Can't manage The Osprey

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5thHorseman
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby 5thHorseman » Mon Dec 02, 2013 3:49 pm

Again I stress: While I agree with you in general Iranon, if you're not going to use the Artillery beam, don't use the Osprey. There are 16 ships in the stock game that don't use the beam, use one of those if you don't like the artillery beam. If you're using the Osprey the assumption is you WANT to use the beam for whatever reason.

It'd be like using the DA SR-12 and selling the Glaive Beam, LRS, and Titanium Casing for a shield and a BL2. Why not just start with the Kestrel and be done with it?
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MightyThor2000
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby MightyThor2000 » Tue Dec 03, 2013 4:40 am

I just beat the game on easy on the Osprey, my second win. First you can't have a cloak on the Osprey because the artillery system replaces cloak. Second you can focus on offense or defense for your end game build but not both, because you simply won't have enough power to keep strong weapons going, maxed artillery beam and full shields and engines.

At the beginning you should stockpile scrap and keep an eye out for weapon systems. What you want are power efficient weapons, basically burst lasers are the best weapon out there- for 2 power you can go through double shields. If at all possible you should augment them with bombs or missiles but stockpile those for the boss, you'll want around 30. Breech missile is extremely powerful if you can power it, or ion bomb, but even fire bomb works. The idea is having something that goes through shields for the last stand to either take down shields or engines/flight controls to let your lasers do full dmg. You also want on the osprey a defense droid 1 and a repair droid or combat droid/defense combat droid. Defense II is not worth it, too much power and you don't necessarily want to shoot down lasers since your shields can absorb them, and you certainly wouldn't want to miss a missile cus you just shot down a laser. I would not go as defensive as some are suggesting. You're basically turtling up counting on your shield and engine systems not to get too damaged. I think it's better to have tons of fire power and 2 or 3 shields and close to max engines. Here's exactly how I did it:

First I got really lucky. I found a second burst laser II pretty early, as well as a pike beam and a hull laser. I was also able to grab a droid system, hull repair droid and a droid recovery arm by about sector 5 or 6. With the recovery arm plus hull repair you essentially get free repairs, and not paying for missiles or droids I was able to stockpile tons of scrap. I also picked up quite a few crew members. In last stand I had two rockmen, a mantis, 3 engis and 2 humans. Basically tons of repair and combat power. Then in sector 7 I really lucked out, got a breach missile launcher and a weapon pre ignitor. I went into the first phase of the boss battle with two shields, 2 pts shy of full engines, using the breach launcher, two burst lasers II, maxed artillery beam and a defense droid which could be powered down to power the hull repair droid if needed. I wasn't able to max shields and engines because of power constraints. With the preignitor though I launched a breach missile into their shield room right off the bat, it just crushed those shields, then I burst lasered the missiles. The artillery beam kicked in and it was pretty much over. I killed them taking zero hull dmg amazingly.

On the second phase I expected more challenge due to those nasty droids but again I got a little lucky. The combat droid they sent over ended up in an empty room so I simply rotated my rockmen and mantis to take him out. Then with the weapon preignitor I was able to heavily dmg their droid controls. During the power surge I dropped my defense droid to power shields to 3 bars. They held pretty well. A breach missile to their shields and I could take out any system I wanted to with my burst lasers. Again pretty easy, I took maybe 3 pts of dmg which I patched up with the repair droid.

Now the last one was much more difficult because there's no way to stop the power surge and my shields was under powered. But I basically out slugged them with my pre ignitor and breech missile. This was a much more hectic battle but in all I just had to rotate crew to put out fires and fight off boarders and repair systems and launch a few repair droids to keep my hull above 50%. In the end not terribly hard.

So again, you need to get lucky with the stores and having the scrap available to buy stuff. I would definitely aim for burst lasers and a big bomb or missile to take down shields.
Iranon
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby Iranon » Tue Dec 03, 2013 9:34 am

@ 5thHorseman:

Would be nice if you could do that (no Titanium Systems Casing to sell, not enough scrap for some time, can't rely on a BL2 being available and if there is a Kestrel would enjoy having 2).
Stealth B is awful: harder than usual early game, random losses to unavoidable asteroid fields or beam drones, lower rewards because it's difficult to take ships intact, poor layout, short a weapon slot with no corresponding long-term advantage.
One can learn to compensate for its many disadvantages, and one may enjoy the one-hit kills... but I'd like to hear a straight-faced argument that it's a good or even mediocre ship, or that playing to its theme is optimal unless you're lucky and find a pre-igniter. And yes, I have finished the game with it.

I'm not arguing the Artillery beam has no use.
It gives us game against Engi ships with too many defense drones, or the occasional ship with better shields and dodging than we are equipped for.
I am, however, arguing the following:
We have better things to do with our power if we can effectively fight with conventional means.
We especially have better things to do if we can take the enemy ship intact (a heavy laser or hull laser 2 is often enough).
We have better things to upgrade for some time (teleporter, weapons systems if we found nice stuff, we practically need solid defense before the artillery beam gives us a real advantage).

In a thread like this, I give advice on "playing to win" with the ship in question rather than "playing for flavour".
The Captain
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby The Captain » Tue Dec 03, 2013 10:34 am

Auto reloaders really help, as they speed up the artillery beam, too. I remember one game where I only upgraded the artillery beam to L2 until I had the late game scrap to max it. Then I got an auto reloader late. Suddenly, or so it seemed, the beam went from being very slow to really fast - like a normal beam weapon (except it pierces all shields :twisted: ) - and I was shredding ships.

I like to get at least L6 engines without a cloak, compared to L5 otherwise. Maybe two defense drones Mk I, though one is fine. I like to get the best weapons I can, as I want to target things, which you can't do with the artillery beam.

Personally, I get a teleporter, because I like to acquire scrap to upgrade my ship as much as possible. After the first time killing boarders with the artillery beam, I depower it when boarding. Also, I don't always get lucky with my weapons loadout - like multiple burst lasers Mk II, so I want to be able to board the boss at least. But it's maybe less of a priority than on other ships.
spacecadet13
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby spacecadet13 » Tue Dec 03, 2013 4:54 pm

I'm almost certain the autoloader doesn't make any difference to the artillery beam firing, in the same way that having a pre-ignitor doesn't make it available instantly. I'm guessing because its not grouped with the other weapons, it doesn't get the augment benefits.

When you move a crew member into the weapons room, you can see the firing bars shrink as the 10% manning bonus (plus any crew experience bonus) kicks in, right? Doesn't happen when the beam is 'manned'. And if the beam doesn't get a manning bonus, makes no sense it would get the autoloader bonus. And I'm pretty convinced judging roughly by the number of salvos the normal weapons get off both with and without an autoloader compared to the beam firing that the autoloader makes no difference to the beam. I'm happy to be shown wrong (again!) however....
The Captain
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby The Captain » Tue Dec 03, 2013 6:48 pm

spacecadet13 wrote:I'm almost certain the autoloader doesn't make any difference to the artillery beam firing, in the same way that having a pre-ignitor doesn't make it available instantly. I'm guessing because its not grouped with the other weapons, it doesn't get the augment benefits.

When you move a crew member into the weapons room, you can see the firing bars shrink as the 10% manning bonus (plus any crew experience bonus) kicks in, right? Doesn't happen when the beam is 'manned'. And if the beam doesn't get a manning bonus, makes no sense it would get the autoloader bonus. And I'm pretty convinced judging roughly by the number of salvos the normal weapons get off both with and without an autoloader compared to the beam firing that the autoloader makes no difference to the beam. I'm happy to be shown wrong (again!) however....


Just because manning and WPI don't apply to the artillery beam, it doesn't have to follow that the auto reloader does not apply to it.

According to this wiki, it does. According to my eyes it does (though I haven't timed it).

Edit: timed this 5th Horseman's video, got 17s. (Artillery beam L4, at 3:19 you can see he has an auto reloader.)
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5thHorseman
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby 5thHorseman » Tue Dec 03, 2013 8:28 pm

Iranon wrote:@ 5thHorseman:

Would be nice if you could do that (no Titanium Systems Casing to sell, not enough scrap for some time, can't rely on a BL2 being available and if there is a Kestrel would enjoy having 2).
Stealth B is awful


I'm snipping for fear of derailing the thread, but you are right. I haven't played in a while and forgot TSC is only on the Stealth-A.

If you want to see the arguments for and against the stealth ships, there are plenty of other threads. I don't think it's quite so fantastic and simple as others, but I do not think it's the flying death trap that 90% of players think it is. It just takes totally different (and sometimes counter-intuitive) tactics to do well and you frequently have to just accept that you're going to get beat up a lot.

In a my YouTube series I blew through sector 1 in the DA SR12 and then my game crashed, so I blew through the game a second time. While this does not happen to me every time (especially the crashing) I did NOT cherry-pick these runs. I sat down deciding to play and beat the game. You can see them here:

Try 1
Try 2, where I go on to do quite well

In a thread like this, I give advice on "playing to win" with the ship in question rather than "playing for flavour".

That's fair, but I still say choosing this ship and not using the artillery beam - unless you're just grinding achievements and plan to never ever play it again - goes against the flavor so strongly that you may as well just play the ship you actually WANT to play.
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spacecadet13
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby spacecadet13 » Tue Dec 03, 2013 8:55 pm

Well, shoot...I stand corrected (again)...downloaded the ship editor, gave the Osprey 3 x autoloaders and 27.5 secs later with one bar on the beam she was ready to go. But, weird that the autoloaders do affect the beam but manning it and the pre-ignitor does not , at least IMHO
MightyThor2000
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby MightyThor2000 » Wed Dec 04, 2013 4:49 pm

The artillery beam doesn't have controls to man. Makes sense manning weapons wouldn't affect it as they're a separate system room.

I don't know why auto loader does help it but it's cool that it does.
recumbentrider
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Re: Can't manage The Osprey

Postby recumbentrider » Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:41 am

You can add me to the list of those who have been finding the Osprey to be frustrating, especially of late. Recently, I played a run of six games on normal with the DA-SR-12 (which everybody else seems to hate, but I really like); I won four out of the six games. I did the same with the Osprey, and lost five out of six. I find that the Osprey is pretty weak in the first few sectors. At first, your only weapons are the artillery beam (which takes 50 SECONDS to charge), and a burst-laser 2. Effectively, until the artillery beam is upgraded, you are fighting enemies with just one weapon - the BL2. In the meantime, it seems they are shooting at me with two or more weapons, one of which is usually a missile. I try to get a defense drone as soon as possible, but often they are not available. I find that in many games with the Osprey, I am getting my hull damaged to such a degree early on that I find it difficult to upgrade anything, or buy the weapons I need. Interestingly, I also recently played a few games with the Nisos, and for some reason was more successful with that ship. On one victory with the Nisos, I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of automated reloaders and didn't even need to upgrade my weapons when I faced the final boss! (In that fight, I was also lucky enough to have found an ion bomb; I was able to kill the flagship crew [except for the triple-laser gunner] with my boarding crew, and using the ion bomb to disable their medbay.) Perhaps in my next game with the Osprey, I will try upgrading the artillery beam early on.