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[SafariJohn]

Between Ad Astra and Hiruma Kai I am getting a "nerf skills, buff non-high tech frigates" vibe? That seems reasonable to me.

[Thaago]

Of non-high tech frigates, I actually think centurions are in a good (read: powerful) place. Not quite as good as omens and slower, but nearly so, especially with SO (there's a reason they are favorite tournament power ships). If not for the officer density issues that Hiruma Kai raised, I'd say that Centurions at 4DP are significantly more powerful than Tempests at 8DP.

I haven't played with Brawlers enough to know if they are really worth 6DP, but I used a few of them and they were quite effective escorts due to the range. Vigilances are weird in that they are terrible early game, but ok in mid game fleets that care about missile/DP density (though at that point just take a few Gryphons). They could stand to be cheaper DP wise to enhance the missile spam strength... hell, give them autoforge instead of fast racks and make them proper mini-gryphons. Monitor is a meme its so effective, Shepherds are excellent exploration ships and early game escorts (and turn into decent freighters with a hullmod), though not really true combat ships.

Anything without a shield I don't count, as those are not real combat ships.

Really its only the Lasher that stands out to me as being meant to be a combat ships but a step below other ships. It has enough flux to run an efficient set of ballistic guns (a mixture of railguns/light needlers, light mortars, and lags has significantly better firepower/flux than energy options for small scale fights), a firepower booster, good missiles for a frigate, and excellent point defense... its just really slow for having such weak defenses. Its the same speed as the Centurion, but has an entire ship class weaker defenses. Its closer in speed to the Brawler, but Brawlers are actually faster because of the system while having better range, shields, armor, hull, and flux.

If we want to go crazy and possibly overbuff: boost the lasher all the way up to 180 speed. It would still be a glass cannon, but suddenly it could swoop in and out of combat and would make for a nasty torpedo ship. With a railgun/needler, they would be able to keep up with and kite an omen, wolf, or other energy frigate from out of range unless the enemy had beams. SO Lashers would (like SO energy ships) be terrors.

[WeiTuLo]

If it does get nerfed, can it get bigger shields in exchange? The current 120 omnishield just asks for trouble. It feels like they die more often than Wolves.

[FooF]

Thing is, I think I'd take a Lasher over a Wolf and I'd definitely take a Centurion over one, despite the Wolf costing more DP. The Wolf is ok early game but it drops off hard past that. Yes, it can escape, but it really can't pressure anything by itself. At least a Lasher can put the hurt on something.

Like I said in my original post on this subject, I don't think standard, non-Wolfpack Tempests are too strong. It's only when skills get involved (and really, specific gearing of skills) where Tempests become monsters but other frigates (like the Hyperion, Scarab, etc.) also get huge boosts. As Hiruma Kai pointed out, I think the issue is with Frigate skills, not the Tempest itself.

[Ad Astra]

Imagine if Wolfpack tactics did not require an officer but instead was a 60 DP limit skill not unlike Phase Corps, but applying to frigates. Suddenly 2 LP Lashers without officers against a Tempest without officer doesn't look quite so bad in that comparison.  At which point, the higher DP cost would be a downside.

As far as I can tell, Wolf pack tactics has no need to be a flat PPT bonus.  It only applies to a single class of ship already, frigates with officers in them, and could just as easily been % based.  Making it flat simply biases it towards low PPT frigates, which are the high tech ones.

240 vs 180 seconds is a noticeable difference (Lasher vs Tempest, 33% more time).  Wolfpack + Reliability means  420 vs 360, which is less noticable (16.7% more time, and more importantly, both are starting to get close to cruiser PPT).  But you could replace the +120 seconds of Wolfpack with +67%.  180 still gets +120 seconds, but 240 gets +160. 400 vs 300 base, then the flat bonuses come in for 460 vs 360.  Now 27% more time.

So, I would probably be asking different questions than this thread.

One, are Tempests balanced well enough around their DP in the absence of skills and officers (keeping in mind a 1 DP shift is a 12.5% effectiveness swing - which is a lot in AI vs AI match ups).   Two, how do we make skills which are intended to help a category of ships (i.e. frigates) help them roughly equally?

There's a lot of accurate insight right there. I feel like once again, the limited number of skills makes the difference between a ship that happens to benefit fully and one that doesn't quite considerable. Officers only continue to exacerbate this, by pushing you towards placing them again, were they create the biggest benefit, these factors combined is what is funneling players towards certain hulls.

We could say that it isn't a problem that certain ships won't get used in lategame, you could consider it a normal progression from older cheaper tech towards expensive shiny disco ships (kinda like when you change swords in an RPG). Some argue that tech levels don't reflect how advanced or powerful a ship is, but DP and supply cost disagree with that notion quite a bit. If a ship isn't more powerful when its more expensive why would I ever use it? Do I like throwing money away?
If more expensive ships start appearing in the lower tech levels then the high tech supremacy will naturally disappear (no more high tech best tech). But as long as they remain more expensive than others and DP is limited, well...they just have to be better.

If having said all that the idea is still "but I want low tech frigates to be viable late game" well fear not! For I have the solution!
Make them survive longer than 0,5 seconds the moment a Radiant decides to zap zap pewpewpew on them. Just that, that's all that needs to be done, make 'em better, make 'em stay alive long enough to actually fire their guns.
Domain era top-secret superfrigates enter the bout! (truimphant music). They exist, they just never used them because Domain fellas armor tank, shields and flux stats are for cowardly lil' *** who don't marry 400mm cannons and eat torpedoes with milk in the morning.

[BreenBB]

Why nerf stuff? Tempest, Doom, Paragon, etc? They are ships with interesting subsystems and such, I don't want to see them removed or nerfed to the ground, so nobody will use them which is equal to just removing them altogether.

I mean if you think what they over-perform why not buff under-performers then? High-Tech and Midline is okay, but Low Tech heavily under-perform in 095 in my opinion, especially considering nerf of skill which gives armor and new zero-flux bonus from Helmsmanship, in player hands it might be more powerful that one from 091, but for AI its nerf because every PD laser will disable this zero flux and he will be always kitted, AI can't just disable all weapons and try catch the enemy, and he will cover with shield against non treating weapons such as anti-fighter missiles and tactical laser which also won't let it catch things. Low Tech have bad flux stats and low mobility, but theoretically armor should tank for some time if ship need to flush flux but can't retreat to safety, but again AI will suffer under heavy fire by disabling-enabling shield when flux is almost maxed, and he will sustain more damage or even get overload than if he just flushed flux under fire.

I think skills and AI need more work instead of nerfing good ships, since skills are heavily affecting balance and some new skills instead of making game more diverse on the contrary shifted focus to High Tech and Safety Overrides, especially new zero flux because from my personal feel everything without SO become slowpoke, and AI still do many silly thing which hurt its combat efficiency.

[Thaago]

Its a lot more work to buff everything below an outlier than to nerf the outlier, or vice versa.

If we want to buff every ship up to doom level... we need to buff every ship. But not every ship needs an equal buff - just an across the board increase wouldn't do the job right. So every ship needs a custom buff, and not all of those buffs are going to be right. Then there's a new outlier... etc. Thats so much more work! And what if those buffs change the balance of weapons: example is if a buff to armor to make low tech better makes a high tech gun not have enough penetration, then that needs to be buffed, but that changes the balance of...

So to get everything else balanced to Doom levels, there would need to be dozens of changes and every single one of those changes carries the potential for side effects. Meanwhile changing skills so phase ships are less good... makes phase ships less good. Changing the mine strike system to have less charges on a Doom makes the Doom less good. Its still possible to get those changes wrong and overnerf, but at least thats only changing a small set of things.

There's also power creep. It wouldn't be the end of the world if everything in SS were inching up in power and lets be real: it has been. Ships have more base OP and available flux, weapons are more efficient, ships are faster, have longer PPT, etc etc then they did many years ago. Skill changes have reduced total OP... except not really as free hullmods are actually a higher total, just in a different form. But thats honestly ok, a little bit of slow power creep is fine.

But sudden large changes to balance really hurts mods that are trying to adhere to vanilla balance standard (and that is a major and difficult goal that the best modders are all trying to do!). Like if every vanilla ship went to Doom levels, then suddenly every mod is filled with weak ships! All those modders need to rebalance everything. Its just a mess.

I don't think we should just nerf things: the buffs to Enforcers were fantastic. Not only are Enforcers viable now, but they have a distinct role instead of just being slow Hammerheads. I think Lashers could use a major buff, Medusas maybe a little help, Drovers a little help (might be a bug with the ship system and bombers instead of balance), Dominators could use a little help, Falcons could use a little help unless the skill system is changed again to not have an effective HP penalty against cruiers class. But all those are singular changes instead of wide sweeping changes.

[intrinsic_parity]

I think maybe specifically in the case of frigates, it might be better to buff the mid/low tech frigates a little rather than nerf all the high tech frigates. It might actually be a similar amount of work considering that hyperion, scarab, tempest and omen are all on a similar power level/DP now IMO. The alternative to nerfing those is to buff lasher/centurion/wolf/brawler primarily? It doesn't seem that unreasonable and several of those frigates probably want a buff anyway. I also don't think the disparity is that bad.

[WeiTuLo]

Perhaps it can be given quantum disruptor so it can better fulfill its purpose as a pursuit/patrol craft.

[Thaago]

I think maybe specifically in the case of frigates, it might be better to buff the mid/low tech frigates a little rather than nerf all the high tech frigates. It might actually be a similar amount of work considering that hyperion, scarab, tempest and omen are all on a similar power level/DP now IMO. The alternative to nerfing those is to buff lasher/centurion/wolf/brawler primarily? It doesn't seem that unreasonable and several of those frigates probably want a buff anyway. I also don't think the disparity is that bad.

Sure, thats a case where the disparity is pretty small and the number of ships on each side is pretty equal, so it could go either way. If the goal is for frigates as a class to get stronger relative to destroyers/cruisers/caps, then buffing up the underperformers is a good way to go. I disagree only with Centurions - those things are really good already for 4 DP. Though that brings up the question: with the existence of Wolfpack Tactics and limited officer count, are low DP frigates viable? I do think 2 4 DP Centurions are slightly better than 1 8DP Tempest in the absence of officers... but costing 2 officers instead of 1 is not worth it at all.

[intrinsic_parity]

I think maybe specifically in the case of frigates, it might be better to buff the mid/low tech frigates a little rather than nerf all the high tech frigates. It might actually be a similar amount of work considering that hyperion, scarab, tempest and omen are all on a similar power level/DP now IMO. The alternative to nerfing those is to buff lasher/centurion/wolf/brawler primarily? It doesn't seem that unreasonable and several of those frigates probably want a buff anyway. I also don't think the disparity is that bad.

Sure, thats a case where the disparity is pretty small and the number of ships on each side is pretty equal, so it could go either way. If the goal is for frigates as a class to get stronger relative to destroyers/cruisers/caps, then buffing up the underperformers is a good way to go. I disagree only with Centurions - those things are really good already for 4 DP. Though that brings up the question: with the existence of Wolfpack Tactics and limited officer count, are low DP frigates viable? I do think 2 4 DP Centurions are slightly better than 1 8DP Tempest in the absence of officers... but costing 2 officers instead of 1 is not worth it at all.

I definitely agree that a big part of why tempest/scarab/hyperion are good is that they get the most value out of limited officers. I have some crazy ideas floating around about having an officer on every ship, but having a finite number of skills to distribute between them, but I'm not sure if it would work.

[SCC]

It might actually be a similar amount of work considering that hyperion, scarab, tempest and omen are all on a similar power level/DP now IMO.

Omen's overall package (tank, EMP, PD, distraction, ECM, campaign utility) is undercosted at the moment.

The alternative to nerfing those is to buff lasher/centurion/wolf/brawler primarily?

Wolf, Hound (?), Lasher, Brawler, Vigilance, Cerberus, Kite, Shepherd (?), Centurion, Wayfarer (?), Lumen and Glimmer.
Then we also potentially have to buff destroyers so that there's a point to them.

Drovers a little help (might be a bug with the ship system and bombers instead of balance)

There's something specific to Reserve Deployment and bombers? I thought Drover's replacement keeled over and died no matter what fighters it used.

Sure, thats a case where the disparity is pretty small and the number of ships on each side is pretty equal, so it could go either way. If the goal is for frigates as a class to get stronger relative to destroyers/cruisers/caps, then buffing up the underperformers is a good way to go. I disagree only with Centurions - those things are really good already for 4 DP. Though that brings up the question: with the existence of Wolfpack Tactics and limited officer count, are low DP frigates viable? I do think 2 4 DP Centurions are slightly better than 1 8DP Tempest in the absence of officers... but costing 2 officers instead of 1 is not worth it at all.

I definitely agree that a big part of why tempest/scarab/hyperion are good is that they get the most value out of limited officers. I have some crazy ideas floating around about having an officer on every ship, but having a finite number of skills to distribute between them, but I'm not sure if it would work.

I wouldn't mind Wolfpack Tactics' bonus scaling depending on DP, with 4 DP frigs getting current bonus and 8 DP ones getting only a half of it.

[Thaago]

...

Drovers a little help (might be a bug with the ship system and bombers instead of balance)

There's something specific to Reserve Deployment and bombers? I thought Drover's replacement keeled over and died no matter what fighters it used.

...

I used it with interceptors and it worked fine - replacement kept up ok through a bunch of battles. Bombers with RD have this weird thing where they take forever to rearm and during that time the rate is ticking down. I had thought that was the main problem, though I could be wrong.

[WeiTuLo]

...

Drovers a little help (might be a bug with the ship system and bombers instead of balance)

There's something specific to Reserve Deployment and bombers? I thought Drover's replacement keeled over and died no matter what fighters it used.

...

I used it with interceptors and it worked fine - replacement kept up ok through a bunch of battles. Bombers with RD have this weird thing where they take forever to rearm and during that time the rate is ticking down. I had thought that was the main problem, though I could be wrong.

I noticed that in earlier release candidates, but it seemed okay in RC15. The Drover was a bit slow though, so sometimes two of the Cobras head back before launching their Reapers.

[BreenBB]

Its a lot more work to buff everything below an outlier than to nerf the outlier, or vice versa.

I think is still better idea than nerf stuff, that way its actually gives new options rather that forces them, I don't understand why everybody here see Tempest, Doom and etc as bad things, I usually don't use frigates, not my thing as carriers, but Tempest and Omen are few exceptions, Doom is still have drawback as Phase ship, which means what its AI isn't that good and it more a player ship, I usually don't use more that one phase ship because phase ship AI often commit suicide or too afraid to attack enemy.

About mod balance overall, I think vanilla game must not rely on their balance at all, except cases where modded content get integrated in the game.

And for ship strength and overall survivability, its more AI issue by my observation, Low Tech often tend to get surrounded, where High Tech ships especially with SO have enough mobility to get away, Low Tech often suffer by disabling-enabling shield on full flux, ships like very much to scatter and get killed by one, if they not controlled, but command points is limited and not always possible to keep an eye on them when piloting own flagship, ship like Dominator or Onslaught especially vulnerable when they alone, AI also tend to be afraid to attack, Doom mines can exploit omni shields, but again, its more an AI issue, and again, this work only if doom piloted by player, AI randomly spawn mines around target.