Can it be done? Yes, yes it can.
by: George Argyropoulos
a/k/a Dragon_Bane
Recently I was sent a pic from our beloved forums. It was a post by a rather ignorant forum denizen who had accused Andrew (the Grandmaster Funkadelic Admin of the TFC who makes us all look good) of actually doctoring a video that he had made to help mids do the 88 to get to Tier 4. (Of note: The poster now says he was being 'sarcastic'. If true, he needs practice. lol)
I get people criticizing us on occasion for any number of things from losing sight of new/low players to even the accusations of bias and the call of 'shills'. I don't agree with most of them mind, but I do try and pay attention to as much as I can and try and see the other viewpoint.
Both Andrew's video and the various criticisms made me realize that none of us have really truly tried to pull off a new FM target with legit T2 tech or below. A lot of us pull out old ass stuff and throw it in there and base our opinions on the results. I have to say- we're pretty good at it. Even given that presumption, I saw nothing actually built or attempted with only research and T1/2 tech. Legit criticism. So it had to be done. I used some tokens and coin and threw together a very simple build based on those parameters.
- It consists of only 2 ships.
- It fits in dock 10 and shipyard 1.
- The tank was skulled, the DPS hull was only at 64% rank.
- It was crappy driving and pathing on my first try. The results seemed good enough that I'm not gonna bother with optimizing it unless players need that too.
- I managed an 88 with just a hair over an hour damage.
As I've made the point over and over, the FM is the priority of the game. And old article (and I need to write a more current one) about this can be found here. This is one of the reasons I felt the need to address this as soon as I could. That said, on to the video...
Can the pathing be improved? Hell yes. Can the damage be reduced? Hell yes. Does it take forever to run the bloody target with one DPS ship? Hell yes. Can the 88 be done with T2 or below tech? HELL YES! So, here are the builds. I put nothing that was not in Tier 1 or 2 or researchable. I have no Phalanx on there. I used nothing from the Campaigns. This is the build.
Can the pathing be improved? Hell yes. Can the damage be reduced? Hell yes. Does it take forever to run the bloody target with one DPS ship? Hell yes. Can the 88 be done with T2 or below tech? HELL YES! So, here are the builds. I put nothing that was not in Tier 1 or 2 or researchable. I have no Phalanx on there. I used nothing from the Campaigns. This is the build.
Not only that, since this can get you to T3 in one hit (T4 with only 6 88's remember!!!!), you only need these two ships. You get to T3 instantly and then you can start planning your builds towards reaching T4 and T5 (really, you should be planning on T5 and build in steps). The first week into T3 you get the Judgement and Citadel tokens. Free ship! Hello T4!!!!!
Hopefully this helps out all those players out there who are crapping and crying that they can't even get to T3 of the FM anymore since the change, even though some of them say they've been playing for 5 years. I really hope it helps anyone starting fresh, is new, or is woefully lost after coming back.
