Light Cruisers - how to fix them

The Azurite clearly needs some kind of buff... 15 Pts more and I get a Mothership with basicly the same offensive capability, 3 drop and more hull. 2-3 hurts it as well.

The Aquamarine would be interesting with one shot more or another Impel mechanic imho. It has too low damage for its unreliability as there are not that many ship classes that really suffer from Impel. Even Ships that use WF a lot have usually nice arcs to compensate.

So, I've been pondering this a while, And I think the solution would be to give them another special rule. Something that would let them either fill out their role better or more solidify them in them another role that suits them.
While I don't think that giving them gate is a good idea, maybe Cloak? or something else interesting? In a few recent games I've been abusing taking a few Azurites and treating them like active scan bitches. It keeps my frigate hunting packs from getting spiked up. They are also hilarious to drive up the middle blasting away at anything 'dangerous' to try and get some chip damage in.

So, I've been pondering this a while, And I think the solution would be to give them another special rule. Something that would let them either fill out their role better or more solidify them in them another role that suits them.
While I don't think that giving them gate is a good idea, maybe Cloak? or something else interesting? In a few recent games I've been abusing taking a few Azurites and treating them like active scan bitches. It keeps my frigate hunting packs from getting spiked up. They are also hilarious to drive up the middle blasting away at anything 'dangerous' to try and get some chip damage in.

Active scanning is nothing some other Ship could not. Before investing into two azurites you can get in an Amber or an Emerald for the same purpose while getting more damage potential or more groundgame... I don't think a special rule would help them. They lack damagepotential for their price especially compared to other competing ships.

Active scanning is nothing some other Ship could not. Before investing into two azurites you can get in an Amber or an Emerald for the same purpose while getting more damage potential or more groundgame... I don't think a special rule would help them. They lack damagepotential for their price especially compared to other competing ships.

While I agree I have found most of my games can be defined as 1 of 2 things, a game of 'Spike managment' with the player who has the lowest spikes on their most valuable ships wins, or a 'Game of Trades' where you are trying to eliminate the most valuable parts of the enemy fleet with the least valuable ships of your own. The thing about taking 2 azurites over a amber is that they are more moible, and are more resistant to overkill. Against a emerald, they have the same value, but if I intend to use them as a active scan squad, it means my emerald dosn't build spikes as fast. I'm not saying its the optimum choice, but they make for a interesting choice, Keep spikes away from more critical ships, or my frigate packs. And as I said, plowing them through the middle of of the enemy fleet often makes players go 'Oh easy target!' and sink a lot of shots in to them. Think distraction carnifex.
The difficulty is increasing their damage potential makes them a generall better choice than most cruisers, which isn't what we want. (more agile, lower points, same damage output). Giving them a special rule lets them take a unique role within the fleet, You don't take a basalt because of its front guns, you take it because it has launch four, the front guns are a fun bonus. They need to be given a role that isn't just 'do damage' There is enough of that in the shaltari fleet, If the impeller guns went off more often (look at how often crippling goes off in the 3 crippling ships) Then I could make a use from them.

Active scanning is nothing some other Ship could not. Before investing into two azurites you can get in an Amber or an Emerald for the same purpose while getting more damage potential or more groundgame... I don't think a special rule would help them. They lack damagepotential for their price especially compared to other competing ships.

While I agree I have found most of my games can be defined as 1 of 2 things, a game of 'Spike managment' with the player who has the lowest spikes on their most valuable ships wins, or a 'Game of Trades' where you are trying to eliminate the most valuable parts of the enemy fleet with the least valuable ships of your own. The thing about taking 2 azurites over a amber is that they are more moible, and are more resistant to overkill. Against a emerald, they have the same value, but if I intend to use them as a active scan squad, it means my emerald dosn't build spikes as fast. I'm not saying its the optimum choice, but they make for a interesting choice, Keep spikes away from more critical ships, or my frigate packs. And as I said, plowing them through the middle of of the enemy fleet often makes players go 'Oh easy target!' and sink a lot of shots in to them. Think distraction carnifex.
The difficulty is increasing their damage potential makes them a generall better choice than most cruisers, which isn't what we want. (more agile, lower points, same damage output). Giving them a special rule lets them take a unique role within the fleet, You don't take a basalt because of its front guns, you take it because it has launch four, the front guns are a fun bonus. They need to be given a role that isn't just 'do damage' There is enough of that in the shaltari fleet, If the impeller guns went off more often (look at how often crippling goes off in the 3 crippling ships) Then I could make a use from them.

The thing you are not taking into account imho is:
a.) 1 Amber costs a lot less compared to 2 Azurites
b.) If you bring one Emerald and 2 Azurites you of course can scan with your azurites - but instead of those three ships you can as well get 3 Motherships with a little bit more Pts invested - you can still scan with one Emerald (or more if they are in different BGs) get the same amount of firepower (with not that much less mobility as you are free on Orders choice) and you get much more Ground Assets. It is just much much more flexible.

I don't think another special rule is really helping. Impel can be fun but to be honest most ships do not suffer from it as much as it seems. This only works if you are really spamming those guys but even if you would get imepl more reliably you still lack far too much damage imho. Just compare Light Cruisers of other factions to the Shaltari ones and to their own Cruiser relatives... Light Cruisers are viable if they offer basicly as much damage as normal Cruisers. The tradeoff is Pts/mobility vs Survivability. The New Cairo is great because it does so much damage for good Pts but it is a glass cannon. Same goes for the Yokai or the Strix.

Wouldn't totally fix them but one possibility might be to have a strategy rating of 4 for light cruiser and the option to take 1.

Always seems strange to me that the light cruisers tend to be in high SR groups as they need to take 2; in my imagination the light cruisers are the agile ships getting to dart part the normal cruisers. This is where the lower SR would help.

I know this would weaken them when claiming CL but it would give them something unique.

Wouldn't totally fix them but one possibility might be to have a strategy rating of 4 for light cruiser and the option to take 1.

Always seems strange to me that the light cruisers tend to be in high SR groups as they need to take 2; in my imagination the light cruisers are the agile ships getting to dart part the normal cruisers. This is where the lower SR would help.

I know this would weaken them when claiming CL but it would give them something unique.

SR 3 would be my preference. Make 2+4 frigates = to two cruisers

And why would they be more attractive if they have less SR? Their firepower is still inadequate and they are among the most vulnerable cruiser sized ships. Also it breaks the basic rules for little benefit, I would rather give them a points break and/or change the Impel mechanic as currently it will not proc. most of the time making it too situational.

The combination of being the flimsiest ships and normally going second means they are pretty much guaranteed to die before doing anything else; hence the lower SR helping. Doesn't seem to much of a break to the basic rules; we already have 4 different tonnage values - an increase to 5 wouldn't be too much different.

As mentioned earlier wouldn't totally fix them but would help. Agree that a points drop would also help; I know it's hard to balance these but I would like 75 pts for the Azurite. Would help make it equivalent to the Topaz in terms of firepower per point. Plus it would make it equal to the Emerald in points per hull. Currently I would much rather spend the extra 15 points and get an Emerald.

Not thought so much about the Aquamarine. It's a shame it would be too fiddly to make impel slightly greater than 45 degrees. From an impact point of view it would at least make the enemy ship not quite able to get back on their course on standard orders.