Fighters should pay support!

Elwood Bluze · #1 January 28th, 2001, 12:29 AM

Alright, so I'm playing against the earth alliance, among others, and the EA has over 900 fighters! He has no more ships than anybody else but he's kicking their butt.
No, I propose that each fighter has to pay some minimal upkeep. A percentage of it's build cost each turn would be fair, don't you think?

When you think about it logically, everything in the game that can move under its' own power has to pay support costs. I don't think fighters should get a free ride.

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Know what a wish sandwich is? That's two pieces of bread....and you WISH you had some meat!

raynor · #2 January 28th, 2001, 01:21 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Elwood Bluze:
Alright, so I'm playing against the earth alliance, among others, and the EA has over 900 fighters! He has no more ships than anybody else but he's kicking their butt.
No, I propose that each fighter has to pay some minimal upkeep. A percentage of it's build cost each turn would be fair, don't you think?

When you think about it logically, everything in the game that can move under its' own power has to pay support costs. I don't think fighters should get a free ride.

I agree completely.

Most folks seriously under-rate fighters. But if you make all your colonies build them, pretty soon you have a few hundred defending each system. There isn't really any need to build carriers until you go on the offense. Just ship the fighters in whatever transport you have available to a planet in another system. Transfer them to the planet. Then, the planet can launch 1000 per turn.

I have determined that point defense cannons are pretty worthless against fighters if you play tactical. Just englobe the ship with the point defense and keep attacking it until the PD Cannons are destroyed. I doubt this is how it works. But with my tons and tons of fighters, it's hard to keep track of when the PD cannons fire. They *HAVE* to be firing even if neither my fighters or the ship with the PD cannons move. But sometimes it sure does seem they aren't firing.

IMHO, PD cannons just don't cut it against the numbers of fighters I'm building. No, until the AI acquires the (very hard to implement) ability to dynamically react to the types of ships you are building and start mass producing higher tech fighters to combat my fighters, using fighters is going to be one sure way of beating the AI.

Tomgs · #3 January 28th, 2001, 02:00 AM

Actually the trade off isn't moving vs paying support its between being able to upgrade and paying support. Bases pay support and they don't move. If fighters are changed to pay maintaince then they will have to change to being upgradable also.

I haven't had the problems you encounter with fighters. Especially if I play tactical. Sure the fighters on a planet might wipe out my first fleet that visits them if they take me by surprise but after that my PD will take them out easily. I will just build enough to take them out. That is if I would let them sit long enough to build that many fighters in the first place. I never see that many fighters on a planet how many turns into the game are we talking about 200? Even if I play in a large quadrant my games never seem to Last that long.

Now fighters vs the AI in tactical yes you can overwelm them because they are not prepared for that type of battle. If you mod the txt files to account for that then they will have a better chance. But there are a lot of different ways to overwelm the AI, fighters may not even be the easiest way to do that but it definately will work. You can overwelm the AI with mines, satellites, missles, or escorts if you want to

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[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 28 January 2001).]

raynor · #4 January 28th, 2001, 02:25 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Tomgs:
I never see that many fighters on a planet how many turns into the game are we talking about 200? Even if I play in a large quadrant my games never seem to Last that long.

I think he probably saw that the EA has 900 units in the score.

A single planet can output around 8 small fighters per turn. So, ten turns later, that is 160 fighters just on one planet. Probably, the EA has lots more than 900 fighters since someone in another thread thinks each group counts as one unit.

quote:

Now fighters vs the AI in tactical yes you can overwelm them because they are not prepared for that type of battle. If you mod the txt files to account for that then they will have a better chance. But there are a lot of different ways to overwelm the AI, fighters may not even be the easiest way to do that but it definately will work. You can overwelm the AI with mines, satellites, missles, or escorts if you want to .

Can we start another topic so I can hear more?

I like fighters better than these other ways because:

1. Fighters don't pay maintenance.
2. They move themselves.
3. You can easily move them back and forth between the planet surface and orbit.
4. They can be used both defensively *and* offensively.
5. Fighters can leave orbit from several planets and attack targets inside the solar system without the need to use a carrier.

Reasons against Satellites, mines and escorts:

A. Satellites - Until the game puts these between enemy ships and the planet, these lack somewhat when used for planetary defence. They are pretty awesome when you deploy them by a wormhole. The strategy of deploying them in a tactical turn seems to work quite well also. Mainly, I'm just too lazy to move them around. Although, I do favor a medium satellite armed with a heavy Polaron V, sensors and a shield.

B. Mines - The biggest thing I hate about mines it that once you deploy them from the planet, you then have to pick them up with a mine layer ship. With either fighters or satellites, you can make a lot of planets build them each turn. When the cargo starts getting full, just launch them into orbit. Then, when a transport comes to pick them up, after you transfer the ones from planetary storage, you just make the planet recover what's in orbit and repeat the transfer. But you can't do that with mines.

C. Escorts... Fighters don't pay support. Even with mines and satellites, you have to pay maintenance on the 'Layer' ships. When using fighters for pure defense, you don't even need carriers. Plus, you can build fighters on every planet. You can even build fighters on a brand new colony that doesn't have any facilities.

Err... I guess you figured out that I love fighters even more than the Earth Alliance.

raynor · #5 January 28th, 2001, 02:37 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Tomgs:
Actually the trade off isn't moving vs paying support its between being able to upgrade and paying support. Bases pay support and they don't move. If fighters are changed to pay maintaince then they will have to change to being upgradable also.

I always though the yearly maintenance cost was supposed to represent the expense associated with keeping the ships in operation. If you look at it that way, every unit but mines would require a very small mount of maintenance expense each turn.

For everthing but fighters that expense would be so small you wouldn't notice it. But because fighters *can* move, I would add a maintenance cost into the game for fighters to reflect re-fueling and such.

Tomgs · #6 January 28th, 2001, 02:39 AM

Well yes a human can build that many fighters but the AI doesn't seem to. Yes I have played the mod but even though it builds more fighter than normal I have never seen that many in one place.

About the best strategy to overwelm the AI I will just say any strategy will work if you outproduce the AI. This is more important than what method you use to overwelm it. I don't worry about paying maintence because I can build ships at every world availiable every turn and not run out of resources. So what benifit is it to not pay maintence? More minerals in my storage bins? Yes fighters work well but I would rather use ships and not have to click so many times in the fights. Its easier with a few big ships than 100's of fighters and the results are the same in the end.

Elwood Bluze · #7 January 28th, 2001, 04:38 AM

Thanks for your replies so far. A few more points I'd like to make:

1) Platforms don't pay maintenance either.

2) A single Light Cruiser with polarons 4s, Shield 4s, contra-terrenes, etc, in my game has to pay 2112, 25, and 465 in upkeep.
A group of 15 fighters with the firepower that can easily take it out pays: 0

3) My point is that it's not realistic to have massive Groups of fighters for free. There has to be maintenance paid to reflect fuel, etc.

Maybe this could be implemented by a toggle switch during game setup? That way those who insist on getting fighters for free can do so...?

------------------
Know what a wish sandwich is? That's two pieces of bread....and you WISH you had some meat!

Talenn · #8 January 28th, 2001, 07:23 AM

Yes, I have mentioned this before as well. Its a capacity that can easily be abused IMO. 900 is NOTHING compared to what it CAN be.

I think there should definately be some sort of small upkeep on Fighters/Sats/Mines...maybe 4%/2%/2% or somesuch. Best case scenario is that it is an adjustable number like Ship maintenance.

Groundbased units I'm not as concerned with as they are limited by the Cargo capacity of the planets as well as being generally helpless vs a Fleet. A 1% upkeep couldnt hurt IMO, but I dont think its really necessary.

As others have stated, Fighters are easily dealt with if you build LARGE numbers of PD ships, but then again, THOSE ships DO cost upkeep. So in any equal resource fight (over time, including upkeep), the Fighter player will always have the advantage IMO. His 'Ships of the Line (or Wall

) will be better equipped or more numerous as his opponent is force to deal with the maintenance free fighters as well. Any way you look at it, Fighters are quite a bargain.

Now if you could only BUILD them at Shipyards or specialized facilities, they might be less attractive, but as it is now, any old planet can crank them out in obscene numbers without really burdening your econ.

So, here's another vote (again) for a user definable upkeep cost for Fighters (and any other units). It cant hurt if its an option. People who dont want it just switch it off.

Thanx,
Talenn

Tomgs · #9 January 28th, 2001, 07:51 AM

I wouldn't mind if fighters needed to pay upkeep I just think they are so vunerable to PD as to be not as big a factor as you think. In a human vs human game yes fighters would be more valuable and maybe when the TCP/IP patch gets here I will change my mind. Vs the AI I have never been that bothered by them. Sure its an annoyance to lose that first ship to them if I don't expect them to be around a planet but thats all it is. And I would rather not be bothered to build a lot them vs the AI (I have used them extensively before and the micromanagement in tactical and logistics really isn't worth the free maintaince to me).

I usually win the games more by economics and research than by anything else. Sure I fight the battles but I am usually raking in a lot more resources than the AI so maintaince isn't a factor.

Atrocities · #10 January 28th, 2001, 07:57 AM

Excuse me, but unless I mis-read the title to this thread wrong, I do not think that fighters should "pay" support.

On behalf of the fighters, I would like to point out that they already are tapped to the maximum, and another fee would break them finacially as well as morally.

Please vote NO on the Fighter Tax. Thank you.