Beams v Missiles

[geoschmo]

Aris_Sung said:
Most times I get acceptable losses in my fighter squadrons, which shows that missiles shouldn't be dismissed too quickly.

Except that the missles are inferior weapons which are providing cover for your fighters which also inferior weapons. In the stock game against a moderatly skilled human player you are throwing good money after bad so to speak. Fighters and missles are both inferior to beam weaponed ships. Adequate PDC will illimnate the threat from both, and your fighters will be targetted by beam weapons in addition to the PDC.

Fighters and missles both have their place. Early in the game for sure, and in very specific situations they can be moderatly useful in the late game, but neither is good as a front line weapon. Combined force tactics simply don't work in late game stock SE4. Against an enemy in even roughly equal numbers, you will lose. In fact, using fighters and missles are a force multiplier for your enemy. Use them and you will find youself losing battles where you have the other guy outnumbered.

[Aris_Sung]

I haven't gotten that far in my game yet, so I may not be the 'late' as you describe it. I also play stock games more than I play against Human players(there's never enough time to do the fun stuff). (I sorta have an affinity for fighters, those one-man ships fighting to win and survive.) But I understand what you're saying, and I'll keep your comments in mind, if and when I do get time to play that far.
Maybe, making PDC a little less accurate could be put into SEV, which could make fighters important again for everyone!

Thanks for the input,
Aris

[Fyron]

Quite a few mods address the problems with fighters and missiles in stock SE4 and make them actually be useful. You would be surprised what making PDC actually be a balanced device can do.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

In Capship PDC's can only take out missiles, so that's pretty balanced (combined with another weapon capable of taking out all but seekers) and I've also created two new missiles... one with 70kT damage resistance, and one with 100kT. Makes missiles useful later on - heavy weapons with extremely long ranges which need at the very least two PDC shots to be destroyed. And that for a 50kT weapon!

[Yef]

My solution, using Proportions, was shorter range for PDCs (3 combat grid, same than fighter's weapons), only PDC can fire on fighters (so the AI don't waste shots on fighters and actually destroy my fleets), and straight flight for missiles, so they can be shot upon by PDCs only once in their flight path.
It works pretty cool.
Maybe too well.
There is no way to conquer a Homeworld, which ussually has 1000 plus WP, without having a large number of frigates for the sole porpouse of provinding missile defense, and a humongous missile fleet to overwhelm the planet's PDCs.

In other words, the cost of war have skyrocketed.