Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Asherogar]

TL:DR Frigates are way overtuned and tools to deal with them either lacking or nerfed into the ground.

Yeah....after smashing my fleet into red beacon system for an entire week I came to a conclusion that I have no ways to deal with enemy frigates. They are too fast to hit with any projectile weapons (even with elite skill), they are too fast to engage when you manage to catch them and they are too fast to disengage from when you need a room to breath. Also contrary to fighters they have way more firepower, too sturdy to kill with some random projectiles and have lvl 8 officer each. Not the matter they also usually outnumber you 5 to 1 at best.

So what's the options to deal with them? Beams and fighters (interceptors specifically). Beams just don't cut it against Remnants, you need enough of them to punch through 0.4 shield with almost cruiser level flux stats and enemy likely fall back way before you start dealing hull damage. All the while a dozen of his friends close in on you from all sides.

And fighters just lack any effective options against frigates now with sparks nerfed. Fighters specifically completely useless in this role simply because they are too slow. 150-180 speed is an embarrassment when frigates have close to 200 speed on average. To be effective against frigates fighters must have around 300 speed which leaves us with 4 options: Talons, Wasps, Sparks and Thunders. Talons and Wasps are too fragile for late game fights and former ones also drain your crew like crazy. Thunders have only 2 fighters in a wing and armor penetration of a finger. And Sparks...they are a qiuntessence of everything you want from fighter/interceptor: 300+ speed, shield, 0 crew, hitscan burst weapon, 5 in a wing and all this for 8 points. But now they barely competent in dealing with unshielded enemy fighters and that's it. Removing fighter skills was more than enough nerf to fighter spam, because now reaching critical mass of fighters is harder.

Now Ai has superior numbers, superior stats, superior officers (which I think is a part of stats), extremely aggressive behavior and I left with 0 tools to counter that. Every fight this entire week plays exactly the same: immediately got encircled by dozens of enemy frigates, got swarmed by insanely aggressive AI, while any enemy I'm trying to focus dash out of my range and got shielded by a swarm of allies.

Also about range. Who's idea that was to give 40+ ECM rating to all fleets? Even pirates and pathers fleets regularly have 40+. -20% to range is massive especially when closing in with target is a suicide.

[koprus]

I stopped playing 0.95 few days ago. Just got frustrated. Too many things feel way off to me. Frigates, fleet upkeep(supplies,fuel consumption), skills, ecm, officer numbers, most of them are covered throughout other posts in this forum. Ill just wait and see what is going to change. My take on all of these things is that a new options page is needed where many difficulty settings can be arranged for a new game.

[WeiTuLo]

Can confirm, only mission I haven't beat at 100% is Forlorn Hope. In fact, I haven't won it yet. Got very close but the heron and 3 remaining lashers surrounded me. The condors were off hiding somewhere. I think I should have kept retreating. Sometimes I think the AI pilots better than I do. Certainly better at aim and shield management. But it doesn't like to vent or retreat.

[Lucky33]

5 to 1 mean you have no frigates in your fleet. Remnants typically have 6-8 frigates in their fleet. 10 is a very rare occurrence since they have "shipSize:4" doctrine.

[WeiTuLo]

In the campaign, I usually use an SO Hammerhead to hunt down overextended frigates. I do feel like sparks were nerfed a lot, not sure what the specific nerfs were. I saw the change from regular burst PD laser to delayed burst PD laser, I do not see other stat changes. It does seem like they take a lot more out of the carrier's replacement rate than before.

Looks like the Spark burst PD gets back 0.25 shots/second, while the regular burst pd gets back 0.5 shots/second.

[Asherogar]

5 to 1 mean you have no frigates in your fleet. Remnants typically have 6-8 frigates in their fleet. 10 is a very rare occurrence since they have "shipSize:4" doctrine.

Yes, I don't use them. Why would I? There's only 8 officers I have access to. Any ship in your fleet without an officer is just expandable cannon fodder and I don't find tactic of losing 10 ships every little battle and coming back to colony every couple of month to replenish losses enjoyable. I use one capital and escort of cruisers and sometimes destroyers. And in 0.9.1a this worked fine: hold the line with cruisers until a couple of carriers with Sparks finish off enemy frigates, reducing number of enemies. Now Sparks damage is halved and all enemy frigates smeared with OP lvl 8 officer, turning them into cruiser at DP cost of a frigate.

[intrinsic_parity]

I run 4 officers in cap/cruisers, 4 officers in frigates now. It works well. It's hard to deploy more than 4 officered caps/cruisers+flagship anyway. I haven't even taken the officer boosting skill and I feel like I'm doing fine. I often deploy a few non-officered frigates as escorts to the officered ones as well.

My flagship is a SO aurora and I have no trouble killing alpha core frigates, so there are definitely counters. For the AI, doom is very good against frigates as well.

Also, only remnants get level 8 officers.

[Razor Feather]

5 to 1 mean you have no frigates in your fleet. Remnants typically have 6-8 frigates in their fleet. 10 is a very rare occurrence since they have "shipSize:4" doctrine.

Yes, I don't use them. Why would I? There's only 8 officers I have access to. Any ship in your fleet without an officer is just expandable cannon fodder and I don't find tactic of losing 10 ships every little battle and coming back to colony every couple of month to replenish losses enjoyable. I use one capital and escort of cruisers and sometimes destroyers. And in 0.9.1a this worked fine: hold the line with cruisers until a couple of carriers with Sparks finish off enemy frigates, reducing number of enemies. Now Sparks damage is halved and all enemy frigates smeared with OP lvl 8 officer, turning them into cruiser at DP cost of a frigate.

The game has changed and frigates got stronger. You can and should adjust your tactics to meet new conditions, in this case the greater importance of frigates. Throw 3 officers on some frigates, throw reinforced structure on your non officer'd cruisers so you can pick them back up if something goes wrong, and handle the new threat. Alternatively, build dedicated frigate hunting destroyers with unstable fuel injector and so, and outspeed them to hunt them down. Simply using the same tactic and complaining is not a particularly effective solution.

[shoi]

5 to 1 mean you have no frigates in your fleet. Remnants typically have 6-8 frigates in their fleet. 10 is a very rare occurrence since they have "shipSize:4" doctrine.

Yes, I don't use them. Why would I?

So you don't get surrounded and die?

[Lucky33]

5 to 1 mean you have no frigates in your fleet. Remnants typically have 6-8 frigates in their fleet. 10 is a very rare occurrence since they have "shipSize:4" doctrine.

Yes, I don't use them. Why would I? There's only 8 officers I have access to. Any ship in your fleet without an officer is just expandable cannon fodder and I don't find tactic of losing 10 ships every little battle and coming back to colony every couple of month to replenish losses enjoyable. I use one capital and escort of cruisers and sometimes destroyers. And in 0.9.1a this worked fine: hold the line with cruisers until a couple of carriers with Sparks finish off enemy frigates, reducing number of enemies. Now Sparks damage is halved and all enemy frigates smeared with OP lvl 8 officer, turning them into cruiser at DP cost of a frigate.

Welcome to Starsector where new version means new meta.

You just answered you own question. This is why you need frigates. Because they are this good. However, statistically speaking, your frigates should be even better. Because you can actually choose the skills. While AI is limited by rng.

[Asherogar]

You all mised the main point: I have 8 officers, while enemy has 30. Without a high lvl officer frigate is no better than in 0.9.1a. I can field a cruiser with an officer or 1 frigate with officer and 2 trash frigates. Piloted cruiser still do better than a single piloted frigate. But enemy doesn't have this restriction, they can field 3 piloted frigates instead and obviusly tear cruiser apart. Not the matter I need to completely respec my character into frigate bonuses. If there's only one viable playstyle in endgame then balance is complete wack.

[Lucky33]

You all mised the main point: I have 8 officers, while enemy has 30. Without an officer high lvl officer frigate is no better than in 0.9.1a. I can field a cruiser with an officer or 1 frigate with officer and 2 trash frigates. Piloted cruiser still do better than a single piloted frigate. But enemy doesn't have this restriction, they can field 3 piloted frigates instead and obviusly tear cruiser apart. Not the matter I need to completely respec my character into frigate bonuses. If there's only one viable playstyle in endgame then balance is complete wack.

So what? Most of my officers are in frigates. My flagship is a certain destroyer or, in some cases, frigate too. All larger ships are devolved into un-officered missile barges. Atlases mk2 for a short ranged trips and Apogees for a long ones. I always win the initial frigate brawl because I can turn enemy shields off five times in a row. So much for those nice 0,4 cruiser grade stats... After that its just a slaughter. Wait for the missile volley to arrive, turn the target's shields off, add something from yourself, rinse and repeat. While you are at it your frigates are tearing apart whats left.

[Flying Birdy]

I've actually found that frigates are easier to kill than ever.

Now it's true that the tools you mentioned have been nerfed into the ground. Drover spam no longer works. Personally, I also don't think beam was ever an effective option in both 0.91 and 0.95 because the AI will usually disengage to vent before the beam can kill the frigate. But My favorite 0.91 strategies for dealing with frigates, twin locusts on a conquest with all the missile damage perks, also no longer works because the +50% missile damage perk is now gone and a single salvo of two locusts no longer kills all frigates.

However,  so many other tools are now available. All of the safety override ships that can absolutely menace frigate (even in 0.91) all received a huge buff thanks to the built-in hull mods and energy mastery. You can absolutely menace frigates clusters by killing one after another after another after another all without ever venting. SO aurora is such a beast now that most frigates don't stand a chance - you just burn in and they die. At least pre-0.91 Aurora had to expend a decent portion of your flux to bring down a frigate and made itself vulnerable. Now, in 0.95, it no longer matters because Aurora does so much damage so quickly that any frigate just evaporates.

[Asherogar]

So what? Most of my officers are in frigates. My flagship is a certain destroyer or, in some cases, frigate too. All larger ships are devolved into un-officered missile barges. Atlases mk2 for a short ranged trips and Apogees for a long ones. I always win the initial frigate brawl because I can turn enemy shields off five times in a row. So much for those nice 0,4 cruiser grade stats... After that its just a slaughter. Wait for the missile volley to arrive, turn the target's shields off, add something from yourself, rinse and repeat. While you are at it your frigates are tearing apart whats left.

I get it that you like playing with frigates, but I don't. Telling people "you enjoying the game wrong" is not a strong argument. I like piloting big ships and having my officered ones in something less prone to RUD then squishy frigate. And believe me I get it that my old tactic not working well a week ago when I tried to battle some Ordos in red systems. I spent entire week trying to adjust my tactic to realities of the new patch and this is where I have a problem : new patch pigeonholed into frigate focus by smearing them with buffs while simultaneously nerfing into the ground ways to counter them.

Fighter spam in 0.9.1a was not such a problem because it was just a cheesy way to win the game, an option. I've defeated 2 Ordos simultaneously with 4 decks total in my fleet, so fighter spam was in no way mandatory in lategame. And vanilla doesn't really have fleets that heavily used fighters, so people don't get much experience of being on a receiving and of this problem. But frigates, they are everywhere. And while pirate frigates just occasionally surprisingly durable, piloted Remnant ones are considerably stronger due to highter lvl officers and base ship stats.

Also important question, what battlesize are you play on? Lower ones considerably easier due to bigger impact of your flagship.

However,  so many other tools are now available. All of the safety override ships that can absolutely menace frigate (even in 0.91) all received a huge buff thanks to the built-in hull mods and energy mastery. You can absolutely menace frigates clusters by killing one after another after another after another all without ever venting. SO aurora is such a beast now that most frigates don't stand a chance - you just burn in and they die. At least pre-0.91 Aurora had to expend a decent portion of your flux to bring down a frigate and made itself vulnerable. Now, in 0.95, it no longer matters because Aurora does so much damage so quickly that any frigate just evaporates.

Hm, thanks I try this one. I tried to adjust without lugging around a bunch of expandable garbage or hopping ships mid-combat, but having a 1-2 SO cruisers for such situations seems reasonable.

[Lucky33]

I get it that you like playing with frigates, but I don't. Telling people "you enjoying the game wrong" is not a strong argument. I like piloting big ships and having my officered ones in something less prone to RUD then squishy frigate. And believe me I get it that my old tactic not working well a week ago when I tried to battle some Ordos in red systems. I spent entire week trying to adjust my tactic to realities of the new patch and this is where I have a problem : new patch pigeonholed into frigate focus by smearing them with buffs while simultaneously nerfing into the ground ways to counter them.

Fighter spam in 0.9.1a was not such a problem because it was just a cheesy way to win the game, an option. I've defeated 2 Ordos simultaneously with 4 decks total in my fleet, so fighter spam was in no way mandatory in lategame. And vanilla doesn't really have fleets that heavily used fighters, so people don't get much experience of being on a receiving and of this problem. But frigates, they are everywhere. And while pirate frigates just occasionally surprisingly durable, piloted Remnant ones are considerably stronger due to highter lvl officers and base ship stats.

Also important question, what battlesize are you play on? Lower ones considerably easier due to bigger impact of your flagship.

I'm always playing on the default battlesize (its 300 now).

Problem of the 0.91 is what there wasn't really much to think about. No tactics. Wanna win? Deploy a Paragon stack. Wanna fancy win? Deploy a Drover stack. In 0.95 I can't simply deploy my frigate stack and leave controls. I'm expected to actually command. Demonstrate the "situational awareness". And "decision making" has became something meaningful. This is what I like. And reckless cutthroat action.