How about some more Frigate items? It seems like cruisers are favored as the ship of choice.
For example, cruiser shields:
Light
Regular I
Regular II
Fast-Recharge
Metaphasic
Reflective
and I think I’m leaving 1 out.
Frigate shields:
Light
Ultra-weak
Shield I
Shield II
Cruisers also have more choices for crew pods, power plants, armor types, and misc. modules (tracking, EMP gun, carrier bay, etc).
Although cruisers are the main line force, it would also make sense for frigates to have some of these options as well, and it’d be nice to have the customization options afforded by it (ie shields that are worth something).
Frigates have Superlight, Light, Shield I, Shield II, and Turbo.
Cruisers have Light, Basic, Shield II, Fast Recharge, Multiphasic, Reflective
The missing one was from the frigate list.
Also, are frigate shields good for anything? With a max Resistance of 7 (77 strength max, but that’s on the Turbo with a resistance of 6 at the cost of 11 credits, 2 weight, 27 hp, 1.5 power, 1 crew, and 1 recharge rate unit), it seems like a waste of a slot and power to even have them, almost.
Max frigate shield resist is 10. Note that fighter lasers have a shield penetration of 8 - the budget shields can be exceedingly dangerous options. Some of the singleplayer frigate designs are absolute pushovers due to this.
Yes.
My main complaint for frigate hardware would be the missile systems. Frigate/Fast frigate missiles (and the torpedoes to a lesser extent) are simply not very useful weapons.
Is use the shields for fast frigates that might get shot occasionally, but will dodge most shots. Armor would make those ships too slow and doesn’t recharge.
The trouble with unarmored frigates is that fighters tear them apart incredibly fast, and fighters take a long time to die, so you will lose them against any decent challenge. See SAC where no (good) challenge uses less than 5 squadrons of fighters.