Mocked by vets. Point taken though. Point taken.

That's because, costwise, the zergling actually offers by far the best DPS and hit points of any early game unit.

A zergling gives you 5 damage and 35 hit points for 25 minerals.  A marine gives you 6 damage 40 hit points for 50 minerals.  The marine has range, for sure, but in terms of those raw stats the zergling is going to rip him to shreds if this comes down to a sheer battle of who is dealing the most damage and who can tank it.

I've added reduction of LRF dmg bonus to medium armor to the Patch stat Changes forum

Here's why:

1) LFs are the only ships that carry Medium Armor.

2) Consider damage to damage bonus ratios for other ships. Example: Light armor and Anti-light damage, Anti-light damage does 200% to light armor, but the ships that use Anti-light damage have very low dps. Anti-medium ships have a high dps and also a high damage bonus (150%) and the furthest range.

A reduction in the damage bonus may be what the LF needs to say alive long enough to be of use.

IMO... increase turn rate of the LF, and remove the free Cap Ship. You really should have to research something to unlock Cap Ships. Having this huge super-beast of a ship when you are a fledgling empire with one world under your belt (even if the TEC is feeding you schematics and what not) is sort of silly (especially since you can have a cap ship BEFORE a heavy cruiser - makes NO sense).

This would make the opening stages of the game just as exciting as the rest of the game. You'd just have to actually fight with small fleets and use colony frigates for a change. Sorta shift the research abilities down a tier or two and add in cap ships at the end instead. Or perhaps leave the initial cap ship in, but make the rest come much later.

Also... the LF becomes useful later on for it's anti...erm, well, anti anti-matter abilities.

Also... what do people think of factoring range to target into SINS? For instance, imagine if Light Frigates did 150% or even 200% more damage (or more or changed dmg type, etc) w/ their weapons at point blank range than they do at longer distances when they are closing? It could actually force players to use to waypoint system to maneuver the hell out of their fleets and to use screens of heavier ships to protect things like the LRF.

I mean, the game has collision and range detection already, doesn't it? You'd probably have to rebalance the turn rates and speeds of the rest of the ships in this game though, if you did that... but who cares? Dynamic battles = more fun!

-Itharus

That seems to add needless management, since a unit left to its own devices may not move closer to deal more damage.  It's trivial to close the distance between yourself and a target.

Well, it would not be hard to do...  All you have to do is design an algorithm that is designed to solve itself.  On one side, you have the current DPS and the likelihood that the ship will survive.  On the other, you have maximum and likihood of death.  Let's say the cobalt is at a range of 3000 so the DPS is 8.

I don't feel like explaining likelihood of death/life values, but it would be calculated by the number/DPS of nearby enemy ships and the number/health of allied ships.

So, it would look something like this:

Live%*Ideal DPS=Death%*20

So, you reduce some things and you get:

Ideal DPS=(Death%*20)/Live%

So, this way, the ship will adjust itself if the values are incorrect.  Let's say that the ship is at a range of 3000 and has:

Live%=70%

Death%=30%

now, calculate...  (.3*20)/.7=8.57

Now, just run that through a polynomial function (which I am too lazy to write out) and you will get a range.

Simply put, the higher the chance of living, the closer the ship gets.  The lower, the farther away it goes.

The dynamism comes with the response to such behavior. Better use of formations, maneuvering, setting up blocks to enemy advances, and in general... having the fleet do more than sit in one spot holding still and firing. You'd have to think and react more... you'd be more engaged. And yes, you could script the closing behavior, I infact, think that it would be necessary.

Not to mention it would make the Z Axis an even more beautiful thing (although they'd have to adjust how range is calculated on the Z Axis... but that's needed anyway, imo). As it stands now, movement is a very secondary thing in this game... you really just use it to place illums/guardians/caps or to screw up something else's firing arc so that you can get your cap out of the danger.

I'm not suggesting this (just modifying LF) be the only change, but I think if a system like this were added into the game on a wide spectrum, it could really help SINS be more of an awesome 3D Space RTSX4Thingy.

I dunno... I just think two massive fleets pounding it out from set positions with the occasional push is more like WW1 artillery fights than naval space combat. I think changes like this one would add a bit more to the tactical side of things, which to me would be welcome... as the strategic element of this game is already quite nice.

Best of both worlds, yo.

-Itharus

I admit i am too lazy tso read all the posts, but i think the LF has a purpose in the beginning. For some completely irrational reason scouts perform quite well against LRFs (I noticed that in a fun game with a friend when my 30 Scouts totally smashed his armada of his expansive LRM )

So he built some LF and one Cap to kill my scouts what went quite well for him
So may be LF beats Scout, Scout beats regardless of its low damage LRF??, and LRF beat the crap out of pretty much everything...

it's probably the 'renderShieldMesh TRUE' line that comes after the shieldmesh name. It's not in previous Entrenchment versions.

Also, setting it to FALSE will make the game not render the shieldmesh.

This goes along with my mod ideas for them...  My idea is to turn them into a meat shield with passive mass-buffs.  The range is small, but the more you pack into that small space, the bigger the bonus.  The Advent get a mitigation bonus, the TEC get a hull regen bonus, the Vasari get an armor bonus.  Now, that said, if you managed to cram (and I mean REAAAALLY cram) about 175 of any of those into that tiny range, they would end up reducing any damage you threw at them by about 99%.

My idea was more of a meat shield idea, but I like that idea too...  The Cobalts already have Destabilize Reactor which is a good one-hit active.  If they could have something like "Bleed Reactor" that would slowly drain AM and health, I think that would be good too...

As far as Vasari go, I'd say something like "Detonate Nanites" which causes enemy ships' weapons/ability launchers to get clogged with nanites that like to make themselves go boom.  Deactivates abilities at least.

I do like your idea for the Animosity synergy.  That thing does need some more use other than Vengeance...  I would like to see it actually help draw fire to save other ships.  As well as that though, it would unlock another synergy between the Radiance and the Disciple.  You would get unlimited AM.  You could just throw Det AM at everything in sight and shoot everything else with the best armament in the game.  Combine all that with a few Dominas and you just got a great synergy going.  Its mutualism.  The Disciples stay alive and deactivate enemy abilities, the Radiance gets unlimited AM and bodyguards, and the Domina gets AM and bodyguards.  Everybody wins!

I already realized a mod about a year ago that would add  similar abilities to all three LF(Mainly because i was too lazy to make 6 different Icons ). My Idea was more that the LF should avoid direct battle. It was more like a tool for  weaker players to hit important targets deep within enemy territory.

For that purpose i gave them two abilities. One is largely increased mobility(faster, higher maneuverability, high gravity well tolerance) which enables then to outrun almost any fleet. On the downside this will decrease their amor, thus making them even more fragile.
Normaly they dont't have to engage enemys as they can jump deep within the grav well, bypassing the defenses. Of course fighters in combination with jump inhibitors can still kill them.

The other ability is a weapon burst that increases the firerate for 500% for 20-25 seconds, but is draining their shields.
The high firerate is not suitable to attack Caps(So they are not snipers) as they will largely increase the shield mitigation with the rapid fire. It is best used against buildings and ships with low health(like support cruiser).

The ability is slightly different for the partys in respect of the different stats. The TEC can use the ability normaly with some antimatter and some shield consumption with a decent cooldownrate(To prevent permanent use in combination with a support cap).
The advent ship uses less shields and antimatter as the basic damage is the lowest and the diciple vessle not generating  antimatter on its own(It can only steal it later, stay close to a sun or beeing refilled by some other way)
The vasari ship has the same shield drain as the Cobalt but no antimatter use(As it has none to bgein with). On this ship the cooldown is twice as long as on the others.

The only problem is that the mod was for the original Sins any many of the mechanics have severly changed since then...

I find that out of the three races, the vasari have to weakest late-game fleet. The advent are obviously the strongest and the TEC fall in the middle. The Vasari weak HC and less effective strikecraft doom them in a prolonged battle. Whenever i play vasari; hit and run becomes the main tactic. The only way to win is to choose where to attack, rather than letting your enemy choose where you have to defend. But thats just me, i have never spent that long learning the nuances of the vasari abilities.

Anyway:

Light frigates need better abilities, maybe not the ones suggested here, but something. Or their names need to be changed to "Free Experience"