Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PCCL]

on the topic of carriers, (in SIM's at least) they seem to not quite understand the idea of air superiority. Namely if you put a support condor in front of a strike condor, the support condor will send both talons against the strike condor while letting the strike's bombers go about their bombing runs unmolested. I'm not sure if this is intended behaviour, but it certainly looks counterintuitive

[Alex]

I think that's the right move here, though. Talons can't stop the bombing runs - if they could, they'd take out the Piranhas while on the way to attack the carrier. And unsupported Piranhas aren't a huge threat to the Condor. Note that they will defend a target that's under attack by numerous fighters, but the criteria aren't just that.

[PCCL]

that is.... not true, as far as I can tell.

Just tried the same scenario again, this time with me controlling the support condor instead of autopilot. I sent the talons out to intercept the bombers by setting them on engage and "R" targeting each piranha individually. 2 piranhas made it to gun range of my condor and they died shortly thereafter. I then sent my talons to engage the condor and won the fight handily (only hull damage was from a single stray bomb). In autopilot duel it's a toss-up slightly in the bombers' favor.

Hell, if anything, I think it's the main job of an interceptor to be able to stop bombing runs

[Allectus]

Hmm. I think for carriers, a right-click on empty space ("rally task force") would more or less do the job - they may choose from a lot of targets, but they will tend to choose targets already under attack, which in most cases is going to be what you want  anyway.

Maybe. Maybe not.  Generally not given how I play, but I understand that's not the case for everyone.  

I use[d] carriers as a force multiplier/rapid reaction force, not just part of the brawling mass.  Previously I could split my forces to capture seperate points or scout out the enemy fleet and then rapidly reinforce where appropriate with fighters/bombers to let the forward element punch above their weight.  Now I don't get to choose where those reinforcements go if multiple engagements are occurring.  Similarly I may want to harry something in the backline (carrier/sniper/retreating ship/whatever) when my line ships are not in a position to engage; can't do that anymore without losing control of the position of the carrier, which has an unfortunate tendency of putting itself in some pretty dangerous scenarios.  Hell, maybe I want the carrier in direct combat in one fight while the fighters are assisting in another fight so that I can get flanks or flux pressure in both fights.  The flexibility of deployment is always what made carriers so special in my mind.

Being able to set at minimum both a carrier position and separate target are important for that flexibility.  

Being able to set the vector with a fighter rally command was what gave me the feeling of being a fleet commander with a battle plan, but there's always been an abstraction of command ability in this game that I've appreciated and I could accept losing that fine level of control.  Carriers without deployment flexibility just feel like super LRM boats to me though

[Alex]

Yeah, I get what you mean - was more just responding re: your point about getting carriers to a specific place, not their role/usefulness/etc once they get there. The stuff you're talking about, I wouldn't say I'm happy that it's gone - it's more like I felt it had to go to be able to fix all the various issues around carriers. I.E. in my mind it's more "worthwhile tradeoff" rather than "pure improvement with nothing of value lost", if that makes any sense.

(This is kind of making me want to add a "fighter attack target" command of some sort... would have to fix up eliminate w/ regard to carriers and see how well that works first, though, to see if something fighter-specific is warranted. One of the things I want to do there is make sure carriers don't get suicidal when given that order, provided there are allies they can hide behind.)

[Anysy]

 Carriers without deployment flexibility just feel like super LRM boats to me though

Its weird you say that, because they feel kinda like that to me too. But I dont really find this to be a bad thing? Im running a like 6 ship destroyer/cruiser mix, with a pair of herons (myself in one) as fighter/bomber support. (total 3 fighters, 3 bombers), and really its been going great. My bomber carrier (1f/2b) somehow manages to find the target my heron (2f/1b) is harassing and lands some mean bombing runs.

To this end I actually do feel like for the most part I have the ability to control the fighters on the field as well, but I am not sure if this is a result of like carrier ai trying to coordinate with each other, or just carrier ai picking harassed targets for bombing runs, or just something else entirely (the ai deciding the target I was harassing was the best target to bomb regardless of my harass). But coincidentally it is working out really well so far.

Im not entirely sure how well this will scale up, but I was hoping to pick up that hegemony battlecarrier next time I saw it... But overall I am rather enjoying not needing to participate directly in knife fighting, its a wonderful change of pace from trying to solo everything with a medusa  


Unrelated - What would people say the uh.. "goal", or "endgame" of the game right now? I was sorta hoping that the station combat blog would have lead to some inter-faction station warfare (similar to mount and blade sieges), but it seems thats not where I am going to find those. Is the goal of the game right now just to explore the outer rim and find [redacted]?
It just feels like right now you are so very suggested to not bother participating in combat that doesnt directly lead to a reward, because combat itself has no purpose. Im talking strictly hegemony v tritach kind of fighting, it doesnt seem like fighting over 'land' is a thing, making it kinda pointless to participate in battles against other factions unless they are in the way, or you want specific loot.
I mean I get that the game doesnt really have much of a plot or win condition, I just wanted some people's ideas on current direction of things.

[ciago92]

One thing around fighters and a carrier flagship that I don't think I've seen mentioned (though I could be wrong) is that I'm reasonably sure the fighter targeting system is not working as described. Somewhere in here I believe I saw Alex (or somebody "official" at least) state that fighters attack the ship targeted when given the engage order, and do not change targets if you change the flagship's target until you cycle regroup/engage again. However, I've seen multiple times that changing the target of the flagship does change what the fighters are attacking.

Also a minor QoL improvement, when you first burn into the battlefield I'd request that fighters default to regroup rather than engage. Engage eliminates the flux bonus, and can lead to them zipping off before you're ready if you're not paying attention.

Other than that, still loving everything!! Finally fought my first two <REDACTED>, the first one was a couple frigates and pretty easy (Talons still OP lol) but then I engaged a larger group that brought their own fighters to the party and barely survived the battle. But, thanks to the amazing new mechanics (especially recovering four of the five lost ships) this felt much more like a hard fought victory than a "oh I'm screwed, time to load the last save". Love love love it!!!

[Allectus]

(This is kind of making me want to add a "fighter attack target" command of some sort... would have to fix up eliminate w/ regard to carriers and see how well that works first, though, to see if something fighter-specific is warranted. One of the things I want to do there is make sure carriers don't get suicidal when given that order, provided there are allies they can hide behind.)

This would make me so happy!

[Hazard]

Seems like patrols that stop you for a cargo scan don't much care about any illegal AI cores on-board. I've been searched at least twice by both Hegemony and Independents while carrying cores around and they just let me go.

Edit: Also, the small ballistic hardpoint on the Mora is driving me crazy. What am I supposed to do with it?

[Hussar]

Hmm. I think for carriers, a right-click on empty space ("rally task force") would more or less do the job - they may choose from a lot of targets, but they will tend to choose targets already under attack, which in most cases is going to be what you want  anyway.

That's what I'm trying to do but it doesn't really work. I have rally points far behind the defended point/s yet still they're going to charge the frontlines even past the actual line ships... And that lack of control over the carrier is really troublesome, even more over than lack of general strike order for carrier-borne craft which would act as a beacon for multiple wings from different carriers that would be in striking range.

[Serenitis]

Seems like patrols that stop you for a cargo scan don't much care about any illegal AI cores on-board. I've been searched at least twice by both Hegemony and Independents while carrying cores around and they just let me go.

Same. A hold full of AI cores, organs, drugs, and guns, and the scan report says "nothing found".
Maybe it was all hidden by shielded holds, but I only have 1 ship which has that mod so I feel like either it was dumb luck or something isn't working.

Edit: Also, the small ballistic hardpoint on the Mora is driving me crazy. What am I supposed to do with it?

Leave it empty. Gun hardpoints are silly things.
(Or change it to a missile mount.)

[Hussar]

Seems like patrols that stop you for a cargo scan don't much care about any illegal AI cores on-board. I've been searched at least twice by both Hegemony and Independents while carrying cores around and they just let me go.

Same. A hold full of AI cores, organs, drugs, and guns, and the scan report says "nothing found".
Maybe it was all hidden by shielded holds, but I only have 1 ship which has that mod so I feel like either it was dumb luck or something isn't working.

I on the other hand have sometimes pleasure of being actually clean but having a scan that "detected" something? o_O
I tested it, and this doesn't happen again upon reload. Figures.

Edit: Ohhh I know now. This may happen if u buy a ship on a black market and get scanned soon after I think!

[Megas]

I leave the hardpoint on the Mora empty.  Carriers feel like LRM boats.  Fighters are the best missiles in the game.

[SafariJohn]

Could put a railgun on the hardpoint.

[Megas]

Better to put that railgun in turrets, and some throwaway in the hardpoint if Mora has OP to burn.