one issue that's near and dear to my heart is the plight of escorts, specifically the small ones. while my traditional plank is carriers and fighters, those are now in a good place (and often rule the field, especially with mods) however, while trying to run what i consider a "reasonable fleet" here defined as a fleet that isn't too top heavy with only a few cruisers, a single capital, and many destroyers and frigates it has come to my attention that smaller ships need some help in the current schema of the game. two things in my view have proliferated that makes frigates* mostly obsolete by midgame:
*by frigates i mean conventional frigates, NOT phase frigates which work basically regardless of their size as their ability to ignore incoming fire, position to deliver reapers, deliver reapers and then disengage is basically foolproof
1) preponderance of officers, especially piloting cruisers equipped with gunnery implants / ITU and standoff weapons that can delete frigates, regardless of fit from standoff ranges in seconds
2) preponderance of fighters, which have the trifecta of warfare at their disposal (initiative and ability to close range, striking power easily enough to overwhelm frigates, and near perpetual ability to re-attack)
so the question is, what do we expect frigates to achieve in relatively high level combat, and what prevents them from doing these things really?
my expectations are fivefold:
1) i expect them to be able to control territory (in significant numbers) capture objectives against things that aren't the bulk of the enemy fleet, and thus contribute to tipping the balance of power in the favor of their fleet.
2) i expect them to be hold their own while providing picket/PD/fire support assistance to larger ships. this doesn't mean that they will be invincible while doing so, but if they can do it without dying instantly that would be good.
3) i expect them to be cheap to employ, maintain, and deploy. costs should be low both in DP and supplies necessary to keep them going.
4) i expect them to be disposable, more than heavier ships. they shouldn't necessarily be a huge headache either in time or resources to replace every now and then as you kind of expect them to get chewed up when AI fails the tightrope walk that is a frigate's existence.
5) i expect them to be strategically mobile. they need to be able to move around the field fast enough to apply pressure in specific spots. ideally, i should be able to get them around and to the side of heavier ships that they can attack with strike weapons while heavier ships attack from the front.
so, problems:
1) objectives don't do that much. it's usually simply better to deploy more DP in eavy gunz, ignore the objectives entirely and just focus on shooting your opponent's center of gravity to pieces. this isn't really a frigate-centric problem, but since the ability of fighters to capture things was removed, it now seems like a "frigate job" since on your average battlefield the objectives will be very close to the center anyway, frigates do not really gain anything by being slightly faster than your average median mobility destroyer, and lose lots of range and firepower. just IMO, objectives should be more widely distributed and should be made more effective. in addition, they should probably be crucial in increasing allocated DP to your fleet, meaning that you can bring in more, heavier ships for "free" on top of the frigates after a short wait. this might mean that if you ignore the objectives, you will be significantly outgunned at the "center map shootout" after a short time. battles should be made "wider" so that travel speed matters more, and frigate zero-flux speed boost could be made higher than on other ships so that they can really move strategically very quickly, while still retaining a reasonable combat speed so that they aren't immune to being shot or chased down.
2) this is chiefly a range problem. the proliferation of very high power standoff guns that have no problem hitting even the relatively narrow profile of your average frigate means they cease to exist in seconds with almost zero chance of survival. your average mid-sized fighter engagement's stray missiles also tend to destroy them utterly mostly by accident. it is hard to say how this can be fixed exactly without just giving them capital-level range increases which i think is a poor idea. perhaps just making them strategically faster will solve this to some extent- if you are not in front of your opponent's main battery you don't have to worry so much about the firepower of it. one of the chief survival problems of frigates as they are though, and one that is fixable is that the officer cap means that if you have a mid-to-large size fleet you will not be able to provide officers for your frigates, for a multitude of reasons: you don't have enough, even if you've maxed them out, they may not have the specialized skillsets required for frigates, and you fear losing them every time a frigate blows up (which happens often) i propose that frigates be "squadronable" where a permanent or near-permanent formation is set up consisting of certain frigates, and an officer commands the squadron from either a heavier flagship or one of the frigates. that way, multiple small ships can benefit from an officer without dedicating an officer to each one. i propose frigates having a mass squadron size of 4, and destroyers a max squadron size of 2. squadrons should stick together for the most part, and attack the same target. perhaps an AI sub-behavior could be written for them to make them a little braver when attacking targets they think they can take together.
3) the majority of them aren't cheap enough. 4 frigates costs 16-24 DP which is almost as much as a line cruiser(!) whereas a line cruiser is just on average much more effective. it has greater range, firepower, usually much more capable strike weapons, a much stronger shield, and with the proliferation of mobility systems, it may not even be significantly slower across the table or even tactically. it's also a lot easier for the AI to handle, as getting 4 frigates to attack something in a concerted manner is much harder than to get one cruiser to deliver standoff fire to achieve the same effect. the cruiser is less vulnerable to instant death or flux lock, and doesn't necessarily have the same "instant death weakness" like frigates do (salamanders, sabots, etc) monetarily i think they are costed fine at the moment- by midgame you will be able to buy them en masse with the money you have in pocket.
4) money-wise they are cheap, but that isn't really the game's chief obstacle in terms of disposability. the chief obstacle to disposability is the ability to replace them not monetarily but just finding them in a shop somewhere. every time a frigate dies, you must return to a port that might supply the type you want, check it, see that it is not in stock, then perhaps launch a quest to go find the one or two hulls you like, then track down the relatively rare weapons it takes to make a usable frigate hull. once you've fitted it, it will probably survive two battles and you will be back to square one. a more concrete ship production system is needed that the player can earmark. really i just want to tell tri-tachyon "i am a ship captain in good standing with your faction, you produce 120 wolf frigates a year, i want 2 a month, i am willing to pay you X money for it" and then they will be waiting for me when i get back, with the weapons and crew that i need. if my wolf squadrons are under-strength, i can click one button to draw from my reserves until they are up to strength. done.
the second BIG ISSUE is that you LOSE OFFICERS WHEN THEY BLOW UP, or else forgo officers entirely which is literally a death sentence in the modern game. either basically condemn frigates to uselessness by missing out on the insane scaling officers grant or make the disposability problem MUCH WORSE because now you will have to replace officers which are a real pain to find especially with a good skillset. frigate squadrons would alleviate this problem by moving the frigate officer off the frigates, or at least giving you more mass to work with so they don't die as easily.
5) the preponderance of mobility systems means that frigates are not really significantly faster across the table than other ships. in your average battle (that i see) basically everybody moves into center of the table at the same time, there's a shootout and then the battle is de facto over. the solution is probably a zero-flux boost boost (heh) and making objectives / terrain control matter more. once frigates can move faster, and moving faster means something (getting to the objectives before your opponent) frigates will be more important in general. when the battle spreads out, being able to apply force in one place, and then another, and then another, and the ability to bring in support quickly also means more. i can count on one hand the times i have said to myself "i have been strategically outmaneuvered" where i was significantly surrounded because a bunch of enemy support had gotten around behind me and i was so spread out that i could not regroup fast enough to not get picked off one by one.
tl;dr make frigates good again(tm)
edit: also feel free to disagree with my premises or spitball alternate solutions. i'm presupposing here that frigates aren't supposed to become useless by endgame.
