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Author Topic: Yet another fighter balance post  (Read 6788 times)

Thaago

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #45 on: May 31, 2020, 03:03:19 PM »

Fighters killing ships has been a sci fi staple of the last 50+ years, with both missiles/torpedoes and also with gun type weapons.

There are several weapons already that are quite good at fighter killing: Flaks, Devastator for AoE, accurate weapons like railguns and phase lances for picking them off at range, and then closer ranged dps guns like vulcans , light assault guns, or dlmgs (better against shielded fighters).  Other than railguns, I don't think any of those are considered that OP for ship-ship combat.

There are a few fighter wings that are very tough, like broadswords and warthogs, but most are pretty reasonably shot down. Huge swarms are a big problem, and its both too easy for the play to amass such a swarm and too rare for the AI to be using anti-swarm weapons.
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Megas

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #46 on: May 31, 2020, 03:19:10 PM »

Fighters killing ships has been a sci fi staple of the last 50+ years, with both missiles/torpedoes and also with gun type weapons.
That is the point of classic shmups, most of which are generally more guns, with few smart bombs per life in some games to erase chaff for a few seconds.

Warthogs fell hard.  They went from too powerful to too weak for their speed and cost.  They cost as much as a bomber but not as easy to use.  They are so slow, and if they finally catch up, they do so little damage before most enemy ships (anything smaller than a capital) run away from them or shoot them down.  If Warthogs will not become cheaper or get stronger, they need to move faster to match other fighters.  Currently, they combine the worst of gun fighters (low sustained DPS) and bombers (slow speed, high OP cost).
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Thaago

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #47 on: May 31, 2020, 03:30:56 PM »

I agree that Warthogs are undertuned. IIRC, there was a bug that somehow tripled their damage output when skills were applied. I suspect that was more responsible for their feeling OP, and nerfing them from 9 light mortars per wing to 4 light mortars per wing was a bit much.

For warthogs, I can see 3 approaches to fixing them:
1) Bring them up to Broadsword speed, reduce OP to 8, and have them be HE heavy fighters. This is a rather boring approach, but at that speed they would be fine 2/wing IMO, because they would be easy to pair with a kinetic source.

2) Bring wing size to 3, lower HP/armor a small amount.

3) Increase damage output of each Warthog by adding back the third light mortar.
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Histidine

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #48 on: May 31, 2020, 07:56:28 PM »

I hold the view that introduction of any anti-simulationist behaviors that break WYSIWYG and/or create rules not used elsewhere in the game (special damage modifiers for fighters vs. ships, RNG-based chance to avoid visually hitting shots) are fundamentally undesirable and should only be used when other options have failed or been rejected.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2020, 08:00:11 PM by Histidine »
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MesoTroniK

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #49 on: May 31, 2020, 09:08:49 PM »

I hold the view that introduction of any anti-simulationist behaviors that break WYSIWYG and/or create rules not used elsewhere in the game (special damage modifiers for fighters vs. ships, RNG-based chance to avoid visually hitting shots) are fundamentally undesirable and should only be used when other options have failed or been rejected.
Is the view of the sane.

FooF

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #50 on: June 01, 2020, 05:50:05 AM »

I hold the view that introduction of any anti-simulationist behaviors that break WYSIWYG and/or create rules not used elsewhere in the game (special damage modifiers for fighters vs. ships, RNG-based chance to avoid visually hitting shots) are fundamentally undesirable and should only be used when other options have failed or been rejected.

Agreed.

I grew up with the Freespace games and when I think of Fighters attacking Frigates, Cruisers, Destroyers, etc. I don't see them taking down big ships with guns. That caliber of weaponry has almost no effect on warship-grade armor and it takes torpedoes or other capital-grade firepower to truly harm the big ships. In the same vein, if your fighter gets in the crossfire of capital ships, you get one-shotted. That's a reasonable expectation when you're talking giant cannons intended to melt through thick armor. Granted, Freespace was more about dogfighting other fighters and interceptors were rightfully intended to really only deal with incoming fighters/bombers. SS Fighters seem much less concerned with dogfighting and interception so their primary use is almost always attacking warships.

However, I don't think it's a huge stretch to nerf fighter DPS across the board and label them "Fighter versions" of the weapon that are less effective than warship-caliber weapons, if that was the route to take. Likewise, if Armor/Hull values were reduced across the board for Fighters because they're not made to withstand warship-caliber weaponry. All the same rules are being applied to fighters as standard shpis (no RNG, no hidden modifiers), it's just they're less effective by virtue of being smaller/more vulnerable weapons platform. Fighter-vs-fighter combat would remain relatively unchanged but against larger targets, they would need more time-to-kill (and take more losses) without the use of actual ship-killers.

I'm not sure if I'm really advocating that but I wouldn't disagree with it on principle as I would throwing in hidden modifiers or RNG.
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Megas

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #51 on: June 01, 2020, 06:24:05 AM »

I would not want non-bomber fighters to be good only at killing other fighters, when fighters have been reduced to being another class of missiles.  Seems like I would rather have another warship that is capable of killing fighters AND other ships.  At least bombers are infinite missiles, which is why I haul an Astral or two around.

So far, most of the fighter-only weapons looks like stuff I want my ships to have, especially the unlimited Swarmers.

If we get more fighter-only equipment, I want current Atropos made fighter-only while the ship version gets stronger ones that hit as hard as a Hammer (1500 damage).  1000 damage for 2 OP, short-range, and cannot be used at point-blank range, unlike Harpoons.
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shoi

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #52 on: June 01, 2020, 03:00:46 PM »

im reluctant to back a lot of these suggestions since they seem to be based in scenarios where there is an inordinate amount of fighter spam. directly altering performance of fighters based on extremes feels weird. nerfing every fighter because of drover and astral capabilities is like treating the side effects and ignoring the cause
« Last Edit: June 01, 2020, 03:03:10 PM by shoi »
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #53 on: June 01, 2020, 04:18:50 PM »

I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of medium-slot PD_ALSO weapons geared towards destroying fighters - one Ballistic and one Energy would do - or even repurposing weapons like the Heavy Machine Gun with the addition of the PD_ALSO tag.
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Eji1700

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #54 on: June 01, 2020, 04:24:31 PM »

I agree that Warthogs are undertuned. IIRC, there was a bug that somehow tripled their damage output when skills were applied. I suspect that was more responsible for their feeling OP, and nerfing them from 9 light mortars per wing to 4 light mortars per wing was a bit much.

For warthogs, I can see 3 approaches to fixing them:
1) Bring them up to Broadsword speed, reduce OP to 8, and have them be HE heavy fighters. This is a rather boring approach, but at that speed they would be fine 2/wing IMO, because they would be easy to pair with a kinetic source.

2) Bring wing size to 3, lower HP/armor a small amount.

3) Increase damage output of each Warthog by adding back the third light mortar.

I mean I know how crazy this sounds but an assault chaingun gives thematic sense given the name.  Maybe just balance around very short bursts (also thematic).

As for the rest-

It seems silly if fighters can't do decent damage to something like a destroyer.  There's no obvious reason that should be the case an it makes sense that they're not large enough that weapons shouldn't be able to damage them.
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Nafensoriel

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #55 on: June 09, 2020, 07:03:11 PM »

I would prefer dedicated PD slots since the concept of not building PD in a fighter/missile dense environment is too far fetched. Even coked-out raiders would strap something on when their self-preservation instincts kicked in.

Honestly, sometimes OP limits design. It encourages heavy offense but rarely offers a meaningful trend to defense especially during your first playthrough. Would it make sense to have PD use its own OP system as a hard nudge to teach people the glories of not dying to one reaper volley?
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Eji1700

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #56 on: June 09, 2020, 07:07:48 PM »

I would prefer dedicated PD slots since the concept of not building PD in a fighter/missile dense environment is too far fetched. Even coked-out raiders would strap something on when their self-preservation instincts kicked in.

Honestly, sometimes OP limits design. It encourages heavy offense but rarely offers a meaningful trend to defense especially during your first playthrough. Would it make sense to have PD use its own OP system as a hard nudge to teach people the glories of not dying to one reaper volley?
I'm heavily against this simply because I think one of the cool "ah ha" moments of star-sector is when you kit out one ship to the gills with weaponry and then kit out one or two more with a bunch of defensive stuff and have it escort the first ship.  That's arguably more realistic, but it should be demonstrated better (tutorial/skirmish thing?).
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #57 on: June 10, 2020, 07:08:20 AM »

PD not being able to shoot over friendlies and having generally very short ranges means dedicated PD escorts isn't really a thing. The most effect way to use them is wild weasel-esque, on a fast ship that runs upfront and attracts all the missile fire. That's not really the classic PD escort though.
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Eji1700

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #58 on: June 10, 2020, 07:54:35 AM »

PD not being able to shoot over friendlies and having generally very short ranges means dedicated PD escorts isn't really a thing. The most effect way to use them is wild weasel-esque, on a fast ship that runs upfront and attracts all the missile fire. That's not really the classic PD escort though.
I don't know what to say.  I do it all the time and it works fine.  Yes you generally need two pd escorts so they'll cover both sides, but the AI does quite a good job and defends well.
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furl

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Re: Yet another fighter balance post
« Reply #59 on: June 10, 2020, 11:24:33 AM »

If one of the biggest problems with fighters is amassing huge numbers of them, couldn't we just make some penalty against this specifically? Like each additional fighter deployed after ~10 fighters (not wings) reduces max engagement range for all fighters by 50 units, due to comm complexity. This will leave carriers more vulnerable if the entire fleet is carriers, while leaving "standard" fleets unaffected.
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