The bottom line is, LRF are king overall in this game with bombers just below them.  LRF are slow, but they have long range.  LRF are not hard counters to anything aside from LF, but they have exceptionally high damage to begin with.

The point is, they are very difficult to bring down when used properly, and Darvin is right.  Good players will end up playing rock v rock.

 

Due to these issues, in my mod I'm actually creating an entirely new unit with the sole purpose of taking out LF.  Its called the Defense Cruiser, and it lives up to its name as most of its abilities actually reduce the damage taken by nearby forces.  In my mod, I also increase the percent of damage of LRF against HC to amplify the effect to create a triangle of LRF>HC>DC>LRF so as to limit every one of them to some extent.

 

The point is, they are really freaking powerful in the hands of someone who knows how to use them...

 

Yes, absolutely. LRF's and bombers are the damage kings. Which would be fine and dandy if that was actually my point. It's not. The problem is, a DESTROYED long range frigate has a DPS of zero. So does a dead carrier. About the only unit in this game that can do damage after it's dead is the Vasari Egg, with its nifty damage-over-time-that-goes-right-through-shields (which is my personal favorite).

The real bottom line is, you get twice as much firepower out of LRF's before they get blown up. But they're damn easy to blow up.

Assuming the LRF's made it to their target undetected. PSIDAR, anyone?

Okay. Fine. You retreat. And guess what, the defenders simply pursue you. You can't retreat from something that's faster than you. Now, I know your reply to that: the LRF's simply hide behind a starbase or a friendly fleet. The point is, the LRF's need something BESIDES AN LRF to cover them. At which point it's not LRF spam any more--it's a mixed fleet.

You and Volt are both leaving a lot of stuff out--assuming ideal circumstances for the LRF and non-ideal circumstances for the opponent. The reality is that the opponent will likely see you coming and MIGHT already have countermeasures in place. The reality is that your LRF's may not have anywhere to run to when they have to run--if they have to phase-jump five times to find a starbase to hide behind, they are going to die.

If you're careful with them, you won't lose them that easily.  As I've said before, the key to good play is to be proactive, and stay one move ahead of your enemy.  You don't lose your harassing LRF because they're already jumping out when the defenders arrive, and with carriers this is even easier to achieve.  

I've had some great harass wars with enemies before, and I can tell you that it's somewhat rare to actually get a takedown on a carrier because a good player always keeps his escape routes open and won't allow himself to get cornered.  Carriers are really tough, too, so you need to pound them with a lot of damage to take them down effectively, and with good kiting and fleet movements that's much easier said than done.

The problem with LF, as I already stated, is that they have to stick around and stay firing for much longer to get their kill.  This gives defenders more time to catch up to them and drive them off before they deal serious damage.  Their speed makes them harder to catch, but their low damage also means they're less dangerous to begin with.

The idea of using LRF is to lean on that high damage.  Get in, blast your target, and get out before the enemy can do anything about it.  How is a LRF going to die if it's already retreated before the defenders get there?




You'd need 2-jump PSIDAR to have any real benefit; good scouting gets you way better intel than 1-jump PSIDAR.  Personally I think 1-jump PSIDAR isn't even worth researching, since you really only get a 10 second heads up which in this game isn't worth a lot, and 2-jump PSIDAR is basically just an alternative to active scouting for inconveniently large empires.  In any case, someone who has undefended flanks either needs to be actively scouting, or be prepared to write off some losses if he gets blindsided.

If he's got intel, your oppponent is preparing his defense before your harassers even arrive.  This means bringing nearby units to that front-line to defend, and producing new units near the front-line (good players will have frigate factories near every front, with repair platforms nearby, so forget about cracking them with a small harass force).  If he's assembled before the harassers arrive, then it doesn't matter what units you have, they're doing an about-face.  If he isn't assembled, it's about getting the job done before he arrives (and having your own counter-intel to be able to coordinate your retreat before he shows up).  This is where LRF excel, they get the job done that much faster and give the enemy less time to react to you.




You got a grand total of two units that are faster than LRF by enough margin to actually close distance:  LF and scouts.  I've already stated that LF are the correct unit against carriers in this situation, but the problem with light frigates against long range frigates is that you need to outnumber them 2:1 to have a good shot at beating them, which is completely impractical.  This leaves you no recourse but scouts.  Back in 1.181, scouts pursuing LRF was just as effective as LF pursuing carriers, and it was not uncommon to see roaming packs of scouts used both offensively and defensively to pressure LRF.  If they were still what they used to be, I'd agree with you and write off LRF as unsupported harassers because they're too vulnerable.  This is why the LRF issue has become a hot button again in 1.19, because the scout nerf neutered our best counter!

Now, pursuit over multiple gravity wells is a much more difficult proposition than pursuit over a single gravity well, and it essentially comes down to the jump.  If you want to do a disorganized jump (the retreating enemy will do this) you can actually clear out very quickly and the jump itself is a negligable portion of travel time.  If you do not want to break formation and want a group jump, this means you have to both wait for your slowest units to cross the gravity well (you lose all speed advantage) and you need to line up, which takes even more time.  This means if you want to successfully pursue across gravity wells, you need to do a disorganized jump.

Disorganized jumps work very well if the enemy doesn't have a substantial lead on you, but if they had some intel and started their retreat before you arrived, chances are you have a full gravity well of distance to cover to catch up.  There's a fairly good chance they will elude you, reach friendly territory, or rendezvous with reinforcements before you catch up.  This makes your job as defender very frustrating, and this is why good play is about being proactive.  You can't catch up to someone who knows where you are and how much time he needs to successfully retreat, you need to be ready for him and deprive him the time he needs to get his job done.  This is why LRF excel; they get the job done faster, so you need a smaller window of opportunity to successfully harass.

In any case, if fleets are big enough and we're talking about escourted carriers (which is to say, the classic LRF/Flak/Carrier fleet) then this is effectively a moot point since the only fleet you should send against such an opponent is LRF/flak/carrier or perhaps HC/flak/carrier.



Look before you leap.  If you jump into an ambush, it's your own fault and it's not going to matter what units you have.



Again, your own fault if you let your LRF get stranded like that.  Good players are proactive, and they don't let themselves get trapped like that.  

If you're thinking ahead, 5 jumps isn't actually an impossible escape distance.  Presume you have a 1 gravity well advantage, you'll get at least two jumps before the enemy closes, which means you have enough time to dispatch reinforcements from the other direction to rendezvous and make the enemy back off until his slower units catch up, which should let you escape.

Of course, going that deep into enemy territory is quite risky since all he needs to do is put up one well-placed PJI and you can be screwed regardless of your unit type (although bombers can blast the PJI while the carriers keep fleeing, so you have a good response there)

Though I find the concept of friendliness levels with dead factions contributing to victory more than slightly bizarre- especially the concept of proximity to their former territory- for this post lets assume that the relationship points victory will stay the same and the question is how to adjust it using the existing system.

The problem is that it is all too easy to fulfil missions by simply playing an ordinary game and building a strong fleet.  At least up to Unfair level the other factions are just too friendly at the start.  Having looked at one game I was playing, I had occupied a planet next to one of the factions and was heavily engaged with their forces in the next gravwell, owned by them.  Yet my relations score on 'Adjacent' was still 0.00?  The concept of factions being adjacent is either bugged or broken, so it either needs a fix or a better worked mechanic, so that it keeps track of positions.  That might help keep the game competitive in the middle stages.

The mechanic for strong fleet is just wrong, it should be altered so that a weaker fleet inspires better relations.  Then you could have two paths, fleet or relations, with a mission specialist flleet.

Faction inclination is also underemphasised at present.  Even one mission can wipe out centuries of hate.  How about missions +2 with a further bonus of +1 when the ability to give missions is researched.  Also a base of -4, weak at -8 and strong hate at -12?  I'd also want to up the value of the inclination research to perhaps +4, a real incentive to get this tech.

Then we could add in my favourite element,  a general relationship bonus for each artefact possessed.  This should be significant to give a real incentive for exploration another underused aspect of the game, how about +4 per artifact?  After all, if you have relics of times past, everyone would want to pact with you!  The bonus could go into the 'Diplomatic Inclination' points, perhaps.

If we absolutely have to have a quick fix 'relations bonus' for the AI so that it will offer pacts to the player without needing extensive work on the AI, then surely the AI should also enjoy this bonus among themselves?  As it is the AI relations bonus does not cure the problem that only the player is actively trying to increase relations, it instead exacerbates it.   If the AI never stop fighting each other, the player will win if he survives the early game. 

The relations system was introduced late in the beta and like the pirates really needs more work.  Entrenchment has had five patches and mines still haven't been solved... and mines are far simpler than AI relations.

Once again: you left out the part about the LRF's getting IN.

YAY! He figured it out!

You just said in that SAME post that a good player isn't going to get caught with his pants down--your assumption about an LRF's high DPS is that the defender DOES get caught pants-down.

Get in, blast your target, and get out fast. You're right about that, definitely--but how do you get IN?? (side note on that--an LRF pack, being slower, is going to take longer to get TO its target, giving the defender more time to react--you left that out as well)

Faster units can get in through anything--by simply going around it. PJI? Doesn't matter if the attackers don't jump out; they can simply run circles around the well and dive in to shoot stuff once they get a lead on the pokey LRF's pursuing them. No, faster units are not universally better; in a decently-written wargame, everything has its ups and downs. Which leads me to this:

There are already three ways to beat LRF spam: exploit their slow speed, tech up to heavy cruisers, or prevent them from being built in the first place. Problem is, each of these approaches has a downside which causes people to get all whiny and complainey. It seems to me that everyone's looking for an anti-LRF approach that has NO downside. News flash, folks: there's no such thing. In a decently-written wargame, everything is necessarily going to have pluses and minuses.

This depends on how the front-line is shaped and what kind of approaches you have.  This could range from trivial to quite challenging, regardless of what units you're throwing at him.  The most intense harass battles I've had in the past have been where I share a large border with my opponent that gives us both innumerable approaches, which usually means getting harassers in is just a matter of making a single jump.  More difficult situations might be using a pirate-base back door, but even that's just a matter of planning.

In any case, if getting in and out is a significant issue, you should be using bombers.  LRF are used for their high damage, and in most cases that damage output will completely outweigh their low-end mobility.  If the mobility is a significant handicap, you should be using bombers.  Light frigates are simply not the right unit type, because even though they have the mobility they lack the damage to get the job done.

 

As I just said, people don't fortify every planet, they simply leave infrastructure nearby so they can assemble forces on the spot to repel an incursion force.  To some extent this relies on scouting, but another extent (as I said) it's simply the admission that a certain amount of losses are acceptable.  Having your "pants down" implies that some critical assets are exposed, not that you're somewhat overstretched and you've left some minor to moderate assets unguarded. 

I've said this time and time again: your goal is to get in there and deal as much damage as possible within your window of opportunity.  Good players will keep that window relatively small, which is why high damage output is the key.

 

They're not that much slower.  Unless you've got a massive harass force, most of your time is going to spent pounding the structures (if you want to actually kill them) not moving around.  If you're actually hitting hard enough that you can vapourize structures without pounding on them for a while, you'd get a lot more performance out of bombers than either of these two options.

 

If you stop to attack anything, the LRF will catch up.  Even a very large force of LF will take over a minute to knock out a structure, so this is completely a non-option if you're being pursued.  This is why bombers rock for harass.  The carrier can attack while it's on the run, whereas the LF and LRF cannot.

The defender has two options.  He can use a small force (probably 40-60% cost-value) of LRF to keep you occupied, and he won't need to worry about losing anything.  If you stop to attack, he will catch up and deal some casualties, so it will be an endless chase.  This is perfectly acceptable from the defender's standpoint, because a smaller force units is keeping a larger force of units in check, which is all he really needs to do to counter your harass.  The other option is to hit it with a force of 80-100% cost-value, then use a pincer to catch it.  Because your units cant turn on a dime, he will force you to withdraw if you don't want to take casualties.

 

Exploiting their slow speed is easier said than done, but that's essentially all we have.  Teching up to heavies takes too long (LRF will beat heavies if you don't have them in sufficient quantities), and LRF come out too early for you to prevent them from being produced (in a front-line scenario, a player is likely producing them before you've even scouted him).  Back in 1.181 the scout could be used to really hammer the LRF early, but it took a 20% damage nerf last patch and this really sank it as a unit.

My problem with the LRF isn't so much that it's a ubiquitous unit type, but rather that its dominance is really sidelining the light frigate, and that its high propensity for focus fire (bombers have the same issue, with mobility rather than range as the culprit) suppressing the utility of capital ships and reducing our options. 

 

 

That doesn't help anything. Light carriers and carrier capitals are even slower than LRF's.

Yeah. And you've been wrong time and again. Speed AND high damage are both key. Where you're going wrong is in how you do the math. Most people measure DPS in terms of shot speed times shot damage. During a game, that's not how it works. DPS is measured in terms of how much damage you can do within that window of opportunity you're all on about. As I've said "time and again" (I had to squeeze that one in here somewhere!), once the window of opportunity opens you've gotta get in before you can start shooting. You've got six minutes to get in, blow stuff up, and get out--how much damage can you do in that six minutes? The middle two minutes when you're blowing stuff up is only one-third of the problem.

 

Bombers have their own problems. What I run into most often is the bombers getting shot down (and, of course, a dead bomber has a DPS of zero). Most of the time, the defender concentrates on the bombers first, and I lose a lot of bombers before I can knock down the defender's fighters and flak frigates. But here's where I depart from the ordinary masses: I attack with a mixed fleet, so that if all my bombers or LRF's get whacked, I can stay in there and keep blowing stuff up. My war machine doesn't grind to a halt if one bolt comes loose.

I find different ships useful or worthless depending on the circumstances; sometimes LRF's are best, sometimes bombers are best. Sometimes light frigates are best. If you're up against a strong choke point, light frigates and heavy cruisers can frequently fly right THROUGH it with minimal casualties.

Tends to depend highly on the map. I've successfully pulled off all three methods. Preventing LRF's from getting built usually only works on a small map (though once you get rid of a fleet of LRF's, destroying the defender's frigate factory and military labs will buy you some time before the next LRF mob comes along)--and teching to heavy cruisers works AWESOME on a large map.

Easy solution: give light frigates a damage bonus against structures. Make the light frigate tempting as a raider. On the flip side, bombers could afford to have their anti-structure damage turned down a bit.

Capital carriers are faster than LRF, but you're right that cruiser carriers are a tad slower.  But in any case, what does it matter?  Carriers don't need to move into position to attack.  They can sit at the edge of the gravity well or kite and their strike craft can continue to attack with impunity.  They can phase jump out the very moment an enemy arrives.  They're also extraordinarily tough units, so even if you do catch up, you need to pound them for some time to bring one down.

Catching and killing carriers is easier said than done, and if well-managed you'll have to work very hard for each and every kill.




I've already spelled out the math;

Against structures, Cobalts get 0.95 dps / command, and LRM's get 2.06 dps / command.  Presuming 40 command of units and taking down a 5625 hull point lab (that's after counting armor), it takes your Cobalts 148 seconds to smash the thing, and your Javelis take 68 seconds.

The difference between a Javelis and a Cobalt's move speed is not so significant that travel time difference is 80 seconds.  If you're attacking with much larger forces or at greater distances (which would favour the Cobalt) you should be using carriers anyways.



Doesn't quite work that way.  For one thing, this depends on having defending fighters in position.  Not impossible, but unlikely to have sufficient numbers in place.  Hangers are ridiculously overpriced for what they offer, and carriers take their sweet time to build (plus then they have to prepare their squads after being built) so assembling those kinds of defenders takes even longer than usual.  Now, if he has a couple unescourted carriers just sitting on guard duty, then I fully endorse using light frigates to go and pressure them, but players rarely leave such expensive units just sitting around.

The second issue is suppression.  It's not enough to just thin out the bombers, because the carriers are mobile factories constantly producing new squad members.  You actually have to suppress the bombers so that they're just getting blasted before they do any damage.  This is difficult and time consuming if the bombers seriously outnumber the defending fighters, and it's very likely they will get the job done before the fighters clean them up.  However, it gets even harder if the bombers have even a couple escourt fighters in the mix.  Fighters kill fighters about as quickly as fighters kill bombers, so your fighters are getting thinned out as the battle goes on, further extending the longevity of the bombers.  As a rule of thumb, if I've got 60% of your fighters and you can't focus fire them because they're masked by a cloud of bombers, I will succeed in suppressing your fighters before you even dent my bombers.



If the enemy has substantial enough units on guard to knock out your bombers that quickly, we're not talking about harassment anymore and more of a second front-line, in which case you want a more holistic force, containing a mix of unit types.  Depending on the situation, that may involve light frigates, but they'd be there primarily to clean up flaks, support cruisers, and carriers.



If you plan it well, you can do this with any unit type.  Most choke points (asteroids are a little tougher) only have defenses concentrated in a small portion of the gravity well, so by picking your jump angle appropriately and quickly mobilizing to the right position you can get by with almost no troubles.



It'll work against Advent (mind you, this is exactly why Advent is gimped in these circumstances) but not against TEC or Vasari.  As soon as they get wind that you're in close proximity, they'll have military labs up on their homeworld and LRF pumping.  Back in 1.181 you might have been able to quickly get a scout fleet online to stop that in its tracks, but in 1.19 that's no longer viable.


If you can achieve that, you're in good shape.


Personally I'd tech to bombers and support cruisers with LRF escourt, but such scenarios are uncommon in online multiplayer.


While that would somewhat help the ancillary role of the light frigate, it doesn't change the fact that in a straight fight, the LRF outclasses it by such a ridiculous margin that it's simply a non-viable unit.  The LRF is all-around more versatile with favourable damage modifiers against virtually every unit type, and its long-range lets its focus fire with great ease.  The light frigate just gets carved up and doesn't have the base stats to compete.

Honestly, if anything about the bomber and LRF needs to get toned down, its their damage versus capital ships.

Yes they do. They have to get TO the gravity well in order to hover on the edge of it.

No argument there.

Argument there. Depends where you're going. If your target is the enemy homeworld three phase jumps away, it damn well does take longer than 80 seconds.

Yes. It does. Nothing I've described in any of my posts is theoretical--it is all stuff that HAS HAPPENED in games I've played. Bombers are excellent coming off the starting line. But as a battle wears on, and a determined defender shoots them down, you run out of bombers, and you get to the point where every bomber squadron in the fleet list on the left side of the screen is red-lined with one bomber. Yes, the carriers can rebuild them--eventually. But even after the enemy air defense is gone, my bomber DPS frequently goes way down for a while, until the bombers get rebuilt. Against stiff air defense, I sometimes (not always) get better results by skipping bombers entirely and switching to LRF's, LF's and heavy cruisers with an extra helping of flak frigates. Again: that's NOT theory. It's practice. It's what actually happens in my games.

Cut 'em some slack--hangars don't use fleet points.

Heheheh. You're in for a surprise here, bud. I just did a few tests (yes, with the latest Diplomacy patch). You're pretty much completely wrong. LRF's are good against LF's, but nowhere near as good as you're implying.

These are all tests you can run yourself.

First test: two LF's against two LRF's. I accidentally left my race on "random" and got the Vasari, so this test was two Skirmishers (which are pretty beefy) against two Javelis LRF's. The Skirmishers won. Yes, you didn't hallucinate that--both Javelises destroyed, one Skirmisher lost (the surviving Skirmisher had about fifty hit points left). That was a stand-up fight. Then I ran the test again, with proper micro: I had the first Skirmisher flee and jump out just before its shields dropped--and gee, big surprise, the Javelises couldn't catch it when it ran, because the Skirmisher was FASTER! End result: two Javelises down with no losses, though the second Skirmisher was heavily damaged.

Second test: I tried this one with the flimsy Advent Disciples--four Disciples against two Javelises. With micro. This was harder, because a Disciple is little better than an Imperial TIE fighter, and you need to have it jump out immediately if somebody sneezes within a light-year. Advent won with no losses--though three Disciples had to flee, and all three of those took heavy damage. Conclusion from the first two tests: with proper micro, LRF's will lose because they can't catch a light frigate that runs away.

Third test: For these last four tests I took race out of the equation and made it TEC vs. TEC. Test number three was ten cobalts against ten Javelises, because the first two tests surprised me and I was wondering if the patch had some kind of huge bug in it. So this one was ten LRF's against ten LF's, straight fight with no sissy running-away. LRF's win--but SIX of them are destroyed. The two-to-one superiority of the LRF didn't seem to be holding up.

Fourth test: ten vs. ten again, with micro: each cobalt runs away as soon as it comes under fire. Final result: ALL TEN LRF's destroyed. Three cobalts lost, two others damaged.

Fifth test: ten vs. ten once more, but I switch sides and micro the LRF's instead. The micro turned out to be little help, and five LRF's were still lost--they were just too damn slow to escape. (I suspect the real reason one fewer LRF was lost was because the cobalts were not being micro-ed and so their DPS went down over the course of the battle--the end result remains that micro doesn't help an LRF very much at all)

Sixth test: I was having a hard time believing those last two, so this time I play as the ten Javelises, and I fight RIGHT NEXT to the jump-out point. I micro the hell out of them, having each LRF jump out the INSTANT it comes under fire. This time, eight Javelises survive--BARELY. All of them are severely damaged. That's pretty much best-possible-case for the LRF's.

Sixth test: Ten Javelises against twenty cobalts. No micro. I was expecting the Javelises to win. WRONG! The cobalts won handily with only five losses.

 

Final rundown: if properly micromanaged, light frigates can beat LRF's in even combat. Unless it's a big fight (say, twenty or more LRF's) in which each light frigate gets blown up before it can fire up its sublight drive to run away. Further, LRF's are more expensive in crystal. Handled properly, light frigates can (sometimes!) inflict greater economic loss on the enemy, even though they only put out half the DPS.

All of these tests were stacked against the Javelis, from a little to a lot....

Javelis are 4 supply cost and the smallest and cheapest of LRF -- the comparable ship for LF is an Advent Disciple.  Cobalts are a bit bigger (5 supply), and Skirmishers are very tough for LF's at 7 supply.

Micro does make a very large difference in the outcome of a fight, but you don't have the luxury to individually micro a few LF past the first stage of the game. 

Since they got buffed, LF are a lot more useful than they used to be.  The main problem is that in Entrenchment and Diplomacy, LF's become completely marginalized by Battlestation tactics.  You just don't want to invest too much in a ship class that is completely useless in mid-late game.  Both LRF and Carriers are much more versatile in what kind of targets they can take out.

In Vanilla, I think LF's still have their place to chase down and punish people who go carrier cruiser crazy.

At least, that is how the balance worked when Carrier Cruisers got their first major buff over a year ago.  I think that was the most balanced the game has ever been, personally.  It was hard to protect your LRF from carriers, but by virtue of this, LF's became critical to chase down carriers.  Caps with anti strikecraft abilities were more useful and strategies that had a heavy investment in Flak even worked (a few flak wouldn't cut it).  But everyone screamed bloody murder that carriers were too tough, so we moved back to the LRF as being the MORE useful ship, but at least now it needs some flak support. 

I think the Carrier Caps getting overbuffed is a bigger problem than LRF's right now.  I always thought the Carrier Caps had useful roles and didn't need too much -- maybe the Sova needed a small boost to be useful outside of Embargo rushing.  The last couple patches have been dominated by LRF & Carrier du jour.  Last major patch it was all about Halcyons and OP Illums, now it seems to be all about Skirantras, though I haven't played much this patch.

 

 

Honestly, I think that carriers are fine right now, scramble notwithstanding.  The problem is that the battleships, support capital ships, and siege capital ships needed to get the same kind of boost as carriers did.  I think if all capital ships were in the same league with their own differing strengths and weaknesses things would be fine.

As for LRF, my personal opinion is to either reduce their speed (so they are ineffective at pursuing) or to sharply reduce their effectiveness against capital ships.  I'm leaning towards changing the speed.  Bombers also need some tweaking, perhaps just reducing their damage against capitals would be enough.

 

Anyways, Bask3tCase, we've pretty well argued this one in circles and disagree on some fundamental points.  I've said more or less all I want to say, and I think you've done the same. 

 

I'd say you jumped to my side of the fence. You said it yourself: reduce the speed of LRF's so they are ineffective at pursuing. They are already (fairly) ineffective at pursuing.

An alternative I've seen in other wargames: make LRF's more flimsy. One of my favorite wargames (we're talking cardboard counters and dice here) had a missile boat in it. It was basically a bunch of rocket launchers attached to a hull made of tinfoil. Cheap, strong attack, long hitting range--and ONE hit point. These little buzzbombs were still incredibly effective if you could catch your opponent (here comes that old worn-out line) with his pants down.

Not really. They were tests demonstrating scenarios that are actually going to happen in reality. Nobody who's played this game more than twice is going to be dumb enough to allow his light frigates to go up against LRF's in anything worse than even numbers unless they fell asleep at the keyboard (or unless they're trying to distract you from something going on someplace else......) When outnumbered, the light frigates can simply walk away because they're faster.

The threshold is around twelve Javelises. When that many are focusing fire on one Cobalt, the Cobalt is gonna die before it can get out of firing range. Any fewer and micromanagement will win the fight for the Cobalts. Any more, and a commander who knows what he's doing is never going to allow the Cobalts to engage to begin with.

So now you know. Next time somebody attacks you with a sixpack of Javelises, send six Cobalts up against him, kill all his Javelises without taking any losses, and watch him accuse you of cheating.

Edit: The fact that Darvin and I are arguing the point means that the balance is just about right.

Yes, micro can do horrible things against LRM's & Assailants because of their slow turning time, but it doesn't work if the other player is as experienced as you -- unless of course you have a 2:1 power ratio over the LRM.  And of course LF's can run....they can run until the game is over.  LRM's may not be able to chase, but your infrastructure doesn't move at all.

They're good enough at pursuing, which is why I think they need another speed reduction.  Certainly they won't catch up to a target that's already a fair distance away, but if they're already in range when you turn around, it's going to take you a good 10-20 seconds to break out of their attack range, which for a sufficiently large amount of LRF is fatal to capital ships. 

Light frigates, as Cykur says, can run until the game is over.  If I can keep them on the run by using only a fraction of their value in LRF, what do I care?

 

If this game were all about harass, then maybe, but in a straight fight the light frigate is a joke. 

Also, the replays should be fixed to include the relations screen, it a bug that hasn't been mentioned before.  I've had to track relations using save games.  What surprised me more than anything is how limited the adjacency modifier is.  I had imagined that it would track the growth of empires and alter as the number of potential trouble spots built up.  However it just seems to check whether or not two starting spots are proximate from what I've seen- anyone know better?

The LRF discussion just seems to hinge on whather at levals of less than a dozen ships LRF aren't that effective.  That established, I'm not sure of the point.  2 LF versus 2 LRf is not a common combat, as has been suggested.  It might be an improvement to run at least a few bigger tests.  18 LRF, LF and flak vs 18 LRF, LF and flak and the LF just melt, which is why they don't get used.

Though I've advocate a change in role for LF, I've since ben converted to the concept that Iluminators should be switched to the anti-capital class that they used to be.  This might have the side effect of making Repulse more palatable.  With seekers partly restored Advent would still be vulnerable to LF... but then it isn't that worrying to be vulnerable to LF, and LF might then have a role in the game.

The harassment role has been over-emphasised here, I'm not sure that it is as important as suggested.  Also, I'm still waiting for confirmation that the bounty for trade ships functions properly- if it did, LF might be able to provide a source of income and close down enemy trade, if the trade ships were also to be reduced to the same build level as constructors.

Illuminators were made into Anti-Medium for a good reason.  You used to be able to able to overwhelm Advent with pure Light Frigate spam.  Not everyone, mind you, but against the average competent player, I could just make nothing but LF's and over-run them.  Advent players cried, "We don't have Anti-Medium!!  Illuminators suck!"   And the patch came, and the rest was history...Illuminator was the meanest LRM on the block until this current patch when its bugged damage output got fixed.

Just curious, what is the problem?  Are you concerned they don't kill Capitals fast enough?  It is true the initial punch isn't the same as Assailants or LRM, but the big advantage of Illuminators is they can follow along right next to a fleeing capital while chewing it to pieces and then jump with it to the next system.  Assailants and LRM's hit hard but they stop moving to fire, and if a Capital jumps and runs, it has a good chance of escaping.

 

The problem is with the LF and with Repulse rather than with the Illuminators themselves.. with only 2 types of dedicated anti-medium LRF the LF stood more of a chance.  I'd be more worried about Advent being overwhelmed early than with the extra damage versus capitals.  Even with the extra damage Illuminators wouldn't take take down capitals as quickly Assailants, and they cost as much supply and are 2 tiers up, and their damage upgrades are higher up the tree too.   

Also, it fits with Repulse that Advent wouldn't have a dedicated anti-medium ship.  With the enhanced defences it might be more difficult to attempt an early LF overrun, plus it helps capitals if there are lots of LF.. and LF are still even worse at firing on the run than any LRF.  With more quickstart used LF spam overruns might be more tricky, as two cap starts hurt LF spam and disciples build so quickly?  I'd combine it with a part-revert of the scout nerf to prevent LRF spam.

But as I said, the aim wouldn't be to improve Advent or Illuminators themselves, rather to improve overall variation in play.

Also, the debate on LRF and LF and on the LRF threat to capital ships is on another dimension of significance compared to the problems with culture in the game.  If there is a revision to the black market allowing resources to become more expensive and refineries more useful, then the slight lack of crystal in the game might become more critical and LF correspondingly more valuable.  However the culture technologies will need a lot of work and possibly revised mechanics to make them at all viable.  It seems notable that culture production had to be raised sky-high to make culture a remotely attractive option on starbases.

The first problem with going up the culture technology tree is that the normal upgrades achieve nothing.. what was a 5% boost ever supposed to do?  If you can afford the logistics space for 20 culture centres then the game must be close to an end?   The normal strategy for culture research is to research the building and thats all.  Having your culture extend 5% further along a phase lane gets you nowhere?

This is compounded by the failure of the ultimate techs associated with culture.  The Indifference Engine, the Advent superweapon, does nothing.  This is a major late-game weakness for Advent, they just don't have a superweapon option.  A discussion on whether the Halcyon is better balanced with extra squadrons or extra strikecraft is fairly petty by comparison.  The TEC culture ultimate is Insurgency... no longer will players laugh at the wildly and unimaginatively boosted pirates and use them for experience, but they can continue to laugh at the super-tech Insurgency and use it for experience?  Also, if Insurgency continues to rely on militia then it can never be useful according to whoever recreated the pirates, because if the pirate ships must have super-stats to make them viable later, then militia ships will continue to be easily destroyed.  Of course I am no fan of the new pirates and simpler adjustments to the originals were the better solution.  Insurgency could be helped very simply by not allowing starbased systems to be prone to it, as well as upping the numbers... this applied to the pirates as well.  What was wrong with experienced players who beat AI easily anyway being able to use pirates for experience?  We need to be able to level capitals somehow later in the game without placing L1 capitals in the middle of fleet battles?

A thorough revision of culture to allow it to again play a key role for Advent and make their superweapon viable, and a renewal of Insurgency, might need to be balanced by new life for a Vasai civic tech.  Free the returning fleets once more!  A nerf was enough... not the hated 'phase gate tax.'  

  

Perhaps if the Kol and Radiance are allowed the same boost to shield regeneration as the Kortul has gained, and the Kol gets a more effective phase missile block, their area of effect abilities will help to reduce the threat from slow, fragile LRF.  I'm looking forward to having a go with the Kortul once the current 'Vasari scare' is over.  It would be good to have the battleships back on a par with the carriers.

After experiments I've also become less convinced that the current LF-LRF balance should be disturbed.  Scouts are still somewhat effective against LRF, and perhaps Cykur is right about the dangers of early LF spam.  It was pointed out to me that with LF as part of a fleet at least it means less of a threat to capitals, and if capitals are expensive to lose then so are carriers and support cruisers.

Mainly though, I'd like to see the effect of revived battleships on LRF before they are altered any further.  Too many changes at once could be counterproductive, and the LRF threat to capitals might been enhanced because of the stress on carrier capitals.  I wouldn't want the LRF-Halcyon balance changed in favour of the Halcyon, for instance.