light frigates

Light frigates are mainly useful for the early-game, assisting in clearing out planets with a capital ship. Later on in the game, I've personally found them useful in shutting down repair platforms and hangar defenses, by stealing their antimatter. They also are the counter to flak frigates- dealing anti-heavy damage. The Diciple Vessel is particularly good at this due to lower cost and transferring the antimatter to say, an Iconus Guardian or Halcyon.

Though in the case of Vasari, their LFs are nearly worthless because of their early availability of Assailants and the Ravastra's higher cost. So mainly, I'd just recommend building a few after early-game to take out defensive structures and flak frigates.

I think it's been pointed out before, but their anti-matter steal/drain/disrupt/whatever it's called can be killers against carriers and cap ships, as well as support frigs. They also make good meat shields.

LRMs are the counter to LFs. So using LFs aqainst LRMs will ALWAYS be inefficient, and will always be ineffective unless you vastly outnumber the LRMs you are attacking. LF are great Flak counters however. And they also have useful abilities (sabatoge antimatter/steal and transfer antimatter). They are quick too, so can be usefull in chasing down carriers, and if the enemy is focusing his strike craft on your LFs then either 1. you are spamming LFs or 2. he is wasting SC on LFs when he should be targeting your LRMs/Bombers (fighters) and cruisers/caps (bombers).

Using carriers to counter carriers is not an efficient tactic. HCs and LFs will do a much better job whilest your carriers focus on enemy LRMs, Bombers, Cruisers, and especialy Caps.

Part of the problem is that early game LRF make up the bulk of any fleet, and late game most players transition to heavy cruisers.  Both of these absolutely murder LF.  As a result, it's just not smart to build these guys in bulk.  Used sparingly they're decent, and if your enemy is going crazy with carriers a good mob of them can be useful, but in general you want to use them as specialty units.

The LF's speed is essentially negated by turn rates.  After a few seconds, any battle devolves into a big clump of units shooting at each other, and most movement is actually turning, at which LF has no advantage.

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There is 150 people onboard EACH of those "meat-shields" you murderous ba*****!!!

Honestly, what are those 150 people even doing?  The ship has like 1 thruster and two lasers.  It has a shield system, a self-repair system, and a phase-drive system.  Presumably it has a captain.  That's 5 functions (most of which are probably controlled by computers...) plus a captain.  Why do we need this many people again?

Also it's a poor meat shield in practice.  The main damage of an early-game fleet is LRF, which just rip LF to shreds.  They're good at absorbing attacks from strike craft, but your opponent would be stupid to fast-tech to carriers against a LF masser.

I hadnt considered the steal antimatter ability.  To be honest, I have so many other things to research, that I dont think very far outside of that box (armor, shields, SOMETIMES antimatter regen., and missiles).  However, having to get 4 mil. labs to get this tech makes it very cost prohibitive. 

With so many people spamming flak, sending in 30 lf's (along with your carriers/lrms/HCs) to target the flak  is a great idea....if it werent for the fleet capacity....

My point is that LFs dont have MUCH of a place (tho there is a place for them...just a small one) in the battle for the solar system.  LRMs and then HCs are the mainstays.

The fact that there arent any real strategies with LFs shows that something needs to change.

(perhaps a fast 4 mil labs, while pumping scouts AND Lt. frigates, might be something...)  By the time your fleet hits your opponent, you have the 4 labs up, and the steal antimatter tech researched.  The scouts take out the fabricators, and the lt frigs go to work on the defenses of the planet/capital ship defenders/inevitable carriers, while your cap (marza or egg, etc) takes out the planet.   Seems like a decent alternative to the scout rush, perhaps more effective, tho the 3 extra labs will cut into your fleet numbers).

I cant think of any other strat atm...maybe bordy/king/JJ or amish can go to work on it....

or perhaps a slight change in turning speed would make them more viable...?

RM

Just try sending like 2 dozen LFs against his crucial support cruisers (i.e. hoshis, guardians, subverters). They'll be first crippled and then killed. You'll most likely lose the LFs if they're in the midst of the battle, but most of the time they won't be. Support cruisers die really fast, and after that you send them after his carriers, which are most likely positioned at the edge of the grav well. If his LRFs follow - sure, your LFs will be toast. But that's the purpose of a counter. If you got the same amount of LFs than he does of LRFs, you'll most likely inflict a similar damage on his carriers than he inflicts upon your LFs. Plus, his LRFs are out of the battle, which commonly takes away a great bunch of firepower. Never ever underestimate the AM-ability of the various LFs, it can definitely turn a battle. Imagine a fearsome TEC fleet with massive hoshis or an advent battleball without AM. Feels awesome, trust me

Or stealing the AM from a Marza..that's fun as well

Regarding your strategy: LFs are more similar to support cruisers regarding their role in battle. You can't base a strategy solely on them, since they are (really) hard countered by LRFs, which everyone will most likely get early on. Sure, they counter scouts (even though they have a hard time chasing them, but carriers are harder to get), but for that they don't need the AM tech.

The light frigate ability doesnt steal AM from Caps. Only cruisers and other frigates

Yeah, pardon my mistake, I got to know that today as well

They're still useful

If someone goes very carrier or support cruiser heavy and skimps on LRF, then the LF's become useful.  Some games I make no LF because there is no reason to, other games, somebody attacks me with all carriers, and I go to town on them with LF.  Eventually they realize and start making LRF, but they lose a lot of carriers in the meantime.

The reason lf's aren't used that much is because everyone and I mean everyone goes straight to long range frigates. Light frigates are rarely the best option because the counter to them is the best early game ship out there.

I will say this. Light frigates become useful when you finally play the counter game. He makes lrf's. You mass scouts and carriers to counter, so he makes lf's and flak, so you make lf's and long range frigates, he makes lrf's and scouts. The chain finally gets broken when someone finallly makes the heavy cruisers.

It's not useless. It's just that everyone goes straight to lrf's.

Ah, who cares about the 150 people? It's what they signed up for.

There IS an effective strategy for LF use. Its called Imperial Guard style. Thats all you need to know