Ship Tier List

[N-Sunderland]

I always wanted to try the flakfish+double gat Pyra combo ever since the loch change. It'll get you insanely quick kills, but if either ship goes down then you're in a bad situation.

Maybe a double gat+mortar trifecta Junker would be better so that at least one of the ships can function on its own.

[James T. Kirk]

Carronade and Heavy Flak Goldfishes?

So they could keep up with each other?

Give the Blenderfish Light Flaks and the Flakfish Gats so they can (kinda) take care of themselves?

Seems like it's at least worth a shot.

[Eukari]

All this makes me think we should do a guide/thread somewhere that's all about suggesting ship combinations. Like, what to use when your teammate is a Lumberjack Galleon, or what complements a sniper-built Mobula.

[Gambrill]

Tier useless : Squid
Discuss.

HOW. DARE. YOU

The squid is amazing and a truly wonderful ship!
TAKE IT BACK DAMNIT!

[HamsterIV]

Calm down Gambrill. A squid in the hands of a useless pilot is useless, as pilot skill goes up so does the usefulness of the squid. I know the same can be said of any ship, but the rate at which the squid's usefulness increases in proportion to pilot skill is almost a quadratic curve. Ohh I really want to graph this now. Every thing is better with math.

[Echoez]

In terms of general usefulness when creating a 2v2 team, since that's the game mode most people play on this game:

1. Pyramidion
2. Junker
3. Galleon
4. Mobula - Goldfish
5. Squid
6. Spire

The Pyramidion is first solely because it's paired with everything very easily. It's a solid ship with it's ups and downs, but generaly very useful since it can give chace. It can easily pair Piercing + Explosive.

The Junker is the best overall ship in the game currently so it is imperative that it comes second. It requires a bit more game knowledge to run it properly. It can easily pair Piercing + Explosive, while also bringing supporting disablers as an added benefit if the pilot desires so.

The Galleon is a formidable ship when ran by an experienced team, but doesn't stick with everything and requires careful planning, also requires a good tackler ally and is generaly very hard to run.

The Mobula and the Goldfish are probably equally powerful at the moment, while I personaly believe that the Mobula's horrible handling and horrible deck layout makes it less desirable, the Goldfish still has the glaringly obvious weakness of its exposed front gun being easily disabled, other than that, both ships are pretty equally useful but require to be paired with an appropriate tackler ally. Also Mobula might be getting a bit of an edge because of the ability to use Piercing + Explosive as well, but it's pretty offset by very weak stats and carronade bait balloon.

The Squid is a ship that lacks a lot of firepower to be considered a battleship, it only fills the niche role of disabling slower ships and taking advantage of their blindspots, but any Junker will completely trash it since it practicaly has no blind spot except above its balloon, where the Squid can't return fire anyway. A Pyramidion can also take care of it pretty quickly as well and Goldfish can utterly disable it by either equiping a carronade or a Hwacha, turning it into a sitting duck (no pun intended about the actual clan). Since it doesn't pose nearly as much threat as its ally, it will probably be ignored and its ally will be focused down pretty fast, leaving it alone and unable to do anything.

The Spire is a slow Goldfish, with an even more easily disabled front gun and very weak stats. It never actually manages to work with a trifecta since even if you take the slightest bit of return fire your engineers will be scrambling to keep this piece of metal alive, hence the firepower of the Spire can't be used all that well, it is also very easily focused and brought down, faster than most ships, hence it wins the 'trash tier' award.

[Captain Smollett]

Alright everyone for the 1 millionth time.  The Spires top deck right gun is 7 out of 10 times the captains gun. 

The captain steers the ship slightly left of target than hops on to take the necessary shots (usually explosive damage finishing shots).

I do hope Muse turns that gun slightly farther forward to increase the variety of guns able to make trifecta and ease of use for the pilot, but for anyone who seriously wants to fly the Spire, it is a skill that must be learnt.

[Eukari]

Alright everyone for the 1 millionth time.  The Spires top deck right gun is 7 out of 10 times the captains gun. 

The captain steers the ship slightly left of target than hops on to take the necessary shots (usually explosive damage finishing shots).

The most successful Spire I ever flew on followed that- it had a Heavy Flak main gun, forward-facing Gatling and starboard-facing Banshee on the top deck, and a flare on the port-facing mount for utility. We would approach, use a Heavy Clip-enhanced Gatling to strip armor and then finish with the Heavy Flak (plus the Banshee, if we weren't in dire straights). Occasionally I (the top-deck engineer and primary Gatling gunner) would switch to the Banshee if I thought I could get there before the armor went back up. It worked very well, though we pretty much had to get the first shot in.

Most of the Spires I've come across tend to run the Manticore, something I've never understood. Yeah, it's great at disabling, but unless you're in spitting distance (in which case, you're probably about to die) it's hard to totally shut down their ability to hurt you...and in the Spire, even one gun firing at you is often too much. I don't recall off-hand ever really noticing any Heavy Carronade or Lumberjack Spires...or any other with Heavy Flak for that matter.

[HamsterIV]

I am surprised EchoEZ doesn't know that since the only time I have flown with him he insisted on flying spires for 3 matches in a row.
My Spire rolls 2xGats on the upper deck and a flare manticore on the bottom. If left unmolested long enough it can break a target's armor with the Gats and make a solo kill with the Manticore faster than any ship but a galleon. As Smollett said the top right Gat is the pilot's gun while the bottom left gun is the hull engie's gun. Sadly the hull engie doesn't get to shoot it much since the ship can't afford to have him off the hull for longer than 3 seconds in combat.

[Echoez]

I was flying the Spire when I started playing this game, I still do and I know perfectly well the captain can shoot a gun, but it doesn't help when you have nobody to steer you know, when the enemy is moving horizontaly, you need to be on the helm, else all your guns will lose arcs, it's simply not possible to do in the heat of the battle, you need to stay mobile.

Unless the enemy isn't focused at you, at long range they will be packing something to keep your main gun down, or they should be if they are clever, so not being on the help won't actually help, you need to steer that ship, you can't just be stading in the middle of nowhere waiting to be disabler and not keeping under cover.

[Captain Smollett]

Clever piloting can make a maneuver 3 seconds ahead of where the enemy is headed.

If you do it just right you can spin your pilots wheel a little farther ahead of the target so that all three guns are in arc by the time you make it to your gun to finish the kill.

[Echoez]

Clever piloting can make a maneuver 3 seconds ahead of where the enemy is headed.

If you do it just right you can spin your pilots wheel a little farther ahead of the target so that all three guns are in arc by the time you make it to your gun to finish the kill.

Depending on your guns this might make aimming a bit hard for your gunners or throw off their shots, since I mostly fly Hwacha or LJ Spire, this is a crusial detail which you can't ignore, especialy for the LJ, the limited horizontal arc means it will be our of arc very soon if the enemy is making a horizontal pass, you need to guide your guns, there is simply not enough time to spend away from the helm unless the enemy is charging straight at you or you need to repair the balloon. That's my experience with the Spire when I used it against remotely experienced players.

Other than that, the Spire has so many things to worry about, it's simply not viable to a reasonable level, trifectas are rare and don't happen all that often due to the constant need to steer to avoid enemy fire and disables from hitting your guns.

[Gambrill]

Clever piloting can make a maneuver 3 seconds ahead of where the enemy is headed.

If you do it just right you can spin your pilots wheel a little farther ahead of the target so that all three guns are in arc by the time you make it to your gun to finish the kill.

with my spire i notice it still turns slightly after i lket go allowing the guns to stay in arc throughout the turn and when i get to my side gun its a pretty sure thing that damage will have been caused to the perma hull

[Cl ick to Ca p t ain]

I'd like to join into the Spire conversation since I've been brawling in a Spire since the patch. I run a Manticore with a mortar and banshee up top and go for total burst damage, first you unload with the manticore (loaded with burst or heavy clip) and the banshee (burst) then mop up with the mortar. I've even gotten a few ram kills flanking pyra's since when ramming a pyra you can easily knock it off gun arch so it can't hit you at all, where as a spire doesn't really turn when you hit something. Sure getting through a whole match without getting downed is easier said than done, but you'll get some interesting kills and if you fly well enough, and pick and choose your fights, you'll come out on top. Also you can throw 2 mine launchers on this build in CP games and really make more than a few people angry when you're smashing them with a Manticore/mortar after they just hit 3-5 mines.

Now lets switch channels to the Mobula, as I have yet to find a viable build with it, other than maybe a Minebula (4 minelaunchers and a 5th gun of choice to mop up)

[Cl ick to Ca p t ain]

Clever piloting can make a maneuver 3 seconds ahead of where the enemy is headed.

If you do it just right you can spin your pilots wheel a little farther ahead of the target so that all three guns are in arc by the time you make it to your gun to finish the kill.

with my spire i notice it still turns slightly after i lket go allowing the guns to stay in arc throughout the turn and when i get to my side gun its a pretty sure thing that damage will have been caused to the perma hull

There should be a tool that locks the helm in a turn, so you can hop off, and get on a gun and the ship continues to turn.