Frigates would offer good cover and distraction if there was not CR at all. Just ruines the game by making you wait around or run from a fight because "OOPS Your CR is degrading from your lazy pilots they need a breather". It is nonsense how much damage this cr system is. Would make sense for carrier and damaged ships but, like the government, it is putting its paws into things it has no reason being in.
I think there's some very good merits to Combat Readiness that you're not seeing there. Having to think about combat readiness creates some strategic depth and fun.
- If you're looking to do some major fighting in a system, it incentivizes you to stagger your engagements. When fighting one fleet, you're forced to think about what's going to happen after - how will degraded performance affect a second encounter? Do I have enough time to recover before getting into another fight.
- By having your ships cost supplies to deploy (even if they don't take damage), there's a cost-benefit analysis that goes into every engagement. If only damage (and not combat time) had a supply tax, you could probably make a tidy profit picking on targets much weaker than yourself and overpower them. Having CR in the game means the player has a profit incentive to pick on targets your own size and to deploy the minimal amount of ships needed to win the battle. For me, this makes the game a lot more fun: I can happily ignore all the little fleets running away from me without feeling I'm losing out. Fighting them probably costs more money in supplies than I'll get in loot.
- It creates some very cool niches for high-tech frigates. If you've won a battle and some enemy ships are retreating, chances are your slow hog of an Eagle can't catch up to enough of them to make the CR investment worth it. A well-piloted Wolf, Afflictor or Hyperion, however, can single-handedly dismember a whole retreating fleet without costing too much.
- It interacts nicely with environmental hazards. Spending time in a corona, magnetic storm or hyperspace storm doesn't just cost you in the purse, it also makes flying around a little bit more dangerous.
- It makes the Emergency Burn ability interesting. If there was no degradation to CR when using it, there's no reason not to use at every possible instance. Not much of an 'Emergency', then, is it?
You could argue that the system could use some tweaking, especially when it comes to the low Peak Operating Time of Frigates and the A.I.'s current cowardly behavior. But to say that the system is just flat out bad in every possible way is simply indefensible.
Sorry but it doesnt create ANY good scenario....it just makes me fly in circles until I have enough to fight people. It even taxes your resources too hard...even more then repairs do and that a *** stretch because how does it take more supplies to eat and poop then it does to repair YOUR ENTIRE SHIP. High tech does not take much more but it harms them way more lore wise and practicality wise. Why does something more advanced become less efficient. The Hyperion is completely useless because after like 2 minutes it has to leave and it doesnt even usually carry very much firepower so you can barely have fun in it before its time to pack up and go home to eat dinner. It would be a lot better if CR did not degrade MID FIGHT but instead has the normal amount thats removed after a fight. This doesnt help that the ai barely have to care about thier CR issues as they come by the numbers and their death means nothing to anyone because they usually are replaced fairly quickly meanwhile you are a lone pilot thats now thrown at a disadvantage because it hurts your fleet and your content that much harder. I cant even get to the edges of the map with a good fleet without have about 300k credits and thats not accounting the the Barrage of those STUPID ASS STORM CLOUDS WHICH ARE NOW WORSE AND SLAUGHTER YOUR CR MORE AS THEY SLINGSHOT YOU INTO MORE CLOUDS (reminds me of the avgn scen for superman on commodore 64 where if superman gets hit he flies back). Im sorry but CR is a HUGE problem and only hurts the player 3 times more then the ai. Would help if ike in Space Pirates and Zombies 2 where there s other commanders with their own personalities, growths, struggles and triumphs and even better they have the same type of progression as you. Then then CR would makes a bit more sense but instead here comes about 10 disposable fleets coming at you...warp 9.