Someone probably thought of this before, What do you guys think ?
(The fleet xescape mentioned is, IIRC, the second last in a long list of doomfleets that every single faction in the game sends you way at some point or another if you're going down that path. So even if you don't make enemies with that fleet's current faction the appearance of that particular Doomfleet should come as no surprise at that point.)
Someone probably thought of this before, What do you guys think ?
Yes, in fact, the game has multiple game mechanics that let you deal with phase ships, all put in by the developers, who have spent a lot of time thinking about this. Like WW2 submarines, phase ships need to eventually "surface", since they build up hard flux while phased; plus they don't have shields. So you need to make sure they don't escape and vent safely. To do this, you can use fighters to swarm them, long-range beams (which are nice since they hit instantly), and/or fast ships. The key is to put constant pressure on them to remove their window of safety when they need to vent.
Spoiler!SpoilerIn fact the easiest way I found to kill the new phase ship is to just use 2 Paragons with HIL and some ion beams for fun. Its motes may disable one's weapons, but the other one will still be active, so it dies quickly once it's forced to unphase.[close]
Dooms are of course a separate issue, but fortunately, the AI isn't as good at abusing them as the player is.
I don't use phase ships but I don't think they're a balance issue either. Except for the Doom in player hands I guess, but you're not facing that.
They're usually just... annoying.
Dedicated anti-phase weapons could be a way to make them less exhausting to fight but then you'd have to constantly change loadouts depending on what you're facing. I suppose an anti-phase system of some kind could work as long as it's not a complete hard-counter.
So everything low tech doesn't get oof
Starsector combat seems to be loosely based on real world navy ship combat. We don't have submarines in the game, to me phase ships play a similar role as they have stealth.
However phase ships are overpowered and mass of them are extremly annoying to deal with. Imagine in real life subs underwater are x3 faster than an anti-sub destroyer !
Even not as op, navies already devote huge amount of resources to specialised anti-submarine warfare. I think this is what's needed for starsector. There should be specific anti-phase missles and systems so the AI can't just rock up a full phase fleet, there's got to be effective counter to that.
This would provide more choices to play with, more fun fighting phase ships and curb op phase ships in player's hand etc.
Someone probably thought of this before, What do you guys think ?
They also cost around double DP compared to ships of the same class with relatively little firepower (except doom)
Also, low tech (again) gets nothing to really counter phase ships.I was going to say fighters, but most of the good carriers are Midline.
Anti-phase should be entire ships, not just some weapon or hull mod. Yes, it would basically be a ship tax (have to drag around a few anti-phase ships), but can only use special ships ability to force drop phase ships out of phase...So, Harbinger?
Any phase ship when player piloted is a counter to other phase ships.