Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: dgs6686 on August 19, 2019, 11:49:32 AM
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Fighters seem to be in a strange spot in the game the way it is. From what I have seen, their defensive stats are too high for PD weaponry to really have any effect which makes you rely on your main weaponry to hit them when they are approaching which just seems extremely unrealistic. My suggestion would be to make fighters only be able to be hit from weapons fired by PD labeled weaponry such as light / heavy machine guns, flak cannons, and PD Lasers, but in exchange greatly reduce their toughness.
Likewise it seems a little silly that you can simply shoot down missiles with your regular weaponry, and in larger battles most missiles will simply get shot down by the vast amount of projectiles being thrown around. With the limited number of missiles most ships can carry they often end up feeling pretty useless later on unless it is a 1v1 situation.
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PD is anti-missile, not anti-fighter. For shooting fighters that already swarm around you much better option are small guns like IR pulse. Or even medium ones if you use Advanced Turret Gyros.
And you should make an effort to backpedal and shoot down fighter swarm as it approaches, this is when they are most vulnerable. Many larger guns are excellent at this like TLs or Plasma Cannons. But frankly, anything works, you just need more dakka - fighters are not that good at dodging projectiles and it's easy to saturate 2d plane with shots.
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Oh yeah I definitely get it and I'm not saying that fighters are giving me trouble or anything of the sort, but I think you kind of highlighted my point of why I personally think the current fighter implementation feels a little strange. A large caliber weapon shouldn't be shooting down fighters but due to the 2d nature of the game it does. I was kind of just trying to think of a way to make fighters feel 3d in a 2d game and this was what I thought sounded the most reasonable was having weapons that were dedicated to shooting them down. Also as you said PD weapons are supposed to be anti missile so why does everything else work just as well or better at shooting them down when they are approaching. having more weapons firing a wall of projectiles will actually shoot down missiles while PD weapons struggle to.
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Also as you said PD weapons are supposed to be anti missile so why does everything else work just as well or better at shooting them down when they are approaching. having more weapons firing a wall of projectiles will actually shoot down missiles while PD weapons struggle to.
It goes both ways. Annihilator or Squall stream also works as form of defense for firing ship by blocking a lot of likely flux-expensive shots.
While I don't have problem with this mechanics, AI being not aware of it is kind of a problem. The best weapon to stop Annihilators and Squalls is actually Plasma Cannon due to passtrough, but obviously AI doesn't use it like this.
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This is an interesting idea, actually; it'd be more like the reality of WWII ship-to-ship combat, too; you don't aim battleship cannons at an incoming Zero. Fighters and PD would be explicitly balanced vs. each other again, like they were originally (Fighters didn't have Armor values, let alone shields early on, IIRC).
I think the biggest problem here would be fighter weapons that were meant to interact with both ships and other fighters.
I'm trying to think if there's any way at all to implement this in a mod, just to test things out. Tricky, but probably doable, by setting the collisions correctly.
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I like this idea and I think it makes a lot of sense(and would make dedicated escorts/PD ships more useful). Fighters and missiles already interact in a pseudo 3d space by flying over ships and you would think when shots are fired between warships fighters would just dodge around those shots. Maybe it should be that all small weapons can damage fighters, and/or the weapons have to be on turret mounts. Could also have that certain hullmods allow unorthodox weaponry to damage fighters.
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Yeah I can totally see that getting a little complicated - getting fighter damage / defensive stats balanced VS PD weaponry while not making them die immediately VS each other and still being a threat to other ships. Also the missiles such as the Swarmer heavy mount still being good vs fighters but not losing too much power against bigger ships. Maybe instead of complicating it more by adjusting fighter health it would be better to adjust PD weapon damage by say giving them a 100% bonus damage vs fighters or something to that effect but only those mounted on ship hulls.
I think the first step would be to make it so that only PD weaponry and maybe other small weapons w/ integrated point defense AI mod installed could hit them and see how that affects their survivability. The first problem I could see happening is the lack of range on most PD weapons making it very hard to kill bombers but then maybe the flak cannons will actually have a use?
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A twin pair of changes that I think would be nice would be:
1. Make projectiles that are not actively targeting missiles/fighters have a significant chance to miss them (at point of collision), something like a 10-25% chance to actually hit. Some way to handle player ships actively firing into a fighter formation would be required.
2. Make weapons under the influence of Integrated Point Defense AI fire over allied (and enemy?) when targeting missiles/fighters.
In theory, this should make dedicated PD escorts more viable/important without drastically changing fighter survivability.
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I love the idea of pd firing over friendlies.
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Wouldn't this make fighter saturation even worse since you can't hit them with 99% of a ships weapons anymore? if anything seems like this would utterly screw over any fleet that doesn't have enough PD.
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Every ship has at least some number of small or medium weapon slots that can easily be dedicated to point defense weaponry so I don't see that being much of an issue. Alternatively you could have escort ships armed with only PD weaponry to protect against fighters efficiently. I remember one of the first fights I got in to where fighters were a huge problem I outfitted 2 enforcers with 5 dual flak cannons only to watch how hopelessly terrible they were against fighters or protecting my fleet in general.
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Wouldn't this make fighter saturation even worse since you can't hit them with 99% of a ships weapons anymore? if anything seems like this would utterly screw over any fleet that doesn't have enough PD.
Well, it's the principle. If you don't have enough PD system, you're srewed because YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TOOL TO DEAL WITH FIGHTER. It's quite an interresting modification of the game, i think this would increase fleet variety because you would'nt just be able to put only big weaponry, or you can but you need an PD escort ship.
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Well, it's the principle. If you don't have enough PD system, you're srewed because YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TOOL TO DEAL WITH FIGHTER. It's quite an interresting modification of the game, i think this would increase fleet variety because you would'nt just be able to put only big weaponry, or you can but you need an PD escort ship.
Lel nice contradiction, how would REQUIRING certain weapons on ships in any way improve variety. The whole point of the customization aspect of the game is that you can achieve a certain goal with different loadouts (see, having actualy options). Imo this is a terrible idea since it would make fights infuriating, you'd have ships that can't do *** vs fighters, and others that just completely eradicate them. I hate these kinds of mechanics in games since it forces you to play in a certain way unless you actually want to get ***.
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Fun fact: In WWII they did use the main and secondary guns to shoot down fighters. Granted, they used different ammunition than when firing at ships, but the idea that only the small machine guns or "AA" guns were used is a myth. In fact, the main/secondary guns were longer ranged, more accurate, and had higher kill rates.
The US's primary destroyer weapon and popular secondary gun on larger ships was the 5" 37 caliber gun - specifically designed as a compromise gun capable of shooting at high elevations to hit aircraft while still maintaining anti-ship capabilities.
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Yes they specifically used flak ammunition and it was so effective because it didn't need to be super accurate when you shoot a 500lb air burst of flak into a group of fighters. This game has specific weapons at medium and large caliber all for dealing with fighters - the flak cannons. The difference is fighters often fly straight in to regular main guns which makes them way more effective at dealing with them than the flak cannons ever could be.
An alternate to this idea of mine I guess could just be to simply have fighters approach at angles instead of flying straight in to the front of ships? I just really liked the idea of trying to make fighters feel 3d in a 2d game.
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Given no limitations on processing power, Fighters could do very good job at dodging even in 2d. Faster ones have enough acceleration relative to their size to dodge most projectiles, if they actually tried. Like in a bullet hell game.
But current fighters just fly in patterns. Much better patterns than 'migratory geese imitation' of past, but still far from intentional dodging.
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I just wish big guns wouldn't actively try to shoot at fighters.
Accidentally hitting a talon with a gauss round is cool as hell, but deliberately trying is just a waste of time and flux.
I need my capitals to focus on their jobs, not to get caught playing with flyboyz.
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@Igncom1
Wrong!
- Plasma Cannon is a big gun, that also happens to be best anti-fighter and anti-missile, as long as targets are densely packed.
- A Paragon can clean up almost whole complement of Astral's fighters in single (failed) attack pass, if it you manually fire 4 TLs in staggered manner (default target selection is badly prone to overkill). Then proceed to kill the helpless Astral.
AI controlled capitals don't use their big guns efficiently against fighters, but it doesn't mean they can't be used efficiently.
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But that is not really my point :-\
Yeah a MOAB is a really great way of getting rid of a swarm of wasps, but you really shouldn't be firing one at such a target, no matter how actually effective it is and besides we already have 2 large anti-fighter weapons already for that exact job. The laser orb thing-y that I never get around to using and that massive flak cannon.... and now that I think about it the swarmer missile system is a large weapon too, so 3 large weapons for the job.
I just don't want my heavy cruisers and capitals firing their expensive guns at talon fighters or drones! It's a waste of time and flux when they should be focusing on the enemy main line ships.
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Well, it's the principle. If you don't have enough PD system, you're srewed because YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TOOL TO DEAL WITH FIGHTER. It's quite an interresting modification of the game, i think this would increase fleet variety because you would'nt just be able to put only big weaponry, or you can but you need an PD escort ship.
Lel nice contradiction, how would REQUIRING certain weapons on ships in any way improve variety. The whole point of the customization aspect of the game is that you can achieve a certain goal with different loadouts (see, having actualy options). Imo this is a terrible idea since it would make fights infuriating, you'd have ships that can't do *** vs fighters, and others that just completely eradicate them. I hate these kinds of mechanics in games since it forces you to play in a certain way unless you actually want to get ***.
You're not required to take anything.
I can opt for literally zero PD for every one of your ships if I choose. I can opt for exclusively PD weapons for every one of my ships (Burst PD, Vulcans, Flak Cannons, The Large PD Laser), though I'm not sure why I would want to. Or I could take only short ranged weapons. Or maybe I only take ships with hard-mounted Safety Overrides.
That just means when I end up encountering some jerk missile boats with Sabots or carriers with Tridents with your PD-less fleet (or Dooms for that matter), or if I encounter literally any combat vessel with my exclusive PD fleet, or if I encounter any fast ships with long-ranged weapons in my short-ranged fleet, or if I encounter a Cruiser or Battleship fleet I can't take out fast in my SO fleet, then I'm going to have a bad time.
Removing the ability to transform my Plasma Cannon or HIL into an improvised all-purpose gun that can obliterate entire missile salvos or an Astral's air arm feels more like removing a cheesy player-only move, not reducing the player's loadouts. There'd be an additional advantage that a single Talon can't eat your Hellbore shots.
Fun fact: In WWII they did use the main and secondary guns to shoot down fighters. Granted, they used different ammunition than when firing at ships, but the idea that only the small machine guns or "AA" guns were used is a myth. In fact, the main/secondary guns were longer ranged, more accurate, and had higher kill rates.
The US's primary destroyer weapon and popular secondary gun on larger ships was the 5" 37 caliber gun - specifically designed as a compromise gun capable of shooting at high elevations to hit aircraft while still maintaining anti-ship capabilities.
There's a big difference between the earlier single-purpose guns and the dual-purpose guns. The dual-purpose guns were designed from the outset to do both roles and would have the required high elevation, turret slewing speed, AA shell fuze setters, and AA fire control systems to actually pull it off, unlike a single-purpose mount.
I'd argue against the idea that they were necessarily more effective. A majority of the AA kills by the U.S. Navy were from lighter AA guns like the 40mm and the 20mm, not the 5" or 3" dual-purpose weapons. AA ammunition for really big guns like the 16" aren't even a rounding error and are in the "other" column.
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/a/antiaircraft-action-summary.html
I like the general concept, with some weapons being able to attack aircraft while others that really shouldn't be able to in a 3D environment, can't. Rather than just point-defense weapons, though, I'd do an "Anti-Fighter" or "Dual-Purpose" Tag for dual-purpose weapons that allows weapons to hit fighters. It would include all the PD weapons, plus some others like the IR Pulse Laser or needlers. An argument for, say, Hephasteus Assault Guns being dual-purpose could be made, but I highly doubt you could do the same for something like a Hellbore.
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I like the general concept, with some weapons being able to attack aircraft while others that really shouldn't be able to in a 3D environment, can't. Rather than just point-defense weapons, though, I'd do an "Anti-Fighter" or "Dual-Purpose" Tag for dual-purpose weapons that allows weapons to hit fighters. It would include all the PD weapons, plus some others like the IR Pulse Laser or needlers. An argument for, say, Hephasteus Assault Guns being dual-purpose could be made, but I highly doubt you could do the same for something like a Hellbore.
But unlike with surface ships fighting aircraft, space fighters and space ships are all in the same medium, space. So the fighters are just small spaceships, rather then vehicles of a completely different type. Like micro frigates of some sort.
While a battleship cannon in naval warfare is designed to fire at other surface targets rather then air, in space everyone is firing at other space targets, so I don't believe there is as big of a distinction to be drawn.
In this instance, space fighters to space ships are more like naval torpedo boats and skiffs then actual aircraft.
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To me, it's not that a large cannon couldn't shoot down a fighter, the idea is just that large caliber weapons would have no chance of being able to track well enough to actually hit a fighter. That is the idea behind using flak cannons to destroy fighters - you don't have to be so precise. Smaller caliber weapons like light machine guns, vulcan cannons, etc... have the necessary tracking to be able to hit with projectiles. To me it makes sense that weapons would need some sort of specialization. That is why the devastator cannon and flak cannons should exist, but really they serve no purpose because any other cannon can do that same thing but also be strong against bigger ships.
Right now PD weapons just seem to be in a very bad spot. They seem to have difficulty even shooting down missiles due to their range being so low coupled with poor accuracy. A lot of ship's shields project out almost as far as the PD weapons can even attack save for the LR pd lasers meaning they have a typically a fraction of a second to shoot the missile down before it impacts your shields.
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I like the general concept, with some weapons being able to attack aircraft while others that really shouldn't be able to in a 3D environment, can't. Rather than just point-defense weapons, though, I'd do an "Anti-Fighter" or "Dual-Purpose" Tag for dual-purpose weapons that allows weapons to hit fighters. It would include all the PD weapons, plus some others like the IR Pulse Laser or needlers. An argument for, say, Hephasteus Assault Guns being dual-purpose could be made, but I highly doubt you could do the same for something like a Hellbore.
But unlike with surface ships fighting aircraft, space fighters and space ships are all in the same medium, space. So the fighters are just small spaceships, rather then vehicles of a completely different type. Like micro frigates of some sort.
While a battleship cannon in naval warfare is designed to fire at other surface targets rather then air, in space everyone is firing at other space targets, so I don't believe there is as big of a distinction to be drawn.
In this instance, space fighters to space ships are more like naval torpedo boats and skiffs then actual aircraft.
That they're in the same medium doesn't change anything. Starsector's large naval vessels can rotate in any direction and change vector at ease such that even non-turreted, fixed hard-points (like the Hammerhead's medium mounts) are perfectly viable in space combat against similar-sized or larger ships. But against fast, agile fighter craft you still want weapons with high tracking rates and high fields of fire. Not many frigates would be able to effectively be able to turn specifically to engage individual fighter craft with hard-points, barring Hyperions or SWP's Excelsior.
A better analogy would probably be fighters being WWI fixed-wing craft, and Spaceships as Zeppelins, but if the Zeppelins were equipped to fight other Zeppelins for some reason. Both are 3D environments where the fighters are significantly smaller and faster than the Zeppelins/Spaceship, whereas the anti-zeppelin weapons are unlikely to be effective against fighters as well.
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I rather like that fighters can be shot by normal weaponry. It only seems silly when a hellbore cannon targets fighters and only because its projectile is slow.
I don't see how this hard counter system will add a favourable aspect to gameplay.
There doesn't seem to be any real justification to this idea.
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I also prefer that all weapons can hit all targets. It could be potentially confusing/frustrating for a new player to not be able to hit the fighters destroying their ship. Also, although a battle ship does not typically aim their main guns at aircraft, if they did manage to aim them properly, the shell would most definitely destroy the aircraft. I don't mind if the AI is more hesitant to fire flux heavy guns at fighters, but the guns should still hit the fighters if aimed properly.
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I rather like that fighters can be shot by normal weaponry. It only seems silly when a hellbore cannon targets fighters and only because its projectile is slow.
Only? ???
Are low overall accuracy, awful fire rate, and near-nil turret slewing rate the apex of anti-fighter weaponry?
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Hey, when it hits, it's genius. Hellbores only generally shoot at fighters when there are nothing but fighters to shoot at.
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Hellbores also have passthrough like plasma cannon.
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I've always found SS' fighter mechanics weird at best in all its iterations since I started playing in 0.65. For what they are I feel they're incredibly powerful - they're practically infinite throughout all but the lengthiest battles, can take a severe beating for what they are and aren't really bothered by attrition.
If it were up to me, they'd behave very differently. Fighter weapons would have negligible effect on capital (for the purpose of this, anything frigate+) ships - bombers would be the only strike-craft with firepower anywhere near on-par with a capital weapon. So, fighter strategy becomes a matter of balancing bomber numbers and targets, against fighters to cover them against those of the enemy, and screen against enemy PD. Right now instead, they're all-purpose - Very few fleet builds can counter fighters without fighters of their own.
Bringing it around to the thread's topic, in this ideal scenario of mine, fighters would have a minuscule chance of being hit by "main" ship weapons (ie a shot would have a high chance of "passing through" a fighter/missile), other than dedicated anti-fighter weapons, or those fired from a ship targeting the fighter directly. They would simply be unable to sustain a hit from anything but the weakest weapons.
I think the majority of ships in such a case would need token PD weapons that produce no flux and offer some deterrent/defence against fighters and missiles by default, while filling a weapon slot with dedicated anti-fighter/PD weaponry would be a big step up. Right now sacrificing a ship's effectiveness in their field on PD weaponry feels wasteful, when a carrier with its fighter wings can currently do a much better job of protecting the fleet from enemy fighters and missiles.
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Yeah,PD weaponry feels rather useless - bad range (around 500 on average),miserable damage even for PD and bad accuracy and target leading. In result PD weapons not only bad in dealing even with frigates (they supposed to be bad at this), but also pretty bad against intended targets. They really need a damage buff against fighters and missles and also a possibility to fire over ally ships.
Bringing it around to the thread's topic, in this ideal scenario of mine, fighters would have a minuscule chance of being hit by "main" ship weapons (ie a shot would have a high chance of "passing through" a fighter/missile), other than dedicated anti-fighter weapons, or those fired from a ship targeting the fighter directly. They would simply be unable to sustain a hit from anything but the weakest weapons.
That sounds pretty good. High chance to dodge primary weapon shots (95% for large,85% for medium and 50% for small for example) gives them great survivability against stray shots and also gives you a mening to use PD weapons. But also leaves you an opportunity to drown an incoming bomber or fighter wing in hail of projectiles from your primary weapons if you REALLY want to put down that wing.
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PD weaponry at the very least seems to need a buff to range in general to be viable. The energy variants seem to be reasonable in the 400-600 range, but 250 for vulcan cannons, 300 for machine guns and 400 for flak cannons is totally unreasonable. Even if their tracking was better they still would often not be able to even shoot down a missile before it impacted on the shields since this range only gives them about half a second to turn to and shoot it down. Flak cannons seem to be the only ones able to reliably shoot down some missiles but taking up a medium weapon slot just to shoot down missiles to save some shield flux (costs you flux to shoot the cannons anyways...) never seems worth it.