Even better if fighters became ships again so carriers can spend OP on guns and warship hullmods like they used to. I am tired of the optimal carrier being the unarmed one that runs from everything while elite fighters do everything. Also, commanding fighters to do stuff if player wanted.
Yep. That's one popular community suggestion that I have not seen bring any improvement to the game. May be pointless to argue against it now, but the game is worse off than it was before the change was introduced both concerning balance and combat depth.
I really wanna talk about this. I always knew some preferred the old fighter system but I thought those people were rare. Because personally I think the new system is miles better than the old one. I'm not gonna spend time convicing you since Alex already wrote a blog post about that. What I want to discuss is how some things remained the same after the rework and how it might be improved to reduce the ''spend all OPs on fighters and leave mounts empty'' problem I and a few others clearly don't like.
First, the goal of the fighter rework, among others, was to make the fighters feel more useful and stronger (well that's clearly achieved). But the problem I have is them having the exact same weapons as the ships many times bigger than them. This obviously has balance issues where it's hard to nerf/buff one without messing up the other but also having the same weapon being limited on one platform, but then absolutely unlimited on the other. Yea I know there's a thread for that, I'm just stating there could be a way to solve that logical obstacle. High delay type weapons of existing ones is a good start, more fighter weapons should be ''this weapon but weaker''.
Second thing, the OP going all into one basket. I reread the blog post just to get into the mindset of Alex again and there seems to be something that's bothering me. Originally, you have a decision on carriers between having almost free fighters with weaponry, and being virtually naked but with mean little bastards around. The base cost should've been 0 OP, but since Talon was obviously worth more it was buffed to 2 OP so I'm gonna use that as a baseline (it's hard to count Mining pods into this, having 0 enagement range and all that). So the caveat is, you should theoretically end up with same relative strength using both ''playstyles''. Now try having a Mora with nothing but Talons. Sure they still end up doing something and you have more room for weapons, but the difference between 3 wings of them and 3 wings of anything decent is astronomical. That's one less filled small mount on a Mora having the impact of a 4 times stronger fighter wing. You could do the same with Mining pods just to prove my point. Same with Drover, no point in having cheap fighters (I know that's a whole other can of worms). Sadly there's no 0 OP bombers or close so you can't really test Astral or Heron with those but I'm sure you would end with same differences in power.
And the last thing that's making the current meta annoying: AI
The cursed state of limbo where they just have to keep smacking fighters at 0 speed over and over again almost as they have been punished by the gods. I know going Leeroy Jenkins into a carrier immediately isn't a solution but this part is what makes fighters ultra annoying to deal with. I don't know how AI should exactly react in each situation so probably someone smarter than me has an idea.
As for those who swear by the old system I say, take off your nostalgia glasses. I completely agree that there was more depth because of the extra commands but as the whole package, the current system beats it out of the water. I just can't see it coming again because of the numerous problems already addressed by the Big Kahuna himself.
Short version: Make fighter less stronk, carrier great holy machines of war again
EDIT: Another great example of a weapon that shouldn't be the same on a fighter >> Xyphos
