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[King Alfonzo]

Hey all. I've been watching the AI combat tournament, and I've noticed something that's bothered me a bit since 0.8 came out. Specifically, it had to do with carriers. Right now the Meta is skewing towards carriers being a bit too powerful for their class, and in my opinion I feel it has to do with several problems. Within the context of this discussion, fighters refers to specifically 'fighters', not the general ship class of 'fighters' (such as bombers, fighters and so on):

1) Small kinetic PD weapons find it difficult to kill nimble fighters. While vulcans and light machine guns can kill missiles and torpedoes relatively well, this is because they move in a straight line towards the ship. A fighter, however, does not move just towards the ship, but also over and around it. Due to the way the aiming works on ships, and the fact there is delay between the weapon firing and reaching the fighter, kinetic PD weapons just can't hit fighters. This is also problematic when flak cannons are attempting to fire on a nimble fighter at close range. This can be mitigated somewhat by skills from captains, but it's easy to get more carriers than captains. Larger weapons and burst PD can also be more effective at deleting fighters, but often this makes the ship less suited for ship-to-ship combat, and the ship is not able to adequately deal with fighters anyway.

2) Shielded fighters are difficult to kill. Traditional anti-fighter weapons like flak cannons and swarmers can't really hurt a shielded fighter. Sure, they can probably knock down a shield and then the craft given time, but during that time they aren't firing at anything else, like torpedoes or other fighters. When combined with a fighter deathball, this means that even properly PD dedicated ships are easily overwhelmed.

3) Fighters with projectile weapons are terrible at dogfighting, but way too good at ship suppression. These ships are supposed to be able to cut through enemy fighters, but due to point (1), they can't hit them unless they're in a mass. On the flip side, they are brilliant at fighting against larger ship classes, who find it difficult to fight back, again due to (1). This can often lead to destroyers and even light cruisers being mobbed by a deathball of fighters and becoming stun-locked and dying horribly, even with suitable PD options.

4) Ships end up 'target saturated' when being attackedby three or more wings. This can also happen with frigates, but I've noticed it a lot more with fighters. The current AI can't seem to prioritise which target to go after, as it seems to try and target one fighter wing, then another, then a ship, quite often as the fighters are strafing the ship. This can result in a rather frustrating situation where a ship under AI control is destroyed by a missile strike it should have been able to deal with because it moved to focus on a wing that was flanking it with heavy weapons.

5) There isn't a true hard counter to carriers in a big fleet situation except carriers. Right now it's difficult for an AI ship to flank and take out a carrier if escorted, as the fighter swarms are often able to catch and kill them, while heavier ship classes are often both mobbed by fighters and the escort ships. This means a carrier can fight with impunity from behind the line, reforming a fighter wave and sending it out at roughly the same time other carriers do, replenishing the deathball and giving only a small window of opportunity for ships to try and break through the escorts before another deathball appears.

Due to this combination of no really suitable hard counter for fighters at close range, difficulty in killing shielded fighters, the current difficulties in AI fighting fighters and difficulty in dealing with carriers in general, the general Meta has begun to lean towards carrier fleets feeling overpowered.

Now, in all honesty, these issues are not overly distracting, as Alex has done a wonderful job of balancing. However, during the early to mid game when it's difficult to get a dedicated PD boat, and the fighters available aren't up to scratch at killing other fighters, these problems become rather annoying. The AI problem also persists from the mid game to the late game. Some mods also compound the issue, as they bring in very flashy fighters and effective carrier options that can form deathballs way too easily. While I know that Alex has fixed / is fixing the AI issue with fighters, I still feel the other problems are worthy of discussion. I also have no real idea how these problems could be fixed, and whether they should be fixed at all - maybe this isn't an issue with you, and you've found fighters to beunder powered (I have seen this statement once or twice since 0.8 came out). So, have you found these things to be bothersome in your own gameplay? Or do I just need to git gud?

[TaLaR]

1-2-3) PD is not anti-fighter. For example, in small energy slot Tac Lasers and in a different way IR Pulse both easily outperform any PD laser variants against fighters. It's just about having higher dps, while retaining enough accuracy against fighters. True PD tend to have too low damage output (all PD lasers) or too short range (LMG and Vulcan, which also suffer from low shot speed).
Also, prioritizing missiles comes at great cost in terms of fighter killing efficiency. Tacs and IR pulses don't get distracted by Talon's swarmers (letting these hit shield, while weapons fire at fighters is a much better tactical decision) and flares (these greatly reduce usefulness of any non Flak PD-tagged weapons).
Which is why I tend to ignore PD or have only minimum on most player-piloted ships that can't use mass Flak (like Onslaught).

4) It's not just AI problem. Try attacking a simple sim Condor with Talons using a skill-less Tempest (one of top frigates). It's barely winnable. Expecting that level of piloting from AI would be unreasonable.
You need to keep killing Talons as they spawn to make a dent in their respawn rate. Anything less won't matter. And it's not like you can just ignore them and go straight for carrier - you'll die to fighters much faster.

5) Depends on how you define big fleets. Optimized Onslaught can shrug off several Astrals worth of fighters (exact number depends on character-skills and Astral's builds).

You kind of missed point I consider more important in terms of shifting balance in carrier's favor:

6) Carriers can easily keep zero flux bonus (due to Helmsmanship 3) for whole fight. Having +50 effective speed advantage makes them very good kiters.

[Tartiflette]

As I mentioned on Discord, I think the main issue here is that the game do not have a proper interceptor type of wings (or weapons). What I mean is that given that fighters are more or less tiny respwaning frigates, a wing that is good at killing fighters is also extremely good at killing regular ships. I would like to see fighters specifically meant to protect ships against other light threats (especially shielded ones) but aren't a threat to normal ships themselves.

 I never liked "target based" balancing (X deals 100 dmg to Y, but 150 to Z) but in this case fighters already are regular ships with special rules so I wouldn't mind if they would take higher damage from certain types of weapons.

[Cyan Leader]

That's already in the game in form of armor, no? I mean technically you can zero out the armor of every fighter which would take away all of the damage reduction.
Either way, I have an issue with fighters shields as Alfonzo pointed out. A lot of the dedicated PD weapons become useless at doing what they should be good at doing.

[Megas]

Right now, I am very annoyed with how cowardly AI plays in general, and fighter deathballs are one of the few ways to counter that nonsense.

The only other easy way to counter the cowards (without risking frigates) is to get more peak performance than them and wait them out, much like battleship vs. any ship with Timid officer some versions ago.

[TheWetFish]

It's worth pulling additional information from previous AI tournaments.  In particular the effectiveness of Proximity Charge Launchers and Wasp's Stinger-class Proximity Mine 

I believe there were also a few situations of Fighter role fighters mostly bypassing the fighter scrum and hitting the carriers themselves.  It may possibly have been a combination of Fighter & Bomber roles on the same carrier(s).  I think during a player v Remnant match? 

[MajorTheRed]

My two cents :
In addition to the points highlighted above, (especially fire priority problems, and AI cowardness), carriers themselves should have some options (in the fleet screen) to select in regard to their roles and behavior of fighter. It's really annoying when you order a strike somewhere to your carrier, but its fighters don't care, they want to kill that frigate at the other side of the battlefield. Worst, bomber wings launching their ordonnance on another ship just because it was in the way for getting to the main target. The last thing, carriers should be able to recall their wings in case they are threatened. I really hate when my Condor is shot down because, you know, its interceptors were busy protecting another ship even if I don't ask for it.
So I wonder with a few option to check for your carrier (conserve ammo for target, recall wing when in danger, assign roles) it would not solves some problems. Tactically, it makes sense : as an admiral, I agree you could not redirect orders to each carrier once in battle, but captains can be briefed before the battle about the general behavior you expect from them.

[Thaago]

I do agree that carriers are a bit overtuned at the moment, and I mostly agree with the points you've listed. However, I think all of them are good things that should be kept!

For 1-3, to re-iterate Talar's point, PD is not anti-fighter. There are several weapons that are not very good against larger ships that are quite powerful against fighters - light assault guns, graviton beams, phase lance (alternating fire group), and devastators come to mind. Burst PD, especially when massed, is quite good (my current favorite Eagle variant has 5 burst pd up front (and 1 heavy blaster) and it evaporates wings). Yes using these weapons lower the ship v ship performance slightly, but I think thats a very good thing - there's a tradeoff! Considering how powerful and plentiful carriers are, it makes sense to bring anti fighter weapons.

For point 4, having an escort with even mild anti-fighter capabilities works wonders. Or a cruiser kitted with long range anti-fighter can lock down an area. Fighters swarm their target really well, but other ships can cut them down, especially when they are travelling to target. The AI v AI tournament is not the best place for this however, because the AI doesn't do proper escorts /interdiction/clustering except by accident.

For 5, I don't think there needs to be a hard counter, but there are some ships much better than other against fighters, and building with anti-fighter in mind helps a lot. Also, while frigates get mauled by interceptors and destroyers worn down, cruisers have thick enough armor that the enemy really needs bombers or warthogs to be effective. And Talons, Wasps, and Sparks do quite well against bombers and warthogs, so having a smaller, but interceptor based loadout can really damp the enemy's effectiveness. I often use these interceptors as escorts around my ships, where they benefit from being under the ship's PD umbrella.

As an example, I in my current fleet I have a pair of condors armed with sparks, no officers, whose job it is to provide affordable interceptor support. They are often outnumbered, but do a very good job blunting incoming strike waves.

My two cents :
In addition to the points highlighted above, (especially fire priority problems, and AI cowardness), carriers themselves should have some options (in the fleet screen) to select in regard to their roles and behavior of fighter. It's really annoying when you order a strike somewhere to your carrier, but its fighters don't care, they want to kill that frigate at the other side of the battlefield. Worst, bomber wings launching their ordonnance on another ship just because it was in the way for getting to the main target. The last thing, carriers should be able to recall their wings in case they are threatened. I really hate when my Condor is shot down because, you know, its interceptors were busy protecting another ship even if I don't ask for it.
So I wonder with a few option to check for your carrier (conserve ammo for target, recall wing when in danger, assign roles) it would not solves some problems. Tactically, it makes sense : as an admiral, I agree you could not redirect orders to each carrier once in battle, but captains can be briefed before the battle about the general behavior you expect from them.

Yes, there are major problems with the AI control of fighters, in particular the 'chain escorting' bs, not following orders, and not protecting their mothership. I think Alex fixed some of these a long time ago but they didn't make the hotpatch.

[cjuicy]

I feel that a lot of these problems are mitigated my mixing in a pair of Omens or a Monitor. Escort Frigates like them can flutter around a fleet, killing pesky fighters and taking hits for larger ships while remaining unharmed.

[Philder]

Fineprint: I'm only talking about Vanilla balance. Vast majority of faction mods I've seen are unbalanced, so no point talking about them.

Carriers must sacrifice a lot to sport Flight Decks, so it should be natural that other ships would have to sacrifice around the same amount to completely counter them.

As far as effective counters go, there are plenty of them. Hightech is my favorite. LR PD Laser is just godly. The DPS maybe be low, but the range, speed and flux efficiency is monster. With LR PD Laser you can overlap the defenses of all nearby ships. Shielded fighters are very strong against LRPDL, but once you have a ton of them lighting your screen up it's actually less effective than the higher armor on some fighters. In addition to that, your ships aren't doing friendly fire, you have a great, overlapping anti-missile defense grid, and the range and flux efficiency make them a great weapon to pressure enemy flux. They may also be less efficient against armor and hull, but there is zero miss chance and it takes advantage of any moment shields are down.

My second favorite is swarmers. Again, they have good range, avoid FF, and best of all, ignore collision with friendly ships, so a fleet with tons of swarmers makes a great defense grid. Outside of fighter defense, they're also great for overwhelming enemy PD and as a small flux-free damage source.

And, of course, one of the best counters is fighters of your own. Keeping the enemy fighters away from your ships turns all weapons into effective fighter killers. A single Legion with Devastators and Talons can counter severals times its weight in carriers.

Some fighters are also pretty good at countering fighters themselves. Broadswords' constant Decoy Flares essentially inflates the size of your fighter screen in addition to their high hull and armor, and their mass of LMGs aren't weak either. Hands down they are the most effective for their replacement rate. A single Warthog wing is great as backline backup while more flighty fighters form the frontline. And of course, Flash and Xyphos are great at taking out fighters. Ion Beam is great against unshielded fighters, disabling enemy fighters from very long range very quickly and making them easy pickings for anything else.

Also, in early-mid game there are a few ships that excel at taking out fighters. Ships like Centurion and Scarab can be loaded up with LR PD and Swarmers. Just assign them to engage carriers and missile ships and it's smooth sailing from there. Consider the deployment cost exchange. A single well,equiped Centurion can neuter a destroyer sized carrier. Even a group of Mercuries with LRPDs and Swarmers would do fantastic. My favorite, however, are well equiped Wolfs because you can give them Graviton beams to be useful even outside of countering fighters and all their weapons can point forward. Enforcer is also pretty great. 4x Swarmers as Flak out the wazzoo. Pretty much the only thing I'll use Enforcers for. I'll just give them one or two Heavy Autocannons to take out shields, and Expanded Missile Racks so they can keep using Swarmers as even anti-armor.

Beyond that, HighTech ships in general are very effective against fighters. You can load up Aurora and Doom cruisers with LRPDLs or burst lasers and they are tanky enough to survive the pinpricks of fighters. Even Apogee has the Locust launcher. I may even give it Guardian PD if I'm using the Apogee purely as a defensive tool. And there's no question about the effectiveness of Capital HighTech ships. Only the Astral can't equip the exceptionally good Guardian PD, but it has 6 Flight Decks so who cares.


Anyway, I don't think fighters are as big an issue as you do. I don't mind equiping my ships to counter fighters as that's also generally quite effective at countering missile weapons too. Although PD isn't the most effective against non-fighters, they're still generally low enough in flux cost that it's not a huge load on the ship. Sure you lose out on the alpha strike, but IMO it's just a universally better strategy to secure your survival before working on your enemies defeat, and IMO you can do so effectively without completely neutering your fleet's ability to fight other ships.

I think fighter swarms are really only a problem in early game when you haven't had a chance to acquire the appropriate ships and weapons. In that scenario, the only thing you can do is hunt down as many Swarmers as possible which, while doable, isn't really a good experience for players still learning the game. The only solution to that, IMO, is to make carriers much rarer in smaller fleets, and include hints (especially in the tutorial) about how to effectively deal with fighters. Otherwise players will steadfastly refuse to experiment to find effective counters on their own, especially when it involves to choice of changing favored weapon loadouts and getting what may be, to them, less desirable ships.

[mehgamer]

I'll pretty much second what philder said in general about fighters - they're really not that overpowering against a fleet that puts effort into actually countering fighters.  There's some nuanced differences between our opinions though (really? Broadswords best fighter v fighter?  And no mention of wasps, the most objectively powerful interceptor wing aside from the [redacted] !!FUN!! drones?) But the general idea holds up.

The truth of the matter is that until 0.8 no one has ever had to really build to counter fighters.  .7 fighters were kind of a joke until you got dangerously cheesy, and such nonsequitors as 20 daggers to one condor was never possible in tournaments.

Remember, a carrier fleet without fighter superiority is a dead fleet - so get you some fighter clearing ships and start steam rolling!

[Sarissofoi]

Do AI have enough effective anti-fighter versions for their ships?

[Philder]

@mehgamer

To clarify, I didn't mean it in the sense that a mass of Broadswords wins against a mass of wasps or something. I meant that they are good in combination with a mix of other things. Adding even just a single wing of Broadswords adds a lot to a fighter swarm. They provide, hands-down, the most damage absorption per replacement time, and their weapons aren't bad either.

I agree that Wasps are fantastic at taking down fighters, though. I just mentioned the others because I see others using them less often, with that one exception.

If I had only 3 slots to counter fighters, I'd probably pick something like Broadsword+Wasp+Flash.

If I had only 1 slot, like in early game, I'd pick Broadsword. At least my other ships could help them out while they tie down the enemy. Wasps just evaporate under fire. Broadswords are also a lot better against non-fighters. The kinetic pressure lets me forgo kinetic weapons on the carrier or other ships, and I can just follow the fighters around with ships filled with HE or something.

[Aieonae]

  Not too sure if it fits the bill, I do run a small fleet(1 triangle) of tempest, omen mix bag(netting more supplies/fuel usually). They are surprising well given I just see the AI do their job.

Tempest and fighter throws what you had in point 1

while omen shock every files out of the space(fighters included)

[Thaago]

I've recently found that Gladii are pretty darn good in a mixed interceptor wing. They are the only interceptor with flares, so they really up the survivability of the other wings, while also adding shield breaking. As an example, Gladius + Talon on a Condor or Gladius + Talon + Wasp on a Mora are both very good for anti frigate/fighter work.