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[Grievous69]

I don't understand the logic behind that. The enemy has access to the same ships you can have, so naturally something getting buffed is not really making the game a whole lot easier unless it's spamable.

[Igncom1]

It's not about difficulty, it's about making the game a little worse by making the choices matter less.

If everything works, then what does the choice matter?

[Grievous69]

If everything works, then what does the choice matter?

Do you play any other games lol? Like that's such a hard contradiction. If stuff works with very varying results, you're going to gravitate towards the best options. Thus reducing the choice in the game unless you're a masochist or a newb. Choices being equally balanced now means the player can do all sorts of different strats and find them fun, instead of underwhelming and infuriating.

Single player games don't have to have perfect made in heaven balance, but it will impact the enjoyment a lot. Either making the experience too easy, or making it a living hell.

[Igncom1]

Lmao yeah I play other games. 

Generally I like it when using different units actually matters rather then just spamming the one or having every choice be pointless.

But I am going in circles at this point, if you don't understand then you don't understand.

[Grievous69]

Generally I like it when using different units actually matters rather then just spamming the one or having every choice be pointless.

Precisely what balance attempts to accomplish!!

Can't believe we're saying the exact same thing but somehow disagreeing. *** textual communication. When are we getting voice messages here, cmon it's not the stone age anymore.

[smithney]

If everything works, then what does the choice matter?

Do you play any other games lol? Like that's such a hard contradiction. If stuff works with very varying results, you're going to gravitate towards the best options. Thus reducing the choice in the game unless you're a masochist or a newb. Choices being equally balanced now means the player can do all sorts of different strats and find them fun, instead of underwhelming and infuriating.

Single player games don't have to have perfect made in heaven balance, but it will impact the enjoyment a lot. Either making the experience too easy, or making it a living hell.

No no, he's got a point. Of course the player's gonna gravitate towards the better tools for the current job. The point Igncom1 is making is that if you streamline the tools to the point where each of them can do the job well enough, then there's no challenge in looking for the right tool for the job. You can just pick the one you enjoy wielding the most and not worry about failing. In other words, you have plenty of choice, but the choice doesn't matter much. Does that sound fun to you?

EDIT: I can believe you two were disagreeing when Igncom1 was emphasizing agency, while you were emphasizing choice. Multiply these two together and you get meaningful choice.

EDIT 2: Textual communication is fine. This is just an example of how communication didn't evolve to pass information, but to allow cooperation. You two didn't understand each other, but you accomplished the same goal, so you're happy. I just hope you two understand that meaningful choice is a function of both variety and agency. We're already way past off-topic so I'm leaving it at this.

[Amoebka]

I strongly disagree with making ships bad on purpose to allow the players to "skillfully ignore the weak ones". Every ship should at least have a sensible niche where it shines. There are still decisions to make in loadout design, officer skills and choosing the overall fleet composition.

Vigilance isn't the right tool for any job right now. I'm not saying it should be a "do-everything" frigate, but it should at least be worth using in fleet support role. Presently, it's inferior to missile cruisers in that role by an enormous margin, and doesn't have situational upsides over them either.

[intrinsic_parity]

I don't mind there being explicitly weak ships, but I feel that's more the role of the pirate ships. It would be nice if vigilance had some niche, which doesn't mean it needs to have overall good value.

Also, having good value does not mean having good applicability. This point would be more salient if the game had combat challenges that really required different approaches to solve. The only thing close is phase ships. Other than that, you can usually find some generalist OP strat that just wins everything. That really reduces the possibility of things having niche value.

edit: I guess some of the mini boss content is maybe moving more in the direction of requiring tailored solutions too

[Thaago]

I've had some fun putting Salamanders on them, as they work well with the system. They aren't strong ships though.

[Sly]

It's gotta have built-in Expanded Missiles by default. It only has the one launcher, and once it's blown through its meager ammo stores it's just a liability. If you equip it with non-regenerating missile ammo, it typically lasts less time than the PPT on a Wolf with a leaky reactor.

[BigBrainEnergy]

If the vigilance is underpowered, and meant to be a missile boat, then maybe give it missile racks for free like the gryphon. It would still have the same weaknesses that you would need your fleet to compensate for but it would be a little better at its job. Unless you use a salamander pod, which, hmm.... maybe give it free ECCM instead?

[Igncom1]

Salamander pods with extended missile racks should fire double. I want top fill the skies with annoying emp missiles!

[smithney]

I strongly disagree with making ships bad on purpose to allow the players to "skillfully ignore the weak ones". Every ship should at least have a sensible niche where it shines. There are still decisions to make in loadout design, officer skills and choosing the overall fleet composition.

I'm gonna chime in to this off-topic again to clear something I said up. If something's too weak to be used in a certain situation, then it's basically a reduction of choice by the way of viability. Grievous69 had bad experience with situations where this ostensibly happened. Situations where the player did have agency - the choices they made affected the player's success significantly - but many of the choices were too suboptimal to be worth considering, thus effectively nonexistent.

And again, to say something on topic xD

It's gotta have built-in Expanded Missiles by default. It only has the one launcher, and once it's blown through its meager ammo stores it's just a liability. If you equip it with non-regenerating missile ammo, it typically lasts less time than the PPT on a Wolf with a leaky reactor.

I feel like this might be the only change necessary, possibly offset by a DP increase if too strong. Vigilance is already sluggish and fragile, so it's gonna stay a glass cannon, but this way it might actually carry it's weight as a little Gryphon.

[Schwartz]

Yep. A free built-in missile hullmod is not gonna make it that much stronger, but it adds to the cool factor. Extra Missiles would be better as Vigilance is supposed to be fleet support, implying longer engagements.

[Plantissue]

I can't think of a single niche where the Vigilance can be useful. In early game, it has to face frigates and so gets wiped out by other frigates. If ion beam, Wolf does it better. If HVD or Mauler, Hound does it better. Many frigates also have 2 small missiles, so it almost forces you to get Harpoon or Pilum or Reaper or Breach. As personally pilotted frigate, there are plenty of better choices. In later game, not only does it still have to face frigates, but it's greatly outranged and slow. Unlike the brawler it can't maneouvre jet to safety and unlike the Centurion, it cannot damper field and hope for the best. In theory it can still work in mid game, throwing missiles out, but they always seem to be amongst the first to get destroyed for me. Perhaps because it has no missle defence unless you equip the medium turret with a PD for some reason. I wonder if that could be a useful role for a Vigilance? But Centurion and Monitor exists. It did get greatly buffed afterall, but it still seems to be a slow/middling speed frigate without a role.