Damage sponges?

[Alfred96]

Not sure what I am doing wrong, or is it the game design. I am currently exploring systems close to the border to the inner galaxy. Ships there are Xanion-level. When now pirates or a faction fleet warps is, the ensuing combat can litterally last hours, because all ship´s hitpoints seem to go in the millions. It all seemed well up until the Trinium-level systems. But Xanion really gets boring very quickly. I have Xanion-level weapons, but they don´t hasten combat too much (tech level 37).

 

[Speed]

Not sure what I am doing wrong, or is it the game design. I am currently exploring systems close to the border to the inner galaxy. Ships there are Xanion-level. When now pirates or a faction fleet warps is, the ensuing combat can litterally last hours, because all ship´s hitpoints seem to go in the millions. It all seemed well up until the Trinium-level systems. But Xanion really gets boring very quickly. I have Xanion-level weapons, but they don´t hasten combat too much (tech level 37).

You are definitely doing something wrong.  It should not take "hours" to kill an entire enemy fleet, it should take less than a minute (much less than in minute, in most cases.) 

 

How much firepower does your ship have?  Unless you have some difficulty increasing mod (if you do, PLEASE SHARE because this game is way too easy, with the exception of ONE enemy), you must not be using turret factories.  You get MUCH MUCH better turrets from turret factories.  You have to check around at multiple turret factories for the best turrets however, because each one is randomized. 

 

I play on "insane" difficulty and I am not exaggerating in that enemy ships (normal pirates/Xsotan) don't survive for more than 1 or 2 seconds when I shoot at them, and that's being generous.

 

On my present play-through, my ship is a 9 slotter, I am up to the hyperspace barrier, and my ship's firepower is 53600.  I use several railguns with high block penetration values, so once I get through enemy shields (which doesn't take more than a second or two for most ships), my railgun strikes frequently do over 150k damage.  When a ship lasts more than 5 or 6 seconds, I actually am slightly impressed. 

 

However, every once in a while, even using turret factories, you encounter an enemy group of ships with enough firepower and life that you have to respect them at least a little bit.  Like, actually try do dodge rocket barrages, or take them out quickly.  Cultists are frequently good for this.  (Sadly however, on this play-through, both cultist groups I have encoutered I have annihilated with ease.)  But, for the most part, the gameplay experience you get after utilizing turret factories and making it up past around naonite level leaves MUCH to be desired.  It's way too easy on the hardest difficulty level.

 

So, yea.  Turret factories need balancing, BADLY.  (Again, my suggestion is to make it so turret factories can only make a set of generic, unspectacular turrets, as well as copies of any turrets you found, bought, or researched... nudge, nudge, devs...).