Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bummelei on February 24, 2023, 03:55:12 AM
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Great respawn time. Impressive durability. Heavy firepower. Cheap OP cost. And there is three of them! God loves trinity! But their max range is only 2000...
Coupled with the snail's speed, Warthogs is just unable to engage the target. Frigates, destroyers, and even light cruisers are completely unreacheble for these fighters.
The moment when enemy ship sees them flying towards, he just takes one step back and the fighters can no longer follow him so they changing target while he just comes back like nothing happen. So 99% of the time they just helplessly hover around from target to target, or stick to the allied ships.
I tried almost all variants, but they just doen't work.
Fast destroyers and cruisers? Check. Herons and Moras? Check. Heck, even fleets made entirely of them! Only piloted Legion seems to work.
On paper they looks great, but on practice they are a great disappointment.
Dunno, maybe my hands growing out of my arse (sorry for my french) and i'm doing everything wrong. In that case, i humbly invite you to teach me how to cook them, and will be extremely grateful for this.
But if it's not the case, then i have a couple of suggestions:
1) Restore their range back to 4000, a bit boring but atleast they will work.
2) Replace their system for Burn Drive or Plasma Burn, and add 500-1000su (needs playtesting) so they will at least be able to engage enemy.
3) Add even more weapons! Vulcan turret, or Dual Machinegun from the front, turn them into little Death Stars which ferociously defends their mothership!
I would like to hear your opinion.
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They used to have three mortars I believe and were hilariously powerful.
But yeah their best use is as bomber escorts for fighting stations and enemy capital ships or slow cruisers. They are quite tough and can adsorb plenty of point defence.
I'd see them, along with most fighters, as a force magnifier to other kinds of strike craft like bombers or other fighters and interceptors. Where a swarm of wasp drones might get shredded a warthog wing will give the rest more time to work while they are slowly killed. Stacking different fighter types together can help cover for one or another's weaknesses. A broadsword wing can't deal with armour, but warthogs can, and both are far tougher then a gladius with it's small pulse laser.
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They’re ok, but only that. I’ve always thought they don’t really live up the Warthog name (inspired by the A-10, no doubt). The A-10 is built around a massive Gatling gun and the Starsector version has a pair of slow-firing, highly inaccurate Light Mortars. It’s the inaccuracy that kills it the most for me. I’ve seen Warthogs circle a ship and miss 75% of their shots, even against large targets.
Suggestion: give them a single LAG and make them have more of a strafing behavior instead of circling. I think this fits thematically but also makes them less prone to missing. The LAG is just far more accurate. 3x LAG for the Wing isn’t a whole lot of HE (penetration is worse than Mortars) but it will add up over time.
In a perfect world, I’d actually arm them with a modified Assault Chaingun (maybe halve the rate of fire) and let them go to town but I don’t want to get carried away.
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They’re ok, but only that. I’ve always thought they don’t really live up the Warthog name (inspired by the A-10, no doubt). The A-10 is built around a massive Gatling gun and the Starsector version has a pair of slow-firing, highly inaccurate Light Mortars. It’s the inaccuracy that kills it the most for me. I’ve seen Warthogs circle a ship and miss 75% of their shots, even against large targets.
Suggestion: give them a single LAG and make them have more of a strafing behavior instead of circling. I think this fits thematically but also makes them less prone to missing. The LAG is just far more accurate. 3x LAG for the Wing isn’t a whole lot of HE (penetration is worse than Mortars) but it will add up over time.
Have you tried Fighter Uplink? It helps a bit, so it's not that bad.
Don't know if behavior change will really help, but it's interesting.
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Warthogs are too slow and have (too) short roam range. I treat them like Xyphos with a bit of roam range, or like the Shepherd's Borer drones. Basically a cloud centered on the carrier. With its current stats, Warthogs are borderline support fighters, probably meant for battlecarriers.
I would not call 12 OP cost cheap.
They used to have three mortars I believe and were hilariously powerful.
They were. I used to put six on Astral, wait until an enemy ship got close to Astral, hit Recall Device, and watch the swarm of Warthogs engulf an enemy and tear it apart fast. In hindsight, five Warthogs and one Claw was probably more effective. Warthogs were about as overpowered as Remnant fighters at the time.
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I’ve always thought they don’t really live up the Warthog name (inspired by the A-10, no doubt). The A-10 is built around a massive Gatling gun and the Starsector version has a pair of slow-firing, highly inaccurate Light Mortars.
I agree about the A-10 reference. A-10s were a favorite of mine as a youth. Their durability is as famous as their firepower. Less well known is their extreme range. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8rvg6YE6BI)
Suggestion: give them a single LAG and make them have more of a strafing behavior instead of circling. I think this fits thematically but also makes them less prone to missing. The LAG is just far more accurate. 3x LAG for the Wing isn’t a whole lot of HE (penetration is worse than Mortars) but it will add up over time.
In a perfect world, I’d actually arm them with a modified Assault Chaingun (maybe halve the rate of fire) and let them go to town but I don’t want to get carried away.
I like the modified Assault Chaingun idea. Alternatively, LAG+single Hammer would fit the theme. Either way, put their range back to average.
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My experience with Warthogs is that they do not die. I would say that's pretty good.
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My experience with Warthogs is that they do not die. I would say that's pretty good.
Win More is always better than Lose Less
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I’m going to experiment with changing the weapon a little. I don’t think giving them any kind of payload is good idea. They don’t need to be bombers.
The ACG idea would necessitate them getting even closer than current, meaning they might need a slight speed bump or armor increase. I’ll try the LAG first though and see. I really would love the Warthogs to go BRRRT but gameplay comes first.
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IMO they could use a small speed bump (though that would make the mortars even less accurate, and they are already quite prone to missing, so a tweak there as well). Their raw stats are really strong, it's just that they have so much trouble catching anything.
Replacing the dual mortar with a LAG would be in some ways a downgrade, in some ways an upgrade. They would also need a small boost to dissipation to compensate for the lower efficiency I think. It would 'feel' more like a chaingun than the current mortars.
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I don't think they really need to have a chaingun just because of the name.
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Thats fair, I guess :P
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My first experience with the 'warthog' was in Command & Conquer. But there it just dropped a carpet of naplam bombs.
But yeah having a gimped medium weapon for a fighter might suit a bomber more then a fighter.
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I'm now imagining a bomber armed with a Thumper that needs to dock to reload the magazine.
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So, funny thing: Alex already tried all these because they all appear in the Variant file. But, I tried them anyway.
LAG was ok but I had to give the Warthog a few Vents to sustain fire. The Assault Chaingun was pretty interesting because the Warthogs were flux-locked for most of it. I think you wouldn't even have to mess with the main weapon stats, just dial-in the amount of shots it can burst out before overfluxing.
Then there was the Thumper... I had to give the Warthogs some Capacitors otherwise it wouldn't fire at all but even with all the capacity it could ever want, it was extremely underwhelming. It fit the MO of the Warthog to a "T" (bursts of gatling fire) but doing Flak damage was just really unimpressive. It looked pretty cool, though!
Morale of the story, there was a reason Alex didn't go with these. It looks like the original loadout was 2 LMGs and a Thumper and he tried a single LAG at one point. This was actually pretty decent! I had to give it 5 Vents and 3 Capacitors but they were actually kind of effective.
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They used to have three mortars I believe and were hilariously powerful.
There was a bug that caused their mortars to hit multiple times per shot. For some reason they still got nerfed when the bug was fixed.
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Some fighters had different weapons in earlier releases, when they were ships. Warthogs might have had LAG originally.
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In my last round of playtesting with Warthogs, I tried a few things:
Assault Chaingun - without adding any kind of native dissipation, Warthogs fire three shots and then waits about 1-1.5 seconds to fire again. The advantage it has over the Light Mortars is that they tend to all hit. If you add a few vents to the Warthog, the damage steadily increases but even 2x Light Mortars are flux-capped so it's an unfair comparison to increase vents on an ACG but not on the default loadout (if you wanted to improve the Warthog)
Added a Vulcan to Weapon Slot 3 - I actually think this is the sweet spot. You still get the 2x Light Mortars doing slow/steady HE but the Vulcan allows the Warthog to begin to chew threw hull once armor is stripped. It basically doesn't do anything outside of that but it gives Warthogs more finishing power. It also puts a gatling gun on the nose of the ship and you can see it spewing bullets as a proper Warthog should. Also, since Vulcans barely cost flux, and have low range, it really doesn't effect the Light Mortars that much. I think as small of a change as it is, it works well for the intent of what the Warthog should be doing.
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A vulcan is interesting as it also reinforces another role I've had a bit of success in with warthogs: defensively fighting other fighters. They are too slow to catch enemy ships, but when escorting do a decent job of killing things that come to them. Adding some point defense capabilities would help them shoot down swarmers and missiles heading for the host ship as well.
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As a complete aside, it wasn't until I started really paying attention to fighter flux levels did I realize how often they stay flux-locked. The Warthog only has 50 dissipation, which means it can't even support the two Light Mortars it has! It can fire off a pair of shots to reach its capacity (200) and then it basically is just using a single Light Mortar the rest of the way. No wonder it feels underwhelming. Bumping dissipation up to 75 makes it 50% more effective!
With 75 dissipation and a Vulcan (which means it still can't fully support all weapons firing at once), it's pretty effective if it can keep up and stay in range.
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As a complete aside, it wasn't until I started really paying attention to fighter flux levels did I realize how often they stay flux-locked.
Incidentally, this is why you may find modded fighters are often much more powerful than vanilla ones of a similar price.
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As a complete aside, it wasn't until I started really paying attention to fighter flux levels did I realize how often they stay flux-locked.
Incidentally, this is why you may find modded fighters are often much more powerful than vanilla ones of a similar price.
True - people tend to stick the same number of guns on but its often the dissipation that is the actual firepower limiter.
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As a complete aside, it wasn't until I started really paying attention to fighter flux levels did I realize how often they stay flux-locked.
Incidentally, this is why you may find modded fighters are often much more powerful than vanilla ones of a similar price.
True - people tend to stick the same number of guns on but its often the dissipation that is the actual firepower limiter.
And that's terrible IMO because fighter flux is not a player-facing mechanic.
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So to improve many of the fighters, just tweak the vents/caps a little? ???
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If you want to tweak the DPS and/or Burst of many fighters, then yeah. Raise or lower the vents/caps.
Broadswords for example are flux limited (10 dissipation per fighter to support 38 worth of guns), but they have enough capacity (80) that their initial volley is a whole lot of damage (great for spiking flux before the bomber wave come in). I think they are in a really good place and are an example of how the vents/caps works to cement their role as bomber leaders (alongside the flares).
Personally I think Gladii are good fighters already, but an increase to their dissipation would help to cement their role as 'catch then kill interceptors' by upping their sustained DPS. They currently have 100/400 dissipation/capacity as a wing compared to Broadsword's 30/240, but they have that IR pulse laser to support as well which is a lot less efficient than the lmgs. I would have to watch their behavior to see if they keep the dual machine gun continuously firing and just throttle the IR, but thats what I would naively expect them to be doing.
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To Thaago's point, when you look at Broadswords in a vacuum you ask yourself "why the heck does it only have 10 dissipation!?" but then you see the weapons and capacity and it makes more sense. What doesn't (immediately) make sense is why Khopesh have 100 dissipation, but then you find out they originally 2 Vulcans and a LAG before they had Annihilators. It's one of those, "it doesn't hurt anything so why change it?" type situations.
But to the point at hand, does 50 dissipation for the Warthog make sense? Going back to the accuracy issue, even under the best of circumstances, it's not landing every shot. Or to put it another way, why am I spending 12 OP for slow fighters that, once committed to the fight, only contribute the equivalent of 3 Light Mortars (6 OP) under ideal of circumstances? With some luck, they might actually output 6 Light Mortar's worth of firepower briefly.
To SafariJohn's point, when the tooltip says "2 Light Mortars", the player isn't exactly informed that really that drops to 1 Light Mortar when flux locked (which is within 2 seconds of fighting). If the fighter has weapons on it, I think it's a reasonable expectation that they're able to fully utilize them at all times. That they can't is...odd.
A couple more Warthog trials:
Assault Chaingun with 130 dissipation on each Warthog: fires 3 shots before pausing briefly to "reload" and fire again. Shots tend to be highly accurate. You're getting a single ACG split between three fighters (10 OP) so this feels close to an equal trade-off.
Thumper with 2 Light Mortars and 120 dissipation and 400 capacity. Thumper uses all 400 flux on approach and then Light Mortars kick in. Since dissipation is slightly above the 2 Light Mortar's output, it eventually gets back to 0 and the Thumper fires again. Depending on positioning, there's a 5-10 second delay between Thumper barrages. Gives some burst damage and additional range. It's also visually distinct but it absolutely murders low armored targets.
For 12 OP, how powerful should Warthogs be?
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A couple more Warthog trials:
Assault Chaingun with 130 dissipation on each Warthog: fires 3 shots before pausing briefly to "reload" and fire again. Shots tend to be highly accurate. You're getting a single ACG split between three fighters (10 OP) so this feels close to an equal trade-off.
Thumper with 2 Light Mortars and 120 dissipation and 400 capacity. Thumper uses all 400 flux on approach and then Light Mortars kick in. Since dissipation is slightly above the 2 Light Mortar's output, it eventually gets back to 0 and the Thumper fires again. Depending on positioning, there's a 5-10 second delay between Thumper barrages. Gives some burst damage and additional range. It's also visually distinct but it absolutely murders low armored targets.
For 12 OP, how powerful should Warthogs be?
There was a fighters from Disassemble-Reassemble mod (if i remember it right), and they had a chain gun as an armament, and oh boy it was painful to fight against. And i kinda afraid ACG will make them into monsters once again. How about an all-around enhancements? A bit of range, a bit of speed, and dissipation improvement for it to able to handle it's mortars?
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ACG without any additional dissipation on the Warthog is very underwhelming. I don't think it would be in any danger of being terrifying in the least.
But to your point, yes, I think if you were going to make the Warthog better, the first thing to do is bump its native dissipation up so that both Light Mortars are actively engaged more often. I don't think it's unreasonable to let Warthogs fire both at all times (i.e. 100 dissipation) since Mortars miss so much anyway. I will say this, 3x Mortar with enough dissipation to keep them all firing, is terrifying.
FYI, my testbed has been an unskilled Condor with a Warthog and Broadsword wing. I have no weapons on the Condor and I've been using the Sim Mule as the target (it has Heavy Armor on it so has roughly Cruiser-grade armor to punch through). Time to Kill has been the metric I've been using to judge, using the Peak Performance Time of the Condor as the stop time. The current Warthog/Broadsword combo kills the Mule with roughly 220 seconds left on the Condor (TTK = 140 seconds). Faster times to tell me that the Warthogs have improved. Slower means a step in the wrong direction.
3x Mortar with full dissipation, for example, were killing the Mule with ~300 seconds of PPT left. That means they killed the mule in 60 seconds rather than 140. Bumping standard/current Warthogs to 100 dissipation, they had TTK times averaging around 100. If you add a Vulcan on top of that, TTK was ~80 seconds. Obviously, if you want to make incremental adjustments, just bumping the dissipation sees a solid improvement.
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I have tried 100 dissipation on warthogs before and they were definitely too powerful. Maybe an increase to capacity rather than dissipation would be better.
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FYI, my testbed has been an unskilled Condor with a Warthog and Broadsword wing....
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I think thats a good test bed, with the caveat that both 100% CR and skills are going to boost the mortar's accuracy. It sounds like that might make more of a difference than usual.
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They used to have three mortars I believe and were hilariously powerful.
There was a bug that caused their mortars to hit multiple times per shot. For some reason they still got nerfed when the bug was fixed.
So uh. Any reason why it got nerfed regardless?
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I have tried 100 dissipation on warthogs before and they were definitely too powerful. Maybe an increase to capacity rather than dissipation would be better.
I agree that x2 maybe too much, so why don't we multiply caps and vents by 1.5 to make them more consistent? How about that?
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Ah, this is a fun one! I messed around and tried a few things with it just now, after reading this thread, and remembered a lot of the reasons for why it is how it is.
Countering frigates (to some extent, obviously not something like the Omen) is the job of interceptor-type fighters, right? Talon, Gladius, etc. For the Warthog, I wanted a fighter that could pose a bit of a threat to larger ships without also completely dominating frigates and taking over that part of the role from interceptors.
If the Warthog is significantly faster than a typical frigate, then it seems near-impossible - it'll get around most frigate shields and swarm them, almost regardless of what its actual weapons are. So, it's got to be slow.
But even that's not enough - if e.g. you arm it with a pair of Vulcan cannons, slow or not, it will absolutely *shred* frigates. And some destroyers, too. That's where the Light Mortar came in; something that's going to miss enough vs frigates to where it's fairly ineffective. It's just about the only weapon in the ballistic lineup that fits the requirements!
One thing I noticed just now, though, is that flameouts tend to account for a lot of Warthog downtime. So, a fairly targeted buff: adding Insulated Engine Assembly to it. This keeps it slow but gives it more consistency, and the extra 10% hull is a nice but not overpowered bonus. I kind of like where it's at with that, honestly.
2000 units leash range is not a lot, it's true. But raising it, it feels potentially risky - the Warthog is in a sort of spot where if it's overtuned even slightly, it could easily become the ideal fighter to mass, at the expense of any sort of fighter combination. The reduced range helps guard against that.
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Warthogs are boring and feel weak, so I never use them. Give them some flashy weapon. Swarmers, maybe.
2000 leash range is probably an upside because it ensures replacements bring their guns to bear quickly.
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Here is some old data that someone put together on fighter combo performance btw: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21762.0
I think that might be from the last game version? But interesting how the warthog performed consistently well in those tests.
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Do I have this correct that Warthog was the only source of HE damage in that test, since the Heron had a Pilum (I guess?) and no bombers were included?
E: was another source - Swarmer on Talon and Thunder. But so it shows that multiples of the fighter with a HE weapon killed the cruiser somewhat faster than other combos. However, wouldn't a battlecarrier prefer big HE guns and kinetic from fighters, and a dedicated carrier prefer bombers? Don't know about Heron though, haven't used it this version. I seem to remember generally putting HVDs on those.
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@Alex
You seem to be giving every reason possible to just make them Support fighters. Slow speed, tight leash, inaccurate weapons…all so they don’t murder Frigates (which is valid!) but it is overshadowing the original “gunboat” intent.
If Warthogs were Support fighters, they could likely stand to have different weapons and utility. If a Frigate did cross them, it *would* get shredded and that would be expected. It’s not like we have an HE support fighter right now. Or if it was considered support but had a 1000 range leash instead of 0.
I guess my point is that the consideration for murdering Frigates is dominating the design for the Warthog when, IMO, it shouldn’t and/or could be alleviated in other ways.
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You seem to be giving every reason possible to just make them Support fighters. Slow speed, tight leash, inaccurate weapons…all so they don’t murder Frigates (which is valid!) but it seems to overshadow the original “gunboat” intent.
Yes.
What I dislike about Warthogs is they are so slow that even cruisers can outrun them. If Warthogs manage to catch something, they may get a couple shots off before the enemy gets the message and runs away. It is hard for Warthogs to hurt anything. Warthogs feel like they have the speed of a bomber, but without the firepower. The only good thing about Warthogs is durability, but Broadswords are nearly as durable, and cheaper and simply more practical all-around too.
In some previous, recent releases, after Warthogs were weakened, I would just take a bomber instead. Today, I take Broadswords instead, unless I want a support fighter that is not Xyphos for a battlecarrier (but I usually want fast fighters on a carrier because the carrier is too slow to catch cowardly fast ships).
Problem with too short leash is the ship would lose zero-flux bonus when engaged (which NPC ships will do), but the fighters are so close to the carrier that they might as well stick to the ship like a support fighter.
I sort of treat Warthogs as a homing weapon with range comparable to the longest ranged guns a battleship can use. Stuff like Gauss or beams with Paragon's ATC.
Warthogs sort of function more like ship repellant or area denial, which, okay... fine, but kind of disappointing. Not what I had in mind for something with its namesake that would just kill stuff if it was another game.
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To Megas’ point, it’s hard to pick the Warthog over the identically-priced Khopesh because of all the restrictions on the Warthog. Why not just get the Bomber that is also slow, can’t hit frigates, and deals HE (except in boatloads not via a drip)? It’s a little apples and oranges comparison but outside of Flares, what more does the Warthog bring to the table?
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Ah, this is a fun one! I messed around and tried a few things with it just now, after reading this thread, and remembered a lot of the reasons for why it is how it is.
Countering frigates (to some extent, obviously not something like the Omen) is the job of interceptor-type fighters, right? Talon, Gladius, etc. For the Warthog, I wanted a fighter that could pose a bit of a threat to larger ships without also completely dominating frigates and taking over that part of the role from interceptors.
If the Warthog is significantly faster than a typical frigate, then it seems near-impossible - it'll get around most frigate shields and swarm them, almost regardless of what its actual weapons are. So, it's got to be slow.
Exactly why i thought about Burn Drive system. It gives Warthogs an initial jump, and if target is nimble enough (frigates), they still will be able to outrun them. They don't need to chase small targets, but need consistency in chasing medium ones.
But even that's not enough - if e.g. you arm it with a pair of Vulcan cannons, slow or not, it will absolutely *shred* frigates. And some destroyers, too. That's where the Light Mortar came in; something that's going to miss enough vs frigates to where it's fairly ineffective. It's just about the only weapon in the ballistic lineup that fits the requirements!
The idea of Vulcans in this case is to enable anti-fighter capabilities because of their extremely poor perfomance in that field. Like, any other fighter doing this job better.
Alternative solution is to give them more flux-stats to use it's guns reliably.
2000 units leash range is not a lot, it's true. But raising it, it feels potentially risky - the Warthog is in a sort of spot where if it's overtuned even slightly, it could easily become the ideal fighter to mass, at the expense of any sort of fighter combination. The reduced range helps guard against that.
Maybe it guards too much. It's not about making them OP, but to make them function properly. How about a small range tweaks of 500-1000su? I doubt it will instantly make them overtuned.
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I think you're forgetting that warthogs can quickly get out of hand if they're too good at their job. They're only 12 op and can easily overwhelm high-tech and midline cruisers (with some kinetic support). Insulated engines seems like a good reliability buff. I like it.
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To Megas’ point, it’s hard to pick the Warthog over the identically-priced Khopesh because of all the restrictions on the Warthog. Why not just get the Bomber that is also slow, can’t hit frigates, and deals HE (except in boatloads not via a drip)? It’s a little apples and oranges comparison but outside of Flares, what more does the Warthog bring to the table?
Khopesh are 180 speed btw.
Re: cruisers: I find that most cruisers cannot outrun warthogs - that would need a base speed equivalent of 80 + a 0 flux boost. It can be difficult for warthogs to first engage with a fleeing 0 flux cruiser as the speed difference isn't that high, but fleeing cruisers usually have flux on them so thats rarely an issue. I find that warthogs can realistically engage mid speed destroyers and slower - typically the enemy doesn't run away from them, especially if they are in a formation.
It can take a long time for a group of fighters with a warthog in them to travel anywhere though.
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You seem to be giving every reason possible to just make them Support fighters. Slow speed, tight leash, inaccurate weapons…all so they don’t murder Frigates (which is valid!) but it is overshadowing the original “gunboat” intent.
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I guess my point is that the consideration for murdering Frigates is dominating the design for the Warthog when, IMO, it shouldn’t and/or could be alleviated in other ways.
The original intent is very much "a fighter that can mix it up with larger ships without also murdering frigates" :) So yeah, much of how it works is geared towards that, but I think it's warranted!
If Warthogs were Support fighters, they could likely stand to have different weapons and utility. If a Frigate did cross them, it *would* get shredded and that would be expected. It’s not like we have an HE support fighter right now. Or if it was considered support but had a 1000 range leash instead of 0.
I did think about making it support, but honestly, it's just a totally different fighter at that point!
To Megas’ point, it’s hard to pick the Warthog over the identically-priced Khopesh because of all the restrictions on the Warthog. Why not just get the Bomber that is also slow, can’t hit frigates, and deals HE (except in boatloads not via a drip)? It’s a little apples and oranges comparison but outside of Flares, what more does the Warthog bring to the table?
Just for the heck of it, tried a combination of Heron with 3x Warthog, ordered to escort a friendly "Outdated" Dominator, against a pair of Dominators - the outdated and the one with the Typoon reapers. And then tried it using 3x Khopesh instead. The Heron + Dominator side lost both times, but with the Warthogs it got ugly - one enemy Dominator down, another at less than half hull. With the Khopeshes, both enemy Dominators had near-full hull.
Which isn't to say that the Khopesh is bad or even worse - just, as you say, it's apples and oranges. What the Warthog provides is a lot of damage-soaking, enough to seriously hamper and distract even powerful cruisers. E.G. the Mora with 3x Warthogs can make a respectable (if losing) showing against the *new* Aurora; bombers don't let it do that.
The replacement time is just 10 seconds, and the fighter is really tough, so the replacement rate has more of a chance to recover than it does most of the time. It's basically a "put the enemy ship in an ugly fight" fighter. Which means it probably pairs best with battlecarriers or carriers ordered to escort a ship that's both going to push the fight and can sustain it.
None of this necessarily means that it's strong or balanced. I do think it works in this role, though; I'm not sure adjusting its weapons loadout is the way to go if anything else is needed - the weapons do the job they're supposed to, which is make it difficult to ignore for larger ships while also not hurting frigates overmuch.
Exactly why i thought about Burn Drive system. It gives Warthogs an initial jump, and if target is nimble enough (frigates), they still will be able to outrun them. They don't need to chase small targets, but need consistency in chasing medium ones.
Yep, makes sense! I think adding Insulated Engines accomplishes much the same thing while being more consistent for the AI to use and letting them keep decoy flares, which really help their survivability.
The idea of Vulcans in this case is to enable anti-fighter capabilities because of their extremely poor perfomance in that field. Like, any other fighter doing this job better.
Alternative solution is to give them more flux-stats to use it's guns reliably.
I think it's hard to give it anti-fighter capabilities without also making it wreck frigates.
Maybe it guards too much. It's not about making them OP, but to make them function properly. How about a small range tweaks of 500-1000su? I doubt it will instantly make them overtuned.
Perhaps! I could see giving it 500 more range, to be honest. I'll... keep an eye on that. It *is* pretty risky, though; make it too much and if too many different carriers can easily stack them on the same target, it gets to be too much. Fighter range is kind of exponential in its effect.
Re: cruisers: I find that most cruisers cannot outrun warthogs - that would need a base speed equivalent of 80 + a 0 flux boost. It can be difficult for warthogs to first engage with a fleeing 0 flux cruiser as the speed difference isn't that high, but fleeing cruisers usually have flux on them so thats rarely an issue. I find that warthogs can realistically engage mid speed destroyers and slower - typically the enemy doesn't run away from them, especially if they are in a formation.
Yep! What they really outrun is the Warthog's engagement range. Which, again, I think makes it better on carriers that get close to the action.
It can take a long time for a group of fighters with a warthog in them to travel anywhere though.
... and so does this. I don't know that they mix particularly well with other fighters, really. The more of them you have, the harder they are to get rid of. Something like Broadswords can be ok, but from a bit of testing it feels like that's sometimes worse and only occasionally marginally better. Fighters don't need anti-shield quite as much if they swarm the target; Broadswords make a good first wave in front of bombers, and sure, they help Warthogs too, it's just not that clear-cut vs "more Warthogs", imo.
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Fair points. My test bed was definitely at a much smaller scale so the ability of Warthogs to “clog” even Dominators (which typically have good PD) went unnoticed. I tend to look at single wings of Warthogs as part of a combined arms approach rather than swarms of them. I don’t know what the average use-case is. *My* usual application of them is on Heron or Mora with a Broadsword and and a Bomber for an all-rounder kind of set up. Strong kinetic, lingering HE and then the punch of the bomber. In these cases, the Warthogs probably do more than I give them credit for but never feel particularly powerful in and of themselves.
The key phrase that I really didn’t think about is “they have a 10 second replacement time.” I forgot that they are so easily replaceable yet being individually very tough. Perhaps the more accurate description for them is “expendable bullet sponges that do damage” rather than “elite gunboats”. Or to put it another way, I should value what they do defensively more than what they do offensively. Every shot they take isn’t being directed toward weaker fighters or other more expensive craft.
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Anything that lurks really frightens the AI. A torpedo attack might only last a few seconds, but any lingering munitions can make them paranoid enough to divert their shields or even turn to face the fighters over any other threats they face.
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Fair points. My test bed was definitely at a much smaller scale so the ability of Warthogs to “clog” even Dominators (which typically have good PD) went unnoticed.
Both of these approaches have the issue of assuming the fighters are exactly where they are needed, which is harder for slower, half range Warthogs.
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My test bed was definitely at a much smaller scale so the ability of Warthogs to “clog” even Dominators (which typically have good PD) went unnoticed.
Seems less "clog" and more "barely interact with." The PD won't do anything to stop Light Mortar shots, and with 600 range the Warthogs might not be in PD range themselves very often - and with their armor, they're pretty resistant to what hits they do take. Like, an individual Warthog has all the armor and a full half the health of a Vigilance, with only 10s base replacement time.
This is one of the things I've been really looking forward to with the upcoming energy missiles - if you're using missiles as your dedicated armor breakers, the fact that most ships with really high armor also have really good close-in PD is something of a problem. Warthogs are actually a decent answer against that kind of target.
Call it one more vote for "low-tech" style end game fights.