One easy change to make frigates more functional.

Suggestions Balance
#1

As it stands right now, 95% of all frigates in game are sitting in the back trying to snipe smaller ships.

 

If you look at the frigate active module load-out you see a large number of support based modules, meaning that frigates were intended to appear on the front line as well.  And as any frigate user knows, you let a smaller ship get close to you chances are pretty good you are going to lose.

 

In modern movies, and most space games frigates are “Tough” but a skilled pilot can take them out solo.  In our current situation, just about anyone can figure out you get behind a frigate and there toast meaning skill required to kill a frig is pretty low.

 

So where is the disconnect?  

Simple - The Flight Mechanics… As it stands, frigates are bound to the flight mechanics of the fighters, which of course is a ridiculous prospect as frigates are not meant to chase smaller ships around, they are meant to be tactical vessels where positioning on the battle field matters most.

 

So whats this fix!?

Also, Simple - Allow weapon targeting in free look mode…

Why;

  1. Frigate is not required to “Dog Fight” as it is now.

  2. Still requires pilot skill to preform, so a better skilled fighter could still out maneuver the frigs guns solo.

  3. Like frigates in the movies/other games you use your TURRETS to fight back.

  4. This will allow more diverse weapon options on frigs (like having rapid weapons installed for frontline fights)

  5. This fix could be easily implemented in the code and require NO changes to the current ship balance.

 

My opinion of course, just think this would be the easiest and most intelligent way to fix the frigate problem.

 

So… anyone else just love kittens!?

#2

KITTTAHS!

 

Yes, I completely agree with you. Im A interceptor Pilot and I usually have to stay away from frigates and focus on Fighters. Frigates are intended to support, Not just snipe from the back…

#3

Recalling the time in closed beta where every ship had turret mode like you sad.

 

Frigs simply overruled everything. Most hp most firepower in any way. We had freecam back there, so aiming was as easy as you only could imagine. At least 90% of the players whanted to remove this, and now a good time after that change i think it was a good step forward. The only thing right now that is bugging me is the low turret number frigs have for backward and sideward combat. 1 Back and 1 side is a bit less for a ship of that size and turnrate.

 

I think frigs should get at least 1 turret more for back and side combat. Pair it up with the AOE/CC modules frigs have. (Propulsion, Weapon inhibitor, Pulsar) and you get a Vessel capable of frontline fighting. I used similiar builds on my Federation Frigs and they where quite effective.

#4

Yes frigates need a more Tactical Role in the game. Obviously they will not be dog fighting but should directly or indirectly assist those who are capturing beacons. 

#5

Still would make more sense to have frigs have turret look, they could change the gun arcs so on the sides only 3 will fire and on the back only 2 will fire.  I have a feeling the earlier version didn’t restrict the freemode turrets much.  I can only guess as i only started playing recently.

 

I currently frontline/support frig as my main role (anyone who plays with me has prolly seen me spam about me camping A lol)

 

It is as it stands now, you are totally defenseless to anyone in a faster ship and 3/16 a brain, frigs should not be made to dogfight, that is so silly.

 

I can see freelook turrets destroying dogfighting, and I would imagine that is where the 90% issues that you mention come from.

#6

Oh lol, i just posted that idea in another thread. Well, guess turrets are out of discussion then :wink:

#7

im already state this on other thread, that frigate really need that free-turret view, but dont make em able to shoot at full power when shooting rear, like only some turret shoot at sides / rear instead full turret like shoot front

#8

i personally feel the ship we are calling now a frigate " is more of a identity confused heavy fighter".

 

i’d like to see the ship we see as a frigate, renamed to heavy fighter.

 

Give it 350 mass, fighter 150 (down from 350) and light fighter (interceptor) 75 mass.

Add a new set of slots to the game (Active slots) That are only for support (Buff or Recovery) based modules.

then give the heavy fighter 2 active slots for what ever. remove pulsar temp from the game.

 

This would force the heavy fighter to become more of a support role. I like the idea on top of this of them getting 15 missile and a 8 heavy missile (nuke, torp etc) Silo just to make them a little more heavy on hitting targets. On top of this, i’d like to see they be the only one with access to heavy weapons.

 

 

After this i would create a new ship (frigate) and make it a capital class, with the idea of turrets etc.

this ship however would be a bit smaller then the dread (currently its dimensions are 5000 m long, 1000 wide, 500 tall) i would

make the frigate 1500 m long, 350 meters wide, 100 meters tall (generally speaking) It would have something like 30k hull, 50k shields (or the other way around). 

 

the turrets on it however, i would slightly change. The idea of players controlling the turrets on each side are great, but on top of this i would add micro turrets that would act as point defense to the smaller fighter craft) these turrets would shoot at something like 240 rounds per a minute, with something like 60-80 impact damage. they would likely be charge based, thus would probably be rail or plasma, but the idea of a turret with blasters like the xwing in starwars is appealing to diversify the laser class of weapons.

 

 

When i look at capitals (this is frigate, destroyer, cruiser, Battlecruiser,Battleship, Dread,Carrier) i think of things like the dread. Massive, and something in general fighter craft dont effect.

 

The best way to balance this is to make it like the ships in X-Universe (well maybe slightly lower HP then that (20-40% less).

But in general that is the idea of capital ship’s i think will fit very well into this game.

 

then, from there is the idea of upgrading the fleet cap size from its current (Secret cap size planned is 32v32 in universe battles) to something like 75-100vs75-100 or even 150vs150. I think anything large then this is to much.

#9

I agree the frigate needs to be able to shoot more freely than its movement-dof - whether that means that there should be free-look turrets or maybe just a switch to change to the back turrets is up for discussion

it might be worthwhile thinking about reworking the dmg calculation for the frigate away from a distance and critical hit based one

 

it could go towards a model that has a dmg multiplier sphere around the ship where the multiplier is determined by the available turrets at that point (as someone already suggestd) - of course distance and critical hits will still be present - this will just add the number of turrets used (as it actually should be already for every ship quite frankly) as a multiplier - whereas a front/up shot will simply be 1.0 using all six turrets

if the mapping is linear the multipliers for a side shoot with three turrets would be 0.5 and a back shot using two would be 0.33

 

a logarithmic mapping would also be sane as damage occurs at the same time instead of one turret hitting after the other (and therefore cumulative)

 

obviously the field of attack will greatly increased which is fair enough given the fact that the full attack power will be limited to a narrowed lobe above and in front of the ship instead of being available everywhere the cross-hair can go as it is now
 

#10

@Uhmari: Hey appreciate the feedback, although I think the changes you suggest are too drastic for the current ship design, I think it would be easier to make a whole new class of ship for the “Heavy Fighters”.  If you look at the models of the current frigates vs. the models of the other ships frigates are built to look bulky, slow, and powerful, Making such a design move like a fighter would be jarring to preconceived notions of ship design.  

 

Plus, my kittehs really really like how they are now, they just hate how they have to point the fat boat to pew pew back at flies.  Also, Dr. Bliss thinks you got a bit off topic, but he is a bit of a “Bossy-boy”.

 

@tabin1: Oooooh interesting!  I would really like to see this in action, at least for testing purposes.  Although, I don’t want to take sniping away from frigates, im sure for some ppl this is what they love to do, I just want to see all ships have a chance at multiple roles and so far frigates are being a bit type-casted ATM.  

 

Dr. Bliss loves logarithmic hoodoo he says: “Although your proposal is quite intriguing, I think introducing a scaling damage system would induce more coding pressure where simply reducing the number of turrets being able to fire in a particular arc would only require modifying simple values in the current existing code and create damage scaling by simple volume”.  (Pfff, whatever!)

 

IF you ask me, tampering with numbers in such a way is extremely dangerous, and likely to get someone killed in hilarious ways…

 

Edit: @Courina:  Sorry i didn’t see your post under that huge sig, it would seem we think allot alike, you should point me to your post and we should totally go shopping together sometime!!  Also, you play Discovery mod? :smiley:

#11

I played the Discovery Mod for a few months :slight_smile:

#12

I think i quite like the way frigs work atm lol

 

To be honest i finally find them pretty well balanced, a feeling i was missing since the 6.0 was out lol

They could be long range/support ships or if well equipped thay could get a cahnce even in mid range combat,

just the way it should be. I think youy guys will notice this once you hit higher lvls lol

 

Well done devs…I really like the way they are listening to the comunity…

 

Once the clan wars will be out this game will be epic lol

#13

@ pink, I do not agree with you, with due respect, here is why

 

 

The dread is 5000 meters long, 1000 meters wide, and 500 meters tall.

 

Imagine, you are fighting something with 100k shields or hull, and you want to use a frigate vs that?!

 

It would be much better to create the heavy fighter idea, and then make a frigate that is larger. I want to give a refercing point. If you havent played x3 reunion, go get a torrent or something, and download x3 extended mod. It will give you the chance to get into any ship in the game. You can then fly the capital ships around, and the fighters, and get a very good idea of how it should be in this game.

 

The reason why i say it should be that way in this game is because that games light fighter, and fighter work just like in this game, they feel almost the same (well the ceptor is near identical for feel). 

 

They have a working up scale of capitals and non caps that work something like

 

light fighter (10k hp)

fighter (15khp)

heavy fighter (20k hp)

corvette (35k hp)

frigate (115k hp)

destroyer (155k hp)

cruiser (215k hp)

battleship (500k hp)

dread (1.5m hp)

 

Freighters are in the game also, and are some where between a crusier and battlecruiser in life.

 

Capitals in this game work on turret base concepts, Their weapons fire, shoot like heavy plasma in here, but at about 75% to 50% of the speed (depending on the turret) and deal in this game something like 5k a hit) their rate of fire is something like 110 in this game. So it will take roughtly 25 hits for a frigate, 45 hits for a cruiser, 100 hits for a Battleship. 45 seconds of fire for frigate, 85 seconds for cruiser, 175 seconds for battleship.

 

this would put the game into a similar feeling, and a balanced capacity.

 

Further, this idea would gain the support of X3 pilots who want a MMO Version of this game, bringing in millions of players to the game (potentially).

 

 

watch this to get an idea of a capital ships fire and feel etc.

#14

@Uhmari:  Tisk tisk, trying to hijack the thread again, this is not a ship-balance thread, this is about adding turret tracking to free look mode on frigates :P Silly!

 

You see, I stand by how the Devs have implemented the current ship design, this thread is simply addressing_ _a simple discrepancy in design logic.

 

I own the X series and Freelancer, and between the two, this game plays allot more like Freelancer (Thank all the gods) and i like it to stay that way, not that X is bad, it is just better for 4x then combat IMO.

 

I’d also like to point out that you should never endorse software piracy , as you did in your previous reply, that is simply distasteful…

 

@Error: I love it so much!  From now on I will shoot at you less often! <3

#15

rurrets were in the game before, they are something desired by many, but belong on large ships. They were removed because they dident work correctly. so adding them back on these three ships is very unlikely. however, adding them on a larger ship may happen.

 

hence the topic of the frigate.

 

it should work like x3 universe since that game is extremely close to this one (if not identical in terms of fighting)

#16

Well i do Agree , but wouldnt it be easier for the devs to grant the Frigates of any Tier 2 more Turrets that can only fire backwards ? Like you 2 more turrets that can backfire but you need to switch the view , pressing a key and you look backwards and can shoot . that combined with a greater usage radius and it might turn out well aswell .

#17

@Uhmari: I wish i would have been here to try the old turret system out, In freelancer there is a turret mode button that changes the function of your aiming.

 

Do you (or anyone) know if it is hardcoded for all ships to use the same aiming mechanics?  it seems when they make a change it affects all ships.

 

Also, have you played Freelancer?  I really think this feels more like Freelancer than X.  It is too bad Freelancer is so hard to find now, feel like i should keep my disc lock in my Honeywell safe lol.

 

@F4Z3: Unless the code for the aiming is locked to all ship types, free look or even back look should be able to handle this, in game you can see turrets tracking on ships, I actually think it would be much harder to recode ships to have 2 more hard points:

  1. you have to recode aiming to to ignore those turrets in different view modes

  2. You have to have you modelers and riggers go through all existing frigate designs and add new hard-points for the turrets to exist, if you look closely at the existing ship models there are hard-points for turrets and several modules, there are on a few ships (mainly T2 ships) unused module hardpoints, but I have seen no extra turret hardpoints on any of the models.

 

As of today’s patch looks like they have hard locked the distance of the mouse steering reticle;

Pros: Hey now there is real dog fighting on fighters/cepters as you have to now preform tactical maneuvering instead of just circling each other and letting attrition sort it out.

Cons: Frigates have this now as well, making them even more susceptible to flanking.

On the bright side: now it is harder for fighters/cepters to maintain constant fire and high speeds when attacking Frigs, well see how this pans out, but I’d wager this will not fix 99% of ppl just using frigs to snipe.

#18

I wish i would have been here to try the old turret system out

 

Thats still easy to understand. Press crtl and you can spin your cam around your ship. Back in cb we had this as flight mode. Aling the cam in a direction and press W to fly there. You could do some quite funny manouvers back there since WASD alinged the ship in that direction. Same for the Turrets. There was no blind zone. All turrets were able to fire in every angle. This lead to the problem that frigate could easyly take out every other ship not even in 1v1. Also some tanky modules granted infinte regeneration and a massiv amount of resistances. Frig was immortal boss back there.

 

So Uhmari if you go change frigs in your way, we come back to the old System and the known problems. Btw comparing X with Star Conflict is like Apple vs Orange. In X you have way more ships for way more jobs. Also way more Weapons. The ships are all AI controlled except the one you fly. Same for the turrets. I took on M2’s with my ill equipped M3 and took them down alone. Even if it takes 30min or so.

 

From that experience and development of the game we came to the current system. Reduced the tankyness, regen modules and also support modules for frigate. Continued with a reduction of the maneuverability and later on the limitation of the turrets. But this also caused a problem: What happens with the frig in 1v1 now? Once outmaneuvered, it wont stand a chance. So we introduced the pulsar and the CC modules for frigate to give them a bit of the old strengh back.

 

Now we have 2 options for frigates

 

  • Stand back and support via modules and long range skills, or

  • join the battle with CC modules and assistance of allys

 

And i dont see the need to rework frigs at all since you only need to equip them for the job you assing them to.

#19

@Gentaei:  Yea I have the Experimental pulsar on my T2, and in most cases that thing barely damages shields with how much regen ppl can stack, it only lasts 8 seconds and recharges for 50 i think, sure it auto targets but the damage is just too slow to be effective.  it is pretty worthless in its state.  and besides, 1 interceptor just has to ion zap you and that ends it early.

 

Edit: Also thinking about this subject, shouldn’t all ship be balanced to have a 50/50 chance in a 1v1?  the fix of having pulsar and and a CC mod means i have to block up 2 slots just to be on an even playing field with the other ship types, that doesn’t sound just a little odd to you?

 

Im still playing with the new locked cursor system.  I think it is helping out alot.  of course now I just back pedal turning towards my attacker and give em 6 cannons of heavy Plaz haha  I sure when other Frig pilots figure this out everyone is going to go nuts again.  I really think they need to look closer at having unlocked turrets for Frigates only, cause in the current build I can now track targets with all 6 cannons, if it was turret mode with set firing arcs id be tracking with 2-3 if they stay on my flanks or back.

 

Guess i cant complain too much since im benefiting from the current system.

#20

i keep hearing this, you have less, weapons and ships, but its really not holding water to be blunt its almost a desperate attempt to solidify the position of preventing the change.

 

If there is a light, medium, and heavy craft, it works fine. Imagine X with out capitals, Would it work? the answer is yes, it most certainly would. There for why wouldent it work here?

 

As for the weapons, they have nothing to do with it, there is a mix here. In X for example, you have many different types of weapons yes, but in general the concepts were the same as here. Xenon had rails, Federation had plasma, and some of the others (2-3) had beam weapons. So basically there is no difference here with the exception of that x had more choices of ROF and Damage.

 

for example you had 100 Rof, 50 damage

200 rof 25 damage

50 rof 100 damage

 

all plasma.

 

So the changing the ship mass has nothing to do with this.

 

 

changing to these rates will only grant the frigate (as we see it now) the role of a heavy fighter.

If we give it solo access to heavy weapons, we give heavy weapons viability on a ship, and also give the frigate a new unique role (mid range support). The tanking is like the weapons needed a balancing, so don’t compare this with the concept, because the modules as we know need to be normalized, and balanced.

 

The concept however, fits with the game, and you may see more sniping from it.