The thing is we cant even control fighters like missles or other weapons. You cant aim individual fighters where and when to fight.
Cant aim turrets or guided missles either, except in the most general sense. These weapons make their own decisions based on your relative positioning to the enemy and which targets are closer, same as fighters. There's room to fine tune this with fighters, but they shouldn't be considered separate craft.
I ask again, which storefront are fighters sold in? They aren't ships and shouldn't be treated as such.
If you do not like micromanagement of your fighters no one is forcing you to play it and you can just ignore those options that always where there, but if I want, and if I have fun playing it that way its not a option anymore as it was removed from the game and nothing was made to replace it.
Ah, to a certain extent they're mutually exclusive, though. I don't want to speak for Alex, but in terms of observing the game it seems clear the game wants to keep the necessity of that layer to a minimum. If carriers and fighters can perform well enough most of the time without it, then theres no need for micro controls. If micro controls are still *needed* enough to justify a tactical layer function for them to correct a meaningful weakness in fighter behavior, then babysitting fighters will still be necessary, and Ill have to keep pausing my game to keep track of what they're doing.
Also using tactics and maneuvers to bypass flak can never be a exploit but smart use of fighters and tactics, the same way flanking with a ship can not be consider a exploit, because, i mean.. the whole game is a exploit than .
Sure it is. How "smart" do you have to be to use a cheat against the AI, that the AI isnt capable of using itself?
The opposing ship has paid its loadout points for strong PD capability. It *should* be resistant to fighters. You either make a similar investment in anti-PD fighters (broadswords, etc), or a decision on the deployment screen to deploy other ships capable of taking that target down, then use those ships to attack that target during battle. Using Micro controls that the*
AI cant use*, in order to allow a ship that shouldn't be able to overcome another to bypass the decision making on the loadout and deployment screens, is bypassing the design.
You can tell where the game wants the most decision making to be done, by how developed those portions are. Tons of decisions on the refit page. Lots of strategy derived from player skill in the real time combat phase. Very few, and only the most necessary options on the tactical layer. It's not where the game wants you making most of your decisions.