Some issues with fighter combat.

[Graeme Dice]

Having just received the full Version today, I decided to try out some things in the simulators. I created a group of 100 large fighters which all had a shield generator III. (Although, this seems like a waste of 4 kt, as all capital ship weapons do more than this much damage.) When attacking a ship with massive anti-proton beam XII's, the beams killed approximately 10 fighters in each shot. I have no problem with the point defenses taking out multiple fighters, as that is what they are designed for, but a ship-killing energy beam should not in my opinion, kill more than one fighter at a time.

[great.throwdini]

re: "but a ship-killing energy beam should not in my opinion, kill more than one fighter at a time."

Guess it depends on how large an area those weapons cover, either as a single beam or in a series of tightly timed volleys, and how packed those fighters are

[Danny]

I think beams should be limited to one fighter, but missles and other explosives should kill many at a time.

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I AM Canadian.

[Graeme Dice]

The way things work right now, the best anti-fighter weapon is a massive enveloping acid globule, as it can target fighters, has a great range, and does nearly as much damage as WMGs.

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Brave Sir Graeme ran away
Bravely ran away away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Brave sir Graeme turned about
and guaranteed he chickened out.

[Seawolf]

I think everyone is getting hooked on a "beam" weapon being a single shot weapon. Could be a multi wave/multi focused beam with a adjustable damage area. To fix theis make the fighters in small Groups so that he need to target many Groups an dover task his targeting system. I course you can just build Escort ships to fix this.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[Talenn]

Seawolf:

That makes sense in theory, but you shouldnt have to have a micromanagement nightmare on your hands in order to succeed. The fighter Groups should not be configurable unless they come with some sort of upside and downside. Perhaps the bigger Groups could get some sort of bonus as a tradeoff to being more vulnerable. This at least would provide a reason not to constantly use smaller (less wieldable) Groups.

IMO, the player's life shouldn't be made more difficult in an effort to get around a certain tactic (within reason of course).

Thanx,
Talenn

[Seawolf]

Talen,

why would it be a nightmare? Just use formations and it done.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[Talenn]

SeaWolf:

Sure, the formation can be handy, but I find that the movement it often takes to 'stay in formation' is very inefficient. Also, there is no 'swarm the enemy' formation

When I use fighters, they often have to get CLOSE to be effective. This means I have to ditch the formations and move them manually.

I see what you are saying, but IMO, the game system should FORCE players to do that in order to not take inordinate losses.

Currently, I think fighters are far too weak for the investment. I'm assuming that this is a direct result of the bug regarding shield-less fighters. I hope once that bug is corrected, I can experiment more closely with fighters.

Talenn