I used to love my Empire and Jericho frigates, but lately I feel like I’m more of a burden on my team than anything else.
The role of a Long Range frigate, one would think, would be as sort of a quasi-Guard; setting up an overwatch position and denying access, keeping the enemy bottled up hiding behind cover. Instead, Long Range frigates as they are presently implemented seem to almost force the player to camp in their own spawn rather than moving anywhere tactically advantageous.
LRFs are as slow as Guard frigates but without the shields, hull or close-defense modules to make them anything other than a suicidal sitting duck in close support, but they also lack the speed or utility modules (Warp Gate) of the Engineer allowing them to actually navigate the battlefield. Often, by the time you reach an advantageous position, the battlefield has changed and your position is no longer relevant.
Their module selection is nothing to write home about either. A 20% damage boost to sniper/torpedo damage that lasts for 20 seconds, which is long enough for just 5 sniper shots and barely long enough for 2 torpedos, and a module to make you untargetable for 20 seconds as long as you don’t move which I have yet to discern the use for as you’re still a giant stationary target and, at least with the Empire frigates, have a giant glowing red spotlight indicating exactly where you are to whomever you’re firing at.
But the final nail in the coffin of LRFs is that the one thing which their supposed to excel at - long-range damage - they aren’t even particularly helpful with. Yeah, the Disintegrator sniper can deal pretty good damage (almost 7500 with a Mk III weapon equipped) but it’s basically impossible to hit an Interceptor unless they’re standing still, and even a Fighter can easily dodge your shots at 75%+ of max range. The only thing you can hit reliably are other frigates, and they have enough HP that they can usually get behind an asteroid to heal unless you manage to catch them completely out in the open. Often I find myself thinking that I could be doing more damage reliably with my lasers at medium range save for the whole suicidal sitting duck thing. As for the Jericho torpedo, it can be completely neutralized by a single Guard frigate with a missile shield.
So am I alone in thinking that the Long Range frigate kind of sits in a No Man’s Land of uselessness? In my opinion, a speed buff bringing them in line with Engineers would go a long way towards correcting that. They don’t have the “tonnage” of the Guard frigates, after all, so why should they be as slow as them? It’s not as if a little extra speed would suddenly make them overpowered, and it would at least allow them to actually adapt to changing battlefield conditions. That and/or give them access to the Warp Gate module. I understand the rationale for giving it to Engineers, but their increased speed I feel allows them to keep up well enough with the front line as it is that they don’t need warp gates to traverse the battlefield nearly as much as LRFs.