a NPC hunting legion they will proberly be NPC hunters sharing those so you dont need high scan to get the drops



2. that you will gain stats slower then a ship with more deck space

large ships can simply gain + 8 * 430 attack = 3440 attack, by adding 8 Heavy Quasi-Chaotic Blaster, and can slowly upgrade that to 6880 attack by doing a LM Task, and it the same with defence, hull, shield and energy

so it takes longer time to build up the attack and energy you need for base combat and invading planets, but once you have added 10.000+ Tactical Officers/Helmsmen/Engineers and brackets/x-cells for hull and shield, the stats you can get from modules starts to matter less and less


but if you know what you are dooing, it not hard to work around those 2
Author:  Toph [ Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
Main downside I'd say -> You put your planets at higher risk because of the lack of scan/cloak and then the risk of crit hack.

Second -> the more modules you have, the longer it takes to swap your build, and it gets really annoying.
Author:  coalmaine [ Sun Dec 07, 2014 9:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
The most important part of an SSB build is the start of the game.

Experience is a resource you spend just as any other. Specifically spending Exp raises your rank and thus your damage cap and thus weakens your ship. The best advice you can give new ships is that they must spend there exp wisely.

Next is ship space. Most of the time you will focus on hull mods and swap in and out parts for various tasks. (scanning, Hacking.)
Thus the most important stat your looking for in ship modules is Hull, focusing on the hull to deck ratio.

Next is rank points. I would advice that early on they pour all there points into tac officers.This combined with there damage cap and high hull will give them and edge in pvp allowing them to badge well. When they are ready to move on from pvp is usually a good time to start putting more points into energy.

The main early game goal for this build is to focus exclusively on pvp from the very start. gaining power through rank points form artis only. Missions can wait. from the start if they are serious. then just hack. hack and hack. its boring as sin but will work. rely on artis for cloak. use the base cloak mods until you gain the blue badge parts. Then when they cant wait any longer move onto red badging and raiding. Its very very important to raid. always be on the lookout for a disabled ship. The best early game modules for an ssb are the Protean armory s.

When it comes to planets you will have to rely on your legion mates as you scan will be pitiful even when you gain all the blue badge mods you simply wont be able to fit them.


Research should be focused exclusively into hull. you will not be able to fit any other mods so you do not need to research them.

When the time finally comes to do missions focus only on the chains with significant final rewards. such as Zolazin for the npc slots, Voliir chain for the bioship ally.

Sorry for the long post hope this helps.

TLDR: Dont rank, Pvp
Author:  senatorhung [ Mon Dec 08, 2014 2:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
from my SSB strategy guide

Quote:
because SSB's do not have enough space to install everything, anytime a pilot wishes to switch modes (scanning mode, hacking mode, raiding mode, npc mode, pvp mode, mission / energy mode, etc.), they must manually uninstall and re-install each individual ship module for those respective modes. after 10 uninstalls, a ship module breaks, incurring repair costs equal to the original purchase cost in credits. this can get expensive ... VERY expensive. however, you also install fewer modules, which cuts down a bit on daily upkeep costs. keep in mind that those lower-efficiency modules that would eat up a ton of deck space gather dust in cargo for a LONG time, and are always subject to a misclick scrap, so choose wisely when selecting which missions to complete.

remember that the mod shuffling takes time ... so if your current build is specialized for one aspect of the game ... the time taken to switch mods out will hinder you in responding to planet alerts ... npc alerts ... PvP responses etc.

Quote:
until a SSB ship reaches around rank 500-1000, when their artifact production kicks into high gear, their ship is generally weaker than other ships that have played for the same amount of time. at lower ranks, other ships will have much higher firepower, or be able to rank much faster with larger energy bars. however, properly-built SSB ships will eventually be able to hold their own against anyone in their battle tab range, but patience is required for the long slog to get to that point.

until legion missions arrived, i did not bother much with energy (the elerian route). however, once LMs became a priority, i quickly evened out my engineers and tac officers. this meant that my attack compared to those in my badge range was less than par, but that was compensated by not running out of energy at a critical time.
Author:  chiaro:scuro [ Mon Dec 08, 2014 11:39 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
Mod shuffling is probably the worst, especially for scan runs.

To scan:

Make sure there is sufficient energy and that you're not too far from ranking. Swap to all the scan mods that will fit and start scanning.

Once you scan to a few exp from ranking, swap to all energy mods and rank. Then burn energy down to where it was when you had all scan mods on, swap mods to scan again and finish rest of energy. A refill will be needed at this point, so back to energy mod swap, until energy is used enough that you can swap to all scan mods back on. Also be careful because you could rank in the middle of scanning during this portion because you could rank without realizing it (has happened to me multiple times, costing thousands of energy)

Repeat as necessary.

It wasn't actually so bad when I only had 4-5 scan mods and maybe 8 energy mods. It's really annoying now with 10+ scan mods and 20+ energy mods (and a realllly slow internet connection)
Author:  Tree7304 [ Mon Dec 08, 2014 3:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
I am missing about 10k attack due to not having most of the attack mods on my ship. Same thing with defense. I do choose this though because I need plenty of scan and cloak for PvP.

Not a huge deal but it is a negative consequence.
Author:  ICBLF [ Tue Dec 09, 2014 5:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
I hear the crew gets grumpy from the lack of elbow (or other appendage/joint) room
Author:  Ludis [ Tue Dec 09, 2014 5:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
The downside to being an SSB is that you don't have to waste space on useless inefficient mods and have almost no high upkeep to deal with as LSB's because LSB's probably don't care about high upkeep or like having higher upkeep, the minerals they have to keep increasing to sustain their ship and having less artifact production.
Author:  ICBLF [ Tue Dec 09, 2014 2:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
Ludis wrote:
The downside to being an SSB is that you don't have to waste space on useless inefficient mods and have almost no high upkeep to deal with as LSB's because LSB's probably don't care about high upkeep or like having higher upkeep, the minerals they have to keep increasing to sustain their ship and having less artifact production.

Pretty sure the cost of mod swapping (repairs or sell and rebuy) overwhelms or at least nearly negates any supposed upkeep advantages of an SSB. Also, at some point minerals are basically free (only limited by planet slots), and research points really do become completely free (growing on their own) so for many ships (regardless of "SSB" or "LSB" status) upkeep doesn't impact AP at all.
Author:  TrinityThree [ Tue Dec 09, 2014 2:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
Id say its the SSBs that take an AP hit. You dont usually see this because its this specific weakness that SSBs usually aim to cover, and overcompensate by having massive AP. The only other significant downside is the amount of annoying mod swapping. Which can make you miss a juicy planet or elite alert.

About the AP hit, they have lower invasion attack and less capable max scan. So less takable planets and less scannable planets and less total planets scanned. The scanning is somewhat mitigated my legion ffa planets, but the disadvantage is still there. The lack of attack from mods is very particular to earlier game. It cannot easily be mitigated except by AP, which although powerful, only shows its effects in the long run. But even this con is accelerated in its disappearance due to the massive AP many SSBs have in comparison to their peers.

In the end, the cons of SSB become somewhat null through longtime play; decks begin to sort themselves at higher ranks, and at those same ranks, ship mods start becoming inconsequential if not +%. At the same time, your slowly approaching what is just the textbook definition of SSB. By the time you hit rank 2000-3000...most people would see you more as MSB at that point.
Author:  chiaro:scuro [ Thu Dec 11, 2014 9:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
Ludis wrote:
The downside to being an SSB is that you don't have to waste space on useless inefficient mods and have almost no high upkeep to deal with as LSB's because LSB's probably don't care about high upkeep or like having higher upkeep, the minerals they have to keep increasing to sustain their ship and having less artifact production.


How is that a downside?
Author:  ICBLF [ Fri Dec 12, 2014 2:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
chiaro:scuro wrote:
Ludis wrote:
The downside to being an SSB is that you don't have to waste space on useless inefficient mods and have almost no high upkeep to deal with as LSB's because LSB's probably don't care about high upkeep or like having higher upkeep, the minerals they have to keep increasing to sustain their ship and having less artifact production.


How is that a downside?

Because it perpetuates a few myths about long term strategy which lead to challenges down the road for the eager new SSBs?
Author:  Deigobene [ Fri Dec 12, 2014 2:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
ICBLF wrote:
chiaro:scuro wrote:
Ludis wrote:
The downside to being an SSB is that you don't have to waste space on useless inefficient mods and have almost no high upkeep to deal with as LSB's because LSB's probably don't care about high upkeep or like having higher upkeep, the minerals they have to keep increasing to sustain their ship and having less artifact production.


How is that a downside?

Because it perpetuates a few myths about long term strategy which lead to challenges down the road for the eager new SSBs?


Ah, don't blame Ludis too much, at his rank he probably can't comprehend a time when daily invade cost outstrips your daily upkeep by so much that ship costs are completely irrelevant.
To be honest, the idea that you are either SSB or LSB just seems silly to me - there are many shades of grey.

For me, the main thing is by Rank 1000 or so you have enough decks to fit every scanning mod (which is a lot) and try to always replace the mods you have with better ones as they become available.
Be a proud mod snob :)

I also like the way Senator built his SSB, aiming to hit "strict" SSB later so he didn't completely hamstring his early growth.
Author:  Ludis [ Fri Dec 12, 2014 5:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
I'm just saying people witb SSB's don't get to enjoy the motivation to increase minerals, therefore they often have to deal with lower amounts of exotic matter for legion missions to sacrifice for lower upkeep, while LSB's have higher upkeep and a more balanced production than them.

In other words, many SSB'S have a higher chance of having more artifacts than LSB'S that fill up their cargos far too quickly for the ones with a lot of artifact production
Author:  TrinityThree [ Fri Dec 12, 2014 6:38 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
but cargo comes from artifact production, so more artifact also means more cargo.
Author:  juiceman [ Fri Dec 12, 2014 6:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
I am an ssb hater...and that's because they are soooo good when well built :P

That said, a well built and played ssb can do everything. From pvp, to npc, to planet stealing and building to base wrecking. It takes time and thought and planning. Which in my opinion is why its too easy to say ssb is 'x' or 'y' only.

If EM shortage , and corresponding limitation on legion missions is the issue, i would suggest they can either do other useful tasks, or tradde things people want for the em they need. This happens super readily now. Sure I love reaping my own big chunka chunka mining and EM, but certainly there are other ways. People make a living in the game thru GTC and trade pages.

So, not trying to throw anyone or their opinion under the bus, but ship size for the smart players isn't much of handicap on any level...and less so over time.
Author:  Ludis [ Fri Dec 12, 2014 9:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
Another problem is that most SSB'S don't want to rank too quickly because they are either waiting too long for better planets by purging most of their planets or just waiting for new efficient modules to fill up the maximum damage cap at 5009 if they reach rank 9999, and many of them have the fear of having modules that eventually become absolutely worthless.
Author:  Billik [ Fri Dec 12, 2014 6:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is there a downside to a small ship build?
From a recruiting standpoint I'm wary of the SSB, as the main advantage to the class is the ability to be hard to kill I don't see that on it's own as a benefit to my legion. You need to ramp up the AP early on in order to overcome the loss of stat values that modules provide.
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