Interceptors - Too Strong?

Ships
1

As it stands, I feel interceptors are too strong, and with the exception of the Empire frigates, frigates are too weak.

 

Interceptors are supposed to be fast, harassment ships, designed to disable the enemy at little risk to themselves.  Right now, they are speedy assassins that are nigh-impossible to hit, and often have very powerful modules (the Cocoon on Jericho frig is ridiculous  and the microwarp drive on the other faction’s frig is extremely powerful at both assassinating captains and escaping sticky situations).  Furthermore, their damage is ridiculously high, and while they have very little tank, they are so hard to hit it doesn’t matter.

 

On the flip side of the coin, frigates just feel too weak right now, with the exception of the lulz-lazor on the Empire frigates.  The ability to consistantly snipe that far is crazy.  At least Jericho Torpedos require the user to sit defenseless while being used, and have a long time-to-target.  As far as I’ve seen, Federation frigates seem very weak, as their drones are just…meh.  Their weapons don’t hit any harder than fighter or interceptor’s do, meaning that while you may have high tank, you’re going to need it, since you’re taking a beating from anything.

 

Personally, 2 things would fix this -

 

  1.  Weapon sizes based on ship size.  Having a Frigate and an Interceptor using the same weapons is silly - a frigate should have a much higher payload given its size, and access to a different set of weapons than an Interceptor should.

 

  1.  Visiting the abilities on the different ships, or allowing people to change the abilities on their ship - this would allow people to play different playstyles on a given ship, and prevent only one empire having access to abilities that seem extremely strong.

 

Thanks for reading, know it was a long post, but I really enjoy this game and want to see it do well!

2

As it stands, I partly agree with you on frigates. Frigates are actually the support class which provide buffs to help there team win. But remember people outfit their ships differently. And i know a good bunch of frigates that can kill a lone interceptor with ease.

 

They just recently changed the type of weapons that all ships can have any weapon they want, and BTW interceptors only have 2 turrets while the frigates have 6. 

 

And intercepotors are balanced right now. Its all about aiming and some people are just DANG good pilots. I remember even my self as a intercepotor pilot, I had a 2 minute showdown with this other guy and both teams literally stopped to watch us duke it out. 

3

As a person often debating this topic, I agree completely.

 

It is my belief that the frigate had one of two options

 

Increase Stats (HP etc)

Decrease mass

 

It was my belief that reduction in mass was the best (It still is, i feel that this will help dis encourage so many people that sit idle all game spamming ability)

 

However, the devs took increase stats. So i support this, but i think at current all ships need more of a stat increase

 

Jer - 10% more shielding / minor resist (or regen) increase

Emp- 8% more hull

Fed - 15% more shielding or 8% hull 4% shielding

 

As for interceptors, i believe they are harder to balance.

 

 

The options are

 

  • Nerf mobility increase tank

  • Increase tank

 

I feel both are wrong but i am not really sure how to address the problem.

 

I am currently viewing changes to modules as a means to stabilize them,

for example, buffing ceptor cloak to last 15-20 seconds, and have a 30 sec cd.

or decreasing or removing shield sap (though i feel this will vastly op this mod, it would fix them)

but in general i think their mass needs to be increased from 50 to 75mt.

4

Leave interceptor alone,

He have too low shild/hull and can die easy. Your only defence is your speed/mobility. Iff this is bothering you, you have multiples possibilitis to counter this. Frigates have the mod to diseable the enemy afterburns you know? Fighters have a mod to decreasy the enemy speed and special rocket that decrease the enemy speed too. Interceptors have the energy absorber to drain the energy of others interceptor. Witout energy they cant use the afterburner.

 

And to say they are to strong, they have ONLY 2 GUNS and need to focus the target to do damage. Awhile they are focus shooting, they are vulnerable.

 

The only thing a think the devs must remove is the stasis generator. This damm mod stop your ships and then the interceptor rocket spam on you.

 

The other thing is the jericho interceptor, he have a big shield tank but, once your shield is down he die fast.

 

Ps: DONT INCREASE THE INTERCEPTOR  MASS!!! THIS WILL MAKE HE A BIG AND USELESS PAPER PLANE

5

As it stands, I partly agree with you on frigates. Frigates are actually the support class which provide buffs to help there team win. But remember people outfit their ships differently. And i know a good bunch of frigates that can kill a lone interceptor with ease.

 

Two shot from desintegrador kill my t3 interceptot

One shot from Guided torpedo almost kill my interceptor(520+/- hull left)

Federation frigates easy, but i think the feg frig is for buffs/suport mod only, not for front line.

6

Yeah, after playing about ~50 games, it appears Empire Frigates with Disintigrators are the real problem.  When 6 people are all using the same ship ON EACH TEAM, something’s wrong.

7

it has been an on going battle with the devs to try to remove these abilities, they are breaking the game.

 

As for interceptors, they need to have a mobility nerf, not a speed nerf, do not confuse the two.

they are an unstable element in the game, just as it frigate weapons.

 

 

what needs to take place is the investigation of what is causing the interceptors to die,

my money is on those frigate abilities.

8

I started a thread earlier in the general discussion which actually hasn’t had a response yet about Frigates.  I am playing the Federation atm and it was feeling like I was just missing something in comparison to Jerico and Empire Frigates.  Because the other two factions have abilities on their Frigates which make sense to me, and while Drones is not inherently a bad idea on a Frigate its current iteration just isn’t working. 

 

Any single rocket will destroy both Drones, and with their already limited range of ~1500 m you have to be point blank to anything for them to be effective.  Anyone who has fought a Federation Frigate can easily point out that fighting one at point blank range is a joke, so essentially they offer little to a fight.

 

I wouldn’t say the Frigate abilities need to be removed, because they make sense to me.  Though I won’t argue there is some balance to be done with the Empire Frigate, either the power needs to come down a bit or the cooldown needs to be raised a bit.  Fed Frigates have about a ~45 sec cooldown on drones and they don’t add half as much punch power as that powerful laser on the Empire one which is a 3 sec cooldown.  The Jerico is fairly balanced as was pointed out because they are left defenseless when they fire it and I believe the cooldown is comparable to the Federation.

 

One thing I would like to see on Frigates is if there was a toggle button for a Turret mode where you wouldn’t turn as you moved the mouse but instead would just rotate your camera and turrets.  Interceptors and Fighters beat out Frigates in a fight if they can stay mobile and think quick, but currently are rewarded just for getting behind them and making as little effort as possible to stay there.

9

Interceptor are fine , i havent played a lot , but the few game ive played clearly show that speed it the only thing keeping you alive , you get in the open without afterburn you are dead in 2 second.

 

Federation frigate indeed lack offensive power , drone are totally defensive given the short range … and they are easily destroy by 1 missiles because they are too close and have only 100 hp…

 

I play my federation frigate has a guard ship , guarding the captain or station , hide behind a rock and wait for the ennemy to be in range and jump him… thats pretty much the only way to play it right now execpt if your team fly in formation… then you can be a pretty good support but no body fly in formation…

 

Drones should have an operational range larger , max 3000 meters would be enough… i mean right now our drone look dumb they have nearly no operationnal range… i mean if you have drones you should be more like a carrier not a satellite no?

 

And for turret mode to shot 360 degree , it s verry true , that should be available to frigate

10

And for turret mode to shot 360 degree , it s verry true , that should be available to frigate

 

Was available in Closed Beta -> Frigate was OP killing everyting. Close Combat was not possible.

 

Abouth the Topic:

 

Inters have the lowes Damage output and are quite useless if running out of rockets. The only thing making them “a bit too strong” is Stasis Generator but this is already adressed. Every thing else is fine. Speed can be reduced in many ways. Also Snipers are a very good Weapon to take them out. With the new gained Mobility they are quite difficult to take out but its not impossible.

11

I think frigates could do with a little buff, but as of now, playing T2,T1 as a forward Federation Support Frigate, I can do major damage and push hard. I’m outfitted with a warpgate and both shield and hull repair. Warping for emergencies or for movement. Using plasma and having the needle mod (changes it to kinetic) allows me to 1v1 any ship, even interceptors/fighters solely because if they circle me, the dps I deal ratio to their hull/shield compared to their dps to me is higher. As long as I switch between the two well, I can pretty much take on anything.  

 

That being said, it’s still hard to track interceptors, and I’m one of the few frigates that I see on the frontlines. It’s a good forward role, since if I’m low on HP I can just hide and support through buffs.

 

There definitely SHOULDN’T be 360 for frigates since that negates the advantage fighters and interceptors have over them. It’d probably be better to give their weapons a slight buff, or weapons range increase instead. Most of the damage in my fights are done while their approaching, and it’s easier to hit them.

12

And the heavy wepons are too overpower. Any frigate can OHKO my interceptor using heavy rail

13

There definitely SHOULDN’T be 360 for frigates since that negates the advantage fighters and interceptors have over them. It’d probably be better to give their weapons a slight buff, or weapons range increase instead. Most of the damage in my fights are done while their approaching, and it’s easier to hit them.

 

As said from me, 360 shot broke the balance in close beta and if brough back it will do the same again. If we really whant that back, then all turrets on frigs need to be slow barrel to allow inters and fighters to do mele combat. Otherwise frig will uber dominate the game again. So i dont belive there will be such a chage at all.

 

Range was nerved in generall to prevent players to camp far away of the action. Frigate already has the most dmg output. Only thing they chip on right now is the limitaiton for the turrets fireing backwards and sidewards. This could be changed to give them a bit more power in close and mele combat. But every other idea I came up or I have seen in forums will greatly change the frig in a way where i cannot see the results ingame.

14

Yea, I agree with changing the arcs. Changing turret turn speed slower would make it hard for a frigate to do combat with a fighter/interceptor. I can only fight them off one on one due to my extra health and shields since I can barely get one or two on them occasionally. I think a slight increase would be better though, since I don’t know how well other people place frigates, but I primarily play frigate types in games like these where you turn much smaller, so I’m pretty good at managing them.

 

One way or another, I’d like to see more frigates on the frontline that can actually hold their own. I still tend to get swamped since people see an easy slow moving target, and I pretty much can’t dodge even with afterburners, so I built tanky instead. Makes it a turn off for a lot of frigate players. Hoping to see a buff to Federation craft, since they seem to be the frontline frigates, due to drones, but the drones are still pretty weak. 

15

Since when did interceptors have “ridiculously high” damage? They have TWO turrets, compared to the fighter’s four and the frigate’s six. Their damage is absolutely pathetic compared to everything else.

16

back in V07.5 they had a hidden damage buff of 40% to make them viable against figher and frig. this got removed in V0.7.6. Since this ptach i think they are to weak if main weapon only. So im not using them anymore. Id rather use a speed build Federation Fighter for that job.

17

Woops, doublepost. Damn phone :stuck_out_tongue:

18

Yeah, I think my original point about ints is somewhat outdated, though an int with shield drain + damage mods + crowd control + plasmas absolutely wrecks right now, simply because as soon as you wreck the targets shields you switch to kinetic and wreck them, though that’s more an issue of cc being a little too strong right now rather than interceptors themselves.

If you’ll read the thread, you’ll see that, having more experience with all 3 types of ships up to t3, I realize Frigates are the real problem - I was still T1 when I wrote the post, flying a fighter, and was not running into the massive amounts of Guided Torp/Disitigrator spam you see now.

19

I find that interceptor damage is on par with its main weapon, however i would like to see alternative changes can give them the edge for a limited time.

 

 

One of these changes, is to implement a change in the missile / projectile system.

 

The idea is to (writing that part i just realized i am no the russian forums to long, as the translation translates just like that :wink:

Anyways, the idea is to take all projectiles (missiles, rockets, etc) And turn them into Mass-based items.

 

For example, rockets have 2 mass, cruise missiles have 4, and mines have 3.

 

Change the silos from being amount/amount to being Mass/Mass

this will cause the removal of “rocket, missile, or heavy missile slots” and allow ships to customize more.

 

If it works out that cruise missiles on interceptors would be to strong i would add a mass size limitation to it. So that interceptors can run around with

 

Other wise i would like to see

 

20/20 rockets on interceptors

15/15 missiles on fighters

10/10 heavy missiles on frigates

 

I would make changes to the cruise missiles, and torps.

 

I would lower torpedo’s to being more of an interceptor based weapon, they can use for bombing runs on frigates. (being near 1.5 times the damage of rockets)

20

Yeah, I think my original point about ints is somewhat outdated, though an int with shield drain + damage mods + crowd control + plasmas absolutely wrecks right now, simply because as soon as you wreck the targets shields you switch to kinetic and wreck them, though that’s more an issue of cc being a little too strong right now rather than interceptors themselves.

If you’ll read the thread, you’ll see that, having more experience with all 3 types of ships up to t3, I realize Frigates are the real problem - I was still T1 when I wrote the post, flying a fighter, and was not running into the massive amounts of Guided Torp/Disitigrator spam you see now.

+1 agree

 

As a frigate sniper, I will admit that the Disintegrator is over powered. I think it either needs to have reduced range, or changed into a completely different ability.