Siege Frigate Fix Thread

Hi.

Siege frigates have been changed once already, and are due for another change in the upcoming patch. Although I welcome the planned changes, I don't think they adequately address the problems presented by these vessels- problems which are most pronounced in multiplayer games.

As it stands, a small swarm of siege frigates can march in and *extremely* rapidly cut out the population of a planet without any fighting for the space having occurred. The devastating effects of this "tactic" verses, the tiny amount of resources and concentration required to launch it represents to me a glaring imbalance. Unless your world is a fortress, it will fall to any such attack.

I'd like this thread to be used to discuss the ways in which the above situation could be altered by modifying only siege frigates. My idea follows:

Siege frigates should have to "deploy" to bombard a planet. It should take a siege frigate [x] seconds to deploy, and [x] seconds to pack up. Introducing this element of micromanagement makes them unwieldy and vulnerable enough that sending in a group of siege frigates to destroy a planet without a fleet engagement (and almost certainly getting what you want) becomes entirely unfeasible.

Thoughts?
4,901 views 2 replies
Reply #1 Top
Yeah the fix did help. I had a game after the change with the computer trying the same old tactic and I was able to defend it. However....I think its even easier to fix then your idea actually. I think the had the right idea in the change they made...I think they just needed to carry it a hair further to prevent griefing by players in multiplayer that want to make a fleet of 2o+ of them etc.

Just increase the fleet cost on them a bit more then they already did. Make it where if you really feel you need a fleet of 50 of them your going to be seriously shorting yourself on other ships. Id say increase the fleet cost on them about another 20%. That should fix the issue. Then if someone really, really wants to continue with this strategy they better be good at it because if you catch them doing it and launch a counter offensive they probably wont have the ships ot defend it as well since they have this group in the fleet.

Just thinking outloud of course...I could be totally wrong. I dont play much multiplayer so far...so I could be wrong if human players dont use this strategy as frequently as the computer seems to like to try it.

Reply #2 Top
Increasing their fleet cap cost a little more may work. My friend was saying he wanted the planetary defense guns to either be able to blast mostly everything in the grav well (range) or at least make it so if they're built within x range of a planet (really close) that should make them in an orbiting state and thus be 'mobile' around the planet. I kind of liked that idea because it would allow them to focus-fire on siege frigs. I don't really like the full grav well range idea, but then it might make it a little more difficult for those pesky AI/players who just fly in, through, and out of your choke points :)