Shielded fighter tactics, a new secret weapon???

[Rover]

Like all of you I get tired of my well designed F14 Avengers getting destroyed en mass by one shot from a beam weapon or bLasted to pieces by a point defense cannon.
And like any good gamer, be it computer games or board games we all find ways to over come the problems to create some sort of winning strategy or tactic either by abusing the rules or abusing a bug in a computer game or just plain inspiration. If we don't we end up losing more times than winning. and some times give up gaming for ever and get a job selling lawn furiture or something.

Having play the demo Version of seIV for sometime now, and reading the complaints of a dumb AI when it comes to mines. and the AIs inablility to build something as simple as a mine sweeper. This whole "mining warp points strategy" aganist the AI is getting... well...
pretty boring to say the least. Now don't get me wrong it is a sound stratgey. But really we all know or at least should know that a good gamer i.e. human player is going to figure out a way to remove those mine some time. Than what? And frankly as I said, I am tried of sitting behind my "mine strategy", bulding up my worlds and fleets for the time when I am ready to take advanage of the computer AI, who places very little mines if any and couldn't for the most part conduct a proper defense if you sent them your entire battle plan on a cd. Well you get my point.

Now don't get me wrong the computer can be very agressive. Sending 18 ship into your mine field in an attempt to enter a system you control is very agressive. But, at Last, they fail and you just build more mines and come up with more efficent ways to get more mines into warps point.

So I started thinking about different strategies and tactics for the day when we will all have to face that one gamer or a better AI player who is so good that the mine strategy won't do the complete job.

This got me back to thinking about fighters again. Now I don't know about you, but in my mind I always thought fighters were One hell of and offenive and defensive weapon. Though easy to destroy once hit, but they were hard to hit. And that is what makes them so deadly. Knowing that se4 doesn't do a very good job of modeling that, One has to work with what ones has.(For now) Proably the greatest thing about this game is that it is so open ended that it allows strategic and tactcial possiblitities galore. Except within the framework of the game there are really few restriction to the possiblities

Back to fighters. I want to thank Saben for this. In his message about effective ground combat strategies he talks about using shielded troops to assume damage in ground combat to keep his regular drop troops from taking damage. A good idea really. Well why not take that concept to different weapons platform say like a fighter. But for what purpose you might ask. Good question

Shielded fighters, purpose of
The purpose for shielded fighters was to come up with a way to cause the automatic respone of point defense cannons so that my regular F14 Avenger fighter with just engine and guns could safely attack ships without them being attacked from point defense cannons. I.e. already fired, at shielded fighters. Well I say to myself what heck, lets give a shoot.

So I start a full tech game and begun designing based of Saben design for the shield troop. Components: Besides figther cockpit and life support, I placed two shield III and 5 engines which equal 3 movement in combat. total 80 shield points.

Than I went to the simlulator (great Idea, this simulator!!!)
made a group of 100 shielded fighters and 10 run of the mill AI Cruisers. Having played the game enough I pretty much got a good Idea what run of the mill AI cruiser has on it unless you are dealing with Racial Traits.

Ran the simulator and guest what. it works. but what was even more surprising was what happen when AI cruisers fire at the fighters. Large mount anti-Proton Beam cannon XII. Each hit only destroyed one fighter.Wow, big differences. Point defense when I move took out two fighters per cannon. Well now that's promising.

So I created and even larger Sim. 1 planet, large, 200 shielded fighters, 400 F14 Avenger
fighters, each with one weapon, nine engines, 20 weapons platforms. 18 run of the mill AI cruisers.

The battle

I launched 200 shielded fighters 100 each in the first two turns. than launched 100 regular fighters split in two 50 fighters Groups. Kept launching until all fighters were launch. mean while my shielded fighters waited around the planet until the cruisers move into range of the planet. regular fighters were moved into positon to strike at cruisers. As the cruiser moved into range of my shielded fighters they fired at them. Loses were as expected one fighter hit and destroyed per beam weapon. When it became my move again I moved the shielded fighters through the ships to cause the automatic response of there point defenses. All of them fire at the shielded fighters. once their point defenses was depleted, I attack en mass with my regular fighters. every turn I continue to move shielded fighters around ships. From the time that the ships got within range of the planet they never shot at any more fighters, just attacked the planet.

End Result.

the battle Lasted 10-11 turns. it took 4 of those turns for the cruisers to get within weapons range of the planet. out of 200 shielded fighters, 70 survived. There was a total of 18 point defense cannons on the ships one per ship. this is standard on AI ships. No regular fighters were lost. Three weapons platform were lost. I fire my platforms one time for no real effect. 18 cruiser destroyed. the fighters destroyed 18 ships in 5-6 turns.
Enemy AI Cruiser Design
normal vechile controls
2 polaron shields 750 sh pts
1 emissiom armor
multi tracking 5
ecm senors III
Combat computer III
6 engines
3 csm v
2 anti-proton beam cannons XII
1 point defense Cannon

Points to note: Polaron Beam weapons can penetrate normal shields. In the demo Version thats all you have for fighters, normal shield. But aganist meson and anti- proton Beams, shielded fighters do well. Wether this is true or not, big guns, like wave guns and grav guns can't target fighters, nor should they. But not sure if that is true. If I were fighting a human player things work have turned out different. But still even with human players, shielded fighters will still cause points defense cannons to fire on automatic response. This could lead to well... say less missles being shot down, and thus more hits to the target.

[This message has been edited by Rover (edited 16 November 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Rover (edited 16 November 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Rover (edited 16 November 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Rover (edited 16 November 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Rover (edited 16 November 2000).]

[Commander G]

With Strategic combat, you would probably need to put shields on all of the fighters as you could not orchestrate the order of movement to draw the fire.

[Rover]

I Have many times put shields on fighters. At least in the Demo Version soing so you end up sacrificing speed for better protection. I was also looking for a way, At least aganist The AI Player, of taking as few loses in my regular fighters as possibly and letting one type of fighter take the losses. I guess it is a matter of economics,
when it comes to taking losses. and the amount of time it would take to replace fighter losses as a whole. It is also about an economy of force. Doing as much damage to an enemy force, for less cost in my forces. And looking towards the future of having to play A better AI player Or very good human players.

As far as strategic Combat goes you are right about that. And for now I can see the importants of placeing shields on all fighters. as regarads Strat Combat.
But frankly I don't do strat Combat when using fighters and carriers. for one
to many things on the strat combat screen, at least on my machine slows down the whole Strat Combat thing. to the point of nearly freezing my machine, especially to many fighters. for the other reason, I like launching fighters closer to the point of battle. and in strat combat you can't do that. At least I have not had any control over it. But with planetary defense I see you point.

Thanks for your in put
Rover

[This message has been edited by Rover (edited 16 November 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Rover (edited 16 November 2000).]

[Warlord Adamus]

Also in the latest Version fighters and Point defense have been reworked heavily so that fighters are more survivable.

[Seawolf]

Another point with fighters, you determine the number of fighters in a group. If you fighting a enemy with low combat sensors he can only fire at 1 or 3 targets per ship. make multi small Groups of fighters and they won't be able to target them all.


------------------
Seawolf on the prowl

[Instar]

When you launch fighters, try using launching in Groups. I think its better than launching en masse
Two reasons:
More mobility
If going up against a PDC, you can only lose one group at a time

[Warlord Adamus]

Better yet, use shields on all your fighters.

[Rover]

Thanks guys for the input. All are good points.

[Rover]

Whopps!!

[This message has been edited by Rover (edited 17 November 2000).]

[Rover]

Thanks guys for the input. All are good points.
I guess I mout sound like I'm a newbe. I think the biggest mistake was putting question marks at the end of the top. I Also think I wasn't being very specific in getting my point across.

So let me try to state it more plainly.

The purpose of placing a lot of shields on a fighter design is so that,that type of fighter in a large group of fighters could substain a lot of damage and the life of that group would be substained throuhout the entire combat,in its assigned mission (reason why I design it in the first place) of flying around enemy ships and causing an automatic respone from the point defense cannons on ships in an enemy fleet. So that other fighters which were in bigger Groups (which cause lots more damage to a ship that way. which was how I was able to bet 18 cruisers in about 6 turns to no losses to my regular fighter force, AI of course)With greater speed (minus shields) could move for an attack and do as much damage as 50 fighters in a group could do. Or to allow missiles to hit their targets without being shot down by point defense.

I hope this makes it more plain.
Rover