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[hadesian]

Depends how you use them. I still recall the one wing of Thunder I had that owned almost everything. Still awesome even though they got brought down to 2. Knock out your shields, engines and weapons, fire a pair of harpoon MRMs, hell even the swarmer missiles pack an insane punch if you can peel away armour. Don't even get me started on the Warthogs... holy, freaking, hell. If anything loses it's shields, my 9 warthogs can take a cruiser down in roughly 8 seconds from full health/armour to nothing.

[Thaago]

Well yes, but 3 wings of Warthogs cost 30 OP - thats also 3 destroyers or an Onslaught and a half. I have an issue with Warthogs in particular - if I wanted something to move at speed 80 I would use a Hammerhead (except that its faster)...

Fighters are indeed excellent and they can concentrate forces extremely well, but they are also FP intensive for their firepower.

[neonesis]

Is anyone really using Warthogs on a normal basis? I mean, 10 FP PER WING - that's just hell of a lot of points, and they have only 80 speed.

[hadesian]

Is anyone really using Warthogs on a normal basis? I mean, 10 FP PER WING - that's just hell of a lot of points, and they have only 80 speed.

I do, so worth that cost. I mean, the damn things use that speed to their advantage - get in just as the shields go down and bear the least of the attacks, then fire at will. And 10 FP is indeed a lot - but the flexibility is worth every point.

[Catra]

Is anyone really using Warthogs on a normal basis? I mean, 10 FP PER WING - that's just hell of a lot of points, and they have only 80 speed.

yep.

you only need 1 wing anyway, not much can really stand up to 6 LMGs and 3 LAGs, in addition to whatever other firepower your fighter squadron brings along.

[TJJ]

The question is, can other fighters do the same job better?

I'd much rather have 2 wings of Piranhas than 1 wing of Warthogs.

[armoredcookie]

Yeah but fleet points are MUCH less of an issue for fighter heavy fleets. With the speed that fighters have (faster than frigates), you can secure a large portion of objectives really quickly. Even if the opposing fleet brute forces their way into one objective, simply pull back and capture everything else they have.

[Cerevox]

The problem with the fighter heavy forces isn't the FP or the speed or the supplies. It is that nothing fights back against it. The AI is terrible at concentrating its forces which allows the most mobile fighters to swarm and destroy the AI fleet one by one.

30 FP of anything will trash a single 10-15 FP unit no matter what it is. This holds true for fighters, they just have an easier time ganging up on stuff because they are faster. Fighters will probably continue to be strong until the AI understands that it should keep a flak frigate next to destroyers/cruisers. In this case, instead of 30 FP of fighters hitting a 20 FP cruiser it would be 30 FP of fighters going at a 20 FP cruiser and a 10 FP frigate and the frigate was been fitting for the sole purpose of smashing fighters with tons of things like burst lasers and flak guns and if the frigate can ding the fighter enough to kill its engines, the cruiser its gaurding will be able to use its large weapons to swat the fighter instantly.

So yes, fighters are OP, but only because they have no opposing force and are left unchecked.

[hadesian]

The problem with the fighter heavy forces isn't the FP or the speed or the supplies. It is that nothing fights back against it. The AI is terrible at concentrating its forces which allows the most mobile fighters to swarm and destroy the AI fleet one by one.

30 FP of anything will trash a single 10-15 FP unit no matter what it is.

So yes, fighters are OP, but only because they have no opposing force and are left unchecked.

Ten talon wings would be easy prey to 3 Lashers armed for anti fighter

[Dri]

Thats 40 freakin fighters - I think that may just be too many targets for 3 lashers since they can't equip flak due to no medium slots. Even if I'm wrong though I'm sure it'd be one hell of a show!

[Kommodore Krieg]

The problem with the fighter heavy forces isn't the FP or the speed or the supplies. It is that nothing fights back against it. The AI is terrible at concentrating its forces which allows the most mobile fighters to swarm and destroy the AI fleet one by one.

30 FP of anything will trash a single 10-15 FP unit no matter what it is. This holds true for fighters, they just have an easier time ganging up on stuff because they are faster. Fighters will probably continue to be strong until the AI understands that it should keep a flak frigate next to destroyers/cruisers. In this case, instead of 30 FP of fighters hitting a 20 FP cruiser it would be 30 FP of fighters going at a 20 FP cruiser and a 10 FP frigate and the frigate was been fitting for the sole purpose of smashing fighters with tons of things like burst lasers and flak guns and if the frigate can ding the fighter enough to kill its engines, the cruiser its gaurding will be able to use its large weapons to swat the fighter instantly.

So yes, fighters are OP, but only because they have no opposing force and are left unchecked.

The AI is actually getting much better at concentrating it's forces.  I've seen it use light escort and full escort commands numerous times now.  Most of the time cruisers have multiple fighter wings escorting them if there are fighters available to do so.

[Hardlyjoking67]

The AI is actually getting much better at concentrating it's forces.

ITS LEARNING!!! Jk lol, I do agree that the fighters are a tad overpowered. But really, it shouldn't matter. The only fleet in the game that will have way to many fighters will be the player. So as long as the player avoids purchasing an excess of fighters and cheapening their experience, then they are fine.

[Temjin]

Really? I run into pirate fleets all the time that have five or more wings of various types of fighters, and often deal with them in one ship with no problems.

[Thaago]

I think a useful AI improvement that would help against fighters would be some sort of logic to concentrate fire on one fighter at a time and prioritize the last few ships of a wing (to lower the incidence of retreating to a carrier). In that manner instead of fighting 4 half strength (and therefor full firepower) fighters a ship would only have to face 2 fighters worth of firepower.

[cp252]

Real anti-air gunners would normally not be well coordinated enough for that- and if they were, it makes more sense to shoot at those Daggers coming towards you readying their Reapers than the single Dagger running away with an empty launcher. It seems anti-air in this game (for ballistics at least) is manually targeted, WW2 style.
Warthogs don't seem to really do much of anything... they die. And they eat up two Lasher's worth of FP and cost as much as two Lashers. I don't see the point of them. Those vaunted guns of theirs aren't really enough to justify- they can't go air to air and they don't threaten anything bigger than a frigate unless you swarm. They're not fast enough to chase down frigates, they can't overwhelm anything that costs 7fp or greater...