Day in the Life of a New Battle Pirates Player July 13, 2016

Raid Week!

The raid is this week, I had someone offer to help me get 3 million points this raid, and I turned it down. If you have been following the blog and are working as hard as I am, you might get an offer as well. You might be able to if they prep for you decently and you should take it. Why? Well, you could get some good stuff to give you a leg up on your competition.

What should you take as a low-level player if this is the case? That is quite easy as far as I am concerned.

First I would take the Rhino, with this hull you can put any missile on it and have a good tank to lead it through the weekly and help your game a bunch. Or, you can just use it and go to town. Second I would take the Trident missile. Why? Well, chances are you do not have any real siege missiles yet, and this missile is quick to build. Works as a part time anti-missile and has high damage. Then I would take the D4-M because it will help against the Missiles in the weekly. You will have enough anti-morts to clear the mortars, and you can use the Ablative armor special to increase the resistance to explosive and protect against the frostbite turrets.

Some might want you to take the Enforcer, D104, and the Fusion charger. All those are good choices too, and I am tempted if I was in my mid-50s and needed some help in base defense and already had the rhino. The rhino will change your game and put you on solid foot going forward. You can use it in many situations, including base defense.

If you are not doing the raid

You might decide the raid is not for you and this is OK! You can do the campaigns and get some decent gear to help you advance your game. You can also upgrade warehouses, labs, and get ready to upgrade stands to level 4 or 5 after you do the needed research.

For me going forward the next week

Right now I am upgrading warehouses to make room so I can do the Dread build, I will be upgrading turrets to level 4 at least and hopefully level 5. These goals mean that I am working on the labs to level 10 and getting needed research done. Remember to pick and choose and only take what you need to open stuff up or that can help you right now.

As always leave a comment if you have a question and I will answer as soon as I can. Have a great raid all and I will see you next week!

Ask Specs Anything July 13, 2016

What should I take in the raid Vanquisher or Apollo?

Today the questions are centered on the raid, been getting asked the last few days repeatedly about the raid and those issues heated up yesterday and this morning when the prize list was released.

This choice is a tough one and one that should not take lightly. If you have not had the chance to get the Apollo yet, I can see how you might want it for at least the August raid as that will be the last in this series. But, you might want the newest defense hull as your base is suffering. The Vanquisher has some fascinating potential and should replace the Enforcer in the majority of base settings.

I feel the Apollo is more of a needed hull in the game. I think that if your focus on the game is doing the PvE stuff, then you have to take this hull. Sure, it might only be useful for the assault map targets after August, but those map targets will allow you to get easily and upgrade the Rhino. I do feel that the Apollo is a must have in the game today, it is crucial for getting pieces for the Gantry and Mega Hulls that will be released later on. So, with that, I am led to believe that they might have the hull in August hull raid. There is a precedence for this by the way, and they have done that with other much-needed hulls in the past. Of course, they have refused to put in these hulls in the first hull store too. We cannot be 100% sure what they will do this far out.

With all that said, I would take the Vanquisher this raid and take my chances with the Apollo offered in the August raid. It might come back to bite me, but I think that it the safest choice this time around as I like to develop my base defense the best I can. With five specials, same range as Enforcer with Launchers, very nice accuracy base boost, anti- weapon accuracy boosts, and 500K base armor at 2-hour repair (1 hour in the defense slot) and all at under four days for a bare hull. You could have one ready by VXP weekend and run it with a gunboat to pull things towards it so that it can die or kill.

Do not get me wrong; I love my Apollo fleet. I think that everyone should have them. But, I feel that it is more relevant to the direction the game is going and that we have a greater chance of having that in the August raid than we do the Vanquisher. As always, keep an eye on official statements from CM Doomrooster and other kixeye employees posting in the forum. Often you can get some inside information on what might come from their postings. They have not stated one way or another on this issue so I am going on what I think is more important in the game and they have a habit of offering things we need in the raids.

Some Battle Pirate Wisdom from a long time player

BP Priorities 

George Argyropoulos July 9, 2016

And so, with another raid upon us, we should take a moment to reflect and review in-game priorities.

I have a rather strict view of priorities in this game. Some aspects of the game overlap and wash into other areas of Battle Pirates and so I think it is important to make sure that you have a good solid foundation from which to grow and advance your game.

While aspects of the game change, these priorities seem to have held over time.

1. Forsaken Mission

2. Raids/'Chores'

3/4. Baser/Base Defense

1. The basic premise of this list goes like this: The FM prizes and possible tokens that are available in the FM have consistently driven the tech in the grand scheme of designs in the game. If you can't do this aspect of the game, you are compromising yourself, your viability and fun in Battle Pirates. The FM is always the priority when choosing prizes in the raid.

2. Raids are, by their very nature, the events that push the tech envelope forward. The FM prizes sometimes revolve around Raid offerings etc. The raids are second however because of the sheer volume of content in the FM as opposed to the Raids. What we have seen lately is a bleed over from raids to FMs and chores (like the TLC), so this is a very close priority to the FMs.

3./4. Depending on your preference you might go base hitting or base defense. Traditionally, the trend was always base defense first. If you are in the enviable position wherein this is a choice you have, be thankful you are caught up. When you are here, the game is much easier and far more fun.

Your raid choices and precious time in your shipyard should revolve around these priorities fully. Especially when you are in an alliance and you are receiving (or paying) for help, you need to think ahead and ask yourself two things: 1. What will give me a larger boost the most in my day to day gameplay and 2? What is going to help me and the alliance long term? What will reduce our costs and improve our overall game-play the most? If you can answer these two questions and apply those solutions, you will find the game enjoyable.

George Argyropoulos is a freelance writer for specsworld.co 

Preview of July Raid weapon and Special

New Launcher coming!

They have leaked the new weapon for the coming raid and it is indeed a New launcher! I am excited about this new launcher, why? Well, I am a fan of the launchers they have been some of the biggest force of change in player’s builds since their inceptions. This one is a bit different, and I am not sure if it will alter the game for us as the previous launchers. The reasons for that I will explain.

The Launcher

As you can see it has the typical range of the D98, this means that placed on your enforcers you will be 103.4 range. Too bad that our Fusion Cruisers do not have more oomph! As they would be awesome with this weapon and I will have to take a look at if I can make them useful with it. It also is different in that it is not a salvo weapon, but a multi-shot weapon. Meaning that it will function more like a scatter gun in that all shots fired at once. This multishot is a bit disconcerting for me in that the accuracy is low.  The Antipode has an accuracy of 80 for example.  As a multi-shot that 10,800 damage will be divided by 4, so with no bonuses, the damage done will be 2700 each one. The Vendetta has a 9000 Radioactive deflection stat, meaning that we will get the minimum damage for each one that hits. It should do well against the Revenge though if you can keep them from sniping you.

The reload time is high, so this alone might make it unusable on anything other than launcher dedicated boats. The benefit from older launchers was the fact they had around a 2.5 second reload meaning that you could get by on your vindicator or Mercury fleets and get some benefit from it. While this is the early release, and the numbers could change. I do not see this one changing much, and that will limit the usefulness of this weapon on anything other than Enforcers, Fusion Cruisers, Nuclear cruisers and the new boat. I think Frostburn and V2-C give some bonus to reload on launchers too, so those would be good choices as well.

Now there is some hope for this weapon and that is the fact it is a multi-shot weapon, meaning that we get to use multi-shot boosting specials for it. They are releasing a new special that is designed for this specifically.

The Special

This special is going to help boost that weapons damage potential nicely with the +2 multi-shot. The supercharge effect is not as big of a deal though as the shockwave from this is 1000. However, I might look into putting 5 of the new weapon and 5 Antipode on my ship to get a nice mix of upfront damage and a big shockwave. Of course, we need to see what the new defensive hull will have for stats to make the most efficient build possible. But, I see potential with mixing launchers to get a nice boost to damage up front and then a big shockwave. IT has to be noted this weapon will not work with other multi-shot increasing specials, and it will work with interception system, but not fusion charger. That piece comes directly from CM Doomrooster on the forums, and I will quote him in full.

(It will take the place of Barrel Systems or Fusion Chargers.  You can't stack Fusion Chargers, Interception System, and Emission System.  It will stack with Interception System, similar to Fusion Chargers, however. CM DoomRooster)

So, this will help boost the damage of the new weapon by a total of 5400 (2700 x 2), as we will get two more shots in each one fired. Granted it will still only be minimum damage against the Vendetta, but if you have watched your Enforcers against the Vendetta this last month, you will know that the minimum damage can add up quick with everything else hitting it.

Future for the lower levels

This particular early release means that my predictions of the Antipode coming back this raid are pretty solid. We have gotten a weapon, older hull and special from the same class as the top prizes. So, I suspect that we will see the Fusion Charger, Antipode, and Enforcer this raid for the first three tiers. With the new special, weapon and hull being T4 thru T6. This means that this raid holds a high possibility for alliances to help their lower levels get the Enforcer and Antipode for about 3 million points if things stay from the previous two raids!

More information will come as we get it, and hopefully, I will have a mock build up early next week if I can. Any questions feel free to ask below thank you for reading.