Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Fighters. They worked for Luke Skywalker, how come I don’t see much in the forums about them.

I have never played with them, so please share your experiences. I hear they are good for system and warp point defense. I know you can eat them up with some decent point defense cannons.

What do people think? Waste of time and research or valuable addition to the armory?

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

I like fighters and use them much in early and midgame phase.

Vs.AI they will help because the AI mostly did nt put enough PDC onboard.
Vs.human players ... well, they use it to counter my fighters.

In the end-phase (all-tech, much resources) fleets tend to be much bigger - and so there is also much more PDC.
I think fighters are not worth building them for such battles.

I use fighters to hunt down such little raider/-fleets because one carrier can fight a stand alone battle with say 75 medium fighters easily vs. 3-5 Dreadnoughts and lost only one half of his fighters.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

When you are near the end of the game with lots of techs, a single heavy carrier with 100 or so heavy fighters armed with rocket packs or time distortion burst can be very devestating. I'm sure that not all of your colonies have a shipyard and some of them have nothing to build after being filled up with facilities. Why waste their build queues?

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

I oftn find myslf using fighters as an emergency defence: If an enemy has managed to get into an undefended system and is only one turn away from my planets, fighters are the best defence I can build in just one turn:

Sure, I could build some weapons platforms or sats but one turn's worth of weapons platforms isn't much good. However, one turn's worth of fighters is worth more becasue it's one turn x several planets. You can group them up next turn and they will the equivalent of a good ship which would otherwise take several turns to build.

Think of it as a way of spreading a ship's build queue across several planets in order to get it built quicker.

The problem is that fighters can't move immediatly after launching=-(

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Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Fighters can also have higher combat speed than any ship, which is nice for nailing fleets whose ships are designed for long-range fighting.

And, of course, they're nice against missile-heavy fleets...

But yes, the main use would be emergency defense. Fighters don't take maintenance, and ones in planetary storage don't count against the unit limit, so you can stockpile large numbers of fighters. As long as you have early warning (like cloaked sensor/scanner satellites up to two systems away from your colonies), you can launch 'em faster than you can get a defense fleet there. Unless the game's progressed to warp-point-opening combat, of course, in which case offense wins. *shrug*

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Aginst AI's, ftrs excellent as long as you put in Groups. Put some of the missle weapon
that shoot 1 time with 100 damage in each group. Has good punch and other ftrs help defend and fire each turn. I use them for defense of worm holes along with mines, sats and battlestations. Usually have 2 carriers with ftrs with battle fleets to take out the AI's fts. I usually put them in Groups of 20-30. Important worm holes will have 100-150 ftrs. The AI usually only Groups in 5's. Against human, different defense later in game especially once worm hole opener is obtained. Makes wormhole defense obsolete which makes your ftrs an in system defense force able to respond to threatened planets.
Depending on which trait you take ftrs if used right can make difference in a crucial battle. I like Temporal, excellent ftr weapons tht shoot both seekers & against ships. In hot-seat against humans, good to use in tactical. Need something to draw their fire and ftrs so your main fleet can get in and hit them especially if you are using missles and he has good PD's. He then has to make choice, ftrs or seekers. I never used them but once I tried them, I now use every game.

just some ideas mac

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Fighters are extremely valuable IMO.
First build them whenever you have spare resources. You can store the fighters and you don't have to pay maintenance. They are a very good defence for colonies (same reasons as above) and in battles between large fleets, that would be otherwise more or less equal, they will decide who wins. They give you a important additional fire power. And Last but not least the famous allegiance subverter does not work against fighters, so they are a must against psychic races.
However you will always lose more or less of them in battle. Therefore if I have enough ships to defeat the enemy I don't use them but keep them as reserve.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

So, fighters can work well in an auxillary role and, if used in numbers, can be useful additions to a fleet. They also provide a method of getting planets without shipyards into the game.

What is the best setup for a fighter? One person suggested temporal tech is good, but what if you don't have that tech tree?

Hearing your thoughts would be interesting.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Saxon:
What is the best setup for a fighter? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Shields, which let the fighter survive the first shot of PDC 5. Sensors to increase attack and defense bonus.

Suggestion for weapons (most powerful, but special tech tree again) :
Organic: Small Electric Discharge 3.
Psychic: Small Telecinetic Projector 3.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Against the AI with lots of PDC, I will use many single fighters to soak up the PDC. In the same turn, send in the big Groups (20-30)fighters to cause the real damage.

Most of my fighters are optimized for speed, then defense, then offensive weapons.
I like using the combination of a ranged weapon (rocket pod) and a DUC. The PDC's fire will be spread out.

Fighter Groups make a great Warp point defense, especially when you get the first shot.

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Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Another good fighter tactic:

When your opponenet has decent PDC, launch your fighters in small Groups, or better yet as individual units. It's a nightmare to move them all around in tactical, but every shot that hits your fighter will waste your enemy's hitpoints:

For example, say your opponent's PDC does 50 damage per hit. Each fighter takes 30 damage to destroy (These figures are straight out of my head and completely random).

If you have one group of 15 fighters, that's 450 hit points. Therefore, it will take just 9 PDC hits to destroy your group. If you have the same 15 fighters in 15 Groups of one, however, they will have to hit 30 times to destroy them all, because 50 damage-30 Hit points = 20 damage points wasted per shot.

Lik I say, the numbers are made up but the principle still applies.

This does make sense. If it doesn't, you haven't drunk enough beer=-)

*Dogscoff has been down the pub again=-)

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Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>If you have one group of 15 fighters, that's 450 hit points. Therefore, it will take just 9 PDC hits to destroy your group. If you have the same 15 fighters in 15 Groups of one, however, they will have to hit 30 times to destroy them all, because 50 damage-30 Hit points = 20 damage points wasted per shot.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>You might want to check your math again: if the PDCs are killing one fighter each shot, then it takes 15 PDC hits, not 30.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dogscoff:

This does make sense. If it doesn't, you haven't drunk enough beer=-)

*Dogscoff has been down the pub again=-)

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Makes perfect sense to me (just coming back from the pub myself after another dominating performance on the pool table..wish my Space Empire strategies were as good).
Unfortunately the fact that the fighter Groups will take longet to get to combat and have more concentrated fire on them will suck a bit.


Now personally I think the only thing fighters acheive is to give lots of experience to the enemies fleets as they mow them down. I understand the now maintence thingie but my "living on the edge" sytle of economics means all my resources are for pumping the ships out. No minerals to spare for those fighters.

Askan

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Anyone ever tried pumping some fighters full of shields and using a missile fleet with the fighters moving in first to soak up the PD fire? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Cyrien,

Although I have tried this, I usually find it cheaper to create a defense ship and load it up with shields. Fighters die quickly, but the defense ships usually survive combat to be repaired.

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Never Give up, Never Surrender!

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

ahh but fighters are cheap to build and require no maintence.

All comes down to balance. Fighters can tip the scale in a battle.

Now if you actually controlled combat fighters value jumps 100 fold.

I use them. A fleet without them can be destroyed quickly.

Jump an enemy with 3000 fighters and see what survives.



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Inter arma silent leges

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

anyone tried the trick with the Heavy Carrier and the shipyard anymore?? (I think it was with a hvy carrier, ship space yard and fighters with kamikaze warheads....use them like 'missiles', use the carrier to build more after each battle)....Tried it a few patches ago, worked ok...Never tried it in strategic combat though...

I also love to build Starbases on wormholes with lots of fighters/launchbays onboard, this works good for planets too, use bases with cargo bays/launch bays to suppliment the planet space (or to leave planet space for those 1 armor riot troops....)

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"Human existance is all imagination...Reality is no more than a simple agreement among its participants that this is where we shall meet, and these are the rules that we shall abide by."- Kevin McCarthy/David Silva "The Family:Special Effects"..

[This message has been edited by Deathstalker (edited 29 September 2001).]

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Actually I think fighters could be made alot better if the range of point defence was alot less (like 1 or 2 or something) or alternatively the fighter's weapon ranges were much greater (like 5 or 6)

Then they could get a shot of before the point defence hit.

Askan

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

I think that point defense is TOO powerful, I believe that missile rof should be 2, (maybe 1 for crystal torp, too low damage), and pdc should have a rate of fire of 2....but heck that is just me... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

There is one minor fighter bug that I have used to get around the limitation of not being able to launch a fighter from a planet and being able to move it in the same turn.
The trick is to launch a fighter the previous turn (only need one), if you did this, then the fighters you launch the current turn CAN move the turn they launch!

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Deathstalker:
anyone tried the trick with the Heavy Carrier and the shipyard anymore?? (I think it was with a hvy carrier, ship space yard and fighters with kamikaze warheads....use them like 'missiles', use the carrier to build more after each battle)....Tried it a few patches ago, worked ok...Never tried it in strategic combat though...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Can your space yard sustain the losses? I really doubt it...

On to the topic of missiles, I just discovered why everyone likes seeking parasites. I figured out that I could design a mean-and-nasty DN that a homeworld can build in TWO (!!) turns at the normal rate of 4800!

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

When I played more, I would group my fighters in Groups of 80 and put them in the fleet with my other ships before I attacked. I found that small fighters with the most primitive weapon seemed to survive better that way against the PDC than when I launched them from a carrier.

I think the best thing about fighters is that they don't affect your score. So, you can build a huge maintenance-free armada of fighters at every colony and not have to worry about becoming Mega Evil Empire before you are ready to start annihilating everyone in sight.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Deathstalker:
I think that point defense is TOO powerful, I believe that missile rof should be 2, (maybe 1 for crystal torp, too low damage), and pdc should have a rate of fire of 2....but heck that is just me... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, I think it would work just as well to increase the amount of damage required to destroy seekers. As it is now, a single hit from a PDC will destroy a seeker of same (or lower) level. If missiles are harder to destroy, PDC's would become more balanced.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CW:
On to the topic of missiles, I just discovered why everyone likes seeking parasites. I figured out that I could design a mean-and-nasty DN that a homeworld can build in TWO (!!) turns at the normal rate of 4800!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You'll also find that seeking parasites fire every TWO rounds, vs. THREE rounds for other seekers. And the parasites are faster too. Don't recall how much damage they can take, nor how much they do, but I REALLY dislike fighting against organic races because of the seeking parasites.

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Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Actually, I think it would work just as well to increase the amount of damage required to destroy seekers. As it is now, a single hit from a PDC will destroy a seeker of same (or lower) level. If missiles are harder to destroy, PDC's would become more balanced.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, that's what I've been doing. As for seeking parasites and crystal torpedos... ever notice that they only go up to lvl 5? Don't those of you who love seekers find that somewhat tragic?

So I'm playtesting the VI thru X Versions of those weapons so Organic and Crystal Weapons get better seekers at higher levels. Also, I added three more capital ship missile levels (VI through VIII) and an extra plasma missile (VI) due to a typo in the original research files for various missile-armed races. It goes to lvl 8, so I changed techareas for missiles to max lvl 8 and added them in.

Currently, Crystal Torp X has the highest seeker damage rating. Also, I lowered the tonnage for both parasites and crystal torps to 40 kt and lowered plasma missiles to 30. (Since plasma missiles aren't very useful even when I did increase the damage to plasma VI a bit more. Might as well toss a whole bunch at the enemy.)

Mind you, I don't use plasma missiles, nor do I use organic or crystal weapons.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

everyone seems to think that PD is too strong, and missiles too weak. even the DevNull mod made missiles more powerfull.

right now, you can stop a barrage of missiles if you have at least as much point defense. point defense is smaller than a missile, so with equal size ships a point-defense / direct fire ship could in theory hold back everything a dedicated missile ship can throw, and then return fire.

this means that to make a sucessful strategy, you have to do one of two things. one, swarm with fighters and missiles, using superior numbers and larger fleets. two build ballanced fleets so that your enemy must waste space on point defense, but you take advantage of direct fire weapons and combined arms.

either of those make for good gameplay. reballancing the game so that an equal sized missile only ship can take out an equal sized point defense ship does not, in my opinion, make for good gameplay.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

If you've reduced the size of a weapon that already does more than any other AND fires faster, you've lifely got a major balance problem.

Compare the Damage/Kt/turn reload, and see if they are still reasonable (between 0.75 and 1.5)

PS: Could you post the stats for these missiles?

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 02 October 2001).]

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Could ECM or shields be added to CSMs?

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

"Could ECM or shields be added to CSMs"

No. EDIT: Clarification: there is no way to do that without a hard code change. The only attributes you get for the missles are speed, damage, and damage resistance.

Personally, I went the Decoy/devnull (haven't played devnull, but I heard it does this) and put in decoys (1 damage missile with really jacked up damage resistance) Also a AutoMissile launcher, which fires once per turn, but at the cost of larger size and lower damage.

You really have to be careful with the decoys though. The missiles move in order of launch, which is the order you put them on the ship. PD engages the first missiles. So if you put the decoys on Last, they're pretty useless.

I also added fighter missiles and fighter decoys, and more PD. *Big* pain to balance this stuff..

Phoenix-D

[This message has been edited by Phoenix-D (edited 03 October 2001).]

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
You'll also find that seeking parasites fire every TWO rounds, vs. THREE rounds for other seekers. And the parasites are faster too. Don't recall how much damage they can take, nor how much they do, but I REALLY dislike fighting against organic races because of the seeking parasites.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It also means that I could build my DNs (with 11 parasites each) faster than others could build their PD ships! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif On the other hand I don't think it is faster than a Plasma missile, a parasite does a lot less damage too.


[This message has been edited by CW (edited 03 October 2001).]

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Actually Devnullmod maks mor than a few changes to missiles and PD:

First, he added extrnal mount Versions of all missiles - less space but only one shot per combat.

Second, he added sprint missiles.

I haven't seen any decoys yet.

Third, he split PD into 3 distinct Groups.

Fightr point defence: Long range, 20 kt, can hit fightrs and seekers.

Regular point defnce: Medium size, medium range, and the first tech level is available at the start of the game. Cannot target fightrs.

Mini point defence, which takes up 5 kt and has a range of one or two. These are good for defending yourslf but no good for defending your fleet. Again, can't target fighters.

It's a good systm, and well balancd IMHO. I'v played it pretty extensively and I find that there is no clear winnr between seekers, fighters and PD.


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Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Has anybody tried this fighter strategy?

Build massive amounts of your favorite fighters in a border system, Pre-invasion time. When the time is rightmove them to the wormholes and use carriers/transports to drop them on the other side. (after the wormhole defenses are taken care of)

Instead of tying up your carriers in the fleet they can keep dumping fighters into the front lines.

If you really like micromanagement you can have a string of fighters moving from ALL your colonies towards a front line.

Carriers strictly become Ferries (don't need a lot of engines or weapons or armor)

I have not tried this vs a human opponent yet, but it certainly overwhelms the AI's.

It really helps keeping the big warships in one piece while the unused colony build queues pump out the fighters.

Just a thought.

RhineStone Cowboy

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

I like fighters very much and use them heavily. But a word of warning: If your enemy has ships with lot of PDC and phased polaron beams a combat with fighters alone might turn out very bad for you: I lost about 2500 heavy fighter against an AI empire with such designed ships! If you combine fighters with ships the polaron beams will probably be used against the ships and therefore the death toll of the fighters is much less.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

If your enemy has a fleet equipped with lots of PDC and PPB, use ships with Phased Shields (if available) or Armour, no normal shields and strictly direct fire weapons. PPB doesn't do much raw damage, and it'll take forever to chip through the armour. Just leave fighters/seekers out of it.

Match your strength to the enemies weaknesses.

Fighters are great, if you use them for the right missions. The point is to use them as cheap attrition units. Deploy them in huge numbers, expect massive losses, but with the right equipment and tactics, they can kill ships many, many times their own value. Also, you can produce them anywhere, you don't have to occupy your "real" shipyards time with them.

A heavy fighter with a pair of Small Rocket Pod IIIs can do a ridiculous amount of damage. 2 or 3 solid hits can wreck a BC, unless its all armour/shields. Then move in your "real" ships to finish off the cripples, and pick up the experience. You'll lose lots of fighters, but hey, so what? They are really cheap and easy to replace

I usually create specialist carrier fleets, with 2 or 3 line carriers, based on a carrier hull, and 1 or 2 Aux CVs, which are transports kitted out to carry lots of cargo, with a few launch bays. Overall the fleet can launch loads of fighters, and after the fight, you transfer fighters from the transports to the line carriers. Then in the next fight, you can still put loads of fighters on the board quickly, and your losses don't matter so much (just keep topping up your Aux CVs). Mix in a few dedicated PDC ships, and a few real warships, depending on who you are fighting, and what equipment they use, and away you go. So long as you keep the fleet topped off with fighters, and don't let it fight a fleet that can kill the carriers, you can wreak havoc.

When the sector gets too hot, run away. A smart enemy will chase you with a PDC-heavy fleet. Thats when you jump the other direct fire weapon fleet on him. The PDCs become dead weight, and he loses again

If rearranging your ship production is difficult, use an alternative "molasses" strategy. Mix carriers with ships that carry loads of seekers. Design a "dummy" fighter, just cockpit/life support/engines, and put loads of them on your carriers. Launch seekers, follow up with a wave of "dummy" fighters. These will soak up most of the PDC for the turm. THEN move the wave of assault fighters in (1 x Small Rocket Pod, fill up with Kamikaze warheads). Once again, you'll lose loads of fighters, but you'll kill a LOT of ships. I think you'll be happy with the exchange

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>If your enemy has a fleet equipped with lots of PDC and PPB, use ships with Phased Shields (if available) or Armour, no normal shields and strictly direct fire weapons. PPB doesn't do much raw damage, and it'll take forever to chip through the armour.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I am afraid that is not true at all.
PPBs have the highest damage Ratings aside from RipperBeams. 2.0 down to 1.67 at max range.
Rippers have a rating of 2.5, but short range.
APBs rate 2.1 at point blank range, but fade to 1.5 at max range.
Only MesonbLasters and racial-tech weapons even come close.

To fight PPBs, you need to stay out of range and use the big, inefficient guns like WMG.

(For a full list of damage Ratings, see This Thread)

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 24 October 2001).]

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

I agree that Phased Polaron beams seem to be the most effective weapon over most of the game. I wonder if they should have been designed more like the fighter PPB, which is not very good on damage save that it skips regular shields. The only difficulty to PPB's is their cost. Having ships largely carrying this weapon tends to be much more expensive than those that do not.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

Fighters are great if you have lots of small colonies that are maxed-out with facilities. Just keep building fighters. Plus, they don't entail maintenance costs.

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>&gt;&gt; If your enemy has a fleet equipped with lots of PDC and PPB, use ships with Phased Shields (if available) or Armour, no normal shields and strictly direct fire weapons. PPB doesn't do much raw damage, and it'll take forever to chip through the armour.

I am afraid that is not true at all.
PPBs have the highest damage Ratings aside from RipperBeams. 2.0 down to 1.67 at max range<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry, I didn't express that well. Whilst I agree that PPBs do plenty Dam/kT/turn, that isn't the only factor. Firstly I should explain that I ususally take Organic and Propulsion experts traits. Thus, I can get some neat guns, Organic Armour, and I usually have ships that are faster than their opponents on the tac combat board.

As PPBs are quite short ranged, I find I can dance out of their reach for a turn or two, getting unanswered fire. Then there is a turn at range 5-6, where my MBs are still better than PPBs, and because I concentrate the fleets fire on a few ships to get cripples, not kills, I have usually spread him out so I'm only fighting half his fleet. As I'm using Kick-*** Organic Armour, I can usually take one volley without significant damage. Then I can defeat the rest of his fleet in detail, just mopping up. I'll take damage, probably lose a ship or two, but hey, I've trashed the enemy fleet

Also, a race can't be strong in everything. If they have big PPBs available, they have probably sacrificed elsewhere, so ships are poorly protected, or slow, or just can't carry enough guns, something. By the time the game has gone far enough that they can correct these flaws, I find that economics wins wars, not weapons. If my fleet is 300 LCs armed with DUC Is, I'll pulverise a dozen high-tech BBs with PPBs. I'll take big losses, sure, but if I can AFFORD those losses, who cares?

Re: Fighters! What are they good for?
 

To address the original topic, fighters are good for lots of things. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif You can make them easier to construct by reducing the hull cost from ten times the hull size to maybe five times. Then, use them in the classic "swarm of ants" fashion and they can be quite deadly. I think they are a bit vulnerable because of the short range of their weapons relative to ship-based weapons but this is where the numbers come in.

As for the other topics that have cropped up here:

Missiles and PDC are a problem. Since the AI is not smart enough to adjust its ship designs for the opponent it is facing you pretty much have to put PDC in the default designs of all AI ships. But this then makes the AI races designed to favor missiles very weak in the mid and late game. I hope, since MM is finally adding new features to the game, that a way to increase missile ECM will be added, or maybe even special capabilities like multiple launches in a single turn or something. We shall see.

PPB and other weapons: Yes, the PPB is a very nice weapon. Now that the Emissive Armor function works correctly every race has an effective counter-measure, not just the Organic and Crystalline tech races. When you run up against someone using PPB research Emissive Armor if you haven't already and cram your ships with it. Phased shields are an option too, of course, but more expensive in research points.

Even so, weapons are not everything. Superior tactics and just over-whelming numbers can beat any technology. I don't think the PPB is anywhere near as unbalancing relative to other weapons as the PDC/missile problem. At least, not for humans. The AI of course cannot cope with anything.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 25 October 2001).]