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Suggestions / Bring frigates back to the late game.
« on: October 31, 2018, 08:20:01 PM »
Hey so when talking amongst my peers it seems the general consensus is that late game, frigates and even destroyers don't really see much usage, as fleets shift toward more and more capital ships as they become available.
I personally try to avoid this actively as I find all or even mostly capital fleets to be boring, but I think there are several legitimate reasons for this trend.
-Capital ships, while carrying hefty up-front cost, are actually more efficient per-ton than smaller ships.
-Late game economics makes the entry fee to using capitals negligible, and while generally slower, capitals carry more guns, more armor, more hull, and more fighters per supply/month than any other class of ship in the
game, in fact, the same can be said for cruisers compared to destroyers/frigates, and destroyers compared to frigates.
- Capital ships can last far longer in combat than anything else.
- The CR and PPT mechanics work together to make sure that battles keep moving, and don't grind to a standstill where smaller, lighter ships endlessly poke at larger ones for hours on end, unable to be countered until the larger ship dies. For obvious reasons, this is good, but it also has led to a situation to where deploying frigates and destroyers to large battles makes little sense as they will usually start running out of PPT long before the capital ships have even reached their mid-game
What I'm proposing doesn't exactly address everything that makes smaller ships a questionable choice late game, but I do think it will help one of the bigger bullet points.
Allow smaller ships to receive an in-combat bonus to PPT when they are supporting larger ships
Similar to how PPT doesn't tick down if there are insufficient enemies nearby, implement some sort of system by which PPT will tick down slower if there are sufficient allies of a greater hull size nearby.
I really don't know the specifics of how this would be set up, but I can at least imagine it probably shouldn't apply if you're running an all-frigates fleet or are flying one destroyer in a frigate swarm, basically the overarcing goal would be to encourage mixed fleets consisting of both large and small ships that the player can fit for whatever roll they think they would best serve, instead of the current reality whereby frigates and destroyers are mostly relegated to chasing down smaller, fleeing fleets because in large battles they are outgunned on all fronts, have no staying power, and are generally more expensive to operate in large numbers in the long-term compared to bigger hull sizes.
Also just a pre-emptive clarification: PPT affecting hull-mods aren't a solution because by necessity they will require OP and thus make any build weaker. While larger ships don't need to spend OP on just remaining viable and can instead only take such hullmods if their specific build benefits from it. They also arguably don't do enough for frigates in particular to really matter.
I personally try to avoid this actively as I find all or even mostly capital fleets to be boring, but I think there are several legitimate reasons for this trend.
-Capital ships, while carrying hefty up-front cost, are actually more efficient per-ton than smaller ships.
-Late game economics makes the entry fee to using capitals negligible, and while generally slower, capitals carry more guns, more armor, more hull, and more fighters per supply/month than any other class of ship in the
game, in fact, the same can be said for cruisers compared to destroyers/frigates, and destroyers compared to frigates.
- Capital ships can last far longer in combat than anything else.
- The CR and PPT mechanics work together to make sure that battles keep moving, and don't grind to a standstill where smaller, lighter ships endlessly poke at larger ones for hours on end, unable to be countered until the larger ship dies. For obvious reasons, this is good, but it also has led to a situation to where deploying frigates and destroyers to large battles makes little sense as they will usually start running out of PPT long before the capital ships have even reached their mid-game
What I'm proposing doesn't exactly address everything that makes smaller ships a questionable choice late game, but I do think it will help one of the bigger bullet points.
Allow smaller ships to receive an in-combat bonus to PPT when they are supporting larger ships
Similar to how PPT doesn't tick down if there are insufficient enemies nearby, implement some sort of system by which PPT will tick down slower if there are sufficient allies of a greater hull size nearby.
I really don't know the specifics of how this would be set up, but I can at least imagine it probably shouldn't apply if you're running an all-frigates fleet or are flying one destroyer in a frigate swarm, basically the overarcing goal would be to encourage mixed fleets consisting of both large and small ships that the player can fit for whatever roll they think they would best serve, instead of the current reality whereby frigates and destroyers are mostly relegated to chasing down smaller, fleeing fleets because in large battles they are outgunned on all fronts, have no staying power, and are generally more expensive to operate in large numbers in the long-term compared to bigger hull sizes.
Also just a pre-emptive clarification: PPT affecting hull-mods aren't a solution because by necessity they will require OP and thus make any build weaker. While larger ships don't need to spend OP on just remaining viable and can instead only take such hullmods if their specific build benefits from it. They also arguably don't do enough for frigates in particular to really matter.
