Since 0.8.1 rendered Frigates unusable with the camera I have switched out to flying Interceptors, and I am shocked at how utterly useless every Frigate I encounter is at fighting me. In fact, the situation is so bad that several Frigates, particularly the LR ones, simply give up once I open fire on them. They don’t turn, they don’t try to run, they don’t fight back - they just sit there and let me kill them.
I know exactly why they are doing this; they can’t fight back.
Flying an Interceptor I have never been killed by a Frigate’s guns. The only times a Frigate has killed me are as follows:
Guard Frigates using Pulsar.
Engineers / LR Frigates dropping minefields.
This seems to be the only way a Frigate can defend itself from marauding Interceptors, and it is simply not good enough. I admit that I love pouncing on lone Frigates and tearing them apart with rockets and plasma cannons, but the fact I can do so with near-total immunity to damage is just flat out unfair.
I think a big part of the sudden increase in Interceptor numbers is the loss of the Frigate Cloud. Now that there are no ships that can 2-hit-kill an Interceptor, and they no longer have to risk running through half a dozen Engi-Drones to hit their mark, the Interceptors are able to run rampant with no real counter. Something needs to change to bring them back into line; Frigates need to be able to hold off against Interceptor harassment so that they can actually play a part in the game again.
Ya yah, go cry some more about you little engy nerf and my little inty buff. When you two hit kill a inty was all fine, now a enginering frigate(Engineering ships are designed for construction of auxiliary facilities on the battlefield, as well as for repair of allied ships. Engineers can build barriers, where allies can hide from enemy fire. In addition, they can use warp gates to transfer the allied ships across long distances. Together with their buildings, Engineering ships will serve as a reliable rear guard for their team. They can repair allied ships, restore their shields, while their combat drones can help them cope with enemy attacks from the rear.) was puted in your place you complaim? The only bad thing in this patch was the camera and the loot.
The ship designed to overkill a intereceptor is the tackler (The objective is to find and destroy enemy Recon and Covert Ops ships. Using invisibility, tacklers can secretly install mines in the most dangerous zones. Their high speed will enable them to intercept Recon and Covert Ops ships. Active modules will reduce the enemy’s speed and temporarily weaken their shields and armour.) And the ship designed to take out frigates is the interceptor(remember the game hint in the loading screen sayng: Dont leave you allies frigates behind, they can be easy targets for interceptors.)
How about you actually bother to read what I am saying?
My complaint is that I am killing Frigates without even trying, and that a lot of the time they don’t even try to save themselves - they just give up and die.
Again, for the hard of reading…
I AM NOW FLYING INTERCEPTORS ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY!
My complaint still stands. I want Engineers on my team so I have somewhere to fall back to, but it seems nobody wants to fly them any more. When I look at why the answer is quite obvious; once I get behind a Frigate, it is dead. Sometimes I can even score the kill despite there being supporting craft nearby.
In previous patches, Frigates could hold their own to an extent. They were still in a lot of trouble if they got caught out of position, but in a one on one fight a Frigate, especially an Engineer or Guard, could potentially kill or drive off the Interceptor. Now the only option seems to be “drop a Warp Gate and pray he doesn’t chase you.”
As a Recon pilot, I don’t see my role as being the bane of everyone who didn’t switch to Interceptor. I see my role to be a debuffer - I tag enemies with spy drones, strip shields and generally make people panic because “OMG OP INTY!”. Long Range Frigates get mauled, but they get mauled by everyone and they, not the Engineer and Guard, are what I see as the prime target for lone wolf Interceptors. To be honest, I am not really sure if Jericho LR Frigates should be given much of a counter-buff versus the Inty. Empire LR I see as being the most under-powered class in the game and not worth bringing to the field, but that’s another discussion.
Nobody is playng engy frigates because they are not a OP killer anymore, and many ppl dont want play support ships, hanging in the rearguard rapairing allies. If a healer frig charge alone in the front line he deserve die for no folow your role: support.
ppl was acustumed with the engy being super strong, killing everyone and ever survinving.
And about the interceptors, they deserv the buff they get, because they was underpower before the update, so under everyone was playng engy frigates and only me and some others guys playng the punny interceptpor.
I don’t have a T3 engineer so exclude my input if it doesn’t apply there
For T2 - I just got a double Maniac badge back to back playing engineer a few hours ago. Missed a triple, falling short by 3 kills in one of the matches.
Jumped into my T2 frigate right after the patch to see how bad it got nerfed, found out the cam was their biggest problem
Jumped into a Cov Ops to test if it can be exploited easily, found out I could then worked out a counter
Took out the Engineer again - went back to raping ala 0.8.0
1 v 1 against a fighter I would almost always win
1 v 1 against an interceptor, odds are in his favor killing him less than half the time
I need more mine fields
Literally cover my xxxx. ALWAYS. Back up against a wall or asteroid. If someone manages to drop you from behind, you’ll be fighting on Hulls
I used to hide behind beacons, now I park infront of it and take the hits - no choice
(or park behind then rotate 180 when a zergling zips past me)
Weapon choice is a factor as always, if u snipe - prepare to get owned by orbiting inties
(a good aim doesn’t help now since you cannot lead the target with current turn speed and in your face cam. Ships will be just on the edge of the screen so can’t lead the shot)
Warp gate gives you a second chance, buying you another 8 seconds to shoot from range
minimum Engineer + Gunship + Engineer, if I don’t get a response from chat before game start, I tail another engineer and try my best to keep him alive
biggest issue for me other than not enough mines is allied engineers forgetting or not knowing when to reactivate their modules
and I’m still taking out shields in 1 shot from 5,000m ++ or fry charging small ships before overheating so no biggie
Engineers can / should support from the front. Camping back out of range is how you lose your frontlines.
This is my feeling as well. Engineer / Guard Frigates have high survivability and relatively short-ranged auras. Just compare a T2 Mk III healing aura range to the T2 Mk III resistance buffs of the Command Fighter. As an Engi I am typically buffing 3-5 people; as a Command, I’m buffing double that.
Engi and Guard should be supporting from the front, flying alongside Commands and Gunships. LR Frigates support from the back, whilst Interceptors (and arguably Tacklers) support from the flanks.
If an Engi is loitering at the back, two things will happen. The first is that they just won’t be buffing enough, and the second is they will be caught short by rampaging Interceptors and shredded.
Engineers have a role and they do it EXTREMELY good, imo, so it’s fine for me. I see engis with 23000 hull, and you can’t do that with a long range Frigate.
I played only three or so matches on the 1st day of update, but I can say that at least back then frigate pilots were so lost with the new camera system that you could just sit in place and shoot them and they had no idea what was going on.
One beacon was being swarmed by 5 engi frigates and some support, I ripped to shreds three of those frigates and then ran away cuz beacon changed. They didn’t even fight back or at least I didn’t notice.
As to minefields, the panic button trend was still going on back then.
Shoot a random frigate from any distance you wish, be it 3km+
Chances are, he will instantly pop minefield without thinking.
Laugh at the silliness of the pilot.
Repeat.
That’s my favorite thing to do btw. Laughing at people who think that minefield will save them from me pounding on them from 2km away.
P.S.
I was mostly flying a gunship (or “gunsip”, to quote the game itself in many moments).
Tbh I’d wait until after the camera fix to draw conclusions about frigate balance. I’ve found myself able to still kill interceptors in T2 fairly handily as long as I have a minefield left to drop, and I expect that to improve once I can see a damn thing.
IMO the place for an engineer is around 3k behind the action. I give fire support to what’s in range while staying safe.
Not sure what you mean about engineering aura range being small. They’re 4.5k, identical to command.
Provided the camera gets rolled back to what it was before, I am still happy with the performance of my engineering frigate.
I’m mainly a support player, flying command ships and egnineer frigs primarily and even with 4 turrets my engies still are at least as useful for my team as my command ship, if not more so.
I like the changes. Engi’s were not only the best support role pre patch but also one of the best killers. It was obvious they needed a change. I Would like to see Frigs get a full 360 fire angle with all guns except for the belly of the ship. This would give them a chance to defend. Also agree the camera need to go back to pre patch.
i agree with what your saying. honestly all i could care about is getting the view we “used” to have back. not whatever they just updated to… -.- i’m flying tackler’s now instead of my frigate
Really? Because as far as I know 2 out of 3 interceptor types have ways to shut down/bypass a tackler’s cloak, which is pretty much its only defense.
Not sure what that has to do with the Tacklers main job “killing inti’s”.Cloak is used to run away not kill with, so if your trying to use this vs a inti your obviously not interested in doing your job. Inti’s main defense is speed and tacklers have a number of ways to take that from them. Once they are slowed inti’s drop easy.
Play a frigate the way it’s meant to be played. With another frigate, covering each other’s blind spots.
You’ll notice that frigates haven’t been nerfed nearly enough to be on par with other ship classes, and that guard+engineer tandem is still hilariously overpowered. Especially when you have 3+ engineers and at least on guard frigate in a ball, at which point the trio becomes borderline immortal to everything short of massive nuke spam.
Not sure what that has to do with the Tacklers main job “killing inti’s”.Cloak is used to run away not kill with, so if your trying to use this vs a inti your obviously not interested in doing your job. Inti’s main defense is speed and tacklers have a number of ways to take that from them. Once they are slowed inti’s drop easy.
I guess I hadn’t been clear with my point there. After a tackler has done its main job, it can attempt to cloak and run, but cloak is too easily broken and that leaves the tackler pretty much defenseless. In other words, you’ll probably get a single kill before you get killed.
As for tacklers hunting down interceptors… tacklers require line of sight in order to keep their debuffs on. I believe pilots who mainly fly fragile but fast ships (interceptors and Fed tacklers) should know how to break this line of sight when pursued by using nearby asteroids as cover. A slowed interceptor can still break line of sight and regain their full speed to escape, but the tackler has to wait for its modules to recharge.
Tbh I’d wait until after the camera fix to draw conclusions about frigate balance. I’ve found myself able to still kill interceptors in T2 fairly handily as long as I have a minefield left to drop, and I expect that to improve once I can see a damn thing.
IMO the place for an engineer is around 3k behind the action. I give fire support to what’s in range while staying safe.
Not sure what you mean about engineering aura range being small. They’re 4.5k, identical to command.
My Machete type S has three buffs equipped - Coating Polarizer, “Aegis” system and “Valkyrie” system. All Mk III modules, all with 6,750m range. This is pretty damn impressive; it out-ranges Stabilized Railguns!
The Mk III gear on my Hydra-2, on the other hand, is capped at 4,500m.
My Machete type S has three buffs equipped - Coating Polarizer, “Aegis” system and “Valkyrie” system. All Mk III modules, all with 6,750m range. This is pretty damn impressive; it out-ranges Stabilized Railguns!
The Mk III gear on my Hydra-2, on the other hand, is capped at 4,500m.
le sigh
Command modules have 4500m range, just like frigate heal auras.
Your Machete type S only has 6750m because it has a ship bonus of +50% range for command modules.
Only a few command ships have this, not all of them, and the bonus has been nerfed along the board against what it was before. Command ships range bonus dropped from +100% down to +50% in 0.8.0 and moved around on some ships due to role changes, and the old command ship bonus of +30% command module effectiveness was nerfed down to +20%.
So if anything, Frigate buff reach is now nearer to command ship aura range than it was ever before.
Don’t pretend there is a huge conspiracy against (engineering) frigates please, it sounds a bit silly.
I’m with you on the camera change, it needs to be reverted back. But if you really think heal aura should be bigger, then I am baffled and dont know what to say to you, because balance-wise engineering frigates are still a bit too strong, not too weak.
My Machete type S has three buffs equipped - Coating Polarizer, “Aegis” system and “Valkyrie” system. All Mk III modules, all with 6,750m range. This is pretty damn impressive; it out-ranges Stabilized Railguns!
The Mk III gear on my Hydra-2, on the other hand, is capped at 4,500m.
Your Machete S has a range bonus to command modules (actually that’s pretty badass. I might have to get one…). The base range of command and engineer modules is the same.
