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[Reshy]

I don't understand why this system was put into place, why make frigates glorified wind-up toys that expire quickly in battle?  They're already pretty much useless by the time you get a cruiser or a capital ship (Anyone here that's played forlorn hope knows what I mean).  So why do they need to be out gunned, out ranged, out less efficient, less durable and just to put the cherry on top they can be easily outlasted.  Why do frigates need to be outclassed in every possible way?  Five Lashers will lose every time to one paragon, they have to get far into the instant death area of larger ships just to get in a few measly shots.  And to top it all off they start to malfunction.  It's absurd to make already weak ships weaker.  Previously I rarely used frigates except as fast better-than-fighter ships.  Now wings are upgraded and frigates get hit with the nerf hammer for no real reason other than they can kite enemies.  Really? Kiting with small weapons that are out ranged by anything bigger than you?  Are we playing the same game here?  Because I'm pretty sure 9/10 a frigate gets smashed by anything larger than it that is a combat ship.


Also for another inexplicable reason they gave the Buffalo Mark II a timer, why do all the *** ships need to be extra worthless as if to point out the fact that they're useless and you shouldn't ever touch then even with a ten foot pole?  Thankfully the Brawler is not affected by the wind-up toy mechanic and can still be used long term if you need it to.  But in general frigates cost too much, do too little, die too quickly, and now just to top it all they also break down after a few minutes as if they've become bored of life.

[rex]

The high tech frigates, taking advantage of the OP tech tree skill(double their current value), with elite crew were pretty devastating. A handful of maxed out frigates could take down everything but the largest fleets, and with the advantage of grabbing most of the objectives you could then field a nice capital ship to take down the few things they could not handle.

I don't think we've been playing the same game.

Lots of people in here would regularly do amazing things with frigates, and even after the tuning in the current update they are very strong. You just can't dominate long battles with them anymore.

[TaLaR]

Lots of people in here would regularly do amazing things with frigates, and even after the tuning in the current update they are very strong. You just can't dominate long battles with them anymore.

They can't dominate short battles either, assuming large enough fleets are involved - objectives don't limit deployment anymore, so you can't pick large ships one at a time. And several capitals vs mass frigates scenario doesn't work well for frigates...

[Uomoz]

Lots of people in here would regularly do amazing things with frigates, and even after the tuning in the current update they are very strong. You just can't dominate long battles with them anymore.

They can't dominate short battles either, assuming large enough fleets are involved - objectives don't limit deployment anymore, so you can't pick large ships one at a time. And several capitals vs mass frigates scenario doesn't work well for frigates...

Aaaaand that's why you never saw the Millennium Falcon getting in a slugfest with an Empire ship.

[Reshy]

The high tech frigates, taking advantage of the OP tech tree skill(double their current value), with elite crew were pretty devastating. A handful of maxed out frigates could take down everything but the largest fleets, and with the advantage of grabbing most of the objectives you could then field a nice capital ship to take down the few things they could not handle.

I don't think we've been playing the same game.

Lots of people in here would regularly do amazing things with frigates, and even after the tuning in the current update they are very strong. You just can't dominate long battles with them anymore.

The OP skills only grant 30% total rather than 50%.  Most of the high-tech frigates have the shortest effective time, which means if you don't finish them off within the first three minutes you're ***.  The Hyperion requires 75% CR per fight, starts coughing and wheezing after two minutes and dies completely in about three.  This is on top of it being a very expensive (deployment wise) ship.  The Tempest is a little better, lasting 3 minutes before starting the self destruct sequence and costing 40% CR.  Both of these high tech ships are powerful yes but a Medusa can easily do their work just as well and with more reliability.  They also aren't broken when hit with anything more than a stiff breeze.  A single cruiser or capital ship can utterly destroy a dozen frigates simply because it our ranges and our classes their armaments.  Not to mention you can immediately deploy four or five capital ships from the get-go.

[Thaago]

I actually think frigates receive a significant buff in their usefulness this version, even if you can't kite a huge fleet to death in 30 minutes anymore. Reasons: speed and the multi stage battles.

In the last version frigates were, at least to me, completely useless. The Tempest and Hyperion were at best annoying point caps. They had an amazing habit of evaporating at the worst moments and cost almost as much as a cruiser while delivering weak destroyer level combat potential. (Sure in my hands I could defeat large fleets, but it was really tedious to me. If you really enjoyed those fights though, I can see why you'd be disappointed.)

In this version the frigates fast enough and cheap enough logistics wise to be skirmishers - use them in an initial battle to lure out enemy forces, make a strike to stop their CR from recovering with the stand down option, and retreat. Or make an alpha strike with your main fleet while holding back the frigates - then in the escape scenario use them to kill/slow the enemy. Even in my longest battles I've never had frigates malfunction. I pull them out when they alert me - though in large fights I rarely deploy them at all.

With regards to frigates being outranged, outgunned, less durable, and outlasted... well why would anyone use a large ship if that wasn't the case? If 5 Lashers - a vastly less costly, more mobile, and more easily available force - could ever take down a Paragon, then something is seriously wrong. Can 5 Lashers harass and slow a Paragon? Well... not really. Its a bit of a problem, but capital ships are supposed to be scary.

[Lucax]

Being an exclusively frigate player, I can relate to everything the OP said. Frigates are good for chasing retreating ships, and that's it. Needless to say it doesn't fit my style at all.

Frigates were already pretty weak as a flagship before, even if you did everything you can to make it work. Maxing crew experience was easy, spending skill in the combat line was much less optimized, especially for frigates.

There has to be some way of decreasing CR drop with some drawback.

[Thaago]

Hrrmmm, maybe its just that I'm not a frigate player, so now I see new uses.

What about if there was a leadership skill that specifically made frigates last longer/take less CR to deploy. Would that be appealing?

Also, sorry if the tone of my last post was too aggressive - I just reread it and kind of winced. What I was trying to do was show my perspective as someone who used to think frigates were useless due to my play style.

[Ranakastrasz]

I understand why this stuff was put in the game.
However, it is currently insanely harsh in comparison to the old system.
I, at least, would prefer discouragement, instead of totally wreaking options.

I haven't actually gotten to the point where frigates actually can run out of time, mainly because I cannot find a valid way to grow at all. Mostly because of the Escape Key in battle explodes the game bug. Regardless, as is, CR is too extreme, and should be cut back drastically. Cheaper, faster restoration, and/or less used in battle. Repairing the ship should be hard, but getting a scratched-paint ship back to working condition isn't nearly as hard, even if you expended ammo or similar.
Having all ships decay minor on deploy (~5% maximum) and then decay progressively after that, mainly while fighting, would likely be a lot more fair.

Frigate decay, with times like 3-5 minutes, from what I saw, are quite reasonable. Battles, in my experience, only last that long with massive fleets, where frigates aren't going to last that long anyway.

What I do object to, currently, is the massive cost of deployment, which means, even for a successful attack, you still get set back massively. Before, that was only the case if you took heavy damage or losses. As is, frigates take a large hit, and don't

[Gothars]

I'm playing solo with a Hammerhead and just had to deal with a Wolf escort. I could just not get him because he would retreat and vent whenever I brought his flux up. Then his CR began to drop and he retreated, I could easily pick him apart in the pursuit scenario. At the moment I'm really liking the CR degeneration of frigates

[Histidine]

Me taking on the Sindrian Diktat Garrison Fleet with a frigate swarm:

Spoiler

level 10!










Friendly credit value (sale): 101680
Friendly DP total: 67
Enemy DP total (not counting the Gemini or non-combat ships): 98
Friendly DP lost: 20
Enemy DP lost: total

Course, this probably says more about fighters, the Falcon, the Conquest (especially Elite variant and in the hands of the AI) and player skills than it does about frigates. Even so, I think this was a pretty decent performance.

[close]

[Lucax]

Personally I'm just concerned about the flagship side of frigates. Sometimes I enjoyed over watching the battle while the rest of my fleet was fighting, and looked for openings for my dual torpedoes. Now you can't do anything like that, because no matter what you do, even if it's nothing, the CR eventually drops.

Five crew members in a tranquil frigate, staying still in a still ship aside from a battle and suddenly the engines stop working. What?

So here is a suggestion: taking hits, and especially losing crew should drop CR bad. That would make sense. The rest should barely touch it. And to delve into this idea: maybe make frigates, and especially the Hyperion since they have have the shortest peak, lose even more CR than other ships for every percentage of damage they take. Personally I would love that. More challenge is acceptable, timers are simple and overrated, especially for a quality game like this one.

[Ranakastrasz]

Or, rather than damage taken, include weapons fired, movement (very minor) and shield damage taken.
After all, if you are using one of those ships this whole mess was started because of, the problem is your being able to avoid taking damage to start with due to kiting.

[icepick37]

All this really is, is a solution to the kiting and absolute bossery of ships that were never truly meant to operate that way. In that respect it functions well. It's not been a problem for me, yet, though granted I've not gotten to play too terribly much.

[Ranakastrasz]

True enough. The 3-5 minute decay timer is highly reasonable, as most unshielded frigates arn't going to survive that long, and those that are shielded, well, either they get overwelmed and won't last that long either, or else they are the problematic kiters, meaning this is an improvement.

I don't approve of the combat readiness deployment costs being as high as they are, or else the cost and time of recovery, but I like the concept. Cut deployment cost by 50-75%, recovery and maintanance cost by 50%, and I think it would be a very reasonable starting point.
It would let you play similar to the old version, but with notable, not crippling penalties.

Admittedly, my views are probably not valid enough, and won't be until the escape crash bug is fixed.

Also going to need to totally redo my skill mod, so as to make the skills sanely distributed again.