[jim]

oleg -

To answer your Q, I have seen some TDM AIs throw hundreds of shielded fighters into the battle. This is especially true against non-domed Large and Huge planets. PDCs, even the highest ones, exact only minor attrition against Large fighters with 2xIII shields.

One can lose a battle quite easily by telling one's ships NOT to fire at fighters. That is why the Talisman + XII APBs are a very good all-around weapon suite. However, just one or two shield-sappers firing ahead of the APBs really makes a big difference in fleet engagements.

Thus, to do as you suggest would probably make me use Tachyon Cannons since they cannot shoot at fighters, but again I would ahve to avoid anti-shield weapons because they DO target fighters. See, with Talisman, longer range battles are generally best. However, the shield hitter has a longer range than the Tachyon weapon, and most others. So, the ship wastes anti-shield fire and then moves out of range! Thus, cannot use a Max Range weapons strategy!

The problem gets even worse with Bases, since the Multiplex is either erratic or broken for Bases. That is, one might have 10 Tachyon cannons that fussily decline to fire at choice targets because the shield-sappers ahead of them have already fired at fighters.