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[TaLaR]

Let's consider what could stop a player piloted Afflictor from taking out a ship within enemy fleet:
- an enemy Afflictor or Shade, perfectly tailing me to attack right as I unphase. A tag team of two could do it even with disadvantages in character skills and variant.
- Harbinger, denying area around the target (since it can force me out of phase).
- Doom, dropping mines in spot I'm most likely to attack from (right as I prepare to unphase behind target). Even reactive usage of mines as now is dangerous, but doesn't really stop Afflictor.
- Tachyon Lances, Phase Lances, and to lesser degree HILs (long initiation) and Heavy Blasters (dodge-able) leading the me to attack on unphase.
- Keeping 360 shields up all the time for isolated ships. Huddling back-to-back for non-360 ships, also with shields preemptively raised.
- Self-defense abilities like phase skim or teleport. Phase cloak doesn't count because obviously I'd attack during cooldown.
- Fighters can force me to waste me some flux/time, but ultimately can't catch 200+ speed 4x time cloaked Afflictor.

And the most dreaded threat - enemy death explosions, though they obviously don't save the victim ship. I'll probably make a mod to draw these at some point. With cruisers and capitals the margins are razor thin, so it's very easy to attack from too short range by mistake.

Anyway point is - there are some things that can be done to protect fleet from an Afflictor, but they all take significant effort. And AI simply doesn't process it as any special threat (despite the fact that it is). Which leads to Afflictor game-play being too one-sided.

[Semondice]

All nice options, but I always find that fighters are a good deterrent for sending them away from the bulk of your armada. Either that, or a shade chasing it around.
Have more options in mind, but they're mainly from mods, I don't think counts :/

I've hated the tiny bastards for many, many hours, 'till I decide to try some in my fleet, and oh boy... aren't they powerfull! And not in a OP way; it somehow feels balanced, if rage inducing, most of the times.

[TaLaR]

AI Afflictors are not really dangerous, they have no concept of shield bypassing or proper tailing in phase vs phase combat. This was more about how to counter an actually competent Afflictor (which means player piloted for now).

I mean, if countering a competent Afflictor was impossible, then there would be no other conclusion than having to nerf it.

[Goumindong]

Tactical lasers, safety overrides frigates/destroyer, fighters.

[Vayra]

Loitering missiles like Pilums are also a big danger for phase ships.

[xenoargh]

Anti-Phase weapons.

Honestly, I'm tinkering with Phase as a mechanic over here, here's where things stand.

1.  AI vs. player:  player can only see them every once in awhile, not have perfect situational awareness.  AI's can't see Phased ships reliably, either.
2.  Phasing time in / out is critical.  Too long, and Afflictor gets to kill exactly one thing, maybe, then dies.  Too short, Afflictor is godly, because it can dodge fire.
3.  No direct counters to Phased ships mean that we're missing out on some interesting mechanics / counters that the AI might find amenable.
4.  It's brutally hard to make great phase-ship AI, honestly.  Getting behind the target, not too bad; deciding when it's "safe" to unphase and attack... is tricky.

[Goumindong]

A simple way to do this might be to assign roles and tags to ships/fits.

So a ship might be designated “anvil” or it might be designated “anti-phase”. And when it has that tag it modifies its base AI in a reasonable way.

Anti-phase ships (designated on fit) would target phase ships theyre closest to in priority of phase ships speed(that is ships theyre faster than) and engage them. The player could set these tags themselves and the auto-fit could have such tags associated with their fit.

[TaLaR]

Tactical lasers, safety overrides frigates/destroyer, fighters.

Tac lasers just make me vent somewhat further.
SO ships and even skill-buffed fighters are too slow to really threaten Afflictor with character skills. At best they make me waste a portion of CR time avoiding them. However all carriers themselves except Mora are easy and high-priority prey for Afflictor (omni-shielded for AM Afflictor, front shielded can be killed faster by Reapers).

Loitering missiles like Pilums are also a big danger for phase ships.

Dangerous, but only in sense of 'I was not paying enough attention and got hit'. When you properly look for them, they don't have much effect.

3.  No direct counters to Phased ships mean that we're missing out on some interesting mechanics / counters that the AI might find amenable.

Harbinger's system basically makes it phase police. It only lacks AI for the role.

[SafariJohn]

The problem is that the AI will never (reasonably) be able to understand the battlespace well enough to handle invincibility + high speed — attacking or defending. Humans, on the other hand, are very well-suited to understanding the battlespace.

The Harbinger is the closest we have to a reliable counter, and yet it isn't because 99% of AI fleets you encounter don't have a Harbinger. The same goes for any specialized anti-phase weapons or ship systems.


I think the best solution is to let all weapons hit phased ships for soft flux. That would bring them nearly in line with shielded ships, while still keeping them special and deadly.

[Megas]

The biggest problem with Afflictor is it is a glass sword.  With Entropy Amplifier, Reaper salvo will one-shot (well, up to four-shot) almost anything.  AM Afflictor that can reliably bypass shields (and not get shot) is more powerful than Harbinger.  AM Harbinger's main advantage is no finesse required, just click, shoot, and they take unavoidable damage.

Afflictor trades one overpowered system for another.  Well, Entropy Amplifier was not overpowered on Harbinger because it (usually) lacked the speed to easily bypass shields and could not mount as many Reapers (and could not use AM Blasters when they were synergy).  Entropy Amplifier is stronger on Afflictor because it is faster and can point more guns on target than Harbinger.

Changing some mounts to hybrid would prevent four Reaper Afflictor, but does nothing to AM Blaster Afflictor.  Or Afflictor can lose two mounts to match pirate Afflictor, then it would need its system to do any damage.  (Losing mounts is probably lame.  Could get Expanded Missile Racks and Expanded Magazines built-in for free if it lost two mounts.)

Changing the system to something else would tone down the damage Afflictor can do.  Maybe that Interdictor Array system Doom used to have before trading it for Mine Strike.

Of course, Afflictor can have its DP cost raised to 15 or so.  Does not really fix it since player will probably just chain one at a time.  If anything, it weakens AI because their fleets will probably be weaker.

[Plantissue]

I find that the biggest trouble to my piloting an Afflictor are fighters and HIL. Sometimes a nearby ship needs to be taken out first before going onto the main target. The problem is, if the AI devotes too much resources towards a phase ship, all the phase ship needs to do is to just be nearby and have an outsized impact. As it is sometimes I just sit a phase ship near an enemy ship and watch as it turns around and raise shields towards me whilst it gets killed by the rest of the fleet.

Another problem will be if the AI become good at countering phase ships intelligently,the phase ships will just be worser as an AI ship. It would only be fit for the human. At which point is how much DP would it need to be before it's DP cost can be considered fair?

[xenoargh]

I think the best solution is to let all weapons hit phased ships for soft flux. That would bring them nearly in line with shielded ships, while still keeping them special and deadly.

IDK; that feels like it'd just make them obsolete, honestly.  They'd be like ships with 360 shields and SO, kinda?

The whole point of Phasing is that it's absolute immunity, because you're a "submerged submarine", but you keep gaining Hard Flux, which forces you to make a decision about whether to finish an attack run or back off and Vent. 

I think the problem here is that:

1.  It's hard to get AI to use Phasing well, yet not have humans be able to abuse it.
2.  It's hard to see a bunch of counters to Phasing that don't have some dual-purpose use.

If anything, it weakens AI because their fleets will probably be weaker.

Yeah, not in favor of that, lol.  What happens to AI fleets who deploy multiple Hyperions, lol.

[TaLaR]

Yeah, not in favor of that, lol.  What happens to AI fleets who deploy multiple Hyperions, lol.

Hyperion is obsoleted by Afflictor. Even when all you do is shoot teleport in -> mining blasters -> teleport out -> vent -> repeat without a second wasted, you just don't do all that much damage during your CR time allowance.
Not that it can't be used at all, there is just no reason to.
 

[SafariJohn]

I think the best solution is to let all weapons hit phased ships for soft flux. That would bring them nearly in line with shielded ships, while still keeping them special and deadly.

IDK; that feels like it'd just make them obsolete, honestly.  They'd be like ships with 360 shields and SO, kinda?

360 shields don't envelop instantly. SO ships can't vent. Most shielded ships can't dissipate enemy-dealt weapon flux while still being protected, and even those that can (Monitor and officers with Defensive Systems 3) would not keep up with phase's combo of soft flux dissipation + fast time.

I think we can safely say that phase ships would still be significantly stronger than hypothetical 360-shielded SO ships, as befits their costs.

[Retry]

Under no circumstance would I agree with that.  The frigate-sized ships with 360 degree or near-360 shields envelop them extremely quick anyways (and everything smaller than a Paragon is really good enough except against edge cases like Afflictors).  All shielded ships can and do fire while shielded, which phase ships can't do.  Taking soft flux from enemy fighters or that plasma cannon you'd have otherwise dodged, while still passively adding flux due to the phasing, neuters the entire point of having phase ships in the first place.  Then it's just a crappy shield substitute that makes you go fast.

There is not a single ship in the game that would benefit with that style of phasing instead of traditional shields.  Including the phase ships.