I disagree with the design decision as well -- obsoleting the "primary" unit so quickly just doesn't make sense -- but its what we're stuck with.

Maybe they should add a minimum range to those things. It'd prevent them from being a "direct fighting" unit and keep them at the support role that they're supposed to fulfill. But back on topic, I agree with everything that's been said above me.

Here's the problem: for most races, the long range frigate is the first military frigate you CAN research (next to siege, which is not useful in combat). To have THAT counter something much further down the line (support) is pointless. It needs to counter the main unit type or else the research would be wasted in any fast paced game. Also, look at what else you have. You have specialized anti-fighter units, which are good against large groups of units, but from your "realistic" point of view I don't see them countering light combat frigates either--their ordinance will be optimized with a view to killing small, fast, lightly armored craft, and clearly the light combat frigates don't fit that description (just compare them visually to strikecraft). Then the next thing you have is carriers, so basically if LRM didn't counter light combat, you'd have to tech to carriers with fighters to counter them. This would make investing in research a very risky proposal.

To me it does make sense that long range counters light combat, even realistically. Light combat frigates are, as you say, agile and fast, with medium to low damage output. They might have been invented to fight off similar vessels or maybe even rebels in combat retrofitted trade vessels. Clearly they have a role lateron in quickly engaging support vessels as well. Once you get to LRMs, though, you have smaller, even more fragile vessels with a large damage output. If Sins was a much quicker game it would make sense for LRMs to destroy light combat at range and then be destroyed by them if they ever catch up (kind of like archers vs grunts in war3), but that's not the kind of game sins is. In Sins, combat does become somewhat static at a point, and so the decision was to either have lrm counter light combat or not. I think they made the right decision from a game balance point of view, and I can buy the decision from a realism point of view.

To be honest, I don't really see the point in building defense guns (gauss, beam, missile) in multiplayer. With their small range it's so easy to go around them, draw the enemy out etc. Repair bays I find last quite a while to LRMs, especially if your fleet is there, picking off the lrms, and even more so if you have two repair bays that can repair each other. Hangars full of fighters of course rape lrms, as well they should.

You know I read a post somewhere else on these forums suggesting that siege frigates might be made more useful if their attack was much stronger vs buildings, and I like that idea, both from a "makes sense" point of view as well as from a game balance point of view. Limited trials locally against the AI suggest that this is indeed a fun use for siege, and maybe--just maybe--it could make them less than completely useless in multiplayer.

I wouldn't lose any sleep if they removed siege from the game altogether. If I need to siege a planet down fast, I use a siege capital for a capital with a good anti planet ability (the evacuator's drain planet ability, for example, or the Marza's siege guns ability).

OK, just pointing out, sabotage Antimatter core. they bring Light frigates back into the game. random DOT damage to any and all ships, it beats the hell out of Ignite anti matter which is good only targeting capitol ships.
the Key to TEC is really to have diversity, and model your fleet based on income ratios. If your literally dieing for a decent amount of crystal but have the metal to support it, you can pump Cobalts out pretty damn fast, In numbers cobalts have a fighting chance, until I get Kodiaks online I keep a brigade of Cobalts to help duke out some focus fire with my Kols.

A nuke isn't going to detonate just because you blow it up, unlike chemical explosives. Antimatter warheads would work differently, of course.

The issue with LRM is that they not only counter Light frigates, but that they counter nearly everything.

The problem is that they are cheaper than cobalts and they kill cobalts 1 on 1. Why would I keep building cobalts when my long range weapon is cheaper and better? The unit you research second should not fill the role of making the fist unit obsolete, unless the second unit comes with a counter that can be researched simultaneously. For example, if I could build a missle scambler to go along with the huge fleet of light frigates that i otherwise have to scuttle, then it would be ok. as it is, you would probably be making a sounder investment to scuttle your cobalts once you see a lrm.

i only really play multi so don't take what i am saying into the context of 1v1.

i play visari and never use freighters except to counter flak (sometimes i even spam lrms for a min, then immediately start spamming freighters as soon as i see an human enemy). sieges are useless, usually if i don't have the firepower to easily clear a planet with caps, i just move to the next planet and continue the pwning after i have wiped all the structures from the planet, who cares if they rebuild them, 99% the annihilation of everything surrounding the planet is enough good times.

i will say that sometimes i will sometimes use a freighter heavy build if i find myself stuck in a corner with 2-3 volcanic planets/asteriods, and no ice. substitute t1 laser upgrades instead of the missle ones i use with the LRM build. the one nice thing when this happens is you can move to carriers in t3 and switch back to missle upgrades (much earlier than the tank heavy cruiser), since you don't have to worry about 20 flak ships shooting down all your planes. a good number of early bombers with cap ship support is usually enough steam to pick up some more crystal.

in a perfect world, i think sb...
freighters > turrets/lrms(via swarm)
lrms > heavy cruisers/caps/flak/turrets
flak > carriers (earliest heavy cruiser in order to make them slightly weaker than the other heavy cruisers)/freighters/hangers
sieges buff pls...
heavy cruisers/caps pwn the crap out of freighters/lrms/flak (even tho lrms can out dps with them with pure #'s)

i think this would really balance out the early game so that each ship is more useful

i don't really care so much at this point about which cruiser beats which, but t0-3 needs a lil work as is IMHO (still love the game tho)

No, but some people don't have a clue!

I don't see why we can't remove the whole Light Frigate counters LRM thing; LRMS already counter capital ships and buildings, which in turn are very effective against light frigates. They're also decent at countering utility ships, because utility ships don't have any damage dealing potential.

The big problem here is at Tier 2 about 30 minutes into the game, you have a ship that can pretty much counter anything you throw at it, and is capable of breaking through your defenses to deliver the final blow. Nothing can destroy them -before- they destroy vital amounts of infrastructure or a whole capital ship, so your only hope is to do as much damage as you do to them.

I've never heard of anyone losing an initial LRM blob without doing a substantial amount of damage to someone who didn't use the same tactic.

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I think all they need to do to fix the problem is make long range do only 100% damage to light assault ships. This would be reasonable, as long range ships already do pretty significant damage to all other ship types.

This reduction of damage would make cobalts less vulnerable to long range ships and also allow for them to be used more in general to counter defense vessel / flak type ships.



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