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[Warnoise]

Currently there are no counters against fast fleet. The only way to counter fast fleets is to fight them with a fast fleet.

Especially knowing how the AI performs way better with a fast ship than a slow ship, speed is the most important stats in the game.

Currently the only weapons that supposedly counter speed are:
-Salamander: a meme missile that hits 5% of the time. And ironically it only hits slow ships since fast ships can easily dodge it or block it with shield
-Emp weapons: Unfortunately low tech ships don't have access against those but currently they are the best method that counter fast ships
-Mines: another weapon which is mainly used by a fast ship (doom)

So my suggestion is to introduce an area denial weapon or give salamander emp buff (make it hit through shield when high Flux)

Currently, In a fleet vs fleet battle where all ships are properly equipped, fast ships perform better than slow ships

[Gergin]

So bring fast ships to counter them?
Needing to have a diverse fleet to address various types of threats is very much good design and not a problem.

[Hatter]

I'm not so sure about the idea that a fast fleet beats everything in the game Heavy fighter concentration can tear apart lone frigates and apply constant pressure. Beams are essentially hitscan and can't be dodged.

Could you give an example of what speed based fleet you're encountering that's giving you so much trouble? Pathers? Tri-Tachyon? [VERY REDACTED]?

[Linnis]

The hardest counter is thunder wings.

[Thaago]

I don't agree with this. Fast ships have their place, but in general (by design) they are less powerful both offensively and defensively than slower ships. In player hands, with the wolfpack skill and actually using wolfpack tactics they can be very effective (there are plenty of nice screencaps/videos of super frigate fleets smashing big fleets), but the AI doesn't do harassment, feints/lure withdrawals, and extreme force concentration to nearly the same extant. In terms of cracking hard targets (stations/fortresses or capitals/radiants) fast ships are decidedly subpar compared to larger ships with better missile firepower and defenses.

In terms of weapons to fight them: any long range kinetic is a counter, as are burst beam weapons, and the two combined is evil. HVDs or ballistic rangefinder railguns, MkIXs/HACs/Needlers with full recoil reduction (mandatory) do well. Mjolnirs have the accuracy and raw DPS to qualify even though its not kinetic. Small ships simply cannot stand up to concentrated damage, and most big capitals can simply swat fast ships from beyond the ship's range. Also Locusts, which while they don't deal much shield damage will absolutely kill small ships that have taken any sort of fire. [Edit] Oh and I forgot: HMGs in turrets, especially with elite PD, is a pretty hard counter to small shield frigates too. They have to be in range to fire and each gun is 320 kinetic dps.

That doesn't help with chasing fast ships: that requires something to catch them. There... not really any way around that? If the enemy is faster than you they can't win, but they can certainly drag things out. Luckily interceptors are a thing and its not hard to put carriers into a control group and right click them dead one by one. If the enemy fast ships stay with the main battle line they are protected from interceptors, but are going to get popped by bigger ship because they are giving up their ability to run entirely (I'll often pop fast frigates hanging around a cap before the cap just out of convenience). If they run from the battle line, they get fightered. Or the player can just use a few (like 3) superiority frigates: it takes a little bit of micro to keep them out of the heavy fighting and it may be worth it to hold back their deploy for a few minutes, but some nice SO chasers to deal with stragglers cleans things up fast.

[Linnis]

SO Hyperion says hello. Your frigates are no more.

[Grievous69]

If you think you NEED fast ships, you're not building your slow ships right. My whole run was a low tech one, and up until the very end of the game I just added 2 Champions and an Apogee to play with Omega weapons, but those are also considered slow so what the hell.

Spoiler

[close]

I have 2 Wolfs that are used only for pursuits, before anyone attacks them "WAIT THOSE ARE FAST!"

With this fleet (and even before the latest additions) I had zero issues with all fights in the game. The only thing I haven't found yet is the Omega + Remnant bounty.

[TaLaR]

Fully agree with Thaago's post. Fast ships already pay a lot in other stats, you can't just take away their expensively paid for advantage.

For example, something like a Paragon with low base speed and no mobility system is meant to be anchor. You can punish mistakes of an attacking ship (most of the time, trying to engage a Paragon was the fatal mistake already), but you can't force engagements.

Onslaught on the other hand may be ponderous and easy circle-around, but in terms of actual pursuit speed it's quite fast due to burn drive. When player piloted and max skilled, pretty much nothing but Timid frigates will be able to stall against you (and there are actually no Timid officers on enemy side). Odyssey is an even more perfect pursuit machine.

[Warnoise]

I am not talking in 1v1 scenario, I am talking in multiple ship battle:
Fast ships can:
-Close in distance quickly on high Flux target and hit them with burst weapons
-Can rotate ships if get high in flux in the frontline
-Can equip long range too, they can kite properly with them
-They can change from area to area quickly, picking up lone ships with 0 danger
-Can literally control the flow of battle by aggroing and baiting the ai
>Godlike under the player hands (like soloing ziggurats with one Doom or soloing 3 Onslaughts and 2 Dominators with one single Hammerhead)
>Don't need escorts or babysitting, the ai is performant enough to make a decent judgement between engaging and retreating
>Can easily retreat in a dangerous situation (especially fast ships with mobility ship systems)
>Are good with or without SO so good versatility
>Some fast ships have decent shield stats, so they are fast and tanky

Meanwhile slow ships:
>They require escorts (ok that's not a bad thing it's normal for such an archetype but escort ai isn't reliable)
>If the battle has too many fast ships from both sides, they literally will spend the whole battle chasing left and right without achieving anything
>They are done for if they are caught.
>Generally have low flux stats (Paragon is an exception)
>Require babysitting
>Have to rely on a good firing line on the frontline (pray the ai doesn't screw you) otherwise they'll get attacked from an unprotected side by multiple ships and killed (the ai always attack from ubprotected side)
>Player can't do much with a slow ship even with good piloting (Paragon is OP so it's an exception)
>Can't retreat, once flux is high pray the ai will move in and help otherwise say goodbye
>Generally slow ships don't have a significant flux advantage over faster ships so they can lose flux battle easily, the worst is that they can do nothing if high in flux

I tested a full fleet with fast ships, a full fleet with slow ships and a full fleet with mixed (fast and slow) against remnant ordo, fast ships fleet was signifanctly the best in terms of battlespeed, babysitting and overall performance.

[Grievous69]

Listing all the positives for fast ships
+
Listing all the negatives for slow ships
(Even though half of your points for both are exaggerations)
=
Priceless

[Igncom1]

Fast ships like frigates can hound down and destroy larger ships like capitals.

But carriers can catch and swarm frigates with ease as their lack of decent defences make them easy prey for fighters.

In turn many capital ships can easily decimate fighter swarms to reach and destroy enemy carriers.

Fast carriers however..... well if we weren't fighting in a limited battlespace, they'd be unbeatable!

[Kriby]

There's room in my heart for a ship system that slows other ships down, a weapon with a slowing effect might be too generally useful to implement in a way that can be balanced.

The problems with a slowing weapon/system mostly revolves around what it does to the flux economy. Fast ships typically vent out their weak flux stats after backing out of weapons range, if you remove that option from them as a larger ship you might as well just have dealt critical damage and skipped the middle man.

So a ship that could slow other ships would have to be pretty bad on its own and rely on others to finish off the caught ship for it to have a chance at being balanced. Even so I think it'd be tricky to pull off. Slowing might be strong enough that a ship that could do that would feel like a must-have.

[Voyager I]

This sure is a Warnoise thread in here.

-Can equip long range too, they can kite properly with them

lol

[Thaago]

@Voyager I, treat others with respect even if you disagree with them; we can debate points without being insulting. Please consider this an official warning.

Forum rules can be found here: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2668.0

[Linnis]

want to see your composition and build vs ordo for both "fast" and "slow" ships. Slow ships care more about fleet composition and orders while fast ships are better left alone so they can move around. Maybe you just havent experimented enough with slow ships