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[Cik]

in this thread i will give what i hope is a well-reasoned brief on the state of fighters in the new patch, what works and what doesn't, etc.



fighter roles:

what should a fighter be able to do? it's a wide question but at least for me, fighters generally fill three roles:

-fighters are a fast pursuit role. in numbers, they should be able to gang-up and swarm on fast frigates that play the edges of the battle.

-interceptors: fighters need the staying power, speed and sensors to break up enemy fighter and bomber groups to protect larger ships from the effect of these craft

-close escort: fighters can run a close escort of friendly ships and act as extra damage or lend their PD against missile threats.

all three of these appear in the game of course, however they are only marginally effective in 2 of the three (pursuit, escort) at the moment due to recent changes.

to achieve this, fighters require three things:

tactical speed. remember that you are limiting your fleet's burn quite a bit just by using them at all, considering you need a burn 9 carrier (or well, several) to deploy them. tactically, most of them should be faster than anything else. fluffwise, they have no FTL engine, so ton-for-ton they should have the largest percentage of weight dedicated to raw engine output.

survivability: they need to have a chance of closing to close range to use their weapons, either by raw armor or by evasion.

weapons: once they get there, they need to be able to destroy or otherwise incapacitate a frigate or destroyer. strike bombers of course can destroy larger craft.

a note on standoff:

currently there are no fighters built for standoff; all of them (including the strike bombers, even) are built for what is essentially an assault role. they close, they shoot, they get damaged, they rearm, repeat. i would like to see some fighters built that are built around spinal guns and are long-range harassment, which at least would resolve the problem of them getting slaughtered by anything with a few vulcan cannons to knock together. obviously, these would be vulnerable to interception, relatively slow, etc.

IMO, fighters should fit into 3 categories

fighters: fast, agile space superiority fighters that can quickly intercept and chew up harassers, bombers, and other fighters. almost all current vanilla wings fit this category.

harassment: built around spinal guns, hover at long range and provide difficult-to-hit supporting fire. vulnerable to long range return fire and interceptors. no examples ingame.

strike bombers: built for runs on slow, nigh-immobile targets like dominator/onslaught. piranhas and daggers are the only ones currently in the game.




first, i will go over the positives:

-fighters are 'immortal' though you do lose crew this is usually inconsequential. the fact that even after a battle with 'heavy casualties' you lose almost nothing as long as you don't lose all of your carriers is a large advantage.

-IMO, they look very cool. massed dagger runs and the mingling of lines at the front of the combat look really neat.

now, the pitfalls

-fighters often spend 70% of their time travelling from the carrier (where they were respawning) to the combat and then immediately dying again once they get there, making their presence in combat very tenuous.

-fighters have exclusively short range weapons (the longest, i believe being the xyphos pulse laser, which has 600 range)

-fighters are rather flimsy, with few exceptions

-fighter damage is relatively low, for a number of reasons, excluding daggers of course

now, all of this was true in .65 as well, however the new patch has added a new brand of gruesome attrition to fighters in particular, and this can be narrowed down really to the addition of officers, whose stat buffs even when at a sub-20 level is incredibly powerful. I'll go over that here.

officer stat buffs, or how nearly every ship in the game got enormously more powerful, except fighters, many times in ways that directly counter fighters:

weapon preprioception: or how weapon ranges got much higher, and weapons got much more accurate:

this one is probably the one that had the most impact. officers with gunnery implants are not uncommon, and gunnery implants drastically increases range and accuracy of even long range, relatively inaccurate guns. fighters commonly die to heavy maulers, the space equivalent of a 16-inch gun. the hail of (relatively accurate) long-range fire that comes out of a single line destroyer/cruiser is a problem, let alone a line of them. to have ANY effect on your average line battle you must really swarm, and the attrition rates are usually truly horrific.

helmsmanship: or how things fighters could barely catch in the first place are now far, far faster:

another issue. as i pointed out above, fighters are bound to pursue because of their short range weapons, unfortunately this is no longer possible against most frigates with helmsmanship. fighters fill a natural role of fast pursuit, especially necessary against graviton/tactical laser kite frigates. unfortunately, they are incredibly vulnerable to the lasers of the things they are supposed to be able to catch, and also cannot really catch them either. this leaves beam-kite frigates (and even some destroyers) almost uncounterable; if you cannot catch them with anything you have, your fighters will not be of any help.

ordinance expertise: or how everything got far more lethal, except fighters

not much to say here, even xyphos get slaughtered by nonspecialized damage now. raw damage output on a large number of enemy ships is far, far higher.



besides officers, there are a few other problems:

flight decks or: this really wasn't a problem, but now it is

the number of flight decks on your average carrier was not really a problem in .65x because fighters were far more effective, however the new patch brings a new battlefield, brimming with large numbers of ships with large stat bonuses. in order for fighters to work in this new battlespace, incredible numbers of fighters are needed; where before i needed maybe 1 deck for every three wings, casualties are much higher and come much faster now. getting 1 deck/1 wing is the ideal, however 1 deck is the norm for destroyer, and 2 for cruiser. in order to actually kill a destroyer, i'd need far more than 1 wing, and for a cruiser, especially a line cruiser, 4-8. it's obvious then that trying even to reach 1deck/2wings is probably a losing battle, considering each time you face another destroyer or cruiser you will need more ships than the enemy will to field enough decks to reliably engage them. you can of course choose to deploy a lower number of decks, however that means that probably within 30 seconds of the combat really beginning you will have lost as many fighter wings as you don't have flight decks for, meaning you're probably just wasting CR and fleetspace fielding them.

fighters do not dodge enough: they make some small lateral movements, but nothing like what they need to evade the long-range fire currently on the field. they need to dodge more, or have a dodge% chance added. even high-tech fighters are no longer survivable, even past their own guns range. fighters who are not even engaged with the enemy frequently die to random artillery fire from passing ships.

fighters miss too much: even at relatively close range they do not adjust for their momentum correctly. in older versions, this was not a problem as they had some hope of surviving when in the proximity of enemy ships, and you could count on a swarm of them to kill things. since that is no longer a thing, they really need a buff to their aiming (note: this is when they have an elite crew)


specific fighters, specific problems:

thunders: release harpoons into shields pointlessly. as far as i remember, this is a new behavior: one of the reasons they were so dangerous in .65x was that they would hold their harpoons until they were on the unshielded flank or the enemy was overloaded, then fire them all as a group, usually achieving a kill. now they fire harmlessly into shields at max range, significantly reducing their effectiveness.

piranhas: these might have once been effective in like .5x or something: these things have gotten worse and worse, and are now almost unusable. the combination of slow advance in straight line, relatively low yield bombs, the fact that it can't hit anything it's supposed to (even dominators just burn drive out of the way!) incredibly weak to being shot, general slowness, etc make them UNUSABLE. please make these things "launch and leave" or up their speed, or the bomb yield, or SOMETHING!

daggers: still the best strike bomber, not that there's any competition. they seem reticent sometimes to fire their reapers, even when they have a good shot. i think you should up the range they fire at on average, as they for some reason will fly directly into the target and get wasted when they don't have to.

alright, now that the list of complaints is over (finally) i can move onto the solutions. solutions you say? sure.

officer problems: someone suggested this in my other thread, add a new officer type, the CAG, who can attach to fighters and adds a strong, but singular and unique bonus.

some of the ones i can think of

-dodge: adds a dodge chance
-sharpshooter: adds a large range bonus
-turnaround: adds a huge bonus to refit time
-hot dog: speed bonus

these are just examples really, but it makes sense that fighters would have officers too, and that they should be relatively unique (as just applying the regular officer bonuses doesn't really make sense and wouldn't help them that much anyway due to percentages working like they do)

flight decks: CAGs may in part resolve this, however i think the solution to this problem is just to buff flight deck numbers across the board. destroyer should be 2, heron should be 3 or 4, astral (which is supposed to be a supercarrier, but only has 6 decks, that is not nearly enough to justify the cost in supplies, lowering your burn, etc.) should probably have 10. maybe more.

speed and survivability: speed really is life for fighters, so a across-the-board speed buff isn't out of the question, besides that though, they need to weave and evade more. getting hit by long-range artillery guns like heavy maulers probably should not be common.

aim: i assume it would be easy to buff their accuracy. the AI seems to adjust really well already for momentum, as long as it's told to.

other solutions are of course welcome.

discuss.

[Clockwork Owl]

They definately need more speed. Even a Medusa can keep up with some wings(aside from Xyphos).

The fighter wings' strength comes from its semi-immortality and number. Don't expect a single wing to perform as good as anything above frigates. Look at their supplies/month rate - most wing has less than 1. Bring a mass of them since it won't cost much, and do fighter spam.
A player I know field 36 Wasp wings(Yeah, I know, crazy) with 2 Astrals, and they simply murder even an Onslaught(without Astrals participating). Profitability can be improved drastically  if he is willing to switch his carriers to something more economic.
You do have to extend the fleet limits tho.

Edit: presumable wrong numbers. Calculation removed.

[Cik]

that isn't really indicative of their strength, though. sure, you can exploit the fact that no one will ever build a fleet to deal with 36 fighter wings, but that doesn't mean fighters are strong, it just means that anything massed up to exploit the enemy not building a hard counter is strong.

ideally, fielding a small contingent of fighters should be reasonably effective. a fleet with a single carrier + attendant wings should have an effect on the battle. right now they just get slaughtered without really achieving anything.

[Clockwork Owl]

Well, kinda carried off a bit. Sorry. The point was that you should consider maintainance cost when evaluating strength - cost-effectiveness? Or something.

Are 3 wasp wings capable of fighting on par with a Wolf? Maaaybe, maybe not. Definately not versus player or skilled officer, but cannot be sure with AI pilots.

Should they have similar strength-cost ratio with non-fighters?
They have semi-immortality, but it is countered by the fact that they are extremely fragile, so they kinda cancel out. And you have to have a carrier to bring them to full effectiveness. So put carrier maintainance cost in consideration.
Conclusion: No. They should be MORE STRONGER than ships with same maintainance costs. Being a glass cannon is fine, but if thatcis the case, they have to have a deadly cannon.

Daggers are fine IMO. The rest? I don't know. Aside from Daggers, no fighter wings are like "Oh, the enemy has [insert number here] wings of [insert fighter here]. Better fight careful or I might get whacked."

[Cik]

ah, gotcha.

the OP sort of points this out, but you're right about semi-immortality while technically they're immortal, the real measure of whether they're worth it is whether they're actually effecting the field the majority of the time. the answer, at least in large battles is not really. they spend alot of time (probably a majority) getting blasted (and thus, ineffective considering once they get hit they basically stop shooting) or respawning/traveling back to the battle.

agreed on daggers, they're competent strike platforms. they're the only strike platform i use and they work pretty well, as long as you can field 3+ wings of them you can reliably knock out anything that's standing still, through the heaviest armor.

edit: the thing i think that makes daggers workable, besides that they fire reaper torpedoes, the most deadly weapon in the game is that they don't need to stick around. with a gladius or broadsword wing, it needs to hover in the battlespace for 45 seconds to achieve anything, whereas daggers come in, 3 seconds later open fire, and then leave. even if they die as long as they fire the torpedoes you're good.

[Thaago]

@Cik: Agreed on all points. Thanks for a thorough writeup!

Fighter behavior right now reminds me of terrible players in first person shooters: die, respawn, run straight back to their deaths without regrouping. Assigning them as escorts really helps a lot of problems: the enemy ships will usually be shooting at the real ship, rather than the fighters, or at least the fire will be split. Of course, they can't escort anything smaller than a cruiser because they can't keep up.

After playing more of this version, here is my summary: Daggers are the only dangerous fighters, Thunders are adequate flankers, and Broadswords are adequate escorts. Gladii are marginal, only occasionally being useful due to the ir pulse having a decent range. Everything else is just clogging up flight decks.

[Clockwork Owl]

Fighter wing lacks staying power(not considering carrier respawn here) against a warship(frigates or above).

Their hull and armor stats are...as we all know, poor. Few withstand more than 3 seconds(or a burst) of anything fired from a medium-sized weapon.

Maneuverbility doesn't matter much when they are shieldless - there are beam PDs, flak cannon that fires rounds with VT fuse, and such. If they have shields, however, their tiny flux pool overload almost immediately once they recieve incoming fire.

So it is quite clear that if a fighter(or bomber) has anti-ship weapon, it should be something that deals burst damage. Dagger is fine because of that. They cannot stand long near enemy ships, but they don't have to.



IMO it is behavior problem. Most wings are fine as-is - the problems are that they try to fight with enemy ships when they lack ability to do so, and that there are not many kinds of bombers.

Wings should be categorized like this:
*Bomber
Slowest and toughest among the wings, but still faster than most frigates. Armed with anti-ship burst-damage weapons - Reaper, Atrophos, single-shot AM blaster(for anti-frigate) and such. Has no secondary weapon, or single PD weapon for self-protection. Wing size is 2~3. Primary targets for autofire PD weapons. Will try to attack adequate targets.
*Interceptor
Fastest and most fragile among the wings. Armed with 1~2 PD weapon. Wing size is 4~6, enough to create effective PD screen. Will behave as if "Avoid" command is issued on all enemy ships.
*Fighter
Medium durability. Slower than interceptors, but able to keep up with bombers to escort them. Armed with small non-PD weapons, occasionally with anti-fighter weapons such as swarmer missiles. Like interceptors, will avoid engaging with enemy ships. Capable of winning interceptors on wing-to-wing engagement.

[Megas]

The only fighters I fear are Daggers and Thunders.  Gladius and Warthogs can bite kind of hard if ignored for too long, though.

I use mostly Thunders.  Sometimes Xyphos (they tank somewhat) and Daggers (they hurt) too.  With 25 ship limit, I use very few fighters.  No cargo space and no officers, fighters are not very useful.  I already use ten ships for officers, three or four more for flagships (big ship is no good in pursuit), one or two for freighters, and one tug if I use a capital; not much room left for fighters or empty spaces for new ships.

[Cik]

warthogs are really cool, as they are space A-10, however the battle is usually over before they reach midfield, and most cruisers are faster.

actually, fighters with LAGs is a really underused niche. the armor damage is actually pretty dangerous to smaller targets.

but yeah, no arguments.

[Megas]

I mentioned Warthogs mainly as an enemy.  I have blundered into a Warthog wing a few times, and they hurt if I do not escape or eliminate them quickly.

They are too slow to be practical for the player.  As an enemy to a player that tries to kite and solo fleets, Warthogs are threatening enough that they should be dealt with before they become a problem.

[Cik]

well, once you get most of the wing they'll rarely become a problem again. their time-on-target is measured in geological eras.

[FooF]

My 2 cents:

I don't recall who made the suggestion but I'm more for it now: make fighters the "weapons" of ships with flight decks, or at least "attach" them somehow. Fighter wings without carriers are as good as dead anyway so buying them without flight decks in your fleet is just a waste of credits. Couple of reasons to do this:

1.) By attaching them to a carrier of some sort, the fighters would gain the benefit of the officer's skills. Now, there is a conflict of interest here. For the fighters, I want them to be fast, tough, aggressive, etc. but for the carrier itself, I want it to stay off at a distance (cautious/timid personality) and might want flux stats and range (that a fighter might not get great use of). However, as carriers and their fighter escort get higher officer ratings, the fighters themselves scale with the rest of the fleet and with enemies.

2.) If the "attach fighters to carriers" mechanic were implemented, I would simply get rid of flight decks and have "max wings" that a particular carrier could support. A Gemini might only support one wing but a Condor (a dedicated carrier) might support 3. A Heron or Odyssey might support 5 while and Astral could support as many as 10. However, these wings of fighters only count against the individual carrier's cap, not the fleet cap of 25. I think this would resolve a lot of the complaints against an arbitrary cap.

3.) The downside to this is that the fighters attached to a carrier, should the carrier go down, would ultimately be lost. Whenever you bring that Condor into a fight, you risk losing those 3 Dagger wings. Now, they'd probably be lost anyway if the Condor went down but if you had redundancy built-in, you could keep them without much risk. With this new system, wings are slaved to the carriers so that would be a difference. What would stay the same, as I foresee it, is that the fighters themselves would be semi-immortal as long as the carrier stays alive. You don't lose weapons if your frigate gets nearly destroyed so it would stand to reason that the carrier's "weapons" wouldn't be lost either.

Fighters themselves could still use some buffs but I think speed could be addressed a little differently. I think they should have some sort of 0-flux bonus (didn't they have it before?) that gets them to/from their base of operations faster. This would give them closing speed, which is much needed for chasing down fast frigates. Once they engage, they slow down to current speeds, otherwise they'd be too nimble. The amount of the flux-boost/afterburner might depend on the role they're in. Interceptors might have huge bonuses while strike bombers are much more modest. I'd also be in favor for interceptors and fighters (not bombers) having some sort of maneuvering jets system that can be activated every 4-5 seconds, allowing them to dodge a few attacks.

Weapons-wise, the complaints of having little range are valid but fighters, IMO, can't have too long of range or they'd just endlessly kite. It would be death by a thousand paper cuts. It already is, in many cases. More variety in weapons could be added and perhaps fighters would have a range penalty (like 80% of normal) so that an equally-armed frigate would still always have a range advantage over a fighter. After-all, fighters are naturally smaller and more fragile weapon platforms: they're not supposed to have huge guns (unless they only have 1!). With Officers and Gunnery Implants, you could increase range by 25%.

[Cik]

2.) If the "attach fighters to carriers" mechanic were implemented, I would simply get rid of flight decks and have "max wings" that a particular carrier could support. A Gemini might only support one wing but a Condor (a dedicated carrier) might support 3. A Heron or Odyssey might support 5 while and Astral could support as many as 10. However, these wings of fighters only count against the individual carrier's cap, not the fleet cap of 25. I think this would resolve a lot of the complaints against an arbitrary cap.

well, flight decks is effectively max wings in the current patch, because any "undecked" wing will quickly die. as long as you actually buff the number that carriers support it's a change i would support. ultimately, deckspace matters, how you organize the fleet doesn't really matter unless you implement a formation/fighter group system.

3.) The downside to this is that the fighters attached to a carrier, should the carrier go down, would ultimately be lost. Whenever you bring that Condor into a fight, you risk losing those 3 Dagger wings. Now, they'd probably be lost anyway if the Condor went down but if you had redundancy built-in, you could keep them without much risk. With this new system, wings are slaved to the carriers so that would be a difference. What would stay the same, as I foresee it, is that the fighters themselves would be semi-immortal as long as the carrier stays alive. You don't lose weapons if your frigate gets nearly destroyed so it would stand to reason that the carrier's "weapons" wouldn't be lost either.

not against this either, though in the long run i don't think it effects carriers that much; they rarely die unless you lose the whole fleet, and arguably losing prize cruisers and capitals is far more hurtful than losing carriers, which are pretty easy to replace.

Fighters themselves could still use some buffs but I think speed could be addressed a little differently. I think they should have some sort of 0-flux bonus (didn't they have it before?) that gets them to/from their base of operations faster. This would give them closing speed, which is much needed for chasing down fast frigates. Once they engage, they slow down to current speeds, otherwise they'd be too nimble. The amount of the flux-boost/afterburner might depend on the role they're in. Interceptors might have huge bonuses while strike bombers are much more modest. I'd also be in favor for interceptors and fighters (not bombers) having some sort of maneuvering jets system that can be activated every 4-5 seconds, allowing them to dodge a few attacks.

zero-flux boost is not a bad idea, as long as it's bigger than normal. some wings are so slow that they would still be slower than an officer'd frigate even after zero-flux. fighter systems aren't a bad idea, either. they definitely need SOMETHING to be able to dodge. a modified maneuvering jets (like burst jets from BRDY) may be just the thing.

Weapons-wise, the complaints of having little range are valid but fighters, IMO, can't have too long of range or they'd just endlessly kite. It would be death by a thousand paper cuts. It already is, in many cases. More variety in weapons could be added and perhaps fighters would have a range penalty (like 80% of normal) so that an equally-armed frigate would still always have a range advantage over a fighter. After-all, fighters are naturally smaller and more fragile weapon platforms: they're not supposed to have huge guns (unless they only have 1!). With Officers and Gunnery Implants, you could increase range by 25%.

endless kiting from fighters has never been a problem and even with the theoretical addition of threatening standoff platforms wouldn't be either. just send interceptors to kill them; alternatively, any cruiser will have (even without nerfing fighter ranges) 25% longer range on all of it's weapons due to size bonus, plus in many cases advanced optics/ITU to push the range out even further.

IMO, even if you applied several of these proposed buffs they still wouldn't be the most threatening thing on the field, they would simply be competent. by far the most threatening thing on the field is still a group of line cruisers, followed probably by large groups of phase/kite frigates.

[FooF]

The zero-flux boost I was thinking about would be about +100 for interceptors/strike craft, +75 for heavy/assault fighters, and +50 for bombers. I would imagine the fastest fighters would be pushing 300 m/s at full burn while the Bombers would only be doing 250 or so. That's still faster than most frigates and only a few dedicated frigates with max engine upgrades could catch some of the fastest stuff. Of course, to reiterate, once they reach their targets, put up shields, etc. the speed is lost (unless there's still that 0-flux speed at 25% flux that you get from maxing out Maneuvering). It basically just keeps fighters in the mix more as they traverse between carrier and targets.

As for how many wings a particular carrier could support, I think that would take some balancing.  Generally speaking, however, I would take the current "flight deck" mechanic and say each flight deck could support 3 wings. Now, when you get up to something like an Astral (with 6 decks), we're talking 18 wings of fighters and that seems a bit high, but then again, it is a capital-grade carrier (and quite rare, I might add). On the other end, some ships have flight decks almost as an afterthought (i.e. the Gemini) so more than one wing being supported on a freighter seems a little out there.

Finally, the point I was making about weapons is the attrition factor. No, fighters will never be as threatening as a line of capital ships but the problem is that you can kill huge swaths of them and cost the enemy virtually nothing. If I knock out three wings of fighters but lose a frigate, I still lose. The fighters will be replaced if I don't get the carrier and I'm out not only the ship but the weapons, too. Fighters are basically "free" DPS.

Which brings me to the last point I failed to think about: Deployment Cost. Fighters do take up deployment points and if we attach them to carriers, the carrier deployment cost would go up. Currently, you can pick and choose which fighters you want to deploy but with this new system, the fighters come with the carrier. I'd propose having a "Scramble" button on the deploy screen that lets you choose which fighters you want to deploy (and would be available when you call for reinforcements) and a "Scramble All" if you want all fighters deployed.

[ChaseBears]

I'm curious what size fights you guys are basing these judgements on.  In the current patch I've been running 3 wings with a condor in relatively small fights and only very rarely have I lost a wing from severe immediate casualties.  

I do agree that fighters have suffered from the proliferation of newly fast-projectile, highly accurate, rapid firing, long range weapons with the introduction of officer skills.

I prefer the current soft cap on wings per deck where limits per deck are emergent rather than a hard cap.

Finally, the point I was making about weapons is the attrition factor. No, fighters will never be as threatening as a line of capital ships but the problem is that you can kill huge swaths of them and cost the enemy virtually nothing. If I knock out three wings of fighters but lose a frigate, I still lose. The fighters will be replaced if I don't get the carrier and I'm out not only the ship but the weapons, too. Fighters are basically "free" DPS.

They arn't free though, it's not like they come back infinitely.  Your average fighter squadron CR 60% only comes back 3 times max. (I'm not sure if repairs drain CR?). So killing 3 fighter squadrons temporarily is actually ~equal to killing one for good in the strategic sense, and every replacement comes out with lower and lower CR.  On the third replacement they might as well not have launched for all the good they can do. 

Unless my understanding of this is totally rusty and wrong which i'm not ruling out.