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[Megas]

Hmm - in the name of avoiding (or at least mitigating) power creep, wouldn't the Responsible thing to do here be dialing back the Eradicator, Fury, and perhaps the Champion, a slight bit? Not something I'd want to do now, regardless, but those ships are very much meant to be balanced against the Eagle. As noted, it's a jack of all trades which makes it a pretty useful balance center point to try to work around.

Add Dominator to the list of Eradicator and Champion too.  Ballistic Rangefinder and improved light autocannons, along with the other buffs it may have gotten, have really helped it.  (Also, Proximity Charges are a viable substitute to Annihilator Pods.)  I kept Dominator in my fleet.  Eagle got dropped for being too weak.

Apogee with plasma cannon and large missile is more useful to me in combat than Eagle.

Eagle is no longer a JoAT, but a master of none (or nothing of significance) instead now.

[Thaago]

I'd still rather keep an Eagle than an Apogee, but thats mainly because it doesn't match the way I fight. I have very little use for a slow shield tank that takes up a ton of battlespace.

[Amoebka]

Cruisers are currently the metagame winners, because officer skills are too powerful, and cruisers are the most efficient way to spread them across your fleet. I wouldn't want to see them all nerfed, because if or when the skills change again it will leave them in the dust.

I certainly don't want Eagles or Falcons to be the balancing sticks for cruisers either. Between the flux stats and weapon mounts, the ships are just garbage compared to meta destroyers or capitals. If all cruisers are Eagle-level, I wouldn't start using Eagles. I would drop cruisers entirely and split my officers between capitals and destroyers.

[Sly]

Give the Falcon and Eagle a little bit more speed, 5 and 10 su/s respectively. The Falcon an extra small missile mount in the center gap, and a tiny +5 OP. The Eagle, two extra small missile mounts and +25 OP. If the Eagle is going to be the JoaT GoaT, then that will give it some room for customization and extra missiles. Adjust DP and salt to taste.

As for the Eradicator, it trades fire with shields too well. A small nerf of +0.1 to Shield flux/damage would probably feel right, and be in line with other ships in the same tech. It'd still be damn good, just easier to push around - which it has the speed for.

[Grievous69]

Ugh, I feared it would come to this. God please don't nerf the ships that are actually fun to play with and have varied builds. Champion is no longer the only viable heavy cruiser since the Dominator got buffed, now they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Fury has been overnerfed already, I actually laughed irl when you mentioned it. And Eradicator is simply a cruiser with AAF, 2 Hammerheads fused together if you will. I've used them a lot in my campaign, currently have 2 base ones and a pirate variant. And I'm beginning to struggle in larger fights, I will have to get better stronger ships, it's a clear case of the ship not being broken. Ok Eradicator (P) was too cheap, we can all agree on that but that has been already noticed.

It's just the combination of everything in the last couple of patches, buffs to smaller ships, skill changes, weapon reworks and balance, end game challenges, and yeah of course, new ships that have made Eagles and Falcons obsolete. It's seriously not "hey this new ship is busted, now old ship is crap", it's not as simple as that. There are very good points in this thread, like how Eagle is only slightly faster than a Conquest, or how current skills favour more specialized hulls due to how numbers work. Something being a jack of all trades doesn't mean everything else should be rolled back to its level, that would make for a boring cruiser roster. I'd much much rather see Eagle/Falcon get a smidge more love.

Listen to Histidine and compare current cruisers to destroyers and capitals. Are two Hammerheads better or worse than a single Eradicator. Are two Eradicators equal to a single Onslaught, and so on...

If there's any power creep that has been introduced, then it lies within the ballistic touch ups that have happened, not with the ships themselves. I'll repeat myself once again for emphasis, I really don't want to see good cruisers gutted and then have a period where they're overnerfed because a single other ship seemed kinda weak alongside it. The absolute most fun I have in this game is coming up with builds and seeing them shine in the battlefield, and this is what I have with most current cruisers, Eagles just have dumb mounts that either beg for a support build that's not going to do much, or you can be innovative but then give AI a stroke whenever it wants to attack something.

[SethMK]

Then again I am fine of all the drones due to no lost crew when they go boom.

That's why I like Wasps. I worry less about the cruiser's PD and let them handle it.

I love using Wasps, I only resort to mining drones when I can't afford to slot in a Wasp in a converted hangar on a destroyer. Like I said they have a use but still I prefer Wasps.

But I do agree that the Eagle and Falcon need something they need to be improved slightly, and I also agree with Grievous69, don't go nerfing the newer ships down to the level of the Eagle and Falcon since that starts a trend of nerfing everything and then your left with everything sucking and only a few meta builds that work. By buffing to the newer more balanced level and sustaining that level of power since the game as a whole is still being tuned, you end up with more options. Although sidesteps like the change to Tempests with the 'suicide drones' are interesting, as long as they are tweaked to the right level and have an AI configured to use them effectively.

[Lucky33]

Hmm - in the name of avoiding (or at least mitigating) power creep, wouldn't the Responsible thing to do here be dialing back the Eradicator, Fury, and perhaps the Champion, a slight bit? Not something I'd want to do now, regardless, but those ships are very much meant to be balanced against the Eagle. As noted, it's a jack of all trades which makes it a pretty useful balance center point to try to work around.

The only power creep that is going on is the raising difficulty. Eagle was designed when top level player was stronger than AI. Now its weaker. This introduces us to the actual problem:

Eagle is not a jack of all trades. It is the artillery specialist.

That was OK when. Now late game is all about missiles because of their capability to deal flux damage without flux cost to its carrier. It is the initial exchange of Squalls and Sabots (plus whatever fighters) what defines the result of the initial clash and serves the purpose of gaining the needed advantage against stronger enemy. Eagle's missile capabilities are pathetic and fighter ones are non-existant. Therefore "artillery specialist". Not only that but since half the artillery is in fixed mounts it is more like "artillery specialist of the line" since it requires close flank protection. Here lies another problem. If you put 22 DP Eagle as a front liner to protect 20 DP Gryphon or Heron and the enemy brought two actual jack-of-all-trades in the form of Brilliants every one of them being individually stronger than Eagle the situation will not be sustainable.

To fix Eagle you have to either fix the artillery or fix Gryphon and Heron so what they will be capable of engaging multiple target simultaneously and without much loss in performance/will get much better disabling capabilities.

Eradicator, Fury and Champion are all better because they are multipurpose and less dependent on external support.

[TaLaR]

With skills like EWM/BWM and hullmods like ballistic rangefinder and HSA, specialization is much better than midline mixing that can't properly benefit from anything. And their mobility advantage has been significantly eroded by cancel-able Burn drive.

[Amoebka]

Yeah, that's another aspect of it. Now that even low-tech gets speed 70 cruisers with good mobility systems, maneuvering jets no longer feel special.

[Lucky33]

With skills like EWM/BWM and hullmods like ballistic rangefinder and HSA, specialization is much better than midline mixing that can't properly benefit from anything. And their mobility advantage has been significantly eroded by cancel-able Burn drive.

What do you mean by "properly"? Eagle can't get the full bonus from the Ballistic Rangefinder but that's all.

[SCC]

I don't think midline has to pick between BWM and EWM, mainly because it's just Falcon, Eagle and Champion that have to rely on energy weapons for offence in any capacity. Yet Champion doesn't feel weak for having to choose between the two.
I also don't think Eagle lost its mobility edge. Burn drive propels you straight forward, making it useless if you want to get away from the enemy. Though, of course, an argument could be made that while ships with burn drive cannot do that, neither do they need to do it...

But I do agree that the Eagle and Falcon need something they need to be improved slightly, and I also agree with Grievous69, don't go nerfing the newer ships down to the level of the Eagle and Falcon since that starts a trend of nerfing everything and then your left with everything sucking and only a few meta builds that work.

If anything, there's way more buffing going on currently.

[Grievous69]

If anything, there's way more buffing going on currently.

And that's a good thing. I finally actually WANT to use Dominators and Enforcers in my fleet, it doesn't feel as bad as before. And while Onslaught got its buffs before, now it's even better. There's no more situations where you come to the end game and your whole decision for picking a capital flagship was do you want speed (Odyssey) or tanky firepower (Paragon). I'm currently piloting a base Legion since that's the only capital I have, and I would've never done that before because it was miserable to pilot it. Being able to once again cancel Burn drive is a blessing.

[Asherogar]

Completely agree with Grievous, cruisers right now are finally fun to play with. Overall difficulty of the game increased and as a result Eagle falling behind, there's no need to nerf all other cruisers to it's level, base level (Eagle) should be bumped up a bit. Besides Eagle and Falcon are just weak in current meta, where skills push you hard towards specialising and both ships mounts lack any synergy, which further multiplied by their inability to fully utilise offficers. As I already mentioned they need overall stat buff to remain JoAT or their mounts should be reworked towards more definitive playstile/role.

[prav]

If anything, there's way more buffing going on currently.

Looking at the combat cruisers, let's just highlight the ones that are either new and strong, or have gotten buffs since 0.9a:
Falcon
Falcon P
Eagle
Champion
Venture
Apogee*
Dominator
Eradicator
Aurora**
Doom (didn't have the mines until 0.9)
Heron
Gryphon (got EMR in 0.9.1)
Mora
Colossus Mk.II
Colossus Mk.III
Rampart
Brilliant
Fury

* Apogee got a bunch of nerfs, but also big DP reduction.
** Aurora got a slight flux nerf.

I'm not sure I missed any nerfs other than to the aurora. So yeah, go figure it feels like the Falcon isn't keeping up.

I don't at all agree that cruisers are or were underpowered as a class.

[Megas]

Completely agree with Grievous, cruisers right now are finally fun to play with. Overall difficulty of the game increased and as a result Eagle falling behind, there's no need to nerf all other cruisers to it's level, base level (Eagle) should be bumped up a bit. Besides Eagle and Falcon are just weak in current meta, where skills push you hard towards specialising and both ships mounts lack any synergy, which further multiplied by their inability to fully utilise offficers. As I already mentioned they need overall stat buff to remain JoAT or their mounts should be reworked towards more definitive playstile/role.

Eagle (and maybe standard Falcon) also need more missile power.  Built-in Expanded Missile Racks can be a quick-and-dirty fix.  Maybe better would be unique hullmods that raise missile damage (and maybe speed too) to offset lack of missiles from two small missile mounts.  Eagle could have the two middle turrets turned into synergy mounts.

P.S.  Turn all of the small energy mounts in front of the medium turrets they have into synergies.  With that, they have up to five small mounts for missiles, and use mediums for Heavy Burst Lasers or other beams.