Doom costs almost as much as a capital. No one bats an eye when the likes of Onslaught or Conquest destroy frigates very quickly with ballistics spam or dual Locust barrage.
Onslaught is trivial to avoid, any case of frigate dying to it is easy to write off as AI being stupid.What are frigates to do if they want to damage the capital, especially if it is multiple ships? I guess they can use Timid AI and cower until their CR times out and they flameout and die anyway.
Locusts are more of an area denial for frigates - they are easy to run away from, but not much you can do while remaining in their reach. So, once again, a frigate dying to it was simply not smart enough to back off in time.
Doom is weak if you know what your doing
I have been on the receiving end of frigate near insta-kills once or twice. It is annoying, but I am mostly okay with that. Just need better bullet-hell twitch reflexes.
then I think something like preventing the use of mines while phased would make them much harder for a human to use without limiting their potential. I still don’t think current mines are too easy for a player to use, but I could be bad at using them.
...has low peak time in combat due to phase tech.Doom is always the first ship I retreat in endgame (Ordos) fights, and the Doom has both Hardened Subsystems and a pilot with Combat Endurance 1.
I really don't get the whole "mines unfair to frigates" thing. Look at any other >30 DP ship. For example Aurora, which can also delete smaller ships with ease. They're much different from each other but both feel unfair to small prey. That's their whole point. And lastly Doom is hard countered by swarm and has low peak time in combat due to phase tech.
It's threat level is nowhere near Doom's.As it shouldn't be? And I said, two different roles. It's the same thing as saying ''oof SO ships really be stronk''. And then an SO ship without shields whose ability can be completely nullified with decent PD. Taking advantage of an distracted ship is disgusting, as is with every other hit and run ship in the game.
1st case is when a frigate moves too fast. Frigates have very small exclusion area, and speed-buffed frigate can end up in situation when even perfectYou know, trying to blow up enemy frigates with Doom mines is actually pretty frustrating because the AI has lightning fast reactions, and knows EXACTLY how much he has to dodge to avoid the collision. I usually have to completely box them, otherwise they'll *** ninja-dodge around them. It is really rare indeed that I can nail a frigate without spamming mines, and that's just one tiny *** frigate. I end up having to use like 4 mines to kill one lousy frigate. Even if I do kill one, woo, I killed a Hound, that was going to be a threat to anyone. Frigates chew up way more than their fair share of mines to kill. The only frigates that are seriously threatened by mines are the ones YOU fly, because you probably don't have the reaction times of a 6 year old. And frankly, you probably shouldn't be flying those ships. You can barely even see them and they blow up if anything sneezes on them. Outside of the specialist models, which aren't rushing headlong into battle anyway, you only bring them out for pursuits, they almost always die in pitched battles.
reaction is not fast enough to avoid the mine. Player can manage this by intentionally slowing down around Dooms, but AI ships are *doomed*, lol.
Nope, a fast frigate with speed-optimized character is simply too fast. You don't have enough acceleration to alter your course enough in available timeframe to avoid running into the mine, it's not a question of reaction timing.You actually DO have enough acceleration, but you need inhuman reflexes. Since the typical human response time is on the order of 100ms+, this is simply inadequate to react to such a threat in time, but an AI pilot totally will ninja dodge that.
Another proposal: mines are forced to remain phase cloaked for 1-2 sec after deployment. This still allows to insta-kill fighters by placing mines ahead of them (no PD fire opportunity, since mine is phased), but allows ships to take defensive actions.That will actually make mines DEADLIER since now enemies cannot do anything about them.
2nd case is even worse: when friendly fighters move near the ship and run into a freshly spawned mine. Short of raised 360 shield or active phase cloak, nothing can prevent damage in this situation. In fact, friendly carriers will do their best to setup you exactly for this kind of problem with their insistence on using fighter escorts.Maybe you should mark the opposing Doom for Fighter Attack. That's what I always do, and it tends to keep them out of my hair since the AI doesn't want come out when he's being harassed by fighters.
Nope, a fast frigate with speed-optimized character is simply too fast. You don't have enough acceleration to alter your course enough in available timeframe to avoid running into the mine, it's not a question of reaction timing.You actually DO have enough acceleration, but you need inhuman reflexes. Since the typical human response time is on the order of 100ms+, this is simply inadequate to react to such a threat in time, but an AI pilot totally will ninja dodge that.
I experimented somewhat with that, using SpeedUp mod for bullet time. Character-skilled Afflictor vs infinite mines Doom (not really trying to kill it, just to dodge mines as much as possible while moving at full speed and without using phase cloak).That's probably not the wisest way to go about dodging mines.
Even at 0.1 bullet time (which should be good enough to eliminate almost all response time latency), if mine appears right in front of your nose there is nothing you can do to avoid it (except phase cloak, but that's outside excercise rules).Yes, but your rules were kinda stupid: The AI is absolutely not bound to lock the throttle on full. He WILL brake, and he WILL heavily learn on that strafe button. I know this because as a Doom Pilot, I see them do this ALL the time, and it's damn annoying, and I need often half a dozen mines to box them in, and ultimately he doesn't hit ANY of them, he dies because I boxed him in until they went off!
Second, even if I'm able to react due to bullet time, I can't change trajectory enough to avoid it.You evaded 5 mines without difficulty, and then continued barrelling straight forward without stopping because you chose a terrible personal limitation that the AI is not actually bound by in-game. You also did not use your weapons to clear the offending mine from your path, which the AI will also do. So you died.
I'm imitating scenario where I'm on phase/blaster cooldown and unaware of Doom's presence.How exactly would you be unaware of the Doom's presence, though? I mean, the opponent's battle lineup is not hidden from you going in, and the Doom has a pretty distinctive profile, so just seeing that should be a sign of DOOOOOM! DOOOOOM! It's called DOOM for a reason. Also, normal frigates are probably not using phase lances and blasters, that's very much an Afflictor thing, and Afflictors HAVE A PHASE CLOAK, so USE IT. The AI sure will. And why exactly are your weapons on cooldown, anyway? WHAT are you shooting at? WHY are you moving at maximum speed while shooting at it? Normally when you shoot at something in your phase ship, you're braking as you flip yourself over to unload into their soft vulnerable spots.
Safer way to handle Doom is to drop speed to near 0 before unphasing and make sure there are no friendly fighters around, but doing so by default is too wasteful.
Blasters on a properly piloted Afflictor are almost always on cooldown, except right before finishing approach for attack, so AMs are unavailable in most real scenarios.A properly piloted Afflictor also HAS A PHASE CLOAK.
AI is usually not optimized for max speed and rarely uses full speed (which is good vs Doom, but bad against pretty much anything else).Okay, so what's the problem here that we're trying to actually address? That the Doom is excessively good at murdering AI frigates with its mines? Because it isn't, as the AI will utilize all of its defenses, and ninja-dodging skills, to avoid this, and while it doesn't always succeed, the frigates you're murdering are probably not top of the line, either. Being able to murder some Hounds is not exactly a big deal. That an AI Doom is too good at murdering YOU? Players, too, have tools at their disposal to avoid being murdered in this way, and you know what they are. That you refuse to use them and thus die, well, that's not really the Doom's fault. I mean, it's there in the name: DOOOOOOOOM!
Because TL or fighters are much easier to predict and avoid?Now you're just trolling. Do yourself a favor and go do something else, chill out, then come back to the game. You're obviously just salty about this. Look we've all died to a random Reaper or Hellbore shot, it happens dude, and everytime you feel a little bit helpless. Same thing with multiplayer games, instead of blaming your team, just take a break. Tilt is a thing.
Because yes, if you fly stupidly and obliviously, with absolutely no situational awareness, and are piloting a tiny frigate that permits no room for error, YOU DIE. If you're still flying a frigate in capital-grade fights where Dooms are a thing, you clearly like to live on the edge, and this is one of the dangers. Either stop flying frigates in capital-scale battles, or start paying attention to where you're flying.Reaper Afflictor (with four Reapers and nothing else) can do things no other ship can do, such as killing battlestation sections with splash damage or nuking cruisers or battleships from a blind spot. Afflictor is basically the 0.9a Harbinger with much fewer missiles. I bring three to five Afflictors in my fleet to cheese-kill large targets. Reaper Afflictor has no other weapons to use (because its job is to nuke one or two targets then retreat).
Mines being insta-****-you is fine. Just get rid of the homing ability and make them take thirty seconds after deployment to un-cloak.Then capital ships cannot flak or burst PD them away the moment they spawn. Part of the reason to deathball the fleet is so mines get snuffed by PD or the like by multiple ships the moment they spawn.
You don't need a Paragon either. You can have a Sunder with a Tach Lance or even 2x Grav 1x HIL that melts an unshielded frigate in a second or two and can't be avoided. Any kind of beam or beams that approach critical mass damage-wise will have a similar 'avoid zone or die' effect vs naked armor.Sure, but Paragon can do it from longish range thanks to Advanced Targeting Core. Sunder has no more than standard range with destroyer-grade ITU.
The obvious solution to see seems to be 'don't deploy frigates against a doom'. Nothing in the game forces you to fight dooms with frigates so just don't. There's nothing wrong with dooms requiring a different strategy than reaper afflicter cheese. TBH, it's probably better for the game that they do. If you absolutely HAVE to pilot a frigate against a doom, then you need to be very aware of the map to avoid it. None of that seems unreasonable to me.I would not deploy Afflictor against Doom, but it could be handy to pilot Afflictor toward that Astral that is hiding behind the Doom. Usually, other enemy phase ships get in the way too, especially Harbinger with its Quantum Disruptor.
I mosly think the smaller phase ships are way more broken due to the amount of effort you need to put in to take them down.Phase ships smaller than Doom are broken because the AI is incompetent and underperforms with them - a waste of a fleet slot that burns out PPT faster than everything else except maybe Hyperion. Only when player pilots them can he make small phase ships good. (But aside from Reaper Afflictor, I have better things to pilot, like a real capital.)