[IRM mod] fighters question

I disagree. Fighters are nasty in the IRM but no where near as powerful as the are in stock due to the way armour works which makes their weapons increasingly in effective and the amount of weapons which can target them. Larger ships are again due to the increase of hull structure with armour tech level are a lot more robust. There is also AI anti fighter ships which it builds and which do butcher fighters

You just haven't understood how my mod works yet. Fighter cream ships that don't have the proper weapons to kill them. But with good enough armor and the right weapons, fighters get slaughtered. Unit hunters are the best design against fighters, and the AI do build them. And 50 fighters is a lot of fighters, they should kill a few ships before they are all destroyed. For fighters, number is key.

Does AI build Fighters and does it use them as ships in AI sector? Becouse I do this way and that is true that Fighters are a little bit overpowered. Maybe fighters should be more expensive to build?
Or AI should more often use them. And I don't mean in carriers but in sector (like ships).

In my experience with the IRM the AI's build plenty of unit hunters early on with auto cannon they can be swarmed but it hurts later on once they get proper PD fighters become something of a disposable unit which if your lucky softens up the enemy a bit of or which can be saved to chase down retreated freighters after the main battle is over. If your experience is not that then its a pity, but one game is not at all representative of a game as complex and variable as any form of SEV

The AI is still in the work and things are still open to balance. I will look into that. The AI also need some adjustments here and there, but we are working on this.

BTW, what are the loadout of theses fighters? If they use only cheap auto-cannons, then yes, there is a balance issue, they should not be able to kill off ships with theses.

Edit : In previous version, i made price changes that may have made fighters way cheaper than they were meant to. I will correct the problem.

My fighters where using modular cannon in the first instance and latter small missiles and modular cannon in medium and large fighters. I dont use modular auto cannon as they dont appear to do enough damage to hurt ships whth decent armour and I dont generealy need a specalised anti fighter fighter. Not that the AI doesnt use fighters but my general fighters do the job so why build a thrid type of fighter

Well-armored ships loaded with autocannons do generally kill fighters well, but I don't see the AI building quite enough of these ships. Overall it seems like the AI uses tons of regular DUC ships - with perhaps one autocannon, which isn't enough to give them a chance against fighters. The AI also rarely uses nuclear missiles on ships.. I see plenty of these on weapons platforms, but rarely on the ships, and when they do use missiles it's only one missile with a bunch of DUCs.. I've yet to see an 'archer' ship, very odd. The AI fleets would be a bit more threatening if they mixed extreme ship types, archers alongside unit hunters, instead of just a ton of DUCs with an autocannon or two thrown in. Nuclear missiles are great against ships, autocannons are great against fighers, yet the AI relies so heavily on the weakest weapon it could pick (unmounted DUCs).

Another proof that fighters are too powerful.

In warphole I had about 40 fighters. Suddenly AI attacked me with about 20-25 ships. I have killed all of them with 30% loss.
40 fighters can be constructed by one planet within few turns. But 25 ship..............

So I think we should reconsider the role of fighters. I suggest make them more expensive to produce and maybe they should have weaker structure.

I'm currently making price ajustment. I found many oddities, some rebalance is needed across the board. Not just fighters...

I seem to hit quite a few unit hunters and have been the victim of the pathian shot by the AI most recently I lost fifteen second line heavy attack fighters to a unit hunter without them landing a shot it ran away and destroyed them from beyond their range.

The other thing to consider is real tive tech level I have had fighter groups destroy fleets but generaly my fighters where more advanced then his ships where they where not as was the case when I scrambled defence fighters some of which where quite elderly the oposite happened which is what I would have expected. It is helpful to recall that the camparison of fighters to ships is not that of naval ships to air craft but of fast patrol boats to naval ships.

Fighters are strong enough on the offense, IMO.

They need to be made less durable. A LOT less durable - a hit or two should be enough to disable if not destroy a fighter. That is, of course, assuming a rough parity in tech levels.

But if you make it so that no matter what, It only takes a "Hit or Two" then you completly toss out the wortheiness of shield and armour. Eventually it will come to a point where fighters arent evan worth researching...Star-Fighters and Carriers are one of my favorite parts about science fiction!!!!
If you do increace fighter cost, then also increace drone costs as well.
(but you probably already knew that)

I prefer to see fighters as battle-riders. Mini combat ships. I don't want them to be swatted like flies or need a huge number of them to be worthwhile. I will adjust their cost, but will keep them strong. Don't forget fighters are limited on the devices they can carry, can't repair themselves and can't use warp points on their own. They are also subjected to specialisation : anti-fighters, anti-ship, anti-colony (with nuclear bombs). A jack of all trades fighter isn't that good...

Edit : i will also tweak their supply consumtion so they can't fight for very long. This should help balance them out.

BTW, is the thing with the fighters not giving ordinance and supply back to the parent fixed?

Don't know, haven't checked.

SO at least make fighter weapons MUCH weaker. It should be about 4 or 5 times weaker than normal weapon.
Anyone agree?

FH is at the moment working through all the weapons and rebalancing so I would wait to see how that works. Fighter weapons are also considerably weaker than other weapons and weakened further by the damage reduction of ships armour.

Even "Unit hunters" may get slaughtered by fighers. Of course, pure PDW still able beat this, but in minirals - it's more exepensive.
So, fighters + CSM frigates beat CSM+PDW frigates (on same cost in minerals) .
In factor - cost/effective they are more better then ship (and they often carry plasma\rockets), and have +80% to evasion, so they are very hard to hit by not "pure PD weapon".
Armor is nice but in this mod weapon damaged not only armor, structure is damaged too, try in space simulator AI's "Unit hunters" vs fighters (in same level on weapon). (on same cost of course) ... fighters wins
May be if fighters are fly in system on 2-3 hex (ship can travel into space, but fighter only on carrier) ... now in system they are the best defense (when i defense i don't need warp)

Well, according to my test (using full tech). A frigate unit hunter can hold itself against 5 small fighters (about equivalent with new pricing). But against 10 it get creamed (though half the fighters attacking it are in bad shape afterward). Against 20, it's not even a fight. I should do some low tech testing to see how it is. But i feel it's about right.

Did the same test with destroyer. A destroyer can hold itself against 10. Loadout start to make a difference : fighters with auto-cannons like weapons deal a lot less damage against the armor.

Light cruiser can hold off 15 armed with anti-ship weapons, 20 with anti-fighter ones.

I might give a check if armor is working as intended. It does not seem to stack like it used to...

i think everyone forget that a normal ship can be refited and gain experience. if a ship got enough experience it will be more effective against more fighters. also normal ships can be refited for new weapons, while outdated fighter have to scraped. if you are playing the IRM mod then outdated fighters are useless against heavy armour.

Seem 1.33 screwed my mod again. My code to make armor stack no longer work, it does not matter now how many plating you have on a ship, the defense remain the same (but the hps go up).

Edit : But it works to prevent piercing though...

Ships gain experience faster than before, surviving a fight may give them enough experience to reach veterancy (might tone that down a bit).

But why? If i attack modern armor (example soviet T-90) with pistol i did nothing to it. If i call 100 my friend with pistol ... result will be same. But... if i take rocket\grenade launcher ... i will have a chance. Rockets and torpedos for fighter are anti-ship weapon, but smal DUC vs battleship ... hm

But thats one of the key elements of fighters: While they have next to nothing as far as vision range, They should be able to be used as scouts. Think about it: a modern aircraft carrier cant out distance a Jet, No matter how fast it attempts to go. The Reason for the carrier is to refuel the jet.

Fighters arnt very good scouts as the have mininal sensor range but they are good for fast intercepts of intruders picked up by the sensors on other ships saterlites and ground bases. Against soft targets they are lethal but against properly protected warships they are in for a hard time.

I think raising the cost for fighters is not the solution, I mean 6 fighters can't cost the same than a big destroyer, in my opinion, the solution is to reduce the space requirements and cost for PD weapons, and make the AI to stuff its designs with lots of them

Actually they are. A well built carrier can hold at least 40 fighters. When you launch each of these units into space, and send them in a differnet difection, with the high movement range, you can See every hex in the system. Its a numbers game for sure, but they do make very effective scouts,in groups especially early game.

Fighters aren't exactly easy targets to hit, y'know. That, I think, is their biggest defense - their speed and agility. They're supposed to avoid damage while delivering death, not soak it up. That sort of silly thing is what the capital ships are there for.

Or, if you read the Honor Harrington series, think of SE:V fighters as LACs.

Yes you can do that, but this also requires a level of fiddly management as unless you launch fighters and send them off then launch some more and do this a few times. You will end up with a single fighter group with admittedly higher speed than a frigate but much poorer sensors

I have but not every one has so I used the other analogy. If one was modelling LAC’s they would have dot be weakened very considerably as the book in question to paraphrase goes on about the weakness and vulnerability of LAC’s relative to bigger ships. Indeed Honors remarkable achievement is to make them so unexpectedly lethal

Fighters can be various different concepts depending on your vision for them and how the numbers are set up. Fallen Haven views them as small attack vessels that have a minor advantage in +Dodge and a large advantage in speed in exchange for etc etc. Your vision is different - that's fine, as you can edit the numbers in the IRM data files to make fighters what you envision.

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Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Psieye, thats the point. They're attack vessels. They're not ships intended to trade shots until one blows up. They've got enough structure that they can take a couple hits before being destroyed - some shielding will go far to enhance their survivability, but armor?

But notice that units seem to get hit a lot more than they really are. Take for exemple satellites. Seem all the shots are direct hits, but about half are misses, they don't take any damage. The same must be true for fighters. Just try it in the simulator and see how many of the shots trailing them are actual hits.

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Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.