The point of Frigates and Deployment

[Pandarsenic]

Idea 1: Bad; there’s nothing wrong with frigate EMP. It makes them more useful in normal fleets and there are plenty of ways to beat it. Like a handful of guidance scrambler beams.

Idea 2: I could see those working well.

Idea 3: Terrible. The Torpedo is already useless, don’t try to make rockets useless too.

[RCIX]

@Pandarsenic

Idea 1: Bad; there’s nothing wrong with frigate EMP. It makes them more useful in normal fleets and there are plenty of ways to beat it. Like a handful of guidance scrambler beams.

Idea 2: I could see those working well.

Idea 3: Terrible. The Torpedo is already useless, don’t try to make rockets useless too.

1. Oh, for some reason i was think they had an EMP gun instead of the missile. Oops
2. Then fighters need rebalancing too…

[yurch]

Boost torpedoes in some way that they would be dangerous to armored cruisers but not to frigates. Letting fighters drop torpedoes within cruiser shields (and at a survivable speed) is a possible start.

Cruisers should depend on having frigates or laser fighters around to quickly down offensive bombers.

[Pandarsenic]

EMP gun is on cruisers. It’s powerful but not very spammable.

Rockets are FOR dealing with frigates; they fire in volleys that wipe the shield out before it can regenerate. If you want frigates to survive, get them to 12+ armor; I can do it and still achieve up to 0.34 speed as Rebels.

[thc]

@123stw

Beam laser comes with CL or howitzer in front, that’s just a standard spam. Your front liner will be busy firing at those since my beam cruiser won’t be drawing aggro in particular (as long as speed is same or greater). My beam laser though will target your frigates without fail as long as I set priority to 100%. So they will need some super long range to make them untouchable by 770.

Not super long range. Let’s say we made frigate AA have a moderate optimal range of 870. Beam lasers have 770. That means your beam cruisers need to be able to go 100 meters PAST my cruisers on the front line - how often does that happen? Unless you are already steamrolling my fleet, you can’t possibly guarantee that they will.

That, and they still can’t be AA support. If AA missiles have super long range too, then they will be overpowered regardless or how little DPS they deal on the ground. DPS is unnecessary for a frigate spam to win if they can stunlock cruisers and kill rocket fighters from super long range. Laser fighters will grind stunned cruisers to death eventually.

Of course, if you nerf their ground weapons enough, a mass EMP/AA frigate spam and 1 or 2 cruisers as DPS support might emerge…

They still need some DPS. EMP spam won’t stunlock completely, given that the AI is not completely efficient. Give AA missiles low armor/shield penetration and mass cruisers can stand a fighting chance. Of course, you’re right, something else might emerge that is dominant, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will. In your example, if I set my priority to cruisers instead of frigates, EMP inefficiency might just be enough to allow me to take out your DPS cruiser support before they do enough damage. Or not - and that could mean that other things could be balanced or buffed, such as EMP shields.

[Hyndis]

Fighter defense frigates are useful things. Have them hang back behind your cruisers. They will deal with anything that gets in close. If you want to attack with frigates then you need to use speed to your advantage. Speed is life. There is no need for armor at all. Think of them almost like fighters. Fast, cheap, but fragile.