I think everyone underestimates just how bad Frigate weapons actually are (and lots of other things). We have now had 2 ‘balance’ passes at the AFM. It is still terrible. I’m tired of writing detailed explanations of how, why, and what needs to be done.
They say pictures are worth a lot of words, so…
Basic Terran Fighter. Nothing special about it. Note the Fighter Pulse and speed of 3.06.
For 1.38 I wanted to see how things ‘Improved’. So I loaded up that custom test battle again.
Just a pic of the setups used. 2 Assault Frigates, 2 Anti-Fighter Frigates, and a single Escort Cruiser. The enemy was 2 Fleet Carriers (3 Hangars each) and 8 of those Terran Fighter groups. Note that even with the Multi-Tractors, this battle took long enough that I ran it on 4x. Its entirely because the enemy fighters are faster than specialized Anti-Fighter weaponry. If the enemy Fighters could actually damage Frigates and Cruisers, they would have crushed this supposed ‘Hard Counter’ (Anti-Fighter+Tractors). If you do not massively buff Anti-Fighter weapons, there will be huge problems if you try to buff Fighters.
Moving on, the idea that AFMs will make DDs better is misplaced. The real comparison is ‘Frigate Pulse >>>>>>> all other FF/DD weapons’.
The result of that battle: Frigate Pulse did nearly 4x the damage of the ‘Anti-Fighter’ missile. I ended the battle after most of the fighters were killed since nothing could pen Cruiser Medium shields. Note the higher accuracy of the Pulse despite its supposed worse tracking. The ‘buffs’ brought down the damage disparity between Pulse and the AFM from 5x to 3.75x. We are Very Very Far from the point that AFMs are worthwhile on anything.
Here is a graphic demonstration of the importance of Tracking and why the AFM will always suck unless this is addressed. This is 4 ‘Anti-Fighter’ Frigates with no Tractor support against the same enemy setup.
Look very closely at ‘Shots Fired’. My supposedly specialized ‘Anti-Fighter’ Frigates fired off 42,000 Missiles. 42,000!!! I literally went AFK and cleaned my house while the game ran at 4x for nearly an hour. Tell me with a straight face that this is intended – that its good game design to have a weapon labeled Anti-Fighter to be so bad against ordinary fighters. These aren’t even Yootani fighters. I repeat: having Fighters outrun ‘Anti-Fighter’ weapons is a big No-No. It doesent matter how much damage you do if you cant hit the target. A quarter of the Shots Hit are within the last few seconds before the Pic, as the Fleet Carriers had run out of supplies and the Fighters ran out of fuel (hence the fighters on the right of the map).
The argument of ‘Bring a Tractor’ needs to go one step beyond: this is one of the Core reasons to take Cruisers over everything else. It needs to go if there can be any room for Frigates.
Lastly, to demonstrate the irrelevance of the Anti-Fighter missile, I loaded the same enemy fleet, but this time against 4 Assault Frigates with Frigate Pulse.
The battle lasted less than 5min, so fast that the Frigates started shooting the Carriers before I could pause for a Pic. It is very sad to see that the Assault Frigates routed the same setup that the supposed specialized counter-fighter setup took so long against. The worst part is that despite their far worse paper Tracking, they did so with only 27k shots fired. That 15k less shots fired than a ‘Counter’ to Fighters. Cliffski if you want to balance weapons, you need to do far more than Tweaks.
The fact that a ‘Generalist’ weapon is light-years better than a specialized weapon is one of the biggest flaws of the game. This issue is present in all ship categories. ‘Features’ like Limpets are novelties at best – cool graphics and concept, but it is useless when compared to the massively OP alternatives. Months ago I posted a weapon comparison – mostly from the game files – and highlighted which weapons were good and how everything else was junk. There were only 2 Frigate weapons that were ‘OK’; the Frigate Pulse, and the Frigate Sniper. Even though we now have the Hvy Plasma, the fundamental issue remains – Frigates don’t have enough decent weapons to make them worthwhile at all.
This thread largely explains what is needed for Frigates to be better – but the catch is that it is NEEDED. The game needs balance Overhauls, not Tweaks.
There are a number of factors at play that have resulted in them being badly balanced, My underestimating the real-world impact of the size variable on hit chance played a part. Anyway, there is a substantial buff in the wings for the AFM.