Beating volians?

I've just downloaded this for EV:Nova and its good but...I'm having major troubles fighting the Volians .They just take so damn much damage and seem to have infinite missiles!
Even in a crescent warship I'm unable to scratch a single volian frigate. Many of the missions are impossibly hard.
What is the secret to beating them?

All crescent weapons ( phase in particular ) are extremely powerful against shields, but do jack to armor. I suggest dropping the phase weapons for blaze or the neutron weapons. Also, use your speed to your advantage, Voinian ships may be really tough, but they can't move very fast, making them easy targets to hit from behind. Remember... rocket turrets are front firing turrets, they aren't true turrets. They only fire backwards due to inaccuracy, and that's only when you come in from the front.

Edit: And it's Voinian, not Volian.

This post has been edited by EVWeb : 14 August 2009 - 01:36 PM

oh....bugger.
And there's no way of fitting earthly weapons to crescent ships...I think I wasted 9 million on this crappy ship

What determines what weapons you're allowed to get there?
I find in some stations they let me fit blaze cannons but in others it says I'm not allowed them...I can't find anywhere I'm allowed emalgha or blaze turrets.
Also is there anyway to undo phase cannons without going all the way to where you can buy them to get them hacked off?

The Crescent Warship, I take it? Don't knock it off just yet.

Although, admittedly, it doesn't have the sheer weapons capacity of most UE Ships, its a lot faster--a prime advantage over your sluggish Voinian opponents.

If you gut out the Warship, you should still have a respectable amount of space to work with (and enough cargo capacity to convert fairly painlessly too). Notably, you'll want to rid yourself of the Fighter Bay and those heavy SADs. Replace the Phase weapons with Blaze- or Neutron-flavored ones, and think about investing in lightweight secondar ordinance. Pursuit or Needle Missiles would be a good bet; although the latter's damage is admittedly lacking, its ammo is completely massless, costing you only the 15 tons for the launcher.

Properly kitted out, a Crescent Warship can utterly own anything the Voinians send at you.

Which shipyards let you fit blaze turrets to a crescent warship?
I've only been able to find the northernmost outpost letting you fit blaze guns but no turrets. Is it at all possible to get emalghion technology compatable with it too?
And getting rid of stuff I don't want when I'm not at a stion where you can buy it- gragh! Big mistake in the game.

Basically, it sounds like you've already filled up your turret slots with Phase turrets, you have to sell them before getting new turrets. Other than that, you can fit any turret to any ship with turret and gun slots assuming you have enough space (remember, in EVO turrets take up both a gun and turret slot).

Nothing prevents people from putting blaze weapons on a crescent ship, or vice versa. However, every ship can only have a limited number of guns and turrets, and there's a good chance your phase turrets are using up most of those slots. You'll have to head to crescent space to sell the phase turrets, then scoot back to UE space to fit the blaze.

Personally, I'm a fan of using rockets against voinians, when you have enough speed to maneuver them properly. Needle launchers are a must for every ship, 0 mass ammo is always useful. Back before the days of Override for Nova, needle launchers were ideal for ticking off non-hostile ships so your escorts would engage them.

As far as "infinite missiles" go - it takes a while, but they eventually run out. In EVO, AI ships have more ammo than stock (I'm not sure the exact number, I think it's 1.5x). If you're small and fast enough, you can dodge rockets till they run out.

If you intend to use needle missiles against Voinians, the only major advantages you get are that ammo takes up no tons of space, they are very fast and maneuverable, and because Voinians possess no jamming outfit of anykind, any guidance weapon is guarantee to hit their targets. However, they do not do at least half the damage as rockets and hunter missiles do. You'd have to use a considerable number of them to do substantial damage to a Voinian warship. Rockets are the only ordinance that can inflict large amounts damage, mostly against armor though. However, if you still wish to use guidance ordinance as an edge, then the hunter missile will be a better choice. While these weapons can still do significant damages, they can't inflict the same amount of damages that rockets can, nor do they possess the agility of a needle missile which makes them susceptible to missing their targets, but I suspect they have a longer range and lifespan than needle missiles. Keep in mind though, hunter missile launchers will take up 5 more tons of space than rocket launchers, and both the rocket and hunter missile ammo will take up 2 tons of space. All this will limit the amount you would be able to carry.

I usually skip the hunters and go with rockets, just because they do more damage, I could hit with most of my rockets, and ammo was usually a consideration with big (i.e. hard) battles. In EVO I'm big on close combat anyways.

The main advantage for the needle missiles is they take up very little space (7.5 rockets), but 250 needles pack a good bit of damage over time. You can weaken a ship before going in for the kill, or tick people off to stop them from jumping out.

This post has been edited by n64mon : 24 September 2009 - 11:19 PM