The Fighter is King

I too think they might be a bit too powerful but then I think, hmm..... How many fighter/bomber aircraft in production today does it take to sink the largest ship of today?

You are playing stock right?...because in the BM mod I dont find them that effective...

Try playing an all tech game with BM. If you research enough levels in point defence, you rape fighters. It's neat.

Thats why you go in with kamikaze drones....they rock....

A fleet moderately equiped with point defense weapons has a better than good chance against fighters.
The AI doesn't use PD.

~

the AI does use a bit of PD but not enough as of 1.33 and both the IRM and the BM are better at it than stock. Hit a fleet with decent PD cover with fighters and you lose a lot of fighters I find

Ima be playing a small map tomorrow, so we'll see (with BM) how well the fighters do....i like fighters + drones =)

The fighter is the king because all weapons in SEV will shoot at the same time at the first target getting into range and then just wait for a century to blow a second bullet. A gospel for all fighter pilots.

Yes, fighers rock.
But don't forget that the big ships got outdated in Wordwar 1 already.
What we have now are big bases (carriers) and fast and small fighters and some bombers to go after any big targets left.
You need all the destroyers etc to keep your carriers from harm - not to do the actual fighting.
just my 2c

The cool thing about SEV is that there is soo much of this, "what's my enimeies prefered weapon? what can I counter with that and what weapon should I use to work against what defenses he has?"

Fighters work great, but not against everything. If you rely too heavily on one attack stratage you'll be toast (once the AI is developed better). Currently this whole toast thing is against other human players.

SEV, more than a feeling.

Fighters do rock, yes. At least while the computer doesn't use enough PD, or when you're not playing IRM.

In my last IRM game, despite having some weapons developed to the maximum level, and armor, and fighters, I could not design a fighter that could take out a DN, no matter how many fighters I put into the simulation. Unfortunately, the PD weaponry on the DN couldn't pack enough punch to take out a single fighter, either. That Emmissive armor bug was carried forth into other armor types in IRM, and the only ships that could destroy my ships in simulated combat were my ships, because I had weapons that could punch through the damage reduction of 30 or so plates of Heavy Armor - weapons that could not be mounted on a fighter, and I had no weapons that could punch through the fighter's Heavy armor.

Kinda depressing to go into a simulated combat, taking 400 Fighters against one lone Dreadnought - and ending the simulation with all 401 ships still alive to one degree or another.

That bug is so game breaking I haven't played SEV since.

the emissive armor bug was fixed two patches ago...

it sounds like you're trying to take out a tank with 400 men each with a 9mm

it aint goingta happen.

-----
an se5a is a ww1 fighter, it is also a car.

The whole point of armour especialy heavy armour in the IRM is to make heavly armoured targets proof against lots of low damage attacks as all armour has some level of damage reduction. Hence the firing 9mm pistols at a Modern tank. All you will do is scratch the paint job.

The emisive armour bug which has been fixed for some time related to emisive armour still working after it had been destroyed and becoming more effective as it was distroyed

At first I thought fighters were over powered and unbalanced, but they're really providing the correct simulation.

A single CVBG (Carrier Battle Group) today is capable of supporting a small war against a country. Fighters can typically carry 2-4 stand-off weapons like the SLAM or AGM-84 Harpoon. A single Harpoon is more than enough to cripple most ships, and with an 80nm range, fighters can launch from outside the anti-aircraft range of the target ship. In the case of the SLAM (really just a TV guided Harpoon), once again it can be fired against its target from well outside of land-based SAM range, and is effective against anything but hardened structures.

In my opinion, the only thing that SEV is missing is an area-effect SAM, a weapon that can be used against aircraft and missiles at long range, capable of defending a fleet. This would bring the simulation in line with 'real world' weaponry.

Of course, this is sci-fi stuff so maybe it doesn't need to be inline with real world weaponry.

Against the ai, fighters practically own every ship. The only thing that stops fighters is (as many people have mentioned) point defense. The ai tends to build ships that do not use seekers or point defense. Mainly if a ship is lacking in point defense they have no chance against fighters.

I do think that they need to have cost or tonnage adjusted to make them more balanced. I think that the unit tonnage is the best balancing option. This should make small fighters capable of having engines, cockpit, life support and 1 weapon.

Of course the ai has to be capable of putting point defense on something besides bases.

I think fighters are already pretty-well balanced in BM, only allowing for a minimal tweaking for fighter roles from lvl1:
- interceptor: a very fast fighter with the full 4 engines and the afterburner to chase down those fleeing ships
- gunship: a slower stronger fighter
- bomber: fighter with rocket pods or cluster bombs

But there could be a very interesting balance change to make:
First make the rocket pods and cluster bombs take 6kT (change other values accordingly).
Then substract 1kT from fighter tonnage.

That way we'll have:

lvl0 (?): 13kT
- minimal fighter: 4 engines, 1 3kT weapon
- can't make bombers, or they will be very slow.

lvl1: 15 kT
- interceptors with no armor/sensors
- gunships limited to only one 3kT weapon.
- bombers limited to 3 engines & no extras.
*afterburner lvl 1

lvl2: 17 kt
- interceptors with some extras
- better gunships
- normal speed bombers and/or extras

lvl3: 19 kT
- better interceptors/gunships (those two roles merging)
- better bombers
- fast bombers
- slow kamikazes
*afterburner lvl 2

...

lvl 4 or 5: medium fighter

...

That way the first fighter levels will all be decisive in benefits they bring, and fighters will also be a little bit less powerful.

I'm not sure at what level would be the best to put carriers though (probably at lvl2, when fighters reach some "maturity" or lvl 4 when normal speed kamikazes can be built, or with the first medium fighters, that way small fighters stay interesting to be used in conjunction with carriers, instead of other ships launching medium fighters), and what would be the tech cost is there is a "lvl 0".

Note that using 2kT weapons will be a serious advantage early on, and will be interesting for those unwilling to research more than 0-1 lvl of fighters, since they will be able to put armor on interceptors and 2 guns on gunships.

What do you think?

Another cool advantage of fighters (at least, in GidMod. Stock?) is that when they end their movement at a planet, they can me recovered and then launched again and PRESTO! They have all their movement points back. They already can move the farthest...with that trick...twice the farthest!!

Who needs carriers?

Anyone else having the problem in gidmod of fighters halting in flight?
They appear to get a single shot off against their target, then they just halt. After a little combat, I get an access violation error, and the game quits.

I'm also getting all sorts of peculiar graphics abnormalities.

I've emailed the savegame to aaron, too.

I'm somewhat confused as to how people think the fighter isn't overpowered. I'm currently playing a BM 1.05 game where the fighter completely dominates. ANY planet can build them, it takes ~15 fighters to equal the cost of 1 frigate and even if that frigate is maxed out on point defense it can't kill all 15.

With the fact that fighters can capture planets as well they are the end all be all of the game. It's VERY disapointing.

My 2 cents..

the problem is that fighters are something like the F-22 today, while point defense weapons are better compared with WWII tech.

IF there would exist a ship-based weapon like todays SAM - nearly 100% to-hit-chance combined with 100% deadliness (one hit = one dead) things would be much different.

But personally I prefer the WWII-setting. But this implies that only special fighter weapons could penetrate ship-armor (bombs, torpedos, certain missiles) while the equivalent of "guns" would be useless againt ships but could fight other fighters.

Unarmored ships should still be destroyable by fighter "guns"..

Although not everyone might like it: just compare to Star Wars Empire At War - fighters are quite balanced in this title.

Could this be done with "Damage Types" in the data files? Armor damage neglection seems a bit buggy to me..

Arne

Well you have to research point defence so that its effective...

I tried during the betatesting to have area effect weapons added to SEV. Aaron said because of the way the combat engine is built, it can not be implemented, perhaps for SEVI.

I also asked for a 3d galaxy map, but no go.
____________________________________
"Genius is Simplicity" chris connors
"To win without fighting is best" sun tsu
those who think they know everything are annoying to those of us who do

Two things become clear from this statement.

1) You've only played against the AI.
2) You haven't noticed that PD in BM is 45k per level compared to the 30k per level for Fighters. Not only does it take a much higher level of Point Defense to counter fighters, but you have to spend more on research to get it as well.

Fighters are pretty useless against Null Space equipped ships. Look at what happens when you try to beat a max tech dreadnought loaded out with just Null Space Projectors with Carriers. Drones last longer, though they aren't an effective replacement for fighters.

*sigh* So the solution to fighters is a tech that requires EVEN MORE research than point defense.....

Oh and another point turd:
I didn't realize that fighter size is the amount of power a fighter has. Oh my god, the weapons, and armour, and engines...I just reallized, they don't cost anything!!! Researching guns, why...

Oh wait, they do cost research don't they?

Oh, wait lets see here. My PD, why they cost, 45k. But oh yeah, you don't have to have anything else to use them...

Guyofdoom, you've made a couple of posts that give me the impression that you think fighters are dominant and can only be countered at great expense. Yes, fighters are quite effective in MP games, especially early on, however, I don't agree that they are as dominant as you do.

They can't be eliminated as a potentially viable part of any attack or defense strategy, but there are ways to counter them effectively. A little research, ship design, ship strategies, and tactics all come into play. There's no one solution to fighters, as a good player will counter the counter-fighter moves, but that makes the game fun. Things aren't broken.

ColonialAdmiral plays more MP than I do so lets say your point 1 is not valid.

Point 2 you may be right about the tech cost but I think going up one level of point defense will more than counter a couple of levels of fighters tech.

I have to agree with ColonialAdmiral and Gusset. Early in the game, the fighter is an awesome weapon -- cheap and powerful, with few effective counters. But as soon as an empire hits Point Defense 6, and acquires Bomblet Missiles and Flak Cannons, fighters become significantly less powerful. A frigate, with maxed out, layered point defense and a strategy to stick close to more important ships, acts as an effective screen against them. Most of the fighters will be shot down before they can get into weapons range -- and when they do get into range, they'll saturate one or two targets with immense overkill. What's worse, the targets that are destroyed will be some point defense ships, which are only there to get in the way of the fighters anyway.

Another singificant downside of fighters, as brought up by ColonialAdmiral, is that you've got to research their weaponry -- not once, but twice: in the weapon's field (Energy Stream Weapons, for example), and in Small Weapons. So, you're doing twice as much research, for a single component. This especially hurts those who are going for highly developed fighters.

Of course, fighters are still an important element of the mid and late game, if for no other reason than they are a cheap way to force your opponent to continue research and production of point defense weapons. Because if they don't, fighters will rape them mercilessly.

But I agree that, in the beginning, fighters are definitely very powerful. Maybe too powerful. Especially with those stupid rocket pods... I hate those things... so much. I know, I know -- supply troubles, and crappy reload times. I'm just saying -- damn, 60 damage, at tier 0?

I play Balance Mod, primarily, by the way.

~ Kingside_Bishop

[/communication]

It's clear I'll have to actually crunch numbers to convince people. I'd love to see someone upload a combat replay of some point defense actually performing adequately against fighters.

I was only pointing out that fighters aren't an invincible force, fighters can be overwhelmed by something other point-defense. Also, weapons like most seekers can't target units, not just fighters.

Impressive, but I would ask what level combat sensors on the Destroyer and what weapons on the fighters?

Alright, Guy. Here's a test of my own...

I designed an empire with two branches of research, so I could simulate two different strategies. Each branch cost 300,000 research points. One focused on Point Defense, and achieved nothing but Point Defense 6. The other's focus was on fighters, and attained Fighters 3, Military Science 1, and Defense Systems 4.

Using the first setup, I designed a point defense frigate. It looks like this:

Using the second setup, I designed a fighter. It looks like this:

I then simulated one frigate versus ten fighters, because that represents an equal amount of mineral input. So, I hope you can agree that both groups have the same amount of resources put into them -- both research, and hard resources. Granted, my designs might be lacking... but maybe that's just 'cause I suck.

Anyway, the results were thus, for five consecutive runnings of the simulation without any alterations to either design:

Sim #1: Frigate at 0 armor. 1 disabled fighter remains. [FRIGATE]
Sim #2: Frigate destroyed. 3 able fighters remain. [FIGHTER]
Sim #3: Frigate destroyed. 1 disarmed fighter remains. [TIE]
Sim #4: Frigate destroyed. 9 able fighters remain. [FIGHTER]
Sim #5: Frigate damaged. 1 disabled fighter remains. [FRIGATE]

It seems like a tie to me... with, maybe, the fighters coming out ahead, but only just. However, looking at what the players would research next, the Frigate is going to be getting upgraded combat sensors very soon, at only 20,000 research points (then 30k, 40k, etc.). The Fighters, however, will have to shell out another 50,000 (then 60k, 70k, and so on) to upgrade their ECM. So, 300,000 research points feels, to me, like the turning point. If I added another 1-200,000 RPs to both players, I bet the frigate would come out on top.

Anyway... I'm kind of pleased with my results. All things being equal, an all-fighter player vs. an all-PD player seems... fairly well balanced. Which is nice, because it is called "the Balance Mod."

But then again, it might just be that I suck at designing ships. Maybe that frigate should have more PD, in place of all that armor... But it's one in the morning, goddamn it, and I've got to go to class tomorrow...

EDIT: To hell with it, right? I dropped two armors, and added in another flak cannon, and the frigate performed marginally better. The five-round matchup went 3-2 in favor of the frigate, though it was still destroyed 2/5 times. Good evidence against fighters being overpowered, I believe.

~ Kingside_Bishop

[/communication]

Just some random points on teh discussion:

a) there is another good way to counter fighters that isn't PD: interceptor fighters. Ok, your opponent has a carrier group with a hundred boogies... lunch a couple of hundred from your main planet and have your own carriers loaded with fighters (and escort carriers for convoys). I'm still of the belief SEV is a futurible island-hopping Pacific War and should be played accordingly.

b) Rocket pods basically simulate WWII torpedoes or modern missiles: big punch, no recharge. I think they are fine the way they are.

c) I like the idea of messing with damage type. Fighters shouldn't be able to damage armoured ships unless armed with big powerful weapons designed for that (again, like torpedoes). The idea of meson blasters the size carried by a fighter and powered by the tiny power source it has passing shields and piercing armors of cruisers, let alone bigger ships, is ridicolous... a couple of big nuclear torpedoes, on the other hand...

d) Colonial Admiral, relax!

A

The fighters rock against AI, I just took out something like 20 CL's, 15 DD's, and a few FF's with 40 or so fighters. They were all destroyed in about 2 minutes, never made it through to my main fleet. I think they killed 2 fighters.

But when the AI sends fighers after me, it's a different story. I have layered point defense systems on all my ships, and ships designed just for hunting fighters. I found that with a little pain, I was able to kill an entire carrier wing of enemy fighters, by drawing them apart and killing them piecemeal. Against well shielded ships with layered point defense systems, they die.

All that is done before the naked stars is remembered

Was that in Balance Mod? If so, what was the fighter config?

-----

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

I've certainly learned alot about fighter tactics.

Does anyone else equip every ship with one or two flight decks? I've gotten into the habit of doing this, and I tend to use an amount of point defense on every one of my ships as well. I have yet to be caught completely unprepared to counter enemy fighters or carrier groups. A pair of flight decks can house about 10-11 heavy fighters, and more of smaller fighters. Even if my fighters are inferior in design, it is enough to distract and often destroy at least a handful of superior fighters (a squadron of 5 ships with 5-12 fighters each does nicely v. carrier groups), while my ships can usually deal with the rest. I've found it very effective, in combination with manuver.

No, not in balance mod, stock game with Unnamed's AI improvement.

All that is done before the naked stars is remembered

These battle reports are very surprising for me.

Now, I haven't played much SE:V. I thought SE:IV was on the verge of greatness, but there were a few problems (mostly with AI) that I just couldn't get past. So I grabbed SE:V as soon as it came out, hoping it would be over the hump (for my personal preferences, obviously).

As you can guess, I found the unpatched version of the game unplayable. I waited for patches and went back to it a few times, but always found something that forced me to quit. I got farther in 1.35 than I had before, but it was starting to look like fighter balance was going to be the issue this time.

[Everything that follows pertains to the unmodded, 1.35 version of the game.]

When I got fighter tech around 40 turns in, I checked the simulator to see how they would fair against the enemy fleet of 8 frigates I was worried about, and found it only took 2 fighters to kill all 8 enemy ships. I tried them out against my own ships (which already had a PD gun installed since most of my losses had come from missile-equipped satellites), and they faired better, but 1 fighter would still take down 1 frigate.

So, I made the best PD frigate I could - with a mix of PD Cannons, Bomblet Missiles, and Flak Cannons, and tried it out against a squadron of 9 fighters that cost roughly the same in minerals, and the PD ship was obliterated. I tried again with smaller numbers of fighters, until I found the ship could take out 2 fighters with a little armor left or a little internal damage, but 4 would destroy it every time.

After reading this thread and seeing how well a ship performed against fighters when "6 Flak Cannons it has" I replaced the mix of weapons with Flak Cannons and tried it out. This one did not perform much better, still being easily destroyed by 3 fighters. Ultimately the best design I found was all PD Cannons, which seemed to go about 50/50 against 3 fighters.

Here are the designs I used:

Frigate (350kT) Cost:6889/250/870
1xBridge Lvl 1
1xLife Support Lvl 2
1xCrew Quarters Lvl 1
12xContra-Terrene Engines Lvl 4
10xArmor Lvl 10
1xCombat Scanners Lvl 12
7xPD Cannons Lvl 6

(Flak Cannons and Bomblet Missiles on other designs were Lvl 2.)

Small Fighter (45kT) Cost:807/50/57
1xFighter Cockpit Lvl 1
1xFighter Life Support Lvl 1
18xSmall Contra-Terrene Engine Lvl 4
4xSmall Armor Lvl 10
1xSmall Ordnance Storage Lvl 1
1xSmall Combat Scanners Lvl 12
6xSmall Depleted Uranium Cannon Lvl 12

So, some questions:
1. If there's something stupid about my PD ship let me know, but it seems to be about as good as I can make it.

2. Obviously I did not rush to get figher tech. Also, I never researched Smaller Weapons at all. Should I even be able to put those DUCs on fighters?

3. If so, why bother with Rocket Pods? If not, why does 1.35 *still* let me do it?

Okay, now I'm extra-confused, but I downloaded BM earlier, so I may as well install it and give that a shot. If nothing else, the general consensus seems to be that the Balance Mod is more, uh, balanced.

Shouldn't fighters always be more powerful in battle? Of course in a tactical situation they will be or should be awesome. But some seem to forget the huge strategic disadvantages that fighters have. If you want to calculate the cost of fighters vs. frigates (or whatever) you need to add at least part of the cost of the carrier and it's escorts and maintanence ships to the fighters side plus consider what will happen if the carrier is destroyed or damaged in combat.

Deleted double post.

I would like to appologise for my huge over-reaction at Guyofdoom...
It's been a rough week...

Meh. Nothing, it is.

Anyway, yeah... it's all about the Balance Mod. You've got to understand the game was rushed onto the market, before it was ready, and so stock is not only buggy as hell, but is completely unbalanced. The Balance Mod, started before the game was even released commercially, fixes a lot of the stuff that the developer (singular, for one person -- can you believe that?) didn't have time for.

'Cause in stock, fighters absolutely... ahem... :pwn.

~ Kingside_Bishop

[/communication]

Ship design looks OK to me, but it seems that in the stock version if you don't have some form of ECM you'll get shredded every time.

I'm in the habit of adding both a crew and a master computer to my ships (I actually started doing it because I didn't realize that MC's gained experience), and MC's give both attack and defense bonuses that stack w/ Combat Sensors and ECM. That seems to make a big difference too.

I'd speculate on why fighters seem over powered, but I'm really still too new a player. I have to say that near the end game with lots of techs at level 70-100, fighters get eaten up by PD to the point that they are not much use. YMMV.

Sorry if it seemed like I was picking a fight. Stressful week on my end as well.

No they should not.

For the game to be balanced, no single weapon or unit type can be dominant over all others.

And from a realism perspective, it's wrong too. Fighters haven't historically been supremely dominant in any way comparable to stock SEV. And things are different in space: everyone's equally exposed and you can't fly in under radar. Just as there can be no submarines in space, there can be no fighters as we know them - only smaller spacecraft.

Carriers are optional, although I'm a traditionalist and always use them.

I did some tests in BM, and (I'm sure to no one's surprise) things looked a lot better. My PD Frigate seemed to be about able to hold its own against an equal weight of DUC fighters, and did better with a level 4 Combat Scanner thrown on. Still a little on the fighters' favor in my view, since the PD ship was more specialized and the fighters are more easily built, but well within the realm of reason.

The frigate was still shredded by a fighter design that traded a couple engines and the DUC for an Afterburner and Rocket Pod. The PD Frigate could handle about half it's cost in this design, which I considered a fairer fight (anti-ship fighter vs anti-fighter ship). I must note, however, that these fighters would be much more carrier-dependant because of their lower strategic speed, and that the battles tended to be all-or-nothing affairs: if the fighters could cripple the target ship in their first volley they would win with low losses, if not, few of them were likely to live long enough to fire a second time. Their slightly lower space speed could also hurt them against longer range PD weapons.

Either way, I don't see fighters as the no-brainer choice they were in stock - and that's pretty much the goal. Another thing that helps in BM is that you start out with fighter tech - meaning you'll always be able to counter fighters with other fighters. The relatively large (for early game) tech cost to get to fighters in stock could give the first empire to develop fighters a significant advantage.

EDIT: After some further tests in BM, I'm finding that the best PD Frigate against fighters fairs poorly against missile satellites, while a design that beats up on the satellites can only handle a smaller number of fighters. I take the fact that there is no one optimum solution to all of your PD needs to be a very good sign.

In SE:V fighters don't seem to be terribly carrier-bound - you just need a freighter to shuttle them through warp points. Things may be different in late game when you're more supply-limited, but even if you want to carry them around you seem better off launching them a hex (or more) away from your enemy and driving in than launching them in combat.

At least in the early game, where I've always been production-bound rather than resource-bound, the fact that you can build fighters on a planet without a Spaceyard is actually a huge strategic advantage for fighters.

What about unarmored and lightly shielded frigates or destroyers, cloacked, which attack merchants with flies of CSM?

That's basically a submarine in space, imho (and I actually use them with some nice effects ).

A

I kind of like it, especially if I'm playing a Star Wars themed show. Many sci-fi shows portray the fighter as king, and it's a pleasant change, although a rather hard shift to the opposite, from SE IV, where fighters were meat as soon as you researched point defense.

The big problem I have is that the AI refuses to take advantage of the fighters. I am constantly running into empty carriers, just when I think I am going to get an awesome fleet carrier duel.

All that is done before the naked stars is remembered

Has anyone tried turning their PD ship around before you run into the fighters instead of charging head on into the fighter group? Your ship running with enemy fighters chasing you would be the same as you standing still with fighters coming at you much, much slower. Slower fighters would be in range of your PDs longer before they get within range to fire their weapons. If you want to calculate the exact distance between your ship and the fighter before turning it should be:
Your_Range+Fighter_Speed*Your_Turn_Rate/140
180(to turn completely around)-40(the turn angle to cause deceleration)=140
Otherwise you could turn your ship around and wait for the fighters, then accelerate.

Ah yes, I remember that battle well.

The last major battle fought without heavy carriers in the Klingon Deep Space Fleet involved engaging a carrier group of some now long-subjugated species the name escapes me of.

Our 'capital' ships at that time were lowly D-class (destroyer), the L series CL's were still a few years away. We had started putting the most modern point defense guns on our ships and also the latest shields.

We hit them pretty hard initially, and two of our ships even managed to smash through the front line and take out their carrier in the rear. We wanted all those fighters to die in space, even if we died with them. Then the fighters fell on us, and soon space was littered with burning crippled Klingon ships.

Their fighters were cutting us to pieces, and the general fighting withdrawal order was given (there is no word for 'retreat' on the Klingon subspace radio command network). This meant at the time 'everybody for themself, get out and the survivors may regroup'.

All ships headed in different directions. It was hoped that some would be targetted and the rest would disengage.

The fighters split into small groups. One of the largest groups headed after the IKV Valour. She was equipped with a single point defense gun and four heavy DU guns.

Headed directly away from the fighters at full speed, 14 kelicams per sec, and firing continuously and frequently shifting target to the closest fighter, she was able to destroy half the enemy fighters, taking out some 4 of 8.

The heavy DU gun packs a nasty punch on an unshielded fighter, two hits were enough to cripple one and force it to drop speed. The Valour was also equipped with the latest combat sensors for accuracy, of course.

As other ships realized they changed course to intercept and assist the Valour, and just as her shields failed and the fighters began chewing into her duranium armoured hull, remaining ships were able to take out the remaining fighters. After that, all ships changed course, and began hunting for the crippled enemy ships, slowly trying to escape.

We turned a bitter defeat into an astounding victory that day, and songs were sung in the Great Hall of Heroes for the crew of the Valour.

All that is done before the naked stars is remembered

antarian , you need too post in the after report section

the only problem with the fighter is the AI of the game , i have test ( mee to) a ship with point defence vs 10 fighter and the ship won( at the same TL) , use defend ship option and the defens ship take away fighters in a good fight .

Indeed, you can set your ships to do so automatically. Set the strat to engage fighters at long or medium range, and as soon a a fighter gets too close, the ship will turn and run away. It's much more effective, since fighters tend to string out a bit, and the damaged ones fall behind. When the closer fighters are destroyed, the ship will either wait for the others to catch up, or turn and pursue.

And Annagil, the original Star Trek episode with the cloaked Romulan was intended to parallel anti-submarine warfare. There are similarities, but differences as well. For example a deck gun is useless against a sub even when sonar pinpoints its location.

And I don't think people are really thinking about what PD's are. A gun that can successfully target an incoming missile should have little trouble with a much bigger target.

Now here's a fun trick I tried out in the simulator: ram the fighters! Careful though - don't want to ram too many kamikazes.

It would be interesting to see smarter pre-set combat manoevers, such as what the player does in a parthian shot: turn your ship's stern towards the enemy BEFORE you are in firing range, do not direcly flee but circle the "fleeing threshold" until you are in range of enemy guns (maybe that's cheating somewhat), etc...

Yes, anticipation is in order if the maneuver is to be performed correctly. But even so, it's a great deal better than sitting still and getting pummeled. And since the faster fighters should arrive before even enemy frigates, it means you won't have to engage the fighters and ships at the same time.

We do what we can with the tools available. I'd like an option to maneuver vs. a ship's projected position with a variable 2 to 6 second range (at least). But it's not the time to worry about such advanced features.

I think fighter weaponry should be modified into classes.
Anti-ship(planet) weapons and anti-fighter(seeker/drone/unit) weapons.
Prevent weapons from attacking ships/planets and only attack fighters/seekers/drones/units and vice-versa for anti-ship/planet weapons.

Ideally, anti-fighter/seeker/drone/unit weapons would do much less damage to ships/planets, however they would still damage them. I don't think this can be coded currently. Also, anti-ship/planet weapons would do enormous damage to fighters/seekers/drones/units, they would need a drastic reduction in their to-hit percentages.

Your_Range+Fighter_Speed*Your_Turn_Rate/140
is to help calculate the distance to turn so that your ship starts to accelerate away from the fighters just as they get within range. This way you don't have to guess since it is accurate to 10 meters. If you target an enemy and go to the targeting tab, you can find the distance away the ship is. One square on the combat grid in 20km if it helps to estimate.

BlueTemplar is referring to strategic combat as implemented in multiplayer, simultaneous mode games. Ship strategies aren't up to turning away from the target until after it has entered weapons range.

Yes, but how can you tell your ships to do that automatically?

Ok, Challenge Accepted.
1.
Behold. 1 Destroyer. Armoured it is. 6 Flak Cannons it has. Vs. 11 Fighters. (Why 11? Because you can build 11 in .2 years, and you can build one of these destroyers in .2 years.)

2.

Looks like some Explosions...

3.

Wow, the Fighter wall of battle has been destroyed...

4. Look at this:

OMG Guy! What happened to all your fighters? They died...To a destroyer. How emberassing ya know? Plus, tommorow, just for you, I'm going to design a "Fighter" empire and a "Point-Defence" empire.

So Guy, in conclusion: Go ahead and insult me again. I will be more than happy to prove you wrong.

Next time you want to find things "That become clear from this statement." how about you Shut The *Censored* Up. I'm sure that you find that last sentence "Clear".

(Thus ends my use of swearing, unless Guy Tries to draw any more "Conclusions" from what I say.)

EDIT:
Censor failed. It brought it down to the botum of the page. This site really needs to work on its editing feature...

I've read through this thread and noted in some posts that the amount of weapons used on each fighter and each large ship varies.

You must compare the balance of how many shots one unit can get and how much damage does it do and take into account the number of actual hits (random).

When i played agains the puter, i realised that my ships sucked because i outfitted them with 2 laser weapons and the AI pwned me each time. I redesigned my ship with lots of more weapons (longer range and higher refire rate) and i started to win every time.

A good mix of weapons and lots of them seems to be a winner concept.

--------------
What the duck?