The problem is carrier cruisers are not really viable this early in the game.  There is a definite need for a briding unit to fill the void of LRF counter until carrier cruisers become practical, and the scout fits into the niche perfectly. 

More than a few people hold by this.  For some people, it's more the fact that it requires no labs to unlock.  I disagree, and find the unit fulfills an interesting strategic niche.

We've heard almost nothing about Corvettes.  I have no idea where the developers want to go with them, but the only description we've heard so far is basically a souped up scout.  Seems like a waste; we already have the scout, the new unit should be new.

Scout ships could serve two very important roles aside from direct combat...

First, they could be used to fight structures...timed explosives could be made more useful if it was lower tier (of course it would need to be carefully balanced lest it become OP for early rushing)...for example, it could completely disable all functions of a structure (such as the constructing ability of factories or the use of a lab)...obviously a very long cooldown is necessary (though I think the current one is like 10 minutes)...

Martyrdom could fulfill a similar role, maybe doing more damage or disabling the structure longer, but obviously at the cost of the ship (which is arguably negligible)...obviously it would need to be lower tier as well (I'm thinking tier 2 for both these abilities)...

Vasari scouts already have a unique role of capturing neutrals, though I'd advocate some tweaking to their cloaking ability (changing the AM cost and AI use conditions actually works rather well, I've gotten the ship to use the ability properly and to stay invulnerable for long periods of time)...the cooldown on this could prevent it from being abused for capturing neutrals (plus, it uses AM)...

The 2nd role of scouts would be to deal with mines....of course, scouts already have this role except that mines are generally useless (and therefore so is this role)...I'm sort of hoping that Rebellion fixes mines, making them both more useful and more understandable to the AI...I would go even so far as to say that only scout ships could destroy mines but that is an entirely different discussion...

I do believe that if scouts were better at these 2 roles (and both these roles were seen as actually important), then there would be no need for them to be part of early game combat (at least not in a conventional manner)...

An early game involving 4 units would then require a new ship, the corvette...

I agree that carriers aren't a viable early game unit, but fighters are the only option other than scouts without adding a new ship...

Of course, this is all highly speculative...short term solution, seeker gets HP nerf and illum gets a damage buff (preferably frontal, though I have no suggestion for an exact number)...probably not the most ideal solution but I think it could work, enough to guarantee a competitive early game for the Advent...

I personally don't have a problem with scouts having a combat role for now (unless corvettes do take over), but I think I would prefer their auto-attack to be enabled by default.  I build far more combat scouts to defend against siege frigates. orgovs, and lrf than I build for recon purposes.  I could more easily turn their auto-attack off while i'm turing their auto-explore on if i want my scouts to scout (or just turn it off if i needed to park a scout).

However, I also agree that lf's should last longer in battle but I digress.

I wish there were a way to tap into each frigate factory and tell them how to make the ships--what their attack range should be when they come out, whether to have auto join fleet on, and whether auto attack should be on (for scouts and colonizers and the like).

You and the modders both, man. You and the modders both.

Okay, I read the first two pages, too lazy to read the rest, but here's my suggestion, sorry if someone else mentioned it on a page I didn't read:

Cut ship speed and damage in half, and give them an antimatter-dependant ability that is devastatingly strong towards structures.  Let em have 1-2 shots without upgrades, deal maybe 3-400 damage in one shot, so there is incentive to build more before sending them into a grav well undefended, and make it more likely that the owner will wait till their antimatter reserve is replenished before continuing on to the next planet.  (Make the ability a research, even, so there is a higher investment involved in the strategy.)

I agree that part of the current issue with their effectiveness is that people are leaving themselves open to this sort of attack, but I honestly don't like the concept of a ship that is highly destructive vs buildings with its basic gun.

-Twilight Storm

I dunno though. The anti-structure cruisers are good for only building-busting. If they weren't very good for the task that they were designed for, then they would almost never be employed.

I agree, but they are just a bit too strong, even for the role they are supposed to be for.  Granting them an anti-building ability seems a bit more reasonanble, since it wouldn't be able to be used constantly.  If buildings were supposed to insta-pop, they wouldn't have armor.

-Twilight Storm

And buildings don't instapop. It's a cost/benefit thing; the more anti-structure cruisers you have, the faster a structure gets blown up.

But the more of them you have, the more resources and fleet supply you have invested into a one-trick pony. It does its trick masterfully, stupendously, well. But it does only one trick. In a fleet engagement, Ogrovs and Starfish are cheap XP for capital ships.

Not that it hasn't been said, but the biggest problem is a lack of effective system defense options that don't involve a "fleet"--even if it is only comprised of scouts.

I can understand from a "realism" standpoint why effective defense in 3 dimensional space would be difficult to impossible without mobile forces (in a fleet), but I also don't really like the forced-fleet-rush and forced-defend-from-rush strategies in Sins that often result.

The fact that any ship or cruiser can just sit in a gravity well and blast every structure to pieces with no resistance from the planet itself (even if the planet is a large populated Terran) is also a little disconcerting from the realism standpoint, as I think you mentioned before.

What do you think about planets being able to support one free fighter squadron (no AM dependencies) per 50 population or so, rounded up? This would solve the above problem because the planet itself would be able to offer some resistance to small raiding parties (most importantly, siege frigates, anti-structure cruisers, and bombers), with bigger planets offering more resistance - but if the enemy puts any significant investment into the attack, you'd have to bring some of your own fleet in for support.

Of course, the strikecraft shouldn't be able to start building immediately - there would have to be a 3 to 5 minute or so delay before the squads begin to be manufactured.

The planets should have some slight inherent defense.  Just as a meager and single purpose force can whittle them down, so a planet should be able to whittle down such attacking forces.

I like the idea of a planet autohosting some sort of defense (and I also like the idea of making hangars actually usable for more than just their abilities).

I don't expect a WWII or modern naval warfare extrapolation--just a common sense Sins game mechanic.  It is competently absurd that a couple of small carriers or cruisers get over a heavily populated world and the world is literally powerless to do anything to stop them.  It's unrealistic on any level (of course, that's imho).

Skirmishers and nuisance forces do not win entire wars--they are a drain on forces and production--but rarely can they overcome a defended position.

It would be great if planets had a zone of anti-strike and anti-ship coverage near them.  Say the range of the longest ranged unit in the game.  That would allow many facilities to be put within that zone but not all would fit.  So you still could pick away at the farther out objectives like resource asteroids and facilities/defenses that couldn't be squeezed in right to the planet.  This would be much more satisfying and the planet's damage doesn't need to be devastating--just steady.

Other things that could be done would be to make destroyed hangars and starbases linked units remain in play until enemy forces left the gravity well or they were destroyed.  That at least would provide some improved defense.  It would be akin to fighting until you ran out of fuel and then ditching and waiting for friendly forces planetside to pick you up.

Maybe even a "convert module to strike craft" ability could be created where you could destroy the module and have strike craft or even mines spawn. You could maker an ability that calls a buff to self destruct a unit and then have that also be the trigger for another buff that spawns the units.

I guess my biggest irk on this is you have to presume that a society that terraforms planets, creates mass quantities of antimatter and can travel to the stars is just to stupid to be able to understand or care about effectively defending their planets while simultaneously being bright enough to make specialized units to destroy them and their defenses.

I agree with wrath89's Idea of having a free squad per 50 population, although I would make slight modifications:

It would be a mandatory fighter squad(Or squads), since for the most part, the ships the planet itself needs to worry about are weak to fighters, with the exception of capships, in which case the planet wouldn't have enough squads to save itself anyway. 

Also, I would recommend that when the last squad is issued(The last infrastructure upgrade purchased, since that is the way population is grown the most) a squad is automatically added.  This way asteroids, and any other planet with less than 50 max pop will have at least 1 squad.

I'm not sure if this can evn be done, though.  Is it possible to make a planet a squadron host, and link the squads to infrastructure like this?  More than likely, if it can't be done by a modder, it'll require a rewrite of some of the base code for the game, and therefore won't happen...but it's still a pretty good Idea.

-Twilight Storm

Indeed. (that's why I said "free fighter squad" instead of "free squad") Then again, I don't really see a problem with allowing strikecraft in general (instead of forced fighters), but most players with any sense would almost always queue only fighters.

I did say "per 50 population or so, rounded up" to account for this, making sure that every planet would be able to support at least one fighter squad.

Well, the planet is already the part-squadron-host for static hangar defense structures. Clicking on either the hangar structure or the planet gives you access to its strikecraft menu.

But I have no idea how much work it would take for the developers to introduce something like this.

Sorry bout the mixups there.  When I read, I tend to only catch every other word or so.

-Twilight Storm

Really like the idea of planet linked SC. Would be helpful to us Turtlers of the world. As for the realism aspect of static defenses in space being able to adequately defend I would say, actually it would work rather well but the difference is it would orbit the planet. So you set up a grid of defense platforms that orbit but again, this is nullified for the benefit of game mechanics. Therefore, us turtle players are merely asking for some buffs to overcome the "nerf of static defenses in space for the sake of memory issues."

You don't even have to be a turtle to want some of this.  I just don't want to always hold part of my fleet back to defend areas from forces that are nuisance only and I don't want to have to divert attention from the front to micro a far planet's defenses because of a few throw-away pew-pews.

What kinds of strike craft carriers have?

Maybe in Rebellion?

That'd be great. I hope so.

Have read the 6 pages from these topic... yes, Orgov can be a pain but with my own experience, mines make a good work to disable them...

Vasari can use Gravity mines for slow them down ( -30% max speed, -60% acceleration and disable phase jump )... allowing fighter/bomber to destroy them... of course, explosive mine can be mixed with the gravity mines... and  the ruiner can lay mine everywhere ( can mine a wormhole if you wish )

In case of Advent, homing mines make all the job for you... Tec Proximity mine are not so good ( need a lot of them for cover a phase line entry )...

A fleet made from Orgov only will die quickly in a mine field... have always think that mines was the first line of defense for a gravity wheel...

Mines still cost a lot though, don't they? 10 mines cost about as much as a single Orgov, or somewhere in that ballpark... and having minelayers there means less fleet supply available for your main battle fleet... and even then, the mines probably won't completely destroy the Orgovs unless you plant a ton of them and the owner of the ships isn't smart enough to maneuver away until the mines are already there.

I'd think that scouts would be a lot cheaper, while also having the ability to follow the Orgovs if they attack deeper within your empire.

I think ogrovs are ok.

After all vasari has a starbase that moves.

Vasari sb ought not to move at all. There should be some sort of research prerequisite before it can move.

I would agree with ghost, except the vasari SB is also the vasari starbase killer(Ogrov equivalent)  They don't have any kind of frigate that can kill a starbase like the tec or advent do.

-Twilight Storm

Theory aside, I have never gotten TEC or Advent mines to do anything useful against a competent human player...

Vasari mines are one thing, but certainly not a very good counter against ogrovs...I'm with Wrath here, scouts (and maybe LFs if you already have them built) are the best way to deal with these things...

If you happen to have fighters for whatever reason (hangars or SB), obviously that is the ideal situation...but those are tied to their gravity well and can't pursue like scouts...

Arcovas and Jikaras also look totally badass.

FEER MAH SCOUT FLEET OF DHUUM! PEW PEW, IMA KILLIN UR DOODZ!1