Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

Well, what I did with the modified Version of Proportions that I'm using, was to give the fighters' engines a combat movement of 6, separated from their strategy movement, so if they would move 10 strategy, which would be 5 tactical, they would get 6 more movement points in combat for a total of 11.
It looks awesome in combat, with the defending fighters launching out of a planet to intercept an incoming fleet, but it have a little side effect: since the fighters only fire before movement or after movement, when the target is halfway their total movement points, the fighters tend to move back and forth between two combat squares until they use up all the movement points, and only then fire their weapons.
It's kind of annoying, but you can think of it as dogfighting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I liked the idea of adding to their hull defense bonus, so I will add some more of it, so the regular ships' guns can't hit them at all, while adding to the fighters weapons hit bonus, so they can still be effective against other fighters.

I also twiked the Fighter Attack strategy, so that fighters would engage other fighters first, achieving air superiority, and only then attacking the enemy capital ships, and leaving planets for Last.

-I reduced the small rockets and small torpedo components to 3 kt, so that every fighter can carry 2 guns (damage between 2 and 4) and 1 missile/torpedo component (damage between 30 and 60).
- The life support component got eliminated, since I thought it was irrevelant for a short range fighter (I don't use fighters strategically because the AI doesn't) To make it sound better, I added to the description of the Fighter cockpit that it "contains advanced targetting systems and limited life support equipment".
- Addittional hit and defense bonus to the afterburners, since their combat movements doesn't add up to the engines combat movement.
- Fighter hull price lowered to 1 mineral per kt to allow for mass production.


I also twiked the carriers a bit:
- The fighter bay component to 20 kt, so you can carry 100 fighters in the Light Carrier, and still have room for 3 shield generators and 3 PDCs.
- Fighter bays can now carry the 4 fighters it can launch, without need for cargo components.
- The Light Carrier to 820 kts, to add 1 more crew and one more life support components, since I thought a wing of 100 fighters should use quite a number of tech and maintenance personal.

And that's about it.
I liked several of the ideas in this thread, so I will probably add some of them.

One problem I have though, its that I haven't quite managed to make the AI to mass-produce the fighters.
Last weeek I put in the build file to "build at least 100", but I don't know yet if it's working. The other entries says "Build per planet", I think, but I don't know how that works exactly (20 means 2 per planet?)
Help here please. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

If AI has 10 planets under control and Planet Per Item := 50 used in construction file then it will build 2 ship/unit. With 20 planets it will build 4 ship/unit. In short: ships_to_build = total_planets/(PPI/10).

Imo, Planet Per Item entry is not very comfortable for mass unit construction, because even with 100 planets and PPI := 1 AI can build 1000 units max, which is quite small amount for such a developed empire. Gradually increasing amounts in Must Have At Least entries is better for this purpose.

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

I am not really sure what you guys are talking about, I find fighters to be an unbalancing element in the game. Even in the latter stages they can more than deal with conventional vessels. The problem is you have to micromanage your economy to build, transport, and load fighters to your carriers as they are destroyed. Most players just don't excersise the control to keep it rolling.

Conventional ships are build and forget.

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

Add 4 PDC cannons to each larger warship. Fighters fall in droves...

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

Which of course the AI does almost universally, and I can still own them everytime. Sure I lose alot of fighters, but they don't take up maintenence, so there is really no upper limit to me swarming any size fleet.

And that isn't to say conventional warships are worthless, and I use them in conjuction. However, I can always win with fighters.

But you have to be willing to manage the constuction queues of a hundred planets, manage a transport fleet to get them to the battle fleet, and keep that system safe. I am anal enough to do so, most aren't.

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

I could beat the stock AIs with DUCs and Destroyers... the AI is not all that great. Try human opponents. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://www.pbw.cc

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

Now that is something that I definetly don't have the patience for...

The bane of all such games is the time MP consumes.

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

What we are trying to do is get the mod to focus more on the use of fighters and carriers than on bigger badder ships.

We have removed the PDC from use with ships, replaced it with anti - fighter missiles. (if they work), and given the PDC to the fighters. (If that will work).

CNC wanted to keep the mod basic, no major design changes that would require extensive modding of the AI. I agree, why whip a dead horse. I am sure as time goes on and the mod becomes more of reality than it currently is, QNP and other concepts will be adopted. But with QNP and seperation of engine abilities comes the daunting task of AI editing and modding. And I really don't have to mention how much of a PITA this is.

Right now we have a basic mod working. Its playable and not that much differant from stock say for some new racial triats and technologies.

Cloaking technology is now a racial trait as is gravitational technology.

I wish CNC would not have posted here about the carrier fighter issue until we had more time to work on the ideas. But what is done is done. Now we have to sift through the Posts for things that we can use.

I do ask myself this daily, why bother? I mean anything we do now is kinda pointless given the fact that in a very short time the focus will change toward SEV.

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

With most games you just play one turn a day, or every other day. It does not take much time at all...

Re: Making Carriers and Fighters more usefull.
 

For just QNP, it takes only a few minutes. If you set up the QNP in the "standard" way, like it is in Pirates and Nomads Mod (ion engines have 3 standard movement, all more advanced engines have 1 more MP per level), or even if it is a bit non-standard, you can use SJ's AI Patcher and the QNP option to patch all of the AI files to make them QNP rather than stock-like propulsion. It is available on http://www.geocities.com/hohoho611ca/pirates.html . Setting up the reactors would be a bit trickier, but you can fake it by using the AI Patcher, then replacing the Standard Movement ability in the AI files with the Supply ability, or an AI tag, depending on what is used. Then, apply the AI patcher again. Voila, all the AI will now add the same number of engines and reactors to ship designs, all in a nice QNP format. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Cloaking? Erm... that sounds like it could be unbalancing... Are all forms of cloaking restricted to this racial trait? How about cloak scanners?

Probably at least a year... that is plenty of time for some PBW games to run their lives. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Also, it shouldn't be too hard to adapt mods to SE5 format, so the groundwork done now will help when making the mod for SE5... Some kind soul will probably even write a program to convert mods from SE4 format to SE5 format. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif