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Author Topic: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic  (Read 17081 times)

Hiruma Kai

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #45 on: November 26, 2022, 09:47:29 PM »

Just FYI, the current set of changes to the Eagle in-dev is:
1) 20 supplies to recover/for maintenance (down from 22), and
2) 700 base flux dissipation (up from 600)

Interesting.  Overall, a 33% increase in base flux dissipation (or about 21% increase in max) over the 0.95a Eagle.  It is quite the statement about the ship that you can change one of the most important stats that much, and it still doesn't look overly strong yet.  Plus the 10% increase in base flux capacity.  Those changes are starting to put it on par with high tech cruisers in terms of flux stats.  Which to be fair, it probably needs at its base speed.  It technically has the shield tank of an Aurora or Fury and will have the flux dissipation between a Fury and Aurora (and matched to an Apogee).

With all those flux stat improvements along with DP discount down to 20, the Eagle might start to take the cheap, slow, and strong shield tanking role from Apogees.  With the changes to Squalls and Hurricanes, large missile slots potentially won't be as valuable, or at least universally as good.  If the Eagle can run a reasonable weapon loadout (not great, but reasonable) at flux neutral with shields up, it allows it to use its full 11,000 capacity/0.8 efficiency shield (13,750) to tank, which is what the Apogee did with its 12,000 capacity/0.7 efficiency shield (17,142).  Speed 60 and smart flares versus speed 50 and Maneuvering Jets.
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BCS

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #46 on: November 26, 2022, 09:51:02 PM »

Just FYI, the current set of changes to the Eagle in-dev is:
1) 20 supplies to recover/for maintenance (down from 22), and
2) 700 base flux dissipation (up from 600)

I'll take any buffs I can get but I find it weird that a) nothing is done to the speed and b) of all things flux dissipation got a buff, when it was already fantastic. I mean, that gives Eagle flux stats very much like Aurora.

What to even do with that much flux? 2x HVD, 2x Ion Beam then just turn enemy ships off one by one?
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Pratapon51

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #47 on: November 26, 2022, 11:47:39 PM »

Step 2 : Flip the med. ballistics and energies.  8)  8)  8)
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Grievous69

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #48 on: November 27, 2022, 12:00:04 AM »

That's an impressive buff I must say, although I kinda liked its unique 22 DP cost. Btw now the Fury looks even worse at 20 heh, hopefully you got something coming for it as well.
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Drazan

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #49 on: November 27, 2022, 12:50:42 AM »

With the changes to Squalls and Hurricanes, large missile slots potentially won't be as valuable, or at least universally as good. 

New missiles are coming, and so far every new stuff in the game have been a bit of a powercreep so I would expect the new missiles to be too strong and the they will be nerfed later.
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smithney

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #50 on: November 27, 2022, 05:21:59 AM »

Yeah - I've seen the suggestion, and I think it's a pretty reasonable idea! But it doesn't fit how I see the Eagle, which is less "jack of all trades" and more just... "a respectably average baseline ship", let's call it. And putting a flight deck on it definitely makes it an outlier among cruisers, so it goes against that, feel-wise. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of small amounts of fighters sprinkled in on too many ships - I think too much of that can make combat feel unnecessarily messy.

Reading this, I wonder how Eagle ends up feeling 'average' without remaining 'mediocre'. I don't think I'm wrong that one of the reason Eagle's coming so often up as a topic is that players want it to feel strong in their fleets. I feel like this is a chance for Eagle XIV to have a strong niche fit for lategame fleets if base Eagle's supposed to be an 'elite mook'. (Itching for LG ships to be the 'elitest' of mooks, anyway :D)
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FooF

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #51 on: November 27, 2022, 06:39:34 PM »

Reading this, I wonder how Eagle ends up feeling 'average' without remaining 'mediocre'. I don't think I'm wrong that one of the reason Eagle's coming so often up as a topic is that players want it to feel strong in their fleets. I feel like this is a chance for Eagle XIV to have a strong niche fit for lategame fleets if base Eagle's supposed to be an 'elite mook'. (Itching for LG ships to be the 'elitest' of mooks, anyway :D)

Well, to be fair, the Eagle has always been the bog standard cruiser. The reason it doesn't "feel strong" is probably more perception than reality but there has been some definite power creep with the new Cruisers and they kind of just passed the Eagle by. With the proposed changes, it's going to win flux wars a bit better and while it's not fast by any stretch, it can at least disengage better than some of its peers. As Greivous69 has said many times, it's probably one of the "safest" Cruisers out there by a comfortable margin, at least for cost.

 I think Alex is right in envisioning the standard Eagle as the via media for Cruisers and I don't blame him. Something has to be sort of the plum line for Cruisers (and perhaps the rest of the game) and the Eagle just fits into that "good-not-great" spot. If anything, the the additional flux places it more fully into the Mid-Line M.O. of having generous flux stats for its generalist options.

The XIV variant (or even a weird LG variant) with a fighter bay would very much satisfy my itch to have the Eagle stand out a little. Heck, an XIV Eagle with the improved stats and fighter bay might need to be 22 DP!
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gG_pilot

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #52 on: November 27, 2022, 09:28:15 PM »

Back to the old “Eagle should have a flight deck”, that support fighter only costing 12 OP would be huge but that’s probably not in the cards anymore.

Yeah - I've seen the suggestion, and I think it's a pretty reasonable idea! But it doesn't fit how I see the Eagle, which is less "jack of all trades" and more just... "a respectably average baseline ship", let's call it. And putting a flight deck on it definitely makes it an outlier among cruisers, so it goes against that, feel-wise.
Rather than Eagle better suits to Aurora which also need some buff.
Here is why:
Astral      -  the best carrier         - high tech  - 6 decks
Odyseey - battle carrier              - high tech  - 2 decks
Aurora    - battle carrier smaller - high tech  - 1 deck

All three ships  looks like  a production of one construction/design office. It might also  fit into  Uniqifying faction project, when High tech faction is fighter focused.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2022, 11:28:54 PM by gG_pilot »
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Amoebka

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #53 on: November 27, 2022, 09:51:39 PM »

I'm with Alex on this one. Tossing fighter bays on everything makes the game messy, and is the most common shared feature of low-quality mods. Players already have a choice of doing that themselves with converted hangars, and the new support fighter and hullmod will expand on that playstyle more, but it shouldn't become the standart for the game as a whole.
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smithney

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #54 on: November 28, 2022, 01:16:59 AM »

Well, to be fair, the Eagle has always been the bog standard cruiser. The reason it doesn't "feel strong" is probably more perception than reality but there has been some definite power creep with the new Cruisers and they kind of just passed the Eagle by. With the proposed changes, it's going to win flux wars a bit better and while it's not fast by any stretch, it can at least disengage better than some of its peers. As Greivous69 has said many times, it's probably one of the "safest" Cruisers out there by a comfortable margin, at least for cost.

I think Alex is right in envisioning the standard Eagle as the via media for Cruisers and I don't blame him. Something has to be sort of the plum line for Cruisers (and perhaps the rest of the game) and the Eagle just fits into that "good-not-great" spot. If anything, the the additional flux places it more fully into the Mid-Line M.O. of having generous flux stats for its generalist options.
It's a completely agreeable stance by Alex. Especially since Starsector is a single-player game, it makes sense for it to have its 'mooks'. But as you mentioned, new cruisers set a precedent by having a strong niche in addition to being released generally good. As you correctly picked up, my point was that this opens an avenue for faction variants to be rare, but tiered-up versions of their vanilla selves, designed to double down on their tactical niches. There's a great precedent for this with faction variants, notably with Phalcon. This doesn't mean that all vanilla hulls need an upgraded faction variant, many already do feel premium by themselves and deserve to, e.g. Aurora, Champion.

I would like to shout out the other Suggestions thread I've recently joined in. There's perhaps not a clear space for 'bad' hulls besides the 'good' ones and the 'great' ones, which makes the 'good' ones feel... bad. The 'bad' tier has been somewhat filled by rogue variants of civilian ships and heavily damaged combat regulars, but fielding those by the player barely feels right in the early-game, never later. In the thread I'm talking about, Hiruma Kai suggested that 'good' and 'great' ships are perhaps too readily available to the player in the early-game through markets. Is there perhaps a space for 'good' ships (and obviously the 'great', too), like the discussed vanilla Eagle, to be harder to get?

edit
« Last Edit: November 28, 2022, 02:07:33 AM by smithney »
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Lortus

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #55 on: November 28, 2022, 08:02:53 AM »

Quote
Just FYI, the current set of changes to the Eagle in-dev is:
1) 20 supplies to recover/for maintenance (down from 22), and
2) 700 base flux dissipation (up from 600)

Sounds cool. Would still be average - sub par but slightly less so, and I guess that is the point. Although I agree with Safari that there are quite a few 20 dp cruisers already, and I think the Eagle loses a bit of identity like that.

Quote
Interesting.  Overall, a 33% increase in base flux dissipation (or about 21% increase in max) over the 0.95a Eagle.

It's 16.6%

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BCS

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #56 on: November 28, 2022, 09:45:30 AM »

22 DP might be "identity" but it's also annoying to actually build a fleet around and basically forces you to use the ship in multiplies of 5 so that everything adds up to neat 240(or more realistically 200/220)
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #57 on: November 28, 2022, 10:02:42 AM »

Quote
Interesting.  Overall, a 33% increase in base flux dissipation (or about 21% increase in max) over the 0.95a Eagle.

It's 16.6%

It's 16.6% for the 0.95.1a Eagle, but 33% for the 0.95a Eagle.  To be fair, comparing to the previous release Eagle flux stats is a bit odd, but I was just struck by such large back to back flux stat buffs, on top of the coming 20 DP cost. It's gone from typical middle of the pack cruiser flux stats of it's original design to high tech tier flux stats.  I think it had been 525 flux/second since it's inception until the current release, but I only started around 0.7.  But being kind of in the slow but shield tanky slot like the Apogee, it's becoming clear it needs it.

From 0.95.1a patch notes:
Quote
Eagle:
Increased flux dissipation to 600 (was: 525)
Increased flux capacity to 11000 (was: 10000)

My point was the 0.95a Eagle (from the prior release) had only 525 flux dissipation (and 10,000 capacity) and we are discussing 700 flux dissipation and 11,000 capacity here, which means the 0.95a Eagle was that severely under tuned compared to other 0.95a ships like the Champion.
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FooF

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #58 on: November 28, 2022, 11:46:14 AM »

This also separates the Eagle from the Falcon somewhat. Honestly, I think the Falcon is fine for its cost. The Eagle gains a premium on flux stats now for the (significant) loss of speed. 75% more flux for 43% more DP isn’t bad. It’s the Champion that now looks relatively anemic, but Ludd knows it doesn’t need a buff!
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gG_pilot

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #59 on: November 28, 2022, 09:46:26 PM »

22 DP might be "identity" but it's also annoying to actually build a fleet around and basically forces you to use the ship in multiplies of 5 so that everything adds up to neat 240(or more realistically 200/220)
  ... then  you pick a skill from  Leadership  line the "Support doctrine" and your plan is ruined again.
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