Here's my feedback after a short time with the campaign and some cheating to play around with some of the more expensive ships. I haven't had really very much playtime on the whole so take with a grain of salt.
The p9 design/fleet 'doctrine' that I am trying to inferentially work out while playing is potentially interesting. Small number of turrets, good shields, low armor/hull, very high flux dissipation, but very bad venting. Minimal PD. Frigates are fast; but destroyers, cruisers, battleships are comparatively slow and unmaneuverable.
Most interesting is the implicit synergy between a lot of the PD-less ships that effectively exist and specialized PD platforms like the SNZ-PD and AGG-R.
But also some general design issues:
Frigates are pretty divergent. The Sike outclasses everything. Super fast, three medium turrets, enormous flux dissipation. Its only weakness is very fragile armor/hull. Some other frigates like the RS-class seem more in-line with vanilla balance. Still other frigates like the tartiff 'gell' frigate have no shields and instead regenerating armor; which isn't very thematic in my opinion. The Sike seems like the obvious winner in 80% of situations; it isn't an elite ship; it is plentiful in the campaign; it doesn't have very high price or supply cost.
Broader divergences between frigate and destroyers. Frigates are fast and manouverable. Destroyers, cruisers, battleships, meanwhile, are comparatively slow for their class. Low amount of turrets means a tendency for ships to be 'upgunned.' Medium turrets on frigates. Large turrets on destroyers and above. This makes frigates OP and destroyers and above actually kind of underpowered. The Sike (as mentioned before) is OP. It is capable of outranging and outmanouvering almost any standard frigate you can expect to encounter in the early campaign. I can easily take on 5 pirate frigates with 1 Sike. But SL-T2 destroyers meanwhile have pretty middling speed and maneuverability and only two large turrets with narrow angle of fire. This is a ship that has difficulty exploiting opportunities (no missiles) and is easy to outflank and destroy. SL-T3 destroyer seems somewhat better balanced (1 large, 2 small; higher top speed?) but still has issues with the low number of turrets.
I think the general design philosophy that is holding this all together is that low turret mounts encourages high flux energy weapons; which then requires (potentially imbalanced) high flux dissipation; which is then hopefully compensated for by lower weapon variability (few missiles; few kinetic/explosive; narrow angles). But this is a very tricky balance that doesn't really work as presently constituted. Overall: early frigate/destroyer gameplay has a pretty off-kilter balance. It doesn't feel that the main fleet elements are generally complementing or synergizing with each other. Sikes dominate while SL-T2s and T3s are sort of left behind. In a softer way, it doesn't really feel like the coherent design/fleet 'doctrine' of a relatively small colony. If the Sike is nerfed everything might feel different.
I think the ultimate solution is to create more turrets on many of these ships and scaling back the upgunning; maybe limit a lot of them energy; bring stats more into line with general high-tech fleet profile; expand more upon the synergy with specialized PD ships.
Some more specific issues:
- Lancer Destroyer: Almost a suicide ship. Extremely dangerous special ability that shoots this ship forward and discharges its forward beam for 5-10 seconds. The extremely narrow profile, the general destroyer sluggishness, and the extremely narrow turret angles creates incredible vulnerabilities.
- There is a destroyer/cruiser phase ship (I forget the name) that is probably too slow to be of much use.
- Samaa-DSI Battleship: many of the issues with the SL-T2/T3 destroyers are recurrent here. Again very few slots for its class; thematic; but weak for a battleship; low/no missiles means difficulty pressuring and exploiting. There is a large turret mount with narrow angle facing completely backwards that is close to useless. These problems are all somewhat compensated for with a built-in 'Tachyon Ray'--same visual effect as small salaa laser--which will typically overload the shields on any class of ship. Almost certainly OP. But the battleship, on its own terms, is peculiarly both OP and underpowered. Because it has so few slots it has difficulty exploiting the shields it downs.
- p9 weapons mostly have good custom descriptions; but they don't have their own p9 design type designation; missing description on some special weapons like the tachyon ray; improper usage of it's and its in most descriptions (a pet peeve; w/e).
- I don't like the visual effect of the Salaa laser; dull from long camera distance; should ideally be more vibrant. It's an effect that is repeated on a number of other p9 weapons.
- The visual effect on the SKV cannon is dark to the point that it is somewhat hard to see. Low amount of turrets encourages energy weapons; so many ships using P9 weapons will use the SKV.
- P9 talaa laser is a beam with only 50 range; it seems impossible for this to have a use other than to be placed on the lancer suicide ship. I don't really like any of it.
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Topic: [0.96a-RC10] The P9 Colony Group - Faction mod (v0.54), Nexerelin Compatible (Read 257979 times)