I could accept them being able to one-shot anything from across the map if getting close to them actually meant they would be in some danger. You can unload full Rocket complements and overheat your weapons multiple times and still not break through them though. Even if you do, they get respawns with all their equipment, meanwhile you’re out the rockets and missiles that are ESSENTIAL to dealing with them. This isn’t helped by the fact they get 6! regular weapons and I swear the ability to fire directly behind themselves. If you want sniper’s in the game their role has to be WAY more defined and balanced around that Devestator Beam.
the frigates are supposed to be support ships…they have the long range weapons to give long range support fire
yet some players like to stay at the same spot for the entire game (aka camping)
if you would lower the battle capabilities of frigates it would turn them useless for players as myself which use the figates to heal team mates / moving them fast to the beacons etc.
every ship can fire 360° in every dimension…the count of weapons capable to fire behind or under you is however decreased
There is a 6 page thread on forums with tests, mods and devs talking about how to change these abilities.
removal of them from the game will NOT make frigates useless
There are two options
redesign the mechanic to be more viable, but long duration cooldown
redesign the mechanic to be buff/support related.
i favor the latter, but i am not against the fore.
Give Jericho Missiles and Disintigrators limited ammo. Problem solved.
What’s the windup time on that thing? I think if you had to target, charge, and fire with a good 6-12 second window it would be a reasonable rate. Maybe make them have to deploy the gun, and firing into the barrel for massive damage.
10 seconds empire/fed
9 jericho
Lets see what we got:
Empire T1-1 Frigate does 2800dmg per hit. 3 Seconds per Hit. ->933.33dps
Assault Laser T1mk1 does 206,6dps. Frig has 6 Turrets -> 1239,6dps.
Empire T4-1 Frig does 4506,3dmg per hit. 3 Seconds per hit ->1502,1dps
Assault Laser T4mk1 does 258,7dps. Frig has 6 Turrets -> 1552,2dps
->>>> Disi is weaker than a mk1 Laser. Only thing making it better is the Range of 10km effective, 13km max. Compared to the Lasers the way bigger Projectile Size makes it easy to hit. Mele Disi will also give them a 360 shot with 100% of dmg.
Solution for me is to reduce the Range to ~7km effective. +30% as max range. Aswell as the rate of fire. 1 Shot each 6 seconds should do.
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Jericho T1-1 Frig does 4750dmp per hit. 16 Seconds per Torp -> 296,875dps (is a bit less right?)
Do i need to mention the power of the Lasers? T1mk1 does 1239,6dps!
Jericho T4-1 Frig does 7187,5dmg per hit. 16 sec per Torp ->>> 449,22dps (thats nothing compared to T4 Weapons and it can be taken out at t3 and above, also flares will kill its guidiance system)
Guided Torp is a bit difficult to balance. Since its low DPS but high on hit dmg makes it to a 1 shot 1 chance weapon.
Best way is to give T1 and T2 the Missile Defence back. The Current range of 10km needs to be reduced too, but by the current stats i do not know how far without hurting the Special to much. I guess ~8km will be a good range. Its current effective Range is set to 8800m if i take the travel speed and Time to reload. 18 sec to travel to max range.
Maybe even reduce on hit dmg to increse its rate of fire. Cooldown to 11sec. -> effective range will be 6055m max is 7870m. DPS stays the same. -> on hit dmg will be reduced by 31% to hold the dps. -> 4750dmg per hit will land now at ~3250dmg.
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I would also like to have changeable specials. This way we can also extend the worth of the ship role. But this needs to be discussed in a seperate topic for each Race/Faction/Shiprole.
I agree this needs to be changed. A ship should not have both the highest range (with high burst, often better for damage if you aim well since it’s harder to dodge) and be so tanky. You can’t even effectively kite around them since this game doesn’t really have firing arcs. If nothing else split this into 2 ship types, have one that lacks the long range snipes but retains the tankyness, and another ship type that gets the long range snipes. As it is, you can’t even beat a frigate in a 1v1 duel even if you can avoid all the long range shots. This is a serious problem. There’s a lot of new players with the game going on steam + TBs video, and you can already tell people are noticing pretty quick that frigates are hands down the strongest ship in the game right now.
Frigates should not be able to 1v1 fighters and good interceptors in a close range duel, until that’s fixed they will remain overpowered even if you nerf sniping.
So far I’ve managed to beat them in a stealth fight, just sneak up behind or under them then hammer their underbelly and rear. As a fighter with the right modules I can turn much more sharply and stay in the frigate’s blind spot, just under them. They can’t shoot me and I continue hitting them where it hurts the most.
Fair point, sniper frigates shouldn’t be so tanky. Perhaps reduce their shields or something? But for now, just get a ship with chameleon and poke at their bellies, usually works when they’re alone on the edge of the map.
Well this isn’t TF2 and not everyone has access to a Spy. For the most part Demomen or rockets can harass a sniper’s nest as well as counter-sniping, but it’s either you’re one of the two other factions with long ranged artillery or you have to buy a lynx model as fed.
One thing that devs could do is utilize the fact that 2 specialized frigates exist for every Frigate type - one dev could be made into a more frontline support/tanky frigate using support, command, and engineering modules, while the other could be a significantly less tanky frigate that utlizes their long ranged abilities to compensate for their lower tank. In the case of the Federation Frigate, make the support frigate tankier with additional short range drones, and the “sniper” frigate less tanky with longer-ranged drones, maybe able to persue a target.
Federation frigate drones need to behave like Gundam bits.
haven`t seen a federation “sniper” frigate…?
longest range is what… 3500 with lasers? compared to that 10km beam that is simply a more tanky assault ship.
besides the lasers may have 6 turrets, but mostly they do really low damage against an enemy ship… maybe i am doing something wrong, but they seem really uneffective to me.
haven`t seen a federation “sniper” frigate…?
longest range is what… 3500 with lasers? compared to that 10km beam that is simply a more tanky assault ship.
besides the lasers may have 6 turrets, but mostly they do really low damage against an enemy ship… maybe i am doing something wrong, but they seem really uneffective to me.
Lasers are crap, at least in my experience; I ended up using the same plasma cannons as my fighter. As far as I can tell, the Feds have neither sniper nor tank based frigates… just drones. :fed014:
How about:
Whenever you fire your the Desintegrator you will lose 20% of your shield, and you cannot regenerate shield for X second (between 5 and 10).
They CAN shoot directly behind themselves, most ships can as far as I know, also, 6 guns is not much better than 4 if what you’re shooting at is out of sight of most of them.
Frigates weakness is their lack of manoeuvrability, and whilst I still think they’re a little too agile, they struggle to keep an orbiting fighter in sight of all 6 guns, let alone an interceptor. If they were more fragile there wouldn’t really be any point in playing them.
If you’re struggling to kill frigates after closing them, might I suggest empire fighters? Your overdrive mode will allow you to stay out of their line of fire whilst dealing extra damage to take them down quickly.
I play the sniper frigate (only at tier 1) but I TOTALLY agree. the sniper frigate has the most tank out of the three factions. What needs to happen is the Raptor types (Federation faction frigate) needs to switch tankyness with the Harpy (empire frigate), because it is the only frigate that does not have a long ranged ability and it is prob the squishiest out of the three.
ALSO BUFF THE HP ON THE DRONES FOR THE FEDERATION. in the discription you might as well say “shot the xxxx once and it dies, or shoot a missile and the AOE will kill both” 100 hp is absolutely nothing, like at all. Not one gun can hit less than that. make it like 1500 hp or 2000, idk enough so that a single rocket doesn’t take them out when you are hitting the ship itself. I find it to be the weakest special ability out of the three types for frigates.
To say though frigates are really unmanuverable in a fight you seriously can’t miss them. An interceptor shouldn’t be able to take down a frigate so easily, and hell I know you can do it because I have with my Empire one, and I don’t even have a in combat special ability. It can be annoying but you have to be evasive, move around, and I don’t mean a continuous perfect circle. Might as well stand still then. But move up down left right here there. Make it hard to hit you.
Sniper Frigate/ Jericho Guided Missile are too efficient in T1.
In T2 I find it less efficient, since the upgrade of their damage power is less than the upgrade of hull and shield of most of the ship.
Of course it is strong against Interceptor. At least the Interceptor can pilot sufficiently well to avoid a lot of Empire Sniper shot … which is not the case with the Jericho Guided Missile.
Empire Frigate a clearly a danger for damaged fighter and interceptor, but I do not feel them as unbalanced in T2.
Jericho Frigate have not a strong DPS but their impact is sometimes too important in T2
in T1 both are little bit OP
Fed Frigate are totally different since you can not stand behind the line.
My 2 cents from a T1 and T2 point of view
Yes I agree, especially the Empire Frigate is far to effective in T1-T2 games. Not to mention if you engage one, solo you might get more then you barged for, since they are well armed and meaty. Jericho’s Torpedo is strong at the lower levers but becomes utterly useless in T3+ games. On top of that it does ff, usually resulting in massive blast hurting 3-4 mates while trying to grab a kill.
The torpedo has be be redesigned, while frigates altogether need some tweaking. - Like a limited rotation speed for its weapons, similar to heavy weapons, just slower :P.
The federation frigates should be the ‘real tanks’, but no, we get subpar shields and hull and get easily destroyed by 1 fighter…