Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Gabrybbo on March 27, 2013, 01:34:21 PM
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Before you start screaming at me, i do know that this has been suggested ten thousand times, but i just want to discuss an idea i've had.
Basically, instead of being able to refit a fighter wing just like the other ships, each wing could have a certain number of predefined variants from which you can choose.
For example:
The Piranha bomber wing could have a setup with the current bombs, one with cluster bombs (perfect against pd weapons that deal a lot of damage to a single target like burst lasers) and one with frag bombs (ideal to do a massive amount of damage to a ship that has nearly no armor left but a ton of hull).
The Broadsword could have one that uses a single mg and two swarmers for additional anti-fighter capability at the expense of effectiveness against bigger ships.
The Warthog could have a loadout with a rocket launcher and two double autocannons, to have better alpha strike and range at the expense of sustained fire.
Obviously, the variants would need to be balanced to avoid having one which is simply better, but the idea is to give each fighter different ways to carry out their role depending on the situation. :)
So, what do you think? :)
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Anything to make fighters into viable combatants and make the fighter carrier an asset other than "ooh, target practice" has my vote. =)
I'd think the best way to describe it would be "loadouts" -- as in, each wing of support craft would simply have wing pylons that can be changed according to its mission.
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Hm... While on the one hand, I do kinda like notions to allow refitting of fighters (whether that's switching between preselected armament sets, or adding hullmods with the extra ordnance points your tech skills offer you)... I think I might rather allow in-combat construction of new fighter wings - and the two ideas do not mesh well; in a battle, you'd want to be able to just dial up "I need another two wings of Piranhas", and not have to specify "And that's with cluster bombs, extra swarmer missiles, upgraded engines, and a side of fries, please."
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I like the idea of fighter loadouts, it's like choosing whether to hang a few harpoons or a reaper on the bottom of the plane before you take off.
maybe you get to choose variants before deploying the fighters, could be too much of a hassle though.
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Construction during battle could just produce the "standard" variant, which perhaps you could choose before battle if you wished.
We definitely need to get fighters and carriers to a useful state, and varying their role a little bit would add a lot flexibility.
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I like this idea, would be great
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(yay :D )
In my opinion, switching to a loadout should take some time and be doable only in the campaign map, not during battle. With the CR mechanic battles will happen at a slower pace, giving time for a fleet to prepare and adapt between each encounter.
To give carriers a more important role during the campaign part of SS, i'd make so that only having one of those ships you can change the loadout of fighters while flying around, otherwise you have to go to a station and wait until they do the work.
To justify this lore-wise, just throw in some technobabble about Space-DRM and stuff, it works. :P
@Wyvern: i can't stop laughing after picturing a random stereotypical admiral saying that... It's hilariously brilliant.
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well.... currently fighter refit (irl i mean) is pretty fast if I'm not mistaken.
Don't they just detach the missile from under the wing and slap on another one before take-off and that's it? Or is that done before the fight and they just have different fighter loadouts to launch at the battle proper?
eh I don't know.... Switching a missile doesn't sound too difficult
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Mh....
One important thing about fighters is that you can know their load-out just from identifying their hull. On bigger ships you can see individual weapons, that's rarely possible on fighters. So if you see a wing Piranhas coming for you, how do you know what they are equipped with so you can properly react? Do you have to mark them as target and read their weapon list? That would be awkward.
I guess it might work if you have clearly visual different variants, like with the Buffalo and the Buffalo MK.II. You could use the transform button that's already in the refit menu to change them.
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I imagine not everything is customisable. like you might make a piranha launch harpoons but you can't give the thunders PD lasers since the ion cannons are built in
then the places that are customized can be pretty visible, think if the piranha is holding a missile in the middle or a phase charge as opposed to the conventional bomb that'll be apparent.
But yeah, that might have to be achieved with the ship convert thing when that comes in
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If this is implemented, then fighters need to have only one or two loadouts that they can change into. Also, fighters could have different paint jobs based on the loadout they are using, such as red for loadout one, green for loadout two, etc.
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Love the idea, and i think 3 templates you make and can deploy during battle is a good idea (simple button to change them over) but i don't think it matters if they look different (too you they should so you know what to do with them, color is a good idea) but enemy should look the same or close to the same, i mean lets take a piranha, you could put the other bombs, some torps, or some missiles, well bombs you just dodge or let your PD take care of it, torps same thing, missiles is where you let your PD take care of it or outrun them, so don't see any reason why they should look different (mostly) you handle all of them the same, dodge or PD
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I think they need to be distinct as you cant see what weapons they have, and the only thing that tells you is the hull type itself. If there were to be loadouts, they have to have a big difference in colour or something.
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For missiles, the colors could change based upon the color of the tip. It would also be, of course, awesome if the models could be updated to reflect the different weaponry. This would be relatively true to real life, where a fighter's equipped weaponry is often visible. For something with a bomb bay (like Pirahnas), I'm fine with their weapon loadout being unknown until you see the armament flying in your direction.
As for refitting during combat: it's certainly possible to quickly change weaponry in real life. Most military aircraft are designed with highly versatile hardpoints on the wings and fuselage, and rearming time would be negligible in an automated sci-fi environment. On the other hand, the added complexity from changing the fit of fighters during combat would be.. suboptimal, and there's not really any easy way to integrate it into the UI without adding clutter.