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[intrinsic_parity]

Scarab is my favorite frigate. Its mounts are meh, but its system is insane (accelerated ammo feeder and plasma jets wrapped up in one system). Add in a few omega weapons and it's super strong, but standard weapons still make for a very strong ship. It does need very carefully designed loadouts to give it survivability. Particularly, it needs forward shield conversion for 360 shields, and its needs some excess dissipation to handle the flux generated from its system, and it also wants capacity to help it survive bursts and also deal with the burst weapons it likes to equip (anti matter blaster, mini pulser, anti matter SRM, etc.).

I've been meaning to experiment with IPDAI + elite PD skill to give it a bunch of extra range, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I think that has the potential to be extremely strong if the OP budget works out.

I find it hard to justify destroyers over elite frigates like that after the early mid game. They just don't seem any more survivable in late game fights, and the offensive advantages don't really seem significant either. IMO frigates in late game are mostly about capping objectives and controlling flanks/creating distractions/cleaning up smaller enemies. I don't think destroyers are better at those tasks. I mostly just use destroyers early on and replace them with cruisers/capitals as I gain access to those ships.

[Draba]

In terms of maximizing offense per DP destroyers are clear winners over most cruisers and frigates (there are a few high offense exceptions).
...
And then there is also the fact that simply having more ships on the field helps immensely in how every other ship performs, as Salter mentions in their comment just above mine.

The damage from Hammerhead/Sunder should be excellent and having more ships does help up until a limit.
I do think in max size battles getting tangled up on each other removes their advantage, and something like Apogee/Champion/Eradicator spam will outdamage them by a wide margin (while also being much more durable).
Better range and naturally focusing firepower is a big advantage. Even Apogee spam only uses 198 DP when fully officered with all boosts so slap that on top.

FWIW, I mostly stop running frigates by the time my fleet passes ~50 DP--I haven't found a frigate that can survive both fighter swarms (rules out the Tempest and Wolf) and frigate wolfpacks.

Monitors are also very nice with no substitute.
Scarab/Glimmer both great for capping and hunting stragglers/cappers, 2 of them reliably kills Brilliants and 3 mostly anything the AI splits from the main force. Also fast/durable enough to not need much babysitting.
Lashers are too fragile (and a bit slower) so can't run around like the above 2, but a pair will reliably kill solo stragglers and help a lot in keeping backs clean.

Overall I'd say 4 frigates(Omen, Monitor, Scarab, Glimmer) are great, 1 kinda-sorta ok for the cost (Lasher).

and it also wants capacity to help it survive bursts and also deal with the burst weapons it likes to equip (anti matter blaster, mini pulser, anti matter SRM, etc.).

I just use IR pulse lasers and 1 ion cannon.
Takes a while to wear down medium+ armor, but gets through frigates very fast, needs little attention and can help out with shields/emp when needed.

I find it hard to justify destroyers over elite frigates like that after the early mid game. They just don't seem any more survivable in late game fights, and the offensive advantages don't really seem significant either. IMO frigates in late game are mostly about capping objectives and controlling flanks/creating distractions/cleaning up smaller enemies.

Yep, the speed advantage+0.6 shields keep elite frigates alive where destroyers would get smashed instantly. In the line cruisers/capitals seem better.

[FenMuir]

Generally, your move up in ship class as the game goes on. This means that at a certain point of a casual playthrough, destroyers will the be best ships in the player's fleet. Those same ships will eventually be phased out for cruisers, and those cruisers, for capitals.

No, frigates and cruisers are good at every stage of the game.
Champion, Apogee, Eradicator, Heron, Gryphon, Doom are all great on their own and there is no capital substitute/upgrade.
Fury is excellent for punching down outside the main ball, Dominator is good but Onslaught is an upgrade for lots of things it does, Aurora/Eagle decent but might be slightly too expensive IMO.

I see you failed to include the part of the quote that presents the caveat you supported.

Naturally, some ships are just really good a specific jobs, so they'll last longer, if not permanently, in a fleet.

[Salter]

FWIW, I mostly stop running frigates by the time my fleet passes ~50 DP--I haven't found a frigate that can survive both fighter swarms (rules out the Tempest and Wolf) and frigate wolfpacks. (The main vanilla exception is the Omen, which in my experience tends to get overrun if split off as a point-capper or distraction but is very good as a PD escort for larger ships that need help in that respect.) I think destroyers are mainly held back by the range of very good light cruisers--the Falcon and Apogee both come very close to a destroyer's logistical/deployment cost while offering considerably greater capability.

Frigates are relatively lukewarm till you look at high-tech frigates though the idea is to get hardened shields and play around with its mods. Hardened shields is a lifesaver when it comes to frigates and since its high tech they are pretty good with their shields.

• Wolfs not that special, but is okay if you use it to kite with beam weapons, at least till late game anyways.
• People have already covered the scarab so no reason to speak on it.
• Tempest is very fast and its terminator drones are pretty strong and universally good.
• Omen's good for PD and ship escort. It can shred fighter and missile walls anyways that allow for it to soften a blow or allow a bigger ship to shoot the rest down.
• Hyperion is a pretty nasty frigate. Ive not seen much that can get through one with hardened shields. You need to slap some PD on it like a heavy machine gun in order to make sure the AI doesnt run away anyways.
• Glimmer's pretty good as a close range mauler if you give it Safety Overides and load it with an Ion Pulser and some IR Pulse Lasers and an AI core. Okay at kiting with beam weapons.
• Im not a fan of the Lumen because I dont really think it brings a whole lot to the table. Its weapon mounts are okay but its stats leave alot to be desired otherwise.
• If you are running phase coil tuning, Afflictor pairs really well with Harbingers. If you are running support doctrine, you can get a Afflictor plus two Harbingers while staying exactly at the 40 point limit for the skill and they function very well without S-mods or officers if you build them right. Plus double harbinger makes taking down Ordo's alot easier.
• Ive never been a fan of the Shade. its an Omen but without its shields and I dont think it makes very good use of its EMP emitter with how fragile it is, nor does it have a ton of staying power in a fight besides.

[Delta_of_Isaire]

There is a general rule (well, a mathematical regularity) in unit combat about the outcome of battles between fewer larger units vs more numerous smaller units, if both armies (fleets) are the same size. The army of smaller units will tend to win, but suffers losses in doing so. Which is often balanced by smaller units being cheaper.

The same pattern can be seen in Starsector. On a per-DP basis Destroyers are competitive and cheaper to purchase than Capitals, but they tend to suffer losses when faced with Capitals because a capital can focus fire on one Destroyer, and Destroyers are often too weak to survive that assault and too slow to escape in time.

Now in Starsector there are two problems that reduce the viability of Destroyers in this context.

First, ship losses are so expensive that the cheaper initial cost of Destroyers does not weigh up against their risk of destruction.

Second, capital ships with loadouts specifically tailored to handling multiple destroyers/frigates do reliably beat a DP-equivalent number of destroyers/frigates. Notable examples are Conquest with Locusts and symmetrical weapon loadout, most good Radiant variants, and very likely the new Midline capital with its missile spam.


Note that some viability of Destroyers can be restored by using wolfpack tactics (not the skill. Well, also the skill but not just that). Which means using superior speed to harry the enemy forces, isolate them, and then defeat them in detail by getting a local DP superiority. In other words, the standard tactic of High Tech fleets. It is definitely possible to beat capital fleets with an all-destroyer fleet, but it requires more difficult tactics.

[Draba]

I see you failed to include the part of the quote that presents the caveat you supported.

Naturally, some ships are just really good a specific jobs, so they'll last longer, if not permanently, in a fleet.

As I understood the main point of your post: there is a clear progression in power/DP as hull sizes increase.
Don't think that's true even in the general sense, most cruisers and the better frigates are just good for the DP.
If you meant something like "bigger is better, or not" then yeah, agreed

[Twilight Sentinel]

I think that destroyers do have their place as a way to fill out fleets.  To form up battle lines and support your cruisers and capitals.  For example, early game hammerheads are flat out the best anti-destroyer destroyer in the game.  Late game, they're great line ships that can tank and do damage to cover the flanks of larger ships or protect glass cannons like sunders.

However, this thread did bring up some interesting things about frigates vs destroyers.  That is that they're are very few rare/special destroyers in the game.  The frigate class has the hyperion, scarab, tempest, monitor, and omen ships.  These are all rare ships that players rarely use in early game fleets, but generally phase out their early frigates in favor of them in the late game.  The destroyer class doesn't have many of those, only the medusa and manticore.  The medusa is generally seen as undertuned at the moment, leaving the manticore as the only rare destroyer that has real universal appeal for its ability to add serious firepower to a late game fleet for cheap (similar to the sunder, but that's a more common ship).  If all you had for true warship frigates were the lasher, wolf, brawler, and vigilence, I think a lot more players would also drop frigates entirely from their fleets.

So I don't think the problem is that the destroyers are innately bad, it's that there aren't any crazy end game ships in the category like frigates that give players strong reasons to keep using them.

******************************************

A lot of people have mentioned the officer bonuses not applying to destroyers, I kinda feel eh about that.  You have to account for the fact that a destroyer has higher base stats and more weapons than a frigate does.  So the officer's base skills apply larger bonuses to those.  The larger bonuses to frigates specifically is to offset that innate advantage of putting an officer in a larger ship.  If the frigate bonus wasn't bigger than the destroyer bonus, it'd always be better to put those officers in destroyers.

[Thaago]

Thats a really good point. There are quite a few 'super-frigates': either ships that are in the destroyer or light cruiser tier by DP count, but frigate by hullsize (Hyperion, Afflictor, Tempest, Scarab), or ships that are just wildly unbalanced (mainly the luddic path skins or brawlers and to a slightly lesser extent lashers). The destroyer gunships all have their niches but are otherwise well balanced ships, with a few needing some minor tweaks. For fleet compositions that want moderate numbers instead of sticking to officer only ships (which is one way to play, but not the only way at all) they are just plain good ships but aren't a full class up in 'weight'.

Going on a Wolf->Hyperion analogy, imagine if there was a 30DP Hammermore ship that had 2 large ballistic mounts plus AAF and the flux to run them, a large missile, 120 base speed, 250 OP, etc etc. (Ok that particular combination might be wildly unbalanced for 30 but insert actually balanced light capital grade stats here.) And then add another couple of destroyers in the 18DP range, and tweak the Harbinger from its current 'ok fleet support' to 'murderous killer worth 2 afflictors'. Oh and an Enforcer with SO built in for free and AAF instead of burn drive (though that might actually be weaker than luddic path brawlers as its still a bit on the slow side). I'm not sure I really want those super destroyers in the game, but thats the kind of power spread that frigates have when talking about that class of ship.

[Megas]

Of the two destroyers that might be elite by DP count:

Drover:  It seems decent, although 15 DP feels a bit much.  Can be made a battlecarrier with skills and s-mods.  Only problem is the system that sabotages its replacement rate.  If the system did not hurt the ship, it would be okay.

Harbinger:    Not worth the DP cost.  System now is lame even with help from Systems Expertise (nevermind unskilled), and the AI is still stuck in assassin mode when the ship is too slow to pull it off after recent global phase cloak changes.  Basically, high-tech Vanguard in player's hands, and a disaster in AI hands.

[Twilight Sentinel]

I can also remember in my first game I had a few hammerheads, but wanted to replace them with a more specialized tank destroyer.  Problem was, there straight up isn't one in the game.  You've got mules, enforcers, and hammerheads.  That's it for tanks.  And the hammerhead is the only one with half decent speed.  So the first big ship you pick up is probably the best tank in the destroyer category you'll ever get.

I'd say there's definitely some room to add a damper field tank and/or a hybrid shield/armor tank to the destroyer category.  Specialized elite defensive ships on rare blueprints for low tech and/or midline, similar to the monitor but not quite so brutally hard to kill.

[FooF]

Good call on the Elite Destroyer or lack thereof. If we’re talking ships in the 12-18 DP range, basically light cruiser territory without the added range, there is a huge variety of ship types and roles that could fit in there. However, while Elite Frigates can count on speed, I’m having trouble coming up with an Elite Destroyer attribute that wouldn’t either step on the toes of Cruisers. Maybe I’m not that imaginative!

[Igncom1]

Generally one destroyer beats one frigate, but the elite frigates defy this.

When you only have 30 ships as a cap I tend to phase out frigates as they are generally not survivable enough nor have enough time in combat for me to feel comfortable using in the bigger fleet battles.

love me sunders, simple az

But yeah it's hardly a super ship that can solo most ships in the game, that's more of a high-tech thing and high-tech destroyers are kinda meh.

Honestly a light cruiser like the falcon basically is a super destroyer, but it still classes as a cruiser in the end.

Cruisers are basically tactical capital ships, the kind that doesn't break the bank. So destroyers to me are basically the 'super-heavies' of escort and periphery combat. You're breaking the bank for a ship to not fight in the line of battle, or be good at that, but as a force to 'largely' dominate anything smaller and weaker then them they are hard to beat.

A hammerhead will murder 90% of all frigates you will encounter, it's more the exception that a frigate can beat them rather then the rule.

[Twilight Sentinel]

Because I was tumbling around a random idea:

Minotaur: Low tech destroyer

A large escort ship intended to be tough enough to hold the line, and fast enough to cover any gaps before they are exploited.  The Minotaur was one of the last ships developed before the invention of modern shields.  Thus is was called obsolete before it even saw combat by many.  Even though few ships needed its protection once outfitted with shields, such upgrades took time.  Thus, Minotaurs served with distinction in the role of convoy defense.  For what it lacked in armaments, its damper field boasts best in class defenses.  Allowing it to frustrate the efforts of many attackers long enough for slower support to arrive.  In modern trader fleets, it is the bane of phase ships.  As the ship is more than capable of putting itself between the enemy and most targets before they have a chance to strike.  Then either buy time for allies to arrive, for its charge to escape, or to simply outlast the enemy.

Armaments:

• 2 medium ballistics, broadside turrets with 60 degrees of coverage
• 2 small ballistic, forward facing turret with 270 degrees of coverage
• 2 small ballistic, backwards facing turret with 270 degrees of coverage
• 2 small missile, forwards facing hardpoints.

Deployment cost: 10
Defense system: Damper field
Ship system: Canister Flak/flare launcher
Top Speed: 110
Hull: 6500
Armor: 1000
Flux: 3500
Flux dissipation: 200
Ordinance points: 90
Peak operating time: 450 seconds

This is basically a brick with a giant engine strapped to the back of it.  The two medium ballistics are intentionally setup so that they can never combine their damage.  This limits its total potential damage output and encourages the ship to turn on its side to attack and provide cover for the ships behind it.  While all four of the ballistic turrets can only focus fire on targets that are not directly in front or behind the ship, further encouraging broadside play.  You can also use it to drive a wedge through the enemy line, given the extreme survivability of the ship and ability to engage on both sides of itself simultaniously.  You can also put PD weapons in the medium slots and use the small mounts for engaging instead.  As the missiles are both forward hardpoints, they're poor options for finisher weapons, but good as initiators or long term support weapons.

[DaShiv]

Fundamentally the problem with destroyers as a size class is that they combine the worst traits of frigates and cruisers. In terms of firepower and range (ITU = 10%/20%/40% for frigate/destroyer/cruiser) destroyers are closer to frigates, but in terms of speed/maneuverability/hitbox size they're closer to cruisers. This means that destroyers are more vulnerable to getting hit and not being able to respond/escape when flanked compared to frigates, but neither can they effectively shoot their way out of trouble like a cruiser. Similarly, most frigates will run circles around most destroyers, but most destroyers are also vulnerable to being chased down and bullied by fast cruisers (Falcons, Furies, Auroras, Eradicators, etc). As a result, in the current fleet context players are almost always better served using either frigates and/or fast cruisers for destroyer-suitable roles.

Given that light cruisers have dramatically proliferated since 0.95 (with introduction of Fury and Eradicator along with buffs to Falcon) combined with the effectiveness of frigates using Wolfpack Tactics, destroyers have been caught in no-man's land from both sides. IMO, destroyers need a similar adjustment as was made to Falcons given the current environment: minor speed increase and major maneuverability increase for the whole class so that they're better positioned between frigates and light cruisers. I also think that a minor increase in destroyer ITU from 20% to 25% would be a reasonable adjustment.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it probably makes more sense to give destroyers a Helmsmanship-like bonus in the Wolfpack Tactics skill (similar to Elite Impact Mitigation but a bit more skewed toward speed, something like +20% speed +30% maneuverability), to make it more worthwhile to "give up" an officer on a destroyer.

[TaLaR]

I'd also like Medusa/Wolf to get faster skimmer recharge. It's so atrociously slow that most larger and lower base speed ships with other mobility systems can catch a Medusa over long enough time period. And make AI actually use it properly. As it is, even a player squeezing every bit of usefulness of each charge doesn't make it quite far enough to justify piloting a Medusa over a super-frigate or a larger ship.