Frigate>Everything Else

[Damedius]

Kind of lame TBH.

Made me quit playing the game.

[Avalanche]

Strange, cause a destroyer wipes the floor with a frigate......a cruiser beats destroyer and so on.

I am guessing you are just mass-producing frigates...right? well don't.

[Tzyder]

you are mistaken..a fleet of frigates are toast agianst a well designed cruiser.

[thehive123]

We had this already.
Frigate spamm can easily be countered by ships with rockets (fast, eccm, etc.) and Dauntless Guidance System.

But still you are right. It is lame, because the AI never builds anything bigger than a cruiser.
In all my games in EA2 so far, the AI first spamms destroyers and changes to frigates after I destroy the 100+ destoyers.

[Mansen]

No thanks - I prefer my fleet of deathships with so much armour and shields bolted to them, that literally never lose a single one with decent tactics.

Just thinking about having to mass build frigates makes me cringe.

[Dark Fire]

I'm not entirely positive, but I see the AI doing things in this fashion. It seems to start off building whatever keeps it below its CP limit, so if it has 14/15 CP it will build a frigate. If it has 13/15 it will build a destroyer. Etc. Etc. So the reason we see so many frigates and destroyers is sort of a space issue. The AI will generally only have 1-2 CPs of space unless it starts losing ships to war. The turn that 4 CP opens up we start seeing the cruisers because it's trying to build the biggest ship it can within CP limits. It would take few experiments, but I'm almost positive the following would happen if the limit was 15:

AI has 15 frigates in a fleet.
You destroy 15 frigates in one battle.
Next fleet the AI comes up with is 7 destroyers and 1 frigate.
You destroy those.
Next fleet is 3 cruisers (assuming they had the tech), 1 destroyer, 1 frigate.
So on and so forth.

Unfortunately, there's no standard way to program the AI to perform sophistocated fleet construction, unless you force it to use thinking such as:

For every Doom Star I build, build 2 Titans.
For every Titan I build, build 2 Battleships.
For every Battleship I build, build 2 Cruisers.
For every Cruiser I build, build 2 Destroyers.
For every Destroyer I build, build 2 Frigates.

Another option could be to always force the AI to build the biggest ship available, then as soon as it's constructed scrap the number of smallest ships in the fleet equal to the CP usage of that ship to make room for it. That would at least give the appearance of a constantly evolving fleet and making things more interesting.

However, it could also be a resource thing. Currently the best weapons to toss on frigates are missiles since they have the best range for the space they take up. So 40 frigates with missiles and dauntless each is a very formidible and cheap throw-away fleet especially in late game that can easily take out much bigger ships even with shields.

It really comes down to how the AI is judging what it needs to conduct a war, if its giving that any consideration at all and not just playing with the available resources at the time.

I know I will often sacrifice BC per turn after building a supremacy fleet, knowing I'm going to lose ships in the process and just eat the loss of income to have the ships I want in the battle. Based on what I've seen of the income increases (judged by looking at them in the diplomacy window) when the AI is fighting itself, I don't see it doing that.

[thehive123]

Originally posted by darkfire2012df:

AI has 15 frigates in a fleet.
You destroy 15 frigates in one battle.
Next fleet the AI comes up with is 7 destroyers and 1 frigate.
You destroy those.
Next fleet is 3 cruisers (assuming they had the tech), 1 destroyer, 1 frigate.
So on and so forth.

Hm, in my games I usually destroy his 100+ destroyers at late game and than the AI starts to pump frigates out of every colony.
Also I do not think the AI can use the "Interstellar government"-thing to produce bigger ships faster.

At least thats how I pump out Titans in 6-10 turns late game ^^

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by Damedius:

Kind of lame TBH.
Made me quit playing the game.

Why, it's fun as hell
My 30 frigates against Orion - he even managed to blow 4-5 before my cockroaches ate him xD

On a serious note - this is the problem, when you don't limit fleet size
As big as your Doomstar is, it still fires 1 salvo per time
And pack of frigates shoot stronger salvo.

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by thehive123:

We had this already.
Frigate spamm can easily be countered by ships with rockets (fast, eccm, etc.) and Dauntless Guidance System.

But still you are right. It is lame, because the AI never builds anything bigger than a cruiser.
In all my games in EA2 so far, the AI first spamms destroyers and changes to frigates after I destroy the 100+ destoyers.

Just how it is countered? Dauntless or not, no matter what, you can destroy what, 1-2 frigates with reinforced hull per salvo.
When I bring 100 of them, good luck chewing through that fleet before all your fat ships are blown.

[i-dot]

Originally posted by Asuzu:

Why, it's fun as hell

TOTALLY AGREE!

It's a fun to defeat swarms of frigates by Capital Ships!
Just needed right weapons and tactics.

[thehive123]

Originally posted by Asuzu:

Just how it is countered? Dauntless or not, no matter what, you can destroy what, 1-2 frigates with reinforced hull per salvo.
When I bring 100 of them, good luck chewing through that fleet before all your fat ships are blown.

4x20 Zeon (ECCM, armored, fast), dauntless and fast missile racks.
Battle pods, reinforced hull.
Rest may vary on my mood.
Thats how my titans look in end game, if the AI has too many ships.

Ofc do not expect one titan to take out all 100 ships, this wouldn't be fair.

Some AI ship's use ECM, which makes it harder with this kind of ships.
But still, one Titan takes less time to build than the amount of frigates/destroyers it takes out.

[Falaris]

Let's say you have two fleets of equal value, one of frigates, one of battleships, which should win?

The frigates, of course.

Why?

Let us for argument's sake say that the equal value is in 15 frigates.

Because against 14 frigates, the battleship will win, with nothing lost, while if the frigates win, most will be lost anyway. The cost-efficiency of winning battles with larger ships makes it a nobrainer to use them, EVEN if the opponent uses frigates - as long as you can still win - and ESPECIALLY if you have auto-repair module installed (or are meklar.). Battleships are more cost efficient in longer wars because their attrition damage can be repaired for free, while Frigates' attrition damage is repaired by rebuilding.

[Dark Fire]

The strategy I've used successfully so far is to use battleships as soakers while the frigates and destroyers mop up from the flanks with a cruiser escort. My battleships are always designed with a support mentality, PD weapons, attention to increase shield and armor whenever possible, etc.

But if we're looking at stock numbers:

• Base Cost for Frigate Hull (No Externals except Titanium Armor and Nuclear Drive)* = 12 PP
  
• Base Available Hull Space for Frigates = 58
  
• Base Cost for Battleship Hull (No externals except Titanium Armor and Nuclear Drive)* = 92 PP
  
• Base Available Hull Space for Battleships = 883

Based on pure hulls (no weapons, shields, computers, specials) 1 battleship is worth 7 frigates in production. Based on available space however, 1 battleship is worth 15 frigates.

If you fill each ship with nuclear missiles:

• Base Cost for Frigate with Nuclear Missiles Only (No Externals except Titanium Armor and Nuclear Drive)* = 32 PP [5 Missiles (5 DPS)]
  
• Base Cost for Battleship with Nuclear Missiles Only (No Externals except Titanium Armor and Nuclear Drive)* = 444 PP [88 Missiles (88 DPS)]

So now in terms of production cost, 1 battleship is worth 13 frigates. However based on DPS 1 battleship is worth 17 frigates.

Obviously, much more goes into the Ship Power calculations, but this is where it gets interesting. Now, I couldn't get the power number for battleships without shields, so I'll be using the values with class I shields for these: On a Frigate, 1 Nuclear Missile is worth 76 power, but on the battleship the same 1 Nuclear Missile is worth 357 power. This would assume to mean that in a situation where all things are the same 1 battleship with 1 nuclear missile is worth 4 frigates with 1 nuclear missile each.

If you fill out the ships with missiles you get (again this time had to have shields):

• 1 Battleship with 72 Nuclear Missiles = 6181 Power
  
• 1 Frigate with 4 Nuclear Missiles = 193 Power

So, based solely on Power 1 battleship looks to be worth 32 frigates. Here's the interesting though. Since without the Missiles the power on both ships is 0, If you divide power by missiles you should get the same power value as 1 missile. In the case of the battleship: 6181 / 72 = 86 (rounded up) which is 272 power less than the listing of the single missile. In the case of the frigate: 193 / 4 = 49 (rounded up) which is 27 power less than the listing of the single missile. So at full capacity, each nuclear missile is being calculated differently in terms of power than at a single weapon (adding Dauntless that not improve the power rating in case anyone was wondering).

So, I would have to say that something is bugged in the calculation of a ship's power, at least as it applies to what we see visually in the ship designer. I've also noticed when looking at the fleet breakdown, fleets tend to have lower power levels on the dropdown list than they do if you click on the fleet itself.

* - Once you research Shields and Computers and place them on the design, you cannot remove them.

[Dr.Askenase]

Battleships will destroy 5-6 frigates with every salvo.

If a player got 60 frigates.
you just need 10 battleships to wipe them out with your first salvo.

Just take fast rockets!


if the frigate player is using rockets too.
Pack 30+ anti missle rockets in every cruiser.

that is 300+ anti missles.

[Falaris]

Originally posted by darkfire2012df:

So, I would have to say that something is bugged in the calculation of a ship's power, at least as it applies to what we see visually in the ship designer. I've also noticed when looking at the fleet breakdown, fleets tend to have lower power levels on the dropdown list than they do if you click on the fleet itself.

* - Once you research Shields and Computers and place them on the design, you cannot remove them.

Well, that is a number of rather interesting observations. :)

There are some indirect considerations that MAY explain this. For instance, by default (without dauntless) there may be a lot of overkill in a missile salvo. That would help give a reason for dimnishing returns with missiles.

On the other hand, ten launchers on their own against a ship with enough PD to shoot down 10-20 missiles are virtually useless. So, you need to have enough missiles to actually get past defences for them to have value, too, which kind of goes the other way.

Is this true for beam weapons as well?

Finally, different values on the dropdown list and fleet view strongly suggest there is a bug in the calculation after all.

[Syrris]

Originally posted by darkfire2012df:

So, I would have to say that something is bugged in the calculation of a ship's power, at least as it applies to what we see visually in the ship designer. I've also noticed when looking at the fleet breakdown, fleets tend to have lower power levels on the dropdown list than they do if you click on the fleet itself.

Something that might be catching you there: a fleet stationed at a planet may include the planet's military power value (starbase, missile base, etc) depending on how it's selected.