The Perfect fighter

Ruatha · #1 December 18th, 2002, 09:30 PM

Will make that in the next major fleet!!!

Will · #2 December 18th, 2002, 10:28 PM

I've actually found that fighters can be very useful, even when tech is high. But you have to build lots of them. As in, every single planet you have that's not building facilities or ships, are building fighters (or troops). I had a bunch of movement 2 carriers that only sat on warp points to ferry Groups of 100 fighters to the next system, and transports. Transports were generally used to collect fighters at a single planet for launch, as the fighters are faster than any other ship. "Conquest" fleets would have a faster Version of the ferry carriers, which would split from the fleet, go into the system to be attacked, and launch fighters. The fighters would beeline to all the warps, sealing them off (when you have a single stack of about 100 fighters with Electric Discharge III, there are very, very few ships that will survive a single shot, so it would take a very big fleet to break through). Then small Groups of ships will go in and kill any stray ships, while the main fleet will attack the largest planet, and capture it. That planet immediately starts producing troops to help capture the rest of the system. Very effective when done right.

Anyway, as for your problem... Probably the best fighters are ones with Electric Discharge or Time Distortion Burst (the latter especially with heavy-shielded enemies). If you want to take them out with fighters, I don't quite know what "standard" weapon would work best, but you'll need a lot of them. Your best bet, though, is to have the PDC boats mentioned. Make them as fast as possible, size should be in the Light Cruiser to Battle Cruiser range. Experiment with the ratio of PDC/Armor/Shields, find the best combo.

rdouglass · #3 December 18th, 2002, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Wardad:
Add in a combat sensors. It can help tip the balance.

Is that correct? ISTR that PDC was not affected by combat bonuses....I'm probably wrong, but just checking...

Wanderer · #4 December 18th, 2002, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rdouglass:

quote:
Originally posted by Wardad:
Add in a combat sensors. It can help tip the balance.

Is that correct? ISTR that PDC was not affected by combat bonuses....I'm probably wrong, but just checking...

Just tested this with v1.49 (with TDM-ModPack).

At maximum range against a Sat stack with ECM-III, the ship with no sensors has a 71% chance to hit with PDC, the one with sensors III has 100% (they fixed the bug of adding weapon bonuses Last in gold didn't they?) So the sensors are useful. I used sats as the PDCs don't automatically fire at them - I guess it could be different for missiles and fighters but you can't see the numbers.

PDC has a 70% bonus to hit according to the Components file.

Hmmm. Will order gold after christmas I think. I'm fed up of being behind the times regarding bug fixes.

cshank2 · #5 December 19th, 2002, 12:25 AM

OT: but I always put at least one launch bay and a few cargo containers on my bigger ship designs, fighters are the perfect point defense I think

heres my regular fighter design for a large
Cockpit
Life
6 engines
Afterburner
one shield
and the rest is all small meso...
Thats what I suually use =/

tesco samoa · #6 December 19th, 2002, 12:35 AM

another good fighter stag is the WP SB - F or the Warp Point Star Base Fighter ... 2500 kt of 1 space yard , CC , The exact number of fighter bays to launch 50 fighters a turn lots of cargo and have the puppy building fighters on repeat... Don't forget some PD on it... And let it does its job.. and forget about it.... ALso 2 or 3 500 kt bases building these babies on repeat... Add Sat's with only Shield depleters and Engine Killers and you are going to cause some major damage to fleets... As when the ships run out of supplies there sitting ducks for your fighters...

Arkcon · #7 December 19th, 2002, 12:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by cshank2:
OT: but I always put at least one launch bay and a few cargo containers on my bigger ship designs, fighters are the perfect point defense I think

heres my regular fighter design for a large
Cockpit
Life
6 engines
Afterburner
one shield
and the rest is all small meso...
Thats what I suually use =/

I do the same, but I try to contol their speed to be one step faster than the mother ship, so they don't crowd it -- but slow enough so they're still around. The fighters milling around keep enemy ships from closing to point blank range.

[ December 18, 2002, 22:53: Message edited by: Arkcon ]