I’ve seen a couple other posts about the power of a horde of fast frigates being able to stun lock
an enemy fleet so a handful of cruisers can just waddle up and finish what the frigates started.
In practice I can’t make it work. Not sure if it’s a formation issue or an orders issue.
I’ve been trying to concentrate firepower and get to the enemy quickly by deploying my fast
ships in a single wall as far forward as possible. All of them carry EMP type weapons, but
I never manage to stun lock more than one or two and since the enemy is not locked…well you know
what happens to my hapless frigates…
I"ve just about given up on use of EMP against the enemy. My latest
Empire build for 50K points is a wall of laser fighter squadrons which go after
enemy cruisers at minimum range followed by a wave of fast (.9 or better ) frigates
with ion cannons to help the fighters by dropping enemy shields.
Are you using co-operative orders for your EMP frigates? If so, don’t - you want your stunners to spread their fire out as much as possible. I find rescuer orders can work well for EMP ships, or simply leave the order box fairly empty.
I’ve seen some people use two EMP launchers on each frigate too, this might be overkill but if you really want to lock up an enemy fleet it might be worth giving it a go.
2 EMP launchers and fill the rest of the frigates hardpoints with other missiles, try to minimize the impact of scramblers and point defense.EMP frigates get their usefulness reduced significantly when the enemy has scramblers. I put EMP cannons on the front of some of my Cruiser Tank designs, and then I leave the order screen blank. They will spread their firepower (EMPs Included) over the enemy ranks, and then you just have your DPS cruisers set to either vulture or cooperative, and let them go to town while the tank cruisers mitigate the enemies damage via heavy armor and shields, and the EMP Cannons. However that doesnt work too well against fast cruisers
