If Legion was on the balance level where the Astral is, it would have 1000 armour, 3 hangar bays and its system would be flare launchers aimed sideways to increase its hitbox.
The Astral is fine. It may be a bit undertuned but not a whole lot. Its main advantage is being able to utilize tridents without compromise and easily being able to coordinate bombing runs. Giving it similar levels of firepower to two Herons but much better coordination.
The main problem Astrals have is that stand-off fleets are weak and so bombers are weak. And that there are no cheap stand-off ships in the high tech line. Astral + Paragon + 2 Medusa is 134 DP That isn’t wide enough to really hold. And going more wide is pretty hard. Whereas that is 3 onslaughts and 2 monitors!
Additionally there are a lot more competing finishers in more ships with large missiles. (And just general flux reductions across the board)
What you really want for the Astral is a line of HVD eagles. 130 DP is an Astral and 4 eagles, 9 HVD!
Every ship in the game is trash until it isn't. And it no longer is cause of how officer skills work. Carriers are bad cause skills don't work on them. They always exist in their pure form. This is also why battlecarriers are significantly stronger than dedicated carriers per DP. A Heron isn't awful. But that is only cause it is impossible to catch. But tbh, I feel like it's also kinda boring, cause of the fact I mentioned. Compared to say Mora, which benefits significantly from plenty of aspects, such as Missile Specialisation, armour stuff. Etc.
The solution would probably be to make both Heron and Astral battlecarriers, or make skills benefit fighters in some minor ways. Preferably both. Like Missile Specialisation increasing missile health for bombers. Making Cobras finally have a chance at hitting the Onslaught, like their description would suggest they should be good at. And there could also be other things. Like reduced overload time, 10% more range, armour effectiveness at reducing damage or better manoeuvrability. This would also really help Remnant fleets. Cause an Alpha Core on a Scintilla is somewhat of a waste.
I feel like destroyer carriers should be dedicated support carriers. And cruiser and capital ship carriers should always have some sort of a battlecarrier aspect to them. Like Mora should have high armour and missiles. Heron should have mobility and burst damage. Legion should have tough armour and brawling potential. And Astral should be a *** shielded brick wall that can't retreat, like the Paragon. That irradiates you with beams before launching missiles at your face.
Which, I mean... Astral does do that a bit nowadays. But I feel like it doesn't have nearly enough flux for how much it costs. It should have 20k flux base and enough op to reach 30k, if you focus no it, and be able to equip hardened shields whilst still being able to host at least mediocre bombers. Like a bunch of Cobras and Broadswords.
But eh, I'll doubt anyone is going to bother reading this balance proposal, let alone implement it. So, whatever... Who cares... I guess Astral will just remain bad, until it gets like 5 more op and then people will say "it's good now" for some reason.
