Counters for medium range is lacking.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 9:25 pm

I've noticed that I have options for counters when it comes to short-ranged or long-ranged enemies, but Medium range usually require just one particular ship to counter.

The Federation only has two ships with anti-medium range passives (Intrepid+Excelsior), and one of them is a warp-in (no control over which ships you get, so can't exactly use it to counter things.)

Helev is fine (Eresis+Leahval), but Mijural has only Leahvals.

Martok Klingons are fine (LuSpet+K'Vort), but TaQ'Roja Klingons only have K'Vorts to counter medium range.

Breen can counter medium very well (Bug+Breen Cruiser+Breen Battleship), but quite the opposite for Puretech who has only Bugs.

There's an obvious pattern here that one avatar has a choice between two or three ships to counter medium range, but the other avatar has only one ship, making that avatar very ill-prepared if going up against Bug spam, Vorcha spam, V-13 spam, Generix spam, or Akira spam (which are among the most popular spam strategies.) They also limit anti-Sphere and anti-Cube options, and those are the most powerful Borg units.
Since you can't tell whether you'll come up against medium-ranged units until after you've chosen an avatar, I suggest that the counters be rearranged so that neither avatar has particularly better countering options.

For Federation I would hope to see an Eraudi yard unit get ADAI (Remore would probably be best, or Excelsior-II, as the original Excelsior already has ADAI.)

posted on July 19th, 2010, 9:39 pm

Most factions have only 1-2 anti-shorties, anti-longies, and anti-mediums . The balance is such that right now I personally would not like any change whatsoever in adding more of these passives  . Just because there is a strong counter does not mean there aren't weak counters too. For instance, Bugs can kite K'vorts, despite the passives. Spectre will kill Frigates, Monsoons will kill Leahval etc.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 10:21 pm

Also take in mind, that long rang ships are good for attacking from long range against ships with smaller range. Put up a frontline with short/medium range and back them up from long range. It is quite difficult to arrange something like that in real time - in turn based games this is much easier to accomplish. So it may be good to increase the distances between shot/medium and long range.

One thing that is very powerful is to have a long rang ship with good speed and a 360° fire arc. It is hard to counter.
But for that, you have specials. Like cloaking devices, artillery ships or fast short ranged ships that can break through.

The medium sized vessels are just fine I think. They are the backbone of everything and you just counter around with short and long ranged vessels.

For example the S-7 is a very good ship to back up your offense, while you put in bugs and S-2 for the fronline.

The V-13 is pretty weak against borg I think, so the spam is not always the best way to attack. A mixed fleet is better, but harder to control.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on July 19th, 2010, 10:31 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on July 19th, 2010, 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I just like to have more options for counters, since sometimes the one unit that counters something is a unit with undesirable characteristics, I also don't like having to spam something to counter a spam.
I took a look at anti-short and anti-long and noticed that Dominus was right, altho Helev has no anti-short and Feds have a strangely large array of counters.

As far as kiting the Medium-ranged vessels, that is rather difficult as the more powerful long range units often have a slow speed, meaning it will require a spam of less powerful long-ranged units. I have yet to try Saber spam vs. Akira spam, but I'm not very optimistic about the results especially given the Akira's special weapon. Bombers might do the job, but they hav a limited firing arc.
Using short-ranged units would probably work best, but retreating will be a problem as the medium ranged units have a longer range.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 10:33 pm

Leahval is usually an anti-short for instance . Remember, you have to integrate not only the passives that your ship has, but also the passives that the others have (as well as the weapon type). Leahval counters quite a few short ranged vessels both natively and through its third level ability.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on July 19th, 2010, 10:40 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on July 19th, 2010, 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

True, I forgot to consider how short ranged units usually have passives of their own.
But many medium ranged units are generalists with no counter passives of their own. Generix, Akira, C-17, V-13, Nebula, Remore, K'BeajQ, Vutpa, Griffin, Sphere, and Cube are all such. Also the Vorcha and Sovereign's passive only makes a pretty soft counter by long range.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 10:50 pm

I don't see how any of those units don't have large amounts of counters  . Generix is either beam or pulse armed, and in either case it can be kited, shredded by anti-mediums or large sized craft, or deal less damage to anti-mediums or anti-cruisers. Same with Akira, C-17 (well, except for ADAI), V-13. K'beajQ is shredded by pulses too - don't forget that. Torpedoes and Pulses do much higher damage than beam weapons as a base value, so use them against the desired opponent. Most mediums are designed by default to be the core of your fleet, but they all have plenty of soft and hard counters if you just set your mind to it.

Passives aren't the end all remember - somebody who just looks and sees that "oh look, Negh'var is anti-long range, I bet I can kill that group of Sabers" can be easily proven wrong due to Hyper Impulse (reduced from shorties), long versus short range, faster speed, and torpedo miss-rate. There are a lot of variables to consider, which is why Fleet Operations is so well balanced at the moment . If you haven't figured out all the counters, don't fret, just put your mind to it and in time I'm sure you won't be disappointed

posted on July 19th, 2010, 10:59 pm

My main point is that right now 3 races have one avatar that is better than the other at countering medium range. That's a big advantage over the other avatar. An example is that against V-13s Breen can just get some Breen Battleships while Puretech will have to rely on either a super Bug spam or something else. While it is still possible to counter the ships, it is much more difficult by having fewer simple options.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 11:02 pm

Well, not all factions are supposed to be alike . You don't have to spam the counters to go against another unit. Just because Bugs are strong against V-13's doesn't mean that's just what you want to use. S-2's do more base damage against V-13's than Bugs, as do Bombers . In fact, they do approximately 20-30% more base damage  . Once again, counters are not the end-all. 

posted on July 19th, 2010, 11:07 pm

The Breen Battleship is slow as molasses and Breen torpedoes are currently terrible vs destroyers.  So if you're making them to counter mediums, do you see how you've just opened yourself up to getting pummeled by destroyers?  If you make luspets to counter mediums, then you open yourself to be countered yourself with supports.  If you make the Eresis to counter mediums, you open yourself up to supports countering you.

So it's not such a great advantage as it may appear.  And those other Avatars that don't get an extra anti-medium ship have other attributes that are quite nice that compensate quite nicely.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 1:04 am

Lol Nebula, you cant expect to win if you dont build the anti medium ships! By the time you got luspets, I had 4 vet akiras Another thing you need to do is get the kills in. You let my akiras escape. And btw, I did not spam them, I had intrepids, avalons, remores, canaverals, e2s, and a decent.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 1:47 pm

I usually find that this is the reason.

//Short Ranged Ships
Advantages: Damage (Usually greater than most), Specials (They often get some nifty special abilities for Offensive purposes), Speed (Short Ranged ships, at least in canon, have good speed respectively)
Disadvantages: Range (Hey, it is short, you have to be at point blank range in order to reach them with ya guns!)

//Medium Range Ships
Advantages: Defensive Strength (Many of the Medium ranged ships are more toward the Defensive side of each race, that may be why there is minimal counters)
Disadvantages: Speed (Most Medium ranged ships are a bit more sluggish than other relative ships around the same tech point of the game), Passives (Most medium ranged ships do not have more than one passive ability if any at all)

//Long Range Ships
Advantages: Range (Come on, its long range... what else do I need to say?), Specials (They are often equipped with good defensive special abilities, occasionally an offensive one or two), Passives (Usually long range vessels have good passive abilities)
Disadvantages: Damage (Usually long ranged ships do not carry much damage over long range, that is why they often counter short rangers)

//Artillery Range Ships
Advantages: Range (It speaks for itself), Hit-n-Run (Some of the Arty ships do have either cloak, good speed, or some other helpful thing that makes it a little bit easier to escape combat)
Disadvantages: Defensive Strength (Arty ships rarely have strong defensive values)

posted on July 20th, 2010, 3:49 pm

Lol Nebula, you cant expect to win if you dont build the anti medium ships! By the time you got luspets, I had 4 vet akiras Another thing you need to do is get the kills in. You let my akiras escape. And btw, I did not spam them, I had intrepids, avalons, remores, canaverals, e2s, and a decent.

I was hoping my Vorcha would hold them off, I didn't want to build K'Vorts due to their easily dead subsystems, low defensive value, and because I was Martok (his BoPs have less offensive power.)

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 4:54 pm

I think the allure and "special ability" of medium ships is the fact that they don't have counters.  These are the big-fleet ships that come in slowly, don't do much damage, and take hits while you micro your interesting ships.  If there are just a few, you can ignore countering them.  If your enemy makes a bunch of medium ranged ships and you DO counter them, I think that should be difficult to do.

To me, medium range ships represent the superior forces you start building to overpower the enemy AFTER you've used your other units to gain the upper hand.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 4:59 pm

medium range is countered by two common passives. ADAI and SSEC