that other thread got me thinking
but i don't wanna respond to it bc i have
so many opinions so here are my hot takes all on their own instead
FightersTalon - perfect, now
Dagger - good, Atroposes are kinda crap on ships but on bombers they do great as an all-purpose strike weapon with infinite ammo
Wasp - idk i never play with Wasps. probably good
Xyphos -
Too strong. Jesus, why do these things have shields and PD and
come in a two-pack? A single respawning flux-free ion beam that fires over ships would be mean enough, even on a fragile body - though not at that OP cost, I guess. Still, Xyphos could bear a bit of a nerf.
Broadsword -
why are these things "low tech" they're midline to a T. my beautiful perfect babies. broadswords are never a bad choice. strong but I think they're probably fine since bombers exist and every Broadsword wing you field is a bomber wing you don't.
Piranha - perfect.
Trident - idk if anyone uses these but they're pretty good. fill their niche of ultra-survivable bomber well.
Longbow - good
Mining Drone - still sucks but hey it's 0 OP.
would be cool if they leaned into their niche of free ablative armor at the cost of a fighter bay a little harder. Make them a wing of 6? give them custom AI to fly into missiles? idk.
Gladius - weirdo. goes fast, shoots things alright, has single flares, does a little bit of everything. doesn't really know what it wants to be. still good though.
Warthog -
why are these things "midline" they're low tech to a T. (EDIT: removed other comments, warthog is fine besides confusing tech level)
Thunder - i love thunder. so fast. so strong. so ion cannon. maybe too much ion cannon?
Give it a single decoy flare or a high delay light mortar or something else wacky and make its ion cannon high delay IMO. Claws are kind of useless while Thunders have swarmers and LMGs and 8000 range and 400 speed and only 0.5 less ion cannon.
Claw - All it does is stay alive slightly better than a Thunder wing does while being a lot slower and not killing anything. Probably fine on its own but either Thunders need high delay ion cannons too or Claws need a little love.
Hoplon/Khopesh - got nerfed. still strong. still one of the better bombers. probably good.
Perdition - got nerfed. still strong. still one of the better bombers. probably good.
Cobra - fills its niche well. good.
FrigatesWolf - perfect. my second favorite frigate after the Lasher.
Hound - hggggg i never fly a hound since we got hyperspace. but that might be okay. these things are the face of Starsector to the world and I feel like it'd be a mistake to change it. plus ACG buff loves them.
Hyperion -
phase teleport would be cooler if it used less flux but had charges so the AI would be a little smarter with it, maybe. one charge to get in, one charge to get out. long enough reload time that you can chase it down in another fast frigate and punish it for its insolence.
Mercury -
you know where i stand on the mercury. give it ALWAYS_PANIC and increase the price by 2000cr to differentiate it from the much-worse-and-also-uncomfortable Hermes that currently sits at the same price point. my lovely earlygame missile boy.
Hermes -
increase crew capacity a touch and make it cost 1 supply to maintain/deploy. maybe lower price by 500-1000cr. also give it all Hybrid mounts come on its allegedly midline. just do it. trust me. nobody flies a Hermes but i feel like that's kind of the point. i don't think they carry enough crew or are cheap enough given their description. why would you pay 4000cr for a Hermes when you can buy a shiny new Mercury for the same price, and pay the same in maintenance?! this is another one that i keep thinking is low-tech based on the sprite - and description.
Lasher - literally perfect. i love flying a lasher so much sometimes i don't deploy any of my other ships just to achieve maximum Lasher-to-hapless-enemy-that-Lasher-is-about-to-murder ratio. i usually also blow up but that's okay because lashers are so cheap and common. nothing compares to the rush of pressing F and staring down a destroyer with my 3 LDMGs and 2 LAGs
and sometimes (usually) winning.Omen - so mean. so strong. not too strong. just good.
Tempest - got nerfed, still strong, still real good, costs nearly as much as a destroyer so that seems okay though.
Brawler -
god i hate that this has damper field. The LP and TT ones are excellent though. I guess damper field fits into the Midline frigate ethos of "here's a good fleet frigate but not one you'd ever want to fly". I'd feel better about this if Midline had a frigate i
do want to fly but it
doesn't and i feel like the Brawler with its angry weapon layout wants to be that but it's just not. most of it i think is that it's too slow to catch anything that it wants to kill. that's why the LP and TT ones are good, i guess. or you could go the other way and give the stock one a 20% weapon range boost and AAF or something, which would also be pretty cool.
Vigilance -
Entirely outclassed in its niche. You could have a vigilance with a
harpoon podmedium missile or you could pay one
less supply and have a Buffalo Mk.II with a
harpoon podmedium missile
and a talon wing
and two salamanders
and an extra
harpoon racksmall missile
and an extra DP to do something with. and yeah buffalo mk.iis are too cheap but the Vigilance also needs a buff. EMR for free? ECCM?
Super ECCM? drop it 1 supply/DP and nerf the Buffalo Mk.II? dunno, just throwing some ideas out.
Dram - i wish we had more tankers but yeah this is good
Afflictor - mhm mhm mhm. nice.
Shade -
the Omen is a way cooler and less grief-y High Tech EMP frigate and the Afflictor is a way cooler High Tech phase frigate. god Shades are so mean.
so mean. EMP on a phase ship. jesus. it's probably still okay but i'm on the fence about it.
Ox - it tugs.
Cerberus -
not a combat freighter don't let it lie to you. also needs more differentiation. it could be faster? it could be tougher? it's already "the 100 cargo frigate that's faster than a shepherd and cheaper than a wayfarer" but that's not quite enough imo.
Monitor - Military Midline is weird at the frigate level, it has 3 frigates that all do the same thing (be slow and tank hits) in slightly different ways but only one of them is really good at it and it's this one. that's not a criticism of the monitor though, it's a criticism of the Centurion and (stock) Brawler. Also I keep thinking this thing is low tech - i guess it can't be because it has fortress shield and a bit of tan on it but something about the sprite just screams low tech to me.
Shepherd - so strong. not too strong. so good. perfect
Kite -
why is this thing low-tech and the hermes midline. cool as hell besides that though. feels kinda weird that it's 9 burn when it's so fast in combat but i guess all the shuttles are 9 burn because civilian, right?
Mudskipper - secret OP logistics ship
Mudskipper Mk.2 -
too weak okay i know the point is they're useless pirate crap for the player to kill but i can't help but wish they could be put to use. dunno what they'd need for that to happen without being too annoying to fight though.
Centurion -
what does it do? I think it wants 10 more speed and Maneuvering Jets. you can outfit it with small guns and fly it into a fighter swarm, i guess, but you could do that with a Lasher and have more fun doing it, or a Scarab for style points. as mentioned in the Brawler and Monitor bits Midline has three tanky frigates but only one tanky frigate that's actually good at being tanky. it feels weird that Midline has all the slow tanky frigates and Low Tech has all the aggressive maneuverable fast shooty frigates, compared to how that's reversed in the larger ship classes.
Scarab -
not very good. it's classy to have a prototype design in your game that is actually not very good as opposed to a video game trope "prototype" that just means "excellent" though. That said, I don't know what it needs to make it better - a single medium? better stats? it needs something though, for sure.
Wayfarer - wayfarers are cool. the description is one of my favorite pieces of writing in SS.
Gremlin - hahaha i love it. it's stupid. i love it.
DestroyersHammerhead - so good. so strong. but so good.
Sunder - perfect
Condor - are Condors garbage, or are they one of the best-balanced carriers in Starsector?
nerf every other carrier and maybe make Condors cost 1 or 2 less supplies or somethingEnforcer -
not holding up to the standards of its Midline competitors. don't think it needs a huge buff though. maybe the slightest nudge - 50 more dissipation or 1.0 shields or something.
Buffalo - it's a buffalo you aren't supposed to like it. the myriad paint jobs are a nice touch.
needs some reason why you'd take it over a Tarsus when it's strictly worse. 50 more cargo? 100? 1 less supply?
Gemini - the other best-balanced carrier in Starsector. Reserve Deployment is so strong that putting it on a relatively expensive combat freighter with a single bay is a stroke of genius. it just makes me wish i had a superfighter to put in it.
Tarsus - It's a low tech buffalo with more survivability, but it doesn't give up
anything for it except for requiring 20 more crew and I guess it's in the low tech BP instead of the base one.
It needs some reason for the player to not take it over a Buffalo. Efficiency of some sort would seem like the natural place, or you could buff the buffalo. Honestly I think buffing the buffalo is the better choice there. Also this is kind of an aside but I really, really want to see a Tarsus Mk.II, like a real pirate hackjob, not the semi-standardized Condor.
Valkyrie - the secret strength of the Valkyrie is that you can put Converted Hangar on it and it becomes an entirely viable cheapo carrier.
Buffalo Mk.II -
oh god i don't want to say it but i gotta say it. the Buffalo Mk.II is too strongtoo cheap. 4 DP is just way too little for something with that many missile mounts AND a destroyer body that you can put a Talon wing on. 5 would probably still be too little. 6 feels closer to right.
Medusa -
the Medusa doesn't need a buff it just needs to be seen more often than once every 300 cycles when the moon phases align correctly but okay maybe also a few more OP to drive home that "elite" vibe its description and current rarity give off. Or make it show up in TT and Persean fleets with some regularity and drop its supply costs a point, either or.
Mule - Mules are so good.
feels weird that the Pirate version is strictly better than the stock one when it's not even rare and hotrodded like the Falcon (P).
Phaeton - I wish we had more tankers that didn't look like the three we already have that all look the same, but yeah this is good too
crig - it's a crig. does anyone ever actually buy these? I'd rather have 3 shepherds or whatever and pay the supply premium but i guess there's a use case.
Nebula - it's a liner, it lines. nice. the range and cargo is a nice bonus. as a modder the sight of a nebula strikes fear into my bones so i wish you'd do something weirder with missing variants, personally - though this is better for the casual player i suppose.
Harbinger - misses its typhoons but they needed to be taken away from it for its own damn good
Drover -
Too strong. RD is so strong and on a fast, survivable destroyer carrier with two decks it verges on ridiculous. make it cost light cruiser supplies or something IMO - right now you pay a token amount more than a Condor and get way more carrier for your DP.
Shrike - Shrikes are so cool and good. The token OP drop on the (P) version almost balances out the ballistic weapon, but not quite. that's probably okay though.
CruisersFalcon - pretty damn good at what it does. i think it's in a good place.
Eagle - see above
Venture - ventures are nice. I feel like the Mining Drone wing is just window dressing, but that's more a Mining Drone problem than it is a Venture problem.
Apogee - cool and good. nice Paragon stand-in for the discerning
tri-tachyon stoogeindependent AI war researcher
Dominator - Dominators are hard to fly but they're fun too imo
Aurora - Auroras are scary good, but their cost balances it out pretty well imo.
need to exist more but i know you know that, hehDoom -
MINES M INES MINES MINESHeron - I think carriers are too strong in general but I'm not certain the Heron is the place to do something about it.
Gryphon - excellent
Starliner - it's a colony ship in disguise as a cruise liner. kind of makes me wish we had a real colony ship.
Mora -
oppressive. Damper Field on a carrier is super mean. If I had my way it'd have another turret or two, more OP, and Burn Drive and just be a baby Legion, but there's probably a bunch of other ways you could attack it. One interesting thing is that according to the desc, most (or all) Moras in the sector were once demilitarized salvage ships -- it'd be cool to see a Mora (S) or something (i guess not S, since that'd be military again, but yeah) that's outfitted as a salvage ship.
Colossus - we needed a cruiser-scale dedicated freighter and we got a cruiser-scale dedicated freighter. no complaints here.
Colossus Mk.II - I love these things. I love hammers.
Colossus Mk.III -
it needs... something. what it needs, tbh, is an OP-cheap long-range support fighter with a tac laser or an AO LR PD laser.
and a third stock deck and the ability to put Converted Hangar on it for even more, even shittier fighters, againCapitalsOnslaught - it's big, it's angry, it's real good
Astral -
I hate recall device. Give it charges or a cooldown or something, I'm begging you. Good besides that.
Atlas - shrug
Atlas Mk.II - this thing is excellent
Conquest - mhm real good
Paragon - it's broken but it's supposed to be broken. if you fight a Paragon you have only yourself to blame
give it 6 burn lolOdyssey -
i wish i saw more of thesePrometheus - i wish we had more different tankers but i love the prometheus. its dark secret is that you never need that much fuel unless you're about to seed some poor planet's atmosphere with antimatter.
Prometheus Mk.II - you know, i've yet to actually have to fight one of these. that's kinda my fault though
Legion - Legion is the one of best balanced capital ships in SS IMO. Fitting one is a lot of fun because you have to decide if you want it to be more fighty than it is fighter, or more fighter than it is fighty.
[REDACTED]not gonna talk about the SECRETS too much but
1) starsector needs an ancient domain mining drone with medium energies for that sweet mining blaster action
2) can you imagine how mean a [REDACTED] Xyphos-alike would be
if you put converted hangar on a ship, where does the shuttle pod come from?