Fighters should pay support!

Tomgs · #1 January 28th, 2001, 07:51 AM

I wouldn't mind if fighters needed to pay upkeep I just think they are so vunerable to PD as to be not as big a factor as you think. In a human vs human game yes fighters would be more valuable and maybe when the TCP/IP patch gets here I will change my mind. Vs the AI I have never been that bothered by them. Sure its an annoyance to lose that first ship to them if I don't expect them to be around a planet but thats all it is. And I would rather not be bothered to build a lot them vs the AI (I have used them extensively before and the micromanagement in tactical and logistics really isn't worth the free maintaince to me).

I usually win the games more by economics and research than by anything else. Sure I fight the battles but I am usually raking in a lot more resources than the AI so maintaince isn't a factor.

Atrocities · #2 January 28th, 2001, 07:57 AM

Excuse me, but unless I mis-read the title to this thread wrong, I do not think that fighters should "pay" support.

On behalf of the fighters, I would like to point out that they already are tapped to the maximum, and another fee would break them finacially as well as morally.

Please vote NO on the Fighter Tax. Thank you.

Q · #3 January 28th, 2001, 09:16 AM

I prefer the way it is with no maintenance cost for fighters because:
- To use fighters really efficiantly you need carriers, which cost maintenance.
- In a combat with fighters you will almost always loose some units, which have to be replaced and will therefore cost you resources. Not to mention the effort to bring them from the colonies to the front line. With ships it is very well possible to win a battle without losses, or even if you get damaged ships, you can repair them for free.
However as usual the best solution to this debate would be as proposed to have values in the settings file for all units separately, where you may choose the maintenance cost from 0% to whatever you like.

Blue Lord · #4 January 28th, 2001, 09:41 AM

Besides, "ships can't take out fighters" Then why are you building ships? You respond with fighters, and lot's of fiighters. I've go fighter squads protecting almost everyone of my systems, but that's all I can do with them. If the AI was smart enough to send in all at once instead of 1 ship each 2 turn, my fighters wouldn't pickle them

I vote NO

thorfrog · #5 January 28th, 2001, 11:05 AM

I also agree. Fighters are not capital ships. Carriers are used to fuel and maintain these vehicles. Reference any WWII movie or the history channel. I have yet to see a fighter stay in the air for more then 5 days let alone a year or two. I think fighters are fine the way they are.

Barnacle Bill · #6 January 28th, 2001, 01:42 PM

The problem seems to be that the AI can't handle when you use large numbers of fighters defensively. When you are on the offense with fighters, you are limited by the need to build & maintain the carriers and transport replacement fighters to the front. Fighters are not a problem for humans, because they just adapt. The AI, though, can't deal with the defensive strategy of a human having every planet build fighters continuously and launch them.

Other than maintenance, there are a few ways to deal with this:

1) Make fighters have to land in the same strategic turn in which they were launched, like fights in Civilization, Empire, etc... This would require a change in the current system in which they can't move on the system map in the turn of launch, which would in turn require the program to track which had already moved that turn. However, it would no longer need to track fuel so this should be a wash, programming-wise. This would limit the fighters in a system to what would fit in planetary cargo.

2) Eliminate the ability to launch fighters from planets. I think this one could be done as a mod, without programming changes. In conjunction with this, a programming change could make it possible to put fighter bays on WP's. That would not really solve the problem, though, as you could still launch the fighters and stack them up in space infinitely. Just eliminating the planetary launch ability would also let you keep piling them up in space, but you'd be forced to build a base at every planet with enough fighter bays to launch one turn's worth of production. #1 is a better and more realistic solution.

3) House rule - this is an "AI can't deal with human strategy" issue, so just don't use that strategy,

Jubala · #7 January 28th, 2001, 04:14 PM

quote:
Originally posted by raynor:
I have determined that point defense cannons are pretty worthless against fighters if you play tactical. Just englobe the ship with the point defense and keep attacking it until the PD Cannons are destroyed. I doubt this is how it works. But with my tons and tons of fighters, it's hard to keep track of when the PD cannons fire. They *HAVE* to be firing even if neither my fighters or the ship with the PD cannons move. But sometimes it sure does seem they aren't firing.

That's probably because they aren't firing. They only fire when the ship they are on move or something they can fire at move. So if you surround the ship with pdc's so it can't move and don't move any fighters in range of the pdc's the pdc's won't fire. Silly, but that's the way it is.

As for fighters paying maintainance, I think they should. But not much. Make it an option at game setup and the amount being payed editable in settings.txt.

And I like Bills idea about fighters having to land somewhere the same turn as they are launched. Or maybe the next turn. Maybe an advanced life support system could enable that. It just doesn't make sense to me that you can park some fighters on a warp point or in orbit for 50 years without the pilots dying.