I'm on the realism side for this. It's also counter intuitive to casual players. I'd like for subs to be balanced around killing things - high alpha with long reload and higher dps for example. It gives them some stopping power against frigs snowballing. Lower sub speed could also slow down navy. A radar decrease on frigs seems reasonable. At t1 it's a bit excessive, and at t2 air scouts, static sonar, and cruisers can do the job.
Trying to diversify frigs into an intel unit and a damage unit seems like a band-aid solution from only having two units. From a spam perspective, it's like making moles and mantis different units. The gameplay is still spammy as heck. Really there should be more units, but It seems like the game's fun is back loaded after the t1 stage, but then you also get stuck at t1 due to how expensive it is. With only two units (one unit) to balance things around, there isn't much choice but to spam.
The boring t1 stage and slow start are probably the worst things about FA, and maybe all rts too. I find I tend to play other games that get into the action quicker than fa, and when I do engage with fa, I'd rather watch a stream so I can skip the boring part.
Land also has terrain, pd, and the acu, not to mention t1 navy is resistant to air. Imagine t1 land without the acu or pd on an open map? Maybe trying to balance sub groups to focus navy interactions, like how acus do, and having unscouted subs slow down enemy forces, like pds, could help give more varied unit interactions and strategies. The interaction could be like othuums and snipers, but more about water vision than range. Frig diversity in jamming and torp defence also effects navy a lot more.
