Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Assault frigates.

What is the game design philosophy and is there one?

Slightly loathe to mention them due to the current era of frigates online and my personal desire for more focus on making bigger ships relevant again...but...the poor little things just can't stop getting swept under the rug it seems, so let's restart a conversation.

Loooong overdue a re-design in the eyes of many; do they, in your opinion still have any role or relevance? Do they have a niche that they fit better than the other myriad options? With the addition of tactical destroyers have they gone from underwhelming to utterly obsolete? Why do they exist?

What would you change?

Assault Frigats and Heavy Assault Cruisers have the same problem: The T3 Lines of their class.

The problem is it doesn't makes sense to start a powercreep between AF's and T3 destroyers. The Assault Frigate needs a unique selling point.

To give them their own niche, i would like to see some sort of E-War immunity in this line. Higher Sensorstrenght or some of the new E-War resists for better defence, 50% Web immunity, Afterburner bonuses to make them less affected to scrams, etc.

Off course not all of that, but something in that direction.

But they have singular use over t3d = burner missions ×D

AFs got buffed a long time ago. They were used, they were everywhere.

But then the rest of tiericide happened. Tech 1 frigates got buffed so the gap between them grew smaller. Though the real death knell of the AF was buffing tech 1 destroyers.

Tech 1 destroyers got a big ehp buff, and then lost their 25% rof penalty, and then got fitting adjustments for bigger guns/tank.

they're still fantastic at fighting up a couple of weight classes, cruisers and up are what im used to attacking with them but as mentioned t3d's will go through you for a shortcut

And so it started... The great moustachio war of our time....

This comes up often, and I don't think its a good idea. It forces BC and BS to take another one in the chin for an imbalance on the small ship level. AF already work well against larger ships, its the dessie/frigate meta where they flounder a bit.

With your proposal to make AF good, you're basically nerfing anything larger than a destroyer doing it. EWAR immunity/resistance makes them an even bigger headache to deal with when in larger ships than a frigate/dessie. Cruisers may not be as affected, but things like BC's and BS will suffer even more than they do now.

We need more reasons to fly ships larger than dessies, not less.

What AF's need is just a solid balance pass with fitting, cap, minor speed buffs and a few need some trait tweaking. Otherwise, there are still some fairly solid AF fits out there that still work in the current meta (enyo, harpy, hawk, vengeance). Even some oddball ones like small shield extender 280mm jaguar can contend with things like raildevils, or be a very strong scram kiter.

upping the sig of t3ds would also go along way make them kings when it comes to killing small ships but make them vulnerable to cruisers that opens a niche for the AFs

EW or scram resists are interesting ideas for giving a unique flavour. Doesn't feel like the winner, but at least we're talking about them again!

Give them frigate-like agility for starters.

AF's and EAF's could really do with an agility buff.