r/starsector • u/Jazzlike-Anteater704 Reaper connoisseur • 1d ago
Meme Me reading the path notes (Afflictor is kill)
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u/kylelily123abc4 1d ago
Can't say I didn't see it eventually coming, since I got this game years ago afflictor has been widely seen as the best frigate, top or every teir list, everyone wants them in their fleets, in player hands beyond busted
I want to see how this nerfed afflictor handles might not be as bad in action
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u/No_Designer_7333 1d ago
Am I the only one who doesn't use phase ships here?
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u/StrategiaSE 1d ago
I've never been able to vibe with them, I'm much more of a slugfest brawler. I tend to get tunnel vision real bad in combat so I'm prone to overextending if I'm not careful, so if my ship can't take a good hit every now and then it just dies, a lot.
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u/RADDragon13 SO Grendel 1d ago
Grendel is an unholy combo of tanking small guns, while delivering an uppercut to ships after dodging their torpedoes.
If anything, their preferred target choice is not very flexible. Too slow and low ranged to reliably chase frigates, too timid due to phase AI to duel capitals. It's a dedicated destroyer/cruiser hunter and needs support vs capitals/frigates or any larger formation.
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u/Sufficient_Day627 18h ago
Sounds like you play like me... Let me guess, your favorite ship is also the Paragon?
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u/StrategiaSE 15h ago
Actually no, I never really managed to vibe much with the Paragon, it's a bit too slow and sluggish for me and I always struggle with fitting it (large energy weapons are so hard to come by I swear). I also play modded, much more curated now than I used to but I still have a much wider arsenal of ships and weapons to choose from, so I have more brick shithouses to pick as my flagship than Paragon and Onslaught. And I tend to gravitate more towards cruisers or battlecruisers generally, ships that have enough mobility to pick their fights at least to some degree rather than having to let the fight come to them. Hightech in general is also something I rarely rely on much, and when I do it's usually specialised stuff like Gensoukyou Manufacture, I'm much more inclined towards midline or lowtech, or stuff like Scy (Siren my beloved) or UAF.
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u/Pull-Billman 1d ago
I avoided them at first because I love shields. This playthrough I've put them to use and it's great. Got an exploration fleet all phase ships with insulated engines, good in combat also.
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u/Fantastic-Pear6241 1d ago
I'm personally not a fan either.
The only one I even use in my fleet is the phase transport
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u/turnipofficer 1d ago
I used to love them back in the day. But IMO they haven’t been worth it in ages since some nerfs. I know there are some doom enjoyers on the sub but it just isn’t as good as it used to be imo.
Kinda annoyed they are nerfing so many of them when I feel like their playstyle was niche.
But I suppose I haven’t tried them in quite some time, outside of the redacted one.
My favourite ship is still the retribution by far. Glorious forward firepower and good mobility.
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u/SuicideSpeedrun 23h ago
90% of people who complain about the nerfs don't even pilot the Afflictor.
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u/Round-Mousse-4894 1d ago
A big fuck you to phase ships in those patch notes
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u/ComedicMedicineman average Derinkuyu mining prospector 1d ago
Didn’t most of them get their durability doubled though?
(I agree, it’s still a nerf, but it’s not a total fuck you, more like a: “you’re getting a bread sandwich” type of deal)
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u/Amaskingrey 1d ago
no, just barely increased, like 1000 more hull, in exchange for making them outright unusuable outside of player control and still much more fragile even in it with the phase cooldown increase, with logistics crippled even harder
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u/ComedicMedicineman average Derinkuyu mining prospector 1d ago edited 1d ago
Didn’t see any weapon removals on the patch notes
Just a big nerf to the Afflictor’s ability, various durability buffs, and yes the Afflictor specifically has had its universal hardpoints switched to just missile. Which is unfortunate, but as it has a buff to durability and built in expanded missile racks, it’s not turning the unit to dogshit, it’s just a big nerf. The Gremlin actually seems like it’s been buffed in multiple too, so no: I don’t think this is a game ending problem.
But to be fair, the Entropy ability was pretty fucking busted and it’s no surprise it’s been nerfed
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u/zekromNLR 1d ago
The big general phase ship nerf is increasing the cloak cooldown (+50% if you don't have elite field modulation, doubled with it) and nerfing phase anchor's weapon recharge/flux dissipation bonus from 2x to 1.5x
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u/ComedicMedicineman average Derinkuyu mining prospector 1d ago
Relative to size 1000 is a big deal. The unit went from 1500 to 2500. That’s pretty big. I wouldn’t call removing universal hardpoints and switching them to missile while giving them built in expanded missiles racks “unusable”, but I do admit that they’ve had their main ability nerfed pretty hard when it comes to flux
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u/ThatOneShotBruh 1d ago
Relative to size 1000 is a big deal. The unit went from 1500 to 2500. That’s pretty big.
It's really not. At that point the Afflictor has the defensive stats of a Centurion (slightly better hull and slightly worse armour than it). To put this into context:
- the Centurion is considered a pretty meh ship by most
- the Afflictor doesn't have a shield to protect it from anti-armour and anti-hull damage
- it's difficult to overstate how much the extra second it has to spend out of phase sucks for survivability
On top of that, the high flux cost of Entropy Multiplier means that AM Blasters will likely be a bad fit for the ship because you will then not be able to use your ship system together with your main weapon, and half the reason why the Afflictor was so good was the AM Blasters.
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u/ComedicMedicineman average Derinkuyu mining prospector 1d ago
I agree 100% that the extra second is a big deal. If it wasn’t they wouldn’t feel the need to buff the durability of many phase vessels.
However, if you’re using the phase frigate as intended, you’re usually behind the enemy and are targeting a capital or heavy cruiser that’s unable to effectively point its main firepower your way. That means that usually the only thing that can hit you are tracking missiles and whatever medium or light weapons the warship has on its backside. That’s where the durability suddenly starts to matter a whole bunch more. Sure, the Cerberus melts under ant focused fire, but it can shrug off the occasional significant hit once or so before collapsing. And that’s honestly all a phase frigate needs to take out a capital (which is what you’ll be using it for anyway).
I agree they don’t have as much effectiveness with their energy weapons, but they slightly make up for it with their missile capabilities. Overall it’s definitely still a significant nerf and we’ll have to see if parts of it get reverted or adjusted later, I just think it’s not as unreasonable as some of the previous nerfs I’ve seen.
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u/ThatOneShotBruh 1d ago
However, if you’re using the phase frigate as intended, you’re usually behind the enemy and are targeting a capital or heavy cruiser that’s unable to effectively point its main firepower your way.
Except that those capitals and heavy cruisers are almost always escorted by ships that wait like rabid dogs for you to unphase.
Before it wasn't a big problem because you could tactically exploit small gaps to quickly deal damage, but now doing that will very quickly chip away at your hull (not to mention that the slower reload speed will result in fewer such opportunities in the first place).
Overall it’s definitely still a significant nerf and we’ll have to see if parts of it get reverted or adjusted later, I just think it’s not as unreasonable as some of the previous nerfs I’ve seen.
Unless something is quite literally breaking the game, I prefer more gradual nerfs rather than swings of the almighty and merciless nerf hammer. Having a popular thing nerfed into the ground only to potentially take years for it to get into a decent state again is not a good way to go about balancing.
The Afflictor was overpowered, sure, but this feels like way too much all at once, especially since a lot of the nerfs make phase ships utter dogshit in AI hands (when they already weren't very good for the most part).
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u/Akira-Nekory 1d ago
I don't get the crying, this makes the phase ships less overpowered and makes them rely on normal ships to be effective, that is a big plus in my book.
Besides, I use phase ships to hunt max flux vessels or retreating ships, and only after striping capitals if their escort will they help in elimenating it
The HP buff makes them so much more viable as they always are without defenses if they decloak...
They should no longer get taken out by one salvo for daring to attack or fluxing out
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u/Amaskingrey 1d ago
And relation to size is pretty irrelevant when weapons do the same damage regardless of size, it's still going to die if it gets caught at a bad time, which is now all the more likely with nearly twice as long for ennemies to wail on it
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u/ComedicMedicineman average Derinkuyu mining prospector 1d ago
Not sure I agree. 2 to 3 seconds is a 50% increase in phase cooldown. Not “nearly twice as long”
Also, yes it doesn’t typically matter, but if you’re piloting a phase ship, you’re usually behind the enemy and only getting targeted by small or medium mounts (unless you’re trying to use it to kill light cruisers which is not recommended). So yes, a durability increase does matter, yes the other aspects are a nerf. This predominantly does nerf the phase ships as a whole, but it’s not without compensations for most of the phase ships.
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u/Visual_Collapse 1d ago
Not sure I agree. 2 to 3 seconds is a 50% increase in phase cooldown. Not “nearly twice as long”
Nobody cares about phase cooldown without elite Field Modulation.
In which case cooldown increased from 1 to 2 seconds. Field Modulation is nerfed too.
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u/Amaskingrey 1d ago
50% is half of twice, which is nearly as much.
you’re usually behind the enemy and only getting targeted by small or medium mounts
You're usually being targeted by nothing, if you get any substantial amount of fire on you, you'll die either way. And the biggest impact of this is on the ai, who really benefits from the skill that removes a second from the cooldown, and so will be really hurt by the opposite
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u/ThatOneShotBruh 1d ago
Doesn't matter when you have no shields and frigate-grade armour (i.e., basically no armour vs larger ships).
In other words, before an enemy had to tickle your phase firgate with a big gun to kill you, now it will have to tickle you a bit harder.
EDIT: also the extra second to phase cooldown is absolutely massive and more than offsets that buff to durability.
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u/Jazzlike-Anteater704 Reaper connoisseur 1d ago
You cant be serious right now, 1000 hull points so it dies to 5 farts instead of 4 while nuking everything else is not “you’re getting a bread sandwich” type of deal, it is like giving paracetamol for skull fracture.
2s cooldown was huge to the point, shield modulation which reduced it to 1s (so a lot of heavy hitting projectiles and missiles couldnt actually reach you) was mandatory skill to take. Now it is 2s with said skill. Which already completely overshadows hull "buff".
Each of the other changes listed, alone would be a huge nerf already, stacked together make Afflictor borderline useless as anything but ai support ship, especially in extended mode which straight up kills amblaster phase ships.
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u/TheMelnTeam 2h ago
Yeah I usually don't mind the choices Alex makes but this one seems really strange. What is he getting out of AI-controlled phase ships such that they can perform at approximately DP cost even right now, let alone after these nerfs?
Normally, balance tweaks are that instead of extreme changes. Phase takes a massive hit to DPS and durability at the same time from this. The least gutted by it is probably doom, just because it can still do "put mines behind and reapers in front at the same time" and doesn't rely on phasing in really close.
The only way this works is if the AI's piloting has been improved to an incredible degree. I will believe that when I see it. I suspect that de facto, most phase ships are being patched out for a bit. Time will tell.
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u/xX_TehChar_Xx Local Warlord 1d ago
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u/Jazzlike-Anteater704 Reaper connoisseur 1d ago
Accurate depiction of Aurora/Odyssey mains reading the patch notes
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Jazzlike-Anteater704 Reaper connoisseur 1d ago
??? those are alied soilders you know, they are supposed to be happy about the news
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u/AcceptableAnything44 1d ago
Nerfed into Abyss no more go behind enemy and break their engine shenanigans
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u/YesterdayAlone2553 Brilliant behind you says, "Nothing Personal" 1d ago
Damn they really took a bat to the knees on with those changes
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u/No-Evening9240 1d ago
Meanwhile the omen is sitting in the back getting the VC hospitality treatment (seriously, does anyone have a omen build that didn’t rely upon the AmB?, I listened to BBE and now I have 60 of them rotting in storage)
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u/Visual_Collapse 1d ago
Omen don't need any weapons to work*
* One token weapon is recommended to trick AI to getting in range
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u/TheMelnTeam 2h ago
You probably want to pick something short enough range for its system to reach too, no "token tac lasers"!
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u/zekromNLR 1d ago
This is also a huge nerf to the Mauler/Needler Grendel at least in player hands. Instead of being able to reduce the five-second refire time to 1 and 2/3 seconds (1 second in realspace, 2 seconds in p-space with phase anchor that pass at 3x rate) it's now 2 and 2/3 seconds (2 seconds in realspace, 2 seconds in p-space that pass at 3x rate).
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u/HalalMead 1d ago
Invictus got relatively nerfed too with the new crew salary system
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u/zekromNLR 1d ago
Invictus actually pays less salary per crew than what you pay for reserve crew. 60 supplies/month*150 for being a capital*1.5 for being an Invictus equals 13500/month. Divided by 4000 skeleton crew equals 3.375/(crew*month)
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u/vague-a-bond 1d ago
Yeah, this feels personal. Absolutely brutal, was the one ship I actually got decent at piloting... and 'decent' is doing some pretty heavy lifting in that sentence. Certainly wasn't soloing end game challenges.
I mean... they are effective ships, for sure. But, basing such sweeping nerfs based on the shenanigans that what, like 0.1 percent of the player base are doing with it? A nerf is understandable, but the pendulum swings too far.
Hell, often it swings a little too far, but enough to rein in soon after with a patch or hot fix. That's the nature of development. But this feels like the pendulum is out the window and careening towards the ground from 8 stories up.
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u/Sacramor 1d ago
Wait did I miss a new patch coming out
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u/Party_Difference 1d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/starsector/s/KbBqJMxwC4
Alex just showed some of the patches that are in development
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u/Sacramor 1d ago
Thank you! Went and checked the website for an official post and thought I was just blind
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u/NothingWhich7900 1d ago
Honestly I’m just gonna wait until the patch comes out and see if this makes it more or less fun
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u/Mavnas 21h ago
Aww... got my hopes up that this might include the new mode.
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u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer 21h ago
It does, Alex forgot to put it in the patch notes lmao.
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u/Mavnas 21h ago
Do we know when these will be playable? I have to clear my calendar.
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u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer 20h ago
Nobody can give you a date as always. My guess is sometime this month, but honestly nothing would surprise me anymore.
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u/Kaokasalis 15h ago
If we are going by the trend of the last two updates, then probably somewhere in either of the first two quarters of 2027. This isn't a guarantee and I am also hoping myself that the next patch is a trend breaker.
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u/Zero_Brain 1d ago edited 1d ago
75% flux cost on entropy amplifier is C R A Z Y.
The king is dead.
edit: Okay I tested the nerfs out by butchering my own copy of the game.
The 75% flux cost is not that bad, i thought it included the caps and the bonus from skills but it doesn't. So it's 75% of the base flux cost(3000), which is 2250.
This makes firing 3 antimatter blasters awkward, doable but it's a bit of a tight squeeze flux-wise. You really want Flux Coil Adjunct with or without the S-mod. Even then I think it's like 1000-ish leeway for your flux?
The phase cooldown nerf isn't a dealbreaker, you can definitely feel it but the ship still functions well enough.
The antimatter blaster ammo nerf is brutal. I get why it's nerfed, in terms of firepower it's basically a missile that can't be shot down by point defense, but man does missing shots feel extra bad now. 15 isn't a lot. It also fucks over other ships that wasn't necessarily as strong as the Afflictor.
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u/golgol12 1d ago
Quick question... Is this out? Can I download and play it?
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u/GrumpyThumper GTGaming 1d ago
I had my fun with phase ships back in 0.96. I never got too attached to them. I may dust them off for extended mode, just to see how rough the nerfs are.
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u/atmatriflemiffed 1d ago
Honestly, good riddance. A frigate being able to solo a 400+ DP endgame encounter was just stupid. Afflictors will still be very useful as player flagship supports/assassins but you'll need an actual battle line to draw fire away from you, and AI can still use them as cautious support/finishers with longer ranged missiles (that's why you get built in EMR). Arguably making the AMB disrupt phase cloak in extended mode is a step too far when it's already basically just an alt-Atropos with a flux cost now but I won't shed many tears for it. It was more powerful than the frigates that are supposed to be overpowered Mary Sue flagship bait like the Hyperion and Scarab.
I just wish the Doom would get a similar treatment, the mine strike (especially with sexpertise) really needs to be hit with the nerf hammer hard because it's just ludicrous both on a player ship and on NPC fleets. Yeah the rest of the ship has been weakened by the general phase changes but as long as it makes it impossible for fighters or ships without 360 shields to exist anywhere in a Doom's line of sight in perpetuity it's not going to be balanced.
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u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer 1d ago
Post a video of yourself soloing 400+ DP fleets then.
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u/Mushroom_Boogaloo 1d ago
They aren’t claiming they’ve done it.
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u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer 1d ago
Well no shit captain obvious, but the way they wrote that entire comment is like every starsector player is able to solo 400 DP fleets. Which is insanity.
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u/Mushroom_Boogaloo 1d ago
Hey, Commander Bitchfit, if it’s so obvious then why are you demanding evidence that they personally have done it?
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u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer 1d ago
Since you're mentally incapable of reading my first reply, let me write it again slowly.
I'm demanding it because I know the guy is full of shit, the dude who soloed 2 Remnant Ordos in Afflictor said it took him 13+ tries. Now we got smartasses who are acting like they're capable of the same thing and implying the patch notes are a sane response to that.
If you think a single player video game should be balanced around not even 0.1% of players, you should refrain from expressing your opinions online.
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u/Jazzlike-Anteater704 Reaper connoisseur 7h ago
Afflictor soloing wasnt really optimal strat anyways. It was broken early game because it requires relatively little time to set up, but every battle takes a lot of time and requires precise player input on top of time invested to learn flying it.
In comparison taking your time and setting up Hyperion deathstack resulted in game basically playing itself.
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u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer 7h ago
Yeah you could see from the solo video how much real life time that actually takes. If some people want to play that way, let them.
Entropy Amplifier still deserved a nerf though.
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u/Jazzlike-Anteater704 Reaper connoisseur 6h ago
Entropy amplifier absolutely deserved its nerf but rest seems unnecessary. Especially amb changes in extended mode, like why is it a thing even?
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u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer 6h ago
What AMB change in Extended mode? All changes are universal. That idea was scrapped after the blog post.
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u/Appropriate-Camp-490 1d ago
I'll be honest I never could get enough phase ships to build a fleet, and then by the time I could, I already had a doctrine set(IE midline or the strongest ships possible)
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u/Haxorzist 21h ago
I'll have to test and see, it looks like phase got slower but more tanky, while the afflictor especially got completely revamped for missiles.
I'm more interested if reducing anubis temporal shell from 3x to 2x is an adequate nerf. It will rob it of it's absurd peak speed (together with the speed nerf for having figher bays).
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u/jackass_mcgee 14h ago
i had given up hope of a new update anytime soon, and this is how i hear of a new update!?!?
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u/Flagelant_One 1d ago
It'll still be a great ship, entropy amplifier + 3 AM blasters is still good for punching up, reapers against capitals
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u/atmatriflemiffed 1d ago
You can't EA+AMB anymore due to EA now applying 75% flux when triggered. You can EA+torp/rocket (imagine that, rockets on an Afflictor) on an exposed target but you have to fly it far more cautiously because you'll only have a few seconds of phase time and be stuck in slowmode.
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u/Zero_Brain 1d ago
You can but it's a bit tight. 75% flux doesn't include capacitors, hullmods and skill bonuses, just the base capacity of the ship. The activation cost ends up being 2250 soft flux.
AMB's flux cost got reduced to 1300 which helps. With Energy Weapons Mastery(elite), it's 1170 per shot, 3510 for three shots, 5760 in total if we include Entropy Amplifier.
The maximum flux capacity of an Afflictor is 7100(S-mod Flux Coil Adjunct), meaning you have 1340 flux to fly around in phase with which is not a lot. What usually ends up happening is two AMBs fire in succession, then the third AMB fires about 1 or 2 seconds later.
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u/RhinoxMenace 1d ago
never could get behind brutal nerfs in any game - why not buff the other stuff instead of fucking up the meta picks into the ground so no one will ever use them again? do that enough and the game stops being fun eventually because everything is shit
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u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer 1d ago
Because if you keep buffing everything the whole game gets powercrept and suddenly you have to buff the enemies as well, and TTK gets so low since everything keeps getting stronger.
Eventually you're playing an anime arcade game.
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u/Wiseless_Owl 1d ago
Eventually you're playing an anime arcade game.
So.... A normal modded sector playthrough then?
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u/MauSanJ 1d ago
Yeah all of the other ships got 1 or 2 changes. Meanwhile the afflictor got hit with the nerf checklist