FFG

[willow rune]

Frigates, smaller than the upcoming DDG, larger than Shard class Corvettes, a nice in-between for fleet compositions and as a cheaper and more numerous alternative to a destroyer, whilst not being as fragile as a Corvette. Good for for accompanying the indev LHA and fighting in the (notional) archipelago map when those 2 get added (0.30 iirc?), nuff said.

[thick topaz]

that would be a very nice addition, if the devs don think larger vessels would fit in, those medium length ships would bring a very nice variety, and in addition to that there could be room for helicopter carriers and amphibious assault ships.

[willow rune]

I believe the LHA is planned for 0.30, the update after the upcoming one. It's the whole reason for the X-32-esque goober's existence, to provide a VTOL strike fighter to make the LHA viable. That, and amphibious capability for ground vehicles is also planned I believe.

Also, I personally find it a bit silly that the corvettes are the main escorts for an aircraft carrier presently, though large amounts of DDGs would make the carrier group painful to kill. 1 DDG is already scary enough. So why not an inbetween to serve as the escorts of the CV?

[thick topaz]

I think most of the pain comes from the fact we dont have dedicated anti ship missiles

[willow rune]

Eh, corvettes are ez to deal with, the carrier is tough but knocking out the radar brings its danger down by several notches. The DDG is my main concern because of its armament. I'm not sure of the capability of AShMs though, so we need to wait until the update releases to see how much good they are.

That, and some more diversity to the types of ships in the game would be nice, more ships to dunk on.

[thick topaz]

exactly, all the navy aspect of this came have such a huge potential, i might be stretching things out but some fast attack boats could fit in as a asymmetric force

[pallid dawn]

If this is a more defensively focused ship it might be interesting to consider a laser turret for it. I am imagining something at the top of that mast in the picture there, allowing for plenty of clearance to fire in any direction.

The main benefit is that it would give it excellent anti-missile capabilities, which is perfect for an escort craft and even gives it some improved front line combat ability if it's alone since it can just use the laser to defend itself.

A second benefit to the laser is that it would provide the carrier's planes (and thus the players of the game) a "safe zone" around the ship where it is much harder to shoot them with AA missiles, adding even more protection for them from long range scythe or stratolance attacks.

There is a potential downside to adding a laser though, and that would be making the ship too hard to kill, so there will be balancing issues. depends on how tough it is supposed to be to crack.

I think it'd make it a foil to the destroyer's railgun, giving both the ships a bit of character too. The high tech high energy system on the destroyer is it's giant gun, while the frigate zaps down missiles with it's laser. It would give them both a bit of extra distinction from each other besides size.

[thick topaz]

Could make the laser a sensitive part of the ship, easily disabled by any damage

[pallid dawn]

yeah lasers are pretty fragile, and being up on a big mast is a pretty easy shot. It'd be nice if we could target specific parts of ships, I think it'd be a very popular target!

[molten night]

The fun thing about FFGs is that they tend to be more specialised in one specific type of combat enviroment,whether as DDGs can often be equipped to be a jack of all trades. FFGs could in game then be focused around a specific type, being either a dedicated Anti air, Anti surface or even Anti submarine role

[pallid dawn]

Maybe a modular design would be best so that it’s less work for Mitch to make

[thick topaz]

Just make ships modeble and let the comunity do its thing

[molten night]

Ehhhh...given some of the ideas the community come up i feel like having the vanilla content developed by mitch and those he knows that share his vision for the game will probably be for the best

[thick topaz]

The concept of mods is that they are optional so, that would only hurt the game longevity

[molten night]

Oh yeah absolutely,mods on their own are a net positive. But thats besides what the game should have on its own

[pallid dawn]

someone really likes bumping this one

[willow rune]

Now that 0.29 is out, this suggestion actually is holds even more merit now, as the DDG, while its AI is currently a bit scuffed, when patched could become an absolute menace in the current map. The problem that the FFG could solve on the current map is that 0.29's additions is pushing the current map to its limit in terms of how many weapons saturate the battlefield. The DDG would be great in that notional new map, though the FFG would be good to replace it in the current map as it has a shallower draft and wouldn't have the same navigation issues that the DDG has. Moreover, there could be more of the FFG to make for an imposing presence on the map, without being too disruptive to the map.

[dim ice]

I agree, the DDG spams ASM 300s in just the first 15 minutes, which is ridiculous
A smaller ship would be really nice so we can actually have more

[pallid dawn]

Anyone think this frigate should get a railgun or not? Maybe a lighter version instead of the big one on the destroyer would do.

For the whole air defense priority, maybe a railgun CIWS with crazy range instead.

[dim ice]

Please lets not do that lol, but a frigate with a 76 like the tarantula would be cool, give it a surface warfare focus but some good AD for itself

[pallid dawn]

If frigates are supposed to be specialized maybe a few different versions of it instead of just one. An escort version to protect carriers and destroyers, a surface fighter version with the 76 and antiship missiles, etc. I think that’d be cool.

[dim ice]

Yeah and a future ASW version

[thick topaz]

that would be overkill, and, even tho realism should not be sacred in my opinion, i think i might be too small to fit a nuclear reactor, or no, or i could be just overkill, or who cares, the name of the game is nuclear option fit a nuclear reactor in everything

[pallid dawn]

I think having different types of them would be better for gameplay. There’d be more variety and they would only be powerful in one or two aspects so that they don’t just dominate everything like the destroyer can. These are smaller ships so probably more numerous, I don’t want all of them to dominate everything around them.

Your reply is in response to me mentioning different variants so I wrote in response to you saying that would be overkill. If you are talking about the railgun I see your point. That could be very overbearing.

[molten night]

We could always have a design that can swap out different modules depending on what role they are meant to fulfill

[pallid dawn]

Yeah that’d be pretty good.

[thick topaz]

I do think multiple versions of the frigate can be great, but the issue of the lack of a plane mounted anti ship missile

[dim ice]

Le bote rebooted flashbacks
having a common midsection but different bows and sterns

[molten night]

le bote enjoyer,very nice

[thick topaz]

I (F word) love ship

[dim ice]

I miss it dearly 😔

[glass dragon]

Here from a conversation in #feedback-and-suggestions

Shards aren’t very good at carrier escort because a stiff breeze splits them in half, but multiple Dynamos in a fleet would be an absolutely miserable amount of AShMs.

[full agate]

I think those should lob agm-68 missiles over terrain
seems like a nice middle ground between shard's (fairly pathetic) agm-48 launchers and dynamo's ASHM batteries (death incarnate)

[molten night]

An indirect fire cannon could be nice too...

[dim ice]

Yeah some nice chunky bombardment guns

[viral pine]

76mm from the Annex as a main gun would be great

[stray bolt]

psst, the 76 on the annex is the tarantulas gun(if im not mistaken)

[keen crypt]

without the guidance, so it shoots at fast movers too

[viral pine]

yes it is (but it shouldnt be)
the 76mm on a ship should have a longer barrel and higher muzzle velocity

[viral pine]

yeah i think an airburst round for air targets would be in order

[keen crypt]

tarantula be ejecting high velocity cannon shells, very unplayable

[viral pine]

uhm its actually a recoilless in disguise hence the low muzzle velocity 👆 /s

[keen crypt]

no vents

[viral pine]

the tarantula crew just breathe fumes 🚬

[scenic vector]

🙏

[sharp flare]

it would need to launch all 8 to have a chance at taking out a shard

[viral quartz]

I think it'd need to fire the AGM-99

Would also incentivize actually fixing them

[scenic vector]

There was a concept to make it a 9 and 9 instead of a 4 and 4 launcher

[dim ice]

So maybe 2 shard kills lol

[sharp flare]

maybe a page could be taken out of the Danish navy Stanflex system if you want modular frigates

[dim ice]

Would be cool to have a ship with modules to mix and match instead of just cookiecutter stuff like we have
The shard is too small for meaningful modularity and the opposite can be said for the Dynamo and carriers kinda

[sharp flare]

not sure how something would be "too big for meaningful modularity"
but I do agree that Dynamos wouldn't really benefit from modularity from an in universe perspective due to the kind of munitions they carry, and also their very specific role.

Meanwhile a frigate sized ship, could, as it often is IRL, be explicitly made to be modular and multi-functional