- Edited
The Meta
Current multiplayer META below.
As long as competitive Cosmoteer has existed the meta has always been changing; new updates are released and new strategies are discovered. The meta has a few core trends though, and these heavily affect how ships are designed.
These trends are:
- Speed
- Durability
- Range
A meta ship will ideally use all of these trends, being fast, durable, and outranging other ships. Most of the time though that is not possible and you will have to pick two of them. A ship using only one will be easily countered, for example, a ship that uses only speed like a fragile but fast wall type will be destroyed by one that uses durability and range such as a railfan.
Note: If you have not read my main guide, please do so first. I mention topics and ship types here that you may not know about if you have not read it. You can find it here.
Speed
Speed allows ships to fight on their own terms, to engage and disengage when they want. Speed also allows for ramming, kiting, pivoting, avoiding, bombing, and orbiting, all strategies to use the speed of a ship to the player’s advantage. Meta ships use one or a number of these strategies to make use of their shape, weapon choice, and speed.
There is no practical ship type that does not benefit from being faster, this can sometimes make for an “arms race” between ship types. For example, a railfan benefits from being faster because it can kite ion and missile barges that try to get in range, whereas ion and missile barges benefit from being faster because they can catch railfans.
There are different levels of “Fast.” Orbiters are currently the fastest competitive ship types, they usually combine speed with either durability or both durability and range, meaning that they are currently the top of the meta. The speed of orbiters comes at a cost though, they only have one direction of travel, so they are hard to pilot effectively. Railfans and missile barges are usually the slowest ship types right now, although there are variants of both that trade some durability or firepower for speed. Railfans and missile barges are slow due to the large amounts of armor they use to protect themselves.
A ship that is fast needs to either have enough range to outrange other ship types or enough durability to take on other ship types in close range. So, that means either using max length railguns or lots of armor. Keep in mind that a ship using max length railguns will need to be able to take hits from other max length rails, so it will need at least that much durability.
Durability
I have already talked about damage control, also known as durability, in my main guide however I will go more into how it is used here.
All ships need some amount of durability. Durability almost always comes in the form of armor since it is much more cost-effective than shielding at absorbing damage. While you could theoretically get more cost-efficiency out of shields by regenning them after getting hit it does not work unless your ship is extremely fast, and even then is weak to railguns.
Weapons in Cosmoteer are much more effective at dealing damage than defenses are at tanking damage. So, a ship using only shielding will find itself weak to the burst damage of railguns that can pierce and destroy shields before they can regenerate. Flak and PD defense systems should not be used as the main source of defensive ability since they are both countered by certain weapons, whereas shields and armor are universally effective. Missiles, however, require flak to be properly defended against, or extreme speed.
Durability in combination with speed is good against many things, especially ships that rely on range. Currently, ships that use durability and speed are ion barges, orbiters, and spinners. Ships using durability and range are ones like railfans and missile barges, these are also quite practical.
Durability in the form of armor “caps” on barges is highly effective against anything coming from the front, but will not help against multiple ships such as traps (a duo of fast , usually cannon, walls that flank) so side and rear armor is required too. Much of the time missile barges will still be counted by traps and splitter walls because there is no way to place missile that provides the required protection.
It is important to keep in mind that speed can be a form of protection, but only against weapons that are not railguns.
Currently, railfans, missile barges, and ion barges are the most durable competitive ship types. As you can see ships that are durable usually trade speed for armor and turret weapons for more defensible ones.
Range
Kiters are one of the oldest ship types in Cosmoteer. Although almost non-existent now due to the ROD they are an example of a ship that uses range and speed to gain an advantage. Railfans are an example of a ship type that uses range and durability to gain an advantage by countering ships that would try to use speed but no durability (like traps).
Having range will grant an advantage over ships that do not have enough speed to get into shooting range before dying, or ships that don’t have enough durability to survive getting in range. Ships with range are weakest to ships that have both durability and speed since neither kiting or being durable will work. For example, railfans are countered by ion and missile barges, and rail kiters are countered by them too since they can’t fully kill one before getting pushed into the ROD.
Currently, railfans and rail orbiters are the only effective ships that use range to their advantage, and specifically the burst damage that comes from rails. An ideal railfan would be fast as I mentioned in the speed section (able to kite missile or ion barges), durable (able to kill speedy traps that try to flank), and have the range to kite barges and kill walls (or other turret ships) from afar. Rail orbiters, on the other hand, can use their speed to defend from most ships. The issue with them comes when facing the burst damage of rails, so they still need to be durable as well.
There have been many older metas that centered around range, specifically boosting it with momentum. Sadly, the targeting AI had to be updated to no longer take momentum into account when firing due to all the extremely powerful ships and metas based on it.
Conclusion
When building your ships try to focus on a core strategy to use. Do you want your ship to be fast, durable, or long-range? Some combination of two is usually a good idea. The most advanced ship designs out there manage to use all three, and that is through careful thinking and planning.
Always be thinking of what ship type your ship could be weak against and how to fix that weakness. For example, most ships have some amount of flak on them, otherwise, they would be easy prey for a missile barge. Also, be aware of direct counters. There is a lot of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" that goes on and sometimes you just can't do anything about it.
I hope this has helped with planning your ships. If you have any comments or questions you may post them below.
