I have played quite a few hours on this game, and completed it on Hard both with Carriers and specifically going no Carrier Strats. I have tried lots of combinations and would like to make the following suggestions with regards to combat.
Current Problems
* Ship Maneuverability is completely irrelevant. The main guns can fire from so far off, that you rarely have to move from where you warp into. Only in the early game, when you have little firepower, do you have to worry about turning your ship to line up your weapons.
* Weapon ranges and power are not balanced. Short range weapons are completely outclassed, also because of the point above.
* The balance between Point Defence (PD) and main weapons is completely off. As I mentioned in a different post, Projectile cannons are the best PD, 4-5 of them with recharge rate boosted gives you 1200 range PD, nothing gets through.
* Shields are somewhat irrelevant. Either projectile weapons can be made so that they overwhelm the shields or as a new player you just get missiled/rocketed to death with your shields doing nothing.
* The ships you unlock are not really balanced at all, they simply get better. This is in stark contrast to FTL where the ships encourage different playstyles, but there are not really OP ships.
Changes to consider
Ships
* Maneuverability should be factored into the game, smaller ships should be faster. I would also suggest to add Evasion, not just the accuracy of the projectile hitting, but ships should have percentage based evasion where a hit can still miss. Smaller ships can then have advantages that the larger cruisers and battleships do not. Also this will allow you to mount Short Range weapons on them as they have a chance of getting in close.
* Main Turrets should also be directional or have limited arcs, meaning that maneuvering becomes meaningful.
* Ship chassis should maybe also have a load or energy value placed on them, with weapons carrying different values, so you cannot just install the most powerful weapons. It could be an energy cost, also as you improve a weapon then it's energy cost will rise, this will make you think more about your build. You can then have smaller ships with maybe high energy ratios, so that they can install a smaller amount of high powered weaponry, whereas some bigger ships might be brute force low powered weaponry.
Weapons
* PD needs to be strongly buffed, the ranges need to be increased. I would say that the minimum range for PD should be around 500.
* I would also make Strike Craft immune to large weapon fire, they cannot be targeted by main weapons and have 100% evasion against them. The only exception would be missiles. In combination PD ignores Evasion from ALL ships. Essentially Strike Craft can only be engaged by PD.
* Missiles I would change to be energy hulls and not armour hulls. This would mean that lasers should be the de-facto missile defence, with them being less effective against strike craft.
* No weapon should be Shield penetrating. This needs to be got rid of. This will serve to prevent frustration from new players, who will die from Missile overload and it also stops Shields being completely irrelevant to experienced players. Missile turrets should be either Ion based or Projectile based, however, they should not ignore shields, if a projectile based missile hits a shield, it should be absorbed.
* Weapon damage decay over range could also be worthwhile considering, if you fire at maximum range then the damage reduces. Obviously not applicable to missile weapons, but all energy and laser weapons should experience this, perhaps projectiles are also unaffected.
* The main turret balance is kind of okay on paper, except that range is king in game. Energy and projectile weapons need to swap their ranges. Missiles and Rockets having 2K range and above is okay. However, energy should fire at 1200, projectile should be around 800 with Flaks around 600. If you then accompany this with 500 PD range and better ship maneuverability, then you can have ships that are close range brawlers or long range snipers and being able to maintain your position and distance is key. (I will have to have a think through about the changes to weapons and how to balance them better. At the moment projectiles are simply too OP, Nukes come in close second when on a cruiser, Flaks are completely useless, Energy only requires 1 and Missiles/Rockets are also useless really).
There are a lot of changes here, but I think they are all worth considering.
If it is considered, then really the UI needs to be updated as well, the current controls are fine for just warping into the corner and not having to maneuver 3 ships, but if it can be changed to where actual control is required, then having a short cut icon for each ship will be essential. So click on Ship icon (static not the ship itself) and then click where you want it to go. A formation ON/OFF icon would also be useful, to save being asked each time if you want to break formation.
