Print

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

[Retry]

I'm not sure about the fighter deployment penalty.  Deploying fighters on the move was basically the primary purpose of Helmsmanship 3 (with a secondary benefit of being able to keep the speed bonus during low-ish intensity firing or shields on-the-move until being fired upon).  I've found AI likes to engage their fighters all the time so I've found officers with Helmsmanship 3 to basically be necessary for not just pure carriers, but combat warships with token fighter complements (In Vanilla, this would be DDs, CLs/CAs, & BBs with Converted Hangars, or the Odyssey.  Some ships in mods also have 1 or 2 fighter bays without carrier being their primary role).

It's necessary because ships with fighters seem to put their fighter craft on engage all the time unless their wings get completely wiped, even if nobody is within range, which cripples the speed they'd otherwise have.  That's lost me several kills and even a few AI ships until the lesson finally made it through my thick skull.

At >5% flux activation for engaging fighters, I think I'll switch out my actual fighters on "token fighter" vessels with cheap 0-engagement range drones like the Mining Pod Drone to avoid the "permanently engaged" issue.  If that still doesn't work for some reason I think I'll just strip out the fighters completely from non-battlecarriers/carriers.  The combat vessels really need that speed boost for chases and I really don't trust my ally AI to do it smartly.

[Histidine]

@Retry: Permanent engage is a bug, fixed in 0.9

[TaLaR]

On topic of defensive fighters, big problem with them (and most other fighters on regroup) is their bad positioning around the carrier:
- Typical defensive fail: My Heron is dodging dual Squall stream, where are the Xyphos? Why, of course they are catching all these squalls that missed my ship with their hulls.
- Typical offensive fail: enemy ship/fighters/missiles are approaching my ship from front, where should be my Xyphos? Correct answer: right below outer border of my shield radius or above forward part of my hull, to maximize intercept range while being protected by the carrier. Where they actually are: hiding behind my ship and firing burst lasers at flares or missiles that have already missed the ship.
- Also, Talons/Broadswords etc like to line up for suicide in front of carrier. Unless I'm actually overloaded or close to that, it's completely unnecessary. Pity I can't force dock them, or force them to hide behind the carrier.

The only fighters that work well from regroup are Longbows and to a lesser extent (due to shorter range) Daggers/Tridents - they hide behind the ship and fire their missiles. Would be nice if they went to shield border before firing against far-away targets, but usable as is.

[Midnight Kitsune]

From the current (as yet unpublished) batch of patch notes:

Ordering fighters to engage builds flux up to slightly above 5%
Unstable Injector: now also increases fighter replacement time by 25%

I'm quite disappointed that Helmsmanship 3 is getting nerfed hard, especially, since IIRC, it was buffed to allow carriers to engage their fighters and still keep the buff
Speaking of which, does the flux cost scale off of the base flux stats? Improved flux stats? I've always been kinda confused on shield upkeep and now fighters taking percentages of your cap.

And it also presents a problem:
If it does not scale, then a few vents or caps should make it not matter
If it does scale, then it is just arbitrary and very gamey. It seems like a quick and, to be brutally honest, a lazy and half assed fix.
You yourself have said you don't want to do any skill rebalances this patch and yet, here we are doing something that is essentially just that. Please, just either leave the carrier/ Helmsmanship 3 issue alone until the next skill rebalance or just do it now as to NOT resort to these half assed patch jobs

(Also, please take everything I say with a grain of salt, I'm sleep deprived and stressing over RL things right now...)

[Alex]

since IIRC, it was buffed to allow carriers to engage their fighters and still keep the buff

That's not correct, 1% was enough for that. It being this good for carriers was always unintended.

Speaking of which, does the flux cost scale off of the base flux stats? Improved flux stats? I've always been kinda confused on shield upkeep and now fighters taking percentages of your cap.

And it also presents a problem:
If it does not scale, then a few vents or caps should make it not matter

Yep, it scales, since - as you say - it would be pointless otherwise.

I guess we could just say it takes *that* much for comms to punch through jamming or w/e.

(Also, please take everything I say with a grain of salt, I'm sleep deprived and stressing over RL things right now...)

Good luck with stuff! Hope whatever it is pans out in a good way.

On topic of defensive fighters, big problem with them (and most other fighters on regroup) is their bad positioning around the carrier:
- Typical defensive fail: My Heron is dodging dual Squall stream, where are the Xyphos? Why, of course they are catching all these squalls that missed my ship with their hulls.
- Typical offensive fail: enemy ship/fighters/missiles are approaching my ship from front, where should be my Xyphos? Correct answer: right below outer border of my shield radius or above forward part of my hull, to maximize intercept range while being protected by the carrier. Where they actually are: hiding behind my ship and firing burst lasers at flares or missiles that have already missed the ship.
- Also, Talons/Broadswords etc like to line up for suicide in front of carrier. Unless I'm actually overloaded or close to that, it's completely unnecessary. Pity I can't force dock them, or force them to hide behind the carrier.

The only fighters that work well from regroup are Longbows and to a lesser extent (due to shorter range) Daggers/Tridents - they hide behind the ship and fire their missiles. Would be nice if they went to shield border before firing against far-away targets, but usable as is.

Thank you! I'll keep these in mind. That said, fighter behavior improvements would probably come coupled with fighter nerfs - since fighters aren't controlled directly, their behavior is an inherent part of their actual effectiveness. From that perspective, imo, it makes the most sense to make behavior improvements that lead to improved gameplay, rather than just to improved fighter performance.

[Linnis]

Thank you! I'll keep these in mind. That said, fighter behavior improvements would probably come coupled with fighter nerfs - since fighters aren't controlled directly, their behavior is an inherent part of their actual effectiveness. From that perspective, imo, it makes the most sense to make behavior improvements that lead to improved gameplay, rather than just to improved fighter performance.

Thats what I was thinking while reading this thread. Its like having the AI pilot the hammerhead, either it will rip the enemy apart or act stupid and die without doing any damage.

Though astrals with those dual large anti-shield missiles are huge huge huge pain in the ass to fight.

[TaLaR]

Thank you! I'll keep these in mind. That said, fighter behavior improvements would probably come coupled with fighter nerfs - since fighters aren't controlled directly, their behavior is an inherent part of their actual effectiveness. From that perspective, imo, it makes the most sense to make behavior improvements that lead to improved gameplay, rather than just to improved fighter performance.

I'm okay with fighters having their strengths and weakness, but it would be nice if those made sense rather than coming from arbitrarily ineffective behavior.

Plus, they can be controlled somewhat more directly - by using allies and far-away enemies as waypoints. It's only 1v1 where I'm stuck able to do nothing except engage/regroup.
Still, carriers having way less control over their functions compared to normal ships is gritting. I mean, did you know that manually fired Storm Needler is quite decent supplementary PD against Squalls? Can't do stuff like this with fighters .

Though astrals with those dual large anti-shield missiles are huge huge huge pain in the ass to fight.

Yeah, Squalls are powerful. Anything less than 2 dual flaks firing at them is waste of flux - they'll get through anyway, and stopping them reliably takes even more. Any self-respecting Astral variant should include them - no 40 OP worth alternative will buy it more reliable survival.

At the same time, Just not getting hit with Squalls is easy - just move sideways at about 80-90 speed. Anything short of slower non-UI capitals can move that fast with flux boost - disable PD and shield while dodging. But it costs time, and obviously gets more problematic if synced with other attacks (fighters or long range weapons in case of Conquest).

As with Sabots, Squalls can be quite effectively used offensively too. But AI is not great at doing so.

[Goumindong]

Helmsmanship is really really good on the conquest and odyssey, not just carriers

[TaLaR]

Helmsmanship is really really good on the conquest and odyssey, not just carriers

What for (I mean beside Odyssey being a carrier)? Neither of them has a meaningful build using soft flux below dissipation and would immediately go above 5% on opening fire.
Graviton + Tacs Wolf is good example of making decent use of Helmsmanship 3, but not these 2. Then again, why would you specialize an Officer in a not particularly powerful frigate build.
Soft flux Aurora with Helmsmanship 3 can also be quite annoying in it's own way, even if powerless for a cruiser.

If it's just to prevent getting slowed down when PD decides to shoot something unimportant, you could toggle hold fire to avoid that. Same with keeping shield raised when it's actually unnecessary.

[Megas]

Helmsmanship 3 being great to the point of must-have on any ship with fighters is the only reason I take it.  With that gone, I might take Helmsmanship up to 2 for more top speed (to catch those cowards).

Until I learned that fighters put hard flux on shield (had no idea when I first played 0.8 ), I thought Helmsmanship 3 was useless, until I learned fighters put flux on carriers, then I realized Helms 3 was mandatory to reclaim mobility.

I probably would rather have the original Helmsmanship 5 perk back of zero-flux speed bonus of +75 as the new level 3 perk than this.  Helmsmanship 3 becoming useful only for beam frigates or pure missileboats is useless (except for early game fights against unshielded pirates for beam boats).

Re: Squalls
You need four dual flak to stop Squalls reliably.  This is how much my Legion needs to defend against Squall spam.  Two does not cut it, three can stop some, but four or more is ideal.  Devastator can help if not enough flak can be mounted.

As for Astral, the only weapons I mount on it are a few burst PD.  Fighters and hullmods eat nearly all of its OP.  (Reasoning is fighters are infinite missiles, especially when combined with Recall Device.)  If piloted by AI, it hides behind other ships.  If I pilot it, I either kite with it or approach and abuse Recall Device for overwhelming alpha strike.  High end fighters cost so much OP that the Astral is very OP hungry.

[Thaago]

Helmsmanship 3 is a game changing perk for any ship. Moving with shields up or PD firing is a massive movement buff - especially given how the AI plays defensively with its shield around HE missiles such as rockets and LRM's. In addition, you can design ships that do not exceed 5% flux when firing their longest range band of guns. This is very useful for example with destroyers, allowing them to chase frigates while maintaining a +50 speed boost. It is also amazing for the Dominator and Onslaught, as it allows them to keep the +50 speed boost while burn driving (not sure whether maneuvering jets and other systems also put flux on like Burn Drive does).

[Goumindong]

Helmsmanship is really really good on the conquest and odyssey, not just carriers

What for (I mean beside Odyssey being a carrier)? Neither of them has a meaningful build using soft flux below dissipation and would immediately go above 5% on opening fire.
Graviton + Tacs Wolf is good example of making decent use of Helmsmanship 3, but not these 2. Then again, why would you specialize an Officer in a not particularly powerful frigate build.
Soft flux Aurora with Helmsmanship 3 can also be quite annoying in it's own way, even if powerless for a cruiser.

If it's just to prevent getting slowed down when PD decides to shoot something unimportant, you could toggle hold fire to avoid that. Same with keeping shield raised when it's actually unnecessary.

The odyssey and the conquest can both fire broadsides without going above 5% so long as they’re not taking incoming fire.

Considering that this gives them destroyer speed or better (forward speed is faster and more maneuverable than backwards/side to side speed) it lets them safely and powerfully engage around the periphery and clean the enemy force up.

[TaLaR]

The odyssey and the conquest can both fire broadsides without going above 5% so long as they’re not taking incoming fire.

Considering that this gives them destroyer speed or better (forward speed is faster and more maneuverable than backwards/side to side speed) it lets them safely and powerfully engage around the periphery and clean the enemy force up.

But it's not about average flux usage - it's about not having 5% even for split second. Since weapons consume flux in bursts, most of them fail to maintain strict below 5%.
...Though I guess, it's possible to pick some weapons which do work for Conquest, like Storm Needlers. Or raise caps just to go below magic 5% peak, if you are otherwise close to it. Not sure if it's worth doing though, since it means sacrificing stuff like Gauss Cannons (too much flux per shot no matter what you do).

[Thaago]

You can also just turn off the side with Gauss cannons and close with the more flux efficient brawling side.

[Megas]

You can also just turn off the side with Gauss cannons and close with the more flux efficient brawling side.

That may not be a given either.

Not sure if it's worth doing though, since it means sacrificing stuff like Gauss Cannons (too much flux per shot no matter what you do).

I would need to sacrifice the other side with two Mjolnirs too.  Or possibly Ion Beam plus any other ballistics since Ion Beam is a bit of a hog.

Of course, if I want to brawl with both sides at once, there is no way I can keep flux under 5%.  Too many guns firing.

One side will be Gauss and Mauler for anti-Paragon.  The other side varies by whatever I can get my hands on, but my favorite is two Mjolnir and two dual flak, and those are as much of a flux hog as the Gauss side.  If I cannot get Mjolnirs, I use less powerful ballistics, but might add Ion Beam for shield piercing.