Frigates vs Escort

[jam3]

Ok I think the only difference between any ship "type" (Escorts, Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Capitals, Constructors, Exploration, etc, etc) is how the AI uses those ships. For most military ships unless your at war the ai will use those ships to patrol your facilities and bases. I play with everything on manual and have found almost no use for 2 types of ships that basically do the same thing frigates and escorts. Being a military and naval buff I prefer the name "frigate" so i keep them but having an additional "escort" is pointless. From the manual.

Escorts
"These are the smallest military ships, and are only lightly
armed. Some escort designs even omit shield components.
Escorts are used to patrol smaller colonies and facilities."

Frigates
"Frigates are fast, agile military ships, and are typically the
most numerous type of military ship for an empire.

The player should build lots of frigates to patrol outlying
mining stations and to escort construction ships.

With their high speed and potent armament, frigates are
particularly well-suited to defending against raiding pirates."


In other words you have 2 ship types that basically do the same job.

I have fiddled alot with the ships designer and if u design a bare minimum ship as your escort it will be

appx. 75% the maintenance cost of a frigate
have worse speed and turn rates
1/2 the firepower
worse defenses

If you try and fix any of the problem you essentially end up designing a frigate. Maybe the maintenance costs were less than 50% of a frigates maintenance cost then it might begin to make sense.

I did try making an escort a slow gunboat armed to the teeth and the same cost as my frigates but increased weaponry instead of speed and their just horrible vs pirates as pirates are fast and fly right by them, maybe if they would stay close to a facility it could work but as it stand you want speed to fight pirates.

The best starting ship is the appx 180 point custom designed fast, well armed, reasonably defended, frigate (or heck use the escort ship type it is just a name).

I would love to see room for the cheapy defense police cutter type of ship in the game but as the numbers work out on the components, fast pirate ships, and maintenance costs. It just doesnt make sense within the math of the game.

[Flaviusx]

Yeah, I agree with this. Frigates are better escorts than escorts. The only reason to build escorts that I can see is economy.
 
Very late in the game when your tech is high escorts become much more attractive, however. I'll cheerfully trash (not refit, just scrap on site, the game UI is obnoxious for refits on anything other than fleets even in 1.03) all my old patrol ships at that point and spam brand new shiny escorts with more firepower and less upkeep cost. Unlike low tech escorts, these babies can more than handle the odd pirate or monster menace, too.

[taltamir]

well... there is certainly a difference in size between most of those...
but escorts are bloody useless... in fact, escorts are worse idea then putting a gun on each private vessel... you should have rapid fleets securing systems, engaging any pirate as it warps in (remember, fleets can warp within the system). "escorting" is pointless.

[Flaviusx]

Using fleets in this fashion is doable early on in the game, but eventually you'll need those fleets for other things (like, say, wars) and that's when escorts pay off.

[Joram]

Escorts buy time and that makes them valuable even if in a 1 on 1 they are inferior.  Besides, you don't have to design an inferior escort so they are far from useless.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Using fleets in this fashion is doable early on in the game, but eventually you'll need those fleets for other things (like, say, wars) and that's when escorts pay off.

that makes no sense whatsoever... in fact the opposite is true.
You can use 10 escorts to protect freighters in a system... or half as many patrolling the system and engaging pirates proactively with the other half away fighting wars. or just use your defense budget for that system to buy bigger (read, better) ships altogether.

[Flaviusx]

It makes perfect sense to me: I use fleets to fight my neighbors late in the game not for escort duties. Fleets in enemy space necessarily cannot be used to deal with monsters and pirates in your own territory. Nor is it economical to go quail shooting with capital ships and cruisers which form the backbone of my fleet. They are overkill for such a purpose. High tech escorts can more than manage this job and are dirt cheap to produce and upkeep. (And by high tech I mean beams with 10+ firepower.)
 
Early on, sure, I'll use my fleets to clear out my surrounding area and secure colony systems, and of course trash pirate bases, but the game evolves beyond this.

[taltamir]

here is what you fail to understand... a "fleet" doesn't need to be user controlled, it doesn't need to be in the fleet menu, and it doesn't need capital ships.
A fleet of 5 escorts which attacks any pirates that enters system X is better then 10 escorts each escorting one and only one ship in said system and NOT engaging pirates who enter the system proactively; thus, fighting the pirates 1v1, only fighting them when engaged, and costing twice as much per system (10 escorts cost 2x as 5 escorts).
And an escort is simply a frigate with a different name and different AI script.

Obviously the last thing I want to do is manually control escorts... but my point is that when a pirate enters a system ALL escort ships in the system should converge on it... and it is better to have fewer larger escorts then more smaller ones. Not capital ships, but destroyers (in later game that is).

speaking of, the empire AI (that is, the one that control the player's ships if he lets it) should be more proactive in eliminating pirate bases that are known.

[Flaviusx]

And what you don't understand is that automated high tech escorts can handle these internal policing duties perfectly fine. They don't even need to be formed up in a fleet.
 
I'm talking about a point in the game where I can pack 80+ firepower on an escort here, with 4 beams and a torp. Such escorts can solo random menaces with ease. Pirates and monsters don't tech up much and will not keep pace.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

And what you don't understand is that automated high tech escorts can handle these internal policing duties perfectly fine.

Yes, if their AI is designed to handle it the way I said... whats hard to get here?

They don't even need to be formed up in a fleet.

That was exactly my point and exactly what I said.

I'm talking about a point in the game where I can pack 80+ firepower on an escort here, with 4 beams and a torp. Such escorts can solo random menaces with ease. Pirates and monsters don't tech up much and will not keep pace.

And said escort you just described is better off PROACTIVELY seeking out any hostile in a system and killing it, rather then only fighting it if it attacks the ONE ship they are guarding and leaving it be if it attacks any other ship in the system, or just waits in the system without attacking anything. at some point you will have "enough" such "escorts" in a system that it is perfectly secure, at which point new escorts should travel to less secure system or join in fleets and attack the enemy... aka, get more done per ship / dollar / time unit / etc.

A ship that spends 99% of its time "escorting" one random private freighter is wasting 99% of its time... it should be fighting threats all the time (or refueling and repairing)... this resulting in more dead threats and less dead freighters. The last thing I want is to have to manually control escorts... but they should respond to threats better instead of wasting so much of their time.

[HsojVvad]

I don't think Escorts are useless. I call my escorts fighters. Basically just the minimum that is needed to make a legal ship. When in combat, I find the AI goes for the fighters since they are weaker, so you bigger ships will not take as much damage, and less to repair after the battles.

Good decoys they are.

[jam3]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

And what you don't understand is that automated high tech escorts can handle these internal policing duties perfectly fine. They don't even need to be formed up in a fleet.

I'm talking about a point in the game where I can pack 80+ firepower on an escort here, with 4 beams and a torp. Such escorts can solo random menaces with ease. Pirates and monsters don't tech up much and will not keep pace.

But doesn't the frigate script handle these types of ships better? It will patrol a facility, escort contructors or frieghters, and it will jump to an encounter. I just don't get the distinction between these two types of ship type ai's, it sounds like the only difference is that the escort ai script doesn't converge on threats compared to frigates and aside from that they do the same thing. I just don't see any point in escorts, not from the script, cost perspective, nothing.

[Flaviusx]

Taltamir, you plainly like to micro more than I do.
 
Look, when I'm running a game on a thousand star galaxy and 120+ colonies, I'm completely happy to leave the escort duties to full automation.
 
I also hang weapons on just about everything, including mining and gas stations. There comes a point in the game where you can simply ignore all this stuff and let the AI handle it if you've built up the proper infrastructure, ports, and escorts.
 
The only fleets I will micro at that point are my battle fleets. I'm not chasing around pirates and monsters in a big game with a well developed empire. I've got plenty of stuff to deal with elsewhere without worrying about small fry like that.
 
The kind of stuff you're talking about is, from my perspective, something I worry about early in a game before I've built up properly. 

[jam3]

ORIGINAL: Davor

I don't think Escorts are useless. I call my escorts fighters. Basically just the minimum that is needed to make a legal ship. When in combat, I find the AI goes for the fighters since they are weaker, so you bigger ships will not take as much damage, and less to repair after the battles.

Good decoys they are.

Maybe if they cost 50% of what a well designed frigate does but 75% of that cost and you get a negative in every category (speed/firepower/defenses/add-ons like targeting computers,sensors, and solar panels) its not economically worth it. 4 escorts (75*4=300) or 3 frigates(100*3=300) I'll take the 3 frigates any day. Not to mention with what other have pointed out; you get a better ai script that actively hunts down threats.

[jam3]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Taltamir, you plainly like to micro more than I do.

Look, when I'm running a game on a thousand star galaxy and 120+ colonies, I'm completely happy to leave the escort duties to full automation.

I also hang weapons on just about everything, including mining and gas stations. There comes a point in the game where you can simply ignore all this stuff and let the AI handle it if you've built up the proper infrastructure, ports, and escorts.

The only fleets I will micro at that point are my battle fleets. I'm not chasing around pirates and monsters in a big game with a well developed empire. I've got plenty of stuff to deal with elsewhere without worrying about small fry like that.

The kind of stuff you're talking about is, from my perspective, something I worry about early in a game before I've built up properly. 

No he's still right from an automated point of view just build nothing but frigates and automate them and they'll work better and cost less than a escort/frigate combination build.

Actually I'll retract a bit from my original post and say its not just an equal relationship as far as their role the ai script difference makes the ship type frigate just plain better all around.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: jam3

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx


But doesn't the frigate script handle these types of ships better? It will patrol a facility, escort contructors or frieghters, and it will jump to an encounter. I just don't get the distinction between these two types of ship type ai's, it sounds like the only difference is that the escort ai script doesn't converge on threats compared to frigates and aside from that they do the same thing. I just don't see any point in escorts, not from the script, cost perspective, nothing.

My facilities are self defending except for the few that I start the game with. I redesign everything immediately and upgrade constantly so all my bases can blast away random menaces. Only a dedicated battle fleet will take them out, not an odd pirate.

I also put ports on every colony. No labs, but they are also self defending.

[HsojVvad]

Well I tried having 5 destroyers around and I hated how one of them either blows up or gets badly damaged. By putting in fighters, now my 3 other destroyers don't get touched.

I didn't know about the cost formula. Are you saying because it is labled as an escort, it is 75% of a cruiser? So is a cruiser 75% of a destroyer then? What is the formula for this? Where can I go and read this. If I can't read it anywhere, can you please list them all for me. I didn't know about this.

So if I make a say 200 escort just like a 200 destroyer, the escort will have less fire power, speed and strength, but cost cheaper? What is this forumla. Thanks for pointing it out.

[jam3]

My facilities are self defending except for the few that I start the game with. I redesign everything immediately and upgrade constantly so all my bases can blast away random menaces. Only a dedicated battle fleet will take them out, not an odd pirate.

I was doing the same thing but from the post and my own observations I am leaning towards

Designing a good appx 185 point frigate as my smallest ship and primary pirate defense vessel
Designing mining bases without defenses to save on maint costs and relying on the frigates to clear out threats
(after messing around with putting defenses on mining bases I have found that you need to put a bit too much on them to have them able to defend themselves properly, i.e. it costs too much)
Leaving the frigates automated, which will prob cost me a bit more but it will make more fluid sense in relation to the game and if multiplayer is ever added this would be a good canidate for automation so you can focus on other pressing matters.

As the game plays out it currently leaves two good options
1) Build armed mining bases and starbases and go with a minimal manual frigate fleet
2) Build bare minimum mining bases and go with a larger autmated or manual frigate fleet


Escorts just don't figure anywhere in the calculation imho.

[jam3]

ORIGINAL: Davor

Well I tried having 5 destroyers around and I hated how one of them either blows up or gets badly damaged. By putting in fighters, now my 3 other destroyers don't get touched.

I didn't know about the cost formula. Are you saying because it is labled as an escort, it is 75% of a cruiser? So is a cruiser 75% of a destroyer then? What is the formula for this? Where can I go and read this. If I can't read it anywhere, can you please list them all for me. I didn't know about this.

So if I make a say 200 escort just like a 200 destroyer, the escort will have less fire power, speed and strength, but cost cheaper? What is this forumla. Thanks for pointing it out.

I am saying the maintenance cost of a bare minimum escort is about appx 300 credits and well designed frigate is appx 400 credits, ergo the escort maintenance cost is 75% of a frigate. So paying for 4 escorts is the same as paying for 3 frigates, so as far as effectiveness is concerned I would take the 3 frigates. If it was closer to 50% it would make a little more sense, since an escort actually loses part of the frigates ai script functionality (moving to intercept) it should actually be like 40-45%.

[Flaviusx]

I haven't had any economic problems at all building self defending facilities. And like I said, I also put ports on literally every colony, although they are stripped down versions lacking labs. (They have shields and weapons instead.)
 
The reason I like escorts is because they escort freighters and colony ships. And I don't put weapons on those, largely for diplomatic reasons. (The AI doesn't really like armed freighters in its territory.) And they're cheap.
 
A 185 pt frigate is overkill beyond a certain point. 125ish pt escorts will approach 100 firepower late in the game. I'm not even kidding about this, get to titan beams and you'll see what I mean.