Fighters: a stardrive speed liability?

[rocky8311]

My understanding of the warp speed of your flotilla is that the averages of the ships' star drives are taken.

If you have fighters (other than Ripcord) in your fleet, is their lack of a stardrive factor into the average?

I was forced to escape a Nova one time without a stardrive installed (the Hyperdrive wouldn't be ready to go in time), and I can testify that it's extremely slow, especially in a nebula (I've avoided that by always carrying a spare ever since).

So yeah...fighters, are they a liability in the average?

[Shadowcat]

I take it you're a SAIS player?

There's a rather significant change with Weird Worlds when it comes to the Hyperdrive and escaping from a Supernova.

[Puke]

yeah, i didnt expect to survive when i looked at the charge time. i think this would be a GREAT foil to the hyperdrive, and make it less of an uber-item.

of course, there would need to be some way to "slow-travel" without using the hyperdrive. otherwise you would have to spend time removing and reinstalling your engine. or not, maybe being held to the charge time would be the trade off. the risk you run when using that drive.

but maybe there could be some way to drop a ship from your fleet, so you could sacrifice the hyperdrive ship to save the rest of your flotillia.

Also - is it a bug or a feature that hyperdrive retreats take 0 days?

[MrFantastic]

The hypredrive should not be usable to retreat! haha how much would that change the game? You'd have to give the hyperdrive a little normal speed, like 10.

[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.