Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

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Apriori
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Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by Apriori »

I'm playing the 0.4.3 with an Ariston.
Lately I've been attacked by a lot of forsaken with corvettes, and they take me out in about three shots. I have level five sheilds, and I don't think I can go any higher on an Ariston.
I was wondering first of all what gun they were using, and also if there was a good way to evade thier fire?
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Post by bgaskey »

The thales is an old capship that is very out of date by the era the game takes place. fighters and bombers cannot stand up to its main weapons (with the possible exception of the goddard :wink: ). However, its not very maneuverable, so attacking from the rear and staying behind it should allow you to take it out. The Thales isn't very sturdy either, so an ariston's guns should kill it pretty quickly. If you do get in front of it, use your afterburners to fly away tangentially, turning randomly every few seconds, and you shouldn't get hit.

Most of piloting is just practice, tho, so be persistent. 8)

EDIT: and welcome to the forums :wink:
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Post by Apriori »

Thanks for the advise, I tried it out on one, and while I was at it another showed up. I ended up taking both out though.
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Post by bgaskey »

Congrats. :wink: 8)
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by w03 »

In 0.50, Thales can mount capship disruptors, so getting toasted in 3 shots isn't much of a surprise.
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by Keller »

Some quick advice when taking on any of the larger ships. Hit 'b' a lot. This will allow you to independently target subsystems on those ships. If you intelligently reduce the weapons on a ship, you can increase the 'safe' area from where you can hammer him into pieces. As the others have said, experience and practice can teach you a lot.
Nothing is uninteresting. ;)
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by KillerB »

:oops: At the risk of being labeled a necroposter....seeing as how the last post is a year old an all...

Where can I get one of these bad boys? I'm shopping for a bigger Scavenger ship. My main kick in VS is knocking out big ships and then looting them. ATM I'm using a Pacifier, which does a good job but then I wind up leaving the really good cargo like Automated Factories out there to eventually disintegrate.

I've tried a Mule and a Plowshare, but they both turn way too slow. I've tried an Ox, but I haven't been able to find any tractor beam turrets (do they even make those??)
What? Hasn't anyone else ever wanted to loot a whole fleet? :mrgreen: :twisted: :roll:

As for taking down a Thales, it can be done even with a light fighter. I've killed 'em with my Robin and my Nicander (okay technically 'medium' fighters) and with my Derivative. Just make sure to stay away from the nose of the Thales. It's Capship weapons are all forward firing. Target a turret, duck in and clip it, bat turn outa there and get some distance until the targeting computer will let you select another turret to shoot. Once all the turrets are toast, stay behind the nose and bang away until it goes BOOM :shock:
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by KillerB »

I peeked in the units.csv files and apparently the Thales wasn't for sale anywhere. So I had a go at fixing that, and by doing a little copy & paste in the units.csv file and the master parts list.csv file, I am now the proud owner of a good used Andolian corvette.

It was my first starship hack. I'm ever so proud :D

I went back and did a fix for the Gawain I had bought a couple of days ago. It was the Conderate model, and I couldn't upgrade the reactor or, well anything except the armor. With a class one reactor it was just about useless. Well I guess it would make a good decoy...
anyhows, a copy of the Llama.begin's 'prohibited mods' pasted into the Gawain.milspec 'prohibited mods' box fixed it right up.

Now if I can figure out how to make a custom turret with a nice lethal capship weapon on one slot and a Heavy Tractor Beam on the other slot...it can't be too different from the ship files...
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by Laraso »

I know by hacking the units file there is a tractor beam turret, but I don't think they are sold in any store and they aren't mounted on any ship, as far as I know.

If you want a tractor beam turret on your Thales, open up the units file and copy a turret that is already on a ship such as the franklinpd from the sub units column. Now, paste this into your ships serialized XML (look at where your other turrets are located to get an idea of where to put it) and change the name of the turret from franklinpd to turret_tractor or whatever the tractor turret is called.

However, I play SVN, so I wouldn't know about 0.5.
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by KillerB »

Thanks for the pointer Laraso. I'll look again to see if there is a Tractor Turret already in the 5.0 Unit.csv.

I've built a customized Thales since, with some of the fuel tanks removed to lighten her up and to make room for a cloaking device. Hey, I always wanted my own Bird of Prey. I named her Le Condor Noir, aka The Black Buzzard.

She handles great, but the cloaking device is pretty weak so far. It sucks so much juice that it kicks out after about 20 seconds or so. Not nearly enough time for me to sneak past al those avenging Rllan, Shaper, Mechanist, Andolian, Confed, LIHW, Aera etc etc fighter pilots and slaughter another herd of merchantmen.

I'm working on a few other goodies: I fixed the price for captured pilots, so missions and general slaughter will pay off. Before I did this, it usually cost me more in repair bills than the mission payed. I redid the escpape pod's physics so that if I punch out I can actually make it to a base or planet. I fixed an oversite in the Gawain so that it can be equipped with a bigger reactor etc. to replace the size 1 crap that came as Confed milspec loadout (no wonder they're getting thier tails kicked).
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by Laraso »

KillerB wrote:It sucks so much juice that it kicks out after about 20 seconds or so.
What I always do (If I am having serious energy problems) is buy a Shady Mechanic "Undocumented Reactor Tweak". It raises your reactor's recharge rate by 20%, while lowering your overall capacitors by I think 18%. Anyways, what I always do is buy that then upgrade capacitor one level (two levels if I must) and then upgrade my reractor as far as it will go. After doing this, I have seriously upgraded my recharge rate, with minimal capacitor loss.

I highly encourage buying shady mechanic products, as they are quite useful.

For example, the "Overpowered Turning Thrusters" (or whatever they are called) are invaluable when you have a slow turning ship such as a Pacifier or a Goddard.

I have noticed that shady mechanic upgrades seem to appear most on Oceanic planets.
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by KillerB »

That Overpowered Turning Jets SM upgrade makes my modified Thales, Le Condor Noir, handle almost like an overgrown bomber.
She already has the Undocumented Reactor Tweak as well, which didn't seem to help the problem.
The 'built in' capacitor and reactor are both way bigger than the biggest ones for sale.
One thing I've found which does help, is to keep adding SPEC Capacitors.
ATM I'm using (off the top of my head) 2 mk5, 4 mk4, 4 mk3 SPEC Capacitors (adding them randomly as they become available).
Now The Black Buzzard is able to fly across a system and jump before the 'drive energy' bar drops too low and the Cloaking Device craps out.
I can live with that. Want more cloak time? Add another 60 tons of SPEC caps. It makes my custom cloaked Thales more realistic and less uber.
A side benefit is that when I got my reactor shot out I was able to make it to a base on the SPEC reserves. I coun't buy a new reactor to fix her...that's another project. The one that came as standard equipment (30,000 MJ) is exactly twice as big as the biggest one for sale (mk15 @ 14,500 MJ). I'm going to try building a mk30 for a replacement, or a 'twin package' with 2 mk 15's as 'subunits'.
I didn't want an unkillable ship anyways. I just get sick of having to swat dozens of fighters and get gang banged by every capship in the system while I'm trying to make an honest living destroying freighters and looting thier cargo :wink:
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by Laraso »

SPEC Capacitors? I thought you were talking about your weapon capacitors, not your SPEC capacitors!

My bad...
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by KillerB »

For some reason, the designers chose to make the Cloaking Device suck juice off of the blue 'Drive Energy' bar instead of the red 'Main Energy' bar. This actually works out in our favor, as for some reason one can only have a single main capacitor installed, but as many SPEC caps as volume and weight constraints will allow.

ATM my modified Thales, Le Condor Noir, won't repair itself in the Weapons Upgrade room. I suspect that this is because she is a renamed and modified Corvette, without a .blank to go back to. I'm going to try copying all of her stats into a Condor.blank file in the Units.csv and see if this fixes the problem. Thankfully I had a spare 'Black Buzzard' stashed in my Ox (storing spare starships and starfighters is the only practical use I've found for the Ox so far). The Condor I was using eventually got so damaged that her engine wouldn't refuel.
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by Sarin »

Just for fun, i just blew out Thales with starting Llama...allright, she IS fully upgraded, with shady mechanic and all the stuff...but still, proves that Llama isn't that bad.
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by w03 »

It's true that the llama is actually not that bad. It can carry 48 dumbfires!!! (DFs can take a plowshare out in 1-2 hits! They can also knock down gleaners, corvettes, etc. if you have enough). I remember toasting a hyena in about 1.5 seconds using a llama. This was without any shady mechanic upgrades.

BTW: The corvette can be taken out more easily with grav-thumpers. These can be bought at almost any rlaan military base and can fit on any gun mount. However, you have to be careful when firing because their range is only 925 meters, and only have 8 ammo. Their advantage over torpedoes is that those pesky pd turrets have no effect them.
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by KillerB »

I haven't tried taking a Thales out w/ the Llama yet...the old 'cut a turret, run away, cut another turret' trick should do it...
I like the Hepasteus for the Llama; long range to hit turrets from a 'safe' distance, and it does phase damage too.
I've tried taking out big ships w/ the grav thumper mounted on a couple of my fighters...I usually wind up getting fried in the secondary explosions when I kill anything bigger than a Plowshare with these :|
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by Sarin »

Hephasteus? Hold on...Llama doesn't have heavy mounts. Blah, if it had them, Thales would be too easy...I've been taking them out easily with Dostoevsky with Hephs.

Anyway, with Llama, the trick is to engage at point-blank range with missiles. The starting Llama has just light mounts, and she's not capable of dealing serious damage to Thales with those.
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by KillerB »

Sarin wrote:Hephasteus? Hold on...Llama doesn't have heavy mounts. Blah, if it had them, Thales would be too easy...I've been taking them out easily with Dostoevsky with Hephs.

Anyway, with Llama, the trick is to engage at point-blank range with missiles. The starting Llama has just light mounts, and she's not capable of dealing serious damage to Thales with those.
Okay, today seems to be 'brain fart day' for me...
whatever the name is, for the downsized version of the Hephasteus that fits in a light gun mount...
it reaches about 15k or so & does phase damage.
When I used to use the ol' Llama for hunting Gleaners, Yeoman, & the occaisonal Ox, I would sit outside thier turret range & pick off the turrets one by one, then close in for the kill.
Of course engaging a Thales means lots & lots of maneuvering, or that big forward firing gun will fry ya!

Edit: I went back & peeked in 'Gleaning Gleaners for Fun & Profit'
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 19&t=14974
it was called a Micro Driver, & has a 12k range.
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Re: Thales - pirate/forsaken corvette

Post by Sarin »

Oh, micro drivers...well, they DO phase damage, but only few MJ/s. I tried them, didn't really work.

Yea, it is about maneuvering. I used overdrive to get behind it, and then just hold there and hoped that I have enough missiles.
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