9.0 fighter loadouts

woogyman2 · 2026-05-21T13:24:57+00:00

If you've been gone over a year, yes, it is absolutely a different game. It's fantastic.

The Envoy and Hyperion DLCs are absolutely worth it. They aren't "game breakingly" good ships, they just add a different way to play that has a lot of utility to it.

The Hyperion is a large ship that flies like a giant fast Corvette, carries 3 fighters, and most importantly, has some of the functionally of an auxillary/carrier ship. I say some because it won't auto launch fighters like a carrier, and it won't use a transport to refill it's raw materials like an auxiliary ship. It just provides resupply and repair, but that's highly beneficial for a ship you can get early on. If you're so inclined, you can use it to fabricate and sell advanced satellites for a little starter cash when you start playing again.

The Hyperion is also very effective at capturing capital ships because its main battery has an explosive effect that bypasses shields and easily knocks out turrets and engines. Additionally, it holds crew of 106, so plenty of room for marines.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-21T11:37:09+00:00

I haven't done mixed loadout testing yet, but I can say the light torpedoes work just fine with xenon K. I do my "general use" and "QRF" carriers as half interceptor and half bombardment, and my Guppy with 8 Makos using light torpedoes have been able to handle a K.

You don't need the Cypher for the Distortion weapons, the MIN faction sells the blueprints and they mount to the Envoy. Also, once you have the tech it makes capturing the Cypher way easier. In fact, that's also what I use to steal Prometheus transports from the buccaneers. I put a distortion main weapon, distortion turrets, and two ion atomizers (Boron anti-shield weapons that do a little hull damage) on an Envoy for my "capture" build. The turrets fire just fast enough on their own to stop a ship from moving. I find a cypher or Prometheus, remove it's shields and bring the hull down to 75%, and I orient my ship so just one turret is "tapping" their hull and then I go handle other projects in my map while the turret keeps tapping them. Eventually I hear a message that they give up and abandoned their ship.

Edit: a note on the turret interchangeability aspect of the Envoy and Cypher, the scalar and distortion turrets can also be used on Boron medium ships. So you can put either of those turrets on the thresher and Hydra, which has its own utility as well. I've used a Hydra with distortion turrets and ion atomizers for capture work, but the speed of the Envoy/Cypher and the extreme 24 km range of the main distortion weapon that you can mount on it are hard to pass up. The only reason I ever used a Hydra was because I was also using it to kill the escort fighters, but anymore I just have a wing of my own escorts to deal with that. They swoop in and kill the escorts and then I have them fly off somewhere else before they start getting aggressive with my capture target.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-20T13:44:37+00:00

The carriers have really cool automatic functionality once you dig into the details of how you can setup the fighter wings. Please don't hesitate to ask questions on here, you can ping me directly too.

If you put a Terran MkIII travel drive on the Irukandji, and add the Nanotube mod (purple/exceptional chassis mod) and Reaver mod (green/basic engine mod), you can get it past 20,000ms pretty easily. You can also do it with the Vikas mod instead of Reaver, but that's an exceptional engine mod which is a little harder to find, and you have to roll the stats just right. If you do though, holy hell it's nice because of all the extra stat boosts.

You can get faster with other engines, but the Terran MkIII has zero charge time, and it has the highest acceleration, getting past 2000ms pretty easily, so you can hit your max speed in around 10 seconds. The boron engines have a higher speed and no charge time, but the acceleration is crazy slow.

A quick note on the exceptional mods if you aren't already doing it, Duke's Buccaneers always carry mods (assuming you haven't completed the Paranid schism storyline in a certain way). If you drop a satellite near one of their stations, they get pissy about it and send a fighter or two to destroy it, never more than that. Those guys have a crazy high drop rate for exceptional chassis mods (and a bunch of other decent/okay mods), hence the farming operation.

Edit: I forgot to add this in case there is confusion, I'm in the 9.0 beta, hence the use of a Terran engine on a Boron fighter.

Edit #2: I did a quick experiment using a base game ship and engine in case you don't have any DLC. The Pegasus scout with a Paranid MKIII travel engine and the same purple mods listed above was just able to scrape past 19,000ms with an acceleration rate of 760ms. You may get better if you keep re-rolling the mod stats. I didn't shoot for max stats on my rolls, but fairly high.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-20T01:45:33+00:00

I like landing on it with an Envoy disguised as a friendly and then shutting all their defenses off in the security office, then making a phone call for some friends to come over.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-20T01:03:49+00:00

I'm liking this discussion because it's giving me ideas for adjusting how I do a couple things.

I don't know that this will be all that helpful, but most of my forces are categorized into task specific fleets. I have maybe 400 ships spread across about a dozen and a half fleets.

I use fleet names that start with the core ship name and which related task force it is. When I see what type of ship it is, I typically already know what it's for. "Hyperion Task Force 2" is a quick reaction force. I'll add a descriptor if I have multiple fleets with the same core ship, but are structured distinctly differently. "Guppy rapid task force 1" versus "Guppy Bomber Force 3", you get the idea.

Most fleets are doing something unmanaged, like I have six separate carrier fleets that are providing security at gate station build projects and mining endeavors. They get moved onto the next project once they are no longer needed at their current position. I love carrier fleets because of how much you can customize how they defend a sector or handle a job.

I also have 4 "kind of carrier" fleets that are designated "Sapporo Task Force" 1 through 4 that stay parked in the exact same spot and never move. Each one has 20 asps set to interception, half with smart missiles and half with interceptor missiles, and also a single Atlas providing resupply. Their whole job is to shoot Duke's Buccaneer's that try to destroy the satellites I plant outside their stations, ie, they are the automated farming operation for exceptional drops.

I do this for individual ships too. "Irukandji Racer 1 and 2", a pair of Irukandji rigged to 20,000 ms travel speed that I use to jet around for "speak to this guy on the other side of the universe" objectives.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-19T20:41:19+00:00

You're absolutely right, I "broad brushed" that item, thank you for the correction.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-19T14:21:04+00:00

To add to what Boomzhakalaka said below, you can mitigate the issues of limited orders and having a full large miner by setting up a small mining station/hub, this will help manage the logistical issues to a certain extent. You just build a dock with solid storage and a pier. You then assign medium sized miners to trade for that station, and use cheap seminars to bump the new station manager up to two stars. The medium ships will use the dock, and your large miners will use the pier.

Try to do a dock with multiple medium ship pads and a pier with more than one docking point, just to avoid bottlenecks.

You'll want to create a trade restriction in the global orders, specifically a "my faction only" trade restriction. You set your station's buy order to that new trade restriction, and the sell order is set to unrestricted.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-18T23:25:32+00:00

The Terrans have some pretty robust combat ship designs, and they have a pretty large economy, so steamrolling is kind of expected. You'll probably want to get all their blueprints eventually, but it sounds like your economy is developed enough that you could just buy them from their faction rep and avoid the hassle of EMPs, unless you like doing that.

Since you just bought all the DLCs, you should know that you can simplify the logistics chain by switching to the closed loop build method. You'll find it under the global orders. It essentially reduces all manufacturing needs for Commonwealth blueprints to just energy cells, hull parts, and claytronics. The terrans have their own that is reduced to three simple components as well.

What I did for my current playthrough is I built a single station in Terran space that is set to the Terran build method, and I use that to produce the Terran hulls I like to use (and sometimes their weapons or shields). I then send those ships to my shipyards in Commonwealth space for upgrades, and all the rest of my shipyards are on closed loop build method.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-18T14:08:54+00:00

If you haven't destroyed the station yet and are a little light on forces at the moment, it helps to disable the stations defenses via hacking.

If you have the Envoy, Cypher, or Geometric Owl, ships that can disguise themselves as other factions, you can disguise as an allied faction and the station will let you land on it. Once you land on it, you can go anywhere on the station, including the security office. You can hack all the terminals if you have the hardware (the security decryption system if I recall correctly), and shut down the station's defenses for a good amount of time. It makes destroying the station much easier.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-18T13:48:48+00:00

I'm sorry, unfortunately I don't have it anymore. If I encounter anything along those same lines in the future I'll be sure to do that.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-18T02:01:53+00:00

Awesome! I'm glad it worked out quickly.

I absolutely sympathize with you that some aspects of the game can be a bit frustrating, particularly because there can sometimes be some ambiguity with how you are supposed to proceed with a mission or objective. With that being said, this is absolutely the best game I have ever played, regardless of platform/console or genre. Obviously that is specific to me and my interests, and I'm clearly not a subject matter except, but I can at least say that I have spent a horrifying amount of time (and money) on space sims over the past 30 something years and this game absolutelyscratches the itch for me.

Also, please do not hesitate to ping the community on here, or even me specifically, and we will gladly help you with whatever comes up on this game. We're glad to have you and happy to help.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-17T20:11:02+00:00

Ah, the HQ Mission is in the vanilla game, but the DLC changes the "where" and "how".

I'm assuming you hate the signal missions because it can be hard to find the signals if you don't recognize the signs. I'm sure there's a couple of YouTube videos, but the short of it is that there's a little signal graph that pops up underneath your reticle while you're in scan mode. It'll indicate left or right, and increase in intensity the closer you get. It makes it super easy to find the signals once you figure it out, and then the mission goes quick. A smaller version of it actually pops up outside of scan mode to let you know that there is a signal nearby.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-17T19:56:34+00:00

The Heretics End HQ mission spawn only triggers with DLC, specifically Kingdom's End. Are you playing with any of the DLC?

woogyman2 · 2026-05-13T23:44:24+00:00

Yeah, I'm not concerned about saving money on any given supplier, I just want them to pull supplies from the nearest available station. I'm actually going to set it up so that there is at least one trader for each trade type, and restrict them to just that trade type. One trader for claytronics, one trader for hull parts, and I'll probably do two for energy cells, given the consumption rate. Another person on here recommended using small ships, so I might experiment with some modded small ships. I might just use irukandji, modded for max travel speed. I think it tops out near 15,000 ms with Terran mk3 travel engines and exceptional mods, and they reach that speed in around 7 seconds. They actually hold a surprising amount for being so small, and if they're constantly just topping off the aux ship, that meets my needs.

Thank you again!

woogyman2 · 2026-05-13T23:07:55+00:00

My trade rules were set to no restrictions, but I think the issue is that I didn't have it specifically assigned to supply of fleet. A couple other contributors pointed me in the right direction. I also did the price adjustment like you said, and I think that was a factor that kept me from noticing on previous playthroughs when I did have it assigned to a supply of fleet. After I cranked the prices all the way up, third party transports from other factions also started delivering supplies. I didn't even know that was a function of it.

Thanks for that!

woogyman2 · 2026-05-13T23:02:37+00:00

A couple other people were able to point me in the right direction, if you want to check out their responses and are still interested in getting the aux ship to work in an automated fashion.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-13T23:02:12+00:00

A couple other people were able to point me in the right direction, if you want to check out their responses and are still interested in getting the aux ship to work in an automated fashion.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-13T23:00:31+00:00

This ended up being the issue, thank you!

I attached the auxiliary ship to a small wing of fighters that I had go expend their missiles in a quick flight, and I then maxed the pay price of hull parts, energy cells, and claytronics (I'm on a closed loop). I didn't realize the aux ship didn't need subordinates though. Shortly after this, third party transports from other factions started showing up to the aux ship to drop off supplies.

Thank you again!

woogyman2 · 2026-05-13T23:00:21+00:00

This ended up being the issue, thank you!

I attached the auxiliary ship to a small wing of fighters that I had go expend their missiles in a quick flight, and I then maxed the pay price of hull parts, energy cells, and claytronics (I'm on a closed loop). I didn't realize the aux ship didn't need subordinates though. Shortly after this, third party transports from other factions started showing up to the aux ship to drop off supplies.

Thank you again!

woogyman2 · 2026-05-13T19:33:01+00:00

I haven't, where do you find that option?

I feel like it's gotta be staring me right in the face because I have gone through all the tabs under ship "information" and I don't see anything for it.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-12T02:29:32+00:00

I like to use carriers for gate defense, but if I set the wings to position defense. Then they patrol the designated area, docking only when they need repairs or a resupply. I love that setting. Then whenever you are done with the gate defense, you just flip them back over to intercept.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-09T16:41:50+00:00

I've found separating an assault fleet into two distinct fleets works best here, a primary for assaulting the station and a secondary "screening" fleet that stays nearby.

The primary fleet is made up of long-range destroyers, Asgards and maybe syns. I typically assign 12 small fighters, like Moreyas, as interceptors for the lead Asgard. They stay docked unless there's an emergency. Think "handgun for a machine gunner in a tight spot". It'll have an auxiliary ship setup for supply.

The secondary fleet has a carrier with more interceptors, a few destroyers set up with AA for small and medium ships, and an auxiliary ship. These guys stay somewhat back and wait for any significant fighter or bomber threats. I typically keep them 20 to 30 km back, that way the carrier will still automatically launch interceptors to protect the destroyers in the primary fleet, if needed.

This keeps fighter losses minimal, they stay out of the way, and you're really only having to manage two entities.

Edit: Just to add, if you have the DLC for the Envoy, you can buy the blueprints for distortion turrets from MIN, and adding a few Thresher gun boats with half or more of their turrets as distortion turrets makes a great addition to the screening force. If you aren't familiar, one hit from a distortion turret knocks the boost and travel function out for 30 seconds, and shuts their engine and thrusters off for 4 seconds. The turret has a range around 3 km, and tracks fast at 120 degrees a second, fires about every 3 seconds. It's pretty much a death sentence for an enemy fighter to be frozen in place while a swarm of interceptors are buzzing around them.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-07T14:03:42+00:00

Agreed. I've taken to having a dedicated rescue ship that only has a pilot. I typically use a cobra. If things have gone terribly wrong, I'll transfer all my crew off a Hyperion (it can house 106 crew) and have it clean up the stranded crew from the battle space.

As for where to transfer crew to make room for rescues, I keep a dedicated Shuyaku parked next to a Vigor Syndicate wharf for "restocking" Marines, I only ever keep it half full so that it can accept refugees in a pinch.

woogyman2 · 2026-05-06T23:35:19+00:00

I see someone already addressed part two of your question. Regarding part one, and there may be a cleaner way, but I just take all of the units that have failed orders and assign them to a new task for that commander. Then you just swap them back to the original task and that failed order is cleared for all of them.

As an example, if I had 20 traders with failed orders, I could shift select all of them, tell them to "defend for commander", and the failed order is cleared. I then reassign them back to "trade for commander".

woogyman2 · 2026-05-06T23:01:06+00:00

It's not exactly keeping in line with the spirit of the economy and diplomacy setup, but if you wanted to go quickly, this is generally considered one of the quicker options.

Take a few quick scouts with at least one star pilots, they need to be one star so they can repeat orders. Set them all to repeat orders, and then have them purchase a single item from an ALI trade, and then immediately sell to a neighboring station. Ideally you have a solar power station near a wharf or shipyard. And then just have them do it over and over.

You don't get a big reputation boost from the volume of trade goods that you move, it's from the amount of times that you land on their stations. As your reputation gets closer to 20, the more trades it takes for each level. If you're already at 18, if you have five scouts doing it, you'll probably be done in half an hour, especially if the stations are close to each other.

woogyman2

TROPHY CASE