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Vaygr Frigates

Don't get me wrong, one on one, Vaygr Frigates pack a substantial wallop - more so than the Hiigaran Frigates, at least on paper. Its just their reliance on slow firing missiles makes them appalling brawlers and you really aren't getting very many options in this hull class. Vaygr Frigates are designed only for attack; they either sport bow mounted turrets or use slow and indirect missiles. They're easily flanked and suffer hideously in close quarter combat. To get the Vaygr's Frigate Facility, you have to research the pricey Frigate Tech, which, of course, needs that all important Research Module. While the Hiigaran Frigates are pretty self sufficent, Vaygr Frigates aren't. They're a support force, swinging battles in the background and only becoming effective when there's a lot of Strikecraft covering them. Their weaponry isn't instant gratification or even instant response. Vaygr players should get into the habit of using mixed forces, with a lot of Strikecraft cover. With the Vaygr - its all about numbers. Strikecraft should be used aggressively to keep the Hiigarans off balance so the heavier Vaygr slowpokes can make it to the battle, or even make it being built. This is an attacking force, after all.


	Heavy Missile Frigate Anti-Capital Frigate

This is the Vaygr's basic Frigate that becomes available the moment the Frigate Facility comes online. Its the big version of the Missile Corvette but the game engine considers it the Vaygr equivalent of the Hiigaran's Ion Beam Frigate: powerful in attack, but slow and awkward and terrible at defending itself. Some online players don't seem to like these things. Despite their appalling vulnerability to, well, everything, they have fantastic power and you only need a few demolish major targets. Their slow firing and slow flying main missiles deliver a sizeable 2900 hit points of damage: with no restrictions against most shipping. Its almost, but not quite, like getting clocked by a Destroyer class torpedo. Just don't use them against Strikecraft (only 10% damage!) or Subsystems (20%).

They're like medium sized artillery in space, and only designed for handling targets their own size or larger. Their missile range, however, leaves a lot to be desired: Torpedo and Ion Beam Frigates outrange them and Capital warships will have torn more than just a few strips out of their hides before they can even get their first warheads launched. On top of that, their two missile bays reload every sixteen seconds, so sometimes you'll find them floating around, seeming to do nothing whilst getting shot to bits before they decide to launch a couple of missiles. Treat them like you would a catapult in a ground based RTS - keep them in a centre of a large group of units as a support weapon, and you should get some great mileage out of them. Those extra thousands of points will give your force clout, but watched pots never boil and expect appalling losses at the drop of a hat.

Like all the Vaygr Frigates, they seem to work best as support for other ship classes than a standalone force. Numbers count: using only a few of them isn't going to cut it at all. They do have a single anti-Strikecraft missile - identical to the Missile Corvette's in hitting Strikecraft and Platforms - but this single weapon is basically a token gesture and the Heavy Missile Frigate will need to be a part of a large, multi-roled escort force, or as a rear bombardment unit to a Vaygr Strikecraft raid.

Prerequisites

Research Module

Frigate Chassis Tech

Frigate Facility

Perks

2 Frigate Engine Upgrades

2 Frigate Armour Upgrades

Pros

Substantial damage to be doled out; great in numbers

Quicker to get going than the other Vaygr Frigates

Cons

Indirect weapons leave it pretty well defenseless in close quarter combat and helpless before Strikecraft

Only 10% main weapon damage against Strikecraft

Only 20% main weapon damage against Subsystems

16 second reload

Outranged by most other Frigates


	Assault Frigate Anti-Strikecraft Frigate

This is what the Vaygr consider to be an advanced Frigate. The 1.1 patch made it cheaper and faster to produce, which has made it quite desirable, post patch. Since the Vaygr rely on their Strikecraft clouds to do most of the talking anyway, the Assault Frigate is simply there to add weight to their arguments. Like their close sidekick, the Hiigaran's Heavy Missile Frigate, they get pulverised all too easily and need a lot of looking after. They sport three blocky turrets that can blaze away around a very wide field of fire, but the individual shots themselves are only really good for blitzing Fighters or mangling Corvettes, delivering 95 points of harm each shot. Its almost a good all-rounder, at least at tackling things Frigate sized or smaller.

Like the Heavy Missile Frigate, it also sports a single Missile Corvette anti-Fighter Missile, with all the perks that that provides. Which isn't much on its own, unfortunately. Still, its turrets are some of the most accurate in the game: one in three shots hits a Fighter - scoring an instant kill - but only one in six hits a Corvette. Like its Hiigaran equivalent, the Flak Frigate, its faster than the Heavy Missile Frigate, but has short weapon range. This means it will often race headlong into the teeth of that oncoming Strikecraft swarm or into the waiting guns of a pack of Destroyers.

Numbers, of course, count: get at least half a dozen of these things in a group and suddenly you have huge clouds of potent and substantial rapid fire, blowing away Strikecraft and (if focus fired) nailing other Frigates in short order. Unlike many of the escort units, Assault Frigates will often take on two or three targets at once on different vectors, much like the old Homeworld Multi-Gun Corvette. This can prove very useful in eroding a Strikecraft cloud, but on an individual basis the Frigate will invariably succumb to focus fire before it can destroy anything outright. Again, its working best as a support weapon, making life easier for your other units. Don't ever rely on these ships to try and hold the line on their own, unless you have a lot of them and you've queued a line of replacements. They're too easily flanked and too easily outgunned on their own.

Prerequisites

Research Module

Frigate Chassis Tech

Frigate Facility

Assault Frigate Tech

Perks

2 Frigate Engine Upgrades

2 Frigate Armour Upgrades

Pros

Good anti-Strikecraft unit.

High(ish) in fire rates, and pretty accurate for an anti-Strikecraft unit.

Light and nimble.

Cheapest Frigate in the game to research and produce.

Cons

Lightly armed by Frigate standards; only really good against smaller units unless you have the numbers.

Utterly flattened by anti-Capital warships or overwhelmed individually by Strikecraft.

Only slightly less incapable of survival than its heavier sibling


	Infiltrator Frigate Hijacking Frigate

With Salvaging removed from the game players must resort to the Vaygr Infiltrator Frigate to capture enemy shipping. This Frigate has a slight edge over the Hiigaran's Marine Frigate in that it can drop troop pods onto its victim at a longer distance. This, unfortunately, also means it sits more squarely in the victim's sights, especially a Hiigaran one with all those yucky turrets. There's a severe cap on the number you can build, and the game AI's are bright enough to blow these things away first - regardless of what else is going on around them. Like many of the Frigates, they are picked on by smaller and larger units, and the way must be cleared for this specialist to move in and do its job. They're best used against lightly armed Capital craft - and exceptionally worthwhile when you run off with an opponent's Mothership! They do have some light anti-Strikecraft weaponry so they're not entirely useless, but it has only the firepower of a lone Corvette. The Infiltrator Frigate does score one advantage over the Marine Frigate - it at least earns the benefit of those collective Vaygr Frigate upgrades.

As the ship classes get larger, the time it takes to hijack a victim skyrockets. It can take long minutes to overpower a Mothership, giving your opponents plenty of time to respond and come to its rescue. Doubling up Infiltrator Frigates does very little except decrease this takeover time by a tiny fraction - although its probably worth your while if your Frigates are in danger of being destroyed. Infiltrator Frigates can steal anything Frigate sized or larger: grabbing a string of enemy Frigates isn't such a bad idea... assuming they survive.