Fighters! What are they good for?

[TallTroll]

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.

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

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Sorry, I didn't express that well. Whilst I agree that PPBs do plenty Dam/kT/turn, that isn't the only factor. Firstly I should explain that I ususally take Organic and Propulsion experts traits. Thus, I can get some neat guns, Organic Armour, and I usually have ships that are faster than their opponents on the tac combat board.

As PPBs are quite short ranged, I find I can dance out of their reach for a turn or two, getting unanswered fire. Then there is a turn at range 5-6, where my MBs are still better than PPBs, and because I concentrate the fleets fire on a few ships to get cripples, not kills, I have usually spread him out so I'm only fighting half his fleet. As I'm using Kick-*** Organic Armour, I can usually take one volley without significant damage. Then I can defeat the rest of his fleet in detail, just mopping up. I'll take damage, probably lose a ship or two, but hey, I've trashed the enemy fleet

Also, a race can't be strong in everything. If they have big PPBs available, they have probably sacrificed elsewhere, so ships are poorly protected, or slow, or just can't carry enough guns, something. By the time the game has gone far enough that they can correct these flaws, I find that economics wins wars, not weapons. If my fleet is 300 LCs armed with DUC Is, I'll pulverise a dozen high-tech BBs with PPBs. I'll take big losses, sure, but if I can AFFORD those losses, who cares?

[Baron Munchausen]

To address the original topic, fighters are good for lots of things. You can make them easier to construct by reducing the hull cost from ten times the hull size to maybe five times. Then, use them in the classic "swarm of ants" fashion and they can be quite deadly. I think they are a bit vulnerable because of the short range of their weapons relative to ship-based weapons but this is where the numbers come in.

As for the other topics that have cropped up here:

Missiles and PDC are a problem. Since the AI is not smart enough to adjust its ship designs for the opponent it is facing you pretty much have to put PDC in the default designs of all AI ships. But this then makes the AI races designed to favor missiles very weak in the mid and late game. I hope, since MM is finally adding new features to the game, that a way to increase missile ECM will be added, or maybe even special capabilities like multiple launches in a single turn or something. We shall see.

PPB and other weapons: Yes, the PPB is a very nice weapon. Now that the Emissive Armor function works correctly every race has an effective counter-measure, not just the Organic and Crystalline tech races. When you run up against someone using PPB research Emissive Armor if you haven't already and cram your ships with it. Phased shields are an option too, of course, but more expensive in research points.

Even so, weapons are not everything. Superior tactics and just over-whelming numbers can beat any technology. I don't think the PPB is anywhere near as unbalancing relative to other weapons as the PDC/missile problem. At least, not for humans. The AI of course cannot cope with anything.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 25 October 2001).]