Aeon Frig is TERRIBLE !!!!!

[Evan_]

and UEF lacks t3 AA,

???

I think he means t3 aircraft carrier. Not that it matters since UEF cruiser is good enough

[Plasma_Wolf]

The Aeon frig does okay against opposing frigs.
It loses to Cybran, ties against UEF and wins against Sera frigs.
Yes, it lacks AA, but let's not pretend that frigate AA is good. Frigs lose mass for mass even to Jesters.
Besides, as you said, frigs are supposed to be cannon fodder in later stages, not for air support.

At the start of the game, the frigate's AA does count and it is amazing. Of course it loses against Jesters in mass-to-mass terms. That makes sense. Let's compare the Jester with the Cybran frigate.

4 Frigates vs 5 Jesters:
1k mass vs 1k mass.
10k Energy vs 25k Energy.
Built in 250 seconds by one factory vs built in 250 seconds by one factory.
Drain of 2 Pgens vs drain of 5 Pgens.
Shore bombardment, naval control, AA vs Raiding anywhere, no AA.
Testing: All frigates dead at the cost of 3 Jesters.

Conclusion: for 135 extra mass, you can have the five air units that kill four frigates, whose AA ability is the secondary weapon. So Frigate AA isn't horrible, this is a pretty good balance.

Aeon have no AA on their frigate, instead they get to spend another 120 mass for an AA specific unit, on top of the extra 40 that an Aeon frigate costs compared to the Cybran frigate. You mentioned it losing against the Cybran frigate 1-1, how do you think 2 Aeon frigates will stand up against three Cybran frigates, because you also had to build shards?

The point here is that Aeon have a navy that lack any specific weakness. Seraphim has a sub weakness, UEF destros are strong but are the only to lose against submerged Sera destros, by a large margin, and UEF lacks t3 AA, and Cybran has no cost effective TML bombardment options, or naval shielding. All other factions lack even a remotely decent naval Exp.
It isn't just the cruiser that provides powerful AA either, Shards are actually pretty great, and their 800 Health just trolls torpedo bombers which deal 750 damage.

Aeon have no specific strength, maybe apart from the Torrent's range, which is pretty impressive. But it's completely irrelevant to naval battle so it doesn't count. Cybran has stealth, with 80-range destroyers that have such high RoF that 70+% of the shots hit, rather than the majority of the destro shots miss (and it's very easy to learn to dodge Aeon destro shots). UEF has shield boats and battlecruisers. Seraphim... Well I don't consider them to have any strength either. Their T3 subhunter is a lot of fun but it loses in equal mass to the T2 counterparts. As it does with the vast vast majority of Tier comparisons you can make. As for the Tempest. It's not so great. The shot is slow, the unit is slow and bulky and it loses against normal Battleships. Best part of it is that you can give it diarrhea by ordering it to build T1 engineers

Heaven's naval comparison chart: not sure how it holds up with the players higher rated than him, but it should definitely help you out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WTenr5P9Wc

[FtXCommando]

It’s arguably easier to dodge salem shots than exodus shots. Particularly if you got a shity internal clock.

T3 subhunters can kite t2 ones.

I’d say phim destro is my favorite destro tbh, great for attacking just about anything. Exodus can be out-micro’d, salem can be out-micro’d (shots + can’t kite), uef is >uef.

[Plasma_Wolf]

Easier to dodge Salem shots than Exodus shots? Really? I'd like to see that then because I've never been able to dodge Salem better than Exodus.

[FtXCommando]

Much easier to get into a rhythm on the salem shots, you just slightly turn your destro as it moves towards the salem. Eventually salem gotta fall back, which sounds great but then you realize cybran frigs exist.

[Lieutenant Lich]

Yes to the cost decrease or the torp def fix but I don't really see a problem. Each faction has its strong suit. It just happens that with Aeon, you need more micro & better unit cooperation to come out on top (and you will come out on top by a large margin)

[biass]

This thread should have been left for the big boys instead of people trying to shill other forum threads at the end of their posts but i have faith the team read the suggestion a while ago anyway.

I can support a worse but easier to spam frigate. +1