Need advice with perks and formations

[-Archangel-]

Hi all. I need advice from more experienced players for SW3. I forgot to put SW3 in title of topic.

At the moment I got my hero, Ternie and Gray guy. I gave my guy the tactician perk and gave Ternie the defense perk (I am not sure what is the name - the one where is says it gives 30% bonus to avoid attacks for the team). I decided to use Gray as lone wolf (gave him that perk). I took for gray heavy weapons spec and for Ternie Lasers spec.

At the moment I got them set up like this. Hero and Ternie are flying the Templar class 3 ships (that have 4 light+1 heavy slots), and Gray in Tiger (lvl 3 2 heavy +3 system) and trying to get enough xp to put him an a class 4 one I got (3 heavy +2 system).

My hero's ship has the extra fire rate system (35%) for guns and bonus shields, while Ternie has repair 10/s HP and 30 active missile defense one.

Now my combat tactics are as follows. I put my Hero as leader of the group and Ternie as Missile defense while Gray goes alone. Once we close to gun range (and enemy has fired all their missiles) I change Ternie to Attack or Defense (and change to repair when needed).

Is this OK? As others I noticed wingmen act strangely and attack less.
So to make my battles as risk free as possible after the first Missiles Ternie stops, should I:
1) Remove her from Group and have 3 pilots all on their own. I can easily group them again if anyone needs missile defense or repair. Or are the Tactician and that defense perk good enough to keep them in the group?
2) Keep her in group as Defense.
3) Keep her in group as Attack.

I mostly kill pirates at the moment and have no problems against smaller groups but once 1-2 Pirate Captains (with their groups or 3-4 ships) show up sometimes one of my pilots tend to lose the ship (which I am trying to avoid) often even with repair on or before they can go back to hangar.

[-Archangel-]

What is this? 30 views and not one reply?

Come on, don't tell everyone is either less experienced or here because of SW1 and SW2?!

[Goblin Wizard]

There are too many battles so I've never had enough patience to micromanage every little skirmish. Loosing a ship makes me angry and when all enemies are focused on one of your fighters you can't do anything about it.
I'm mostly relying on my mothership. My main tactic is:
1. pack ms with shield and armor reps.
2. keep fighters always inside ms
3. When battle starts, wait until most of enemies are focused on the ms and then launch your fighters and let them do the work safely. Do not make any groups/teams. Team members (except leader) fire less frequently (or don't fire at all) than when they are all alone.

[-Archangel-]

Originally Posted by Goblin Wizard

There are too many battles so I've never had enough patience to micromanage every little skirmish. Loosing a ship makes me angry and when all enemies are focused on one of your fighters you can't do anything about it.
I'm mostly relying on my mothership. My main tactic is:
1. pack ms with shield and armor reps.
2. keep fighters always inside ms
3. When battle starts, wait until most of enemies are focused on the ms and then launch your fighters and let them do the work safely. Do not make any groups/teams. Team members (except leader) fire less frequently (or don't fire at all) than when they are all alone.

That sounds like a reasonable tactic. Yesterday I managed to pimp up my ships more and can do this. I got the lvl 3 system firmware for MS and the 20hp/s repair item.

Got 2 class 4 ships now for my Hero and Ternie. Gray is still in Tiger (I don't have another heavy weapons class 4 ship yet, only class 5) who manages to survive all as I gave him the +350 shields and +50% maneuverability as well as the 40 passive antimissile defense items.

I spent a lot of time running around and getting secret stashes (feels a bit like cheating but since the game makes you grind like crazy to go forward in the storyline maybe it is OK).

Now I am debating if I should take the Use Beserk weapons perk with Ternie so I can put Beserk lasers I found on my Hero's ship (he uses light weapons/lots of systems ships). For now I am using the class 4 Autocannons with him with 35% faster shoot speed system.

[Goblin Wizard]

I use laser type weapons 90% of time. Only exception is near the end of the game when you meet a lot of enemies with laser protection shields.
Lasers have highest dps, range and accuracy. Theoretical autocannons dps may be slightly higher but due to poor accuracy and range they do less damage imo. AC starts to shine when the pilot has improved critical hit chance perk cause every single bullet is computed. This perk really favors high ROF guns.

and.. there is one more advantage of lasers. The beam stays for about second and every ship that crosses the beam during this time get immediate hit. It works especially well with mothership main guns which insta kill every fighter that way.

Berserk mk2 lasers are the best light weapons imo (I like high accuracy weapons). IIRC they are the only laser type light weapons. Alien pulse cannons (don't remember name) have much higher dps but they are like autocannos (explained above).

[-Archangel-]

Originally Posted by Goblin Wizard

I use laser type weapons 90% of time. Only exception is near the end of the game when you meet a lot of enemies with laser protection shields.
Lasers have highest dps, range and accuracy. Theoretical autocannons dps may be slightly higher but due to poor accuracy and range they do less damage imo. AC starts to shine when the pilot has improved critical hit chance perk cause every single bullet is computed. This perk really favors high ROF guns.

and.. there is one more advantage of lasers. The beam stays for about second and every ship that crosses the beam during this time get immediate hit. It works especially well with mothership main guns which insta kill every fighter that way.

Berserk mk2 lasers are the best light weapons imo (I like high accuracy weapons). IIRC they are the only laser type light weapons. Alien pulse cannons (don't remember name) have much higher dps but they are like autocannos (explained above).

I am not sure if the Beserk lasers I have are MK2. Are there more then one version? When I check out their rate of fire and damage they seem to do less damage then these class 4 autocannons (and they are medium accuracy).

For Gray guy I have two MK-115 Kinetic cannons installed. As I took heavy weapons perk for him I can either use those or Plasma cannons (and those have low accuracy). Does this perk also work with heavy weapons kinetic autocannons?

This game could be so much better if we got detailed stats of our ships weapons with all the bonuses and penalties added.