Fighters: a stardrive speed liability?

[Shadowcat]

yeah, i didnt expect to survive when i looked at the charge time. i think this would be a GREAT foil to the hyperdrive

I agree, so I'm sad that it was changed -- it really was a great foil in SAIS, and meant that you needed a backup drive on hand to safely use the hyperdrive (or enough time to travel on thrusters only). Not to mention that "... Oh no!" moment when you first realised The Problem (that didn't happen more than once if you had any sense).

You always got a little satisfactory feeling of cunningly cheating death when you swapped in your backup drive if the situation arose

[rocky8311]

Weird...you can escape a Nova with a Hyperdrive. Why'd they change that?

But anyway, do the fighters slow down your flotilla when you're travelling between planets?

[nihilix]

Yes, fighters do slow you a bit. The lack of speed is, imho, more than made up for by the ability to distract most enemies and allow your big ships to pound them into glowing space dust. (Hint - give your fighters the fastest thrusters possible - Ion Impulser is the best they can take)

Fleet speed is weighted, however, so the non-drive fighters don't slow you down too much. This does mean, however, that you should always give your fastest drive to your largest ship! If you have the Grav drive, and your flotilla is the Terran Frigate and the Moon Marauder, give the Grav to the frigate, not the Marauder. Swap them around, and you'll see what I mean.

[rocky8311]

Is that based on the ACTUAL size of the ship or is it based on how many stardrive...(ports?) it has?

Ex: the Terran Frigate has two spots for your stardrive, but the Moon Marauder has only one spot, but both the Terran Frigate and the Muktian Corvette have two. Is there a difference between equipping the better drive to the Frigate or Corvette? Also, is there a difference between applying a better drive to the Moon Marauder or Ripcord O'Reilly's fighter?

[nihilix]

There's a size tag in the ship ini... that's what it refers to. The Frigate is largest, I think the Pirate, the Bloodfang, and the Muktian bigger ship are the same, the Moon Marauder and the Science ship are about the same, the fighters are tiny (and Ripcord's drive matters only a little) and the Damo is huge.

[Brainiac4]

The stardrive hardpoints are cosmetic, not functional. As Nihilix points out, it's based entirely on the size of the ship.

[Fingers]

Correct, the star drive speed is weighed based on the length of the ship (SIZE in the hull ini). Fighters with no drives slow you down a bit as they have to be towed