Oh man, this is going to be a lot of typing. Here we go.
I feel that larger ships should lose CR during combat too. It feels like a strange gameplay and story segregation. Why wouldn't larger ships lose combat readiness as the fight wears on? Sure larger ships would have more space to keep the replacement bits and bobs, and they'd have more personnel to rotate through so they don't burn out. So it would make sense for them to lose CR slower, and maybe have a longer delay for CR loss.
As it stands now I balk at using frigs with any char that has points for larger fleets. The control point bonuses really add up. So if frigates are the only ones that burn out as the fight wears on there is little incentive to make them anything besides fighter popping fools that then immediately flee after the points are capped. Or just not use them.
Ah - a major part of the reason frigates don't get those objective bonuses is the kiting issue, so I'll be taking another look at that.
Anyway, I feel like I'm repeating myself a bit, but let's not jump to conclusions about the uselessness of something that's likely more useful than it is now, though for a limited duration. But not limited enough that it'd be much of a concern for those early game battles, for example.
As far as consistency, it seems reasonable to me if you consider frigates to be a qualitatively different type of ship, which would be further emphasised by the speed boost. But a few frigates may not suffer from this, and a few destroyers might, if that gives you any warm fuzzies
In particular, I think the Buffalo Mk.II isn't the kind of ship that could handle a prolonged deployment...
How will fighters and CR interact? What if that was their "hat" so to speak? I love fighters for their multi-fight stamina now. If they always maintained a high level of combat-readiness in conjunction with a flight deck they'd be much better with little other changes. Presumably they'd run out of spare ships to use eventually, and their CR would begin to degrade.
I don't think it comes through clearly, but I'm really excited about combat readiness. I like balancing one aspect to another, and CR adds time as an aspect.
I guess the TL;DR is I like consistency; even if it isn't a constant. The ITU and the injector are good examples of that.
Not entirely settled on fighter changes yet.
So, the problem with them is that they are too fast, their speed allows them to kite indefinitely. True, that's problematic. The planned solution is to degrade their overall performance to the point where they should be retreated.
So I have to ask, why not specifically degrade the one stat that is the problem, IE degrade speed? That way the would loose the ability to kite, but stay useful in other roles such as escort or Objective protection.
The main reason to do so is to take advantage of an already-existing mechanic, rather than slapping on a brand-new one just for this purpose. I'd actually considered doing this a few releases ago, but decided against it just because it'd be too... random? Arbitrary? Ham-fisted? Using existing CR effects ties it in nicely with the rest of the game, the lore, etc. Now, tying a different set of CR effects specifically for frigates is different, since that's not so discinnected from the rest of the game anymore, but I have to ask: why? Existing CR effects do the job just fine without complicating things by having even more rules.
I see that others disagree, but I really like the idea of limiting the role of frigates (and maybe buffing the existing frigates/adding new ones to compensate). Having fighters be a fleet's long-endurance escort and strike tool and making frigates skirmishers and scouts helps clear up the blurring of their roles (and the perception among a lot of us, though obviously not all, that there's no reason to bring fighters when you've got a couple Tempests available). If you did want to preserve some frigates as dedicated escorts, though, you could also divide the class in two: frigates would be slower vessels with heavier armament, suited to escort or assault (Lasher, Wolf, Brawler); something else—corvettes?—would be the fast attack craft (Tempest, Hyperion).
Hmm, interesting idea. The Brawler, at least, seems like a good candidate for not having CR loss, and it'd give a way to stand out from most other frigates.
Anyway, I hear this whole CR mechanic needs a lot of playtesting! When do we get to, uh, test this stuff?
Not so soon(tm). There's a lot of other stuff I want to see in the next build, and even "just" the CR changes still need quite a bit of wrapping up and preliminary testing.
kinda off-topic aside about FTL:
Spoiler
Somebody brought up FTL as an example of randomness done right; I personally think that randomness in FTL spoils what's otherwise a great game. It's true that later in a game, a skilled player can prepare for and deal with any random event. In the early stages, though, randomness is king. Not only is the player unprepared to deal with many random events, but every bad outcome snowballs into a worse one, which is not a problem inherent to roguelikes. The fact that you have a finite number of jumps means that the first few you make are ridiculously important. If your first two jumps result in damage to the ship and nothing gained for it, you might as well quit and start over. Not good design!
Spoiler
That was me
I spent quite a while with FTL, and didn't see things quite that way. I thought the bigger problem was that you could get really bad luck in terms of what weapons/drones/etc were available to you... Early hull damage, meh, that's just another 50 scrap you spend at some point, which in the grand scheme of things didn't matter all that much. I think if you didn't have this randomness, the game would lose so much of what makes it interesting. Making gambles is a huge part of the fun, for me anyway.
CR degrading during combat with immediate effect is fine so long as CR degradation is directly related to activity. Think soccer game, a defender who see little action would retain more stamina as oppose to a forward who's been running back and forth. A frigate on escort duty should probably be less drained than one performing hit-and-run - before it see some action, that is.
The way I see it is just being deployed is enough activity. Crews at the ready, power grid at full capacity, etc. It's already far beyond normal operating conditions. Still... hmm. I could see only reducing CR/peak effectiveness time while using the engines/weapons, but I'm not sure that extra nuance is actually needed to make it work right. Playtesting!
1. Will the size of fleet have any influence on speed at which ships are gaining CR betwen battles? (I can imagine small fleets being able to regain it faster than big ones due to much less betwen ships cargo and personel transportation, but on other hand I can imagine that every ship is a separate kingdom which is dealing with it's own problems using it's own supplies and personel so maybe it really should not have any impact at all)
2. Will it be possible for certian ships to improve speed of regaining CR betwen battles for other ships in a fleet? (having ship dedicated for cargo or personel transportation would make it easier for other ships in a fleet to deal with their problems - afther all they do not need to deal with those "good for nothing" marines which alweys get in the way of working staff, and do not need to waste time to take all suplies to cargo bay and secure it, because there are ships in a fleet that are dedicated to deal with those things. And even if they are unable to deal with all surplus of personel and suplies, they defienietly are making other ships' crew's life a lot easier)
Possibly & possibly.
3. And how about fighters/bombers and carriers? Will fighters and bombers be affected by this at all? Or maybe they will be affected, but not directly - each time they are landing on a carrier they are reducing carrier's CR?
Hah! Funny, one of the ideas I'm considering actually is having fighter refit use up carrier CR instead of supplies directly. This is good, probably means that it's a natural way to handle it.
Also, will certain weapons decrease CR a lot more? Say, if a salamander hits the engines, I can only imagine the havoc that would cause. Or if a couple of Plasma Cannon rounds hit your weapons, you're not gonna want to use them, right?
And one last thing, will low-tech weapons like, say, a Helbore Cannon (which only has a few moving parts) or an arablast autocannon or a flak cannon be better or worse with CR? I can see arguments for both sides, and I'm wondering what you think...
Maybe
There's a possibility that EMP weapons might have some interaction with CR, though I'm far from being decided on that. As for specific weapons... there's a point where adding more detail only makes things complicated and not "better", and that point actually comes up pretty quick.