Manticore help

[Latheos]

I've tried a number of the ships for a bit now, but keep coming back to the Manticore as my preferred ship (which, on browsing the forums, seems to make me something of a minority) . I have some questions for which I'm having trouble finding the answers, though.

• Is there any reason to use the shield enhancement items (ROMs, quantum cubes, whatever) with the armor repairer? While using one does show the % increase, I can't tell if it's actually making any difference
• Should I keep to the Novaya armor (is there a heavy version?), or should I be looking for another armor type despite not being "optimized for use with repairer"?

I had others, but can't recall them at the moment. I should mention that I'm still somewhat new to the game, and haven't made it too far past St. Kat's yet (in my most recent playthrough, I had to stop because I couldn't find any weapons after St. Kat's that were effective on the enemies (the RNGods hate me sometimes). I'm enjoying myself, but some answers are a bit thin on the ground.

[Xephyr]

Enhancements on the Novaya repairer don't do anything (and maybe its a bug that the enhancement shows up). Rather, shield enhancements are useful for bringing shields up 20% to achieve their regular stats, counteracting the -20% penalty on shields. This continues on in the lategame with longzhus - I don't think its too unfair to give up the repairer for shields.

There are three variants of Novaya armour, but they're pretty spread out in terms of levels. I use different armors myself, since the repairer works just fine on non-Novaya armour.

[JohnBWatson]

Is there any reason to use the shield enhancement items (ROMs, quantum cubes, whatever) with the armor repairer? While using one does show the % increase, I can't tell if it's actually making any difference

Nope, that's a glitch. I believe it's going to be fixed in the next stable release, but don't quote me on that.

Should I keep to the Novaya armor (is there a heavy version?), or should I be looking for another armor type despite not being "optimized for use with repairer"?

Very playstyle dependent in the late game. You don't have a shield to serve as a buffer, so I would suggest tolerating the lower repair rate for the sake of having an armor whose ability to take an APA hit you can be confident in. If you really like quickly entering and exiting combat, and want to be able to get your armor back to fighting condition as soon as possible whenever you have to retreat, you might prefer sticking with Novaya.

That said, for midgame, which is where you seem to be having trouble, you should probably focus on getting an armor with good resistances, and disregard everything else. Equipping the highest level armor you can find is typically a good enough schema.

I had others, but can't recall them at the moment. I should mention that I'm still somewhat new to the game, and haven't made it too far past St. Kat's yet (in my most recent playthrough, I had to stop because I couldn't find any weapons after St. Kat's that were effective on the enemies (the RNGods hate me sometimes). I'm enjoying myself, but some answers are a bit thin on the ground.

The Mk III and Mk V howitzers are great against everything, the omnidirectional turbolaser can handle most gunships well into midgame if enhanced, and, if you like Korolov missions, you can almost always build up a stockpile of Stiletto missiles that maintain their 'good enough' status up until quite a few systems past the point where you'll get tired of using them, and can be sold off for enough money to get you started with a better set of missiles if you decide to get rid of them earlier than that.

[Latheos]

Nope, that's a glitch. I believe it's going to be fixed in the next stable release, but don't quote me on that.

I figured that was the case, but wasn't sure.

Very playstyle dependent in the late game. You don't have a shield to serve as a buffer, so I would suggest tolerating the lower repair rate for the sake of having an armor whose ability to take an APA hit you can be confident in. If you really like quickly entering and exiting combat, and want to be able to get your armor back to fighting condition as soon as possible whenever you have to retreat, you might prefer sticking with Novaya.

That said, for midgame, which is where you seem to be having trouble, you should probably focus on getting an armor with good resistances, and disregard everything else. Equipping the highest level armor you can find is typically a good enough schema.

Reasonable advice, and pretty much what I've been doing so far.

The Mk III and Mk V howitzers are great against everything, the omnidirectional turbolaser can handle most gunships well into midgame if enhanced, and, if you like Korolov missions, you can almost always build up a stockpile of Stiletto missiles that maintain their 'good enough' status up until quite a few systems past the point where you'll get tired of using them, and can be sold off for enough money to get you started with a better set of missiles if you decide to get rid of them earlier than that.

I still have some trouble getting used to the recoil of the howitzers, though the mouse control that's in version 1.7x should ameliorate that somewhat. I've been selling off missiles, for the most part, though I can see how the Stilettos could be worth hanging onto for running while still damaging opponents.

Thanks for the help!

[AssumedPseudonym]

 If howitzer recoil is giving you trouble, I’d suggest looking for a tritium cannon instead. It may not pack quite the same punch, but it doesn’t matter if you can one-shot something if you can’t hit it to begin with. Recoil wreaks havoc on my aim, so I can sympathize. Even George had the same issue in his playthrough a ways back.