Day in the Life of a Battle Pirate Player July 10, 2016

Weekly Cracked for New Players

I finally succeeded in getting to 150,000 points in the weekly, took me a couple of weeks to get the fleet worked out, and it does require more than previous Forsaken Mission content. This change is not a horrible thing; I am still not happy that new players do not have a means to do the weekly right out the gate like they could in the past. It would be that the advice I give was getting the battle barge A from the campaign, toss some thuds on it, best engine and get the reactive armor one minimum.
That simple build would help them get Tier 1 within the first week, and they would be well on their way to getting conventional technology. Now that is not the case it is going to take a new player about 40 hours of total game time to get to a point to do the weekly to tier 1. None of the older players I know think this is a good development for the game, and we hope that Kixeye will rethink the Forsaken mission strategy they released and maybe brought back the old 27’s for the new players to hit for their Tier 1 prizes. Maybe level lock them so that higher than 40 cannot hit them? I think that would be a good compromise and keep the current integrity of the Missions at the point they are now.

Yes, eventually a player will be able to do the FM and start on that path. It will take some work, and they might be level 30 before they even get to starting it. Here is how I did it.

The Plan

I used two fleets, and it is not pretty, and it still resulted in about two hours of repair for 30K points. I will describe the research and technology needed first and where I got it.

Advanced lab research

• Ablative armor 2 – Advance lab level 8 (requires Outpost level 5)
• Engine 2 – Advance lab level 8 (could maybe do engine 1, but the player will take a bit more damage as the player drives to the platforms.

Those two pieces are the most important, the reasoning is that the targets have frostbite turret, and it has explosive and splash. So, it is important to protect ships from that turret as the player on the platform waiting for the stands to die. The player sees the stands are level 7, and that means they have some health.

While the player is upgrading the outpost, warehouses, labs to get to that point. The player is going to want to make way through the campaigns. You will want Levi-A at minimum, second prize pack of the shell the shore for the D2-E armor; you can get by with the Shockwave N mortar if you wish, or you can go for the Shockwave L mortar in the first prize pack of death grip. The refit from Diplomat mortars to one of those mortars is about 2 hours a piece.

That fleet will be your primary fleet for the weekly. I had to use two because, well I have not refitted the armor yet. That will be done soon though and then I will do a video. This lack of armor is why I had to use the second fleet. The second fleet I used was a Battle Barge A with Thud IV, D2-e and Reactive armor 2.

Huggy link to the Levi build

Huggy link to battle barge A build

Huggy link to first Mauler build

Wrap up

While it is possible that a new player can get started on the weekly, they are looking at roughly 40 hours of play time to get the required technology from the campaigns and research labs/upgrading everything. It will not be a fast advancement on the player’s part, but it will become a reality if prioritized in the beginning. Once I get the fleet finalized with armor and after the raid, I will have a video placed. The huggy mauler build includes a refit that I plan because I will get the weekly twice this week.

Also, because of this development, I have all the necessary requirements to build the Dreadnought. I need to upgrade warehouses though as it is expensive to build, but it is pretty quick, and that is a beautiful thing. I will share that build soon in a separate write up once I get to start doing the weekly with it.

The last thing I want to cover this week is the Raid coming up. I know many will tell new people the raid is not for them. I agree with this; you will bang your head against the wall at this level and get frustrated. That does not mean not to try the targets, though, go and hit a few of the lowest level target. Maybe your instant repair fleets and sit time can get you a prize. Worse case you do not have time for it, best case someone sees you trying and offers to prep you a target or two that you can kill for a couple of prizes. Do not beg for help; this will turn other players off to you personally. Do not expect someone to spend their raid carrying you to the top prizes. I am here to help you become self-sufficient, and it is a long road, but it is rewarding, and the knowledge you will gain will put you far ahead of those that beg for everything in your sector.

As always questions? ask below and I answer as soon as I can. Have a good Sunday everyone!

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.

Ask Specs Anything July 6, 2016

This week’s question comes from Warhead, and he asks;

Hey Bro,

After a month now have you updated your Vendetta build? I am about to start, and I want to make sure nothing has changed.

My response is below;

Hey Bud,

I have changed a few things from the initial idea behind the build, not much mostly to help combat some weakness I have seen in those bases I have watched being hit by others. So, if I were you, I would look to try to boost evade and use the Agility System 4. The slow resistance will be handy in dealing with some of the issues I have seen. Evade is useful in reducing the damage from the launchers. They might not boom, but those shots can still hurt from a legend ranked Enforcer.
Here is my new updated build and what I am refitting too as soon as I finish the last Apollo.

https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!30NI01R1R1R6Q34396M5PC2C2C2C2C2C2C20ZZ0ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC

With full retro you will have 39% evade and while that is not great, it is far better than the negative you start with and will help in keeping the vendetta alive against many different ships you might face when hitting bases.

Hope all is well with you and the family and let me know how this goes for you

Feel free to send me a question if you have one, or post below have a great day everyone!

Specs! Help us stop these Revenge and Vendettas!

There is a new tool in our arsenal that you might have to combat base hitters.

OK, Lots of people are contacting me in the game and wondering how I am stopping the revenge and vendettas hitting my base. After many attempts on my base and many hits by myself on others I can say that I have found a few ways to combat this growing menace to our waters.

I will point you back to my original article on this subject last month, and all that still works. I have found a new trick to stop the growing number of legend ranked baser that combines all of that in that one post and at least one of the follow hulls.

https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!306E0292929295Y2M0000ALALALALALALALAL05U0292929295Y2M00ALALALALALALALAL05O0292929295Y2M00ALALALALALALALAL060029295Y2M0000ALALALAL00000006O02929295Y2M0000ALALALALALALALALdC

Any one of those will boost your base defense and help against the Vendetta and even the Revenge. They will either have to pause and take them out from a distance, just make sure that you are hitting that area with Executioners, Apoc or other mortars, and explosive/corrosive damage turrets.

I also intentionally left two slots empty on the special slots so that you could customize the build to fit your personal tastes. You could go with the Cryo battery that will help lower your attackers defense and slow them down a little. You could go with a resonance battery and put in the Vendetta or something else to power it. You could do whatever you desire with those two slots.

I hope this helps some with another tool you might have laying around in your arsenal to aid you in the fight against the rampaging base hitters. Just make sure you take care to protect against subs.They can still sub you out and then all that is for nothing.

Received a question on why this works so well

The reason that this UAV works best over the others is due to the duration it swarms. At max Retro it is close to 15 seconds of damage that happens no matter what happens to the Ship. So, that is a lot of damage being delivered even after the fact. Also we have the minimum damage values and there is a rumor that the minimum damage on the UAV is a bit higher than that of other weapons. This seems to hold true from my tests of hitting bases with this UAV in it.

Day in the life of a new Battle Pirate player July 5, 2016

Outpost five done, advanced lab to level 8 and still need more!

My Outpost level 5 finished over the weekend, and I finished the advanced lab to level 8 upgrade. I had enough resources to start the Ablative armor 2, which should help more in the level 40 strongholds. I tried the 40 with the Reactive armor and the damage from the Frostbite did more damage to me than the missiles. I can research the long short missile in the weapons lab, so I will do that and upgrade the launch pad if needed that might be the only way I can do the 40’s at this time.
I am ten short of the frags from having enough for the Dreadnought, but I want to try to get the 40s at least under control without that hull. Remember, I had done the Weekly for two weeks before the change and since then I have not been able to do the 40s with any success. I might be able to do it if I worked at it for more than 2 hours a day. I will tell you, that it would frustrate me if I had to hit on a target for 2 hours and not even kill a single platform.

The only thing I can do is to take a few days and refit the Shockwave N mortars I have and the D2-E and see if that helps.  I will need the engines at least to help get me by the Guardians in the Death Grip campaign regardless, as the mortars catch me. I also noticed I need to upgrade the intelligence lab to at least level 5 so I can use the strike cruiser and the Dreadnought, those are next on the list.

So that is the plan going forward this week, a refit of the Marauders with the Shockwave N, engine 2, D2-E and then try for the Mauler again, along with attempting a 40 once the fleet finishes. If I still have issues with the explosive damage from the frostbite, I will hold off until I get the maulers built.

For the base I am getting close to needing to put in stands and weapons, so going to research Sentinel Missle 3 at least and hope to get Sent 5 soon and work towards Javelines and Halo.

Day in the life of a new Battle Pirate player

Getting something good; Mauler the workhorse

It is the fourth of July weekend, and I plan to have fun with family, friends and enjoy my holiday. I hope you do too.

So, I am going to set the base on more auto type things. My Outpost is going to level 5 that is over two days to build.

I have finished the mauler campaign prize pack one, I will be building a fleet of those next, I will leave room for the Hail B that I can get from prize pack two and a slot to hold the phalanx when I get that on a few levels.

Death Grip Campaign – 

To do this campaign, I made use of Bunker Buster Small rockets and my 3x Diplomat IV mortar Leviathan fleet with Reactive Armor 2. By using bunker buster to remove the bombard turrets, it allowed my mortars all to make it to target. No armor allows them to be repaired for 5 min before instant repair, meaning at most I am down 25 minutes between deaths. The reactive armor is the best choice as the ships that cause the most damage have assault missiles, so reducing that damage is best.

The higher you go in the campaign, the more advance type turrets you will see. So, you will want to use some bunker busters to take out the halo and javelins to help the slow-moving mortar fleet that I used. It takes 20 minutes per rocket so that you can do one per repair time. You could also use Pinch missiles if you wanted, but honestly why not remove them from the target?

Yes, it is going to take a bit longer than the two-hour window to do the campaign, but I have no choice. If I do not put in the seat time, I will not be able to advance. Two hours a day might be good for most, but I am finding it restrictive on what can get done in a day.

Mauler future build 

My Mauler build will be pretty basic to start, but until I get a better hull, it will be a work horse and will get refitted when I get better stuff. Right now it has technology from the research labs and the campaigns.

https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!304O00U0U0U0U5J0G0B3O3O3O3O004M04O00U0U0U0U5J0G0B3O3O3O3O004M04O00U0U0U0U5J0G0B3O3O3O3O004M04O00U0U0U0U5J0G0B3O3O3O3O004M04O00U0U0U0U5J0G0B3O3O3O3O004Md8

Have a great Weekend everyone!