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Author Topic: The Frigate Bias  (Read 27242 times)

Draba

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #135 on: May 22, 2021, 07:29:38 AM »

Dusa is solid, sunder is hit or miss survivability, endgame hammerhead either needs to be SO or 1 hvd/1mauler because at 700 range he's gonna get eaten by larger enemies/phase ships. funny cause HH was always so fun in previous versions.

honestly outside of dusa and maybe shrike i feel like most destroyers now are too fragile and too slow in the current meta, they're not terrible at escorting a cap ship but for the DP cost i'd rather have tempests/omens/monitors harassing or escorting and keep my cruisers and above clumped around a cap/defend point.
Yeah, the Hammerhead is the weakest of the bunch mentioned because new Brawler does a similar thing and is good at it. Only downsides are fixed mounts+OP being a bit low for 1000 range ballistics, HH is still better in some cases.
Sunder isn't a good standalone ship but having 1-2 energy focus HILs (or maybe tach lances) sitting in the back are gamechangers for tanky or kinetic heavy lineups. Can even make use of ranged spec.
I think that's the most practical AI Destroyer by far, just don't bring too many.

Name any other skill that has this massive an impact on playstyle and power of a any type of ships fleetwide
Below T5 Derelict contingent and Crew training are both huge jumps in power.
Neither comes at the expense of a good universal skill.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #136 on: May 22, 2021, 09:31:21 AM »

Even high tech frigates die against the thought targets. Stations, radiants and tesseracts notably. You can still beat those things while using frigates, but heavily concentrated firepower will absolutely delete frigates. Wolfpack does not increase survivability. Without wolfpack, those frigates are just as survivable, they just don't last as long or do as much damage.

Also, centurion and monitor are both solid mid-tech frigates with good survivability. Not quite to the same extent, but they are cheaper DP wise and would do just fine capping objectives and harassing flanks in a larger fleet.

Also, I don't really see how it's being jammed down anyones throat. There are ton's of ways to play the game that don't involve wolfpack that are effective. I didn't use the skill on my first play through and I still managed to kill all of the big end-game threats.
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Thaago

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #137 on: May 22, 2021, 04:18:08 PM »

I'm with intrinsic_parity on this - wolfpack is great, but it doesn't make other playstyles ineffective. I played a game with wolfpack (did a leadership 9 wrap like the recent video, though I went heavier on carriers and didn't do automated ships, used a bunch of centurions with SO for non-officered blitz frigates) and it was fun and effective. But I've played a couple other games not using frigates past the midgame, or only using a few un-officered ones as escorts/distraction, and that was also effective. Destroyers are great: with officers they can use brawling weapons all the way to endgame for good DPS. Without officers they can be built for range (1200, or 1400 for sunders) and still survive and contribute against the toughest enemies. I'd say Medusas get a bit left behind there: nice ships with officers, but being without an officer and close to the enemy like they need to get is dangerous.

(I feel like officered artillery sunders deserve a special mention... they aren't that fast, but they are fast for having 1550 range, and they can stack ship system, ranged spec, target analysis, and the CR damage boost for good damage numbers. A bit fragile even with hardened shields and the shield skill, but thats ok.)
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Locklave

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #138 on: May 22, 2021, 05:13:49 PM »

Wolfpack overshadows the other choices, that's the point. It doesn't have to make them ineffective. I'm going all High tech frigate in my current run, I have zero salvage ships and only the cargo space industry skill because I don't want to militarize my support ships and lower bonuses. I have unlimited fuel & nearly unlimited supplies while exploring and can take on basically anything I run into. This playstyle is easy mode compared to everything else I've tried.

People need to stop conflating something being overpowered with it being unbeatable. Ya they will take losses vs the bleeding edge of content, they can easily afford those losses and restoration however and blow through normal enemy fleets in record time. Everything they do is cheaper and faster the entire game, they do it faster for less. If your bar for something being fine is simply, the fleet can take losses, then nothing needs nerfs.

Wolfpack isn't just more military might, it changes the logistics profile of your entire fleet making you more deadly while expending less resources. I like a fool look to the industry tree for this and find nothing even close to it. This one skill improves your logistical situation more then 10 points in the industry tree. But it also makes you more dangerous too. And it's a tier 2 skill.

Name any other skill that has this massive an impact on playstyle and power of a any type of ships fleetwide
Below T5 Derelict contingent and Crew training are both huge jumps in power.
Neither comes at the expense of a good universal skill.

Derelict contingent is getting nerfed, Alex already said so.
Crew training suffers from the limits/maxes I mentioned in the rest of that post and isn't really game changing. It's just generally good. People aren't building a playstyle around Crew training. It is most certainly not a huge jump in power.
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torbes

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #139 on: May 22, 2021, 08:12:09 PM »

Correct, it's the combo of certain ships with certain skills that are too strong. Last playthrough I went from 8-10 frigates 1 apogee doing exploration and bounties until end game bounties and radiants. Hell I found a hyperion and didn't even bother because temp/scarab/omens were just fine until bounties got to 4+ caps. I bought a few destroyers and light cruisers and didn't touch until I had colonies and transitioned into endgame fleet pre zig - 1 paragon, 1 legion xiv, 1 dominator, 1 SO aurora, 1 champion, 2 gryphons.

The point is while I certainly could have transitioned the way I would have in earlier versions, I didn't need to and didn't feel like I needed to at all. There was no sense of progression, it was steamroll for 3-5 game years, immediately switch to end game.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2021, 08:14:34 PM by torbes »
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Draba

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #140 on: May 23, 2021, 03:34:24 AM »

(I feel like officered artillery sunders deserve a special mention... they aren't that fast, but they are fast for having 1550 range, and they can stack ship system, ranged spec, target analysis, and the CR damage boost for good damage numbers. A bit fragile even with hardened shields and the shield skill, but thats ok.)
Yep, Sunders are great from start to finish.

Crew training suffers from the limits/maxes I mentioned in the rest of that post and isn't really game changing. It's just generally good. People aren't building a playstyle around Crew training. It is most certainly not a huge jump in power.
To sum it up:
+5% damage, -5% damage taken, +5% speed for the entire fleet is nothing serious.
+20% speed for the entire fleet is bad.
+20% damage for officered frigates breaks the game.
Don't see why this is so obviously true, wolpack isn't even top 5 for me (and it competes with a very solid universal boost). DP without officers is generally DP wasted, need the +120 to reach lowish PPT, frigates often pop to nasty radiants, the usual.
CT only starts losing some effectiveness after 240, in practice it doesn't have a limit.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2021, 05:09:42 AM by Draba »
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Locklave

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #141 on: May 23, 2021, 06:51:46 AM »

Crew training suffers from the limits/maxes I mentioned in the rest of that post and isn't really game changing. It's just generally good. People aren't building a playstyle around Crew training. It is most certainly not a huge jump in power.
To sum it up:
+5% damage, -5% damage taken, +5% speed for the entire fleet is nothing serious.
+20% speed for the entire fleet is bad.
+20% damage for officered frigates breaks the game.
Don't see why this is so obviously true, wolpack isn't even top 5 for me (and it competes with a very solid universal boost). DP without officers is generally DP wasted, need the +120 to reach lowish PPT, frigates often pop to nasty radiants, the usual.
CT only starts losing some effectiveness after 240, in practice it doesn't have a limit.

Do you want to have a conversation or make a straw man? Don't put words in my mouth, I never said any of that was bad and I never said it breaks the game. Don't reduce/dumb down my points into for and against extremes so you can lazily counter them.

Every fight isn't a Radiant fight, every fight isn't an bleeding edge of content fight. I said that already. I clearly explained the overall effect of this single skill which is rather sweeping and you claimed Crew Training has a huge impact, which is supported by nothing you or anyone else said. Go back and read the explanation about the impact on logistics that you clearly ignored. Fact that everyone acknowledges how powerful the frigate builds are, Wolfpack being their backbone, that is what this thread is about. Why it even required a thread in the first place. I'm not dancing around with you on side issue where you want to pretend a +20% speed boost is better then Wolfpack when Wolfpack with high tech ships makes that unnecessary.

I can't help you if my explanations and 10 pages of posts about how this 1 skill changed the landscape of the game for Frigates aren't doing it.

FYI if you use 90% Frigates, Wolfpack is a "universal boost" with no diminished returns for using more, I already said this of course. My current fleet has 14 captained Frigates +me for 15, 4 redacted captains, all getting the full Wolfpack bonus without diminished returns unlike every other specialized skill in the game. Oh noes 3 got destroyed in 1 really terrible fight, I'll just have to reach into the giant pile of credits I've saved from only using frigates (again I outlined how they save tons of money) and restore them without a second thought.

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21707.0

Because, anecdotally at least, videos presented like this wouldn't be happening without Wolfpack. This btw matches my experience. But this skill isn't in your top 5, I guess congratulations on being unique, I'd rather be common and not pretend Crew Training is "huge".

Seriously why did you quote the only part of my post that had nothing to do with your response?
« Last Edit: May 23, 2021, 07:04:51 AM by Locklave »
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Thaago

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #142 on: May 23, 2021, 11:20:44 AM »

I'd say crew training is not as good as wolfpack: 5% offense, defense, speed, maneuverability, acceleration, better autofire aim, faster fighter rebuilds, lasts just a bit longer in combat/can deploy an extra time in endurance situations. Thats a potent set of bonuses, but 20% damage to ships bigger than frigates is huge, and the PPT increase is apparently useful too. Crew training is probably about... I'd estimate 2/3 as powerful. 5% offense/defense is about as good as 10% offense, and then the other lesser benefits are good for a few points as well.

On the other hand, crew training applies to every ship and doesn't require an officer. I don't think the diminishing returns is a good argument to criticize it for this comparison - even 14 hyperions (light cruisers really) is only 210 DP.

Its not really that important a comparison though, is it? Wolfpack doesn't compete with crew training, so a wolfpack captain is going to take both and stack the bonuses anyways.
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Arcagnello

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #143 on: May 23, 2021, 11:50:54 AM »

I'd say crew training is not as good as wolfpack: 5% offense, defense, speed, maneuverability, acceleration, better autofire aim, faster fighter rebuilds, lasts just a bit longer in combat/can deploy an extra time in endurance situations. Thats a potent set of bonuses, but 20% damage to ships bigger than frigates is huge, and the PPT increase is apparently useful too. Crew training is probably about... I'd estimate 2/3 as powerful. 5% offense/defense is about as good as 10% offense, and then the other lesser benefits are good for a few points as well.

On the other hand, crew training applies to every ship and doesn't require an officer. I don't think the diminishing returns is a good argument to criticize it for this comparison - even 14 hyperions (light cruisers really) is only 210 DP.

Its not really that important a comparison though, is it? Wolfpack doesn't compete with crew training, so a wolfpack captain is going to take both and stack the bonuses anyways.

Wolfpack tactics adds a whole 120 seconds of Peak Performance time to frigades with officers on them. Combined with Reliability Engineering (+60 seconds), Elite System Expertise (+30 sconds) we reach the total of 210 seconds, or three minutes and a half.

This value is also divided by three by Safety Overrides, meaning that a frigade with normally low PPT like a Hyperion (with its 120 seconds of Peak performance time) would get (120+210)/3=110 seconds of peak performance time, only 10 less than the stock value, despite being overridden.

Hardened Subsystems pushes its PPT up to 137 seconds by the way,  meaning Wolfpack Tactics makes it possible for Overridden Frigades to have a higher Peak Performance time than their stock value. This also means that some Overridden frigades (looking at you Glimmer) also manage to get a PPT value that's higher than not only Destroyers, but also Cruisers. Think about that for a moment.

Oh, and there's also the fact these hypothetical frigades can also have 100% CR with Crew Training and Reliability engineering, which combined with Hardened Subsystems realistically makes them stay on the field for minutes even after they run if their PPT before even getting all the way down to under 41% Combat Readiness. Really useful if you want to settle a hard fight in only one engagement.

Crew training is a good Commander Skill, but it's not that good.

« Last Edit: May 23, 2021, 12:05:42 PM by Arcagnello »
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Thaago

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #144 on: May 23, 2021, 12:00:00 PM »

Hmm thats a good point, I hadn't considered SO because I didn't use it in my frigate run. That kind of PPT boosting is worth a lot if its making SO usable on frigates for endgame fights. Do you find that thats enough time? In general I think fights are faster this version than last so I'd imagine it is, especially with how deadly SO Hyperions are.
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Arcagnello

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #145 on: May 23, 2021, 12:21:59 PM »

Hmm thats a good point, I hadn't considered SO because I didn't use it in my frigate run. That kind of PPT boosting is worth a lot if its making SO usable on frigates for endgame fights. Do you find that thats enough time? In general I think fights are faster this version than last so I'd imagine it is, especially with how deadly SO Hyperions are.

Oh, Ludd yes.

Anything that's overridden and (more or less, no accurate data is allowed in what I write) can last 4 minutes into a fight without even having malfunctions is bound to meatgrind double its own worth of Deployment Points, which is being fairly pessimistic since not only the Hyperion but also the Tempest, Scarab, Glimmer even even the Wolf, the Brawler and the Monitor exist.

Why would you put an Officer into an Overridden Monitor you ask?
The ship system dissipates hard flux at 50% the rate of soft flux (I think? Could be lower), effectivelv turning it into the tankiest ship in the entire vanilla game when Officered, Overridden and sporting 20 vents thru the help of Special Modifications, plus of course Solar Shielding, Hardened Shields and the Shield Modulation Officer Skill (which I'm pretty sure also stacks with the ship's hullmod).
« Last Edit: May 23, 2021, 12:57:13 PM by Arcagnello »
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Draba

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #146 on: May 23, 2021, 01:33:58 PM »

Hmm thats a good point, I hadn't considered SO because I didn't use it in my frigate run. That kind of PPT boosting is worth a lot if its making SO usable on frigates for endgame fights. Do you find that thats enough time? In general I think fights are faster this version than last so I'd imagine it is, especially with how deadly SO Hyperions are.
On standard battlesize, against strong enemies Hyperion and Scarab constantly got into crit malfunction range for me (despite having every possible boost).
Don't think it's practical.

Why would you put an Officer into an Overridden Monitor you ask?
Monitor with an officer is already very close to unkillable, SO doesn't add that much IMO.
Speed is always nice if the rest of the fleet won't last longer anyway ofc.

I'd say crew training is not as good as wolfpack: 5% offense, defense, speed, maneuverability, acceleration, better autofire aim, faster fighter rebuilds, lasts just a bit longer in combat/can deploy an extra time in endurance situations.
Yes, the paper bonus itself might not be as strong (definitely the same ballpark though).
Applying to every over-the-top setup is what makes it comparable, for the people who don't think anything but Hyperion/Scarab/Glimmer/Tempest is pointless.
It does work with things like Doom, Ziggurat, Radiant, Fury, DC, helps Monitor where it matters, ...

Seriously why did you quote the only part of my post that had nothing to do with your response?
The rest described how a frigate fleet makes supplies and money a non-issue, and why you think that's important.
Never had a problem with supplies or restoring keepers myself so not much to add.

There being a video about wolfpack means that somebody liked it enough to make a video.
It certainly works, that wasn't a question.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2021, 01:36:38 PM by Draba »
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Thaago

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #147 on: May 23, 2021, 02:07:22 PM »

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong: crew training is an every game pick unless I'm doing a challenge no leadership run because it is a great set of bonuses for any kind of ship. Wolfpack tactics is only good for doing frigate only runs - its strong but specialized, and even a lightly mixed fleet is going to want coordinated maneuvers instead. But its a very strong skill for frigate only runs.

I'm a big defender of all of the 'non-meta' current playstyles: low tech, carriers, non-SO,  none of them are as bad as people say and every one can support themselves through the whole game on combat alone without having any industry, colonies, or commission. When it comes to heavy enemies a bunch of compositions are better than frigates, capable of taking enemies down faster and with fewer DP. But currently frigate runs are close to the cheapest (in terms of credits, fuel, supplies, etc) ways to play that is still very effective, with maybe solo phase ships scaling up to Doom being cheaper. They are fun to fly and self sufficient, barely needing logistics support ships unless doing salvage/exploration, and also easy to build decent fits for (the main choice is SO or not SO: the actual gun choices flow from there depending on flux budget and are hard to mess up.).
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Draba

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #148 on: May 23, 2021, 02:31:51 PM »

I'm a big defender of all of the 'non-meta' current playstyles: low tech, carriers, non-SO,  none of them are as bad as people say and every one can support themselves through the whole game on combat alone without having any industry, colonies, or commission.
Yep, just doing relay bounties was plenty to keep up with supplies/money with any setup.
The 1 thing I can't get to work later are carriers, they can do bounties while I'm AFK but some remnants seem impossible (and crew losses were a PITA the entire run).

When it comes to heavy enemies a bunch of compositions are better than frigates, capable of taking enemies down faster and with fewer DP. But currently frigate runs are close to the cheapest (in terms of credits, fuel, supplies, etc) ways to play that is still very effective, with maybe solo phase ships scaling up to Doom being cheaper. They are fun to fly and self sufficient, barely needing logistics support ships unless doing salvage/exploration, and also easy to build decent fits for (the main choice is SO or not SO: the actual gun choices flow from there depending on flux budget and are hard to mess up.).
I can see how battles themselves play out faster, but don't think something like fuel-efficiency is an important consideration.
Fuel is practically free, and on fighting-heavy expeditions I'm usually throwing hundreds away even with 0 industry fleets.
Supplies are more important, but I usually just grab a hegemony Buffalo then an Atlas ASAP an forget about it.
Definitely easier to accumulate frigates at the very start, so that's nice.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2021, 02:39:51 PM by Draba »
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Locklave

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Re: The Frigate Bias
« Reply #149 on: May 23, 2021, 04:04:41 PM »

Seriously why did you quote the only part of my post that had nothing to do with your response?
The rest described how a frigate fleet makes supplies and money a non-issue, and why you think that's important.
Never had a problem with supplies or restoring keepers myself so not much to add.

Logistics is important. It's not that I think it's important, it's that it is important. You are pretending it's not.

Hmm thats a good point, I hadn't considered SO because I didn't use it in my frigate run. That kind of PPT boosting is worth a lot if its making SO usable on frigates for endgame fights. Do you find that thats enough time? In general I think fights are faster this version than last so I'd imagine it is, especially with how deadly SO Hyperions are.
On standard battlesize, against strong enemies Hyperion and Scarab constantly got into crit malfunction range for me (despite having every possible boost).
Don't think it's practical.

You clearly are doing it wrong then. If you were not just past the PPT but into crit malfunction range then you failed on a grand scale. Which makes think everything you are saying should be in question in regards to these specific skills.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2021, 04:07:06 PM by Locklave »
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