Fighters! What are they good for?

[CW]

quote:

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Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
You'll also find that seeking parasites fire every TWO rounds, vs. THREE rounds for other seekers. And the parasites are faster too. Don't recall how much damage they can take, nor how much they do, but I REALLY dislike fighting against organic races because of the seeking parasites.

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It also means that I could build my DNs (with 11 parasites each) faster than others could build their PD ships! On the other hand I don't think it is faster than a Plasma missile, a parasite does a lot less damage too.


[This message has been edited by CW (edited 03 October 2001).]

[dogscoff]

Actually Devnullmod maks mor than a few changes to missiles and PD:

First, he added extrnal mount Versions of all missiles - less space but only one shot per combat.

Second, he added sprint missiles.

I haven't seen any decoys yet.

Third, he split PD into 3 distinct Groups.

Fightr point defence: Long range, 20 kt, can hit fightrs and seekers.

Regular point defnce: Medium size, medium range, and the first tech level is available at the start of the game. Cannot target fightrs.

Mini point defence, which takes up 5 kt and has a range of one or two. These are good for defending yourslf but no good for defending your fleet. Again, can't target fighters.

It's a good systm, and well balancd IMHO. I'v played it pretty extensively and I find that there is no clear winnr between seekers, fighters and PD.


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[Rhinestone Cowboy]

Has anybody tried this fighter strategy?

Build massive amounts of your favorite fighters in a border system, Pre-invasion time. When the time is rightmove them to the wormholes and use carriers/transports to drop them on the other side. (after the wormhole defenses are taken care of)

Instead of tying up your carriers in the fleet they can keep dumping fighters into the front lines.

If you really like micromanagement you can have a string of fighters moving from ALL your colonies towards a front line.

Carriers strictly become Ferries (don't need a lot of engines or weapons or armor)

I have not tried this vs a human opponent yet, but it certainly overwhelms the AI's.

It really helps keeping the big warships in one piece while the unused colony build queues pump out the fighters.

Just a thought.

RhineStone Cowboy

[Q]

I like fighters very much and use them heavily. But a word of warning: If your enemy has ships with lot of PDC and phased polaron beams a combat with fighters alone might turn out very bad for you: I lost about 2500 heavy fighter against an AI empire with such designed ships! If you combine fighters with ships the polaron beams will probably be used against the ships and therefore the death toll of the fighters is much less.

[TallTroll]

If your enemy has a fleet equipped with lots of PDC and PPB, use ships with Phased Shields (if available) or Armour, no normal shields and strictly direct fire weapons. PPB doesn't do much raw damage, and it'll take forever to chip through the armour. Just leave fighters/seekers out of it.

Match your strength to the enemies weaknesses.

Fighters are great, if you use them for the right missions. The point is to use them as cheap attrition units. Deploy them in huge numbers, expect massive losses, but with the right equipment and tactics, they can kill ships many, many times their own value. Also, you can produce them anywhere, you don't have to occupy your "real" shipyards time with them.

A heavy fighter with a pair of Small Rocket Pod IIIs can do a ridiculous amount of damage. 2 or 3 solid hits can wreck a BC, unless its all armour/shields. Then move in your "real" ships to finish off the cripples, and pick up the experience. You'll lose lots of fighters, but hey, so what? They are really cheap and easy to replace

I usually create specialist carrier fleets, with 2 or 3 line carriers, based on a carrier hull, and 1 or 2 Aux CVs, which are transports kitted out to carry lots of cargo, with a few launch bays. Overall the fleet can launch loads of fighters, and after the fight, you transfer fighters from the transports to the line carriers. Then in the next fight, you can still put loads of fighters on the board quickly, and your losses don't matter so much (just keep topping up your Aux CVs). Mix in a few dedicated PDC ships, and a few real warships, depending on who you are fighting, and what equipment they use, and away you go. So long as you keep the fleet topped off with fighters, and don't let it fight a fleet that can kill the carriers, you can wreak havoc.

When the sector gets too hot, run away. A smart enemy will chase you with a PDC-heavy fleet. Thats when you jump the other direct fire weapon fleet on him. The PDCs become dead weight, and he loses again

If rearranging your ship production is difficult, use an alternative "molasses" strategy. Mix carriers with ships that carry loads of seekers. Design a "dummy" fighter, just cockpit/life support/engines, and put loads of them on your carriers. Launch seekers, follow up with a wave of "dummy" fighters. These will soak up most of the PDC for the turm. THEN move the wave of assault fighters in (1 x Small Rocket Pod, fill up with Kamikaze warheads). Once again, you'll lose loads of fighters, but you'll kill a LOT of ships. I think you'll be happy with the exchange

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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If your enemy has a fleet equipped with lots of PDC and PPB, use ships with Phased Shields (if available) or Armour, no normal shields and strictly direct fire weapons. PPB doesn't do much raw damage, and it'll take forever to chip through the armour.

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I am afraid that is not true at all.
PPBs have the highest damage Ratings aside from RipperBeams. 2.0 down to 1.67 at max range.
Rippers have a rating of 2.5, but short range.
APBs rate 2.1 at point blank range, but fade to 1.5 at max range.
Only MesonbLasters and racial-tech weapons even come close.

To fight PPBs, you need to stay out of range and use the big, inefficient guns like WMG.

(For a full list of damage Ratings, see This Thread)

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 24 October 2001).]

[Cheeze]

I agree that Phased Polaron beams seem to be the most effective weapon over most of the game. I wonder if they should have been designed more like the fighter PPB, which is not very good on damage save that it skips regular shields. The only difficulty to PPB's is their cost. Having ships largely carrying this weapon tends to be much more expensive than those that do not.