Well this is wierd

[Arkcon]

So I've been meaning to try this for a while now -- using small fighters to mimic small Groups of defensive satelites.

I built some: cockpit, life support, rocket pods and meson bLasters. No engines, as long as they were launched, they would surround the planet and defend if anything came near.

So what happened when two battle cruiesrs and a battleship arrived at a planet?

First, they launched OK. Then they started moving . To add another insult, they wouldn't fire . I mean, this isn't really a batch of bugs, since I'm trying to exploit the game's loopholes, but what gives?

[ September 23, 2002, 02:59: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[geoschmo]

Well, most likely they wouldn't fire because they had no supply. But as for why they were moving, I have no idea. You didn't put afterburners on them or something did you?

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

Nope, I tested it and confirmed it. They did not fire becuase of the lack of engines means no supply. And fighters with no engines get a base of one movement. This is not listed anywhere in the rules that I can see. Not sure if it's intended or a bug, but it's apparently not new. I never noticed it before, but I just tested it in 1.49 and it was there too. You can add one engine and they will move the same one speed but they will have some supply so they can fire in combat. Not sure if having them move though makes them not work for what you are trying to do with them.

Geoschmo

[Arkcon]

Thanks Geo, moring coffee helped make that clear. Of course no engines means no supply.

There was no room for afterburners, I guess fighters just have a move of one.

I gotta get ready for work, but maybe I'll try engineless drones.

I'm sure some mod somewhere has supply storage for fighters

As for moving, well with no supply, they tried to escape. If they could move at speed of one, they'd be ordinary fighters. My goal was a halo of fighters that caused attacking ships to get hung up a distance from the planet. A dozen 5 fighter Groups acting like sattelites, but not all as one group.

Very slow interceptors might help, but I might as well use regular fighters

[ September 23, 2002, 11:09: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Arkcon:
I gotta get ready for work, but maybe I'll try engineless drones.

Oh foo, the drone hull also has a movement of one, same result.

Weird, engineless ships have zero movement

[geoschmo]

Arkcon, I played around a bit and you can get fighters with no movement by modding in an engine with -1 standard movement. And they have supply so they will fire. Unfortunately in my tests they seem to be subject to the same goofy sattelite launching script that clumps them all in one corner of the planet, so they won't really protect your planet entirely unless you have a tremendous number of them. I modded a smaller 5K fighter hull and put 800 on a planet and they only protected the planet on one side up to 3 deep, since you can't launch in Groups smaller than 5. You drones might do better since they launch in singles, but youd only get one shot and they would not be recovered after combat.

Also having no movement makes them extremely susecptable to longer range weapons on the other ships. Since they can't close the just sit there and get pasted without being able to fire back. Of course you could give them longer range weapons in a mod.

With the new mounts available in 1.78 you could even make a special class of fighter hull with sattelite type weapons. So your fighter/sats would launch during combat and be recovered at the end, and be in smaller Groups than sats typically are. That might have some uses in strategic combat games. But it won't really block access to your planet very effectively.

Geoschmo