Print

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

[Lucky33]

Yes. Exactly. I dont even know how things ended up like this. I think its mostly from the initial idea of the fighters being true ships. And they still act like ones.

[DatonKallandor]

A weapon should act the same way no matter the target. A MG on a fighter should do exactly the same damage on the shields of a fighter as it would do on a frigate.

But it's not the same weapon. The fighter version is better because it builds no flux! And it's on a regenerating 3000+ range platform. Why should it be allowed to also do full damage to ships on top of that? It's clearly a miniaturized strikecraft gun variant.

[shoi]

But it is the same weapon, lol..otherwise they'd use a specialized variant, like one of the fighters uses a fighter version of SRM missile

 Nerfing attack power and defense of fighters will just make people bring more to get the same effect and make them useless when there are a limited number on the field.

[Megas]

For me, the biggest pro of pre-0.8 fighters is carriers were outfitted like warships, and could fight like warships of a size smaller.  I miss this.  Now, because fighters have become weapons, carriers must focus mostly or solely on fighters instead of real guns to do their basic job competently.  What is the point of weapon mounts on dedicated carriers now?

As Morrokain says, player could have direct control over fighters in older releases because fighters were like ships in most ways.  They could capture points or follow other orders just like normal ships.  Fighters also had other special commands.

Before 0.8, Z (or some other key) was used to control personal drones from ships' systems.  Tempest had Terminator Drone, Gemini and Heron (and Prometheus) had machine gun drones, Apogee had sensor drones, and Astral has LR PD drones.  Except for Terminator Drone, all of the drones were limited like missiles.

There is also significant differences (for fighters) between the 0.5.x releases and the releases between 0.6 and 0.8.

But it is the same weapon, lol..otherwise they'd use a specialized variant, like one of the fighters uses a fighter version of SRM missile

I want the fighter version of the Swarmer for my ships.

P.S.  Before 0.8, you did not need carriers to use fighters, but player wanted carriers anyway to replace losses.  Before 0.6, carriers could restore partial wings (which ate supplies) during combat.  After 0.6, fighter wings were immortal if there was a carrier in the fleet.  Without carriers, fighter wings could be wiped out permanently like ships.  Speaking of ships, player boarded ships after combat.  Pre 0.6a boarding is very similar to modern ship recovery.  After 0.6a was terrible gambling.

[Cyber Von Cyberus]

I wonder, what do you all think of giving them limited ammo ? It would reduce their staying power as they need to return to the carrier to rearm but they would still keep their alpha strike potential. Of course they should have enough ammo to at the very minimum engage a target for 20 seconds.

[Morrokain]

@Megas:

Thanks for clearing up the details I had forgotten so everyone has a correct foundation for the discussion (in case they weren't there at the time). 

What I miss about direct control of fighters pre-0.8 was the ability to use them to scout and capture points. To be fair, this kind of limited the role of frigates in that regard, but that is a separate topic. It was also useful from a modding perspective to select a single wing and a single opposing wing in the simulator and really be able to fine tune exactly which wings typically beat which opponents. Having the carriers present muddies the waters a bit- though not enough that I would want to go back to pre-0.8.

Here's why:

1) First and foremost for me, I didn't like the inability for fighters to be assigned to a specific carrier. *EDIT* (Both in the sense of fleet setup and variant files since that wasn't clear in how I worded it.)

The global hangar stat and the soft and hard limits that were tried didn't feel very good to me, and you couldn't predict which carrier would replace the wing's individual fighters- sometimes leading to fighters spawning from a carrier already under attack and immediate getting destroyed. Or, if your carriers near the front lines had their bays saturated with replacements already building, you could get the replacement wing you really wanted to spawn close to the battle instead spawn in another carrier far, far away.

2) Fighters also didn't spawn from the carrier. They burned in like the rest of the fleet. That felt really weird to me.

3) Carriers became supply vacuums which made them uncompetitive compared to warships.

4) Fighters had infinite range, and tended to ball up and mass on targets even more than now. I think that would exacerbate the issue we are having with critical mass. At least right now far off carriers can't send their wings to attack anything within vision on the map.

5) It would require so many additional changes to so many things, including all the AI changes I've mentioned. Not worth that kind of effort for the pros to me, and definitely not worth it when the pros could be implemented in the new design, which I think they can.

6) I actually like the trade-off balance of weapons vs fighters in the 0.9 system. I don't think the balance is quite there yet as you have said, but I think its fixable without a reversion back to pre-0.8.

Off the top of my head:

Give all carriers a hullmod like the Legion that reduces weapon costs and makes them feel more competitive. I'd even be ok with making that hullmod completely take off the "base" cost of the standard weapon of each size. Then only "upgrades" actually cost any OP. It's similar to the idea of the talon being free so there wouldn't be any fighter-less carriers acting like warships.
OR
Reduce fighter OP costs across the board to make both weapons and hullmods feel more competitive in the sense that you have more room to work with.
OR
Increase the OP of carriers. Same concept as the one above.

I think the main concern with any of those is that fighters still seem more preferable than weapons due to their range, correct?
--------

I wonder, what do you all think of giving them limited ammo ? It would reduce their staying power as they need to return to the carrier to rearm but they would still keep their alpha strike potential. Of course they should have enough ammo to at the very minimum engage a target for 20 seconds.

In Archean Order, its around 5 to 6 seconds, but again there is clip regeneration to account for the current AI limitations. The window between reloads is around 12 seconds, so about double the time of the attacking window. That would of course change if fixed ammo could be possible. 20 seconds seems reasonable at a first glance.

[Plantissue]

If staying power of fighters is identified to be the problem then the easy fix would be to to simply change their staying power, whether by HP of hull and Flux of shields or by changing fighter replacement rate. There is no need to artificially make it so certain weapons do more damage to certain hulls. It'll be like making Tachyon Lance do half damage to Frigates so it wouldn't be so easy for a pair of Tachyon lance to instantly kill a Frigate.

The staying power portion of the request was actually the limited ammo. The increased damage to fighters is just to increase the usefulness of interceptors and anti-fighter fighters, mostly. It can be separated out of the idea without impacting it very much, though IMO it makes fighter clashes "more cool" to look at. That's subjective for me, but since this is one of the few suggestions not completely experimental and actually implemented and tested to a certain degree, I can say that with a fair amount of confidence coming from my perspective.

Also, the custom fighter weapons (just so as to have limited ammo- otherwise a copy paste of the csv entries and changing two fields) can be implemented in a day's worth of work, maybe even less.

The real challenging part to this suggestion as far as work goes is the AI tweaks. I can't speak very much on how long those changes would take, but considering the other AI threads floating around... well, this is one of those times where I think the work is worth it. Like Alex likes to say (paraphrasing): Hard things to implement aren't worth it just because they're "cool", there needs to be a design problem to solve. In this case, there are several, so its multiple birds with a single stone- so to speak.

*EDIT* As far as the idea of changing defensive stats of fighters to reduce staying power, you'd think that would do it, right? I thought so too. The problem with that is then you are also inadvertently reducing their alpha strike potential because they then also die more easily to ship weapons- sometimes before they can even get into firing range. It reduces the effectiveness of a small number of fighters. To say the problem is complex would be an understatement, I think. I'm not saying that couldn't work, but to be honest I think it would become surprisingly involved even compared to the above suggestion, and it only solves one of the underlying problems just mentioned.

*EDIT 2*
Still, if nerfing fighter alpha strike potential would be considered fine and no additional changes had to be made, then that could perhaps be considered the easy road. I'm not quite convinced that's true, though, as from what I've gathered most feel that the alpha strike of fighters is in a good place right now and that's part of the reason this thread was made. Specifically, it seems like the staying power of critically massed fighter spamming is too overwhelming. My suggestion targets that very specific issue because it was an issue I also dealt with for a long time in Archean Order. Spamming fighters is an inherent feature of that mod.

I would consider nerfing so called alpha strike perfectly fine. If you don't want to nerf alpha strike, then only the fighter-type fighters can have the defensive stats changed and the bomber-type fighters can retain their defensive stats. Take for example wasp vs spark. They have similar weapons and speed, but the wasp is far easier to shoot down and so is less likely to become a problem by massing. As you say, it's the easy road. There's no need for complicated game mechanics when simple elegant stat changes can better solve perceived problems.

________________

A weapon should act the same way no matter the target. A MG on a fighter should do exactly the same damage on the shields of a fighter as it would do on a frigate.

But it's not the same weapon. The fighter version is better because it builds no flux! And it's on a regenerating 3000+ range platform. Why should it be allowed to also do full damage to ships on top of that? It's clearly a miniaturized strikecraft gun variant.

Weapons on fighters don't continuously shoot. There is no need to artificially place an inelegant game mechanic. If you want fighters to do half damage, just half the number of guns on a fighter. Some missile weapons on fighters already do this.

_________

Anyways, I am somewhat fine with OP on Carriers. Sure, carriers have the same OP like normal ships without taking into account of their fighter bays, but fighter bays are basically the best most OP efficient weapons in the game right now, and typically no-one has problems with leaving empty mounts in normal warships, only on carriers. I feel like that changing the OP of warships, could make carriers, especially the combat carriers better warships than actual warships.

[Morrokain]

There's no need for complicated game mechanics when simple elegant stat changes can better solve perceived problems.

This is a stretch to me. Easy isn't "elegant" its easy. Very different things. I'm not saying your logic isn't sound or that the suggestion is bad, but don't try and disguise it as "better design" just because its a couple spreadsheet changes instead of implementing new mechanics or improving AI.

*EDIT*
Tiny nitpick, but when I said alpha strike I wasn't talking about bombers, though it is true I should have clarified that. It just means the initial damage of the strike remains the same for whatever viable duration the craft can stay on target without getting destroyed, retreating or otherwise losing its ability to attack. Lowering defensive stats effects the first of those scenarios- and that is the most damaging to the carrier itself because it affects replacement rate the most.

no-one has problems with leaving empty mounts in normal warships, only on carriers. I feel like that changing the OP of warships, could make carriers, especially the combat carriers better warships than actual warships.

*Raises hand* I do. I hate empty weapons for "optimal builds" and wish it just wasn't a thing that was ever encouraged, but that is a separate discussion. As far as your concern, I think it is definitely a valid one.

*EDIT*
Though I also think there are solutions that would not result in that happening, too, if that wasn't clear. The point is for me: I would rather have all carriers have built in weapons than no weapons because you feel encouraged to have to spend all your OP on fighters and fighter improving hullmods. It's just plain silly to me. 

[Megas]

I am not fond of empty mounts on warships either, but most do not need to leave too many mounts empty.  The few that do (e.g., Shrike, plasma Odyssey, non-missile Aurora, that one Atlas 2 with two gauss and two mirvs) are just as annoying as unarmed carriers.

Carriers are more OP starved than warships, if carriers want to fill mounts with guns.  If carriers ignore guns, then they have OP to do their job of tending fighters.

Pre-0.8 fighters, the main disadvantages of the time were no skills, no capacity (for fuel and cargo), and they took up a fleet slot or logistics, and DP in combat.  Most fighters cost as much as a frigate to deploy, though few like Warthogs cost as much as a destroyer to deploy.  When officers came in 0.7, carriers and fighters were not viable.

[Megas]

Anyways, I am somewhat fine with OP on Carriers. Sure, carriers have the same OP like normal ships without taking into account of their fighter bays, but fighter bays are basically the best most OP efficient weapons in the game right now, and typically no-one has problems with leaving empty mounts in normal warships, only on carriers. I feel like that changing the OP of warships, could make carriers, especially the combat carriers better warships than actual warships.

Carriers do not have the flux stats or the mounts to match ships of their class.

Currently, Legion is the only one that can get away of being a carrier and warship hybrid.  Even then, with Legion, I end up with something like Mark IX, HAG, and two dual flak; and most mounts are empty, but because heavy ballistics are good, they are enough to swat smaller ships or even brawl big ships.

In older pre-0.8 versions, I could put Heavy Blaster and few burst PD on Heron, and brawl with it.  That is not a good option anymore, although I try to make it work occasionally (because it did work at one time).  Similarly, I used to put a bunch of heavy blasters on Astral and use it like a fat Odyssey with more flight decks.  It was sub-optimal, but it could work.  Today, I just mount few burst PDs on Astral and throw everything into high-end bombers and hullmods.

I just want more carriers beyond Legion to be able to use guns and typical fighters (like Broadswords, Gladius, and Thunders) equally well like they used to in pre-0.8 releases (at least from 0.5.4a to 0.6.5a).

[TaLaR]

Vanilla doesn't offer good slot fillers, so you leaving empty mounts becomes the only solution for many builds. I rarely do that when I have Mini-blasters and Reliants (SWP, I think?).

[SCC]

While I understand the desire to make carriers not so barren, with current state of fighters, it's something of a necessity, to balance their long range power. Reaching a carrier only to find out it isn't actually vulnerable in close combat would make their great weakness balancing their great power otherwise.

[Morrokain]

Vanilla doesn't offer good slot fillers, so you leaving empty mounts becomes the only solution for many builds. I rarely do that when I have Mini-blasters and Reliants (SWP, I think?).

Is this because they are very low OP? Are they very useful? (I'm unfamiliar with the stats and I'm curious)

While I understand the desire to make carriers not so barren, with current state of fighters, it's something of a necessity, to balance their long range power. Reaching a carrier only to find out it isn't actually vulnerable in close combat would make their great weakness balancing their great power otherwise.

I agree its true that carriers have to have a vulnerability considering the strength of fighters. It doesn't have to be a lack of weapons though. For instance, they could just as easily be very vulnerable defensively(lower armor, lower flux stats, etc) - to serve as their intrinsic weakness to dedicated warships. And it goes without saying that they should at least generally be slower so they can be caught in the first place.

I'd rather have that than weapon mounts you can't use. Just having weapons doesn't make them OP when caught up to necessarily, though it could without other considerations being made.

[TaLaR]

Vanilla doesn't offer good slot fillers, so you leaving empty mounts becomes the only solution for many builds. I rarely do that when I have Mini-blasters and Reliants (SWP, I think?).

Is this because they are very low OP? Are they very useful? (I'm unfamiliar with the stats and I'm curious)

Very low OP and dps, but decently efficient.
Reliant is ballistic 1 OP, 50 kinetic dps, 25 fps, 450 range. Mini-blaster is similar weapon for energy slot. Both are hard flux and qualify as PD.
Won't carry any build, but worth 1OP for most ships.

[Morrokain]

Very low OP and dps, but decently efficient.
Reliant is ballistic 1 OP, 50 kinetic dps, 25 fps, 450 range. Mini-blaster is similar weapon for energy slot. Both are hard flux and qualify as PD.
Won't carry any build, but worth 1OP for most ships.

Ah ok that makes sense. So the idea there is 3 sliders of building a carrier variant:

PD quality in small slots | Fighter quality | Weapon quality on slots medium and above

- with likely some assumed hullmods that vary according to the specific hull in question. That roughly sum it up?

That at least feels better to me than no weapons at all, but also not the ideal carrier balance imo. One reason is because as you said fighter strength necessitates so high of a weight on the fighter quality slider that players are unlikely ever to reduce it below "maximum possible" and feel good about it.

But to that point: I've already roughly gone over specific reasons on certain things that were suggested, but I feel like the tricky part about something like nerfing fighter stats is that for this particular balancing act its less of a spectrum and more of a tightrope walk. Its very easy to fall off. So I'd rather take careful time to get the perfect balance than rework it a bunch of times each time the pendulum switches. I think it's already so close honestly. If doing a cost-benefit analysis on dev time, I'd suspect that the second option would end up netting more cost for even potentially less benefit, if that makes sense.

If I could only choose one change and had to choose the most important one to me, though, I would want the AI of the interceptor AI tag to cause attack commands from AI ships and the player to target and pursue bombers by priority instead of escorting allied bombers and attacking with them. Since fighters blur the lines in some cases, fighters with the "fighter" AI tag that are designed to attack with bombers and do things like drop flares to distract PD have the same behavior as now.