Balancing Fighters, Missiles and PDC in the late game

[PvK]

Fire Control Centers can be obtained by the time any large fighter Groups can be brought against another empire.

But ya, in a MP Proportions game with fighters included, trying to fight fighter-using empires without using any fighters of your own will probably be extremely hard. That's true reality and much SF, and is intentional. If you want to play more Trek-like Proportions, tweak the fighters or just turn off their tech area.

PvK

[oleg]

I like the idea of 'fire rate 2' for fighter weapons - like JLS did in AIC. First, it makes fighters fight more 'realistic': they fly over and fire on you then regroup and fly back. Something we usually see in war movies
Second, PD would now have TWO chances to shot down fighters during the raid - on the way in and out.
That alone should make PDB more usefull even without increasing the damage which would otherwise affect missiles !

[Grand Lord Vito]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
You might want to reduce the ability of fighters to be overly-powerful like in Proportions though... even those special anti-Fighter PDCs from Energy Pulse Weapons don't help much.

How I used to play proporitions was to make just carriers with fighters and a few escort scouts.

There is no need for other combat ships because a fleet of 10 or more carriers with fighters can beat everything

[Grand Lord Vito]

Originally posted by PvK:
[QB] Depends on your tech level, and how much time you spend sitting around building up fighters. I think Fryon's experience in Proportions tends to be that he does a land grab and then gets bored, building up silly quantities of fighters once he reaches his maintenance limits for ships.

However I will grant that:

* Proportions makes fighters quite powerful
* Proportions fighters are powerful early in the tech tree, compared to other techs
* SE4 zero-maintenance units means that stockpiling fighters can lead to some very large and therefore powerful (particularly on defense) fighter stacks.

What does zero-maintenance units have to do with the Fighters being out of proprortion?

Later-tech Proportions stuff, and mid-tech bases and planets, can deal with fighters pretty well, though. And, fighters aren't as powerful as they are in say, real-world naval combat from World War 2 onwards.

Not true.

1) Reduce the damage done by the light fighter weapons by about half, down to 1 or 2 points per weapon, and or increase their size, so they don't do much damage at all. (or, remove their ability to target anything but fighters)

2) Make fighter weapons which heavy weapons for hitting ships, unable to target fighters.

3) Remove fighter shields, or make them only about as good as fighter armor, or a little better.

4) Consider removing or reducing the structure value of fighter until they have about half the damage resistance they currently do (without shields).

5) Consider making fighter components cost more.

6) Consider making fighters start out with somewhat lower offense and defensive bonuses, but add more fighter ECM and combat sensors at higher research levels, so early fighters aren't so hard to kill, and later fighters make stockpiles of earlier fighters relatively obsolete.

Most of this sounds like the way fighters are now with the AIC Fighter Mod by JLS and OLEG

[ November 05, 2003, 11:07: Message edited by: Grand Lord Vito ]

[Grand Lord Vito]

Originally posted by PvK:
Fire Control Centers can be obtained by the time any large fighter Groups can be brought against another empire.

If the fire control really works the way it is discribed.
Even then it does not help much with fighters, you said earlier that the Proportions PDC has enough to hit, why even mention this?

[oleg]

Originally posted by Grand Lord Vito:

quote:

---

Originally posted by PvK:
Fire Control Centers can be obtained by the time any large fighter Groups can be brought against another empire.

If the fire control really works the way it is discribed.
Even then it does not help much with fighters, you said earlier that the Proportions PDC has enough to hit, why even mention this?

---

Fire control centers DO help against fighters ! extra 40% to hit gives PDC very good chance to hit. Even more, FCS plus to-hit bonuses from WP mounts makes normal weapons quite effective.

[Grand Lord Vito]

Oleg how do we really know that ONE Fire Control really works for ALL Weapons Platforms on the planet not just the one its on after that you cant fit much else?

It looks just like a big Combat Sensor or do all Combat Sensors on the planet add up or does it just take the largest Combat sensor value like a ship.

IMHO I do not see much differnce to the other WP

[ November 05, 2003, 11:13: Message edited by: Grand Lord Vito ]