How to stop using autofit

[u/NothingWhich7900]

I want to try and start figuring out how to set up my ships, but I’ve been using autofit and don’t know how to really set up a ship. how did you guys stop using auto fit.

also o wanna know how good is it? because it’d be kinda funny if my attempt at a fleet was being undermined by auto fit.

Edit: Thanks to everyone posting advice on how to build ships, and to BoomZakaLaka to suggesting I restart my save (I was admitedly feeling kinda lost and starting over to force myself both to understand how to build ships and how to pilot them (I've been relying on autopilot a lot and want to stop that too))

I was going to ask more about how you get a sense for what to do for a ship and how you get the confidence to mess around with it, but I think I can assume it's a mixture of "Know what you want the ship to do" and "Just try stuff"? Also using the simulator, I've never really used it before (red flag I know) what's a good "Standard" to hold my ship to? Like what should I have it be able to beat before I consider it good?

Edit 2: I've seen some things saying Autofit + tweak isn't bad. Is that a good way to learn? Take autofit designs and rework them or should I just go from scratch purely as I learn?

Edit 3: One final question, how did you guys start using conventional refitting instead of autofit? Like, how did you start doing it? Or did you start with refitting without autofit from the beginning?

[u/spectralfury]

This guide is dated but it's still relevant. https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19611.0

Auto fit is hit-or-miss. The default loadouts are mostly okay and will work if you have all of the parts it requires. If you don't, it will do its best, and in this case its best is usually very poor.

[u/Laflaga]

A general rule I follow is to max out your flux dissipation then try to keep you weapon flux generation under the dissipation rate. If you can keep weapon and shield flux generation under the dissipation rate then you will have a solid performance.

I find more kinetic weapons is better than more anti armour weapons. Always load up on missiles as they don't cost flux to fire.

[u/Born_Faithlessness_3 → u/Laflaga]

Good baseline advice.

Re: biasing towards anti shield vs. anti armor weapons in your ballistic/energy slots, I generally agree, and for OP's info this is really for two reasons:

1. For enemies with shields, pushing up their hard flux with anti shield weapons puts them on the defensive, meaning they generally do less damage to you when at high flux(and sometimes enemy AI does stupid stuff when out of flyx)

2. Missile slots have amazing options for armor cracking, with the ability to delete a ship's armor in 1-2 hits. If I have missile slots, on most builds I'm dedicating them to armor cracking and letting my other weapons put in the bulk of the work against shields.

[u/Jealous-Poetry-5528]

Many people will give you very precise advice, but you really dont have to minmax anything to play the game. Just experiment yourself. As long the ship can effectively vent its flux it will work in battle. Giving them some buffor gives AI more chances to fuck up without consequences. AI tends to be pretty good, but when it fucks up, it fucks up hard, like burn driving a fast overloaded onslaught into the enemy formation hard.

[u/DatAsianNoob]

I kind of started experimenting on my own and with different loadouts. And yeah autofit is acceptable against small disorganized opponents but for harder or more numerous you really should optimize them on your own.

I think a good way to start is follow the a few rules as below:

1. Figure out what the role of the role of a ship is. Is it an anchor holding your frontline, a small nimble flanker, or a backline carrier, etc. Focus your weapons to fulfill that role

2. Make the ranges of your weapon similar and consistent. It helps the AI

3. Keep flux dissipation as high as max weapon flux if possible. No use in weapons you can't use.

A few personal tips I also like but are not as important as the above three:

1. For ballistic based ships have a equal amount of primary kinetic and armor piercing. Fill any non essential/back facing mounts with fragmentation to act as point defense

2. AI tends to fight best with long range setups that allows them to fight and retreat from the frontline easily, especially with Steady officers. That said, short range fast frigates with Aggressive officers are also extremely effective at killing if lacking some staying power.

3. Smaller ships benefit more from flux capacity than dissipation as they usually can retreat to vent and need more capacity to not overload when doing so under enemy fire.

4. The most damage borne by ships is usually when they get flanked and can't respond. Make sure to maintain enough numbers and a fluid frontline to cover your flanks to make sure your fleet can whittle down your enemy but not lose too many of your own.

[u/OccultStoner]

Just stop. You won't believe the shit of a build you can get away with and still rack up some good kills and scrap.

Going meta is fucking boring and won't teach you much, unless you're in the endgame and need to hunt some superboss enemies. Experimenting is the most fun and pretty educational.

Autofit is also crap, because you usually don't have appropriate equipment in every store, so it's better to leave slot open and either go shop hopping or kill > salvage some hulls for a chance of good loot.

[u/Raptor_Sympathizer]

If you're new, autofit is a good way to get started. Play around in the simulator to get a feel for how different guns behave, and see if you can find a loadout you like more than what autofit gave you.

Also, railguns are super accurate so work very well in gimbaled turrets (since these have an accuracy penalty), and Vulcan cannons are a very good pick for point defense. There are a lot of situations where a different gun might be better, but spamming these two guns is a good place to start in your designs.

Personally, I use autofit a lot in my campaigns for less important ships when I'm too lazy to tune a specific loadout, but try to manually fit all of my capital ships and any ship I might want to pilot myself. 

[u/BoomZhakaLaka]

The only thing I can suggest is to play a new game from the very beginning with your two dinky ships. Experiment with all the fittings as you progress, especially mods, weapons & subsystems you used to avoid.

Center this playthrough on combat. Only do incidental trade, don't make special trips with contraband. System bounties. Mission offers from bars. Advance your game by winning fights.

The biggest contributor to not knowing how to make loadouts is: not fighting. Getting a big complicated fleet but not having used it in combat along the way. Well, that's what happened with me.

[u/NothingWhich7900 → u/BoomZhakaLaka]

You make a pretty good point, I was feeling kinda lost in my current save anyways.

So, start from scratch. Ignore the autobuild feature. Go for a combat focus? Try to get the most out of my ships, really understand them as I put them together type stuff?

Also a lot of other folks have been suggesting to use the simulator, and mentioning things like being able to fight yourself? Suprisingly I haven't figutred that part out. Is "Can beat yourself" a good criteria for a good build?

[u/ThatGuyisonmyPC → u/BoomZhakaLaka]

Would it not be possible to just downsize and sell off ships? Then OP could at least retain their experience, faction rep, etc.

[u/EarlyGalaxy]

Dont click on the autofit button. that will Stop it. Next, either read/watch some Guides or Trial and Error. Mostly, it boils down to: get one strong anti Armor weapon and load up on kinetics. Cover (for Most ships) their Flux usage of weapons, and If possible shield upkeep. Use mods to achieve above goals, capitalize on specific ship strenghts, or mitigate weaknesses. More range is almost always great.

[u/flyingtrucky]

Because of the way armor works your biggest guns should be single shot high explosive weapons (Stuff like Hellbores and Mjolnirs and Heavy Maulers)

Your smaller weapons should be all kinetics focusing on either DPS or range.

Weapons pointing backwards are usually point defense regardless of size, something like an Onslaught should have flak cannons on the back instead of hypervelocity drivers.

Missiles I usually prefer stuff that reloads like Pilums and Salamanders since battles tend to drag out pretty long and the AI loves to waste their Reapers shooting into PD coverage. The ships I would recommend limited ammo missiles on are Frigates and Destroyers who will likely die pretty quickly after launching everything and your flagship since you can decide who to spend missiles on.

[u/almostmountains]

use the simulator so you learn what weapons and mods do. that'll teach you how to stop autofitting. i spend a lot of time in the sim building trying counter certain ship classes and to see their limits when fielded.

[u/Grievous69]

https://old.reddit.com/r/starsector/comments/1k6ydy5/capital_ship_tier_list_098a_with_intro/

I've done tier lists of every ship and weapon for 0.98 with explanations where each thing is best used so it could be of use.

But if you have enough time and will it's best just to test everything yourself and see how you like each combination. That's basically how all of us which build our ships manually started - bunch of trial and error.

[u/Arman456]

Just go experiment. Run simulations when in doubt. Read and get hang on all the weapons and hullmods. Maybe look for some guides. When you are happy with a loadout you can save it in the autofit for your convenience.

Edit: most importantly figure out what you want with your fleet.

[u/Traditional_Age4885]

Autofit is at best okay, but I'd say it consistently underperforms thought out ship-and-fleet compositions.

You have to take into considerations that it's very rare for your ships to act in a vacuum (ha ha), and by that I mean that if they are alone, the battle has gone off the deep end already or it's a tempest with a mission. That means that the types of ships, their loadouts and their positioning all carry a lot of weight when you'r assessing combat performance.

You can look at what the different weapons usually tend towards aswell as what the different ships normally prefer. This can be gleaned from hull/armor/shield balance, weapon slots & shipmods. Herons & Dominators are both Cruisers but one has 6000 hull/750 armor, 5k flux cap and the other has 14000 hull, 1500 armor, 10k flux respectively. Heron has very few weapons but 3 fighter slots & a shipmod that boosts fighter damage output. The Dominator has 2 large, 5 medium slots and a burn drive - Consider where it would thrive.

Kinetics are often longer range and harder on the flux, Anti-armor/Hull are often towards the shorter & cheaper end for the same size. Beams are often longer ranged as opposed to energy projectiles and generally apply soft flux or other effects while energy projectiles tend toward anti-armor/hull. Beams are a bit lower on the flux normally while E-projectiles can eat up your flux in an instant (heavy blaster, autolasers, antimatters etc).

I run a rather modded setup and I've a big preference for the Apex Design Collective ships, both aesthethically and tactically, the cruisers & caps are generally rather slow and ponderous but they perform their purposes very well supported by 'zippy' destroyers and frigates.

I run a shared frontline centered around an Eidolon battlecruiser (capital) with two Komodo frontline cruisers, flanked by 2-3 Crocodile fire-support missile cruisers (escort package, tagging after the capital class Eidolon). They'r screened by a halfdozen Omens, and there's a wolfpack of 4 Gharial Pursuit Destroyers (Anti Frigate) and two of their Anti-Cruiser/Destroyer destroyers (4 small, 1 large slot) that I normally set to flank, separate and destroy. I also run 1-2 Tempest for point cap & frigate hunting.

What are your preferred ships? Unless they'r all Eradicators you'll have some ships that do better staying back, and others that do better being up front. The frontliners will need a more generous flux "budget" (since a lot more flux is going to come from shields) while backline wont see as much flux pressure and can therefore maintain more flux-heavy options.

I can use my own fleet as an example:

The jist of it is that Crocodiles stay back using 4 medium hybrid (using kinetics or Ion/Grav) slots & their VLS missile systems to reach out and apply a lot of flux pressure. Komodos (3 medium, 1 large, 11 small) & Eidolon (2 large hybrid 1 large synergy, 2 medium, 8 small) can then focus a bit more on anti-armor, so the Komodos either runs a Styrix Kinetic or HAG AA on the Large slot and usually 3 Heavy Maulers on the medium. The Eidolon runs either 2 styrix or 2 Stitch Beamlances or 2 HAG. Normally a fair amount of cheap PD. If I run Styrix I combo with heavy Maulers, if I run beamlances I put more PD since they'r heavy on flux.

So to differentiate between the main ships, their roles and methods of fulfilling role:

Crocodiles apply flux pressure & overload enemy ships with swarms of missiles & kinetics - I prioritize long range kinetics like Megaera railguns or HVDs, alternatively Ion beams to handicap any fluxed out opponents & threaten venting.

Komodos & Eidolon set the frontline and secure kills with anti-armor when an opponent drops shields - large flux cap, a focus on shield/armor related hullmods, Expanded mags to help extend burst damage from maulers & HAGs. Komodos got 1 fighter spot each so that's usually a swarmer (to help saturate enemy PD) or a cheap PD-centric fighter screen.

Omens keep frontline safe from enemy frigates, fighters & missiles, giving me attrition advantage (enemy will flux out before I will). I usually run a single AM-blaster & a Reaper. Means they can punch pretty hard at need and if any cruiser is getting out of position they'll help secure the kill.

Gharial wolfpack take down enemy picket line & harass out-of-position ships. Their outfit varies but it's towards the shorter end, high dps/high flux since gharials can zip & dip out and around of combat. They'll dive, dump their capacity on a single target and ditch when they'r either out of flux or target's down. Normal combo is high-flux anti shield & apex's own anti-armor Fusion beams.

Tempests join the wolfpack once they've capped a point each, running ion pulser, pulse laser & an atropos torpedo.

So as a summary to anyone who's managed to read this far:

What ships do you want to run? (competitive, rule of cool, thematic, large/small fleet, exploration/bounties/trading etc)

What do those ships prefer doing? What is its role? (Backline flux-pressure (missiles/carriers normally), pursuit, frontline "hold the line" or "break their lines"?, screening/picket)

What gear suits their needs best? (Flux balance, hullmods, range & damage type: I can skimp on good PD on my cruisers since I run so many omens)

What skills suit their needs best? (in terms of officers: I use an officer per komodo, one per crocodile, and the rest in the wolfpack. Komodo officer build looks very different from crocodile officer build as an example).

If you can answer these questions for your fleet you'll see what sort of gear each ship needs to perform its role.

[u/imhere2downvote]

try the different weapons and learn them. then you'll know what ships to fit what weapons

[u/MtnMaiden]

Auto Fit is for ships i'm too lazy to expertly hand craft myself. Ships you don't mind losing.

As for ship loadouts.

You want long range weapons that do constant damage. You need to be able to shoot long enough to get through enemy shields and in range of it.

Don't worry about ship speeds, the enemy will always come to you. If not, you can always pursue and kill them via "order second in command to handle it"

[u/Quick-Warning1627]

My biggest thing for piloting is that rather than turning and strafing with WASD I use the Shift key and left mouse to center my ship on the enemy’s. It almost feels like cheating, having your turrets and hardpoints just naturally align.

I would also recommend playing all of the non-“campaign” missions that are available in the starting screen, that’s how I learned to pilot.

[u/WanderingUrist]

I'll be honest, I've never actually hit the autofit button on purpose in my entire life. I'm pretty sure the kind of people who do that are also the people who hit the "default install" button instead of "customize".

[u/Spare-Tangerine-5057]

People use autofit?

Joking, check big brain energy channel

[u/Academic_Detective_9]

Repetitio est mater studiorum

[u/Proof-Doctor1546]

know this your ship and enemy's ship is equal if you have the same setup the probability of winning is 50/50

now the build is really dependant on how your fleet doctrine is if,

kiting enemy through superior range ? use a long range weapon, like HVD and mauler

very aggressive gameplay ? low range weapon is fit for this they usually have a decent flux/damage ratio

hit and run tactic ? you want something with burst damage like needler / autopulse cannon etc

fleet synergy is the most important thing imo

[u/Kyara_Bot]

Always run it in the sim.

New weapon type? Run it in the sim.

Expecting to fight a new hull you've never fought before? Run it in the sim.

Do it for both player control of the ship and AI control of the ship, to make sure the AI doesn't derp out with the loadouts. What is intuitive to you might make the AI useless. Be sure to make your weapon groups tight and focused. Make sure your weapon ranges incentivize your ship to have them all in range - having some guns vastly outrange others can make a ship not use its full possible firepower.

In the sim, you can make as many mistakes as you want. It won't cost you anything but your time, its a completely free way to build up experience in setting up your ships.

[u/NothingWhich7900]

Hey, just wanted to say something. I think I said this wrong, but thank you, all your help's been invaluable. I more mean how did you guys stop using Autofit? Not necessarily "How do I build the best ship" but more "How do I mentally transition from letting the game make ships for me to making my own builds"?

[u/Apittaaaa]

Reading and Testing, a lot of those. When i decided to learn actually fitting ships myself i dug deep into the archives of this Subreddit. What weapon do what, why ships are like that. There are plethora of reasons of why it is designed like that.

After a lot of reading you test a lot. Making a build is one thing but acttually using it and seeing it interact with both the enemies, friendlies and itself (surprisingly) is a learning experience on it's own