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[Hari Seldon]

Phase Cloak ships are apparently intangible but missiles still keep circling around as if they can see you, and ships still target you.

Phase Cloak ships trade no shields (unless you can add them?) for Phase Cloak.  That means the only way Phase Cloak can help at all is if you can get behind the enemy ships and decloak there, where they have few weapons, and unleash your weapons with almost full flux for extra damage.  But how can you do that when enemy ships can still see you and keep backing away from you?  You have to have a higher speed than them, but Phase Cloak cruisers are too slow and never get behind anybody.  So when they decloak they are under fire from too many weapons and despite their damage bonus they get torn to pieces because:

1. The Phase Cloak ship has to destroy the enemy's shields before they can damage them at all, while the enemy damages the Phase Cloak ship right after it decloaks.
2. The Phase Cloak ship starts losing weapons as it is hit hard, so destroying the enemy's shields is even harder.

It's true I only tried to use Phase Cloak ships for the Mission (and found that Mission impossible with the default fleet it gives me) so maybe adding more flux vents and enhanced engines hull mods can overcome these problems.

[BillyRueben]

Phase ships aren't great by themselves, but they are the go to ships for flanking with their fantastic ability to alpha strike. I'd suggest using them that way.

[PCCL]

I agree phase ships would be more balanced if they can cloak for longer

To answer your question of how to get behind enemy ships, well, you use other ships to distract them. The pure phase ship group isnt really that viable of a build in campaign, you're supposed to use them to support a conventional fleet

[Hari Seldon]

So should I put a Torpedo on Phase Ships so they do massive damage right after decloaking?

[Reshy]

The problem with Phase Cloak is that the ships have specialized invulnerability shielding that prevents dealing and taking damage.  However it's not as useful as standard shields because standard ones don't prevent you from firing.

[BillyRueben]

The problem with Phase Cloak is that the ships have specialized invulnerability shielding that prevents dealing and taking damage.  However it's not as useful as standard shields because standard ones don't prevent you from firing.

They aren't meant for sustained engagements, they are meant for hit and run tactics.

Can the flux bonus modified in any way? Could it be modded to give a speed bonus instead of a damage bonus? This would allow you to fire your weapons and get away faster, thus increasing the value of phase ships. However, it would have to be tested because it could be completely OP.

[Silver Silence]

Problems I have with Phase Cloaks is that once a phase ship engages a ship, it's almost guarenteed to be unable to disengage without taking damage. And they have such little armour that any damage is often major damage. Phase fighters, from what I've seen in mods, can often do all the things that phase ships can, only much better. Their naturally higher speeds means they can disengage with relative ease.

[Thaago]

Phase frigates are some of my favourite ships, but they are a little weird: they are absolutely amazing against bigger ships, but pretty bad against ships their own size. Little buggers can single handedly harass and keep busy a capital ship and be massacred by a pair of frigates.

My Afflictor build: 2 am blasters (3 if you have very high tech, or 2 am blasters and 1 assault gun), 1 burst pd in the turret. Max vents and caps before anything else. Torpedoes are ok if you are hunting Dominators, but imo am blasters are the weapon to have. Engine techs, expanded ammo, and ITU are all nice additions, but vents and caps come first.

(Actually, I think am blasters are pretty much built for phase ships, whether on purpose or not. You can spend the entire time between shots phased, completely invulnerable, and dissipating soft flux or out of range/venting and you overload any ship that is busy attacking something else and riding high flux.)

Oh yeah: Phase frigates are the way to go. I've never gotten the Doom to work. Imo its a bigger punching bad than the Buffalo Mk II (only slightly exaggerated).

[Vinya]

If you like phase ships, I would direct you to the Neutrino Corp mod.


TheEND is like. Phase-ship awesomeness.

[Axiege]

I agree, something does need to be done to make Phase ships at least a little better. I've never been able to use them well at all and a traditional shield has always seemed a much better option to me. I think a lot of forum members were expecting Phase ships to be stealth ships, and that probably would have made them much better, maybe too good and that's why they stay visible currently. I probably am just using the ships entirely incorrectly though.

[Alex]

Phase ships could probably use a balancing pass at some point, but they are likely to get special campaign-level functionality, so it doesn't make sense to balance them *now*. Some kind of campaign-level stealth could be worth a lot of traded-off combat capability.

That said, I think they're pretty good now, they just require a different approach. Like Thaago mentioned, they're best for taking on larger ships that they can outmaneuver. This does tend to limit the Doom's effectiveness, since it's not quite nimble enough to easily outmaneuver capitals (though it's still fast for a cruiser), and besides that, there aren't very many capitals to begin with. On the other hand, it's offensive potential is really high, so you can alpha-strike smaller ships effectively - it's just unforgiving of mistakes and requires more finesse.

The mission ("Ambush") is definitely beatable with the default loadouts, btw. Oh, heck - just did it now for fun: won with no losses on the second attempt, though both frigates (set to escort the flagship) took heavy hull damage.

They key is to identify the biggest threats and deal with them quickly. In this case, it's the enemy Condor - it's a carrier, and if it lives, the fighters will wear you down. A well-placed volley of Sabots and Reapers (with "Fast Missile Racks" if necessary) can finish it off. If you fail at that, though, you're not likely to get another chance.

The other high-priority target is the Enforcer. It can wear you down with sustained fire and you can't outrun it in the Doom. But you outgun it severely as long as your flux is still low, so the key again is to dispatch it quickly, which you have the tools to do. Landing the torpedo strikes is tricky, but the amount of burst damage you can dish out is staggering. What you have to avoid is a drawn-out engagement.

The Lashers and fighters are easy enough to finish off with your pulse lasers and the occasional brief phase in/out to avoid the heavier missiles. The Mule doesn't have the damage to be a real threat, but it's still best to finish it off with torpedoes because it does have the speed to stay with you and the shields/armor to not be easily driven back by pulse lasers.

Another thing that works well is to vent fairly early - as soon as practical after making a kill. You're going to take some damage regardless of what you do, but timing three 30% vents to avoid heavy damage is much easier than doing that for a 90% vent.

[naufrago]

I don't really like the Doom in general. The role its most suited for is alpha striking something into oblivion... and after that it's weaker than a Medusa or Tempest. Imo, its skew towards missiles is the crux of why I don't like it (not just because I don't like missiles)- there are simply better, cheaper, more efficient, and more readily available alternatives to the Doom. It's a cruiser trying to fill the role of fighters and frigates. It's just awkward.

I can see a few different options for making it more useful-
1) You can change its role entirely and try to make it fill a niche of its own. Give it more OP, reduce phase upkeep, buff other various flux stats, change the missile slots to energy or universal, change the ship system, and suddenly it becomes a nice, well-rounded cruiser with staying power. You could even give it its own built-in weapon like the Onslaught. With a name like Doom, it's just asking for a badass weapon.

2) You can make missiles not be such a liability on it. Instead of Fast Missile Racks, you could potentially give it a new ship system that lets you re-arm your missiles at the cost of CR (obviously, the CR cost should be significant enough that it can only be done a few times at most). That removes one of the main disadvantages of bringing the Doom over strike fighters. It could still use a slight reduction in phase upkeep, though (maybe to 400f/s). And I still think it should have a special built-in weapon. It's called the Doom! Give it a badass weapon!

EDIT: (I also keep bringing this up, I feel like phase ships should have more armor- as much armor as low tech ships, or even more)

[PCCL]

agreed on the armor point, also I think they should be able to stay under for a bit longer

in my personal mod all phase ships have 1.2 times armor and about 1.5 times phase duration, might be a bit OP but as is they could use the help

[Gothars]

A mobility ship system could help the Doom a lot, a phase skimmer that works in p-space or something.

I could imagine phase ships to generally have two systems, one in normal and one in p-space.

[Reshy]

Could always give the Phase ships an indirect buff.  Like say they cannot be seen (and the ai certainly won't) outside 1000 units from the ship.  Possibly lower for smaller ships.  That means that when they pull off from an attack they can disappear completely using their passive cloaking.


Similarly, they also shouldn't appear in the 'Reinforcements' area of the screen, they're stealth ships why are they displaying the fact that they're there.  Furthermore I suppose you could give phase ships the ability to either 'flank' like fighters or frigates or some other position nearer to the retreating fleet.


Also being able to retreat faster than they move in for the kill would be nice.