I never would have predicted that I'd have started a whole family of threads when I wrote that economic tech analysis

LRF are a divisive issue, and I think everyone has their own idea on how they should be changed.  I think it's important to give this breakdown of DPS / command point for each type of TEC combat unit (it differs from faction to faction, but relative standing is largely the same):

Scout:  1.275
Cobalt:  1.9
LRF:  2.75
Heavy:  1.8
Fighter:  1.37
Bomber:  2.35

The problem is self-evident right away:  when it comes to damage output, LRF are simply the best unit in the game and dwarf everything else by more than 50%.  They also have the longest range by a substantial margin, and their speed is fast enough that very few units can kite against them, and nothing can kite while fighting back.  They're also an early-game unit that you unlock with relative ease.  Is there any wonder why they're so dominant?

One possibility is to just reduce their damage modifier against heavy, very heavy, and capital.  They're not supposed to be countering these units in the first place, but even with a 75% modifier they still pack excessive punch.  I personally think LF vs capital ships is roughly balanced as is, so LRF should be taken down below this level of damage because they're so good at focus firing.  Cobalts get a 50% modifier against caps, which results in 0.95 dps per command.  If our target for LRF is about 0.75 dps per command, a modifier of about 25% is in order. 

Another possibility is to turn LRF into sitting ducks and reduce their speed to make them the slowest unit in the game.  This would mean a capital that withdraws from battle only needs to build a little extra distance before LRF fall behind it and can't continue shooting.  They'd have poor mobility and slow down the entire fleet, and wouldn't be able to chase kiting carriers anymore.  This alone would make massed LRF impractical, but maintain their role as insane damage dealers.

The addition of a new unit with the role of countering the LRF in a defensive fashion would be somewhat ideal, but unfortunately new units are just out of the question in any official patch, so I don't see much merit to discussing it.  I think swapping around what counters what is a moot point in the same sense; I doubt the developers will completely rework the counter system of the game.  That's something that needs extensive testing and a beta of its own...

Im workin on a mod that is goin fairly slow as my time is limited.Tryin to center it around mp and makin all aspects of the game useful.Last time I made a mod it was just for mp and strictly fixed the main probs everybody was angry about but noone really used it.So this time I am makin it kinda based off my ideas and what I would like to see.Its a rough in at this point and not a ton of testing has went into it.I am going thru almost everything and trying to make it all useful for online play.I am only partially done but here some of my changes.

Doubled culture gain and loss rates.

Changed allegiance of planets to distance from homeworld:
  allegiance 1.00
  allegiance 0.95
  allegiance 0.90
  allegiance 0.85
  allegiance 0.80
  allegiance 0.75
  allegiance 0.70
  allegiance 0.60
  allegiance 0.50
  allegiance 0.40
  allegiance 0.30

Changed warning for low allegiance to 20%.

Decreased all levels for capship experience by 25%.In 600+ mp games I rarely(maybe 1%) see level 10 caps.Hopefully this will put caps more into the game.

Increased build time of a sb in enemy well to 2.75 from 2.25.

Change damage mutiplier antiverylight to antiverylight from 1.33 to 1.1.IMO flak kill fighters to fast fro them to do their job.Antiverylight to antilight from .75 to .85.Will help flak be more useful against lrf and bombers.

Change antimeduim to medium from 1.33 to 1.2.LF still die to fast to LRF.

Double turning speeds of all ships to help with pathing issues.

Change turning speed of 3 battlship caps by 150%.Increased thier speed from 500 to 510.Help with carrier cap kiting.

Change GRG damage to 750,1500 and 2000.

Dunov shield restore can target self now.

Dunov magnetize now affects 16,24,and 32 sc from 8,12,and 16.

Dunov emp blast range increase from 4500 to 9000,9250,and 9500.

Dunov Magnetize duration change from 10,12,and 15 to 15,20,and 25.Cooldown to match.

Subjugator suppresion ability range increased from 6000 to 9000.

Change scramble bombers to spawn 1 squad at all levels instead of 1,2,and 3.Change duration of squad from 120 at all levels to 120,150,and 180.Changed cooldown from 35 at all levels to 35,30,and 25.

Change celio shield recharge from 2.5 to 5.

Change range of flak burst from 2400,3000,and 3600 to 4500 at all levels.

Change range of tk push from 4200 to 5250.

Change weapon jam range from 4500,5500and 6500 to 6500 at all levels.

Increased am of Dunov,Antorak,and Rapture by 100.

Change Dunov Level 6 ability range from 4000 to 6000.

Starfish fleet points from 18 to 12.

Cooldown for missile turret on sova from 35 to 35,30,and 25.

Changed intial squad count on Advent sb from 2 to 4.2nd level from 6 to 10.3rd level from 10 to 16.4th from 14 to 24 and 5th from 20 to 32.

Changed Tec and Vas sb squad for initial from 0 to 2.2nd from 4 to 6.3rd from 8 to 12 and 4th from 14 to 22.

Change upgrade slots of all sb from 8 to 10.

Change Phase missile swarm am from 90 to 70.

Change range of Antorak speed boost from 5000 to 9000,11000,and 13000.

Change speed of carrier class caps from 525 to 500.

Changed Antorak speed from 525 to 600.

Change minimum extractors on ice and volcanic to 3 from 2.

Change reintegration activation from damagetaken 50% to 30%.

Changed Guidance ability duration from 15,30,and 45 to 30,60and 90 sec.

Changed Guidance ability to give 1.5 am per sec for all levels.

Malice duration and cooldown changed from 10 sec to 20.

Change ai retreat threshold from .25 to .35.

Changed all hull and shield research from 2 levels to 4 levels.

Increased refinery rates by 33%.

Increased resources focus from 8% to 17%.

Divination discount increased from 25% to 40% per level.

Changed Hardened Cities damage reduction from 5% to 15% per level.

Changed AM Recharger from tier 6 to tier 2.

Changed AM Recharger improvement from tier 7 to 4.

Changed High Efficiency Jumps from 11% to 20%.

Change Ruthlessness Damage from 1.5 to 10.

Change Ruthlessness from tier 7 to tier 8.

Now that malice has a target cap, ruthlessness is overdue for a buff, though 10 might be over the top. 

Do people really want Malice buffed?  Is it really seen as a poor ability?  It always seemed pretty decent to me.  The percent of damage propagated seems high enough already?  I mean, adding an additional 30% PLUS in damage is pretty strong, yes?

If the effectiveness of flak was reduced, we would have even more carrier capitals, which would be silly.  Halcyon vs Skirantra tier 0 spam battles like it sounds you want would be all that was left of the game... but perhaps I shouldn't be so abrupt. 

Light frigates have required constant buffs because they have been so vulnerable to LRF that they weren't able to fulfil their role.  What I suggested was also that LRF should be the heavy counter to flak, carriers and support, where they would have more success than LF because they are ranged.  As it is flak are too effective not because they are too powerful against fighters, but because their counter isn't viable enough against LRF.

Darvin's suggestion to reduce LRF effectiveness against very heavy and capital armour makes sense and might help to deal with the LRF problem.  At least LRF wouldn't be so multi-use, and other capitals would be more effective, the problem might be that carrier capitals would still be the most effective, more carrier capitals and flak fleets. 

If altering the counters system is out of the question, then the existing approach with incremental improvements to light frigates could be continued.  The light frigates don't seem to get much advantage from having 'medium' rather than 'light' armour, I'm not sure that Disciples have any advantage over Illuminators at all.  Perhaps LF should each get another armour point, to enhance their survivability?  

This thread wasn't meant to be solely about LRF or general game balance, however, but also about the impact of the features from the new expansion.  Next weekend, is anyone up for a new style of game- unlocked FFA, no alliance victory, with the diplomatic victory activated and active AI players?  I'd like to have included pirates, but multiplayer with pirates on quickly becomes dull in the current version.  Perhaps 3-4 players with the same number of AI?  Unlocked FFA are usually very long, but that should be altered with the relations points.... 

You've omitted the accompanying nerf to LF though.  You would build LRF to counter supports, as well as flak and carriers.  LRF would also still be able to hit capitals.  LF cannot counter Subverters or Repulse as effectively as LRF would be able to.  However, LF spam has an advantage over LRF spam in that it doesn't threaten non-carrier capitals as much.  Early defences are also far more effective against LF spam, turrets would become more useful.

What you have to consider is that even if reduced to 75% damage versus LF, but with their compensatory increase to 133% damage versus support, LRF would remain the most cost-effective dps unit in the game.  LF with 100% damage versus LRF and with only 75% versus carriers flak etc would be even less cost-effective dps than currently.  To spam a ship with a max 100% damage multiplier, that was ineffective against both fixed defences and capitals- that might be considered stupid.

There is little reason to suppose that this would result in no LRF at all.   With a random 5v5, which is effectively a rush map, then maybe it would be difficult to bring LRF into the game early... but capitals other than carrier capitals just eat up LF spam.   Why balance for rush styles that aren't even popular any more- and good riddance?  No other RTS is balanced for 5v5 team games?

The counters switch may be unlikely because of deeply ingrained attitudes and play styles, as you've pointed out.  However, the basic issue is that early LF favours battleships, colony capitals and siege capitals, and early LRF favours carrier capitals.  As I said, perhaps the solution is to continue to tone down the LRF counter to LF, as the developers have so far preferred to do.  That by itself would make large flak fleets more risky.  You would still get large LRF fleets because the range advantage makes them easier to deploy in a fleet.  How about an extra armour point for all LF?

I think there is a confluence of factors that combine to make lrf so strong and prevailant.

First is what others have pointed out - the lrf just deals way more damage than other unit types.

Second, they either counter, or hard-counter, relatively many units.

Third, I don't think there are many good options for countering them.  Carrier cruisers for fighters are quite expensive, and easily counterable by much cheaper, more spammable flak.  Flak itself isn't a great counter against lrf - it's more of a very soft counter.  It will do the job, but not very well, and in the end you are stuck with a huge fleet of flak that would get decimated by an lf or hc spam.

What you end up seeing is people countering lrf with lrf, which is of course a retarded game mechanic.  I don't do this - I refuse to play rock vs. rock, no matter the consequences.  But at least if you do it and end up out-spamming your opponent and winning, you wind up with a fleet that's good for something more than shooting fighters out of the sky.

These days I just start out the game building mass flak right off the bat.  It is sort of funny that I will beat back lrf spam after lrf spam with it, only to have the guy just spam ever greater numbers of lrf at me, usually being fed in a team game to do it.  The other day a TEC first spammed about 20 lrf at me, lost that fleet, came back with 35, lost that fleet, came back with 50-something, lost that fleet, and was on his way to the 80-something mark when I arrived at his homeworld.  He couldn't figure out what he was doing wrong.  Usually, just spamming lrf works for the guy, and he didn't know anything else other than mash the "build lrf" button over and over again.

Personally, I think flak needs to be made more effective against lrf.  One problem I have, particularly as vasari, is spamming out enough flak to keep up with an lrf spammer.  Flak (or, at least vasari flak) builds slower than lrf.  I would reduce the build time for flak, and up the damage modifier against the lrf armor type.

The problem with a flak buff is that it would be a buff to a unit that is already effective.  It's the LF that disappear from the battlefield, because flak are regarded as a better counter to carriers by making them useless rather than destroying them, and because LF are not good counters to Guardians and Subverters, the main unit type that they are supposed to counter.

However, the advantage of a flak buff against LRF is that it would help LF indirectly, and this help would come later in the game, rather than right at the start, the only time when LF spam is likely.  A flak buff also helps against carrier capitals.  I might want to simplify with perhaps a straightforward 15% increase to flak damage versus LRF, and then combine with a one point increase in LF armour.  While I appreciate the concept of reducing LRF damage against capitals, another approach to the same problem is to make it more risky to keep large numbers of LRF on the battlefield.   With LF more viable later in the game, the flak threat to strikecraft is also lessened. 

Agent, what factions were you and your opponent playing?      

the list is incomplete by far.Also the 10 for ruthlessness is taking into fact the passive regen rates of the higher research.Also its a level 8 tec now .I would llike it to do about 5 dps after negating high level hull and sheild research.Im dabbling in these to make research more strategic and affect game more.For example with higher research levels you might be able to go more research instead of just more fleet and hitting your eco.

I must say that caps are much easier to level and more fun to play with.All the changes I made have good impact according to thier ability.I am not done modifying some of the caps tho so none of this is final.Plus I have more play testing to do to balance and fine tune.

I will be doing something with hc to bring them in line a bit more with their cost and tec level.

When combined with a few Destras, and a critical mass fleet, you could focus fire one capital and everything else around it would die.  That is why this ability got nerfed.  It was WAAAAAY too powerful.  But they nerfed it to oblivion...  It needs to at least be a valuable ability...

the difference is ship type.  Bombers are SC which means that just like fighters, flak only has an 80% (if I remember right) chance of hitting.  So, really there is no difference between bomber-light and LRF-light aside from the type of ship. that has that armor.

And yes they would, but is that actually a problem?

That is how it works. Incoming enemy culture is pitted against your outgoing culture. The output from the culture centers stacks, but is split along each phase lase. So if you're outputting 36 culture on a planet with 4 lanes, each lane will get 9. The rate of allegiance loss is capped and depends on the difference between your culture and enemy culture. The greater the difference, the faster the rate of drop or increase, but as I mentioned it has an overall cap so at some point building extra culture centers becomes pointless.

The issue is that it's easier to beat culture back than it is to permanently get your culture over an enemy planet. Capitals repel so much that even when you win the battle by culture centers, he can just fly some caps over there and push it right back.

Unfortunately, that's pretty much the main purpose. It changes a bit how you play if you're going up against the hardest AIs (the lower difficulty ones accumulate them slower), so you might find yourself spending all your money on civic labs early in the game to research the techs and catch up - in one game I actually had to chase one Vicious AI's envoy ships and kill them to keep his relationship numbers down until I got ahead of him. But yes, the global +relations techs sort of cheapen the mode.