Fighters are broken. Can we fix them?

[Starhawk]

Fyron "preconception" has nothing to do with it, have you ever considered what I pointed out about the fact that most planets would be so riddled with AAA cannons that fighters would get dusted?

Let's face it a Fighter in and of its self is not something that can ever conquer a system, for that you need indurance and FIREPOWER which fighters lack, how many hours of bombardment would it take for fighters to seriously hurt a planet? Especially a planet with shields and defense platforms (even basic ones).

Now I know your saying "1,000 fighters" consider that against a planet with 8-10 or God forbid a sphereworld with 64 BILLION people do you know how fast those 1,000 puny fighters would get destroyed?

Also since I think a great many players and even a lot of AI have fighter squadrons guarding their worlds you'd have to deal with attrition, sending in your 1,000 fighters against maybe my 100 (per planet) but say my 100 get the drop (I.e get to firing range first) and open up with repeated direct hits, I could very well kill 200+ of your fighters in that one pass.

Now add a weapons platform with their extreme ranges and heavier damage weapons and odds are you'd lose about 500 fighters before getting to the planet.

Now use 100 capital ships you'd probobly lose 10 or even possibly 20 but you'd be in weapons range of both the fighters and the planet sooner and be able to destroy the planet's defenses in a matter of battle turns instead of GAME turns.


Fyron the only way to conquer a system with fighters is if it's a poorly defended frontier system that the guy doesn't much care about protecting in the first place.

Fighters are good in large scale fleet battles supporting capital ships, I can't stress that point enough that you NEED capital ships to be there in most versions of SEIV (including mods) having entire fleets of fighters is rather expensive, time consuming and in the end foolish. Especially because if I get my dreadnought in firing range of your carrier before you can launch any large number of fighters I can blow up HUNDREDS of fighters without them ever leaving their mothership.

I know I sound like one of those old naval 'big guns are best' admirals but in space Big ships would be best just about every way you hack it, fighters or fighter like ships would be too small and have to little fuel and to light of weapons to be of any great risk to capital ships in RL.

The only REAL reason Fighters today have such an advantage is that they can move in three dimensions while ships can only move in two, take that advantage away and the fighters not be so important anymore. I mean if we ever got a flying ship (not saying space saying FLYING) that did not rely on helium or some such explosive material and with decent PD you'd probobly be seeing a steady decline in fighter usage.

[Alneyan]

I've just noticed something... what I am arguing exactly? I think I pretty much went astray here. Still, I was only discussing point-blank attacks, where the PDC accuracy bonus is pretty much wasted against most fighter designs: at longer ranges, the +70 starts paying off. Even then though, those fighters are lacking in combat modifiers (no armour, no ship training, ECM/CS that are a lot more limited).

Perhaps you thought I compared these +70 to the CS +65, implying they were separate, instead of working together? Now that I am giving it a closer look, it looks like that was your point.

[Iron Giant]

Starhawk said:
Let's face it a Fighter in and of its self is not something that can ever conquer a system, for that you need indurance and FIREPOWER which fighters lack, how many hours of bombardment would it take for fighters to seriously hurt a planet? Especially a planet with shields and defense platforms (even basic ones).

It is an interesting point you make, about what real space fighters may or may not be able to do in the real future.

In SEIV I am playing in a fake universe. Sometimes I want to play Space Battleships in my fake universe, sometimes I want to play a race of Super Carriers with powerful fighters.

Regardless of what may happen in the real universe, in my fake universes of SciFi, one guy, in one fighter blew up a small moon In my overall SciFi imagination, Fighters are much more important than they are in SEIV. I still think it should be a viable (NOT the only) option, from beginning game, to end game.

[Starhawk]

Late game I must admit I did design a "BlackTiger" planet killer fighter in one game. For use on planets where I would rather hit with less then a battle squadron.

Black tigers were heavy fighters loaded out with nothing but shields and planetary napalm and I sent in a few hundred of them and wiped out the defenses of a world in five turns.

Two turns later I sent in a troop ship and two SD escorts and easily took the planet.

[Suicide Junkie]

Iron Giant said:
Yes, multiplex on fighters would fix the stack issue. Too bad about the damage flow, but yea, that would help.

Fighters have at least as much multiplex as the count of fighters in the stack.

All of the identical guns in a fighter stack fire as one shot, though. If you put multiple unique weapon components OR mount the weapons differently, the groups of weapons will fire independently.
see: FIG 380: Principles of Interceptor Design

[Hunpecked]

Iron Giant writes:

"In a game like SEIV, I should be allowed to come up with my own tactics and carry them through the whole game."

Well, I don't think a game designer is under any obligation to ensure that a particular weapons system is useful under all circumstances. In fact, I'd argue that the play is more interesting if players are forced to re-evaluate their design strategies as game tech advances. In any case, it would seem to be a moot issue given the modding possibilities in SE IV.

"The fact that fighters in a stack only can fire on one ship..."

One of many simplifications in the game, and probably not the worst.

"...and damage flowing to multiple fighters in a stack?"

Not necessarily broken; Iron Giant may be taking the game too literally here. The game is a simplified simulation of "real" events. What we see as a single "shot" may be thought of as the composite result of multiple salvoes at multiple targets in a stack.

Another example: In stock the first fighters lost in a stack disappear without a fuss, but the last goes up in a spectacular fireball. So does that mean the last fighter is packing some pyrotechnic device the others aren't, or is it just eye candy to signal the elimination of the stack?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Alneyan said:
I've just noticed something... what I am arguing exactly? I think I pretty much went astray here. Still, I was only discussing point-blank attacks, where the PDC accuracy bonus is pretty much wasted against most fighter designs: at longer ranges, the +70 starts paying off. Even then though, those fighters are lacking in combat modifiers (no armour, no ship training, ECM/CS that are a lot more limited).

Perhaps you thought I compared these +70 to the CS +65, implying they were separate, instead of working together? Now that I am giving it a closer look, it looks like that was your point.

I think I was asleep or something. That +70% would stack with the 60% ECM.

[Suicide Junkie]

Hunpecked said:
"The fact that fighters in a stack only can fire on one ship..."

One of many simplifications in the game, and probably not the worst.

And its not even a simplification! A single fighter stack can fire on many many different targets, as long as you give them a good mix of weapons.

[Fyron]

If you remove auto-firing from PDC, you will probably see a huge difference in the results... Another option I like is splitting PDC into at least 2 different weapons: one that targets seekers and one that targets fighters (and possibly drones). PDC is particularly bad because it nerfs both fighters and seekers simultaneously...

Starhawk said:
Fyron "preconception" has nothing to do with it, have you ever considered what I pointed out about the fact that most planets would be so riddled with AAA cannons that fighters would get dusted? ...

If you have no PDC or shields on WPs on the planet, you have absolutuly no AA or other defenses. Planetary defenses work against fighters just the same as ships.

Who said that fighters have to enter the atmosphere to attack the colony? They can fire their weapons at the surface from orbit just the same as ships (not that this makes much sense beyond specially designed bombs in the first place... but I digress). Also, there is no reason why they could not carry bombs. You do not need a huge vessel to drop nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs are getting smaller all the time. I'd imagine you wouldn't need very large shells to carry fusion bombs in 400 years. Fighters would probably be better suited to bombing planets anyways, since they do not present a large tacget to weapons on the ground.

If there are no WPs or other defensive units, the planet is undefended. It doesn't matter how many people there are; they will all die from the bombs.

Having fighter squadrons defending your worlds represents the effort of the people to defend themselves. Once they are gone (and other units), there is nothing stopping the attacking fighters from dropping their bombs.

Fyron the only way to conquer a system with fighters is if it's a poorly defended frontier system that the guy doesn't much care about protecting in the first place.

I'm not really sure what exactly I said that this is contesting. I would say that it is consistent with PDC obliterating fighters easily, however.

Fighters are good in large scale fleet battles supporting capital ships...

I'd assert that they are good for no such things in the stock game. They are way too easy to kill to be worth much. I've defeated many a PBW opponent trying to use fighters, and I do not even recall a single relevant defeat to a fighter-using opponent...

I know I sound like one of those old naval 'big guns are best' admirals but in space Big ships would be best just about every way you hack it, fighters or fighter like ships would be too small and have to little fuel and to light of weapons to be of any great risk to capital ships in RL...

To hell with being able to get forces where you need them on the "battlefield," eh? And being more or less untargetable by big guns, able to zip about to fire missiles at the capital ships, is useless as well? There is a lot more to warfare than just firepower and size...

I mean if we ever got a flying ship (not saying space saying FLYING) that did not rely on helium or some such explosive material and with decent PD you'd probobly be seeing a steady decline in fighter usage.

Just like cruisers and battleships made frigates, PT boats, and destroyers disappear? All navies in the future will necessarily consist of a wide variety of sizes of ships... Bigger is only better for certain roles. Not to mention exponentially more expensive... I don't think flying ships would reduce the number of fighter jets used much at all.

[Atrocities]

I will bet that there are at least a 100 posts or threads dealing with the weak arse fighter situation. Its good that the topic keeps coming up.