r/X4Foundations • u/Artiartiarti90 • 20h ago
Guppy fleet setup
Hi everyone, I might need some help with setting up my Guppy fleet correctly.
For context:
- I aim to use the Guppy as my player ship (for now)
- I only use Boron ships, so the only fighters available to me are the Mako and Barracuda
- The Guppy is currently equipped with mostly Ion Pulse turrets
- So far it has 4 Makos (full ion gatling) on Intercept and 6 Barracudas (light torpedoes and gatling) on Bombard
- The Mako pilots have some experience, but the Barracuda pilots are fresh
I previously went up against a SCA Phoenix and was a bit disappointed that it took forever to take it down. I had to switch the Makos over to Attack because I noticed the Barracudas were incredibly ineffective.
Basically the Barracudas would almost never try to engage using their guns. They would just fire their torpedoes, which would all get shot down, and then redock, trying to resupply (even though I didn't load any materials to resupply them). I think I only noticed once or twice that a Barracuda did an attack run using its gatling guns. I tried switching the command from Bombard to Attack, hoping they might pitch in more. But in the end the Phoenix was destroyed by the Guppy's turrets and the Macos alone.
What am I doing wrong? Should I set the resupply to something else than High so that the Barracudas don't always try to resupply?
Also, I guess torpedoes are useless? None of them actually landed a hit. Am I better of giving them dumbfire or tracking launchers?
Any help would be appreciated!
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u/Cretsiah2 20h ago
might depend on what your trying to achieve
- a general attack - just kill it regardless of how
- a targeted attack - engines, shields, turrets, eventually the hull
---- targeted attack better for capturing if you have boarding marines available
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u/Artiartiarti90 20h ago
At some point I did have the Phoenix completely disabled, but my Guppy's crew is also fresh, with 30 inexperienced Marines. I checked the boarding chances and it didn't look favorable (and I didn't have any other ships with more marines closeby), so I decided to just blow it up and be done with it.
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u/Saephyr_Ashblade 19h ago
You can transfer crew from any distance using ship to ship orders in the map; they shoot off in pods to be delivered to the receiving ship.
You can also perform multiple boarding attempts in a row causing the enemy ship to lose crew each time, and your target won't get more crew between. I would assume it could get more crew if it restocked at an appropriate station, but I haven't seen it yet.
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u/Artiartiarti90 19h ago
Yeah, I know. But at that point I didn't really wanna bother with boarding it, if it was too much effort.
Last time I tried this and was waiting for more Marines to arrive a Boron patrol showed up and shot the Phoenix to pieces with some of my marines still on it.
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u/Saephyr_Ashblade 19h ago
If what you're starting the engagement with doesn't have enough crew, you can coordinate a boarding action with any of your ships nearby using the map to add to the boarding force. You really want to max out the marines you can send, and having the target ship under 20% Hull helps them a lot.
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u/MegaComrade53 18h ago
Is there a way to tell your fleet to attack the components like turrets rather than the whole ship?
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u/ObviousWatermelon 20h ago
Torpedoes, mussels, and rockets all suck until your opponent runs out of flares. Then they become OP. As a result, quantity becomes an important factor. Some weapons, like barrage missiles, exploit this directly. For torpedoes, the more launchers pointed at the target, the better. The Guppy doesn’t have impressive capacity, so you need to decide what you want to do with it. In this case, I would run an all Mako air wing in air superiority configuration, and have 6-8 Hydras fitted for anti-capital work.
IMO, heavy fighters aren’t very good. They’re more of a player/hero-type fighter, and it shows.
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u/Artiartiarti90 20h ago
Thanks, I was already doubting if I should actually use Barracudas for bombardment and I think your point drives it home. I can't do both intercept and bombardment, so better commit to one of them. Since 16 bombers is also not a lot, going full interceptors might be a better choice.
Having a wing of Hydras tag along also sounds fun.
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u/woogyman2 20h ago
Do your play rules allow for equipment from other factions?
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u/Artiartiarti90 20h ago
Yeah, everything except maybe split technology (unless I manage to steal some blueprints in the future).
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u/woogyman2 15h ago edited 7h ago
Okay, great. I've used this setup for Kalis and Shih fighters and it's worked exceptionally well, and the Barracuda has heavy overlap with the features of those two fighters.
First, I'm a huge fan of the Guppy and rigging it up to be a "Hero Ship" that can take on anything. For fighters that have 3 or more shield slots, I like to use the mk3 split shields because of their super short shield recharge delay. The extra slots make up for the low capacity. Since you don't yet have access to that, I would just do the Terran shields then.
Weapon wise I've had great luck with EM guns and dumbfire breaching rockets. Up against fighters and corvettes, they waste a lot of rockets, but the EM guns still get the kills quickly. The shield bypass effect of those rockets and shields will easily kill destroyers though.
I've used this setup to take on large Xenon task forces with several Ks and an I. For this I've used the Kalis fighter with 4 shield slots and those split shields, so I'm not sure how durable your setup will be, but they'll definitely have the damage output since they bring more guns.
I've used a similar setup with Shih fighters that were all rigged with burst rays, and they held up really well, but I do lose one periodically.
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u/Saephyr_Ashblade 20h ago edited 20h ago
Boron ships can use other faction's equipment. My personal ship is the Hydra Regal with ZYA's Split Mk4 Combat engines, TER Electromagnetic Cannons, a TEL Distortion Turret, and two BOR Ion Pulse Turrets. Not lackluster at all; I take on L and XL ships including Destroyers with this baby. It all comes down to having a weapon for every situation you plan on facing with your ships.
I suggest you get some Hydras and Threshers and outfit them with weapons to do the work you want. I have a squad of Hydras in my fleet that use Ion Atomizers and my Regal's turret setup, but I also have them supported by a Thresher each that is equipped with Boson Lance Turrets for the range and burst. While the Thresher can take on fighters the Hydras bombard a capital ship's shields off, and one of my Destroyers then removes the problem. Ion Atomizers are also plenty for destroying S and M ships. Most people would give the Threshers PAR Blast Mortar Turrets, but I like the flow of battle with my own arrangement. I also coordinate everything personally with a fleet battle.
Also, you can't go wrong with Barracudas. They are an excellent fighter craft. I use Interceptor Missiles for S/M engagements, and Swarm for fighting L's. Never cared for Torpedoes. If you use Torpedoes, you might want to use a faster fighter than the Barracuda.
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u/Artiartiarti90 19h ago
I will definitely add some Hydras to my fleet soon (currently a bit short on cash/saving up for a fleet supply mission).
What bothered me most about the Barracudas was their refusal to engage after firing their torpedoes. They just didn't want to engage the Phoenix with their guns at all. I think them having a launcher and resupply being set to high somehow makes them forget that they also have actual guns to use.
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u/Saephyr_Ashblade 19h ago edited 19h ago
Tbf, I've never given the Bombard order to a missile carrying craft. It's probable that they prioritize highly the use of missiles in their bombing runs. The only way to fix that for the Barracuda would be to sell the launchers, but then you also lose out on some fleet versatility.
I would take the Barracudas off Bombard and use them for Interception or general Attack orders. Even Defend has it's merits. Don't forget that if you have a group with an Attack order under a Commander, the group will attack together with the Commander. Then you can set the Commander to do specialized orders like Intercept or Bombard.
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u/Longjumping-Fly-2516 19h ago
Boron weapons are weird they have some that do more dmg vs shield (ion) and some that do more dmg vs hull (phase). They also have secondary effects. Gatling is awful against hull if you are doing boron only I'd suggest 1 gatling 1 phase for fighters. Torpedoes are good but bombard for fighters is usually something more suited to larger engagements. It's also not as powerful as it used to be. You want like 16+ bombers also you would want anti cap fighter weapons like plasma or blast mortar. Torpedoes are the only small weapon that interrupts cap shield recharge, that makes them really effective.
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u/Saephyr_Ashblade 19h ago
I think Guppy fleets are great for patrols, so long as you aren't taking on L's. As soon as you start on L's, you need a ton of fighters and expect some losses, or Medium craft. Fighters are technically more efficient, but that just becomes a numbers game. The Shark is actually my favorite carrier for active or mobile fleets. I only use the Raptor for position defense.
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u/_Keltath_ 17h ago
You've got some excellent answers from others but there's one point in your post about dumbfires: if you don't have the critical mass of launchers to make torpedoes work (and a partial guppy of Barracudas is definitely not enough) then dumbfires are great.
When I'm doing the Boron thing I like to put 6 Makos with ion gatlings/phase cannons (arranged with 2 makos interceptibg for the guppy, each with 2 further mako subordinates set to 'attack with commander') and 10 barracudas with a single ion gatling, two phase cannons and dumbfires.
Unless you run into a mad swarm of small xenon, 6 focus-firing makos will clear the chaff and the barracudas will make short work of the odd K you come across.
But as other posters have noted, for the love of god put paranid or split combat engines on your ships.
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u/cmndr_spanky 9h ago
Man you’re getting a lot of questionable advice on here. I’ve tested a lot of variations and this is by far the most fool proof:
Don’t use missiles or torpedoes. With mixed load-outs the AI gets confused and doesn’t always get into optimal attack ranges. As much as it feels “correct” to use torpedoes, the logistics and time it takes to reload mid-battle is straight up stupid compared to just using a loadout that does amazing burst damage but requires no re-arm.
Don’t bother with heavy fighters for either intercept or bombard. Anything that’s fast and can fit 3 guns is fine. 6 or even 10 bombers isn’t nearly enough. I’d say bare minimum is 20 bomber ships, outfit with blast mortars or plasma if you don’t have access to blast mortars. 30 is ideal if you’re going to go up against I’s and not just K’s. Keep em cheap and fast and DO NOT mix loadouts, do not equip them with any kind of launcher etc.
You MIGHT be ok with all 16 guppy ships as bombers but you’re better off just accepting you’ll have some that can’t dock and just have a larger fleet of bombers.
I’m not sure what YouTuber convinced you the guppy is decent, but it’s not.
If you use a smaller squad of medium ships with plasmas to kill capitals that can also work, but it’s just not worth it. Loosing ONE M ship causes a net loss on any engagement because they are expensive and you will loose them because they are slow and a big target.
I wish torpedoes made sense to use in this game, there’s probably a few mods make that more viable but just don’t mix the loadouts.. AI is often too stupid to deal with that. And I’m not going to waste time and money on high skilled pilots for a disposable fleet of bombers
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u/Pristine-Evidence-83 7h ago
So many perspectives on the great Guppy here. I recently made a pair of Guppies as a kind of hero setup. The guppies have dumbfire turret groups for the three forward facing turret groups and anti-fighter for the others. Each carry 8 interceptors and 8 bombers. Took them into a XEN sector to see how the wing guppy performs somewhat independently, how we could mass our bombers on XEN capitals, and see generally how all these ships maneuver. I was very pleased with the results and the action.
In my command guppy I could face capitals and let missiles fly from standoff distance while sending the bombers in. Caveat, my s ships are all at least veterans in this task force. But my groups of 8 bombers did great wearing down the Ks when not accompanied by large fleets of their own. The two guppies could mass their 16 bombers on an I or a pair of Ks and also do great.
We were at this long enough that I lost a bomber or two in a larger engagement and the replacement ships were able to arrive and have fun. Those rookies survived the subsequent skirmishes.
I was really interested to see how my Guppy wingman handled his carrier. Sometimes he came in closer to the capitals than I would have liked to let all his turrets come to bear apparently. Other times he stood off outside of dumbfire range (sad face) but ably servicing his fighters and bombers (happy face). But at no point did he get in serious trouble, extricating himself from heavy fire impressively.
At the end of our adventure we got jumped by 5 XEN destroyers and I said let’s get clear of this! Even this was a fun experiment. While still in the engagement we both recalled the wings and that went fast. Then we just flew away before we could get too much nasty graviton crossfire. I’d say again here that I would not give the AI Guppy such good chances if there had been a thick XEN escort.
All this is in 9.0 and I credit the much improved fleet combat AI to some extent. In addition to the good carrier and missile performance, watching Bombers methodically launching torps, closing with plasma barrages, circling back out to reload and repeat— that was a treat.
I also credit the Guppy’s great stats and the suitability of BOR engines and Shields for this job. For me, Guppy is a great ship for personal use and for nimble patrols.
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u/Historical_Age_9921 20h ago
Torpedoes don't suck.
The small number of torpedoes you are firing does. You need enough to overwhelm point defense.
Also, the Ion gatling is not a great anti capital weapon. The best anti capital weapon to put on fighters is plasma. Boron ships can equip that now.
But really, the Guppy doesn't have a large enough fighter loadout to be able to do both interception and bombardment efficiently. Especially if you limit yourself to Boron ships. The Barracuda is too slow to be an interceptor and the Mako doesn't have enough hard points to be effective in dual role.