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[TrashMan]

Frankly, I'd like to see a way to balance fighters and carriers - as in, limit/prevent some carriers from carrying some fighters just like you can prevent ships from carrying some guns (a ship with only 1 large energy mount cannot equip large kinetics. A ship without large mounts cannot equip large weapons at all)

It makes sense that a huge tactical bomber can't land or be supported by a compact escort carrier, but only on large, dedicated carriers.

[Gothars]

Frankly, I'd like to see a way to balance fighters and carriers - as in, limit/prevent some carriers from carrying some fighters just like you can prevent ships from carrying some guns (a ship with only 1 large energy mount cannot equip large kinetics. A ship without large mounts cannot equip large weapons at all)

It makes sense that a huge tactical bomber can't land or be supported by a compact escort carrier, but only on large, dedicated carriers.

The OP costs of fighter already do this, no? A Condor for example can't support two Trident wings, and can only support Daggers if it gives up on its own weapons.

[TrashMan]

No really. You can still equip a super-bomber that's frigate-sized.
I'm saying you shouldn't. EVER.

Just like you can't mount a large weapon on a frigate regardless how many OP's you spend.

[Gothars]

What would be the benefit of that, aside from an arbitrary "it makes sense"?

Fighters are displayed proportionally bigger than they are in lore, btw. There is no bomber even near frigate size. You can see that a bit when they start/land.

[Histidine]

What would be the benefit of that, aside from an arbitrary "it makes sense"?

Fighters are displayed proportionally bigger than they are in lore, btw. There is no bomber even near frigate size. You can see that a bit when they start/land.

I assume it's for a mod.

There's no vanilla use case that I expect would come up. TrashMan if you want mod support for such things, decide on what the implementation would look like and file an API request.

[BillyRueben]

Just like you can't mount a large weapon on a frigate regardless how many OP's you spend.

But I love my Gauss Cannon Mudskippers...

[xenoargh]

I've found Piranhas to be quite deadly when the target's Flux-locked; they're clearly superior to Talons when you're building a fleet for Flux-lock.  Warthogs are similar in their profile. 

I agree that Tridents are weak for their use case and I agree that taking away the Reapers from the Daggers was a bit too much nerf-bat; probably the better fix for Daggers was to take away their shield and lower their hitpoints so that they're quite killable on the way in.

All this stuff about Talons being amazing seems pretty weird to me; when we're not in Simulator play and we're bringing fighters of our own to the table in a mixed-arms fleet, it doesn't feel like they're an "I win" button to me.  When I meet them in Pirate fleets, I'm not exactly scared.

I'm just glad they're finally worth using at all, frankly.  I'd be fine with them getting a little nerf to their launchers so they're not quite so PD-saturating, but I feel pretty strongly that they're near a cusp-point; too much nerf-bat and they'll go back to being useless, even at 0 OPs.

I don't mind Sparks being mildly OP; they're endgame stuff you get after fighting [REDACTED], after all.  I don't think they're amazingly OP; they're merely the only "interceptor" that actually does its job description.

I feel like the Mining Drone is still terrible, but you don't take Crew losses; if Mining Lasers weren't junk weapons they'd be a buy. 

I agree that the Wasp suffers a lot, but again, PD Lasers aren't great because of range and Soft Flux.  The main thing that annoys me about them is that they're supposedly "interceptors", but can't actually intercept anything that matters (unlike Sparks).

The Broadsword's just fine as a distraction tool.  It's not a shield-wrecker, but it's great at tying down PD and thus using up Flux.  I think that people who expect it to wreck Shields are totally misunderstanding what it's actually doing.

The Lightning feels pretty disappointing atm; I think it needs IR Pulse or better yet, a Light AC, so that it's a real double-threat.  That, and it needs to be coordinated and aggressive about using those Harpoons.

I think the Khopesh is pretty amazing when you have enough of them pointing at the same target.  Unfortunately, the 4000 control limit is a bit too short to make that happen consistently with Eliminate orders.

Longbows would be cool if their missiles regenerated.  I feel like they're largely a waste right now, though.

[Thaago]

I've had good success with the Longbows when my carrier is close to the enemy - they launch from far enough out that they are rarely destroyed, and reloading is extremely quick. The biggest problem with them for me is that their constant reloading is constantly stressing the flight deck.

[xenoargh]

I can see that; a constant stream of high-power Kinetics can work.  It's too bad we have no control over the radius the fighters interact with things.

[Thaago]

I can see that; a constant stream of high-power Kinetics can work.  It's too bad we have no control over the radius the fighters interact with things.

? Z key.

[ChaseBears]

Been trying to use Thunders, but they keep firing their Harpoon instante.  Then they spend all their time doing sweet kickflips and flying so fast that Chuck Yeager would shed a tear of pride.  Occasionally they slow down enough to fire ion cannon.  Pls buff!

Also, the Heron is super tight on OP. A little rough on a battle-carrier, and certainly annoying compared to the Drover which has millions of OP to pass out to orphans starving for railguns.  Tradeoffs are one thing, but trying to put a hull mod on that thing is almost a suicide pact.

[Megas]

I give Drover two light needlers, extended shields, one other hullmod (either flux distributor or recovery shuttles, forgot which), max flux, a wing of talons, and either a claw wing or second wing of talons.  All of the missile slots are empty.  It does not have lots of OP, but enough to get what it needs, though not everything what it wants.

[Dias Flac]

Vs 1 super carrier my capital ship had quite hard time but what really bothered me was their ease with which to harass my smaller ships if the battlefield was crowded. I found if the enemy had at least 1 super carrier it would make casualties a near guarantee. To combat this I bought my own carrier to assist my guys with fighters. I've found it's pretty OP. Half of my fighters are drones though to cut down on crew losses. 


If you're using a lot of human pilot fighters don't forget to stock up on crew. I was going hog wild with my new carrier and suddenly I was understaffed crew wise. Had to run home with my tail between my legs. 

[TrashMan]

Come to think of it, shouldn't fighter pilots be separate from regular crew?

Make a "pilot" commodity item (pilots still use crew space just as crewman)
Have fighters use "pilots" instead of "crewman"
Have a chance to recover some ejected pilots after battle.

That way, your ship won't run out of crew, since when it runs out of pilots it won't draw from the crew pool

[TaLaR]

Could simply set a fleetwide option to stop using crew for fighters once no spares are left.  Preferably as a slider:
0% - use fighters till no one is left
100% - don't touch crew necessary for manning all non-mothballed ships in fleet