A day in the life of a New Player August 16, 2016

Schism Wrapping It Up

By Jon Irwin

Specialist AKA Specs

With raid wrapping up and I am sure many are wondering what to take for their prizes. The answer is not so simple and will depend on the person in question. However, the following advice can be generic to all individuals that play the game, and I am going to break it up into point plateaus. This article will help players that are new still, do not have a sub fleet already, and need to prepare or September Raid.

1 million points or less

• Spectre – I like it better than Barracuda, as it has good combat speed (16 combat speed), good explosive and concussive resistance (needed for the September raid) and three special slots. You can get stealth attack system 2 in the weekly easy enough, so I would not worry about that.

5 million points

• Spectre –
• Stealth Attack System 4 – This is a great special to use on the Spectre sub. It combines a bonus to concussive damage with 40% submerge time. You can retro it, and it is close to having Battery 3 on the sub with around Six-second difference in dive time.  At 3.5 million points easily one of the best prizes to take if you had limited points.

10 million points –

• Spectre 
• Stealth Attack System 4 –
• Charon -  The second best torpedo in the game, and while this will not always deal with those pesky drones in the Reaver targets. It will give your sub fleet an excellent punch and much better than any other torpedo you can get at this moment.

16 million Points –

• Spectre –
• Stealth Attack System 4 –
• Charon -
• Magnus 2 -  As you only have three slots on your Spectre this engine will allow you to use the Ablative Armor 3 special to boost that explosive damage resistance. If you do not get here, you will need to use Cat 3 and your best speed system to make the fleet work. 

I know what you are saying at this point, But what about Tiger Shark! I agree the Tiger shark is a great hull, but if you happen to be limited to point total it is in my opinion, better to go with trying to flesh out the best sub you are capable of getting everything. The Tiger is not that great of a sub if you cannot get the Charon minimum, Stealth attack 4 and the Magnus 2. So, the next plateau we are jumping a bit.

25 million points –

At this point, if you got this many points then you will want to consider the following to make your September event a success.

• Tiger Shark – Same dive time as the Spectre, four specials, great combat speed, turn speed, better resistance. Just an overall better sub. Built right I think it will help you achieve some great success.
• Stealth Attack system 4
• Charon 
• Magnus 2

Couple those with the Ablative Armor 3 and you have a great sub that has a chance to succeed in the new raid.

49 million –

I know this is a big jump and if you got in between here and 25 million you could think of the Apoc Mortar for your base defense. Or even get all the tokens you can so you can speed up a few blanks for vxp weekend. But, if you reach this point total you will want to consider the new toys.

• HellWraith
• Fire Twister Torpedo
• Sealed Fire Charge

Once you get beyond this point total you will want to go for tokens first, get all you can. This will set you up for the next raid even much easier and have you with a couple blanks to rank next weekend. A blank for the subs would be the hull and havoc 1. This is the lowest build time weapon you can put on a sub (Thud 1 for Tigers or Cuda).

I hope this helps you make up your mind, and please begin to prepare for the next Event. We only have about a month to go, and it will come fast.

Sub Changes and New TLC; plus,

 what should you start doing to be ready for September raid change

This week we had the changes to subs, most notable is the fact that they have to be 100% repaired to launch, and the repair modifier changed to 100%. There is also the change for launcher based sub preps with a 25% reduction in range. This change means that a Launcher subrange will be 70 now, making it detectable by every thermal in the game, except for Rhinos. Also explosive damage will have a handicap of -99%. This is good news for those that do not have the Capital ships Proto Nemesis and Hellstar with their 100 range thermal and gives more options to combat against sub launcher preps. As well as those that cannot keep the mortar subs from getting to the OP and taking it out with a rim to get to 50%.

With the changes comes the foundry and our favorite subs are getting boost. These are without going through the foundry.

Barracuda:

• Accuracy +20%
• Explosive Defense increased to 40%
• Concussive Defense increased to 50%
• Cloak Time increased to 40sec
• Repair Modifier Removed - All subs now have a standard repair modifier of 100%
• Base Armor increased to 3,930

Spectre:

• Added a third special slot
• Explosive Defense increased to 40%
• Concussive Defense increased to 55%
• Combat speed increased to 16
• Repair Modifier Removed - All subs now have a standard repair modifier of 100%
• Base Armor increased to 7,908

Nighthawk:

• Accuracy increased to 20%
• Concussive Damage increased to 19%
• Explosive Defense increased to 30%
• Concussive Defense increased to 60%
• Cloak Time increased to 65 Sec
• Repair Modifier Removed - All subs now have a standard repair modifier of 100%
• Base Armor increased to 10,001

Tiger Shark:

• Accuracy increased to 20%
• Explosive Defense increased to 40%
• Concussive Defense increased to 65%
• Cloak Time increased to 70 Sec
• Repair Modifier Removed - All subs now have a standard repair modifier of 100%
• Base Armor increased to 10,750
• Max Weight increased to 7,650

As we can see here, the subs are getting many benefits that will aid them in the new raid format coming in September and help them with the new skirmish targets we are going to be seeing on the map. The foundry upgrades center on adding more DPS, explosive resistance, and Concussive resistance. As well, as minor tweaks to turn speeds and accuracy. Now you still might not be happy that they are taking away the zombie launches, and I cannot blame you. Many have learned to play that way, the goal going forward is to get to build different fleets to do the same thing. Also, with these changes hopefully we can get more play out of our subs. I am hopeful.

 The update brought a New TLC and new Conquer Hull.

Retribution

Thermonuclear Launcher

Atomic Targeting

This TLC will allow the player to hit other player bases to gain these prizes. I am sure it will be much like previous TLC with Three prize packs, 12 hours, 6 hours and 1 hour. Not sure how many targets per, but figure at least three to five and upwards of seven if they follow typical TLC pattern. It starts today at Noon game time.

September Raid changes

With the raid still a good 6 weeks away we can start to think ahead and get things ready. Especially with the changes to subs now, the foundry to give us access to better subs. So, lets discuss a few builds.

Cuda Build research technology only

Cuda build with some tier 3 FM technology

Cuda Build with high end FM technology and old raid torps.

For the Specrte builds you will use the same specials as I did for the Cuda, pretty much those are the three you want at all stages of your tech level.

Spectre build research technology only

Sprectre build with some FM technology

Spectre build with high end FM technology and old raid/FMtorps

Nighthawk build with research tech only

Nighthawk build with some FM technology

Nighthawk build with high end FM technology and Old Raid/FMtorps

Tiger Shark with research tech and salvages only

Tiger shark with some FM Technology

Tiger Shark with High End and FM technology and old raid/FMtorps

Hopefully, these builds will help guide you on a path to get ready for the September raid with technology you. I will state that I do not see specters and Cuda doing the high-end targets; however, Nighthawks and Tigers should do the A set and even elites. As always I will modify the advice as I see the targets and get to play with them. Hopefully, these initial builds will do the job, and no refitting will be needed. 

Remember to always use your best torpedo, your best engine, your best ablative armor 3 and then add in dive time and cloaking if you can.

Rumor on many Facebook pages is that we are getting a new sub in September Raid. No, I have not heard one way or another and have no knowledge of future prizes. If the new sub class is coming, you will want to try to get something ready for September raid so that you can claim it and new technology that will make the new raid series easy.