Frigates - Underpowered?

[Irrational]

I had a moment last night playing one of the Survival missions where, during the third wave, I noticed one of my anti-fighter frigates tooling around undamaged. My first thought was “Shouldn’t you be dead by now?”

[Cageboy]

I think either that or a “Maintain Distance” order, i tried to build some fast frigates with like 5-6 engines, 2 fast missle, 1 plasma, and a point defense, with the ideathat they could stay out at like 900 distance out of range of all but missles or plasma and dodge or destoy either on the way over. I tried setting the distance to engage and keep moving, but invariably they all end up moving, but moving right into range of all the short range lasers. Frigate also has a turbo shield but no armor, the hope being that the few shots that hit it could regenerate. If there was somway I could get them to stay at least a certain distance from the enemy they would be unstoppable agaisnt cruisers without frigate or fighter support. Which would maybe help make them more valuable.

[Cageboy]

I jsut jumped into teh game to double chech what was on that ship and i was confused wit h a diffreent ship i also made, the firgate was a rebel Odin class, 3 class 3 engines, turbo shield, 2 frigate missles, 1 plasma launcher and a point defense. Still like .62 speed. I also made an imperial oone with like 6 engines, but that was more casue i wanted to try a frigate wuth a ton of components. Sorry for misleading numbers

[goazer]

@Maian

To me, frigates are a bit underpowered for one reason: rocket fighters. They absolutely decimate frigates. You’d need large amount of anti-fighter frigates to kill them fast enough before they wreak havoc with the rest of the frigates. Anti-fighter cruisers will easily withstand such fighters, but they don’t kill fighters fast enough. To put things in perspective, I tested 96 pilots and 11k credits worth of rocket fighters (2 rockets each) against 17 pilots and 13k credits worth of anti-fighter frigates (5 anti-fighter missiles each), and the anti-fighter frigates barely won (one less frigate and they consistently lost). This doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that rocket fighters are a lot more mobile and versatile than dedicated anti-fighter frigates.

Rocket fighters wreck havoc with any attempt to “hide” frigates behind cruisers. Just tell the rocket ships to only go after frigates. I’ve usually had good results with a couple squadrons of suicidal rocket ships that just get rid of frigates while my own cruisers (and frigates if the enemy lacks rocket fighters) mop up.

IMO the solution is pretty simple: frigate anti-fighter missiles need a slightly faster turn rate, and fighter pulse lasers need a major improvement so that we can finally have real interceptor fighters.

The problem is that you’re countering the problem incorrectly, as you said anti-fighter missile frigates have a breaking point against fighters. But anti-fighter missile frigates backed up by laser armed fighters can tear them up. Also to increase frigate survival against fighters(and in general) use shields, not armor.

[dogthinker]

@goazer

@Maian

To me, frigates are a bit underpowered for one reason: rocket fighters. They absolutely decimate frigates. You’d need large amount of anti-fighter frigates to kill them fast enough before they wreak havoc with the rest of the frigates. Anti-fighter cruisers will easily withstand such fighters, but they don’t kill fighters fast enough. To put things in perspective, I tested 96 pilots and 11k credits worth of rocket fighters (2 rockets each) against 17 pilots and 13k credits worth of anti-fighter frigates (5 anti-fighter missiles each), and the anti-fighter frigates barely won (one less frigate and they consistently lost). This doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that rocket fighters are a lot more mobile and versatile than dedicated anti-fighter frigates.

Rocket fighters wreck havoc with any attempt to “hide” frigates behind cruisers. Just tell the rocket ships to only go after frigates. I’ve usually had good results with a couple squadrons of suicidal rocket ships that just get rid of frigates while my own cruisers (and frigates if the enemy lacks rocket fighters) mop up.

IMO the solution is pretty simple: frigate anti-fighter missiles need a slightly faster turn rate, and fighter pulse lasers need a major improvement so that we can finally have real interceptor fighters.

The problem is that you’re countering the problem incorrectly, as you said anti-fighter missile frigates have a breaking point against fighters. But anti-fighter missile frigates backed up by laser armed fighters can tear them up. Also to increase frigate survival against fighters(and in general) use shields, not armor.

Exactly. Rocket fighters are essentially ‘anti-frigate fighters’. That anti-fighter frigates can’t cope with them without support doesn’t mean that frigates are underpowered, it just means that gasp there’s a weapon that is effective against them (and nothing else - fighter rockets are substantially inferior to fighter lasers, when engaging cruisers or other fighters. They’re supposed to eat frigates for breakfast.)