Fighters! What are they good for?

[Saxon]

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?

[Seik]

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.

[CW]

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?

[dogscoff]

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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[Taqwus]

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

[mac5732]

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

[Q]

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.

[Saxon]

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.

[PsychoTechFreak]

quote:

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Originally posted by Saxon:
What is the best setup for a fighter?

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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.

[Kadste]

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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