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[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

Currently when a carrier is at low enough CR to start malfunctioning, it's fighters still work perfectly fine. In long battles where both sides start running out of CR and begin malfunctioning, this gives carriers a great advantage; most of their weaponry is still 100% functional, and ships suffering engine and weapon malfunctions are much less able to fend off fighter swarms. Having fighters suffer from malfunctions along with the rest of the carrier would negate this (unintended?) advantage, as well as lead to amusing situations where e.g. a Talon moving at 300 sanics has its engines flame out and crashes into an enemy ship.

[Megas]

Carriers stop replacing fighters once they run out of CR, much like shields and systems get disabled at 0% CR.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

Yes, but not before then. When both fleets are between 40% and 0% CR, carriers have a disproportionate advantage as fighters do not suffer from weapon malfunctions or engine flameouts, even while their carrier is. Fighters are a carrier's weapons, and they are weapons that do not suffer from malfunctions.

[Alex]

While this is true, carriers also have a lower peak time than other ships.

[Gothars]

Really? Seems pretty average to me. Condor and Drover have as much as the Hammerhead, more than Medusa. Mora has as much as Aurora and Apogee. Astral has a much as Conquest. Only the Heron has little time for its size, on account of its speed, I assume.

Don't say they'd be mechanically necessary, but I think out-of-CR fighters would look pretty cool, all tumbling and tossing over the battlefield

[Alex]

Let me put it this way - the peak time for those ships is lower than it was prior to the fighter revamp Could possibly stand to be reduced more in some cases.


I did try malfunctions for fighters btw. Not 100% sure on why I ended up turning them off - iirc part of it was that many of their weapons are invisible, so it just gets weird visually. They do suffer from other reduced performance due to low CR, btw - e.g. lower speed etc.

[AxleMC131]

Hey, here's a thought. Would we ever encounter a carrier with the Ill-Advised Modifications hullmod? I like the idea of a carrier having a chance of a malfunction in its nanoforges when it tries to replace fighters, and taking some damage/reduction to replacement rate. 

[Deshara]

maybe carriers should suffer increased CR degredation (post-peek) the lower its replace rate is, and not have the "no CR decay" buff from not being in combat if it's replacing destroyed craft

[Megas]

I remember fighter malfunctions.  It was very annoying to watch low CR fighters lose their engines as soon as they were launched and become useless.  I was very glad to see fighter malfunctions go.

I think reduced stats at low CR and fighters replacements disabled at zero CR is good enough.  If anything must be done, then maybe lower peak performance of carriers a bit.  They still do not need much less perk performance.  Carriers are not godships, just different.

[arwan]

I second what Megan said.

Though CR may or may not need further balancing. I really don't want to see a second layer of low CR on my fighters. Since they don't return to the carrier, unless they have depleatable ordanance, fighters can last a whole battle without being killed. As such it would not be nice if a fighter all of a sudden got low CR and then spent an inordinate amount of time tumbling around useless, not being replaced, making the "weapon" useless even if the carrier is not low on CR

[orost]

If normal malfunctions are annoying on fighters, maybe they should explode and/or crash into ships when they malfunction. That would be fun.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

I second what Megan said.

Though CR may or may not need further balancing. I really don't want to see a second layer of low CR on my fighters. Since they don't return to the carrier, unless they have depleatable ordanance, fighters can last a whole battle without being killed. As such it would not be nice if a fighter all of a sudden got low CR and then spent an inordinate amount of time tumbling around useless, not being replaced, making the "weapon" useless even if the carrier is not low on CR

It wouldn't be a second layer of CR, that's my point. The current layer of CR isn't fully effecting carriers like it is other ships.
Fighter CR is currently tied directly to the carrier's CR. If the carrier has 100% CR, the fighters have 100% CR. If the carrier has 10% CR, the fighter has 10% CR. That scenario will not happen. Fighters will not launch with low CR and immediately flame out unless the carrier itself has low enough CR to start getting flameouts.

[Megas]

On the other hand, weapons keep firing until critical malfunction, even at 0% CR.  Fighters do not respawn at 0% when killed.  If that is not enough, carriers having as much CR as high-tech ships (and less than low-tech and midline) should fix that somewhat.  That way, carriers would hit 0% CR first.

[arwan]

I would like to refocus on the original question, which wasn't a question of carriers should run out of CR first or balance. But instead, should the fighters CR be the same as the parent carriers CR. With this I am fine. If a carrier has 50 CR then new fighters it launches could launch with 50 CR as well. Though I would posit that fighters still alive from a higher CR value should not nesisarily suffer just because.  Though I would also say, since the fighters are the carriers weapon, it does not feel right if say a carrier is able to launch a fighter but oh wait lol does not mater because now the fighters CR is so low its useless anyway. Because the fighters weapons and engines don't work Effectively making the carriers CR artificially lower Which I think is what Alex was seeing in his testing. That even when a fighter should be "working" they really just don't work.

I think what Alex has already in game is the right solution to the problem

...They do suffer from other reduced performance due to low CR, btw - e.g. lower speed etc.

Maybe those values could be tweaked instead of nerfing a carrier outright.