Planetarion Forums

G.K Zhukov · 26 Nov 2002, 06:48

Ive ran it trough a bcalc, and it doesnt really manage to kill something..
So is there any good reason to produce it?

Piggums · 26 Nov 2002, 06:55

flak ;D
and its cheap so easy to mass \o/

tokath · 26 Nov 2002, 08:00

it kills quite well, compare it to pegs in equal res over 3 ticks and it holds its own easily. they also provide great flack vs everthing except arrowheads, and are rather nice emp flack too.

MrPubes · 26 Nov 2002, 08:58

Quote:

Originally posted by tokath
they also provide great flack vs everthing except arrowheads...

arrowheads do have a wpsd of 40, while centaurs, pegs, vsharraks and cutlass have 45.
but the corsair provides nice flak for your fighter even while fighting against those top-notch-weapon-speed-monsters.

Chance to hit an Enemy

25% + Shooter's Weapon speed - Target's Agility

so we make up following calculation:

25 % + 45 (peg, centaurs, vsharraks and cutlass) - 45 (corsair agility) = 25 % chance to be hit.
meaning 75 % of all the shots will miss, that is an amazing 3/4 !

if the corsair fights against an arrowhead it looks like that:

25 % + 40 - 45 = 20 !
only 20% chance to be hit......
while corsairs are not thaaaat ressource efficient (they are not that bad either) they are really great flak!

Silva baby · 26 Nov 2002, 09:32

zik corsair~ keke nice ship scari adn good defence flak for defence too i have notied

MAdnRisKy · 26 Nov 2002, 10:16

Quote:

Originally posted by MrPubes

arrowheads do have a wpsd of 40, while centaurs, pegs, vsharraks and cutlass have 45.
but the corsair provides nice flak for your fighter even while fighting against those top-notch-weapon-speed-monsters.

Chance to hit an Enemy

25% + Shooter's Weapon speed - Target's Agility

so we make up following calculation:

25 % + 45 (peg, centaurs, vsharraks and cutlass) - 45 (corsair agility) = 25 % chance to be hit.
meaning 75 % of all the shots will miss, that is an amazing 3/4 !

if the corsair fights against an arrowhead it looks like that:

25 % + 40 - 45 = 20 !
only 20% chance to be hit......
while corsairs are not thaaaat ressource efficient (they are not that bad either) they are really great flak!

the problem for corsairs against arrows is not due to wpsd, you're quite right both the peg and the vsh out play the arrow (and the cutlass for that matter), the problem is that unlike the peg where a lot of it's firepower comes from it's 3 dmg or the vsh with 2 dmg, the arrow relies on lots of little fast hits doing dmg 1. Normally ships the peg massively overkill the corsairs, but the arrows kill each one with one shot, making them ruthless killers (and the cutlass works on this same principal) on the corsairs.

and this totally negates the 1 armour point but high agil and cheap adv of the corsair

-QS- · 26 Nov 2002, 19:28

Well, in a xan dominated universe the corsair looses its right to exists, cause corsair are only good in masses and built in such form u will end up with many fleet points not shooting on xans.

The corsair was nice last round, but this round it is not worth building imo.

26 Nov 2002, 23:42

IMHO it is only worth building in masses if you have lots of Cutlass for them to flak. The Zik fighter swarm may be obsolete but it can still be effective.

If you intend to use Sabres vs Clipper, Peg or Cath CR/BS fleets then a few Corsairs to screen them are a must.

Having a bunch of fighters around is always going to be useful when you are looking for late defence. If your alliance can provide you with defence to order and doesn't need more help with late defence you would probably be better off building something else.

General Martok · 27 Nov 2002, 09:32

I saved quite a few mates with some tons of corsairs, especially against cathaar and terrans. When you're under attack they're useless most of the time, since attackers tend to be 3 times as big, and can send a fleet to kill/freeze your entire fleet, no mattter what fleetcomposition you have

Silva baby · 27 Nov 2002, 12:04

swarms are good to screw up the freezin Tulas all making it hard for the tulas to try and freeze bs
providin the cath fleet is designed so

mikay · 27 Nov 2002, 19:37

Corsair aren't as dominant as they were last round but they are still pretty useful in 40% or more of defences. They are almost mandatory against pegs (flak other FI and roaches), class against CR fleets, great against any FR fleet.

They have great synergy with cutlass so a mix of both is useful.

If you have a lot of corsair you won't find a single night your alliance won't need them.

As far as not being able to defend yourself, you never will. Whatever you have a player 4-5x bigger than you will always be able to send the part of his fleet that is least targetted. Fact is cors/cutlass as a combo give you something that targets everything you need to.

G.K Zhukov · 28 Nov 2002, 01:53

the problems with them seems to come from the fact that they are so easily killed, and doesnt really do alot of damage..

mikay · 28 Nov 2002, 03:55

Quote:

Originally posted by G.K Zhukov
the problems with them seems to come from the fact that they are so easily killed, and doesnt really do alot of damage..

Relatively speaking they are not easily killed by pegs or cutters. Chimera barely touch them, clippers don't and all PDS with random fire is useless against them. Guardians are as ineffiecient at killing them as ever.

They are easily killed by arrowheads, cutlass and harpies.

Seems to me they aren't easily killed if you are even slightly careful where you use them.

Auro · 28 Nov 2002, 04:11

A massive bunch also scares the attackers when newsscaned

Wouldn't you be intimidated by "Incoming Friendly Fleet of 27047", even if it's all Corsairs?

mikay · 28 Nov 2002, 04:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Auro
A massive bunch also scares the attackers when newsscaned

Wouldn't you be intimidated by "Incoming Friendly Fleet of 27047", even if it's all Corsairs?

Sort of. With a single fleet you will calc it so not so scary. When you get big battles it's always the h/f that sways most of the people and a few ppl sneaking in the odd hundred k of cors can swing it for their side plus it looks damn sexy when you send 500k ships. More sexy than some poor xand who sends 500k puls and they show up as 0. Zikos are the race for impressing the chicks

Iceaxe · 28 Nov 2002, 05:46

Quote:

Originally posted by mikay
More sexy than some poor xand who sends 500k puls and they show up as 0. Zikos are the race for impressing the chicks

I hated that last round. :/ I remember sending 700k ships to defend Kileman on the second to last day last round and the fkers show up as 0.

Thats also the main reason I had 30k vultures, it amused me to no end when my outgoing as a xand was more then some non xands in my gal. I can also imagine my targets reaction when scanning me and assuming I'm terran or something and finding out I'm xand.

thomas4 · 28 Nov 2002, 17:01

lol

nah i dont build fighter swarms, just some cutlass for my alliance thats it.

I'd rather use more effective ships than corsair.

Toop · 28 Nov 2002, 21:14

corsairs are good for the scare-factor. When I send defence I can easily send 30k def. It scares attackers, even though they don't do sh*t

.

thomas4 · 28 Nov 2002, 22:03

hmm, i dont care about scarefactor.

I rather have it that they underestimate my fleet and go all lemming-style with their fleet while im defending

way more fun

Coaxmetal · 28 Nov 2002, 22:20

corsairs > pegs

and it is good flak versus the vsharrak and some random targeting ships.

mikay · 28 Nov 2002, 22:34

Quote:

Originally posted by thomas4
hmm, i dont care about scarefactor.

I rather have it that they underestimate my fleet and go all lemming-style with their fleet while im defending

way more fun

As much as it's annoying when someone recalls before you get to kill them it also means you don't lose fleet which is a bonus so I'd rather ppl overestimated my fleet and buggered off.

29 Nov 2002, 06:20

Quote:

Originally posted by mikay

They are easily killed by arrowheads, cutlass and harpies.

Seems to me they aren't easily killed if you are even slightly careful where you use them.

Yes they are fairly tough if you can avoid some ships but their sheer numbers mean your fleet can end up taking a disproportionally high share of the damage. I am not even sure you will get a matching amount of salvage.
Good for your friends but not so good for you.

mikay · 30 Nov 2002, 14:18

Quote:

Originally posted by FiRePoWeR
Yes they are fairly tough if you can avoid some ships but their sheer numbers mean your fleet can end up taking a disproportionally high share of the damage. I am not even sure you will get a matching amount of salvage.
Good for your friends but not so good for you.

You will almost always take more damage if you send more fleet value, and FV is what it's all about.

Stick 10000 pulsars in a calc with 25000 cors and pit it against 3000 pegs, broadly similar value of both fighter types and not unrealistic. 3000 pulsar die, 5500 corsair - they take LESS of the damage. Add arrowheads and the corsair die in droves. Same rules as I stated above still apply, just the proportion of the fleet that is yours varies.

Btw 800k total defender loss in the above example, having just 20000 pulsars defend sees 9000 die which is 1.4m lost score instead of 800k.

And good for your friend often means good for you in the long run.

2 Dec 2002, 01:28

OK more numbers don't always mean more losses.

Those fragile Pulsars are a special case. A very plausible special case admittedly.
Try it with an equivalent FV of Sentinels instead and you start to see my point. Not that I would relish a part in either defence...

I was mainly thinking of the messier sorts of battles when I posted.