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« on: August 08, 2022, 03:10:09 AM »
So I have almost finished a full playthrough with this mod as my main source for ships and I have to say that the ships both look and play amazing but I do have some balance and design complaints/feedback/suggestions.
1) Cruisers feel weak compared to destroyers (and 1 frigate). Cruisers are generally the bread and butter of a low-tech/midline fleet since they are able to absorb damage and deal large amounts of damage back (ex: Eradicator; Dominator; Champion). High-tech cruisers, however, tend to struggle in the base game and this is probably for one main reason: vanilla medium and large energy weapons suck for sustained fire engagements due to most of them either having low range, high flux cost, limited number of charges, no hard flux damage, or some combination of the 4. This was not fixed with the weapons added in the mod since most of them share these exact same weaknesses. This also means that the eradicator/hammerhead-type frontline ship roles are not viable with the Verge, Skye, and Midi due to them not being able to properly get in range of the enemy fleet or not being able to deal enough damage from a distance. I understand that these were probably made with other modded energy weapons in mind, but taking only vanilla and ScalarTech weapons into account, all of this makes them strictly inferior to destroyers (and 1 frigate) like Brim (and Skirt) since it fulfills the hunter roles that high-tech cruisers usually serve. I don't think there is an easy fix for this since the ships themselves aren't the main problem. The way to solve it would probably be to add more high-range, high-suppression energy weapons.
2) There are too many variants of same ships that essentially play the same way. There are two versions of the phase ship with armaments on the front, three versions the energy weapon hammerhead-like ship with 1 large weapon, and two versions of the carrier with hardpoint slots on the front. My problem is not that there are too many of them, but that the similarities between them make some of them redundant. For example I found myself not using the Strand because the medium hardpoint slots on the front of a carrier do not provide nearly as much value for DP as you would get by just bringing one more fighter bay into the fight due to the AI not wanting to approach the enemy ships with carriers even with medium energy weapons on the front.
3) Some ships look a bit strange compared to others. Specifically I am referring to the Corset, Midi, Verge, and Peracle. The Corset looks very different from the other two capitals and I can't stop seeing it as a mushroom. The Midi looks like a crab. The Verge looks like a brick. The Peracle (and Skye to some extent) look too short and chunky. I'm not saying that this is a big problem but I would like to see them maybe changed a bit if that's even possible.
4) Sateen and Corset are much less useful than the Filament. The thing with Sateen and Corset is that they don't have (unlocked) fighter bays unlike the Filament. Fighters are very versatile, able to act as point defense, burst, suppression, or all 3 at once (like Twines and Broadswords) and this is what energy weapons used by the other two lack. Filament also has a better system than the other two since it enhances the three functions I previously described. Corset has a pulsedrive which is one of the worst systems in the game since it doesn't provide a dps boost, is used badly by the AI, and doesn't allow you to go backwards without stopping fire, which is the entire point of mobility. Sateen's system is a bit stronger, providing some point defense as well as close-range emp and allowing you to go sideways and backwards, but has the problem of being used very badly by the AI which makes it unusable in non-player hands.
5) Frigates are a bit too weak compared to the better vanilla frigates. Normally, the better vanilla frigates serve one of, or all 3 roles: swarm; tanking damage; dealing high close-range damage. This applies to Brawler (LP), Centurion, Hyperion, Monitor, Scarab, Tempest, and Afflictor. Those that can either do all 3 roles well or 1-2 roles really well are often considered the best. If you notice, a lot of these also have 1-2 medium weapon slots, which is a big contributor to why they are good. Small weapons usually aren't good enough to be the main armament of a ship unless that ship can serve the assassin role (Afflictor) and even if it can serve that role, it's generally not used in large quantities. The Margin and Curl can only use small energy weapons but aren't nearly mobile enough to make good use of them. The Hem does have 1 medium but not enough mobility and tankiness for the AI to effectively make use of it.
Looking at the better ships in each size category the roles go somewhat like this: capitals tank damage, deal high burst or sustained damage from a large range (fire support); cruisers tank damage and overwhelm other ships with long range suppressing fire; destroyers kill smaller ships and provide medium range fire support; frigates distract larger ships, deal high close range damage, tank damage, and swarm.
All that said, I do think that most of the ships look amazing and have interesting play patterns but I do wish there were more strong ships (and weapons) besides just the carriers, civilian ships, the Skirt, and the Silken Banshee.
