Actually threatening/dangerous enemies?

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Transcendi
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What enemies do you find can actually make you feel as if you're in danger?
For me the vast majority are just "Meh, I blast it" as their damage outputs are generally quite low compared to yours, but there are a few that can make me sweat:
1. Wind Slavers. My god these things were nasty back in the day, the only time in the game where you'll be attacked by several fast ships with unnerfed weapons as good (or almost) as yours!
2. Dwarg masters and their swarms. An exceptionally long range guided EMP weapon on a fast ship that keeps it's distance and has a swarm with it with a theoretical net damage output greater than an entire Commonwealth Military fleet? Scary.
3. Phobos. Needs no explanation. Wouldn't actually be that hard if I remembered my domina powers and gems when I need them.
4. The Gladiators. I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew in the arena. Unlike normal their weapons have player firerates and there is no room to run.
5. Barbary gunships and their groupies. While I haven't actually died to one in a long time (I presume they used to be a third level encounter but aren't any more) getting EMPed causes panic as unless you can drive off the attacking Barbaries in the tiny window between EMPs you're in dire straits. Encountering them while fleeing a Sung shieldsDown can also be unpleasant.
6. Xenophobe Worldships/Arks. Long range, tough hulls and extraordinarily high damage output. Unlike most enemies you actually need to take these out or they'll wipe the system. Their escorts can make radar dodging more difficult.
7. Deimos. A mini phobos. A pair can cause trouble.
8. Ventauri Destroyer. The bane of adventurers: Equipment damage! If they weren't so slow they'd be quite scary. Very resilient when first encountered with pretty a good damage output. Originally weapon damage was permanent, but when it was made temporary a bug meant that loading a save would reset the damage timer so your weapon is essentially permanently unusable (not sure if this was ever fixed). I've been scared of them ever since.
9. Ranx Dreadnought. The issue with these is that if you're unlucky it's possible to take the full 264 points of thermo damage in a single hit! If you've skimped on armour that can one shot you.

That's more or less it as far as feeling threatened goes.
What do you find threatening?

ETA: So it seems Wind Slavers have been very heavily nerfed from my first encounters with them (which is why I was surviving them more recently, not because of any skill increase on my part) and don't really belong on the list any more. For reference, they used to have four armor facings and a faster fire rate.
Last edited by Transcendi on Sun Mar 23, 2014 10:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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 If you run into one two or three systems in before you’ve had a chance to upgrade significantly, Charon frigates definitely count. I’ve had an extreme prejudice against the things ever since that happened to me in an EI500 on my second or third run. Sung’s Wind Slavers never bothered me half as much as their Earth Slavers, though. I need my shields, they keep my armor from getting shot full of holes, thankyouverymuch.
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In corporate command, the infested Charon stations count. Infinite vikings means you can be up against over 50-100 gunships + a bunch of ships spawning more of them all the time. Since the viking chimera uses an ion weapon and is faster than several playerships......they're practically unkillable at times.
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AssumedPseudonym wrote: If you run into one two or three systems in before you’ve had a chance to upgrade significantly, Charon frigates definitely count. I’ve had an extreme prejudice against the things ever since that happened to me in an EI500 on my second or third run. Sung’s Wind Slavers never bothered me half as much as their Earth Slavers, though. I need my shields, they keep my armor from getting shot full of holes, thankyouverymuch.
Try taking on Wind Slavers without omniturbolasers. :P
Omniparticle (7 shots) and omnilaser (13 shots) take quite a few seconds to take one down and I've always found hitting the damn buggers with fixed weapons to be a nightmare.
With level five equipment (not guaranteed), a wolfen and spawning four wing slavers: I can kill them but they'll bring my armour down to 30 sometimes and will bring down my shield most of the time.
Earth Slavers never bothered me because you can do some damage to them (their shields don't amount to much), run away and wait for your shields to recover, then attack again (you also encounter them approximately two tech levels later than wind slavers). Though you'll only need to do that rather than just out damaging them if you're attacking a base and they reinforce, so you're dealing with two at once.
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Transcendi wrote:Try taking on Wind Slavers without omniturbolasers.
 Nephren P25. Dual flenser. Cannon accelerator. Weapon optimizer. Sit still, ignore their Shuriken, hold the spacebar, let them fly in front of you. Most of the time, they won’t survive the first shot they run into. ^.~
 …Okay, yeah, that’s not always going to be feasible since dual flensers can be hard to come by, but even a dual turbolaser with a laser collimator will put them in a world of hurt in pretty short order. It’s been a rare run that I’ve ever considered them to even be relevant, let alone menacing.
 I’ll definitely back you up on the Dwarg, though. Absolute least favorite midgame faction to deal with. …Kacking cnidocyst cannons…
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Huari are overpowered when the player first meets them. Fortunately, they only attack when you fire weapons or stray too close to a fortress.

Anything with Ares positron cannons that appear in numbers (sentries and/or Chasms). With more damage than before and shield buster, those cannons beat down shields very quickly. You cannot be careless around them anymore.
4. The Gladiators. I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew in the arena. Unlike normal their weapons have player firerates and there is no room to run.
Also, the XM900 nukes may be gone, but the ZG24 MAGs (from Manticores) can still one-shot a player if all the fragments hit.
Sung’s Wind Slavers never bothered me half as much as their Earth Slavers, though.
Unless tables changed, Earth Slavers only appear at Sung citadels or during missions for the Huari, and they are slow. If your armor cannot withstand damage (solar armor cannot), stay away from citadels and they should not bother you.

Wind Slavers are very dangerous for the unprepared, at least when they had four armor segments. Now, Wind Slavers have only one armor segment.
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PM wrote: Anything with Ares positron cannons that appear in numbers (sentries and/or Chasms). With more damage than before and shield buster, those cannons beat down shields very quickly. You cannot be careless around them anymore.
Totally agreed; that is one wicked cannon now that it's been beefed. Even with a Nephren X1 shield along with Octocarbide armor, those cannons had that shield down and was pecking the armor apart in a matter of seconds! And those are the only two "best" items being somewhat resistant to positron. And there's currently no in-game counter-measures (armor enhancements) for positron at all.

And lest we forget, don't bother smacking at a Ferian hive...unless you really want excitement! :P
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Ferians are very dangerous, but they only attack if the player attacks them repeatedly first. If the player picks on them then gets blown away, it is his own fault. That said, Ferians are a great source of loot.
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 Having seen what righteously ticked off Ferians can do, my usual trick if I ever want to farm a bit of loot off of them is to sit just out of range of a Penitent station and let its shockwave take out any Ferians who stray too close. I can usually sneak in and loot any wrecks before my shields are completely toasted and get back out of range to let them recharge. Ferians are also great for luring Xenophobe Worldships over to, both to loot Ferian wrecks and to soften up the Xenophobes. I’ve even managed to score a few functional Ferian plasma cannons this way.
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The Xenophobe Worldship can survive a full Ferian Nest? Considering it's slow speed and maneuverability, I'd think it would be burned to death before it can flee, especially when the only thing they have for defense is their armor's resistance, which is not applicable to Plasma.
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 No, Ferians will take the Worldship down eventually, but not before it leaves a trail of wrecks behind it. And if shooting down a Worldship is a bit out of your ships capabilities, it’s a good way of getting rid of them before they can wipe out most of the system. Either way, good looting all around.
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Ah, Wind Slavers used to have four segments? That explains why I don't find them as difficult any more (I'd assumed I'd just gotten better :lol: ). Still threatening, just not "OMG, I'm gonna die!" any more.

Maybe I should also add "accidentally ticked off Ferians" (a Sung Citadel near a Ferian nest...) to the list and I'll probably find the new positron canon quite a pain.
sun1404 wrote:The Xenophobe Worldship can survive a full Ferian Nest? Considering it's slow speed and maneuverability, I'd think it would be burned to death before it can flee, especially when the only thing they have for defense is their armor's resistance, which is not applicable to Plasma.
Worldship Armour plate has 250hp and +100 resistance to plasma and the worldship has 16 facings. I spawned 6 warriors and 60 miners right on top of one and it still took them all down with 62% damage.
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I have always thought Worldship Plates don't resist Plasma... Maybe they're worth using after all. Especially with Manticore.
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The pirate Wolfen that always spawns without fail when you're barely out of Eridani and you have basically zero defence against missiles.
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