Defense Vessel

The Defense Vessel is the Advent's Anti-Strike Craft Frigate.
Official Description: Although designed to counter enemy fighters and bombers, the Defense Vessel is also adept at taking on opposing frigates and cruisers. With its pulse laser turrets, the Defense Vessel is capable of targeting enemies in almost any direction. Single Defense Vessels are weak, but used in large numbers or as an escort group, they can be a force to be reckoned with, especially when used as escort for capital ships. An Advent crew member feels at ease when she can sense the presence of a fleet of Defense Vessels guarding her flank.
==Tactics==
Like all flak frigates, the Defense Vessel is effective both at attacking enemy strike craft and at engaging targets with Light Armor, such as long range frigates. Although the flak frigates have very high listed DPS, the number listed is for when all 4 banks of the frigate are firing continuously (on the front, back, and sides). As such, flak frigates are generally most effective against enemy LRF when you move your Defense Vessels directly into the center of their formation so that all banks can fire. Due to repair cruisers and passive hull and shield regeneration, for the frigate to be effective, it should be in a large group of 20 or more (preferably 30 or so), else the spread-out distribution of damage can be a serious problem.
A large group of Defense Vessels will do immense amounts of damage against enemy LRF swarms in this manner, but be careful: to use the Defense Vessels most effectively requires a significant amount of micromanagement. In addition, they should probably be ordered to Hold Position so they don't stop attacking the enemy LRF and go chasing a stray enemy fighter squadron halfway across the gravity well.
However, against any target other than strike craft, light-armor frigates, or Corvettes, the Defense Vessel does next to no damage, even in large numbers. As such, to defend against the enemy from building an Orkulus on one of your planets, or to defend against enemy capital ships, one should usually build Defense Vessels in large numbers only when one already has the firepower to defend against starbases and capital ships.
Ship Type: 	Frigate
Primary Role: 	Anti-Fighter Escort
Shield Power: 	Medium
Hull Points: 	Very Low
Armor Level: 	Medium
Armor Type: 	Heavy
Antimatter: 	None
Weapons: 	6 x Pulse Laser Turrets
Crew Complement:	375
==Development==
The Defense Vessel underwent a few changes in Patch 1.04. Until the patch, it was found to not benefit from Laser Research Subjects, which was thankfully fixed. It also now requires 4 supply as opposed to 3, and its attack cooldown was reduced 45%; however, its damage had to be appropriately reduced, as well, to maintain the same DPS as it had prior.
Category:Advent
Category:Anti-Strike Craft Frigates