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[SonnaBanana]

Halve their hull, armor and shields first and foremost.

And let them (along with missiles) dodge, chance of taking absolutely no damage. 25/50/75 to dodge a small/medium/large weapon. Dodge chance is reduced by 35 against point defense weapons. IPDAI reduces dodge chance by a flat 20 for all weapons, PD or not.

Also, make the Paladin's lasers undodgeable.

[Megas]

No THAC0/BAB in Starsector!  If I see a shot touch a fighter, I want it murdered!

[Apfelkuchenbemme]

Now that's an easy round of "Spot the guy who met a Persean League Expedition Taskforce made up of two fleets worth of carriers!".

For real tho, I can kinda see the point with lowering their defensive stats. I mean a Broadsword has 750 hull integrity while an Afflictor Phase Ship only has 250 more. I'm kinda conflicted about the REDACTED fighters because they're already drones so you don't lose crew and they have a low replacement time ... yet after a quick glance over the numbers, I'd still say it feels like the "human" fighters are a bit too tough while the REDACTED ones should be stronger since they don't have to spend place on silly things like "a seat" or "life support systems". Maybe they have more computers that use up power and space, but still.

But giving them the ability to straight up dodge shots without damage? Maybe if they'd perform some kind of a roll like you can do in Xenonauts, which has a cooldown or produces Flux, and the bigger and slower the fighter / bomber, the lower its chance to dodge. But a swarm of fighters just saying "Your own fault for using a large weapon!" while they fly through a hail of Storm Needler fire sounds a bit silly. Plus what about beams? A fighter shouldn't be able to dodge beam fire aside from - again - some kind of evasive maneuver like a roll.

But what I could get behind too is another stat next to replacement rate, that properly reflects fighter losses. Like, I'm pretty sure I've seen enemy Herons that have already lost a dozen or so Claw squadrons, which adds up to like 60+ crew lost in destroyed fighters - Yet the Heron still had 100% replacement rate. Sure you can lower those losses with Escape Pods and perks, but I don't think I've ever seen an AI Heron with that hullmod.

With a skeleton screw of 150 and a max crew of 250, a Heron should theoretically only be able to lose 100 crew in fighters. So - if every fighter pilot buys it - the Heron should only be able to pump out 20 full Claw squadrons. But I think implementing something like that alongside making fighters way more fragile in general would probably weaken them too much.

[Thaago]

I think removing the expanded deck crew hullmod and having losses impact replacement rate more would be a good move, but I don't think I want RNG shot dodging.

[SaberCherry]

I think crew should just be tracked; the crewing system with fighters is currently a bit unrealistic.  However, this kind of change would make drones even more OP than they currently are.  Crewed fighters should really have some advantages over drones, given that drones are piloted by sub-human AI routines...  it's already a strict detriment, so if crew and ship capacity also affect replacement properly, crewed fighters might become totally obsolete.

But tracking per-ship crew might also lead to some interesting mechanics like crew-killing beams and ship capture via crew-killing.

[Megas]

Drones other than pods and Wasps are Remnant fighters, and Remnants seems to be designed to be the overpowered SNK boss faction.  (Player cannot manufacture Sparks, which means he needs to grind Ordos to get some plus alpha cores.)  Pods are merely meat shields, and Wasps are low-powered.

[SonnaBanana]

No THAC0/BAB in Starsector!  If I see a shot touch a fighter, I want it murdered!

That's why players use Plasmas or Autopulses for anti-fighter work instead of Paladins or Devestators.

[Apfelkuchenbemme]

Crewed fighters should really have some advantages over drones, given that drones are piloted by sub-human AI routines...

Eh, could go both ways in that pilots have better reactions overall while drones have more available space for computers, shield generators, flux vents, don't have to have emergency shuttles or something on board to save the pilot, can accelerate faster etc.

But it got me thinking ... what if you had to use AI cores on your carriers if you want to use REDACTED fighters? One AI core needed per fighter LPC you use and a Gamma core would make it so the fighters take longer to respond to a change in order / react to getting intercepted by enemy fighters because the Gamme core needs time to calculate the best reaction. So you'd see fighters firing off a few shots at the ship that just got destroyed before they choose the next target. Using a Beta core would make them perform the same way they perform now and using an Alpha core could make them faster / deal more damage because they're aiming for weakpoints or something like that (kinda as if you'd give the fighters combat skills). If you implement some kind of evasive maneuver like a roll, you'd need a Beta core to give the REDACTED fighters the ability to even perform such a maneuver, while using an Alpha core would decrease the maneuvers cooldown or something like that.

Downside could either be that the cores assigned cost extra OP or that the better AI cores you use, the more flux they generate when you give the order to engage. Could go all the way to the point where a carrier that exclusively uses Alpha cores would overload if it kept the engage order on, or that Alpha cores would generate flux even when the order to regroup was given, so that if you use too many Alpha cores, the carrier couldn't get the Zero Flux Bonus to speed.

Of course It'd bring us yet another step closer to repeating what led to the AI war,

01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01101100 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01000001 01001001 00100000 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 01101100 01101111 01110010 01100100 01110011

[close]

[Grievous69]

Ughh wasn't there a bug that caused replacement rate not tick down properly? I vaguely remember Alex saying it's fixed for the in-dev version. Other than that I think just playing with stats a bit and reworking/removing EDC would go a long way. There seriously is no need for gimmicky systems like random chance to dodge bullets. That seems extremely unfitting for this game, and in general is very annoying.

@SonnaBanana

So you think it would be ok for 6 Plasma Cannon shots in a row to completely miss fighters? Maybe even more if you're unlucky... That just sounds completely bonkers honestly.

[Megas]

No THAC0/BAB in Starsector!  If I see a shot touch a fighter, I want it murdered!

That's why players use Plasmas or Autopulses for anti-fighter work instead of Paladins or Devestators.

I have no problem with that, especially if I use the guns manually.  With the way most ships are designed, it is generally better to use larges for assault and smalls for PD.  The inverse is possible, but not as effective.  I would have a lot more problem with fighters magically ghosting through shots some of the time.  Now, if fighters ghosting through shots is desired, then it should be specially designed phase fighters as featured in some mods.

As for Paladin, it is so flux inefficient that it is a terrible weapon for what it does.  I tried using it as an autopulse substitute, and it fluxed out Paragon!

Devastator is not a good anti-fighter weapon.  It is a good anti-frigate and anti-destroyer weapon, though.  Also useful for SO Dominator.

@SonnaBanana

So you think it would be ok for 6 Plasma Cannon shots in a row to completely miss fighters? Maybe even more if you're unlucky... That just sound completely bonkers honestly.

Magically ghosting through shots would be frustrating, enough that some players would yell profanities or throw the controller (or abuse the arcade game cabinet).  I have seen such behavior back in the '80s and '90s with similar game mechanics.

[Igncom1]

I do wish the Devastator he flak used proper proximity shells rather then randomly detonating shells like they currently do.

It's just how half their shells just blow up on nothing that makes me dislike it.

[Grievous69]

Yeah it is a bit weird how much better HAG is at deleting fighters than Devastator, it really needs help. And having more options for anti-fighter duty also helps with the issue of them being super oppressive.

[SonnaBanana]

So you think it would be ok for 6 Plasma Cannon shots in a row to completely miss fighters? Maybe even more if you're unlucky... That just sound completely bonkers honestly.

It will be, if it comes after fighters have their hull and armor halved.

[Apfelkuchenbemme]

So you think it would be ok for 6 Plasma Cannon shots in a row to completely miss fighters? Maybe even more if you're unlucky... That just sound completely bonkers honestly.

It will be, if it comes after fighters have their hull and armor halved.

Since you brought up Plasma Cannons as Anti-Fighter weapons, lets imagine you're "chasing" a Heron with a Paragon that has four Plasma Cannons in its large energy mounts. Just before you can close the distance with your 0 flux speed boost, the Heron lets its three squads of Trident bombers loose. Normally, the first hit on the Trident overloads its shields, second one takes it out. If the decrease in defensive stats doesn't incorporate that the "overload damage" from a Plasma Cannon hit would kind of punch through the Trident's shield, you'd still need two hits. Only now, since you're firing a large energy weapon, you have a 75% chance a shot "doesn't hit".

You kind of have to aim a bit anyways because of the size of the bombers and the accuracy of the PCs, but now you only have a 6.25% chance to destroy a Trident in the first two shots. If I'm not completely mistaken with my maths from eight years ago, even if all 12 shots from a volley "hit" the Trident, the 75% dodge chance would mean you only have an 84% chance of destroying it:

Tfw you have to google how combinatorics worked

e.g.
Chance to miss = 75%
Chance to hit = 25%
12 shots fired, 2 hit = 0.75^10 * 0.25^2 = 0.00352
Combinations are basically "First and last one hit,  second and last one hit, third and last one hit" etc., so we have 11 combinations here
=> Chance to destroy with exactly 12 shots = 0.03872 because of rounding
=> Accumulated chance to destroy within 12 shots = 0.84162

[close]

If you also added that fighters can't dodge if they're overloaded and we'd say that the second hit after getting overloaded is guaranteed, then you'd already have an 82% chance to destroy the Trident with 7 shots. But yeah, pushing numbers about until I find something where I'd say "Yeah that sounds alright" really makes me like the idea of giving the fighters evasive maneuvers more than pulling some magical percentages out of the air.


Expanding on the idea of some kind of a plasma jet burst to the side in order to dodge, you could give different fighters different versions:

• different accelerations based on tech-lvl and size / weight of the fighter
• limited charges that have to be recharged after getting called back at the carrier vs.
  several charges that are recharged like the Phase Skimmer of a Wolf vs.
  no charges but generates Flux like the Phase Skimmer of a Hyperion
• larger fighters / bombers or low-tech ones can't use it with shields up vs.
  smaller midline ones can, bigger midline ones still can't vs.
  high-tech fighters and bombers can use it with shields up regardless of size

[SaberCherry]

Devastator is not a good anti-fighter weapon.  It is a good anti-frigate and anti-destroyer weapon, though.  Also useful for SO Dominator.

I find it to be sort of effective anti-fighter, just not nearly effective enough for the slot or OP (better to put in a dual flak); it doesn't saturate an area enough to provide effective AOE coverage, yet can't target individual fighters like flak/dual flak.  But in the simulator I couldn't get it to work at all versus frigates.  The shells just detonate partway there.  Since it's a random fuse, 0% of them make it all the way to the target.  The ship with the Devastator can chase the little ship all around the map (on AI control) and never really damage it even though it's theoretically in range, long after the same ship with a Thumper would have destroyed it.  What are you doing to make Devastators effective against frigates/destroyers?  Is this just in bigger battles where they are paying attention to something else?

For Devastator to be useful against fighters, I'd like to see its ROF doubled at the same flux cost, as an initial attempt, to compensate for the random fuses.