Fighters are now unbalanced

[wierd bob]

That was Reverend Tembo... not Temba. Get the facts straight bowb!

[Marty Ward]

The is a note in one file, the vehicle file I think, that says fighters are destroyed when they are out of supply. I have never had my fighters run out of supply but if this worked you could cause the fighter components consume supplies. You would eventually run out of supply and the fighters would have to resupply or be destroyed. This would keep them from sitting on WP's forever.

[Barnacle Bill]

quote:

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Originally posted by Marty Ward:
This would keep them from sitting on WP's forever.

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Not if you put a horde of them in a fleet with a single small, cheap Quantum Reactor-equiped ship. I do that all the time. They never have to land. The effect is kind of like a cheap carrier that can't travel interstellar. If you make the ship a transport, it can also take the show on the road as long as you have a colony in the system on either end - the fighters land at the colony, the transport loads 'em up & hauls them to a colony in another system & drops them off, the colony launches 'em and you fleet 'em up with the transport again. Of course, the fleet can't move first turn after the launch, but what do you expect for nothing?

[Barnacle Bill]

quote:

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Originally posted by wierd bob:
That was Reverend Tembo... not Temba. Get the facts straight bowb!

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Maybe I'm a Chinger spy...

[Marty Ward]

BB,
At least you would have to pay maintenance on the QR ship.
I think the way it is there will always be a way to keep them in space forever. There should be ways of making this expensive though.
One way would be to make their engines consume a lot of supplies, maybe 50 times what they do now. Then at least you would need a carrier or transport to move them into position. Making their weapons consume more supplies might cause them to run out after a particulary long or difficult fight too.
I don't even know if they are destroyed if they run out of supply, I've never had one run out. Does anyone know if this works?

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 06 May 2001).]
Another thought would be to eliminate the standard move from fighter engines. This would give them combat move and eliminate fighters flying through space by themselves. I know some people do think that suggestion is bad but I've never liked the idea of fighters cruising around the solar system by themselves.

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 06 May 2001).]

[Trachmyr]

I think fighters are just fine being the way they are, my reason:

Manuverability.... Engines on fighters are exposed to more "surface area" than the capital ships, this means they have more finite control over the direction of their thrust, allowing them to adjust their direction more profoundly in short periods of time.

Of course size plays an important part, I can't see fighters as a single 25KT fighter... that's ludicrous! A 50 MILLION pound fighter, come on... instead they probally refering to fighter squadrons (I changed the description in my game to just this)... you're talking about dozens of fighters, thus their actual size is MUCH smaller.

Finally their speed although similar, is probally generated diffrently between fighters and capital ships.... Capital Ships have slower Engines/Drives that can continuosly operate due to efficient use of fuel.... fighters are more likely to use rockets, very fast accelerating engines that burn large amounts of fuel, thus they accelerate and coast. I know the SE4 system dosen't represent this, but the SE4 system dosen't represent any realistic form of space movement (unless all the ships were equipped with an inertialess drive).

Personally, I would love to see that "combat movement" could STACK in a future patch... (give Afterburners the "one per ship" restriction), and make all fighter need 3 engines per move, but give all fighter engines 1 combat speed. Thus if you've got 9 Contra-terrene engines on a fighter + afterburners III, you'd have a combat speed of 14! but a normal move of only 4. Much better in my opinion. (Maxes would be 15 & 6 w/ quantum engines & AB3)

[murx]

I like the idea to kill the strategical move of fighters to zero and only have them combat movement.
They still could stay in space forever - but only at the point their carrier released them.
At a planet or at a carrier this would depict the fighters are 'on patrol' and just make short landings on the planet/carrier for crew shifts and resupply.
Another way could be to cut their movement to only 1 or maximal 2 spaces away from a landing point (or maybe 1/2 their maximal move) - depicting the same 'patrol' mechanism as before, but the 'main patrol' is at the location where the squadron is shown on the map.
But will be hard to programm, as the fighters should be destroyed when their 'landing base' moves away or is destroyed.
murx