I'm always for the fighter gameplay - and I like this, it's pretty interesting and fits the lore perfectly. :) The bit about reducing CR with each fighter deploy might cause some issues, though - is there a set limit for when it stops reducing CR? Otherwise it looks like the crew is starting to pull apart the ship for parts to feed into the minifac with weapons and engines malfunctioning below 20% CR.And why not? ^^ If the CR drop too low, you can retreat the carrier... Or could if the order weren't that limited. Okay that could be an issue. Of course there has been suggestions to make the orders slowly replenish over time, or the carrier could have an auto-retreat threshold you set the way you can change the ship CR in refit, or the fighters could stop being rebuilt once the carrier reach 30% CR (but could still be reloaded and repaired).
Some of the finer details of your mechanic might need to be fleshed out - like if fighters still appear on the tactical map, if they'll react to (or even prioritize) targets from the base ship, etc., (things that I'm usually interested in, heh) but it's incredibly interesting.
For me what I meant was not teh number of replacements, but how many are out at a time. For example, if I only have 2 slots, 2 Broadsword wings beat out 2 Talon wings. But if I had 3 Talon wings instead of 2 Broadsword wings (about the current ratio?) then its good.They would still act and appear as they currently do, iirc if they have an escort order, they prioritize the target of that ship. The wings size would remain the same too.
So maybe have multiple sized slots?That, or have heavy fighters block additional slots.
The bit about reducing CR with each fighter deploy might cause some issues, though - is there a set limit for when it stops reducing CR? Otherwise it looks like the crew is starting to pull apart the ship for parts to feed into the minifac with weapons and engines malfunctioning below 20% CR.
Flight deck is worth about six small slots.Erm, what do you mean? A figher wing is worth 6 small weapon slots, that kind of thing?
Could have flight deck slots.Yea, those are kind of in there (if I get what you're saying) - you can assign two wings to a single flight deck.
I just realized this - it'd be pretty hilarious to see what the Astral's refit screen would look like with 6 flight decks and 12 fighter slots, heh.Actually I specifically designed the size of the refit display to fit the Astral's 6 flight decks ^^
So when I'm saying this I'm really just playing devil's advocate: Do the relatively small benefits really warrant a rework of a well functioning system at this point of development? It seems like all the major problems this solves are with the lore and immersion, not with the actual gameplay.Fighters not dying sounds like an exploit to me, and I used oversized fighter fleets early game with great success because you never lose any ship, it's risk free and not expensive if you compare the initial investment between cheap all-in-one fighters wings and ship that you'll need to equip. In my very personal opinion, fighters aren't well functioning, they are just functional, and I liked them better in 0.58.
Is there really an "exploit of super heavy fighter fleets"? It seems to me non-replenishing fighters can only work against fleets which are a weight class below you anyway and could be beat by many other means.
What if instead each carrier has fighter points (maybe hangar space), separate from flight decks.My issue with that is that it's way more complex than the current system for no big gain, where I tried to streamline things. The fighter wings are supposed to be balanced against each other: numerous cheap weak Talons, or a few expensive shielded powerful Daggers... Why would they need to use different hangar space? But if anything like that would be implemented, I'd prefer a slot size system (with more hulls available if you install a smaller wing for example).
I really want the ability to mix and match fighters and drones. Being able to load destroyers with flak drones or PD drones or mining drones would be great.I think making ship systems less of a viable option is not exactly good practice. :/ Sure, they're nice and pretty, but that kind of makes the Gemni's drones rather pointless when you can have them on everything.
This is a pretty cool idea and it'd feel good to have a more tightly-knit relationship between carriers and their fighters. But I'd miss the current versatility of fighter fleets too much.
One thing I just thought of: say we equip our Heron with 2 Daggers and 2 Wasps, but we get into a fight where we don't want to deploy the wasps. Are those slots effectively wasted? There would still be two flight decks so I guess they would still be refitted faster.I think the trick here is that you will have many more carriers in your fleet, forcing you to better match their fighter complements: you could have a couple of Geminis with pursuit fighters and a Heron loaded with bombers, and only deploy witch carriers you need for the job. Another solution is that, as you can see on my last mock-up, I tied the fighters to their carrier in the fleet widget, thus allowing you to deploy them or not. Lastly you could simply have them deployed all the time, but if you keep them in formation with their carrier: if they aren't taking any losses, they don't remove any CR from the carrier leaving the replacements available for the ones attacking.
-snip-I like all of this - it's awesome. You really do get a sense of the power of fighters when you see 4 wings swarming around it's base ship fly out at the same time to engage a target. Really gives that swarm feeling that fighters are supposed to give.
Yes. Look at the weapon mounts a dedicated combat ship has compared to an equivalent-sized carrier. The missing mounts are roughly six per flight deck. Also think how many weapon mounts worth of weapons fighter wings have.Flight deck is worth about six small slots.Erm, what do you mean? A figher wing is worth 6 small weapon slots, that kind of thing?
While the ideas have potential, there is one possible thing they can interfere with, if fighters need their carriers on the field; that is, just simply deploying fighters and not the carrier (and watch the battle on cam feed). Back when I experimented with lone Odyssey plus lots of fighters (in post-0.6), I simply deployed only fighters in many fights because Odyssey was too expensive to deploy. Also, the AI frequently deploys fighters without a carrier on the field.That's precisely the kind of exploits that proposition is supposed to prevent. Note that the carriers would have a cheap deployment cost (equivalent to a combat ship of the same power) that would raise only when rebuilding wings, but you'd need to deploy a lot of them to swarm an enemy ship however, thus balancing the cost.
MAn I really like the idea of fighters/weapons being integrated. With a combination of some revisions you could actually control fighters via carrier attacks. Basically, a carrier would have a new set of orders, "fighter assault" or "fighter escort" or "bomber run" or "squadron assault" which would direct fighter/bomber in ITS hanger toward a certain target, but the carrier could still move and engage its other weapons independently. Fighters would no longer have individual orders, they would simply automatically engage a target, and retreat once damaged enough for repair or out of ammo. Their CR would be based on carrier CR, which makes 100% sense since what degrades a fighter wing isn't the spare chasses but a carrier's ability to maintain and deploy those chasses. After all, logically, a fighter wing should have the same CR from beginning to end of battle, 4 are destroyed, then 4 more of the same caliber, then 4 more until there are none left, at which point CR drops from 90% to 0%. But it's NOT the fighters that degrade with each deploy, its the carriers, the deck is getting fouled with flux, the ammo loaders are overheating, safety corners are cut to make room for new fighters and to take in damaged fighters, crew trip trying to manage all this under fire, haha all of which results in fighters being damaged or unmaintained AS they launch
And the great thing is, you could design an AI for the fighters, all of them, that would work well and not require any orders. Basically at the beginning of the battle fighters would spew out and surrond their "mothership" the way drones do, but unlike drones they could be assigned to long range escort or attack, then automatically retreat when damaged enough, would regenerate and then be deployable again once they were fully assembled.
And it would also have the neat effect of destroying a wing immediately by killing its mothership. Once its gone, the figthers assigned to that carrier lose command and control and just randomly engage targets individually until destroyed. You could also add command and control bonuses for fighters operating within a carrier's "vision" range.
And it just makes sense all around, fighters really shouldn't be their own units. They're so cheap and flimsey, even the tanky ones. They're more like missiles with guns attached to them. It would clear out a lot of clutter from the battlespace interface. You could even add a lifesupport time limit where fighters must return to the ship every once in a while even when not engaging because their little hulls can't survive the vaccuum of space during sustained manuever. It would be a good nerf if you buffed them by allowing them to regenerate all at once, that is to say, once a wing has been destroyed/redocked.
Mainly I think its a difference in vision; I see fighters like from star wars, where they are fully independent, powerful space ships, rather than something like MOOII or Nexus, where they are truly tiny.
I disagree with this because I very much think that fighters should be there own units and have their own orders. I frequently give out lots of orders in my fighter heavy fleets. Try it out sometime, you can do absolutely amazing things with hit/run/concentration tactics or by assigning the "correct" fighter to its target (as long as you use "Defend" to pull ships back - until the AI update in the next patch (I hope) it is the only good way to get ships to actually disengage.)
Mainly I think its a difference in vision; I see fighters like from star wars, where they are fully independent, powerful space ships, rather than something like MOOII or Nexus, where they are truly tiny.
Whoops, let me clarify! By like star wars, I wasn't even thinking of the jump drives. I was thinking about how powerful individual fighters are - they have major impacts on the course of battles. A couple of X Wings can take down frigates, while a trio of B Wing bombers can take down a Star Destroyer. When fighters are that powerful, I want to be able to give them orders.Heh, Broadswords and Daggers seem that powerful in Starsector, so that's fine. :)
While the ideas have potential, there is one possible thing they can interfere with, if fighters need their carriers on the field - simply deploying fighters and not the carrier (and watch the battle on cam feed). Back when I experimented with lone Odyssey plus lots of fighters (in post-0.6), I simply deployed only fighters in many fights because Odyssey was too expensive to deploy. Also, the AI frequently deploys fighters without a carrier on the field. Also, just deploying a wing of fighters to capture points while you pilot your big cruiser or battleship to destroy whatever you find, but leave the carrier off the field (because you only need it to make fighters immortal).
I disagree with this because I very much think that fighters should be there own units and have their own orders. I frequently give out lots of orders in my fighter heavy fleets. Try it out sometime, you can do absolutely amazing things with hit/run/concentration tactics or by assigning the "correct" fighter to its target (as long as you use "Defend" to pull ships back - until the AI update in the next patch (I hope) it is the only good way to get ships to actually disengage.)
Mainly I think its a difference in vision; I see fighters like from star wars, where they are fully independent, powerful space ships, rather than something like MOOII or Nexus, where they are truly tiny.
...Quick question - are you aware of the action groups set by selecting multiple ships and control clicking? The groups last between battles and can be used for deployment as well. They aren't very well advertised, but they make controlling fighters even easier than clicking on the carrier would be - I just hit a number key then right click on a target.
You could still have dedicated swarms moving rapidly from target to target with the carrier focused commands. Just rather than having to manage five wings you just have to click one unit, the carrier, to order the attack.
...
Whoops, let me clarify! By like star wars, I wasn't even thinking of the jump drives. I was thinking about how powerful individual fighters are - they have major impacts on the course of battles. A couple of X Wings can take down frigates, while a trio of B Wing bombers can take down a Star Destroyer. When fighters are that powerful, I want to be able to give them orders.Sorry, but that bit of the EU is virtually unsupported by the movies. When we see large-scale space battles, what are the fighters doing? Engaging other fighters and occasionally harassing capital ships. Do they do any significant damage? Only by luck (Executor was only lost at Endor to that A-Wing because it crashed into the Death Star before the crew could regain control over the ship, and moreover only lost its bridge shields after taking the combined fire of the Rebel fleet and an unknown amount of fire preceding that order, and it still took at least 12 missiles to destroy the globe atop the tower despite this appearing to be a relatively soft target on the ship; the Trade Federation "battleship" at Naboo, which is really an armed freighter rather than a battleship and is used more like a carrier, is only lost because a kid loses control over a starfighter and flies into the open hangar bay, crash-landing more or less completely operational at the rear of the hangar bay after following a path around roughly a third of a circle, fires a torpedo and misses the intended target but instead hits something important that makes the ship blow up, after the movie clearly demonstrated that the Naboo fighters are otherwise incapable of harming the ship).
If all wings attached to a carrier must have the same orders, what happens when I have both fighters and bombers on the same carrier but only want to use one type? Do I just deal with it and operate wastefully? Do I have to attach different fighter types to different carriers to have anything resembling optimal play? That is A) boring and B) hugely limiting, especially for larger carriers.Just because they're attached to the carrier doesn't mean you can't give them orders - if you looked at the fleet screen mockup Tartflette had, it showed the fighters at still part of the visible fleet.
In Star Wars, it might be different, but in real life, the aircraft carrier (and it's superseding variants of Super Carriers) have become the dominant naval force around the globe. Battleships are virtually non-existant, and I'm pertty sure that none exist that are actually being used by a navy for possible combat. It's just that fighters these days can pack so much firepower in a single missile or cannon that makes so powerful. When humanity enters space (and inevitably starts fighting there), I doubt this order of battle will change very much. But, that's not Star Wars, so yea.Real-world carriers became dominant because they could deliver a comparable punch at much greater range than battleships. This is not an advantage that they retain; ship-launched missiles can deliver similarly powerful warheads at similarly great ranges to carrier-borne fighters. Carriers are no more guaranteed to be the dominant capital ship of the next major war than battleships were guaranteed to be the dominant capital ship of WWII when looking to the future from the interwar period.
Yea, I noticed the quality of the mockups - was pretty surprised as well.
...
(I don't know about the carrier not costing anything to deploy, that seems problematic since some carriers are pretty decent combat ships, especially if they could be fielded in large numbers. Even something as simple as the Condor, it'd be weird if it was a cheaper way to get LRMs on the field than, say, a Vigilance. And then there's stuff like the Odyssey and the Venture.)
Well, something to think about, definitely.
As for the whole "fighters as weapons of carriers," I'm at best ambivalent. I don't like the part about replacing lost fighters degrades the carrier's combat readiness, nor do I like the idea that I'd lose the ability to give orders to individual flights of fighters (implied by the fact that they're to be treated as weapons rather than as separate entities).
If all wings attached to a carrier must have the same orders, what happens when I have both fighters and bombers on the same carrier but only want to use one type? Do I just deal with it and operate wastefully? Do I have to attach different fighter types to different carriers to have anything resembling optimal play? That is A) boring and B) hugely limiting, especially for larger carriers.I repeat, in battle the fighters would still behave as they do: you can deploy them or not and you can give them orders. The difference is that they can only be rebuilt and serviced by the carrier they are part of, and deployed if that ship is in the field. They are still independent entities, not drones! My reply about having them attacking the carrier's target is because it's how they currently behave in the game IF you assign them an escort order. (I'll edit the OP to precise that)
I've been thinking about redoing it - eventually, not now! - along similar lines (which involved installing hullmods instead, but this feels better). But, as has been pointed out here, the system currently in place *works*, so ripping it out is pretty low priority, and some might say counter-productive at this point.My first draft was using hullmods too, but then they would have no cost and could be switched in hyper at will. And I completely agree that the current system works, I just felt that since you are probably wrapping up the 0.7a update, now is the best time to suggest things for the next one before you settle on its content! ;D
I probably shouldn't have said "anything", but the OP does suggest carriers be cheap to deploy. Which should probably be taken to mean "cost as much to deploy as they would if they were the same ship sans flight decks", which would pretty much obviate my concerns.Exactly my thinking.
[...]Note that the carriers would have a cheap deployment cost (equivalent to a combat ship of the same power) that would raise only when rebuilding wings, but you'd need to deploy a lot of them to swarm an enemy ship however, thus balancing the cost.
I wasn't surprised :)Hehe, thanks ^^ I believe a good mock-up is the best way to sell an idea... And even more importantly the best way to eliminate the bad ones! Because even a great idea on paper can be an horror for the UI thus useless.
Yeah I know, was responding to Unfolder. (Sorry, should have disambiguated that...)As for the whole "fighters as weapons of carriers," I'm at best ambivalent. I don't like the part about replacing lost fighters degrades the carrier's combat readiness, nor do I like the idea that I'd lose the ability to give orders to individual flights of fighters (implied by the fact that they're to be treated as weapons rather than as separate entities).If all wings attached to a carrier must have the same orders, what happens when I have both fighters and bombers on the same carrier but only want to use one type? Do I just deal with it and operate wastefully? Do I have to attach different fighter types to different carriers to have anything resembling optimal play? That is A) boring and B) hugely limiting, especially for larger carriers.I repeat, in battle the fighters would still behave as they do: you can deploy them or not and you can give them orders. The difference is that they can only be rebuilt and serviced by the carrier they are part of, and deployed if that ship is in the field. They are still independent entities, not drones! My reply about having them attacking the carrier's target is because it's how they currently behave in the game IF you assign them an escort order. (I'll edit the OP to precise that)
Furthermore, as long as we're talking about reality, the assumption that the dominance of naval aircraft carriers naturally implies the dominance of spacegoing carriers is flawed. Space is not the ocean; starfighters and starships operate under the same environmental constraints, whereas seagoing ships and aircraft do not. Real starfighters are more likely to be to space battleships what PT boats or MTBs are to battleships (or perhaps what fighter aircraft are to heavy bombers) than what fighter aircraft are to battleships, which would put spacefaring carriers into the same position as the MTB tender, and unless I'm mistaken the MTB tender has never been a dominant capital ship of any first-class naval power (granted, there have been proponents of the torpedo boat or similar vessels as the mainstay of the navy, but such has never really caught on with any of the dominant naval powers, nor have such navies typically successfully toppled a dominant naval power without first getting a battle fleet comparable to that of the dominant naval power they fought).Yep, if we take realism into account, it is unlikely that the space fighters would be useful. Even we don't
Or maybe it will be quite the opposite! There is no such thing as stealth in space, crew are squishy and take a awful lot of space, heat dissipation is a nightmare, so maybe ALL combat ships will be fighter sized drones: they would be expendable, cheap, and far more mass-produceable (I'm talking about a swarm of several thousands units here, for probably the same cost as a handful of crewed space-battleships).
Or maybe it will be quite the opposite! There is no such thing as stealth in space, crew are squishy and take a awful lot of space, heat dissipation is a nightmare, so maybe ALL combat ships will be fighter sized drones: they would be expendable, cheap, and far more mass-produceable (I'm talking about a swarm of several thousands units here, for probably the same cost as a handful of crewed space-battleships).Nah make it several millions. Drones are never enough. XD
Talking about star wars, in RoTJ rebel command orders to keep enemy fighters away from capital ships. This means that they must have been a reasonable threat to them.The Rebel fleet contains a significant number of relatively light warships, at least judging from the size of the ships. It also contains at least a couple of ships which at least appear to be of the same class as the transports used during the evacuation of Hoth, suggesting that not all of the Rebel ships present at Endor would be frontline combatants if the Rebellion had the resources to field something else. I also note that we don't actually see any TIE Fighters, TIE Bombers, or TIE Interceptors firing on anything bigger than the Millenium Falcon in the entire battle sequence, despite the comment that there are "too many" Imperial fighters in the view of at least one Rebel fighter pilot, suggesting that at least some fighters should be available to make attacks against the large warships (nor, for that matter, do I recall seeing any TIE Bombers in the engagement, which from the name might be expected to be used against heavy ships, especially since they're clearly not designed for atmospheric use, despite there supposedly being something like a dozen of them per Star Destroyer and the TIE Fighter and TIE Interceptor armaments being exclusively fighter-grade laser cannons, as far as is demonstrated in the movies). The only dialogue indicative of attacks against large Rebel warships are that comment about drawing fire away from the cruisers and a later comment about fighters heading for the medical frigate; under the assumption that ship classes (destroyer, frigate, cruiser, etc) follow roughly modern naval patterns, a frigate is a rather light vessel and could therefore be expected to be relatively vulnerable to the light weapons carried by Imperial fighters.
This means, among other things, that a Carrier mounting two Wings with wildly-different FP values, say like Talons and Tridents, might run out of FighterReplacements due to fast Talon losses, even though relatively-few Tridents have been built or lost.I don't see why the replacement fighter pool for Talons should be shared with Tridents. They're very different fighters from very different eras; it's not terribly unlikely that these two fighter types share very few common parts, so if the carrier is assembling them (which is an explanation I've always found ridiculous, but whatever) you'd need to go to the even more silly extreme of assembling from raw materials rather than prefabricated parts in order to justify it. Running out of replacement crews, perhaps (though standard military practice would suggest that the crews for the Tridents and the pilots for the Talons are two different groups of people), but not replacement fighters.
I'm not in favor of having three size slots; I think that would just make it more complicated without adding much gameplay value. At best, it'd differentiate between Wing sizes spawned or the amount of respawns; neither thing would give enough benefit.
But dealing with this issue in a way that's both half-plausible and balanced? Kind of hard.I think a simple solution would be this - flight control. With all of your fighters deployed and roaming about, the "control tower" (much like the control tower on an Earth-based carrier) cannot keep track of and direct all the fighter wings with any amount of efficiency. They still have to be controlled by flight directors, as far as I can tell. So the limiting factor is the "control tower" on the ship - larger control tower with better tech means you can direct more wings at once. Seems reasonable.
The best excuse we've got is that you can't fly more fighters than you have crew to control them from a distance. So perhaps the issue is that you need some sort of FTL teleoperator rig, and transceiver is big and bulky and delicate. So that's why a giant carrier like the Astral has such a small effective complement. OK, that explains away that part in a reasonably-plausible way (and pilot deaths are, idk, "feedback trauma" or some Sci Fi chestnut like that).
@Gothars:
I presumed that launchers would use OPs. I'm just not sure that size classes would add much. Single-fighter Wings? IDK.
in before change log
#fighters eliminated
(laffo)
That is an elegant solution - minimal dev effort and definitively takes care of all the issues. Fighters are responsible for a lot of the complexity in the code, too. Hmm.
That is an elegant solution - minimal dev effort and definitively takes care of all the issues. Fighters are responsible for a lot of the complexity in the code, too. Hmm.We really should have started the thread closer to April 1.
"Onslaught replaced with a clown car."
OP Fighter/Drone
10 Broadsword
8 Dagger
11 Gladius
11 Longbow
6 Mining Pod
7 Piranha
7 Talon
10 Thunder
13 Trident
10 Warthog
7 Wasp
15 Xyphos
7 Borer
8 PD (mg)
10 PD (laser)
11 Assault (not used anywhere currently afaik)
20 Terminator
11 SensorAnd I don't want to see Terminator drones swarming out of an Astral, too.I do! That sounds awesome!
Honestly I do, too, but the balance reason... I mean... the most practical way to destroy a Terminator drone is destroying its mothership...you know...And I don't want to see Terminator drones swarming out of an Astral, too.I do! That sounds awesome!
Ah, well, If flighers are carrier's weapons, I can think of two ideas.
First, if a carrier dies, all the fighters die with it. If it retreats, same deal.
Or
Fighters don't last long without a carrier. With a carrier, they have to dock to replenish their CR, going back to 100% (or matching the carrier, w.e)
They probably get at most 2 minutes of time for the hardiest, at most 1 minute for really high tech ones. Then they start to degrade and will consider going to the carrier. If a fighter is near it's host carrier, Combat readiness doesn't degrade/degrades slower.
If the carrier dies, all it's fighters immediately start to degrade, and at 2-3x the normal rate. Once they drop to 0%, they self destruct.
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First case, If you kill the carrier, the fighters die. It also cannot retreat and leave it's fighters.
Second case, similar, but delayed. The fighters will rapidly start to lose effectiveness and eventually explode. The carrier may also need to be closer to the front lines to keep topping the fighters up as they expend ammo and CR.
Drones, like the terminator drone, would only have that 60 seconds, or possibly 20-30 seconds. Hence, it has to stay near the carrier, otherwise it will rapidly fall apart. Without the carrier, same deal. Some of the lower tech but sturdier fighters might get 2-3 minutes, but it is unlikely.
If a carrier dies it cannot repair/refit its fighters - they'll get destroyed soon enough. Or they could retreat and be picked up as cargo by the rest of the fleet afterwards.
The fighter system that we have right now is not broken and works reasonably well. Why exactly are we trying to 'fix' it?
Early in development, fighters were launched from carriers (being weapons, in a sense), but it became clear this limited fighters to being used only in battles that directly involved carriers, and that just wouldn’t do.
I don't like this, to be honest - whats the benefit? If a carrier dies it cannot repair/refit its fighters - they'll get destroyed soon enough. Or they could retreat and be picked up as cargo by the rest of the fleet afterwards.Realism/lore wise, It would be something along the lines of the Fighters being remotely controled.
I just wish fighters behaved more like they do "in real life" naval engagements, particularly WW2 naval engagements (the one and only sustained carrier warfare historically) Right now, fighters are basically just tiny somewhat fast tanky/dodgy frigates. It's okay I guess, but it's kinda boring.I agree. Admittedly, they are more dodgy frigates than tanky, seeing even fragmentation damage is able to deal with them without too much issue.
1. Fighters could be faster, twice as fast, at least in terms of "fast traveling" from one side of the battlefield to the other, they slow down once they engage their opponent for "maneuver." Or you could have very fast fighters, like the thunder, that don't slow down but "strafe" their opponent while just flying straight through their AA defense, then circling round to strafe again, maybe hitting the enemies rear before it has a chance to pivot. Maybe these fighters have a chance to hit "behind" shields, kind of like the Exigency cannons from mods. This would be the equivalent of the fighters attacking in three dimensiosn rather than two, basically being able to strike at the inefficient "poles" of the shieldIt should be possible to alter fighters to get a higher boost from zero-flux. The skill that gives the player's ship the zero-flux bonus at 10% (or something) and +25 speed, could be set to apply to fighters. Might require a skill for that to work, but might be possible as innate. Not really sure how it is implemented.
2. Fighters could ignore zone of control behavior and just fly straight through enemy formations with no regard for self peservation, would be particularly useful for suicide bombing capital ships with a few wings of torpedo bombers, particularly enemy carriers.Thats another AI suggestion, admittedly. It depends on whether or not the fighters are cheaply replaceable, which, admittedly, they currently are and would still be with the general proposed changes in this thread.
3. Fighters could be regenerated in batches, rather than one at a time, to maximize their effectiveness and minimize the AI weirdness trying to "average together" fighter wings on opposite sides of the map. After a minute or whatever, the fighters return (or failing to return, die) the new batch is released immediately with CR penalties based on how many made it back.You mean, they all dock together to repair and rearm, and all fighters in a wing can fit into a single deck. Then, they all launch after they finish at the same time (plus a short delay, .5 sec or so for dramatics/whatever)
4. Fighters in general more weakly armored and armed, but faster and in aggregate more quick to regenerate. Rather than being a concrete unit fighters would behave more asMaking them less durable but faster/more manuverable would make beam weapons more effective and projectiles less effective, Hence forcing some rebalance.
an "area effect" that continuously harasses their target. OR, for torpedo bombers, you could have them still be tanky and slow, but they attack in a giant wing, like of six to ten, that is the equivalent of an all or nothing gamble of the carriers resources to destroy the other enemies capital ship, used once it is engaged. This "weapon" can only be used once per battle or maybe once every five minutes in sustained engagements. This is definitely how torpedo bombers were used "in real life" - 2-4 or even 6-8 were pretty useless since half would miss and the other half would get flaked to death. But 20! Or 200! One will get through and win the whole battle.
5. The fact that fighters have their own CR is weird and I imagine a gigantic programming headache. Just make it derivative of carrier CR. Of all my suggestions I'm pretty sure this one will be in the final version. ;DWell, the main thing is that all manifested ships, including fighters have a CR. I have no idea if fighter wings share the CR or not, but they probably do.