[Balance Request/Suggestion for X4 Regarding Frigates/Shields]

[ArtilleryWhore]

Idk if that was the right thread to post in, and its easy for things to get lost on the forums and this is kind of a small (but heavily edited) double post, so please forgive me
as i feel quite strongly about this and i really want it to be seen (and hopefully addressed) by the devs of this amazing game.


So while i was playing i noticed a couple small things that are really annoying and i think they have quick/obvious fixes/solutions to them.
1st the argon Quasar fighter, it Looks amazing but its functionally useless. This is because it gives up 1 of its engines, 2 of its guns, and hull HP which is already low compared to the pulsar, which the pulsar itself is already low compared to everything else.
The Quasar is worst best looking heavy fighter in the game and worse than the pulsar in every way with nothing to show for it in return.
Sense the argon's dont have a fighter with 2 shields (like literally everyone else, some even have 3 or 4 which is bonkers) i think a good/quick/obvious thing to do would be to give it a 2nd shield let it have its own niche and make it relevant as the slightly more durable argon option.
This way the argons will have options for a speedy/gun fighter with the existing pulsar, that gives up shields.
OR post change, players can chose to give up the stuff that makes the pulsar what it is and take the newly buffed Quasar with 2x shield gens as the more tanky/general purpose option.
( also think if it gets a 2nd shield that its base price should increase by 50% sense its the cheapest thing out there, and buying that 2nd shield will increase the build price even more, hence only suggesting a 50% hull price increase if this change goes through)


The and main issue is with frigates.
When compared to other M class ships like corvettes and gunboats, frigates give up alot like speed/agility/firepower/cost efficiency/and the ability to escape from combat. They dont really offer enough staying power or utility to justify their cost or use.
I find myself personally never using frigates ingame at any stage of play because of this. Which imo is a shame because i like the idea of a mid weight multi role ship with a higher cost but utility but not so crazy high in power or cost that is nearing L/XL capitalship territory.
I think the general stats and loadout of frigates are good with 1 exception, their shielding.
The issue is that firgates in X4 share the same shield size (and worse most of them share the same shield amount) as the Corvettes and gunboats despite being a class of their own and being much larger and more expensive than those other 2 options..

Now i just want to make it absolutely clear, the corvettes and gunboats are in a good spot and SHOULD NOT be touched or changed in any way..
The problem is ENTIRELY on the frigates, and like the Argon Quasar issue i think the solution is to simply double their shield slots so they have more staying power and are a tankier niche, over the much faster, cheaper and more heavily armed gunboats and corvettes.
Increasing Hull HP is also something that should probably be done, but this is easily done with a mod. Adding shields is not so easy to do. I would make a mod myself to do all this if i could figure out how in the world XML modding works, but ive fried my brain all this week and not made any progress.

Anyway getting back on track, I suggest Existing frigates that have 3 shields would get 6 post change, and the ones that have 2 shields currently, would have 4 shields post change.
Thats all, a simple yet powerful change that adds badly needed staying power.

TLDR:
Give Argon Quasar a 2nd S shield gen.
Double All existing frigate shields from 2 to 4, and 3 to 6 respectively, because they are under-preforming and are highly skippable/not really relevant, which is a shame because i would like to use them and want them to be more useful.

This seems like a simple/obvious fix for these ships to make them preform better at their roles.


PS: One final Suggestion not 100% related to frigates, but they would benefit from it the most.
Please add Fixed S/M, and Turreted M size Repair weapons into the game, as well as a "repair friendly" turret orders logic, so we can make mini healing ships and have frigates do their "supporting" role better.
The Fixed weapons would be for a player to do things Manually, where the Turret orders would be for a player who has a frigate/support ship near by to give them orders to auto heal the hulls of nearby friendly units with the following "In range" Priority logic
#1: players ship
#2: ships belonging to the players faction
#3: allied ships
#4: neutral ships not currently aggressed by the player or player faction.

Not all of us have 11 gagrillion credits for an end game uber Capital class Support ship, or the means to protect it XD.
we currently have to rely on mods to add repair weapons to the game and i wish we didnt cuz they sometimes fall out of support and stop working, and even then its fully manual.
we cant add repair turrets to a ship and tell it to hang back and give it orders to repair friendly/neutral things that come near it..
(Alittle off topic but im not gonna lie, the auxiliary class ship that you added in X4 are the coolest thing you have done to ships in a very long time in any of your games.
i love those things but OMG are they pricey End game units, cuz they are capital class support ships, making frigates tankier and adding healing weapons/turret orders to the game would go a long way in giving the class some much needed identity other than being a slower, less well armed, inferior, more expensive corvette with a S landing pad)


I hope i manged to lay out my reasons/arguments and proposition clearly.
thank you for your time.

[LameFox]

This is not entirely accurate. The Argon do have a fighter (Eclipse) with two shields. Also, the speed balance between frigates, corvettes, and gunboats is not all that straightforward. 3/5 frigates are actually faster than their faction's corvette/gunboat. That being said M ships as a class really are glass cannons, so the ones that are also slow suffer disproportionately.

[ArtilleryWhore]

i didnt even see that one, and missed/forgot about it.

ok then they would have a 2nd 2 shield fighter.
i still think the change needs to happen pretty badly because the quasar is pretty worthless, and even with a 2nd shield it would still be the cheaper less tanky of the 2 options but atleast it would be a viable choice,
instead of just go for the eclipse and ignore everything else.

ironically assuming that it did simply get a 2nd shield. its already well balanced vs the eclipse cuz its slightly cheaper (even assuming it became 50% more for the hull like i suggested) and alittle bit faster/more agile, but has less than half the HP of the eclipse.

[gbjbaanb]

TBH I think a better solution is armour. Destroyers can be blown to bits really quite easily with nothing more than a pulse cannon. This is a bit rubbish.

Adding an armour value to all ships based on their size would mean frigates get a big survivability boost against tiddly weapons and would require more firepower to bring down (eg plasma and missiles), same for destroyers. You don't bring a knife to a tank fight for obvious reasons but in X4 a pointy stick works as an anti-tank weapon.

[ArtilleryWhore]

i wouldnt be opposed to some kinda armor mechanic that locks out damage from weapons that are too small.

but Medium class shields are the worst in the game and have about 1/8 the regen of fighter shields. they do need to be buffed, and the frigates do need to have more tank than corvettes. I was so annoyed by this i ended my teaching myself how to mod (which is not easy) to do this change myself and its working out great. i ended up making frigates cost 2x what corvettes do to balance out the change. (its something that should have been done anyway imo)

Now im in the process of adding Missile turrets to frigates and gunships only (corvettes are strong enough already).

these are all changes i wish default had.

capital ships are another issue though youre right, the standard L shield regen is only like 200 ish, meanwhile a single Plasma equipped fighter outputs something like 800 dps. and a plasma equipped corvette with 4 guns outputs like 3200dps.
call me crazy but i dont think ONE lone fighter or even corvette should beable to break the regen of a Large class ship. i recomend making L class shields atleast strong enough to block the damage from 1 of these attackers.
M and L class turrets are also terrible too but thats another discussion. Simply put they need a buff badly. they should fall between the T1 and T2 damage of the same size of weapon. So a M plasma for example should be 630 dps not 315 as that is right between the 400/800 dps of the T1/2 M fixed weapon.
and they shouldnt have half the range either. 75-80% of the range is fine. but not half.