How do you beat Cybran Frigates?!

[FunkOff]

I've tried everything. Aeon T1 hover doesn't work. You can have 2x the mass in Auroras and lose. T1 bombers don't work because frigates are so fast they can dodge them for days + strong AA. It also takes 10 bombers (4x the mass) to one-pass a frigate. Against a group of frigates, there is never more than one pass. Torpedo defenses can 1v1 frigates but again, they cost about double and they cannot move. Aeon Frigates cost more and do less damage, this is maybe the most effective "counter" because you only lose by a little instead of a lot. Torpedo bombers also suck against Cybran frigates, as they cost more than usually a frigate can 1v1 them, and frigates do even better in groups. And T1 subs? Not enough DPS to destroy frigates in a reasonable timeframe.

Any options I'm missing?

[ThomasHiatt]

You build your own frigates. Frigates are the most overpowered unit in the game. Cybran frigates are better than other frigates, but frigates or torpedo bombers are still the best counter to frigates.

[____]

Torpedo bombers also suck against Cybran frigates, as they cost more than usually a frigate can 1v1 them

No idea how you come to this conclusion, a torpedo bomber is going to kill a Cybran frigate with almost 3/4 of its health left. One torp bomber can even kill two frigates pretty easily with about 200hp left and even gets a vet after both are dead.

[Steel_Panther]

I would add that technically destroyers can counter frigates with good micro and with sufficient space to maneuver. If you keep out of range of the frigates you deal free damage, so it is just necessary to kite away to keep the enemy frigates out of range. Frigates are faster, but if they are killed fast enough they might not get in range of the destros (just like a critical mass of kiting auroras keeps other t1 tanks from ever getting in range, even though they are faster), although I think this is difficult to achieve in practice, but still helps the destroyers trade pretty efficiently overall, especially if you have some of your own frigates to tank dps from any enemy frigs that get in range and block them from actually getting in range of the destros. It kind of depends on the numbers and micro.

RE QuestionMarkNoob.
Yes, torp bombers are definitely efficient, except if you send in a small number of torps vs a large number of frigates. If someone streams in one or two torps vs a cluster of 30 frigates, the frigates will trade very efficiently and people get the stupid idea "torp bombers bad vs frigs." This obviously goes for basically every kind of engagement, that the more of a numerical advantage you have the better the engagement will go for you.

So to the noobs out there that take the simplistic conclusion "torps counter frigs" and then get confused when it doesn't seem to work for them in game, don't forget that numbers still matter. E.g. anti air literally is made to efficiently counter air units, but a sufficiently large group of gunships can still trade efficiently vs them.
So, just make sure you have a large enough group of torps. I'm not sure the break even point, but I think generally if you send about as many torps as they have frigs, you'll do very well.

[FunkOff]

Destroyers are countered by frigate spam, not the other way around. Remember, one destroyer costs the same as 9 frigates and only has the HP of 4 and the firepower of 2. Aeon destroyer can't shoot backwards, either so it has to stop and turn to shoot.

[keyser]

Destroyers are countered by frigate spam, not the other way around. Remember, one destroyer costs the same as 9 frigates and only has the HP of 4 and the firepower of 2. Aeon destroyer can't shoot backwards, either so it has to stop and turn to shoot.

mostly false, frigate spam can counter the destroyer when there is low number of destro/frigates on the field. When you reach critical amount of unit, pathfinding start playing against the frigates that need to get in range (the same thing happen on land, but T2 tank usually don't have range advantage vs T1 tanks).
Granted the aeon can't shoot right in the back, it does a way better job at kitting than the cybran destro for example. If you have several frig chasing down an aeon destro, they will usually be spread out enough to be in range of the turret. On top of this you can add the torpedo dps that will shoot backward without issue.

[IceDreamer]

Keyser, come now. There's a great deal of truth behind this thread. Frigates are OP, they have been for years, and the Cybran one is the worst offender. They are aburdly imbalanced in their HP/mass and flexibility. Absurdly. Their strength throws off the entire Naval game, and for a decade strategies have adapted around it to a fairly stable point. Stable != good. Stable != can't be better.

When the best statement to defend the fact that they beat their T2 "upgrade" unit is "But pathfinding eventually fails" or "But buildpower eventually evens out", we have a problem! Yes, I know those two statements are probably true for the various main battle tank matchups, but the fact is that in that case it takes significantly less time and resources, both absolutely and relatively speaking, to reach the critical shift point.

Frigates need a nerf, and a substantial one. I would suggest hitting their HP, hard, right in the face, and seeing what happens to the meta. My suspicion is that both T1 subs and T2 destroyers would see substantially more use. I also suspect that destroyer spam would become overly dominating, so would recommend this be accompanied by a nerf to destroyer torpedo DPS on all but UEF. You should end up with a far more dynamic fight in the water.

[ThomasHiatt]

Destroyers lose to half their mass in frigates unless they are micro'd perfectly. That isn't taking into account that you had to spend a lot of time and mass to get your T2 HQ. The problem with nerfing frigs in the current balance is that hover would be OP. The balance team just buffed hover units significantly the last patch. I do think that navy balance is totally broken and needs to be reworked completely.

[RedX]

Frigates need a nerf, and a substantial one. I would suggest hitting their HP, hard, right in the face, and seeing what happens to the meta. My suspicion is that both T1 subs and T2 destroyers would see substantially more use. I also suspect that destroyer spam would become overly dominating, so would recommend this be accompanied by a nerf to destroyer torpedo DPS on all but UEF. You should end up with a far more dynamic fight in the water.

I agree with this. Their huge HP never made much sense to me. Subs take ages to kill a single frigate, which... What the hell are subs for if not to kill surface ships? They exist only to counter other subs?

[keyser]

Keyser, come now. There's a great deal of truth behind this thread. Frigates are OP, they have been for years, and the Cybran one is the worst offender. They are aburdly imbalanced in their HP/mass and flexibility. Absurdly. Their strength throws off the entire Naval game, and for a decade strategies have adapted around it to a fairly stable point. Stable != good. Stable != can't be better.

When the best statement to defend the fact that they beat their T2 "upgrade" unit is "But pathfinding eventually fails" or "But buildpower eventually evens out", we have a problem! Yes, I know those two statements are probably true for the various main battle tank matchups, but the fact is that in that case it takes significantly less time and resources, both absolutely and relatively speaking, to reach the critical shift point.

Frigates need a nerf, and a substantial one. I would suggest hitting their HP, hard, right in the face, and seeing what happens to the meta. My suspicion is that both T1 subs and T2 destroyers would see substantially more use. I also suspect that destroyer spam would become overly dominating, so would recommend this be accompanied by a nerf to destroyer torpedo DPS on all but UEF. You should end up with a far more dynamic fight in the water.

This is another discussion. I'm just telling him how to counter frigate spam, and rectifying the statement saying that frigate are the counter to destro.
The balance frigate-destro isn't bad. There is a lack of place for T1 subs, although it does find its use on water mexx map.

if you start nerfing hp and torpedo on vessel you gonna end up with very good subs (not taking into account the interaction with hover).
Now you only get some frig to raid, you spam subs to get navy control, and get destro for shore bombardment. If you start falling behind on subs count, it's snowball. There is no way to micro to keep yourself in the game.
if you hope to balance that around torpedo bomber sniping subs, then you get a very unstable (you call that dynamic ?) with subs getting rape in 2 sec if you didn't intercept the torpedo bomber in time. Ofc you could as well nerf the torpedo bomber (and maybe the cruiser ?). Maybe that way you can get to a stable gameplay, but i'm not even sure. You have to consider the impact of shield to protect subs, the role and strength of submersible vessel, hover (and especially hover flak), T3 subs, amphibious unit (ACU, nano SCU), torpedo defense (and harms) etc ...
I already brought that up in balance team, but we have more important task to focus on, and leaving subs to their niche job isn't that bad.