I agree with this. Frigates are best made as specialists. Doing “balanced” frigates is counter productive. Also, you should try using the size/speed advantage (put move continuously order on) of frigates as a method of defense. The faster/smaller a frigate is, the less chance of it getting hit.
You should consider using 1 or more “tank” frigates too, along with a couple cruiser tanks to let the frigates get into range without being eviscerated.
Pretty much the only thing frigates will lose to is a large rocket fighter fleet. I still havent managed to setup a good take down of 10+ squads of rocket fighters without losing the critical mass of frigates yet.
I tend to make skirmisher-type frigates, with moderate armor/shields, decent speed, and a couple of SmallBeams or similar weapons. Keep Moving and let 'em shoot at whatever they want. Definitely a bit of a niche design, but there are some maps that a properly-deployed mob of skirmishers can really cut up, leaving a mop-up for a few heavy cruisers.
And you really have to be willing to watch a dozen of your ships implode during the battle.
frigate-spam is effective against every map and even challenges unless the enemy has spent money specifically to fight frigates.
i tend to give them rapid fire lasers (4 is minimum), a single shield generator and as many engines as possible.
once they reach the enemy, they drown everything in bullets. it’s really terrifiying to see how effective this is sometimes.
you just have to realise that these frigates must be cheap and that you will loose some. don’t spent money on shields and armor, speed can be a very good protector aswell…
while the frigate lasers can be strong, they always need support from other weapons, since they can’t break through cruiser shields most of the time.
that’s why i prefer the rapid fire laser, it brings the shields down in no time, and the low basic damge damage is not to be underestimated due to the high rate of fire.
The thing I just noticed about Frigates is that they can pack more firepower than cruisers, point for point. That’s the other half of the equation that had been previously missing. I’d noticed the poor price/hit point ratio of cruisers, but never the awesome price/weapons ratio. It adds a whole new layer of tactics in designing a fleet. The frigates pack a real punch, but die easily. So the question is, how to integrate frigates into a fleet, and keep them alive in a battle long enough to contribute their substantial firepower.
This realization arrived upon designing a ~300 point frigate with 3 fairly powerful weapons. I realized that for the price of a 2400-point cruiser (which would have a maximum of 9 weapons), that 8 of these frigates would field 24 weapons!
Then the light went on as to why frigate hit points are so low; these little babys pack a real punch!
I typically use frigates with exactly that in mind: I build a high-firepower frigate and give it orders that will keep it in the shadow of a heavy line cruiser, so its firepower supports the cruiser’s but the cruiser draws most of the fire.
I have a suggestion for frigates, but it really should go in modding, but whatever. Expander shields! the idea is it is a very strong shield, but a very large shield bubble, (I’m talking 500 meters in all directions), allowing it to shield half your fleet! Also the idea of repair module that can repair other ships, or maybe a module that can breath life into wrecked shields, or ‘top up’ other ships repair modules, or maybe make repair modules exclusive to frigates, in the way I described up there, because I do fine with cruisers/fighters. (and if AAA defenses are weak, Just fighters!
Use formations and attach the formations in different configurations, formations IMHO are where you plan to mimimize damage to frigates by making your cruisers suck up damage.
The most brilliant use of frigates I’ve seen to date was on a challenge I played a week or so ago. The challenge had a bunch of slow, heavily armed and armored cruisers moving up the middle, with a few fast frigates on the wings set to keep moving. The frigates were armed with weapon jammers(whatever they’re called) and would swoop in, launch their jammer missiles, and then move back out of range. They were not in range long enough to take sustained damage and they kept a good number of my cruisers from firing. That was brilliant!
Before tribe came along, you could beat most assault cruiser setups with a similar frigate deployment. Rocket fighters was what held them back. Now it’s getting difficult to keep them alive for long enough through the extended tribe hitpoint saturation fights. This includes tribe frigates.
They actually have a bit of a problem with stacked shields/armor, too. Many of their weapon systems are pretty inferior in DPS or penetration, or simply put them in harms way for far too long.
However, they still have the best EMP system in the game by far.
[modules]
0 = frigate power III,
1 = frigate_engine II,
2 = frigate_beamlaser,
3 = frigate_beamlaser,
4 = frigate crew II,
5 = frigate ecm shock missile v2,
6 = frigate_armour IV,
7 = frigate_engine II,
[/code]Spam them en masse and will beat pretty much any frigate spam.
Reading the previous comments I have nothing to add that hasn’t been said already about fodder or dps frigs. Though I usually don’t use them much i’m a huge fan of DPS frigs. They can rape when they’re in their range.
I’ll share my support frig setup.
the focus here are on these 4 modules
point defense
anti-fighter
Disruptor bomb
EMP missile
the rest of the modules are tank, power and crew as needed.
The least module I’d say is the point defense but still useful enough that I can’t think of something better to replace it.
In my experience federation have the best hulls for a support frig. The other races I feel are lacking in one matter or another, not enough power or not enough module slots for example. In my opinion the Imperial weapons platform is the best DPS frig.
P.S. This this is based on my experience of not having the tribal expansion.
