This is exactly the equation I'm struggling with right now. Because those are the two ships that would be sacrificed for this bird.
[Video] Prowler walkthrough
- Thread starter Montoya
- Start date
It looks like the dragonflies that thrives in the nearby park. Not my cup of tea also ;)
@Montoya do you use mods for the health/oxygen and heart rate displayed in the bottom left?
@Montoya do you use mods for the health/oxygen and heart rate displayed in the bottom left?
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
I have to say I love this ship, and the vids of it in combat say it can manage as well as a Vanguard. However, if you intend to do what this ship is designed for, drop a lot of marines for FPS play; I would point out that the Sentinel frame combined with the Hoplite package is a better choice, primarily because you'll have three of them. If you're looking at combat effectiveness of a strike team rather than a single pilot, three Hoplites are stealthier (the Prowler has a single rector, so can't operate with a single low output reactor running--it needs to fly a bigger reactor and has a greater cross section). Three Vanguard together have more firepower, are faster, more agile and carry a few more people. The Vanguard has greater range. Note the Prowler is clearly a Medium ship but it was nerfed with small radar, so one expects the Vanguard can see better. The biggest advantage of the Hoplite though, is the abundance of missiles you have on three Vanguard--all missing from the Prowler. That's at least 24 S2 missiles that do combined about 100k worth of damage, which has to be an important consideration.
This choice does turn a bit on how many NPC marines a PC can control, but if you presume you need at least 3 PCs for 18 marines, I think the Hoplite is the better choice and you will have 21 sets of boots on the ground instead of 18.
Since there are so many people flying Vanguard, they should be easy to team up with. So I am still saying I think the Sentinel stealth platform alternately loaded with the Harbinger torps, the Hoplite Marines, or the Sentinel EMP is the premier choice for the mercenary or bounty hunter.
This choice does turn a bit on how many NPC marines a PC can control, but if you presume you need at least 3 PCs for 18 marines, I think the Hoplite is the better choice and you will have 21 sets of boots on the ground instead of 18.
Since there are so many people flying Vanguard, they should be easy to team up with. So I am still saying I think the Sentinel stealth platform alternately loaded with the Harbinger torps, the Hoplite Marines, or the Sentinel EMP is the premier choice for the mercenary or bounty hunter.
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Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
Some great test footage:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoEyYPpFrmM&t=329s
Observations:
1) The ship keeps warning of overheating. Though the warning is that the engines are too hot, IIUC the entire ship uses the same heat budget and it is the peculiar weapons aboard that are making this overheat. After every couple seconds firing there is a warning, so obviously this is not good. So here's my usual pitch--install ballistics. Twin Revenants and twin Mantis will do much more damage, and do it from the first hit instead of killing shields first. Weapons that overheat after every few seconds are not good weapons, and erkul has the stock weapons doing far less damage than ballistics, which travel further, faster, so will hit more often. Running hot weapons makes it difficult to switch back and forth into stealth, so get some ballistics.
2) The stock reactor is EM noisier and less powerful than the Eclipse. Upgrading the reactor is going to make this much easier for energy management and make it stealthier at the same time. The Eclipse will give you about 1/3 increase in power while reducing your EM signature to 1/3 of the stock Cirrus. This is a no brainer.
3) The coolers are the same, which is probably ALWAYS a bad idea for a stealth ship. Install low EM sig primary (Nightfall has 1/3 better cooling with 2/3 the EM signature over the installed) for stealth ops and a huge oversized secondary cooler (left off in stealth) for dumping IR fast when you need to. The Snowpack dumps heat more than 3X faster than the installed. When you switch it on it will dump excess heat at a fantastic rate so you can evade IR detection (including missile locks).
***These two changes (reactors and coolers) reduce both EM and IR signatures greatly, and anyone planning to use the stealth in this ship should plan these changes. You can't improve your radar cross section, but most times players and NPCs are not actively pinging to catch sight of each other, since this unzips your fly. So do not ignore this ship's greatest advantage--it is a stealth ship--and optimize this.
4) No rotation nor lateral acceleration (strafe) rates posted yet, but this does seem to rotate faster than the Vanguard.
5) Keep in mind that though this is a medum ship with mostly medium components, it was nerfed with a small radar. If as per the norm EM and IR sensors scale with radar, this ship is pretty blind compared to other medium ships. That should change how you fly it. Though you can presume somewhat that others can't see you, you need to keep in mind what you can't see too. This issue is tied with the missile issue as to why you might prefer the Hoplite. Two Hoplites bring more shield, hull, firepower, speed and sensing to the battlefield and three will bring much more. (Rememeber sensors are shared amongst a team , so the more ships the better.) In a fair fight, a lone Sentinel with any BUK would kill a Prowler quite easily, because it will see the Prowler before it is seen, and carries enough missiles to destroy a Prowler before guns even come into range. This is BTW, how modern fighter combat works. Launch missiles and fly away--no dogfighting. Missiles matter.
6) There is a lot of disinformation out there of late about the new Sukoran shields, but they appear to be what they were supposed to be, stated several months ago--they are bigger with faster refresh than any other medium shields. This was supposed to be accompanied by a required directionality, and that was the job of the second seat (which apparently has no function in this iteration). Point is, until you know better; leave the shields!
Observations:
1) The ship keeps warning of overheating. Though the warning is that the engines are too hot, IIUC the entire ship uses the same heat budget and it is the peculiar weapons aboard that are making this overheat. After every couple seconds firing there is a warning, so obviously this is not good. So here's my usual pitch--install ballistics. Twin Revenants and twin Mantis will do much more damage, and do it from the first hit instead of killing shields first. Weapons that overheat after every few seconds are not good weapons, and erkul has the stock weapons doing far less damage than ballistics, which travel further, faster, so will hit more often. Running hot weapons makes it difficult to switch back and forth into stealth, so get some ballistics.
2) The stock reactor is EM noisier and less powerful than the Eclipse. Upgrading the reactor is going to make this much easier for energy management and make it stealthier at the same time. The Eclipse will give you about 1/3 increase in power while reducing your EM signature to 1/3 of the stock Cirrus. This is a no brainer.
3) The coolers are the same, which is probably ALWAYS a bad idea for a stealth ship. Install low EM sig primary (Nightfall has 1/3 better cooling with 2/3 the EM signature over the installed) for stealth ops and a huge oversized secondary cooler (left off in stealth) for dumping IR fast when you need to. The Snowpack dumps heat more than 3X faster than the installed. When you switch it on it will dump excess heat at a fantastic rate so you can evade IR detection (including missile locks).
***These two changes (reactors and coolers) reduce both EM and IR signatures greatly, and anyone planning to use the stealth in this ship should plan these changes. You can't improve your radar cross section, but most times players and NPCs are not actively pinging to catch sight of each other, since this unzips your fly. So do not ignore this ship's greatest advantage--it is a stealth ship--and optimize this.
4) No rotation nor lateral acceleration (strafe) rates posted yet, but this does seem to rotate faster than the Vanguard.
5) Keep in mind that though this is a medum ship with mostly medium components, it was nerfed with a small radar. If as per the norm EM and IR sensors scale with radar, this ship is pretty blind compared to other medium ships. That should change how you fly it. Though you can presume somewhat that others can't see you, you need to keep in mind what you can't see too. This issue is tied with the missile issue as to why you might prefer the Hoplite. Two Hoplites bring more shield, hull, firepower, speed and sensing to the battlefield and three will bring much more. (Rememeber sensors are shared amongst a team , so the more ships the better.) In a fair fight, a lone Sentinel with any BUK would kill a Prowler quite easily, because it will see the Prowler before it is seen, and carries enough missiles to destroy a Prowler before guns even come into range. This is BTW, how modern fighter combat works. Launch missiles and fly away--no dogfighting. Missiles matter.
6) There is a lot of disinformation out there of late about the new Sukoran shields, but they appear to be what they were supposed to be, stated several months ago--they are bigger with faster refresh than any other medium shields. This was supposed to be accompanied by a required directionality, and that was the job of the second seat (which apparently has no function in this iteration). Point is, until you know better; leave the shields!
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Two of the weapons on the Prowler are already ballistic, the other two are energy. Both weapons are sold at New Babbage the last time I checked.
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
Yeah. I didn't want to complicate the issue too much with details especially since erkul doesn't post weapon temps and Hardpoint hasn't listed the Prowler and its new weapons yet.
But to that point:
The Deadbolts do crappy damage. If you want the deep hull penetration of cannons the C-778 is far better. If you want the fast to target and increased ability to hit, you want ballistic gattlings instead. In this case, the gattlings do so much more damage than the cannons of any type, and are flying so much faster to target, that I would suggest all ballistic gattlings. Regardless, don't fly such hot weapons with such limp coolers. One supposes they were both turned on and they're not doing the job.
Doesn't help that cannons are broken more often than not, especially the Combine (C-778.)
Shmexy? yah... let's go with that.
But, no bed... No buy!
But, no bed... No buy!