Felt the need to hop back in here, as while most folks are making some fantastic suggestions, I’m seeing a lot of erroneous fluff working its way in also, with people failing to read previous posts, such as;
Compare resistance on ships, you will see in general empire is vastly higher.
Thus! Back to Hard Evidence Time, with Uncle Pezz!
I am in agreement with folks here, at least in the field of Fed Frigate Drones, I feel they need a health buff personally. The cloak I’m fine with, it does what it says on the tin, and it does it well, and with regards to the Web, at first I thought it could use a buff, but folks have come in with some really good points regarding its actual use, this one caught my eye:
The Plasma Web is not for destroying enemies, though it really is nice to get lots of “Space Spiders”, but to cripple the enemy’s ability to capture. Slap a web on an enemy interceptor you are in a tussle on a beacon with and he’s out of the running in the beacon capture race for that time, though he can shoot you to cripple your ability too. Web/Stasis almost garuntees that the beacon is yours in a 1v1 snatch.
My two-cents in this conversation regards actual stats, rather than abilities as such. As you may have seen in my previous post, I discussed how Federation ships, specifically T2 non-subfaction fighters, in respects to certain areas of stats, are mildly underpowered compared to their counterparts in the other two factions. So here, I decided it would be worth doing a full analysis of the two ship types I hadn’t covered, Frigates and Interceptors, for the benefit of people making informed contributions. These stats are taken at T2 (to compare with the previous example), without any Synergy, Implant or Module bonuses.
[Frigates]
[Empire Hydra]
Hull = 10320, Shield = 6585
Resistances (Kinetic / EM / Thermal): Hull = -15 / 45 / 15, Shield = 30 / -30 / 0
Energy: Max = 675, Regen = 130.8 En/sec
Speed: Max Standard = 116, Afterburner = 203, AB En-Cost = 146 En/sec
[Jericho Templar]
Hull = 4585, Shield = 11525
Resistances (Kinetic / EM / Thermal): Hull = -15 / 45 / 15, Shield = 30 / -30 / 0
Energy: Max = 675, Regen = 130.8 En/sec
Speed: Max Standard = 123, Afterburner = 215.2, AB En-Cost = 146 En/sec
[Federation Alligator-C]
Hull = 6115, Shield = 6585
Resistances (Kinetic / EM / Thermal): Hull = -15 / 45 / 15, Shield = 30 / -30 / 0
Energy: Max = 745, Regen = 144.4 En/sec
Speed: Max Standard = 139.2, Afterburner = 243.6, AB En-Cost = 146 En/sec
[interceptors]
[Empire Dwarf]
Hull = 3175, Shield = 1970
Resistances (Kinetic / EM / Thermal): Hull = -15 / 45 / 15, Shield = 30 / -30 / 0
Energy: Max = 225, Regen = 43.6 En/sec
Speed: Max Standard = 190, Afterburner = 332.5, AB En-Cost = 54.4 En/sec
[Jericho Stiletto]
Hull = 1460, Shield = 3575 (NOTE 1)
Resistances (Kinetic / EM / Thermal): Hull = -15 / 45 / 15, Shield = 30 / -30 / 0
Energy: Max = 235, Regen = 45.5 En/sec
Speed: Max Standard = 201.4, Afterburner = 352.4, AB En-Cost = 56.5 En/sec
[Federation Hawk]
Hull = 1880, Shield = 1970
Resistances (Kinetic / EM / Thermal): Hull = -15 / 45 / 15, Shield = 30 / -30 / 0
Energy: Max = 250, Regen = 48.5 En/sec
Speed: Max Standard = 228, Afterburner = 399, AB En-Cost = 54.4 En/sec
(NOTE 1) The Stiletto actually gains a mild increase in shield regen here, being 85.1 Shield/Sec over the other two, who have 82.2.
As with before, other stats are identical across the board (Strafe etc.)
[Mid-Grounds] (Hull/Shield)
Again, the equations used are:
Hull = ((Empire.Hull - Jericho.Hull) / 2) + Jericho.Hull, and
Shield = ((Jericho.Shield - Empire.Shield) / 2) + Empire.Shield.
To save a little space, I’ve applied the 20% Mark-Down already.
[Frigates]
Hull = 5962, Shield = 7244
[interceptors]
Hull = 1854, Shield = 2218
So yet again, folks, we can see Feds have significant penalties to Shield Strength in all ship types, when resistances to damage types are identical. If I’m to be entirely honest, it feels a little like their assignment of shield values was a little arbitrary. Also yet again, I feel that the increase in *Straight-Line* speed does not make up for this, given my previous argument regarding lasers, how said weapons negate that speed boost entirely, coupled with the fact that you don’t have to be of a specific faction to use these lasers, giving the Empire and Jericho a clear reason to just outright say: “We’re better than Feds”. Hope the extra info helps, thanks again to folks that actually read this ;D
Edit: Yet again, I forget things, wrong values assigned to Energy values and Speed on the Alligator-C. Corrected.