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[Kanjejou]

The maintenance being lower the bigger you go(in comparison tot he stats).
The fuel consumption too, and finaly the fleet limit of 30 and the fact that most good fleet skills seem to buff big ship cruiser and bigger instead of buffing smaller like frigate and shuttles....

For exemple why aren't shutte ship counted in the wolfpack skill, a good wing of well kited Kites(A) coudl be a real pain to a lot fo things if they coudl gain a bit extra humpf from those skills.

[intrinsic_parity]

A lot of the limits on battle size and fleet size are in place because of computational limitations, trying to make the game playable on a wide variety of hardware.

I don't think it fair to say large ships are generally cheaper. For instance, conquest and hammerhead have the same cost of supplies/month/DP and hammerhead is slightly less fuel/ly/dp. Capitals in general have bad fuel/ly stats.

The biggest reason you can't spam frigates is that you have limited officers and low PPT. Officered ships are so much stronger, they would just slaughter unofficered frigates, particularly if you built the officers and ships with that in mind. The frigates have much less concentrated firepower, and the geometry of battle means they can't all fight at the same time, so more doesn't really help you at some point.

Wolfpack makes having 6-10 officered frigates very viable though. You can also spam tempests, omens and scarabs and do really well against everything other than stations and some particular end-game enemies. The good frigates are very viable, but the bad ones aren't that great but I think that's how it's supposed to be. Not all ships are supposed to be viable/good in combat. Some ships are meant to be an option for logistics, and some are just meant to be fodder that makes the early game a bit easier for you when you fight against them.

I wouldn't mind some buffs from wolfpack for general frigates (more PPT in particular). You have to keep in mind that even if you did make frigate spam really strong, then people would just complain that the game pushes you to spam frigates instead of using the big ships. I think we've struck a decent balance in this patch.

[Kanjejou]

Thank you for the answer.

Its just that bigger ship take longer to get degraded stats and thus often dont struggle so much witht he fact that the AI just tumble around a lot.

[intrinsic_parity]

Thank you for the answer.

Its just that bigger ship take longer to get degraded stats and thus often dont struggle so much witht he fact that the AI just tumble around a lot.

By degraded stats, I assume you're referring to PPT (peak performance time) and CR (combat readiness) loss due to depleted PPT? If so, then yes I agree that it would be nice if wolfpack tactics gave all frigates bonus PPT instead of just officered frigates. I think that would be a change that allows for some interesting fleet compositions without being too powerful.

[Kanjejou]

yes its exactly what I was refering to<

[Null Ganymede]

Burn speed and swarm tactics have their place.

There's definitely a race up the ship size ladder, though.

[FenMuir]

This partially is based on the battle size. I set mine to 200, and a fleet of frigates is perfect for that. If you increase the battle size to max, a fleet of capitals may be appropriate.
For your logistics ships (Crew, Fuel, Storage), Cruisers and Capitals are nice unless you're trying to do something specific.
You can have 30 ships in your fleet without consequence, so feel free to go up to that.

Larger ships in your fleet will slow your max speed, which could be detrimental to you depending on how clean you keep your nose with factions.

[JAL28]

It may, but it definitely only goes up to your first few capitals. After that, capital spam becomes increasingly inefficient to maintain and a player instead runs a fleet of cruisers supported by a capital or two as a fleet anchor(or frigate spam lol).

And I won't lie, especially with Nexerelin enabled, it is ridiculously easy to get a capital quickly. Just keep vulturing big strong invasions and sooner or later a non-SP salvageable capital will show up.

[Megas]

It would be nice if everything got more PPT without the need for skills.  The PPT was set and remains mostly unchanged since the 0.6 releases, when fights were no bigger than a 200k bounty, or Hegemony System Defense Fleet.  Moreover, the AI was generally less cowardly than it has become since 0.8.  If frigates need a bunch of PPT-up skills to stay relevant, then they are effectively locked behind skills.

Thirty to forty frigates in map size 500 worked alright back in 0.65a, as is overcrowding was not a huge problem.  For excess frigates that end up behind others, use homing missiles like Swarmers or Salamanders to let them attack the enemy from the back row and mitigate overcrowding.

[Brainwright]

My current fleet is one capital (phase capital), two fast cruisers, and about eight to twelve frigates, and it can bust just about any fleet in two engagements.

In truth, I could probably go in with two capitals and work the same.

In many ways, capitals are so overpowered compared to the smaller ships.  My one atlas has Survey Equipment and completely replaces the two Apogees I used to use for long surveying trips.  Having one Odyssey in there gives you a great sensor boost.

But after one or two, frigates will serve you better in a fight.  The point is to keep your fleet from being surrounded, and a pair of suped up capitals can progress fast enough through an enemy fleet that not much can be done about it.

[LennStar]

My current fleet is one capital (phase capital), two fast cruisers, and about eight to twelve frigates, and it can bust just about any fleet in two engagements.

In truth, I could probably go in with two capitals and work the same.

In many ways, capitals are so overpowered compared to the smaller ships.  My one atlas has Survey Equipment and completely replaces the two Apogees I used to use for long surveying trips.  Having one Odyssey in there gives you a great sensor boost.

But after one or two, frigates will serve you better in a fight.  The point is to keep your fleet from being surrounded, and a pair of suped up capitals can progress fast enough through an enemy fleet that not much can be done about it.

I found the XIV battlecarriers very costly, but very effictive. (Same as the battleship, have not had one, but until you get that one down, ouch!)
Get one as the center, two or three hammerheads as DDs and a pack of frigates that protect your back, and that thing can wreak havoc with the range extender mod.

Also the one frigate with 2 medium beams (that thing costs double though). Put 2 lances on them, an officer with flux management and those little things are like a knife through butter against pirates. First salvo enemy flux at max, drones keep it there, second salvo BOOM.
Next frigate or battle freighter please.
Also since the beam does 1250dmg in one go, it's very effective even against highly armored targets - and fast enough to get in their back.