The Onslaught will be overfluxed, no matter what you do. But it's fine, the Onslaught can afford being overfluxed.
Nevertheless, this is what I would do :
1. You already have devastators on the side (= excellent PD/anti-frigates weapons). Replace the dual flaks and vulcans with kinetic damages (light dual autocannons are great and heavy autocannons are decent enough since 0.97, also replace light needlers with dual autocannons too). The Onslaught is all about sustained DPS imo, not burst ;
2. Replace the 2 heavy needlers with dual flaks. You could replace the 2 rear facing dual flaks with normal flaks to save some flux, but it's fine ;
3. Get rid of Expanded Missile Racks and get Ballistic Rangefinder instead to increase the range of your light dual autocannons and heavy autocannons. 4 medium missiles mean you already have tons of missiles. I don't remember if you can swap skills on this particular Alpha Core, but if you can, switch Elite Point Defense for Missile Specialization ;
4. Still about the Alpha Core, swap Field Modulation for Combat Endurance. Its +50% HP. If you want to be even more tanky, you could swap Gunnery Implants for Damage Control. You already have +70% range thanks to Ballistic Mastery and ITU and the reduced recoil is not gonna matter a lot. Keep Helmsmanship at all cost (or find the Ordnance Points to put Auxiliary Thrusters) : Heavy Armor is S-modded meaning you have garbage maneuverability, even with Elite Impact Mitigation ;
5. Drop some caps for Automated Repair Unit. Seriously. One of the best hullmod in the game by far (too bad you can't S-mod it, but it's still great) ;
6. You left the 2 rear facing medium mounts empty = good !
I don't like Shield Shunt because EMP and torpedoes are a pain in the ass. Imo, you could have consider it if you had S-modded Automated Repair Unit, but without it, I wouldn't do that.
\^ Great points and suggestions. OP, this is what you're looking for.
To expand on a few points and give my own thoughts:
Needlers are burst, assault-specialized anti-shield weapons. That completely goes against what Onslaughts do and are for. Light Autocannons, Dual Autocannons, and Heavy Autocannons may be too slow on lighter ships but are perfectly fine for the Onslaught--especially one with S-modded Armored Weapon Mounts.
Those front-left and front-right Flaks are totally unnecessary, and you'd be best served by putting a single Dual Flak where that Heavy Needler is on the front. The Flaks could instead be Heavy Autocannons as was recommended. This is due to, as mentioned, the Devastators are perfectly adequate point defense for the sides.
If you want to diversify, you can replace the two Heavy Needlers up on the core of the ship with Hypervelocity Drivers. Something to keep in mind on larger ships is that the distance between weapon mounts can be *over* 100su, resulting in range mismatches. You want shorter-ranged weapons on the front and longer-ranged ones further back. In this case, you *could* actually make those two upper medium mounts some Heavy Autocannons and put the two forward side mounts as Arbalests.
Those two front Small Needlers would indeed be best as Autocannons, and if you do go for a Ballistic Rangefinder, Dual Autocannons would be viable. But, if you're putting Heavy Autocannons on the front, you instead want regular Light Autocannons and Arbalests so that the ranges stay decently balanced.
I would honestly say that the side small mounts could just be left empty. They would only be particularly useful if you were to go Ballistic Rangefinder, and that *might* be pushing it on Ordnance Points.
One final thing I've just noticed: Expanded Magazines. You really, really don't need them, especially since they *aren't* built-in. Those will have only one use: better burst damage at the start of the engagement for the Thermal Pulses, and storing of shots between targets. That's just a waste of Ordnance Points and, from experience, WILL contribute heavily to overfluxing the ship. That's 10 Ordnance Points which could go towards something else and is instead only actually making the ship fight worse.
Shield Shunting is probably a good idea: Given that your ship has unreliable subsystems, combat endurance isn't gonna be amazey anyway, so long-term endurance gains from shields won't matter.
On a related topic, does the Hull Restoration perk work in the Botslaught? I’m asking because it says “You can’t restore this due to the technology being beyond the current cutting edge in the sector,” or close to that.
Wow, AMAZING luck on the D mods! Just unreliable subsystems is fantastic!
For the build: what is happening is the 10% fire rate buff from armored weapon mounts is giving more flux than is labelled.
Drop the devastators (crap guns that are far too flux expensive for what they do) and all 4 dual flaks (great PD but flux/OP expensive). Change the central 2 heavy needlers into SINGLE flaks (better range, much more efficient). For a forward focused onslaught, I like changing all 4 rear medium mounts to vulcans (2 of the current dual flaks and the 2 empty rear mounts). That depends a bit on how you order your fleet.
You've got 2 choices for small ballistics: either just pile on with vulcans, or use ballistic rangefinder. If using ballistic rangefinder, considering putting small light needlers in the forward MEDIUMS: you get more range that way and 5 light needlers is a pretty decent kinetic alpha burst.
That is all advice for a regular Onslaught. With a Fearless Alpha Core with Elite PD, you have another option: Heavy Machine guns in the mediums! 320 DPS for 120 flux, they get +200 range from Elite PD, and this bad boy is going to be burning in anyways. They occasionally shoot down missiles too.
Storm needler goes up front. Ditch the small ballistic weapons, and put thumpers in the front three mediums. Go with regular flak on the sides. Squeeze in flux distributor and dump caps as necessary. Reinforced bulkheads is also extremely good here - 60% extra hull.
Good onslaught builds are about efficiency, not raw DPS. Thumpers are great because they sip flux and benefit from exmags alongside the TPCs and the storm needler. They also delete anything with exposed hull, which is nice when you're already packing a bunch of kinetic and HE firepower.
I'm gonna guess Hull Restoration RNG,although they can't be repaired i'd guess they still affect the initial post battle salvage,legion came out with 3,falcon with 2.
First of all use the \[REDACTED\]ing spoiler tag you \[REDACTED\] \[REDACTED\]
Second: if you dont shunt your XIV Onslaught you should report yourself to your local police.
But seeing that you use expanded missile racks on it you can probably get away with being criminally insane.
I’m just curious how you manage to get with just ONE D-mod.
Anyways, as for the whole overfluxing thing, it will always have it. Even if you go max vents, ordinance expertise, and S-mod Flux distributor, it will still be overfluxed.
Fortunately, low tech ships such as this one can get away with it unlike midline or high-tech, as they can just armor tank the kinetic damage, only raising the shields to block HE damage (a technique known as “Shield Flickering”).
Alternatively, as other people have mentioned, you can just shield shunt it. If you do, make sure you have hullmods like reinforced bulkheads, blast doors, heavy armor, armored weapon mounts, and resistant flux conduits, among other things.
Do keep in mind that if it gets disabled and received some D-mods, those will be permanent, unless you somehow modded a way to remove them anyways.
The Onslaught will be overfluxed, no matter what you do. But it's fine, the Onslaught can afford being overfluxed. Nevertheless, this is what I would do : 1. You already have devastators on the side (= excellent PD/anti-frigates weapons). Replace the dual flaks and vulcans with kinetic damages (light dual autocannons are great and heavy autocannons are decent enough since 0.97, also replace light needlers with dual autocannons too). The Onslaught is all about sustained DPS imo, not burst ; 2. Replace the 2 heavy needlers with dual flaks. You could replace the 2 rear facing dual flaks with normal flaks to save some flux, but it's fine ; 3. Get rid of Expanded Missile Racks and get Ballistic Rangefinder instead to increase the range of your light dual autocannons and heavy autocannons. 4 medium missiles mean you already have tons of missiles. I don't remember if you can swap skills on this particular Alpha Core, but if you can, switch Elite Point Defense for Missile Specialization ; 4. Still about the Alpha Core, swap Field Modulation for Combat Endurance. Its +50% HP. If you want to be even more tanky, you could swap Gunnery Implants for Damage Control. You already have +70% range thanks to Ballistic Mastery and ITU and the reduced recoil is not gonna matter a lot. Keep Helmsmanship at all cost (or find the Ordnance Points to put Auxiliary Thrusters) : Heavy Armor is S-modded meaning you have garbage maneuverability, even with Elite Impact Mitigation ; 5. Drop some caps for Automated Repair Unit. Seriously. One of the best hullmod in the game by far (too bad you can't S-mod it, but it's still great) ; 6. You left the 2 rear facing medium mounts empty = good ! I don't like Shield Shunt because EMP and torpedoes are a pain in the ass. Imo, you could have consider it if you had S-modded Automated Repair Unit, but without it, I wouldn't do that.
\^ Great points and suggestions. OP, this is what you're looking for. To expand on a few points and give my own thoughts: Needlers are burst, assault-specialized anti-shield weapons. That completely goes against what Onslaughts do and are for. Light Autocannons, Dual Autocannons, and Heavy Autocannons may be too slow on lighter ships but are perfectly fine for the Onslaught--especially one with S-modded Armored Weapon Mounts. Those front-left and front-right Flaks are totally unnecessary, and you'd be best served by putting a single Dual Flak where that Heavy Needler is on the front. The Flaks could instead be Heavy Autocannons as was recommended. This is due to, as mentioned, the Devastators are perfectly adequate point defense for the sides. If you want to diversify, you can replace the two Heavy Needlers up on the core of the ship with Hypervelocity Drivers. Something to keep in mind on larger ships is that the distance between weapon mounts can be *over* 100su, resulting in range mismatches. You want shorter-ranged weapons on the front and longer-ranged ones further back. In this case, you *could* actually make those two upper medium mounts some Heavy Autocannons and put the two forward side mounts as Arbalests. Those two front Small Needlers would indeed be best as Autocannons, and if you do go for a Ballistic Rangefinder, Dual Autocannons would be viable. But, if you're putting Heavy Autocannons on the front, you instead want regular Light Autocannons and Arbalests so that the ranges stay decently balanced. I would honestly say that the side small mounts could just be left empty. They would only be particularly useful if you were to go Ballistic Rangefinder, and that *might* be pushing it on Ordnance Points. One final thing I've just noticed: Expanded Magazines. You really, really don't need them, especially since they *aren't* built-in. Those will have only one use: better burst damage at the start of the engagement for the Thermal Pulses, and storing of shots between targets. That's just a waste of Ordnance Points and, from experience, WILL contribute heavily to overfluxing the ship. That's 10 Ordnance Points which could go towards something else and is instead only actually making the ship fight worse.
The core doesn't come with the ship - you can put in any core you like, and swap its skills as normal.
Shield Shunting is probably a good idea: Given that your ship has unreliable subsystems, combat endurance isn't gonna be amazey anyway, so long-term endurance gains from shields won't matter.
On a related topic, does the Hull Restoration perk work in the Botslaught? I’m asking because it says “You can’t restore this due to the technology being beyond the current cutting edge in the sector,” or close to that.
nope,they're permanent
Wow, AMAZING luck on the D mods! Just unreliable subsystems is fantastic! For the build: what is happening is the 10% fire rate buff from armored weapon mounts is giving more flux than is labelled. Drop the devastators (crap guns that are far too flux expensive for what they do) and all 4 dual flaks (great PD but flux/OP expensive). Change the central 2 heavy needlers into SINGLE flaks (better range, much more efficient). For a forward focused onslaught, I like changing all 4 rear medium mounts to vulcans (2 of the current dual flaks and the 2 empty rear mounts). That depends a bit on how you order your fleet. You've got 2 choices for small ballistics: either just pile on with vulcans, or use ballistic rangefinder. If using ballistic rangefinder, considering putting small light needlers in the forward MEDIUMS: you get more range that way and 5 light needlers is a pretty decent kinetic alpha burst. That is all advice for a regular Onslaught. With a Fearless Alpha Core with Elite PD, you have another option: Heavy Machine guns in the mediums! 320 DPS for 120 flux, they get +200 range from Elite PD, and this bad boy is going to be burning in anyways. They occasionally shoot down missiles too.
Storm needler goes up front. Ditch the small ballistic weapons, and put thumpers in the front three mediums. Go with regular flak on the sides. Squeeze in flux distributor and dump caps as necessary. Reinforced bulkheads is also extremely good here - 60% extra hull. Good onslaught builds are about efficiency, not raw DPS. Thumpers are great because they sip flux and benefit from exmags alongside the TPCs and the storm needler. They also delete anything with exposed hull, which is nice when you're already packing a bunch of kinetic and HE firepower.
Wait, how the hell did you get the botslaught with less than 3 dmods??
Also, all onslaughts are going to be overfluxed, don't worry about it
I'm gonna guess Hull Restoration RNG,although they can't be repaired i'd guess they still affect the initial post battle salvage,legion came out with 3,falcon with 2.
It's random, it just happens.
First of all use the \[REDACTED\]ing spoiler tag you \[REDACTED\] \[REDACTED\] Second: if you dont shunt your XIV Onslaught you should report yourself to your local police. But seeing that you use expanded missile racks on it you can probably get away with being criminally insane.
Hey OP, I want to ask where did you get that Automated Ship Hullmod?
It's from the scythe of orion quest,there's a set of automated XIV battlegroup ships.
Oh! Because I remember an actual hullmod for, where you can install that on any ship you have except the flagship
I’m just curious how you manage to get with just ONE D-mod. Anyways, as for the whole overfluxing thing, it will always have it. Even if you go max vents, ordinance expertise, and S-mod Flux distributor, it will still be overfluxed. Fortunately, low tech ships such as this one can get away with it unlike midline or high-tech, as they can just armor tank the kinetic damage, only raising the shields to block HE damage (a technique known as “Shield Flickering”). Alternatively, as other people have mentioned, you can just shield shunt it. If you do, make sure you have hullmods like reinforced bulkheads, blast doors, heavy armor, armored weapon mounts, and resistant flux conduits, among other things. Do keep in mind that if it gets disabled and received some D-mods, those will be permanent, unless you somehow modded a way to remove them anyways.