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[Demetrious]

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 ?

Even after carriers got nerfed into the ground in the last patch (to a balanced state or not, depends on who you ask,) I've found that Talons and Thunders still excel at hounding phase ships to death. Sic'em on them and every time they decloak they'll be there hammering away at their paper-thin armor. Broadswords are also good and are good at driving up the shields on more robust destroyers and taking out those annoying fast little frigates like Wolves. A destroyer hull carrier or two (Drover or Condor) are useful in almost any fleet for this kind of anti-frigate duty.

[Drazan]

They also cost around double DP compared to ships of the same class with relatively little firepower (except doom)

Yeah, no. No phase ship costs double DP compared to ships with similar tonnage and armaments. Aurora: 30 Doom: 35, Fury: 15 Harbringer: 20, Afflictor: 8 Shade: 8 Scarab: 8.
So no phase ships are not that expensive. That 5 DP is a small price to pay for salvation.

Also, low tech (again) gets nothing to really counter phase ships.

[Yunru]

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.

[Arcagnello]

I don't think there's much I could add to this thread other than briefly repeating what's already been described to work for anti-phase Ship tactics:
1) Beam weapons are your friend, especially Ion Beam, Tachyon Lance and High Intensity Laser. Massed Taclasers and Grav beams also help somewhat.
2) A harbinger on your side (preferrably with an officer that has Elite Phase Mastery, Elite Target Anlysis, Helsmanship, Systems Expertise, Reliability Engineering and a choice between gunnery implants or energy weapon mastery) will hardcounter enemy phase ships. They work incredibly well under AI control with 3 Alternating Antimatter Blasters + ITU + Unstable Injector. Variants also making use of the Ion Pulser and Ion Beams with the same hullmods will either entirely immobilize enemy phase ships for your allies to butcher them or will do it themselves. Expanded Magazines is also a good hullmod to install if the weapons synergize.
3)Warthogs with the Fighter Uplink Commander Skill also go fast enough to keep up with most phase ships, and they hurt. Not recommended against dooms
4)fast ships with 360 shields will harass and distract/take down phase ships, even the doom if properly S-modded and kitted out. medium to fast Destroyers like the Sunder or the Hammerhead do the job almost slawlessly with both Safety Overrides and Extended shields.
5)heavy long range missile firepower also makes it really, really hard for most phaseships to approach a target. This is one of the only things ECCM+Elite Missile Specialization Pilum/Salamander spam is very good at. Missile-focus ships firing limited ammunition ordnance also help, any phaseship approaching an enemy that has a Gryphon loaded to the brim with ECCM'd Harpoons and gets high on flux is going to be threading the needle more than it will ever want to.

You don't really need to follow all of them at once, having a good rapresentation of 2 or even just one of the above "concepts" across your fleet is going to put you in a very good spot  against the Phase Weebs when encountering enemies making significant use of phase ships.

[Inhilicon]

Maybe the Mora could finally get a buff then, if low-tech carriers are the answer!

[Satirical]

the counter to phase ships is setting a defense order

[writeru]

instead of  specialized anti-phase stuff we could have things like


Phase missles: Missles that anyone can use, the missles phase during part of the trajectory. If such missles could hit phase ships while itself is phased, it would be a useful weapon, but also useful for normal ships, being much harder to avoid, with the caveat that it would requires a certain skill to use it, if you use it from too afar the missles with get ouf of phase before hitting the phase ships.



or IDK, just make all phase ships be able to attack each other while in phase, as if all phase ships went to the same dimension when phasing. This way the counter for phase ships IS phase ships, as it is right now battle between phase ships can be really tedious.

[JUDGE! slowpersun]

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... prolly simpler/easier to just allow phase ships to attack each other when phased.  And/or some sort of low-tech weapon system to counter, since phase supposedly high tech...

[SCC]

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?

[TaLaR]

Any phase ship when player piloted is a counter to other phase ships.

[prestidigitation]

I would strongly prefer the option of hard counter depth charges for phase ships that knock them out of phase space if you drop the charge nearby. That way I could slap them on any type of ship (low/mid/high) and design a submarine chaser equivalent.

[Hiruma Kai]

Any phase ship when player piloted is a counter to other phase ships.

Hyperion also qualifies when player piloted.

[WeiTuLo]

It would be great if some non-phase ships could also have quantum disruptors. Perhaps a Tempest variant? Or a quantum disruptor missile that can hit regular targets and phased targets if not shot down by PD?