so i have a question: is it just me or is the phase carrier really underpowered? it only has one hangar, and costs 20 DP (in comparison that one carrier with 2 hangars has 10 Dp) a carrier is also supposed to stay away which it both does not do(and dies) while also not even having weapons to back up the phase ability. so i think maybe the way it works should be changed, considering i can install the phase fighters onto other ships as well(and that they arent't that good to begin with)
Great feedback, let me explain how I attempted to balance that ship.
First off, phase ships are always expensive in DP. So if you are optimizing your fleet on minimizing the DP that you need to accomplish your goals, phase ships are likely going to look bad. You're comparing the Haunt against the Condor (2 fighter bays for 10 DP) for a slow carrier. The Haunt is actually based on the Drover, which has a faster ship speed and a more carrier-concentric system. The drover is considered the best destroyer-sized vanilla carrier, so I wanted to balance against that, to make sure that the Haunt wasn't a better pure carrier than the drover.
Secondly, phase ships and carriers are normally incompatible. There are no vanilla phase carriers to compare to and the Converted Hanger hull mod specifically does not work on phase ships. That says to me that lore-wise it is very difficult (practically impossible) to have a phase carrier. The description of the Haunt ship plays into that, stating that it just doesn't work without specifically phase fighters, otherwise something REDACTED happens.
Thirdly, mechanically, the game balances carriers with time. Fighter Combat Readiness takes time to recover, fighters take time to rearm and/or rebuild. It assumes that carriers will be experiencing the battle at 100% speed. Phase ships don't. With the right skills, you can get a phase ship to experience time at 300% rate, which breaks Fighter CR and rearm time. So while the Haunt only has one fighter bay, it's fighters should recover 200% or 300% faster than normal. Plus the Reserve Deployment system allows an extra fighter in a pinch. They won't have the sheer numbers to overwhelm enemy PD for a strike, but they should have the constant drip of fighters to provide a good fighter screen for protections, plus sometimes attack vulnerable enemies.
Fourth, the Poltergeist fighters are very good, in my testing. They drop as a LPC, so I attempted to balance them against other fighters. They're basically broadswords with burst lasers (so a bit more up-front damage, great for phasing in, dropping to real space to blast and phasing back out) and a phase cloak. That phase cloak makes them tricky to whip out completely, since they can phase during Flak bursts or past the point defense arcs. In my experience testing, Poltergeists can be ruthless exploiting gaps in PD coverage or in shields, able to blast the butt off of a lone Falcon or Eagle given time and opportunity. They're expensive in OP, but the Haunt gets them for free. If you just want to field two wings of Poltergeist in a destroyer carrier, get a Drover or Condor (and optionally put Insulated Engine Assembly on it to make it somewhat stealthy).
Finally, what is my goal with the Haunt? I didn't want the Haunt to be another Alpha-strike, bomber carrier, I wanted it to be able to tag along with small phase fleets and provide them with some fighter screening. Phase ships struggle against fighters/missiles (they tend to have limited PD arcs), so it would make sense that a PHASEOPS task force would experiment with different ways to partially cover that weakness, but I didn't want to negate that weakness completely. In WW2 terms, consider them Escort Carriers, not Fleet Carriers.
a carrier is also supposed to stay away which it both does not do(and dies)
Hmm, that is concerning, the Haunt isn't a combat carrier (it does not have the COMBAT tag), so it shouldn't be charging into battle. I assume you don't have a reckless captain or non-PD weapons on it? I'll see if I can recreate that.
Thank you for your feedback and insight. Hopefully my response lets you see where I'm coming from.
Author
Topic: [0.96a] No Such Org - Phase ships and minor faction v0.4.0 (Read 141263 times)