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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Carriers post nerf?  (Read 7855 times)

Dex

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #30 on: April 08, 2021, 09:51:14 AM »

The skills system in 9.5a is designed to dissuade you from making fleets that use one schtick. Each fleet-boosting skill has a soft cap on what it can do. So to get the most out of each fleet boost, you don't want to far-exceed what the skill boosts.

As for carriers, I use tempests. I could use a single Astral, but I'd have to captain it and the [SPOILERS] is far more fun to fly.

Annihilator Drones are terrifying.

This is funny, if only for me, because i keep calling tempests terminators.

I like this change making a flexible fleet is now more competitive with one that is designed to lever a particular gimmick.

Personally, have still to reach a conclusion on fighters and bombers in 95. How much of the terrible impression weve had is down to the fact we have just been so used to carriers effectiveness in previous versions. I cant remember the game version, probably before the last skill change, but carriers were pants then also. How do they compare now?
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Flunky

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #31 on: April 08, 2021, 10:05:41 AM »

For a mixed fleet I completely agree with you, but does a dedicated carrier fleet care about ECM? Does ECM effect bomber release range? I have no idea, but if enemy PD is farther out (not suppressed by ECM) AND bombers need to get 20% closer, that would be really rough on bombers.

That's part of the issue, though - the ECM skill gets better the more ships you have, while Fighter Uplink drops in effectiveness very quickly as you have more bays. It also includes things like Tempest Terminator drones toward that cap. 12 bays already brings you down to half effectiveness, or about +13% top speed which ain't great.
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Demetrious

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #32 on: April 08, 2021, 10:55:01 AM »

Fighters definitely got hit hard this patch. To the point that literally everything to do with fighters got nerfed pretty hard.

  • Carrier skills got nerfed where >35% from Carrier Command is only possible with 8 bays or less and no longer provides damage reduction for fighters. Fighter speed/crew losses may be worth taking if you cannot win ECM war anyway due to enemy officer spam, but will lose worth immediately once ECM becomes possible again.
  • The Fighter version of ITU, Expanded Deck Crew, got nerfed to only perform at 40% of its original capabilities (10% and 20% from 25% and 50% respectfully).
  • Dedicated carriers with fighter based systems got nerfed. Astral has a (well-deserved) cooldown on its recall device. The drover now costs as much to deploy as the light cruisers, its system CD was doubled to a minute, and most egregiously its ship system damages the carrier's most important stat, its Replacement Rate.
  • Some stronger performing fighters themselves got nerfed as well. Xyphos can no longer escort other ships, and Thunders now have high delay ions. Spark nerf to high delay burst was definitely needed though
  • The biggest nerf to fighters is the combination of the prevalence of officers, the enemy officer levels and the commonness of the Point Defense skill. Previously, the enemy not only had less officers (Even for officer focused factions like the Hegemony), their officers were at levels lower than the equivalent for level 5 now. This meant that is was very unlikely for enemy officers to have Adv Countermeasures 3 or Wing commander 3. Now however, both have been combined into Tier 2 point defense and everyone is running around with their ships fully staffed and at minimum of level 5. Since there are only 7 skills possible and PD is only tier 2, the chances for an officer having PD over Targeting analysis is close to 50% dealing double damage to fighters that no longer have a counter skill to reduce damage.

Combine the above to make more fragile and harder to replace fighters this patch with the damage boosts added for warships able to do upwards of 20% damage to capitals, bonus 20% to frigates attacking non-frigates, and whatever the average gain from ranged spec/energy weaps and fighters begin being a a much harder sell compared to what a similarly staffed warship can do. I have no doubt that if you go carrier skills that you can add them into your fleet and get decent use out of them, but I'm questioning how viable a non-cheese all carrier fleet would fare now. I'm still probably going to give it a dedicated attempt run, but I'm not expecting much results from it this time around.

This pretty much sums it up. The soft caps on skills aren't so bad; the benefits drop off but at the same time you're massing more of the same, so in theory mixed fleets should work roughly as well as all-one-gimmick fleets when they're all at max-DP and thrown head to head. It just comes down to fighters and carriers all getting a vicious across-the-board beating with the nerf bat.
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Wyvern

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #33 on: April 08, 2021, 11:19:31 AM »

To some extent, I'm withholding judgement until this bug gets fixed.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Maethendias

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #34 on: April 08, 2021, 12:23:50 PM »

broadswords still absolutely wreck

so do xyphons


battlegroup legion is still bae
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Linnis

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #35 on: April 08, 2021, 01:54:35 PM »

Interceptors feel kinda bad since they are very likely to die and kill replacement rate, and they also don't seem to do that much damage now that all the fighter damage boosting skills are gone.

I noticed this espechially hit pirates hard. I just ignore broadswords and talons now they do such minimal damage to even a frigate they might as well be human piloted flares.
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Thaago

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #36 on: April 08, 2021, 02:12:30 PM »

Hmm its still early game for me, but I have an AI, no officer, Condor with Talon + Gladius and its popping pirate and luddic frigates, including officered ones. Its not the best, but its actually being very effective. I have deck crew on it but no fleetwide boost (only level 3 atm and I took the combat skill ones first) and they do not run out of fighters. I suspect this will change as I start fighting stronger enemies, and Remnants are always hell on fighters because of their own spark spam, but for now its very effective.
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Megas

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #37 on: April 08, 2021, 02:23:17 PM »

Hmm its still early game for me, but I have an AI, no officer, Condor with Talon + Gladius and its popping pirate and luddic frigates, including officered ones. Its not the best, but its actually being very effective. I have deck crew on it but no fleetwide boost (only level 3 atm and I took the combat skill ones first) and they do not run out of fighters. I suspect this will change as I start fighting stronger enemies, and Remnants are always hell on fighters because of their own spark spam, but for now its very effective.
That has been my experience.  Fighters are okay until player starts fighting fleets about 200+k bounty strength with many officers, and the map has objectives.
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AcaMetis

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #38 on: April 08, 2021, 02:43:25 PM »

I noticed this espechially hit pirates hard. I just ignore broadswords and talons now they do such minimal damage to even a frigate they might as well be human piloted flares.
How? I've had multiple instances where pirate broadswords brought my Sunder from zero to overloaded in around five seconds flat. I've gone out of my way to equip every ship I have with IPDAI and tons of PD just because broadswords kept punching hard enough to flatline destroyers and even pause cruisers on some occasions. What secret am I missing?
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Thaago

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #39 on: April 08, 2021, 02:46:14 PM »

The armor skill helps a lot for taking the bullets on hull (like, a LOT), but nothing really helps with shields. A single broadsword wing has potentially something like 900 kinetic DPS if they are all firing (which they often aren't).
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Thaago

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #40 on: April 08, 2021, 03:33:32 PM »

One thing I'm noticing as I move on to harder fleets: Because all (decent) enemies have +20% speed, bombers are no longer at all effective against destroyers simple because they cannot catch them if they run - hammerheads and sunders move at 108 +50 = faster than all but the fastest bombers! This combines with nav 1 elite - the instant they overload, they become faster than the bombers coming after them.
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Maethendias

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #41 on: April 08, 2021, 03:50:30 PM »

The skills system in 9.5a is designed to dissuade you from making fleets that use one schtick. Each fleet-boosting skill has a soft cap on what it can do. So to get the most out of each fleet boost, you don't want to far-exceed what the skill boosts.

As for carriers, I use tempests. I could use a single Astral, but I'd have to captain it and the [SPOILERS] is far more fun to fly.

Annihilator Drones are terrifying.
I like this change making a flexible fleet is now more competitive with one that is designed to lever a particular gimmick.

i for one, actually DONT like it, cause it is inherently taking away from the sandbox

ESPECIALLY BECAUSE "mono" fleets or highly specialized compounds DONT have anything skilling them up, and are actively being nerfed. Ironically by the skills which were supposed to be buffing them, yet they actively hinder fleet specialization

which imo is... one of the things they could have done with "skills and player choice" in the leadership tree...

you know, either going full on adaptive, or skills buffing specialized fleets
« Last Edit: April 08, 2021, 03:54:36 PM by Maethendias »
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Schwartz

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #42 on: April 08, 2021, 04:53:55 PM »

Frigate-swarms are now worth using, but carrier swarms are not. That's one less option and makes me a sad panda. I think fighter skills should be re-assessed and opened up to work not on a maximum of fighter bays but fleetwide again. Adjust the strenght of the skills if necessary.
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Maethendias

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #43 on: April 08, 2021, 05:17:13 PM »

Frigate-swarms are now worth using, but carrier swarms are not. That's one less option and makes me a sad panda. I think fighter skills should be re-assessed and opened up to work not on a maximum of fighter bays but fleetwide again. Adjust the strenght of the skills if necessary.


fighters overall are... kind of in a weird place... cause on one hand, yes they SHOULD be strong af, you sacrifice a whole combat vessel for basically a brick in space doing nothing but hosting fighters (unless its bae legion 14), AND by USING fighters, (the good ones) and bombers you have a constant upkeep of crew to pay and keep an eye out, possibly putting your fleet on negative crew to maintain after enough fights

on the other hand... bomberspam

 which lets be honest... i dont understand why everyone is making such a big deal out of it

yes its a playstyle

yes it was a GOOD one

was it more effective than... other options? debatable

prolly not, the issue wasnt "bombers and fighters are too strong" the ACTUAL problem was a balance with dp

which is ALWAYS the problem in this game, and its ALWAYS going to be a problem unless fleetcaps are removed, or dp is going to be seriously changed (basically you could project way too much force with cheap dp efficient carriers than you should have)

which is a shame cause i find fighters super cool, but they always require so much investment, and upkeep, and escorting to use effectivly, compared to things like "spam a frontline of onslaughts", or "spam 4 paragons", you know

fighters (and bombers, sadly needs more shield killers imo) are one of the few things that can effectively kill tac lance paragons

aka, fighters and bombers are actually one of the few reasons to spec some pd escorts (cause lets be honest, missiles arent that good unless in the players hands)
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sotanaht

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Re: Carriers post nerf?
« Reply #44 on: April 08, 2021, 05:40:40 PM »

I noticed this espechially hit pirates hard. I just ignore broadswords and talons now they do such minimal damage to even a frigate they might as well be human piloted flares.
How? I've had multiple instances where pirate broadswords brought my Sunder from zero to overloaded in around five seconds flat. I've gone out of my way to equip every ship I have with IPDAI and tons of PD just because broadswords kept punching hard enough to flatline destroyers and even pause cruisers on some occasions. What secret am I missing?
Probably that you're running ships with almost the worst shield efficiency in the game and then spending all your OP on PD instead of boosting the shield values (hardened shields, max caps/vents).  Not that I know whether that's any good for sunders or not, I don't use them because they are frailer than most frigates and die whenever something breathes in their direction, but it's the general theme of my fleets.

As it currently stands though, even if massed fighters can kill one or two weak ships, by the time they do so they are spent, and then their replacement rate is so slow the carriers may as well be out of the battle anyway.
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