Not long ago I started a battlefreighter-themed run to see how they were doing. In the past, this was one of my favorite ship classes in the early and mid game due to its versatility and fairly tolerable combat effectiveness, but in the current version, only a small part of them can be called worthy. I would like to share my opinion and at the same time hear yours. I will start in the order of the most painful.
Gemini.
In previous patches, the ship received a number of generous improvements and looking at the dry stat numbers, one could say that the ship should play much better, but in fact, absolutely nothing has changed. The ship has not become better. The root of its problem is its behavior. Gemini, being a light carrier, considers itself immortal and CONSTANTLY tries to find a way into the heat of battle and even under close supervision still manages to get punched in the face in seemingly the safest situations for it. At first I thought that completely abandoning the offensive weapon in favor of a defensive one (flak-cannon) would smooth out the situation, but even removing all weapons does not change the situation, they still go where they should not. After thinking, I decided to give the Gemini a CARRIER tag expecting that this would dramatically improve the situation and ... in general, survivability has improved infinitely, but the disadvantage was turning it into a reskin of the Condor. A flaw in behavior was also revealed - the ship always stayed outside the weapon range (approximately at a distance of 1200-1300), which did not allow it to fire in 90% of cases. At first I thought that this was the ideal solution to the situation, but the taste of mediocrity did not cease to leave me - among all the light carriers, it has the best set of weapons and it is wasted, turning into a pale copy of another ship. But without this measure, it simply does not survive the appearance of cruisers in battles, starting from the early mid-game they begin to die in almost every battle and the only option is to issue long-range support weapons: Pilums and Thunders. What other options are there? Buff the speed by 30-40 units, put it on the same level with other Midline destroyers. The situation is so sad that it requires either a review of behavior, or a radical buff.
Wayfarer.
Weak link between Hound and Mule. The first is good as a "cheap as dirt fast harasser", and the second as an early-game anchor-truck toothless but capable of surviving an attack by a cruiser, Wayfarer suffers from a lack of literally everything. Starting with cargo space and a higher cost compared to Cerberus and Hound and ending with poor combat effectiveness. And what's worse is that other frigates of comparable cost have been receiving buffs of varying degrees from patch to patch, thus hammering the final nail into its
coffin. Its cargo hold does not justify its disability. It would be nice to see it as a "premium cargo frigate", seriously increasing its stats along with OP and credit cost (or increasing the cargo hold by 100-150 units by turning it into a truck, although this will disrupt the consistent progression in cargo space among other freighters).
Cerberus.
This is a case where the Hound upgrade went wrong. Compared to its younger brother, it looks pale, due to the loss of almost half of its speed and an increase in size. And although it seems that the increase in flux capacity allows it to take Makeshift Shield Generator, in practice this further reduces its survivability due to the decrease in its already low speed. As a solution, I would like to suggest either a serious increase in speed, or the removal of the 20% speed debuff from hullmod. It would also be interesting to see the S-mod effect on Makeshift Shield Generator (without these things, this modification will remain forgotten and useless).
Venture.
I absolutely adore this ship. Seriously. I buy it in every game, right after the start, as soon as I get 100k. Evil missile box. It has everything, and cargo space, and fuel tanks, and Surveying Equipment hullmod, and armor. Although each build option is awkward and clumsy in its own way due to the energy weapon in the center slot (and I desperately hope that by version 1.0 Alex will change his mind and give him a hybrid), I still love it. But in addition to the above-described energy slot and very sad flux stats, it also has an unpleasant drawback - an extremely low turning speed. This is a disaster. The basic version without any maneuverability skills does not turn at all, and with S-moded Heavy Armor, which Venture loves very much, it simply turns into a brick. And everything would be fine, but the ship has limited weapon arcs and most of the time it can fire only 2 slots out of 3, which is why its already low firepower (for a cruiser) drops even lower. I would like to separately highlight the LP version, the release of which I was really looking forward to thinking that it could become my ultimate player ship. Due to its abysmal maneuverability, even in the hands of Pathers, it does not pose the slightest threat. A 50% maneuverability buff would greatly help the ship, the low amount of OP simply does not allow it to take Auxiliary Thrusters on its own.
I will only mention the other ships in passing, since they do not experience any particular problems.
Hound.
Since the Rugged hullmod was added, the idea of using Hound does not seem so desperate. Depending on the need, give it a Mauler to fight against armor, or an HVD with HAC to harass opponents and it is ready to go.
Mule.
Clinically underarmed. Can be turned into a tank if you give it armor and speed.
Colossus mk.2
Exclusively an enemy ship. Only found as wrecked hulls, too expensive to repair, and by the time you can farm them from Pathers it's completely obsolete. Can quickly wipe out several player ships in the early game if you're not careful.
Colossus mk.3
A brutal Swiss Army knife. Has cargo space, two hangars, and a Ground Support Package for raids. S-moded Insulated Engines makes Phantom obsolete.
