[Askan Nightbringer]

The most important thing here is how fun the game is. Now if fighters become the only way to wage war its gets a bit dull. I'de rather play a game with NO fighters than a game with ONLY fighters.

As for realism I don't think you could ever settle the arguement either way. Its too easy to come up with a hundred arguements either way.
Here's a couple of arguements for the fighters are too powerful in the game case.

1. If you were the pilot of a fighter would you happily sit in a cramped cockpit for years (OK..time is SE4 is abstract) guarding a warphole? At least in an escort you can walk around a bit. Realistically I think fighters shouldn't fly around in space (except for short journeys) but have to be launched from planets/carries/bases for combat.

2. In space, ships aren't really bogged down too much by weight. I don't think its inconceivable that ships could be so heavily armoured that the puny weapons a fighter could be equipped with would do nothing.

3. As for the big guns not hitting a fighter I believe thats complete rubbish. The guns of the german battleship the Bismark had settings for each of the allied planes of the time. The guns could be aimed by pointing at the plane and then the automatic setting would fire based on the speed of the plane. (The Bismark was sunk by older planes that the Germans hadn't counted on being used anymore). Now given that a computer in a spaceship could track the movement of a fighter, I don't think its so inconceivable that a single bLast from a Meson cannon would reduce the hapless fighter into space junk.

Basically I think there are many possibilities how space combat could be actually like. There are no right and wrong answers.
I just want the game to be fun and to cater for varieties in strategies.


BTW - Does these new changes mean the religious talisman now kicks ***?