But I ask, why insist on taking away what makes this ship special? I think we have enough brawler cruisers in the game - at least enough that there's really no need to remodel a unique specimen into yet another mundane brawler, killing its unique ability in the process.
In case of Gryphon, if it cannot brawl, then the best it can do is spam long range homing missiles from the back-line like Harpoons and Squalls. It cannot use shorter ranged stuff like torpedoes without exposing itself. If I let the AI pilot it, it tends to be the first to die, or at least die more than other cruisers, and it died enough that I abandoned it.
Well, I think that depends - from my experience, it can very well get into torpedo range without getting into too much trouble. You just have to be careful about it. AI-controled Gryphon seems to work best when assigned to escort a relatively powerful tank, so it won't take too much fire by itself.
I do not like to pilot the Gryphon because carriers are better or more reliable missileships. What are fighters but homing missiles - that can shoot missiles - by another name?
The only thing special about Gryphon is it can have up to double the ammo. That is not very special, especially if the Gryphon dies before it can use the ammo.
Gryphon could be better. More missiles is a fix, but so is redesigning it into something a little different, maybe more sturdy so it can use any missile effectively, not just fire-and-forget long range stuff that lets Gryphon attack while hiding behind something else.
And that's one of the very reasons why I think Missile Autoforge should be unlimited and on a cooldown. Unlimited missiles are
already in the game, in form of fighters - it won't hurt to restore this functionality to a cruiser that isn't going to compete with fighters anyway.
Indeed, large missile capacity isn't all that special, but it's original ability to restore missiles WAS special. That's why I made this topic, to vote for its restoration. I stand by my opinion that remodeling the Gryphon to just another brawler is a bad idea and it would butcher its uniqueness. It's one of those rare ships that can do what any other mundane ship in the game cannot do - rarities sought after, like Astral, Afflictor, Hyperion etc. Each of those ships fails if used for general fighting like a standard ship, but have an interesting gimmick that makes you want have it, if only for the sake of owning it, even if you're going to just store it.
What you're proposing would just make me look at Gryphon and think "huh, just another gunboat, but with more missiles" and ignore it, going for the Apogee, Dominator, or the Aurora, which the Gryphon will never outperform in a straight face-to-face combat.
Honestly, I thought the same before I tried it, but it's not that simple. Using missiles sparingly and honestly (wear down shields with squalls/sabots, throw harpoons/torpedoes at overloaded ships etc.) turns out to be far more effective than spamming all of your arsenal at one ship and then abusing the Autoforge. At best you'll blow up a frigate or a destroyer and then be stuck waiting for the resupply. Simply because most of those missles you throw will be stopped by PD if you're not smart about it. Seriously, one hegemony enforcer managed to stop all of my squalls and harpoons with its flak cannons when I tried 1v1'ning it. It took no damage... and later got eaten by my Odyssey.
If waiting is the only drawback, it is not a drawback at all (aside from annoying an impatient player). Enemies avoid the corner, and the player can wait there in peace to recharge resources that take a long time. (I did this before with hull regeneration.) If I had unlimited nanoforge charges, I would alpha strike things more. Aside from impatience, why use finesse when I can overwhelm the enemy with a quick, unblockable, and renewable attack? May not be effective in a fleet, but it would be great for soloing fleets and cheesing the AI.
You won't be able to solo fleets in this, trust me. For one thing, it's too slow, even with unstable injector, and if you won't get eaten by fighters, you will be by DDs that will catch up with you. Besides, as I've said, spamming those missiles isn't all that deadly. Most of those harpoons you throw will just be knocked down with PD, and if you don't wear the shields down with Squalls or Sabots, they will just be soaked. Hey, see for yourself - you can edit the system by editing ship_systems.csv in Starsector\starsector-core\data\shipsystems.
By itself, even with recharging nanoforge, Gryphon is not that much of a threat, at best it can tear apart a frigate. But hey, show me a cruiser that can't already do that, without missiles. Still, if you insist on abusing the nanoforge to alpha strike things... then you should have a right to do so. Seriously, boring yet effective cheesing tactics are
already possible in the game, and just the fact that they are possible should not be a basis for disarming an interesting ship.