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[icepick37]

You are not supposed to be able to be phased forever. It requires judicious use of your resources.

Alpha strike is easy with amblasters or kinetic damage. The thing is covered in universals. It requires a lot of tweaking to find a good build, but it's not impossible.

Phase ships are fast and have lots of flux. And they can go invulnerable for short periods of time. 20fp is not that far off. Maybe some slight tweaking is in order, but it's not ridiculous.

[PCCL]

the problem is, for all intents and purposes. their weapons fire hard flux.

that is to say, if you fire and immediately cloak (which is what you're likely doing for alpha strike), you'll have all that flux that you can't dissipate and those will eat into your escape attempt significantly

[BillyRueben]

20fp is not that far off. Maybe some slight tweaking is in order, but it's not ridiculous.

20FP is a lot to ask for in any ship. That's a 1/5 of your max fleet size and roughly a 1/3 of your initial deployment in an engagement. If something is going to cost that much, it would have to be the linchpin of the fleet. The Doom isn't that kind of ship.

[DM818]

You are not supposed to be able to be phased forever. It requires judicious use of your resources.

Alpha strike is easy with amblasters or kinetic damage. The thing is covered in universals. It requires a lot of tweaking to find a good build, but it's not impossible.

Phase ships are fast and have lots of flux. And they can go invulnerable for short periods of time. 20fp is not that far off. Maybe some slight tweaking is in order, but it's not ridiculous.

I personally think that the frigates have alpha strike capability, however the main issue seems to be where the doom fits into the fleet dynamic, it is faster than many other ships of equal size but not enough so for the alpha strike capabilities which seems to be the intended strategy for phase ships.  It feels to me much like a ship without a real role which makes sense given its codex entry.  A possible fix could maybe be to reduce flux cost of remaining phased but allowing the phase anchors to be EMPed which would prevent them from phasing. this would allow the doom to utilize hit and run tactics better than it does now but also leave it vulnerable in head to head engagements.

[Alex]

I'm not sure what phase ships are supposed to do in a fleet.
...
Once I know what they're supposed to be doing, I'll know what's holding them back.

Having a phase cloak doesn't determine a ship's role any more than having shields does. The weapons and the system are the determining factors there, and since phase ships tend to have more than their share of universals, there are plenty of roles they can fill. Of course, the phase cloak does play into how they go about filling them.

I wonder if Alex would prefer to power up the Doom until it is worth 20 FP, or to lower its FP?

Right now my feeling is it's only a tad overpriced - but it's hard to say just how much versatility is worth. Aside from changing individual ships, there's also the possibility of giving phase ships some special campaign-level mechanics.

[sdmike1]

Right now my feeling is it's only a tad overpriced - but it's hard to say just how much versatility is worth. Aside from changing individual ships, there's also the possibility of giving phase ships some special campaign-level mechanics.

Thant would be neat, would it be something like being able to chose were on not to engage an enemy fleet if all of you ships are phase or something more subtle...

[icepick37]

Having a phase cloak doesn't determine a ship's role any more than having shields does. The weapons and the system are the determining factors there, and since phase ships tend to have more than their share of universals, there are plenty of roles they can fill. Of course, the phase cloak does play into how they go about filling them..

True.

[naufrago]

Right now my feeling is it's only a tad overpriced - but it's hard to say just how much versatility is worth.

This may be an odd comparison, but what you just said made me think of Druids in WoW. Druids are capable of filling any role with the proper spec, but for a while they were made weaker in their non-healing roles than the 'pure' classes to compensate for their versatility and flexibility. However, at the highest level of gameplay nobody valued versatility, since specialization is so much more important- better to do one thing really well than several thing subpar. This had many consequences on the game design which aren't really relevant, but it meant that very few non-healing druids were accepted into the most hardcore of guilds (the ones who min-max to the extreme).

I'd say that unless the Doom can be made to fill a role without feeling 'weak' compared to the alternatives, most folks will avoid using it.

If you're curious how Blizzard handled things, one of the changes was to make the Druid just as capable at the role they were spec'd into as the 'pure' classes.

[Brainbread]

Right now my feeling is it's only a tad overpriced - but it's hard to say just how much versatility is worth. Aside from changing individual ships, there's also the possibility of giving phase ships some special campaign-level mechanics.

Thant would be neat, would it be something like being able to chose were on not to engage an enemy fleet if all of you ships are phase or something more subtle...

I'd like them to not be visible on the fleet map. Like, when you mouse over and see what a fleet has.

Eg.

"The design of the Doom-class phase ship interferes with long-range sensor systems. Though quite visible to visible light and short-range radar, it remains nearly invisible to long range detection systems. This technology has proved to be quite invaluable in baiting patrols and pirate fleets into otherwise hopeless engagements. They only realize that a trap has been laid when they are too close to avoid engagement."

Which would provide incentive for a civilian level ship that detects phase ships and allows you to see them prior to engaging with the fleet. From a gameplay mechanic, it would keep you on your toes about engaging a small fleet without the proper detection ships, and it would let players have a way of clearing out those small, fast harassment patrols and fleets that are too scared of a normal sized fleet.

But, thats just my take on it!

[icepick37]

My hope is for just skirting battles altogether if you are using phase ships. Your idea is probably better, though. Especially since you wouldn't need a fleet of solely phase ships to use it.

EDIT: Yours would take some doing on the AI side. Could you get ambushed by invisible fleets? Or attack a buffalo and find a doom backing it up?

Scary.  D:

[armoredcookie]

I actually really want that. Boggling the AI with a wolfpack of 5 phase cruisers when it thought it was attacking a lone Buffalo 

[icepick37]

Do you want the ai doing it to you?

[armoredcookie]

Sensor ships then? 

[Faiter119]

What if the phase ships was hidden in fleets, but you could see them by looking for the phase coils if you studied the fleet closely?

[icepick37]

I still like my idea of just avoiding battle altogether...    Could be a bonus specifically for the player even.

EDIT: Or you could just reduce the collision radius of the fleet a bit for every phase ship. Little more boring, but probably less code for what is a small side perk and not the main point of phase ships.