Guardian or Hunter?

Tusc · Post by **Tusc** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:30 am

The Guardian has better stats on paper, but I read somewhere on here that Alliance frames tend to be better than the Federation frames. Is this just something someone had a dream about or is there any validity to this claim?

Edit: And while I'm asking questions, what constitutes small, medium and large frames? I see some engines that say stuff like a great engine for medium frames or similar, but I don't see any clear indicator on the frames about what class they fall in.

And thanks for answering my noob questions. Really digging this game so far.

[Edited on 1-31-2012 by Tusc]

Baner86 · Post by **Baner86** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:50 am

I'd go with the stats unless of course someone can confirm that the stats are incorrect or that there's a bug with a particular ship.

Anything outside of that would generally be tainted by preference for a particular ship. People always say their particular thing is the best even if all reasonable evidence and argument says it is not.

On the other hand, what do you actually mean by "better"? I can't access SeeJay's site at the moment for some reason so I can't look at the ship stats but you want to concentrate on agility if you define "better" as a nimble ship. You want to look at armor to see how long the hull will last after your shields are gone. You want to look at the assembly score to see if you can actually put the wings/engines/cargo bays etc. that you want. As you can see it's hard to say what's "better", it's really up to you to decide what ship is "better" for how you want to play.

BÃ¦nlynn · Post by **BÃ¦nlynn** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 4:46 am

Baner's got it on the money. It's the intended purpose and final build that determines how good your ship is. If you want combat survivability, then you're going to pick your frame for armor and get your agility from the wings (assuming I'm understanding shipbuilding here) Your internal equipment will focus on repair systems and shield boosters. Whereas a Damage build will trade in a few of those things for missile hardpoints and gun boosts. If you're more the hit and run type, maybe a crew slot for a navigator, a larger engine, a few shield boosters and a high agility frame. Internal equipment will focus more on agility and the like. Pirates will load out with disabling missiles and tractor beams. A mining/trading vessel is going to have a maxxed out cargo bay and focus more on protecting its assets than anything else, and a stealth ship is going to need to run run run

There are a couple of civ frames in the middle of the range that can be suited very well to a number of purposes and unless you're going for pure combat/PvP it'd be best to focus on those.

Think of it this way: the lightest frames are the scouts/interceptors, the heaviest frames are your bombers/anti-materiel craft and the mid-range frames are for multirole purposes.

Unless you're running out of assembly/capacity points with the frame you're currently using then go for the armor/agility that suits your play style and abilities. Heavier does not always equal better and don't try and do everything with the one ship build because you will suck equally at every task.

XinCasa · Post by **XinCasa** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 5:06 am

From post: 127779, Topic: tid=8710, author=Tusc wrote:The Guardian has better stats on paper, but I read somewhere on here that Alliance frames tend to be better than the Federation frames. Is this just something someone had a dream about or is there any validity to this claim?

Edit: And while I'm asking questions, what constitutes small, medium and large frames? I see some engines that say stuff like a great engine for medium frames or similar, but I don't see any clear indicator on the frames about what class they fall in.

And thanks for answering my noob questions. Really digging this game so far.

[Edited on 1-31-2012 by Tusc]

Hey guys I'm confused. Were do we find info/stats for Guardians & Hunters? I know the various frames by name are options in the right side of the Alliance Shipyard categories, but where do we find and/or compare them with the Federation ship frames?

Angitherias · Post by **Angitherias** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 6:15 am

http://www.junholt.se/evoschool/index.htm

Baner86 · Post by **Baner86** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 6:17 am

Stats etc. can be found at the site I mentioned earlier that must have been offline:

http://www.junholt.se/evoschool/index.htm

I believe it is SeeJay's site, a senior member of the community you will often find on these forums.

From what I can see the Guardian has significantly more assembly points letting you install better cargo bays/wings/fuel tank/shields and incrementally better agility, armor and speed.

As far as I know, there are no hidden "stats" making certain ships better than others unless Vice himself or someone like SeeJay or Dingo can confirm.

The Guardian should be hands-down the better ship but like I said before, when you're in the game and you fly them and you just like the "feel" of the Hunter better even though it "shouldn't", there's nothing stats can do to change that.

That is exactly my position between Military ships and Civilian ships. I farmed and bought my Starmaster very early and have just gotten so used to it that I didn't like the ultimate Military ship the Chimera. I know the Chimera is better for combat but I just don't like it as much.

Play the game to have fun. This isn't one of those games that forces you to min/max and slave away over spreadsheets just to get by. Everything has it's place just as long as you are doing what you want to do.

Edit: Dammit beaten to the punch with that link. D:

[Edited on 31-1-2012 by Baner86]

Ora · Post by **Ora** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 6:25 am

I may have been the one that stated that Alliance frames tend to be more durable than Federation frames, and I still stand by that having put further trial and error research into the subject. I would go with the Hunter. For certain when I am fighting an AI Guardian, it goes down really super fast and easy whereas an enemy Hunter takes a little more time to chew away at. My running theory is that for some reason Federation frames, while having more armor, have significantly weaker shields.

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 6:31 am

From post: 127807, Topic: tid=8710, author=Ora wrote:I may have been the one that stated that Alliance frames tend to be more durable than Federation frames, and I still stand by that having put further trial and error research into the subject. I would go with the Hunter. For certain when I am fighting an AI Guardian, it goes down really super fast and easy whereas an enemy Hunter takes a little more time to chew away at. My running theory is that for some reason Federation frames, while having more armor, have significantly weaker shields.

Though I would pick the Guardian for myself, experience shows that the alliance frames do indeed take more hits in combat than the Federation frames. If you compare the Leviathan, and the Starmaster, the top tier of their respective lines, you will find that the Leviathon can take a considerable amount of punishment more than the Starmaster.

That said, I often think of high-end Alliance frames as suicide-boxes since they can't turn worth a lick, and are therefore inadvisable for PvP combat. They do make nice exploration ships though, and look a bit better IMO.

Tusc · Post by **Tusc** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:29 pm

Thanks for the responses. It does make sense that maybe the Alliance ships have better base shield stats, since the Federation ships tend to have better stats across the board compared to their respective Alliance counterparts. So you trade shield strength for agility, armor and assembly points. I went with the Gaurdian, we'll see how I like it. The good news is it's fairly easy and inexpensive to experiment a bit.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:49 pm

The History about the Alliance ships is that they have been more actively in volved in the War with the Vonari and have researched Vonari technology more then the Federation has. So the Alliance ship frames are build with different more advanced materials that can with stand more beating eventhough their armor stats seems equal or almost equal. Like any material the penetrating and damaging factor is the modulation frequency of the weapons applied to the material. Eventhough the 2 materials have the same armor strength they willl respond differently to different weapon frequencies. So the Aliance frames are better adapted to with stand Vonari weapons frequencies and the other regular weapons frequency!

Baner86 · Post by **Baner86** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:34 am

Ok, apologies to the OP.

I decided to give the Leviathan a go seeing as how there seems to be some hearsay about them being tougher even though the stats say they are not.

I was flying a Starmaster so the equivalent federation ship frame to the Leviathan and according to the stats the Starmaster is more agile and has 300 armor compared to the 280 of the Leviathan.

I simply transferred all of my equipment/crew to the Leviathan from the Starmaster as they have equivalent Assembly points and frame points.

Through testing I found that while the Leviathan is indeed a lot more sluggish than the Starmaster which follows the stats, the Leviathan took a LOT more punishment before exploding than the Starmaster.

So this goes completely against what I said before about following the statistics only.

I wish the game better explained why this is the case but I guess now, the best advice we can give is for you to just experiment with the different frames and see if they fit with your game. It doesn't cost anything to experiment with ship frames of a similar standard as the cost of your existing frame is traded in for your new frame. You'll only have to pay a lot if you go from an early ship and buy something like a Mammoth or Centurion.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:17 am

From post: 128082, Topic: tid=8710, author=Baner86 wrote:Ok, apologies to the OP.

I decided to give the Leviathan a go seeing as how there seems to be some hearsay about them being tougher even though the stats say they are not.

I was flying a Starmaster so the equivalent federation ship frame to the Leviathan and according to the stats the Starmaster is more agile and has 300 armor compared to the 280 of the Leviathan.

I simply transferred all of my equipment/crew to the Leviathan from the Starmaster as they have equivalent Assembly points and frame points.

Through testing I found that while the Leviathan is indeed a lot more sluggish than the Starmaster which follows the stats, the Leviathan took a LOT more punishment before exploding than the Starmaster.

So this goes completely against what I said before about following the statistics only.

I wish the game better explained why this is the case but I guess now, the best advice we can give is for you to just experiment with the different frames and see if they fit with your game. It doesn't cost anything to experiment with ship frames of a similar standard as the cost of your existing frame is traded in for your new frame. You'll only have to pay a lot if you go from an early ship and buy something like a Mammoth or Centurion.

The game does not explain this because it is Aliance classified information!. And unless you know the History and/or played the other games like Renegades, Legends and Arvoch Aliance you would not be priviledged to this clasified information!....

:P

Baner86 · Post by **Baner86** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:28 am

Hehe

Although annoying at first, I actually like this "meta-game" aspect of Evochron. It is good not only to have the obvious "secrets" such as secret planets and cargo stashes but also hidden statistics you will only discover through experimentation.

Unfortunately I came straight into Mercenaries due to the Steam sale so was completely oblivious and I'm not really a "story" person to look into game backstory.

At least know the information is out there and people are aware that you should really try EVERY frame.

Don't judge a "ship by it's frame data"!!!....At least I think that's how the old saying goes.

Ora · Post by **Ora** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:05 am

From post: 127808, Topic: tid=8710, author=Dingo wrote: That said, I often think of high-end Alliance frames as suicide-boxes since they can't turn worth a lick, and are therefore inadvisable for PvP combat. They do make nice exploration ships though, and look a bit better IMO.

I disagree entirely. I've entered duels with two pilots piloting Starmasters vs. my Leviathan and my Leviathan crushed both of them. In my opinion the Federation frames are far too fragile and makes me feel like I'm piloting a hunk of glass, while in an Alliance frame I feel more secure. I know that I can afford to take a few hits, and I use that ability to my advantage by closing on an enemy Starmaster enough to hit it with a heavy-hitting Phantom cannon rather than the long range, low yield cannons most pilots prefer.

[Edited on 2-2-2012 by Ora]

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 3:39 am

I believe Dingo was talking about Military ships in PvP Combat versus the Leviathan! The Leviathan does not stand a chance against the higher class military frames in a PvP.......