Yup. Wasn’t saying you were wrong. That just seems… odd, you know? (That it would take more than the ship, I mean. I’m not saying it’s odd that I’m not saying you’re wrong.)
Doesn’t it?? I think it must have something to do with how the energy is being channeled (and at this point I think that little suspended sphere-turret must be basically a solid wad of condensates). There’s a lot of zero-point condensate in the ammunition charges, too.
Also, I’ve noticed the thing slurps power from the capacitor at a pretty fast rate. Like, maybe comparable to a full battery of similarly-scaled pulse lasers?
“More Wildlife in the Raging Dark”
A Karybdis Tyrannos having a hard day. Drifter units in the Abyss seem to always be having hard days: compared to the ones we see in K-space and Hives (to say nothing of the J-space Arithmos), they’re slow, track targets poorly, and are perpetually in need of repair (about the armor damage? It was like that when I found it, honest) (no, really). They hit pretty hard if they hit, though.
The Triglavians really seem to hate them, identifying them (it’s probably them) as “Ancient Enemy Azdaja” and prioritizing expelling them from the Abyss. … I really wonder how they’re managing to rope Drifter battleships into the provings; the Drifter and Sleeper ships do seem to be engaging us subject to the same controlled conditions as the Triglavians themselves.
I wonder if maybe they might be what drove the Triglavians into the Abyss to begin with? The Drifters certainly don’t seem to be able to take their best tools and weapons there, so it might be really a very good hiding place.
Maybe we can hide there too when the Drifters decide to wipe us out. … Ha ha?
A “lance” drone and a dozen of its closest friends trying to lance me. As Abyssal dangers go, they’re not especially nasty, but, they do kind of have teeth in large numbers-- especially if you let them keep those numbers while waiting for a Deviant Automata Suppressor like the one shown here to extirpate them for you. Picking a few off to limit their ability to wound might make sense, though I admittedly tend to look at chambers like this one as a chance to save on ammunition.
A Hadal Abyssal Overmind, AKA “why Aria doesn’t use RLMLs.” Unlike most kinds of battleships in a proving, this one turns up with all its shields and armor, and it’s a tough nugget to have to crack before you can move on. The heavy breaching of the original Dominix hull you can see along the dorsal surface there doesn’t seem to slow it down even a tiny bit. This one ate a whole rack of Rage HAMS (kinetic, so, not optimal against drones generally, but still) and asked for seconds.
Happily that means I get more time to photograph scenic vistas.
I really am strongly coming to suspect that those crystals we keep seeing off in the distance are crystalline isogen-10. I’ve never seen one appear in the safe zone, though. I wonder if the Triglavians have trouble getting to it, too, or if they can just kind of wander out there if they calibrate their black holes right. (What a thing to write.)
Would you please just give up you stupid mass of armor?
Please?
Look, I’ve totally got you outmaneuvered. You’re just making this harder for yourself.
PLEASE?!!
Finally!
… okay so this is actually a good bit later but I couldn’t resist the shot.
One troublesome aspect of battleship-scale opponents is that you tend to want to get in close to limit their tactical options and outtrack their guns, but if they’re even a little bit speedy (Karybdis, Leshaks, and Overminds (grrr) are; Lucid Deepwatchers are not) you’ll usually have a bit of a flight to get back to the gate. With the exception of the Leshaks (which normally go down fast or you’re really in trouble), they’re time-consuming opponents to start with, and you’ll waste even more time getting to where you need to go next. Working out the perfect moment to break off from a Karybdis so that my missiles breach its hull just before I leave effective range is still a work in progress.
RIP, Void Dancer II.
Ghosting and Striking Damaviks, Raging Dark. No glowing cloud or means of distracting cross-rep. Lost two drones killing the first; couldn’t break cross-rep on the second.
… Should have known better. Did know better, actually-- knew exactly what I had to do. Had done it before: overload the blasted rack.
Didn’t remember. Didn’t do it in time.
Warp field imploded at last gate.
Just a little suggestion for you: The Core Defense Field Purger doesn’t do much for your ship. It’s meant to improve the passive generation, but your Cerberus is active tanked. So you use a rig slot for something that barely does anything. Instead you can fit a Warhead Flare Catalyst which makes you missiles apply better to smaller targets.
Sorry about your loss. I wish you the best of luck for Void Dancer III
???
Oh gods and spirits, I confused it with a “shield boost amount” version of the operational solidifier!..
AUGH!
I am SO embarrassed!
Uh-- is the Warhead Flare Catalyst a better idea than the Warhead Rigor or maybe even Warhead Calefaction catalysts? It looks like I have the calibration for any of them.
Well … while I’m tinkering with the next Void Dancer:
Come meet the new boss, same as the-- no, quite different from the old boss actually.
This is the Stormlight, and she’ll be standing in for the Void Dancer series until she explodes, I start missing the Dark Abyss just that badly, or I decide that this is a terrible idea after all. From the name you’d think I’d be eyeing up Electrical filaments, but actually the Abyss I have in mind is the very toasty one with filaments that are actually quite cheap right now.
(Might try some electrical, too. Disintegrators aren’t so effective there, but it seems like everyone and everything likes having an overflowing capacitor.)
The reason I’m doing this, instead of, say, a Zealot, is because it’s been pointed out that the Vedmak excels at something I’ve been struggling an itty bit with: killing little stuff. I’m not saying she’s immune to Ghosting Damavik tracking disruption, for example, but just in general she tracks beautifully. She basically minces frigates in two cycles and cruisers a couple cycles after that. There are drones for troublesome or urgent targets, and, for battleships, the damage ramps up, so …
… gonna give it a try.
It’s better than the Calefaction Catalyst. The Rigor Catalyst will likely have a similar effect on smaller targets in the Abyss if they’re not using a MWD. If they are (and they might be), then they’re already getting a degree of sig bloom, so you want to counter their speed. The Flare Catalyst offers that no matter what kind of propulsion the target uses.
I… I don’t know if a Vedmak’s a good idea for the Abyss. You need to do a lot of damage quickly, and it needs 90s on a target to spool up. It’s not that I don’t think you can kill things… but I’m not sure you can kill things quickly enough to get out.
Obviously, keep us informed.
Well … it’s like the RLML argument, Arrendis.
RLML’s do huge horrible damage while they’re active, and they burn right through little things. But if I hit each Ephilates Lancer with four volleys and then move on to the next, that’s five Lancers before the reload cycle …
… which will: Take. For. Ever.
That might be viable against the Lancers, but it’s not against a Hadal Overmind, against which I’ll be able to manage around the attack output I could get out of HAMs around half the time and be stuck reloading the other half to two-thirds. Not acceptable.
Likewise, the entropic disintegrator burns through frigates and cruisers surprisingly fast-- as little as seven seconds for a frigate, and that’s including the time for the second cycle to complete AFTER I kill it. There’s no issue with reload; the issue is killing big stuff like battleships. But very unlike the RLML … well. It gets better at that as it works.
Basically, where you see weakness, I see flexibility. The disintegrator tickles stuff to death that dies by tickling, then ramps up the heavy assault on that which needs a heavy attack before it’ll fold. Stuff that doesn’t need a focused attack dies in seconds, while stuff that does would last long enough for the disintegrator to spool up to maximum no matter what I was hitting it with.
My main worry isn’t actually even damage application; it’s capacitor management. The entropic disintegrator’s one very hungry primary weapon!
(So I’m bringing nosferatus and cap booster charges.)
(As a public service I’ll be keeping track of what can and can’t be tapped for spare capacitor charge and publishing results.)
Anyway, I’m starting with tier 2 and working my way up. Firestorm should help with any damage output shortfall-- the disintegrator might have some explosive teeth, but-- especially with Mystic charges-- most of its damage is pure heat.
I also see a potential problem with the extremely short range of the disintegrator, but we’ll see.
I discussed this with some wiser minds on this topic and it turns out the Rigor is superior to the Flare. Essentially it all boils down to how math/physics work so the Rigor will outform the Flare, especially against targets that are very small but slow moving. What threw me off in this case is that the Rigor also cost more calibration, so for my Sacriledge it is not possible to fit a Rigor despite it being superior to the Flare.
Theoretical application multifiers:
t1 rigor (15% explosion radius): 1/0.85 = 1.176
t1 flare (15% explosion velocity): 1.15
t2 rigor (20%): 1/0.80 = 1.25
t2 flare (20%): 1.20
When it comes to the Warhead Calefaction Catalyst, then it’s about what would help you most: Raw damage or application. While raw damage is a tempting choice since it helps against any targets, even the big missile sponges, you have to keep in mind that the thing you struggled with was applying to small targets. So my advice is to pick application. Especially considering that Void Dancer II already had 3 modules for damage increase so the 4th one will be even less efficient, the so called stacking penalty.
((Reference with empirical data: https://crossingzebras.com/medium-missiles-and-you/ ))
Eee. Thank you, ma’am! I’ll see about getting this set up.
(Would it be better to go with the flare if I’m running into a lot of tiny targets that just won’t slow down? Stuff like Lucid Escorts and Damaviks move faster than I can, period, even while webbed.)
The Rigors can better compensate than Flares can. So even if a target is fast, having a smaller explosion radius helps.
“Reflections on an ‘Almost’”
Okay, I’m calling the Stormlight runs short. It’s not her fault. Mostly, really, it’s actually not. I can DO Fierce Firestorm filaments this way. There are some real advantages to doing stuff this way!
Only … she runs too close to redline, too much-- on capacitor, on armor. If I run into something that’s really a serious threat, I’m not going to have enough margin for error. I’ll die.
A few notes:
I’m not 100% on this, but I think Abyssal hostiles might actually have a capsuleer-style capacitor, the same as we do. The nos produces variable results, even on single targets I assumed I’d never get anything from. The overall effect’s not consistent enough to replace having, well, decent capacitor strength and regeneration to begin with, though. Which the Vedmak natively doesn’t.
Consider my offer to check for what types of enemies can be leeched off of to best effect cancelled; I think maybe they all can? Just, not all the time. It really looks like the Damavik and Vedmak-type hostiles are backing off, when they back off, to focus on repairing others of their own kind rather than expending capacitor charge trying to bring a troublesome target down.
Dual-prop, if you can fit it, is frickin’ amazing. Takes careful management, though. Need to be hugging a certain pylon? Bam. Done. Need to catch up to a fleeing target? Bam. You’re there. Need to just keep your fire steadily focused on a certain battleship while keeping up enough speed to evade the worst of what it’s doing, and at minimal cost? Sure-- you can do that too. Need to make a fast run for that pylon, after? Not a problem.
But. Butbutbut.
I think the Dancer was actually a better put-together ship for this, and now that I know I was running the Raging Dark with a gimped rig set …
… if I’d fitted right, I could do that without the blasted Crash.
What could I do with it?
If you’re going to take another Cerberus in… consider upgrading/mutating some of the parts. Better web means killing the small things faster. Better prop means more time to kill. An X-Type Booster means more shields. A mutated x-type could mean more shields and less capacitor use. Spend the money. Do it right.
That’s been my approach already. Just, I tried fitting up a second Abyss-diving ship shortly before the first went crunch. I don’t have your resources, Arrendis. Finances are a little skint, and I do try not to fly what I can’t replace.
So I delved into the Abyss extensively in past few days, and I have some thoughts about the scarce data that my ship scanners could gather.
-
There are planets that dont look like there would be life on them.
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Stars other than in actual abyssal system are not visible.
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There is a lot of stuff around, asteroids, all kinds and sizes of objects like planetesimals, also dust clouds. Very chaotic environment, also gravitationally.
I think that suggests protoplanetary disks or systems in process of creation, accretion of material for planets. Systems where planets are still forming. Dust and gas in such protoplanetary disks would prohibit light of distant stars from coming to the location where we can reach Abyssal space. The planets seen seem to be terrestial cores or early life gas giants dense cores, bombarded constantly with stuff.
That is why I think Triglavians themselves seem to be a migrant culture living only in space, not on planets. The lack of big structures other than “pylons”, the lack of habitations look like its completely migrant culture where people live on their ships, probably on limited resources, where synthetic food is a must, cellular agriculture maybe, where bioengineered bacteria make stuff you could eat.
That’s … respectfully, a whole lot of speculation, ma’am. Not that that’s something I never do or anything, mind. I agree with your conclusion that it’s likely the local environment interfering with our view of other stars, although we can see larger-scale phenomena such as nebulae. However …
It doesn’t seem like anything about an ordinary accretion disk would create the kinds of gravitational phenomena we’ve been seeing. A decently-tanked modern cruiser can survive multiple hits from battleship-scale antimatter charges traveling at near-C without breaking up. That’s a lot of defensive capability. The gravitational forces present in the Abyss nevertheless pose a threat, even leaving aside a warp field implosion. And then there’s the crystalline isogen-10, which apparently only forms under very unusual conditions.
That doesn’t really say “single large gravity well with various orbital eddies,” it doesn’t seem like. The only kind of thing I can think of in K-space that might produce it is the Trace Cosmos (that is, a black hole cluster).
Basically, the Abyss isn’t new; it’s weird.
We don’t yet know where the Triglavians actually live, although the pylons are starting to look like likely candidates. If you take a close look at one, you’ll see docking facilities. (Not a lot of windows, though? Same with the ships.) Also, they seem to take the loss of their ships too lightly for a people who put their entire lives into their ships. I can’t disagree entirely on food, but, we don’t really know a lot about this aside from that they seem to have a thing for extremophile microbes.
I’m extremely curious what the “cladeflow” mentioned in some of our translations of their records is. It sounds a little like our GalNet, but I’m not sure it’s at all the same. It seems like if we knew its nature, we might be on much more solid ground for inferring stuff about the Triglavians themselves.
I still believe they are canibals