Carrier Cruisers / Balance

One way of balancing this is by decreasing the work it takes to build Light frigates.

Cobalt Light Frigate
from: 20 seconds, 300 credits, 55 metal, 0 crystal, 5 fleet, 10 DPS.
to: 18 seconds, 250 credits, 45 metal, 0 crystal, 4 fleet, 9 DPS.

Disciple Vessel
from: 18 seconds, 250 credits, 40 metal, 0 crystal, 4 fleet, 8 DPS.
to: 16 seconds, 210 credits, 33 metal, 0 crystal, 3 fleet, 7 DPS.

Ravista Skirmisher
from: 28 seconds, 420 credits, 70 metal, 0 crystal, 7 fleet, 10 DPS.
to: 21 seconds, 350 credits, 58 metal, 0 crystal, 5 fleet, 10 DPS.

Here are some key points.

*TEC get the most DPS per second while these are in continuous production, with Vasari in a second and Advent not very far behind Vasari.
Those values are. TEC:.5DPS/s Vasari:.4762DPS/s Advent:.4375DPS/s

*Advent get the most DPS per fleet amount, with TEC in second and Vasari in third.
Those values are. Advent:2.333DPS/Fleet TEC:2.25DPS/Fleet Vasari:2DPS/Fleet.

*Vasari get the most health produced per second while these are in continuous production, with TEC in a second and Advent in the third.
Those values are. Vasari:54.29HP/s TEC:52.77HP/s Advent:51.5625HP/s

*Advent get the most Health per fleet amount, with TEC in second and Vasari in third.
Those values are. Advent:275HP/Fleet TEC:237.5HP/Fleet Vasari:228HP/Fleet

Advent has the worst economy, so they do have more DPS and health for less cost, but that's always been the case. TEC coming in a close seconed evened out by .04 more metal and crystal per second per asteroid, and slightly more income from planets. Vasari coming in a third with the best resource economy and a credit economy superior to the Advent, inferior to the TEC. It's still balanced.

I have to disagree with the need to buff light frigates. Carriers (even without the 1.09 bug) are a huge force, yes, but they cost an arm and a leg, and take up a lot of ship slots. The drawback to carriers is you don't have that same concrete force as any other kind of fleet.

If you're in a late game where the other person has huge amounts of carriers and lrf's, then yes, that's an obstacle, but also a shame on ur part for letting him/her get to that point.

Raging Amish, you just completely side stepped the point. The point is that 2 Cruisers will not take out a carrier now because 3 bomber groups will take them out while the carrier is constantly running out of weapons range. What is also true is that 4 Light frigates will not match up with a carrier because any group of 3 kills them before they kill the carrier, now. Yeah, sure, kill off them somewhat so they can't build them, but if you're constantly in a stalemate, the person who concentrated more on carriers will win, not the person who concentrated on a diverse fleet.

Your forgetting flak, Purdyaw.

Yes, but Flak are not that great anymore.

Flak kinda don't serve a role anymore.

Side stepped the point? Go check. 3 Bombers don't take out light frigs all that easily. Both fighters and bombers do 50% of their statistical damage against medium armor.

One of the key designs of the carrier is that they made the bombers and fighters weak against light frigates and flak. Also, light frigates are quicker than carriers, meaning they're the only unit besides bombers (carriers can carry fighters so using bombers is a risky tactic) that can chase down the carrier and actually destroy it. Thanks to the new buff to anti-heavy damage against heavy armor, this tactic now works better than before.

Oh, and you're gonna need more light frigates now. Since carriers take up 20 slots or 14 slots, that means roughly 3-5 are needed against advent, and 2-3 against TEC/Vasari.

If an opponent has focused PURELY on one unit, he's made your job easy. Make a fleet of PURELY the counter, and watch for if/when he builds a different kind of unit and bring the counter to that.

Well I didn't notice the anti heavy damage change, so that is good enough, I suppose... considering they are tier 0 ships.

I still contend that light frigates are not a viable counter to carriers. Not because of their stats or damage type, but because they are so easily countered. You can spam a huge carrier ball and a moderate force of LRFs will dispense with any light frigate threats pretty quickly.

Statistically, light frigates are counter to carriers. In practice, their survivability in most battles can be measured in seconds. They will be easily destroyed before they can counter any carrier forces.

I thought that might come up, and the best way to fix that would be to increase survivability between Light frigates and LRMS... keeping LRMS the counter, but not one that immediately annihilates it... just like Light Frigates don't immediately annihilate Carriers.

Anyways, here are the steps.

1: Increase Light Frigate Shield and Hull Capacity and Regeneration by 25%.
2: Increase Anti-Heavy, Composite, Capital and Capital Ability damage VS Medium from 100% to 125%.
These two steps keep Anti-Heavy, Composite, Capital and Capital Ability VS medium armor effectively the same. Increase Durability by 25%, increase damage taken by these types by 25%. Understanding the math is key, though. If these had been previously at 200%, we would want to increase it to 250%... because 50% is 25% of 200%.... a 25% increase, killing Light frigates 25% faster... because they have 25% more Hit Points.
I was first thinking of increase Anti-Medium damage type VS Medium armor from 150% to 175%... making Light Frigates still last 8% longer than before, 25% longer versus strike craft and Flak and the same as before against everything else... but then I realized one thing. LRMS have the highest DPS per fleet count amount. More than Heavy Cruisers. Heavy cruisers are better because of Composite... but even after that all LRMS do more DPS per fleet amount. It's the endurance that matters for Heavy Cruisers.

For example. On basic numbers, the LRMS does 11 DPS and costs 4 fleet, which is 2.75DPS per Fleet point. The kodiak heavy cruiser does 18 DPS with 10 fleet which is 1.8 DPS per fleet. After considering damage type, on average LRMS do 88% of their damage. Composite on average does 116% of it's own damage type. This put LRMs on average at 2.42 DPS/Fleet and Heavy Cruisers at about 2.09DPS/Fleet. What tips it for Heavy cruisers is the superior durability... but LRMs still being over Heavy cruisers in DPS/fleet (atleast in TEC) means that perhaps LRMs just are Too-Good of a counter to what they counter.

So leaving Anti-Medium damage at 150% means that LRMS will still kill Light frigates quick enough amount of time, but it also means that LRMs simply got nerfed against what they're supposed to counter. I would propose this final last step.

3: Decrease Anti-Heavy damage VS Light armor from 75% to 50%.

Is that fair?

Light frigates still die fastest to LRMS.... LRMS gain a 33% survivability bonus against Light Frigates... So do Siege Frigates, Scouts, Bombers and Trade Frigates, but oh well.

I disagree with the assertion that Flaks are useless now. My experience so far still shows them capable against fighters. They are indeed next to useless against bombers, but not against fighters.

This is all you need them to do really, because there is another thing that eats bombers pretty darn quick: fighters.

If a fleet with let's say 100% carriers encounters a fleet with 70% carriers / 30% flak, the diverse fleet will win. The reason for that is that the 100% carriers fleet's fighters will die quicker, leaving the fighters to deal with the bombers, and the bombers to deal with the carriers.

I happy with the LF/Carrier balance. It works.