Yeah. Caps totally need layaway. I want to break out my Visa and order a world of hurt.

the role i have in mind for the siege frig is Economic Warfare specialist. i'd like to see Sieges seriously threaten enemy economic development by pressuring their planetary population (and thus tax income collected) and their resource extractors. it would be nice if the ships were strong enough and capable enough of self-defense to be able to inflict economic damage while travelling with or even ahead of the main battle-ball fleet rather than strictly mopping up the bloodied corpses left behind the main battle-ball fleet. 

I noticed the same thing applies with anti-structure cruisers.  Was playing a game tonight and some asshole dropped a vasari SB into my grav well.  I was playing advent, and built some starfish.  One wave of his fighters would kill one starfish in one pass.  After that, I didn't build anymore.

You are wrong.  First off, the question isn't whether it's a "chore" or a "non-chore."  The question is whether it is necessary or not necessary to do as a game function, and if it's necessary, what units will perform said "chore?"  The answers are "it is necessary to do" and "currently, you are doing this 'non-strategic, time-wasting chore' with your capships."  So, you are doing the "chore" anyway, even without siege frigs (presumably), yet I don't see you complaining about "wasting your time."

Currently the "corpse collecting chore" is performed by capships immersed in a main fleet, because for obvious reasons people don't build too many siege frigs.  This ties up your main fleet from moving on, while your enemy gets a breather, fortifies his other worlds, rebuilds, etc.  But the way it should have worked, and the way it worked for me personally back in the days when one could build siege frigs with careless abandon, is to have the main fleet move on once the planet has been cleared out, and have the siege frigs move in for "mop up duty" and "choring."  This "unties" the main fleet, you see.  The problem is (as I see it, anyway), siege frigs can't be rebuffed to perform this "chore" because of reasons previously cited.  Thus you will continue to do this vitally necessary "chore" (and thus waste your precious time, in your view) with your capships and main fleet.

Your charge of "it wastes time" doesn't make sense, unless you are arguing for a planet to instantly revert to your control once you rid the well of any enemies.  I'm guessing you aren't arguing for that.  Therefore, you are for "wasting a victorious player's time" in some capacity.  The question has always been "which ship or ships should we waste this time with?"  The answer has always been "the siege frigate," but the utter disaster with it when the game came out precluded this from happening.

yet again, agree. i'd like to see a more viable implementation of the Siege Frigate introduced in an upcoming patch. my hopes are that the ship will be more useful in frontline fleets but also come out later. Tech tier 3 sounds about right in my opinion. 

The problem is, they shoudn't BE a strategy, and they never should have been.  That was what made them a problem in the first place.

exactly.

why shouldn't economic warfare be a strategy? the depth of the game is increased by adding more strategies. the quality of the game is increased by adding to its depth. the issue is balance. unbalanced games are not fun to play. strategically shallow games are also not fun to play. the effort should always be to increase depth while maintaining balance. this is why Entrenchment is a good expansion. It has dramatically increased the depth of the game while maintaining a pretty good state of balance.

its really just a cop out to say "i think fewer strategies is better". no, its not. it may be your opinion, but i'm gonna go ahead and say your opinion leads to a more boring, easier, and more shallow game.

It should be.  Siege frigates shouldn't be.  But, that's just my opinion, and in the end it's worth about as much as yours - nothing.

I will announce straight off that I have only played against the AI, so keep that in mind.

I have seen they AI do some good stuff with siege frigates. If they bring them with their fleet, it forces you to concentrate on them first while the enemy fleet wipes out your defenses. Having read most of the above posts, im sure some of you would ask why i would bother if they do as little damage as you claim. well, in my experience, they do a considerable amount of damage. only if your planet has been fully upgraded to the 6k hp do they not do enough damage. and that isnt always an immediate option. I've had the AI also do a brilliant strat where right after I took their planet, they sent their fleet to attack another of my planets nearby, then when my fleet was distracted, sent in 3-4 siege frigates to the planet i just took. without hp upgrade or even having had the time to build up a defense, there is nothing I can do to save that world. and most of the time i get it back, but any money i spent trying to build it up is lost.

however, I have to say that as I have attempted to use them, no strategy worked. maybe a slight success with the 'fly with my fleet and let them divide enemy forces' technique. but i also do not wish to bring back those earlier siege raids. But i would like to use that strat where i divide their forces by using siege frigates.

Proposed Fix: give siege frigates a researched ability that increases their survivability only when in groups of a certain size. say 4-6. could be different mechanic depending on race so as to benifit from any other research you have such as antimatter regen rates. eg. advent gain some shielding, vasari gain hp regen/out of phase, tec redirects damage to in system fleet. or increase their effectiveness in culture. the point being, dont make siege ships better straight up, make it so you have to do a few things and then they can be powerful. with the right research, they should be powerful, but not on their own.

Another idea, give them a power that affects your whole fleet if they succeed in wiping out the planet. this should be a buff powerful enough that if i take a fleet that is an even match for the defenses, but manage to kill the planet during the battle, i can then be reasonably assured of victory. not a damage boost, but a damage reduction.

Im also thinking that maybe its not such a bad idea to take the approach that the new structure damaging cruisers take: long range attacks. maybe make them have multi-targeting so they always bomb the planet, but can help out in fleet dps. should also be able to join fleets like normal. that annoys the hell out of me. this would remove the divided forces strat however.

another idea you might really like: give fighters an ability called Cover. they fly cover for your selected ship, reducing its damage taken and attacking anything that attacks the protected ship. So as to prevent accidently ordering off cover, remove the fighter from the empire tree or something.

Obviously, Im not proposing all of the above be added.

Personally, I hardly use siege frigates.  But, then I usually play TEC and have a Marza with raze planet.  Recently though, I've been trying different strategies and civs and using siege to mop up seems to work really well.  My fleet and its vital cap ships can move on to the next gravwell after razing structures and defenders while my sieges come in to deny the enemy their planet.  They can sit there and bomb all day if they want while the construction frigates won't rebuild fast enough to be a danger.  Just one or two scouts or light frigates are enough to keep construction at nil while the six or so sieges attack and my fleet clears the next gravwell.