This is following my comments from
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22918.1050 release thread. Overall after having a blast with small phase ships (mainly Afflictors and Shades) and having tried larger ones (Harbinger, Doom) my - so to speak - impressions about them are like from the old meme pic about an immeasurable disappointment and a ruined day (before someone mentions mine strike - I know the system is amazing, but it would be nice if Doom was something more than just a mine spammer). I'm not sure what is the idea about those ships post-nerf, but their original design of get-in/attack/get-out doesn't really cut in much - unless one slaps SO on those ships (and gimp them with the usual SO side effects). And even that can be borderline suicidial.
Anyway, Schwartz mentioned that "Ironically, phase frigates who were always the worst offenders in that they were basically untouchable and uncatchable, are hurt by the nerf the least.". Which - even post-nerf (as it's the only version I experienced) - kind of follows my experience with frigates (aside perhaps notably slower Gremlin, but I don't really use that ship). Sure I occasionally messed up / greeded / lingered too long and noticed speed penalty kicking in - but that's more of "git gud" territory than a game's fault.
Phase destroyer and cruiser though - ouch, wtf. Between their lack of shields (so they can't really brawl), biggest in-game deployment/supply/cr/recovery costs (with bonus cr decay on top from delicate machinery hullmod), not exactly stunning ordnance pool and now crippling speed penalty one can wonder - why give up so much in return for a crippled so little (the ships
should be awesome across the board for their cumulative costs - and they +/- were before 0.95.1a - therefore they should be nerfed(?) ) ? why not use something else ? Or for that matter - two of that something else for equal or almost equal deployment cost. With a functional shield and without crippling speed penalty as a sugar on top (eagle, falcon, eradicator ...).
There are other fast cruisers with speed systems (maneuvering jets, plasma jets, burn drive, plasma burn) - imagine if they had 33% top speed penalty at some essential moment.
Anyway, some ideas that I have about this in context of controlling / changing this nerf.
1) Phase Coil Tuning DP pool adjustment
Nominal 40 DP of that skill before diminishing effects are starting to kick in are - IDK - borderline mocking. Covering one cruiser and half a frigate. Or 2 destroyers. Few more ships and the penalty kicks in hard as the ships are dp-hungry and the skill's dp base value is small. With 1 cruiser, 2 destroyers and 5 frigates (121 dp) the bonuses were crushed to ~1/3 - and the most important one (speed bonus) to a symbolic value considering phase speed penalty eating it away in a moment.
Perhaps it was somewhat passable
before the nerf (hmm, is that actually the case - were reworked skills in the game before phase nerf ?), but now ?
With current tiny DP pool this skill can be characterized as:
- are you using frigates ? you don't really need this skill tbh, allocate the skill point to something more valuable
- are you using that 1 phase cruiser ? what about using something more useful and allocating the skill point to something more valuable
- are you using more phase ships ? go check current bonus values with reference to your fleet and reevaluate that skill point
Most other similar skills sit at 240 DP nominal value before diminishing returns kick in - maybe missing 2 in front is just a bug ?
I'd seriously change that to - at the very least - 120.
2a) PCT speed per-hull-size tuning
Assuming frigates are now in a good spot (what about poor "slow" gremlin though ?), the speed bonus could be split by hull size:
- leave +50% for frigates as it is now
- +150%-200% for destroyer (this is roughly the starting point of this ship with SO added at full CR, which feels barely sufficient; and the ship still has to be able to get out, meaning getting rid of some/most hard flux)
- +175%-225% for cruiser (values slightly above the destroyer)
Anyway, the above approach would give a knob for better control over the nerf regardless of the actual values chosen in the end.
Similarly the peak operating time could be tuned per-hull size as well
2b) as above, K.I.S.S. version (my favorite)
- remove phase drive nerf
- remove APC (returning precious OP points from de-facto mandatory hullmod, if even more op-hungry PA is not used)
cut the PCT bonuses to something like
- 0% frigates
- 10%-40% destroyer
- 15%-50% cruiser
2c) another K.I.S.S.
- separate speed penalty per hull size, e.g. something like top speed at 33% frigates, 80% destroyers, 100% cruisers
3) APC adjustment (non-linear with initially flat curve)
This part can be both together with 1 + 2a/c (after tweaking the values a bit) or perhaps even instead. The crucial part of the problem is speed nerf kicking in too fast - so what if the speed nerf penalty behaved +/- as follows:
without APC:
- the speed bottoms to 33% at 60% hard flux
- from 0% to 45% - no penalty, flat 0 curve
- 45%-60% covers the whole penalty (not linearly - maybe something like x^2 with a gentle start)
with APC:
- the speed bottoms to 33% at 85% hard flux
- from 0% to 70% - no penalty
- 70%-85% covers the whole penalty (remarks as above)
4) Some other remarks
- Phase Anchor - why prohibit "build in" option ? It's a nice skill and looks like a good choice for a flagship, but is it so awesome as to prohibit it to be build in ?
Anyway, those are some of the ideas I had to control the phase nerf. The values are just [sensible?] placeholders and the final behavior could be finely tuned by combining the above ideas. Or just go with 2b =)