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Author Topic: The Wasp sucks  (Read 13989 times)

MesoTroniK

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #15 on: September 17, 2018, 03:25:38 PM »

The Wasp already has a 360 degree firing arc for the PD Laser.

Gothars

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #16 on: September 17, 2018, 03:41:09 PM »

I mostly use Wasp wings when I need reliable cover against fighters and missiles for ships that are not expected to be in the thick of the battle or act as offensive carriers. That can be sniper Sunders, flanking Medusas or just civillian ships on retreat. The wasps performs admirably in these roles, for a short time, they can protect their ward even from an overwhelming force.
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Goumindong

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #17 on: September 17, 2018, 04:38:16 PM »

Most interceptors are really good against proper missile attacks and wasps are by far the best. Its true that some weapons overwhelm them, but not usually the particularly dangerous ones, and not usually in quantities that would be reasonable.

A Wasp is 5 OP and will easily stop a wave of bombers missiles/bombs (10+ OP) or the rockets from a medium sized launcher(non squall) (10 OP). They aren't perfect, but they don't have to be in order to be effective. They bring 24 OP worth of PD laser at likely an extended range to your own PD lasers. Its actually cheaper to fix a makeshift hangar and a squadron of wasps than it is to fit 6 PD weapons on your own ship*... And sure a fleet of like 6 wasps is going to be weak against a fleet of 2 broadswords, 2  longbows, and 2 tridents but they should be. The broadswords are anti-wasp devices and the total OP cost of the second is 60 higher!

Wasps rearming after dropping their bomb is OK but they should only do this if they're in recall mode. They're interceptors and not bombers and the proximity mine is there to dissuade fighters/take out additional missiles. 360 deg firing won't make much of a difference.

*At all levels of ship with the exception of capital. If you assume the 10 flux/1 OP cost associated with firing the weapon must also be accounted for then you're positive on all ship sizes.

There is not much point in minor PD, at least for player ship. Either you go all in with flaks or need to be able to shield tank missiles (because no other PD can be relied on).
While AI may not design carries/missile ships like that, 'proper' missile attack means using heavy hitters combined with saturation/flares to counter PD. Like Broadsword x1 + Flash x2 + Longbow x2 + Dagger x1, while showering enemy with Squalls for Astral.

They are very much theoretically 6xPD laser, in practice they die against anything with turreted guns too fast if they try to engage. While ships weak enough to be kill-able by Wasps die way faster to cheaper Talons (both in OP and replenishment-drain).

Currently they do not rearm even on regroup. As for engage drop mine -> return behavior, it would greatly increase their survival rate (both due to much shorter contact and mine being PD distraction). And at 325 speed rearming won't take long. 360 turret would help in that case, since they wouldn't be able to face enemy so much while running away to rearm.
Proximity mine is clearly their main armament (looking at practical impact), not using it against target ship makes their current engage behavior quite useless - they die too quickly to try and keep mine for later.

The best defense against fighters is regular old guns sure(I like tactical lasers)*. But those regular old guns still won't shoot any missiles that do eventually get shot, so you still want some actual PD... and wasps are really good for that

*The odyssey and paragon can kill a LOT of fighters before they launch missiles with advanced optics/ITU and a pilot with gunnery skills
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Linnis

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #18 on: September 17, 2018, 05:09:02 PM »

I would have to agree with Talar. PD has no point unless its massed, in flak form or in multiple ships with advanced optics covering eachother. Because often times not wasting the OP and slot and shield tanking anything other then sabot is better.

Two pd lasers cant reliably kill a single harpoon in most realistic cases. Wasted flux, op, and slot.

Wasps are bad because of replacement rate impact. Honestly I didn't like the recent changes onto certain fighters. Every fighter seems to becomes these weird niche roles. While not working well in most cases. Fighters suddently became "balanced" because it became more awkward to use with AI changes and weird loadouts.

Before Talons and Wasps did the same thing, distract, act as pd, and catch things.
Galdius, broadsword, and hoggy did damage as a main fighting force.
Then there were bombers ranging from slow to fast.
Defensive support fighters like Xyphos and agreesive support like Thunder.

Now aside from gladius and talons, all the fighters now feel like they are support based. Awkward and ineffective.

Some loadouts on the new fighters are too awkward. Lmg on thunder is a prime exsample.

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Sutopia

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #19 on: September 17, 2018, 05:47:40 PM »

I'd say no interceptors are really good against proper missile attack. Squalls/Annihilators/Locusts/Flash mines/Piranha bombs all easily overwhelm Wasps, killing a lot of them in process (PD fighters do not try to avoid collision with interception target). Then you just mix in some Longbows/Daggers to exploit opening created by saturation attacks.

I'm finding flash bombers extremely **** since they're actually deploying VT bombs in incredible amount. Those VT bombs, unless enemy got an flak array or a devastator happened to fire at the cluster, is literally death zone for EVERYTHING, including fighters, bombs, missiles, ships, you name it. Recently played vanilla game (0 mod) to find them sync attack extremely well with Longbow, making a player pilot Astral with 3 Flash 3 Longbow extremely deadly to everything.

Why bother using any interceptor or fighter when you get planes that deploy an ARRAY of VT bombs? VT shell was one of the most impressive invention in WWII, making accuracy of AA guns increased by an order of magnitude.
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TaLaR

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #20 on: September 17, 2018, 11:14:47 PM »

Some loadouts on the new fighters are too awkward. Lmg on thunder is a prime example.

DLmg + ion + swarmer is theoretically a very good synergy, BUT.
- Swarmers are same nerfed version Talons use, so almost meaningless with just 2 fighters.
- 8 OP, 15 second refit on lightly armed fighter means their practical combat ability is way below Talons.
- There is no point in mixing them with any other fighters - they'll arrive at target and die long before the rest. (frankly, can we get something like 'engage as formation' separate attack mode for carriers, with said formation being tweak-able at design time?)

Also whole concept of long range interceptor with 8000 range 450 speed is weird. I mean sure, it is the ultimate tool to hunt down a single frigate with an Astral. But why would you spend so many resources on insignificant task like this?
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Megas

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #21 on: September 18, 2018, 05:26:15 AM »

Thunders kill things faster than the other 8 OP fighters.  Their weapons synergize well enough that they can hit any defense.

True, their defenses are weak.  Weak enough that they were useless when they had IR Pulse Laser instead of Ion Cannon for one release.  With Ion Cannon, they are dangerous again.

Also whole concept of long range interceptor with 8000 range 450 speed is weird. I mean sure, it is the ultimate tool to hunt down a single frigate with an Astral. But why would you spend so many resources on insignificant task like this?
Because they can kill more than frigates if stacked.  That said, there are stronger options like Warthogs or Remnant fighters if you can spare more OP.

Aside from that, Thunder is primarily a Claw substitute if Claws are unavailable.  Thunders are a bit more common.
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lethargie

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #22 on: September 19, 2018, 06:31:58 AM »

Thunder are also good when pursuing a retreating fleet. They make pretty good interceptor too since they can disable retreating fighter.
The AI tend to waste a lot of fighter time ordering them for one side to the other of the battlefield, this happen less on thunder.

As for wasp, I dont think I ever used them. But I tend to use very little fighter and they don't seem all that useful when outnumbered.
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Wyvern

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #23 on: September 19, 2018, 06:38:09 PM »

I recently went and looked through some of my own old posts, back from when fighters weren't tied to carriers.  And the interesting thing I found is that, at that time, I really liked the wasp wings... but I was also deploying them in much larger numbers than is currently practical.

For example, a swarm of thirty wasps (that's five wings) in support of an Odyssey is a rather different situation than the current twelve wasps you can install.

Maybe they just need more than six fighters per wing?
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Retry

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #24 on: September 19, 2018, 07:35:09 PM »

I recently went and looked through some of my own old posts, back from when fighters weren't tied to carriers.  And the interesting thing I found is that, at that time, I really liked the wasp wings... but I was also deploying them in much larger numbers than is currently practical.

For example, a swarm of thirty wasps (that's five wings) in support of an Odyssey is a rather different situation than the current twelve wasps you can install.

Maybe they just need more than six fighters per wing?
Wasps already have the largest wings in the game.

I'm a bit curious as to how exactly fighter CR increases and is drained from a mechanics/mathematical perspective, that might give some insight as to how the Wasp could be improved.
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TJJ

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #25 on: September 20, 2018, 12:03:53 AM »

I'm a bit curious as to how exactly fighter CR increases and is drained from a mechanics/mathematical perspective, that might give some insight as to how the Wasp could be improved.

Stand alone, that's a good point.
Both CR and fighter recovery rates are too obtuse to new, and seasoned players alike.
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TaLaR

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #26 on: September 20, 2018, 12:39:30 AM »

I'm a bit curious as to how exactly fighter CR increases and is drained from a mechanics/mathematical perspective, that might give some insight as to how the Wasp could be improved.

Stand alone, that's a good point.
Both CR and fighter recovery rates are too obtuse to new, and seasoned players alike.

Yeah, considering that replenishment-attrition dynamics is like second level of flux war, it's kind of hard to gauge whether you'll be able to slowly drain enemy carrier's rep rate by fighter attrition OR you'll just waste time trying.
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Megas

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #27 on: September 20, 2018, 05:04:56 AM »

If a wing is two-thirds full or less, it starts draining rate.  This is part of what make wings with four fighters like Talons resilient, because you must kill two fighters from that wing before rate ticks down.  A way to weaken Talon wing is to lower max count to three and it will tick down when one is dead instead of two.  (Personally, I would like Talons to have its old Swarmers back, but lower wing count to three.  Then it will be like classic Broadswords with Vulcan instead of LMG.)

If a wing is wiped out, the carrier ticks down peak performance even if there is no enemy presence.  This means if you cannot safely approach enemy Astral and the like, just stall and kill its fighters.  You will not tick down after you kill the fighters that wave, but Astral will.  Enemy carrier will tick down to zero CR first.
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Cik

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #28 on: September 22, 2018, 02:35:51 PM »

whole problem with "weak" fighters in general is that they are simply too easy to hit. what made fighters effective in ages gone by was that "midcaliber"+ weaponry was almost entirely uneffective due to the fact that autoaim accuracy wasn't being boosted by skills and hull mods (maybe hull mods depending on ver.) now that HVM can pluck fighters out of the air at 4x the fighters' own range anything that isn't shielded/phase/etc is too vulnerable.

what makes fighters redeemable now is perhaps strike strength (weaponry power) and localized superiority (many carriers vs. one ship) wasps in particular are not good because in any reasonable sized engagement they die instantly because of weaponry accuracy. to offset the capital ship gains in accuracy you're going to have to either 1. massively rebalance accuracy, firepower, range on everything else or 2. increase wasp health, add shields, or basically re-add their ability to evade incoming fire (somehow) the game is "balanced" now because anti-capital weaponry is effective against fighters but PD isn't.. which doesn't make any sense to me.

personally i think this area needs a significant looking glass placed on it. PD weaponry needs to be enhanced to be more effective, especially at protecting more than ownship, while capital weaponry needs to stop being effective at stopping fighter wing(s) once PD is in a better place and capital weaponry isn't shredding every fighter wing in it's pretty significant standoff ranges, you can look at what fighters need more closely imo.
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TaLaR

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Re: The Wasp sucks
« Reply #29 on: September 22, 2018, 03:07:37 PM »

whole problem with "weak" fighters in general is that they are simply too easy to hit. what made fighters effective in ages gone by was that "midcaliber"+ weaponry was almost entirely uneffective due to the fact that autoaim accuracy wasn't being boosted by skills and hull mods (maybe hull mods depending on ver.) now that HVM can pluck fighters out of the air at 4x the fighters' own range anything that isn't shielded/phase/etc is too vulnerable.

what makes fighters redeemable now is perhaps strike strength (weaponry power) and localized superiority (many carriers vs. one ship) wasps in particular are not good because in any reasonable sized engagement they die instantly because of weaponry accuracy. to offset the capital ship gains in accuracy you're going to have to either 1. massively rebalance accuracy, firepower, range on everything else or 2. increase wasp health, add shields, or basically re-add their ability to evade incoming fire (somehow) the game is "balanced" now because anti-capital weaponry is effective against fighters but PD isn't.. which doesn't make any sense to me.

personally i think this area needs a significant looking glass placed on it. PD weaponry needs to be enhanced to be more effective, especially at protecting more than ownship, while capital weaponry needs to stop being effective at stopping fighter wing(s) once PD is in a better place and capital weaponry isn't shredding every fighter wing in it's pretty significant standoff ranges, you can look at what fighters need more closely imo.

Accuracy was always a problem only in small skirmishes. When fighters cover whole frontal cone, and your fire density is about the same, you are going to hit alright.
The only way for fighters to have good avoidance without explicit cheat abilities (like % miss chance) would be giving them bullet-hell-player level AI and maybe improving acceleration on top of that.
Still won't save them from a TL though.
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