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[tinsoldier]

I wonder if folks would feel the same way if they saw how many of their talons were being blown to pieces each fight.  If you got a nice Wilhelm scream every time one bit the dust you might realize there are trade offs lol.

[Megas]

Talons are great for the same reason why Hellbore Cannon was great pre-0.8.  Common, dirt cheap (OP cost), and roughly top-tier generalist weapon.  Talon's main weakness is crew loss.  For that reason, I like to mix them up with Wasps, which need no crew.  I probably would use Sparks instead of Wasps, if I can find them.  (Probably need to go into Remnant systems to get those.)

With carriers, I do not have much OP to spare (without the +10% OP perk), and having effective fighters that are free are great.

In the simulator, where crew loss is not a factor, I would not use anything other than Talons (except maybe one Claw wing for lockdown), unless I play Astral, then I imitate Clarent spam with various bombers.

[Harmful Mechanic]

Giving Talons an OP cost of even 1-2 fixes the biggest issue with them: right now, six Talon wings and one Talon wing cost exactly the same amount of OP; nothing. As long as you have the bays, you pay nothing to put effective fighters in them.

Giving Talons any OP cost at all removes that. Suddenly the expense of Talons, still low, adds up; other fighters start to look more useful.

I'd rather see PD Drones made into a modular wing to have something to compete with the Mining Pod in the 0-OP slot.

[Techhead]

Giving Talons an OP cost of even 1-2 fixes the biggest issue with them: right now, six Talon wings and one Talon wing cost exactly the same amount of OP; nothing. As long as you have the bays, you pay nothing to put effective fighters in them.

Giving Talons any OP cost at all removes that. Suddenly the expense of Talons, still low, adds up; other fighters start to look more useful.

I'd rather see PD Drones made into a modular wing to have something to compete with the Mining Pod in the 0-OP slot.

The intended cost of a 0 OP fighter wing is the opportunity cost. In other words, every hanger slot with a 0 OP wing is a hangar slot that doesn't have something more expensive.

In 0.7.x, why not get the optimized assembly perk from Ordnance Expertise and then load up your Lashers with nothing but single-shot Sabots and Light Mortars? Those certainly give the best bang for your OP-buck. The answer? Because you could be filling those slots with other, better things.

That said, Talons give too much bang for their (very affordable) buck.

[TaLaR]

Giving Talons an OP cost of even 1-2 fixes the biggest issue with them: right now, six Talon wings and one Talon wing cost exactly the same amount of OP; nothing. As long as you have the bays, you pay nothing to put effective fighters in them.

Giving Talons any OP cost at all removes that. Suddenly the expense of Talons, still low, adds up; other fighters start to look more useful.

I'd rather see PD Drones made into a modular wing to have something to compete with the Mining Pod in the 0-OP slot.

Have you tried fighting simulator Condor with 2 Talons 1 vs 1 (no skills, no officer) ? DEs need fairly PD dedicated build to get a chance. Medusa has to go fully PD dedicated and is the hardest one even then. Of frigates, only special stuff like Hyperion or phase can do it.

No other fighter configuration (of those present in sim. Sparks would be quite OP too, of course) is anywhere near that hard to fight within same or lower weight class.

[Toxcity]

I feel like adding an OP cost to talons doesn't really fix the balance problems they present. Especially an OP cost so small. All it does is move the "base cost" unless they are given a high OP cost like 10. Sure I may have to sacrifice 6 OP on my Heron for the Talons, but it will still leave me 94 OP. The talons will also still be talons at the end of the day.

I'd prefer if swarmers were removed. Talons will still have the most dps of a fighter, but will have to rely on others for armor/shield piercing. It also greatlt decreases their EHP.

[DeltaV_11.2]

Talons should retain some sort of strictly anti-fighter missile capability otherwise they give up a bit too much in comparison to Wasps and Sparks. Talons with only Vulcans got melted by just about every fighter to no effect.

[FooF]

I feel like adding an OP cost to talons doesn't really fix the balance problems they present. Especially an OP cost so small. All it does is move the "base cost" unless they are given a high OP cost like 10. Sure I may have to sacrifice 6 OP on my Heron for the Talons, but it will still leave me 94 OP. The talons will also still be talons at the end of the day.

I'd prefer if swarmers were removed. Talons will still have the most dps of a fighter, but will have to rely on others for armor/shield piercing. It also greatlt decreases their EHP.

Removal isn't the answer. Having modded it in, Talons are useless and only end up tanking your crew. They just need to spam fewer missiles. Think of it this way, 1 Swarmer does to a ship's armor what 8 seconds of sustained Vulcan fire does (if it only hit one spot!). Over 5 seconds, Vulcans will do ~94 damage  to armor (assuming every shot hits, which they won't) while two Swarmers will do 300 in essentially one spot. The Swarmers make up at least 75% of the total damage of the Talon when facing armor, probably closer to 90% when you factor in that Vulcans spray all over the place and spread their damage. Factor in armor and the numbers even out a bit but Swarmers are still the only reliable damage in any one spot.  

If you remove them entirely, Talons lose any teeth they have. Halving the number of Swarmers (i.e. 1 per volley), for all intents and purposes, halves the Talon's ability to hurt armor. This leads to longer engagements and more Talons dying to their natural counters. It also reduces the number of targets for PD.

[TaLaR]

I tried PCCL's 1 swarmer (4 shots total) version. They still dominate frigates hard. After nerf I can manage  simulator Condor with Talons using Tempest (but it takes all CR time and significant damage). Couldn't with any frigates except special (phase and Hyperion) in vanilla, though Tempest came closest.

Maybe Talons should get 1 swarmer (still unlimited shots) while also somewhat reducing their respawn rate (to 6-7 from 5)?

[Toxcity]

The idea was that, to be effective, you would still have to invest in other wings (such as Gladius) to increase the effectiveness of Talons.

I'll go ahead and try out the 1 swarmer version.

[Issac Fisher]

I was skeptical at first but having put some in my fleet, I find that fighters in general,  but particularly talons and the tempest drone are horrendously strong.

I guess its just alex searching for balance but, I think a nerf needs to be hotfixed in someway.

[Megas]

Reducing wing size is another way of lowering missiles.  Talons in 0.8 have been misnamed.  They should be called Broadswords, and the new Broadswords something else.

[DatonKallandor]

Talons need frag-type missiles. Having HE punch and having insane frag dps on for 0 OP is what's making them too good. Mod them to have the old frag-type swarmers and suddenly they're really good at PD and decent at anti-fighter, but they won't kill cruisers anyway.

[Vind]

Talon need special nerfed down swarmers. Or maybe dumb swarmers without homing as they agile enough to make rocket run.

[Deshara]

give talons the broadsword's flare launcher, give broadswords their missile back, then the talon becomes dedicated PD screening interceptors
edit: and broadswords become useful again.