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[doll]

Phase ships being durable means that there's no reason to ever worry about blindsiding your enemy (more than once), and you aren't even able to do it anymore either. Phase used to be useful for maneuvering to attack but now any kind of phase longer than what you need for reload is just wasted flux. Gone is any idea of traveling further to be safe or thinking about position. You just shoot, phase, unphase in their face, shoot again (and this is not just lazy but also optimal because it's hitting the same armor cells), repeat until you get near hardflux cap, vent in their face because you're a lowtech armor ship now apparently, and repeat the cycle.
Why was phase, one of the most distinct types of ship, entirely reworked into a defacto reskin of lowtech/midline heavy destroyers and warship cruisers?

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Why was phase, one of the most distinct types of ship, entirely reworked into a defacto reskin of lowtech/midline heavy destroyers and warship cruisers?

Due to Slow Tech fans crying about how phase frigates kept killing their Onslaughts via shooting them in the butt.

[Siffrin]

There's a mod that reverts the rework.

[Megas]

Original phase cloak had no time shift and no phase cooldown.  (Very early, it rose soft flux, but that was changed to hard flux.)  It was practically a ghost fortress shield way back then.  (Shade was practically phase Monitor.  Afflictor was more like super Lasher.  Doom... was mediocre - too slow, no Mine Strike, just Fast Misslie Racks.)  Then in 0.72, we get time shift and phase cooldown.  More recently than that, speed decays as flux get higher.

Ziggurat plays more like original phase cloak ships from Starfarer, with slow speed and Experimental Phase Coils mostly eliminating phase cooldown.

[Hiruma Kai]

Phase ships being durable means that there's no reason to ever worry about blindsiding your enemy (more than once), and you aren't even able to do it anymore either.

Is there a particular phase ship you are referring to here?  I feel that it is quite possible to blind side (i.e. attack from rear or gap in omni-shield) with an Afflictor or Shade, assuming you have Phase Coil Tuning.  Combat skills are a plus, but not necessary.  Although new elite Helmsmanship, 100% CR, plus Coordinated Manuevers results in an Afflictor or Shade pushing 331 at 0% flux, and 109 at around at 50% flux, keeping in mind relative speed to other ships gets multiplied by 3 due to time dilation.  Adaptive Phase Coils would obviously improve the slowdown rate.

Also, I wouldn't recommend dropping phase and venting as an Afflictor or Shade in the front of a cruiser or capital, but both are capable of soloing said ships with proper positioning.  They are certainly less armored than a Vanguard.  So positioning for at least the phase frigates is still quite important.  Even a Harbinger doesn't have that much armor at only 600, which is significantly less than an Enforcer's 900.

The ships which need to do what you're describing are the Doom and Ziggurat, although the latter is really a unique campaign ship which didn't actually change the other phase ships, so their capabilities are still more or less the same.  I could be wrong, but the Doom never felt like a get behind the target and assassinate type of phase ship to me.  It never was as fast as the frigates.

[doll]

There's a mod that reverts the rework.

There isn't. There's a mod that reverts part of the phase mechanic change but not the hull changes. They're just 97a phase ships with 4x speed. You get to see them move around but they're invulnerable and no fun to play as.
This has nothing to do with the topic at all anyway. The answer to "most every change this decade has been hugely detrimental" shouldn't be "just slap on a spaghetti tower of mods to try and revert every change". This is a doozy and has far reaching system implications for many sort of additional modded content, if we're discussing that route.

I feel that it is quite possible to blind side (i.e. attack from rear or gap in omni-shield) with an Afflictor or Shade ... So positioning for at least the phase frigates is still quite important.

Afflictor/shade aren't using any kind of speed bonus to achieve this, that's just their privilege as frigates. Phase speed isn't used for positioning at all, just used as defacto invulnerable shields to conventionally drive around a slower ship.
You've missed my point entirely. For every ship you're just going to go to where you'll shoot from, then cloak/uncloak in the same spot. Against capitals you'll just stay behind them conventionally, no phase needed, and only use phase for DPS. Against peer vessels it's too unreliable because of how they might move, and fundamentally unnecessary anyway because again, you outDPS them and are at least as armored.
I mean, you can just play the game and see how AI phase vessels behave. I don't think a single npc phase ship has moved more than a centimeter from where it's cloak has started on my monitor post-patch. In .9.1 you'd see them rocket from one corner of your screen to the other and actually try to flank things or move away from danger zones.

I could be wrong, but the Doom never felt like a get behind the target and assassinate type of phase ship to me.  It never was as fast as the frigates.

It's outranged by capitals and is biting into their pricerange. That's exactly what it was. It's the poster child of phasing behind people.
It's not as fast a a phase frigate, but it's faster than actual frigates and jumpscaring smaller ships or running them down in a cruiser was one of the great joys of phase ships. It's a 75 base x4 speed ship. It can outrun frigates. It even turns twice as fast at the same top speeds and gets cruiserweight maneuvering bonuses.

[Goumindong]

I mean. I do see phase ships with that behavior. But this is largely because I am beating them and they have to phase instead of being flattened with my guns.

Phase ships don’t have a lot of armor. They have decent armor, but not “a-lot”. A Harbinger has 600. This is less than an enforcer (900) and similar to a mule (650). An afflictor or shade has a decent amount. 350. But this is less than a centurion (500), Hound(400), or Brawler(450) none of which you would call terribly hard armor tankers. The gremlin has 450 but like… it’s a gremlin man those things arent good.


A doom has 1250 and a Grendel 1200. Juuust enough that you can say “yea it’s an armor tanker”. But I don’t think either one has had terrible success venting in front of my face

Edit: mount ion beam -> collect phase bounty

[Pizzarugi]

I'm kinda glad I got into the game late into 96a as it means not being around to experience what the old phase used to be like. It sounds kinda OP and probably nightmarish for players to counter. I typically use Medusa since I don't like how sluggish Doom ships are, and I struggle to turn around fast enough to face a Shade before it can jam a bunch of EMP bolts up my engines right now. The idea of dealing with them in their old buffed state sounds like it would be hell.

That said, the AI seems semi-competent with phase, so I'm content to let them have at my phase ships. AI piloted Dooms consistently get some of the highest damage in my fleet since they just love spamming mines. If, for whatever reason the devs buff phase ships, I might give them a try again.

[Goumindong]

The x4 phase ships were absurdly annoying to deal with and even if you did deal with them the majority would probably retreat. With the exception of the doom, which I think was bad since it still had trouble getting behind enemies.

They were still weak to beams and fighters. But changes that made fighters less oppressive (which was also good) would reduce a lot of that power.

[Phenir]

I mean, you can just play the game and see how AI phase vessels behave. I don't think a single npc phase ship has moved more than a centimeter from where it's cloak has started on my monitor post-patch. In .9.1 you'd see them rocket from one corner of your screen to the other and actually try to flank things or move away from danger zones.

AI isn't really the best example of piloting around, phase or not.
Anyway, the changes were specifically made because of the "rocket from one corner of your screen to the other" making them practically uncounterable besides running them out of the CR, which isn't really engaging, or severely outnumbering them so they had no where to escape to. While they may have been fun to pilot, they were not fun to fight.

[doll]

An afflictor or shade has a decent amount. 350

No, the old afflictor had 350 (1000/350). Afflictor has 450 (and 2500 hull, to wit). Similar stats to a centurion, with a much better defensive system.
The page you're so confidently quoting hasn't had it's hull/armor values changed this decade.

none of which you would call terribly hard armor tankers

Other than one meme ship brawler was second place for frigate armor, now displaced by the afflictor et al. (tied for armor).
In addition to having ghost fortress and massive armor, the new phase ships are also hull monsters.
The only time I don't kill them last (or not at all) is if I specifically bully them away from a slower battlegroup to kill off near an edge. They're by far the best damage sinks in the game.

I'm kinda glad I got into the game late into 96a as it means not being around to experience what the old phase used to be like. It sounds kinda OP and probably nightmarish for players to counter.

Phase ships used to be made out of paper, so it was fine.
It's precisely that they've been buffed to be armor blobs in recent patches that they're obnoxious now. A phase frigate on the wrong side of a capital would generally die to PD before it could achieve too much.
The only way to really get called out was to have something like a one-sided cruiser that can barely turn with no support. If you got really unlucky a doom might kite you but dooms are rare and expensive and still lose to missiles even if all you're working with are slower ships with small slots.

The x4 phase ships were absurdly annoying to deal with and even if you did deal with them the majority would probably retreat.

The x3 phase ships (and the ultrarare x4) died way earlier than virtually everything else, long before the retreat threshold was triggered. Anything that made it off the map pre-armor buff is definitely going to make it now.
Crazy to even imply this let alone say it when these ships were competing for slots with the hightech shield ultralights which have(/had, rip AI AI) a 10x higher retreat success rate than anything else

Anyway, the changes were specifically made because of the "rocket from one corner of your screen to the other" making them practically uncounterable besides running them out of the CR, which isn't really engaging, or severely outnumbering them so they had no where to escape to. While they may have been fun to pilot, they were not fun to fight.

I mean, that second claim is just flagrantly untrue. They've been buffed. You could easily manage them when their relative DPS was subpar because, if your formation and loadout wasn't literally the worst thing ever, they'd always lose the race versus shields while they were surfaced. They were never scary. They were just cool. I didn't use them much because they weren't strong, but it was always fun to see them.
It's insane to think people had DIFFICULTY with phase ships. Ludicrous. It isn't even vaguely possible. Get better material. Literally only the doom presented any meaningful threat and it's a defacto capital.

[Goumindong]

I don’t think I ever recall a phase ship on the back side of a capital get killed by PD before it did anything…

I definitely remember them all running away all the time and never being in range because it was impossible to chase them down and then they run out of PPT and die and then the other half retreat.

I definitely remember that.

[Hiruma Kai]

An afflictor or shade has a decent amount. 350

No, the old afflictor had 350 (1000/350). Afflictor has 450 (and 2500 hull, to wit). Similar stats to a centurion, with a much better defensive system.
The page you're so confidently quoting hasn't had it's hull/armor values changed this decade.

I'm curious where you are finding these current numbers?  If I open the game (0.97a), go to codex, and look at the Afflictor, I see 400 armor, 1500 structure listed.
Compare to a Centurion, which has 500 armor, 2250 structure.  These match what is written in ship_data.csv as far as I can tell.  See attached images.

Afflictor is not nearly as tanky as a Centurion if its just sitting there unphased, given 2/3 the hull and 100 less armor.

In addition to having ghost fortress and massive armor, the new phase ships are also hull monsters.

I'm a bit confused if 1500 hull on a frigate makes it hull monster, given that is the same amount of hull on a Wolf.  The residual 20 armor is admittedly going to reduce some low hit strength kinetic shots a bit compared to 7.5, but any energy or HE damage isn't going to care much.

Personally, I'm one shotting enemy phase ships with my own triple anti-matter blaster Afflictor, up to and including Harbingers  which only has 4000 Hull, compared to say a glass cannon Sunder's 4000 hull or a Hammerhead's 5000 hull.  Dooms take 2 passes given it only has 8000 hull (compared to say, the 8000 hull on an Aurora, or the 9000 hull on an Apogee, both high tech cruisers). Only light cruisers and pirate/pather civilian converted cruisers have less hull than a Doom.

Now, I'm not saying their armor and hull wasn't buffed during the release where their long term speed was toned down, but I don't feel it rises to the description of "hull monster".  My Afflictor gets taken out very easily still if I'm not careful with phase and where I drop out.

I mean, that second claim is just flagrantly untrue. They've been buffed. You could easily manage them when their relative DPS was subpar because, if your formation and loadout wasn't literally the worst thing ever, they'd always lose the race versus shields while they were surfaced. They were never scary. They were just cool. I didn't use them much because they weren't strong, but it was always fun to see them.

Are you suggesting phase ships are scary now and that you can't manage them?  Or merely talking about previous incarnations not being scary?  Its a bit unclear. I mean, I have an easier time with them now I think than before, since I can actually chase them down and kill them instead of chasing the rocket across the map.  I didn't lose ships to them (I've always tended to hull mod omni-shield conversion in), but actually putting the final hull damage into them tended to be a pain, at least for me.  Is there an opposing fleet thats giving you more problems than previous releases, as I haven't had particular difficulty with even the all phase fleets lately.

It's insane to think people had DIFFICULTY with phase ships. Ludicrous. It isn't even vaguely possible. Get better material. Literally only the doom presented any meaningful threat and it's a defacto capital.

And yet there are posts on this very forum to that effect.  Overall, I'm a bit confused.  Can you clarify if you asking for easier phase ships to deal with on the enemy side, stronger phase ships on the enemy side, weaker in player hands, stronger in the player hands?  If it is the former and you want easier time with the current enemy AI phase ships, why not simply get some better material and tactics?

[TaLaR]

It was always possible to catch any and all AI phase ships. Easiest with a phase ship of your own, otherwise with something like Medusa - just use burst of mobility from system to punish their vent (or with fastest ships just the unphase cooldown itself). Maybe even with an Odyssey, if you pre-position correctly and have 2 Tachyon lances.

[doll]

I'm curious where you are finding these current numbers?  If I open the game (0.97a), go to codex, and look at the Afflictor, I see 400 armor, 1500 structure listed.

It was ingame, though it seems it was a mistake. In any case, the previously quoted paper thin pre-buff stats are flagrantly wrong.

Afflictor is not nearly as tanky as a Centurion if its just sitting there unphased, given 2/3 the hull and 100 less armor.

Afflictor staying in cloak as much as it can (which npc afflictor does) vs. centurion keeping shield up as much as it can is somewhere in the range of 100s of times as tanky if it's parked near a capital.
That's not an exaggeration.

Are you suggesting phase ships are scary now and that you can't manage them?

No, not even vaguely. I've repeatedly said the exact opposite. What I have done is very clearly and consistently called them 'obnoxious'.
Phase ships are wildly overpowered now for the player. For the AI they fill about the same fleet role as a monitor with 400 range that doesn't get closer than 800 units to anything the entire engagement. Other than maybe a sink of some flux/DPS, they're totally useless.
I can easily manage them, much the same way you can manage a toxic landfill that's some 200kms away from you and also in another dimension.
But they are an eyesore, and they just kind of hang around. If you have antiarmor spike damage that their broken AI doesn't recognise as a threat then yes, you can kill them, but it's a waste of a shot until you're doing post-battle cleanup anyway.
They're overpowered and I can't play them without sucking all the joy out of the game because it's such a faceroll, but only if the player is actually controlling them. N.B. that officer personality doesn't play into this at all.

Its a bit unclear. I mean, I have an easier time with them now I think than before, since I can actually chase them down and kill them instead of chasing the rocket across the map.  I didn't lose ships to them (I've always tended to hull mod omni-shield conversion in), but actually putting the final hull damage into them tended to be a pain, at least for me.  Is there an opposing fleet thats giving you more problems than previous releases, as I haven't had particular difficulty with even the all phase fleets lately.

No, it's incredibly clear. They're trivially easy, as I have repeatedly said.
They're just an eyesore. They sit there and they don't do anything. Their AI is flagrantly broken and you can't miss it because they literally don't even move. They're a unit that tries to move out of danger before it does anything that's been made unable to move and the AI hasn't been adjusted to the new reality, so they sit their in their ghost fortress shield forever.

It's insane to think people had DIFFICULTY with phase ships. Ludicrous. It isn't even vaguely possible. Get better material. Literally only the doom presented any meaningful threat and it's a defacto capital.

And yet there are posts on this very forum to that effect.  Overall, I'm a bit confused.  Can you clarify if you asking for easier phase ships to deal with on the enemy side, stronger phase ships on the enemy side, weaker in player hands, stronger in the player hands?

Weaker in player hands. Much, much weaker. Not only are they actually overpowered when you're driving them, but the AI doesn't know better than to shoot at them so without a player to tell the npcs to avoid targetting them they're crazy good damage|flux sponges.
Stronger in enemy hands. Specifically, working AI in NPC hands. At present this would mean much stronger in enemy hands, which would be fine. They literally couldn't be weaker than the current versions which basically don't shoot.
I genuinely don't believe anyone who claims they had a problem with 0.9 phase ships either isn't trolling or didn't have 100x as many problems with teleporting shieldships (which are infinitely more common, and were even moreso when red beacons was endgame) or just frigates in general.

If it is the former and you want easier time with the current enemy AI phase ships, why not simply get some better material and tactics?

If you can't speak the language it's not a good look to try to make sarcastic quips.
I've never once even vaguely implied I've had any difficulties fighting phase ships.