My first game was a 2v2, 1 friend vs 2 AI, with a fresh copy of Sins. I spent 20 minutes chasing around a siege fleet as they systematically wiped out my worlds. I nearly lost the game, but fortunately had colony ships nearby to keep rebuilding my planets. After they were gone my eco was CRIPPLED. However I still had my fleet fully intact, because even 1.00 siege ships can't kill crap. I launched a devastating counterattack which wiped that player out. It was made easy because there was no backup after the siege ships.

1.00 siege ships weren't overpowered. However, new players couldn't understand why they aren't invincible when going on a full out defense, a lesson that I learned the folly of rather quickly. Siege ships just can't do that anymore.

Siege ships aren't even viable against an empty gravity well. Players can build turret defenses and wipe out the ships faster than they can destroy the planet. That's how worthless they are.

My idea for the added bombers was different. Like, you clear a planet defenses, move your assault fleet elsewhere and let the siege + bombers take care of planet and civilian structures.

Either making them tougher, or increasing their planetary damage would be an option. Do you have any % to suggest about that?

Why hangars? Siege vessels have to approach very close range to attack a planet. Simple turrets can cover the distance just fine. In fact, a few turrets can wipe out pirate siege ships very quickly.

The only issue with 1.00 siege frigates is that they could wipe out planets without so much as slowing down. It made them impossible to chase if your fleet was more than a minute behind. That got nerfed with the considerable upgrade to PJIs. It got nerfed again when ships got more capable of shooting on the fly. It got nerfed again with the speed increase to capital ships (keep in mind that most fleets slowed down to stay with their caps). Entrenchment utterly wrecks siege ships entirely. Note that none of these changes directly altered the siege ship, but hurt it just the same.

The siege ship's threat level could have been just fine with a slight decrease in mobility, so that ships could engage them more easily. As long as the ships can be shot at, any hell they raze is justified. Instead, they now shoot fairy dust and blow into a billion pieces any time they get a funny look.

Are you freaking kidding me?  Did you PLAY version 1?  The speed of those things was the least of their issues.  Those damn things had armor made of admantium or something, and thicker than a cap ship.  You could wail on those things for ages and they wouldn't go down.  And their cheapness meant the AI would send 20 into your system at a time, wave after wave.  Now, imagine what clever PEOPLE did with them.

It was the most ridiculous unit ever.  I think most people cheered like it was Christmas when that unit got nerfed.  I doubt it is ever coming back, and I'm glad.

Yes I agree that hangers are the way to counter sieges.  Work fabulous, no need for defensive fleet.

As far as sieges being overpowered, I only ever had a siege spam used against me by a player once in BETA, and even thou he kileld the target planet, he lost just about every siege he built to do it.  And the 5 broadcast centers I had in orbit were not damaged by this siege attack, so he really didn't do much of anything

Actually, its just the opposite.  If anything is to be done to the siege frigate, make it cheaper, but DO NOT give them high durability.  The main problem with them before was their high durability.  It made no sense.

Think about it.  Siege frigs should not be able to waltz into any system with defenses, whether those defenses are static D, or a few generic frigs sitting there, and survive to tell the tale.  They should instantly be toast if that happens.  Their purpose is to take down a planet AFTER ALL DEFENSES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED by the accompanying main fleet.

The way it should have worked all along was - your main fleet moves in and attacks a planet, while siege frigs are hanging back a phase jump away.  If your main fleet is successful and toasts the planetary defenses, plus any fleet sitting there, THEN you move the siege frigs in to clean house.  This is the intuitive way the game mechanics should have worked all along.

Siege frigate armor should be made of paper.  Which means any planetary defenses (even light ones) should kill them easily.  Siege frigs should not be able to go anywhere unaccompanied and live to tell the tale.  The problem now is not that siege frigs are made of paper (that's good) - its that they are too expensive in terms of fleet cap, so nobody (including me) builds them.  If anything is to be done, KEEP THE PAPER ARMOR but lower the cost.

Personally, the original unit was so hated, I never want to see the unit rebuffed in any capacity whatsoever.  *BUT*, if the fates deem it necessary to do something, I hope that only the cost is adjusted - nothing else.

By the way, some people have wondered what the problem was all along, since a PJI should have slowed them down.  Again, not knowing the crazy history of this game, heh.  The PJI was a non-unit when the game first came out.  It did nothing.  It simply took up a space in your planetary logistics, and cost you money.  In other words, it was an expensive ornament and nothing else.

I'm quoting this and restating what I said in the beginning of the thread.  Keep siege frigates exactly as they are now with one exception- lower the fleet cap.  They'll still be too expensive to research early on, too expensive to build early on, and if you do build them early instead of combat ships, they'll still get killed by a early game fleet.  Right now they are absolutely pointless to build and it sucks because it takes too long to get a decent number of caps to bomb a planet in less than 15 minutes.  Plus, as said above, being able to raid with them in a small fleet would open up a lot of tactical options in the midgame.

Now THAT'S a bit of an overstatement.  If there are about 12 siege frigates backed up with a huge number of combat frigates and multiple cap ships on an early game rush (play unlocked teams and you'll see what I mean ) then yes they'll get the job done.  Such a huge army will quickly destroy any amount of early game static defense, much quicker than they can take down that many siege frigates, and then cover them long enough to take out an unupgraded planet.  However, we're talking about an AI which has a resource cheat, here.  A player won't be able to have such overwhelming force and siege frigates.

But again - and I made this argument against nerfing Siege ships way back when, if a foe invests resources into Siege ships, thats resource not going into an actual combat fleet - the very sort of fleet *we* are meant to use to crush such Siege vessels with.

Or any vessels with, for that matter.

A straight massive armada early game can be just as devastating to a player, smashing your facilities system-to-system. You defeat/thwart it the same way you defeat/thwart a Siege assault, don`t you? I did, back when the A.I. utilized them. No big deal... just another tactic to counter.

Well first off, with that diamond armor siege frigates had, actual combat fleets weren't very good at crushing them.  Second off, it was just a seriously screwed-up game dynamic.  I mean, what are turrets and hangers for, anyway?  Expensive decorations?  And what is your fleet for when it can't take down siege frigates fast enough to save any planets in your system?  The frigs could just jump from world to world, taking every planet down to zero population, while your fleet was following them on their path of destruction, hammering away at them the entire time.  This is what you call a good gameplay dynamic?

 

Here's the deal.  If the siege frigs are adjusted to take up less popcap, they will need a further reduction in hit poits, hull, armor, etc. because, even with nerfs they've already received, they will still be too tough to stand a chance against them in numbers. 

If 20 siege frigs are sent to your planet, reasonable defenses should be able to take out all 20 - no problem, no loss of planet.  With the way those frigs are built right now, the planet would go down, even in the face of reasonable defenses.  What keeps this from occuring right now is the high popcap on the siege frigs.

The point I am making is twofold:  1) "be careful what you wish for," and 2) "if you play with fire, you will get burned."  Look, the devs are no doubt cool guys, and extremely talented.  But do you really trust them to get the adjustment right if the siege frig is tuned more to your liking?  You shouldn't.  When the game came out, it was broken because of the siege frigate.  After the first patch, it was still broken.  Currently, the siege frigates aren't a problem (sure, they aren't used, but that's better than the situation before).  I say it again - "be careful what you wish for," and "you are playing with fire, so get prepared to be burned."  If they adjust that siege frigate, I can guaran-damn-tee you its gonna break the game.

My two cents:

 

I just won a 3v3 with siege frigates.  Sent one fleet to kill the enemy fleet early on (as TEC none the less), and sent another smaller fleet (8-10 LRMS and 3 sieges) to his home planet and whammo, he had to drop everything on the frontlines b/c his pop. was dying.  They DO work.  But only in a handful of situations.  Mine was one of them.  So for me, that one game, I liked them.

 

I personally hate waiting 10min for one cap. ship to finish off an asteroid.