Print

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

[Megas]

The more I think about it, the more I wish fighters went back to being ships like before 0.8a, mainly so carriers could be outfitted like warships again.  (Ordering fighters was nice too.)  Fighters as weapons seemed like a good idea until it totally gutted weapon loadouts for carriers because OP for fighters is optimal.  Carriers did not have the guns to match equal-sized warships, but they could defend themselves from smaller threats.  Now they cannot do that because all OP on fighters lets current carriers do their job the best, which is launching the best fighters.  In other words, nearly all OP goes to doing their job, unlike before 0.8a where doing their job was free for the ship (but it costed Logistics or fleet slots), and OP was for guns.

Carriers were supposed to be more fun to pilot.  If anything, they are less fun because the optimal loadout is focus all OP on fighters, defenses, and Expanded Deck Crew, and run away from everything.  Mounts are mostly or totally empty.

[FooF]

The more I think about it, the more I wish fighters went back to being ships like before 0.8a, mainly so carriers could be outfitted like warships again.  (Ordering fighters was nice too.)  Fighters as weapons seemed like a good idea until it totally gutted weapon loadouts for carriers because OP for fighters is optimal.  Carriers did not have the guns to match equal-sized warships, but they could defend themselves from smaller threats.  Now they cannot do that because all OP on fighters lets current carriers do their job the best, which is launching the best fighters.  In other words, nearly all OP goes to doing their job, unlike before 0.8a where doing their job was free for the ship (but it costed Logistics or fleet slots), and OP was for guns.

Carriers were supposed to be more fun to pilot.  If anything, they are less fun because the optimal loadout is focus all OP on fighters, defenses, and Expanded Deck Crew, and run away from everything.  Mounts are mostly or totally empty.

I think you have nostalgia glasses on.

Fighters prior to 0.8 were gnats to swat away in the opening salvos of a fight and then would run out of replacements halfway through the battle. If I recall correctly, they didn't get boosts from officers and they took up fleet spots. I never thought fighters were anything more than nuisances prior to 0.8 and now that carriers are reliant on them, you want carriers to be sub-par warships? I much prefer the current system, especially with fighters coordinating their attacks fairly intelligently.

That said, the current system could be better. I think battle-carriers need to have their "carrier will never engage" AI tweaked and I also think fighters/carriers should suffer from attrition more. Seriously hampering Replacement Rate is harder than it should be and I think fighters, in general, are too tough for PD to handle. If fighters fell apart a little easier, and replacement rate suffered accordingly, I think carriers would be in the sweet spot.

As far as piloting a carrier goes, yes, I don't prefer it. Having more control over the fighters would be good or perhaps, having control of all fighters in a battle-space would help. Some kind of "Linked Fire Control" or something that put other carriers' fighters under your direct command. That way, if you want to control a "swarm" or have certain types of fighters attack one thing and another type attack another, you could. It's probably a UI nightmare but I agree that piloting a carrier is lackluster, atm.

[Igncom1]

I suppose the ability for fighters to "go out and engage" could be linked to flux, with recalling them being free, so harassed or attacked carriers are less able to deploy their swarms and thus making carriers that avoid fights and battlecarriers more distinct?

Or some connection to electronic warfare nerfing their operational range rather then normal guns or in additional too.

As for the actual topic ehh I dunno. The fighter wings already have different sizes with talons having many small craft and cobra bombers having just the one and it seems to be balanced around that. But who knows, perhaps a standard cobra wing of three might be nerf-ed to one in a small hanger, where as a wasp interceptor might have dozens more craft in a larger hanger? But that might cause even more problems.

I can see some coolness to be had from making superior and inferior hangers as currently we only have standard hangers, converted hangers which are worse, and built in fighter wings that cannot be changed.

[Megas]

@ FooF:  During 0.7.x, carriers were useless because of officers, and fighters had no skill support, and skills were stronger than they are today.  0.6.0 to 0.6.2 was just Atlas fleet led by solo Medusa or other ship because of excessive loot and supply drain from CR, plus low Logistics if I wanted to go Combat/Technology path due to slow leveling.  During 0.6.5, any fleet was viable (carriers, battleships, frigates, solo, fleet, whatever), since food runs made leveling up easy, and only the fleet commanders had skills, though frigate spam for combat and Atlas spam for food hauling were optimal.  Fighters also had some use before 0.6 too.

Fighters were only gnats when everyone had skills and they did not.  When only the playership and enemy commander had them (or no one had them if you go back far enough), fighters were not so weak.

[intrinsic_parity]

I don't think trying to make carriers better at direct combat makes much sense. They have to be bad at that by design so that fighters can be powerful/interesting. The goal should be to improve fighter mechanics rather than focus on combat aspects of carriers IMO. I don't see the problem with having ships that are more supportive/less fun to pilot. Those ships are still good and add diversity, and they also are an option for people who don't like arcady piloting and want to sit back and command a bit more.

I completely agree that the piloting experience for carriers could be improved on, but I think that is mostly because there aren't very many ways to interact with the fighters while piloting them. Fighter actions are entirely reduced to engage/regroup and pressing r to target stuff. If there were more tangibly different commands to give, then there could be interesting decisions to be made. I think too much of the process is automated, and giving the player more control would make the experience more enjoyable. The only carrier that I have any fun flying is the astral because you have to actively mange the ship system and time waves of bombers which is somewhat engaging. I still never fly it though.

I do wish there were more orders to give to the AI as well. I don't think the AI is very good at coordinating fighters, and the player doesn't have enough control or command points to really try. It's a really cool feeling to coordinate a timed bomb strike on vulnerable target, but you just can't pull it off because there is no way to order 'hold fire' and you don't have enough command points to constantly reassign targets either. More ability to set fighters to escort particular friendly ships would also be good.

[Igncom1]

You guys remember when you could send fighter wings out to explore the battlefield? Not that it matters much any more as the AI will always try to move to you unless retreating, but it was interesting back in the day when trying to spot cowardly enemy carriers by following their retreating fighters.

Setting up points to be fighter screened might also be nice, or an escort with fighters order so at least one carrier with fighters will send craft to guard a ship.

[Megas]

Making carriers good enough at fighting by using the mounts they were given (instead of sacking them for more OP for fighters) would be useful for bullying small ships that come to them or let a playership take the fight to the enemy and brawl a bit while fighters either support it or chase small fry it cannot catch.

Currently, carriers aside from Legion might as well have no weapon mounts.

I completely agree that the piloting experience for carriers could be improved on, but I think that is mostly because there aren't very many ways to interact with the fighters while piloting them. Fighter actions are entirely reduced to engage/regroup and pressing r to target stuff. If there were more tangibly different commands to give, then there could be interesting decisions to be made. I think too much of the process is automated, and giving the player more control would make the experience more enjoyable. The only carrier that I have any fun flying is the astral because you have to actively mange the ship system and time waves of bombers which is somewhat engaging. I still never fly it though.

Revert them back to ships as they were pre-0.8a.

You guys remember when you could send fighter wings out to explore the battlefield? Not that it matters much any more as the AI will always try to move to you unless retreating, but it was interesting back in the day when trying to spot cowardly enemy carriers by following their retreating fighters.

I remember deploying only fighters and let them sweep pursuits.

[Thaago]

I really don't buy these "I can't put weapons on my carriers" arguments.

I can build good builds that use guns as part of their power for the Legion, Odyssey, Mora, Heron, Gemini (not quite as powerful as a good combat destroyer, but its a 1 deck freighter its not supposed to be as powerful, and it can kite/harass/gang up on them just dine). Some of these also can use heavy missiles. The Heron/Gemini can't really pull off the weapons except in self defense because it has the "carrier" AI: its great as a player ship and if it had the combat AI tag it would be fine. That self defense capability can be very important though if you expect/fear your carriers are going to get hit.

For the Astral, Drover, and Condor, (and Mora, Legion, Odyssey, Gemini) I can build good loadouts that use significant missiles. Full fighter complement, full missile loadout, extended racks. These are the "dedicated" carriers that really don't want to engage gunships: that is their design. They still don't need every OP sunk into fighters and in fact I think they are worse when they do (missiles are very powerful).

There's also the fact that more OP on fighters does not always equal better. Choosing the right fighter for the ship/fleet is better. In general there is a heavy OP tax on strike fighters because of their burst power: sometimes that is good, sometimes it is not. Interceptors/heavy fighters/ion fighters etc are all quite powerful if that is what you need and are much cheaper.

If you want to outfit a carrier like a warship: Do it. Most can handle it, and all can have significant weapons. (Edit: if they have mounts in the first place - its not the fighters stopping them)

[intrinsic_parity]

Making carriers good enough at fighting by using the mounts they were given (instead of sacking them for more OP for fighters) would be useful for bullying small ships that come to them or let a playership take the fight to the enemy and brawl a bit while fighters either support it or chase small fry it cannot catch.

Currently, carriers aside from Legion might as well have no weapon mounts.

I completely agree that the piloting experience for carriers could be improved on, but I think that is mostly because there aren't very many ways to interact with the fighters while piloting them. Fighter actions are entirely reduced to engage/regroup and pressing r to target stuff. If there were more tangibly different commands to give, then there could be interesting decisions to be made. I think too much of the process is automated, and giving the player more control would make the experience more enjoyable. The only carrier that I have any fun flying is the astral because you have to actively mange the ship system and time waves of bombers which is somewhat engaging. I still never fly it though.

Revert them back to ships as they were pre-0.8a.

I don't remember them being fun to fly then either. The mounts and stats that carriers have are not good enough to make them competitive with warships in a brawl, even if they spent all OP on them. If the player wants brawl, why would he ever fly a carrier? If the goal is to make carriers fun for the player to fly, it has to be about making fighters more interesting to control, because if the fun part of flying a carrier is brawling, then the player will always fly a ship that is good at brawling instead.

If the goal is balance AI carriers, then I think we are already in a good spot. I build my carriers with very few weapons because it keeps them safe, not because I can't possibly fit any weapons, and using more weapons would lead the AI into dangerous situations. OP is really only a big issue when I want high end bombers. A heron with sparks or other 8 OP interceptors can fit decent weapons, but the interceptors will have a much bigger impact than the weapons, so it makes more sense to keep the heron safe with defensive hull mods and long range beams and let the fighters do their job. Giving the carrier guns is more likely to get it killed than contribute to combat in my experience and that's not an issue with OP, it's a consequence of the the base stats being lower to balance out the strength of fighters. I think carriers are fine right now, they just aren't warships.

Also if the issue with fighters was that skills made them irrelevant, then making fighters a separate ship would guarantee that would happen again since no one would ever waste an officer on a single fighter wing. My biggest problem with old fighters was that they died permanently like ships if the whole wing went down. They were basically just a frigate alternative for map control, and frigates are not very good right now, so I don't see them being worth fleet slots as separate entities. Tempests and omens are better at pursuits and map control anyway.

[Wyvern]

I really don't buy these "I can't put weapons on my carriers" arguments.

I can build good builds that use guns as part of their power for the Legion, Odyssey,...

The problem I run into when I try to do this is that, in order for the AI to use it, you have to make the carrier completely self-sufficient as a warship sans fighters entirely.

There are some very nice builds I can put together for my own use that take advantage of synergy between fighters and the carrier's guns - for example, broadswords and a heavy mauler on a Heron.  Works great under player control, works great in 1v1 duels... But those builds fall apart if you give them to the AI in a real battle; it'll send its fighters off somewhere else, try to fight off whatever's close to it with just the carrier's guns, and fail miserably.

Battlecarriers like the Legion and Odyssey can handle themselves just fine - nobody's complaining about them, so I'm not sure why you tried to use them as examples for saying things are okay as they are.

The Mora and the Heron are... arguable.  Kindof middle-of-the-road; the Mora's durability and the Heron's speed both make them decently survivable without their fighters; they're battlecarrier-lite ships.  Even here, filling all of the weapon mounts is something I've literally never done since the change to put fighters in as weapons - it's just not worth using every small slot when your outgoing firepower from guns is dissipation-capped anyway.

And then you get to the Astral and the Drover (and, I suppose, the Colossus Mk III and the Condor).  These are the ships where swapping guns out for more fighters is not just sensible, but optimal.  Sure, you can trade off some sustained damage output for burst by putting in some missiles, and it's usually worth having at least token PD just so the AI doesn't go crazy trying to run away from pilums it could just shield-tank and ignore... but after that?  Is there any sensible Astral build that actually uses more than maybe a third of its energy mounts?  And even if there is, would that build be better with fewer guns?  (Why yes, it would.  Fancy that.)

[Morrokain]

My biggest problem with old fighters was that they died permanently like ships if the whole wing went down. They were basically just a frigate alternative for map control, and frigates are not very good right now, so I don't see them being worth fleet slots as separate entities. Tempests and omens are better at pursuits and map control anyway.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about the old fighter system. The extra control was nice and I would like to see some of that functionality return in the new system somehow, but the downsides were too numerous to make the old one viable over the new one. Fighters also drained so many supplies (you couldn't reasonably control the amount of drain either unless you just didn't deploy fighters) that carriers weren't even attractive as support ships, let alone flying one. Carriers are my favorite vessel archetype (well battlecarriers really) but the only one I would fly then would have been the astral and even then just so I could target the missiles myself. I really think the new system is better for carriers all around, it just needs a tiny bit more nuance to be perfect imo.

As far as the original issue on weapons, I just feel that Ordinance Points as a stand alone balancing mechanism is insufficient to promote build diversity and there needs to be a second mechanism to provide the nuance to make weapons more attractive in some situations. Why? As a concept, you aren't likely ever going to be able to make the case that weapons will be better than a mobile strike platform and defense if the latter two are options. The only real exception is probably some light pd, but assault oriented weapons to soft counter smaller craft? There really isn't a reason to do this at the moment when you can solve the same problem by having a better strike platform to take out those threats before they get close, if that makes sense. So:

I really don't buy these "I can't put weapons on my carriers" arguments.

...

There's also the fact that more OP on fighters does not always equal better. Choosing the right fighter for the ship/fleet is better. In general there is a heavy OP tax on strike fighters because of their burst power: sometimes that is good, sometimes it is not. Interceptors/heavy fighters/ion fighters etc are all quite powerful if that is what you need and are much cheaper.

If you want to outfit a carrier like a warship: Do it. Most can handle it, and all can have significant weapons. (Edit: if they have mounts in the first place - its not the fighters stopping them)

I agree that the synergy of wings definitely matters here. One way I've already suggested to increase build viability with small OP cost wings is to increase that wing synergy by better defining and refining strike craft roles- especially with the AI in mind. If most roles are designed to attack the targeted ship, there is less really there to compete with as far as synergy between wings. Mostly it comes down to a distraction and a strike wing to use that distraction to perform their strike. Or complementing damage type strike wings. There certainly can be pure interceptor builds, but those are the least viable to me because of the AI. It might do something to protect the carrier, but relying on it to stop other strike craft is risky unless in the player hands so they can specifically target the enemy strike craft with Engage.

The main point for me, however, is the idea that- though synergy between wings can result in more "bonus" OP in certain builds that will, in turn, result in more weapon options... I don't really think there is ever a situation where you would make an OP sacrifice in your wing build for a specific weapon or more weapons. I might be wrong, though. I also don't think this is a bad thing in and of itself. It means the strike craft are doing their job well. Completely weaponless carriers are a little awkward, though, and giving additional constraints on tech, size or role for carriers could provide a way to promote a build synergy balance where there is always enough OP remaining for weapons to be placed as a "leftovers" from the pool in each situation. Giving certain incentives to upgrade weapon quality in return for sacrificing utility mods or maybe defensive mods in some situations is probably the best that can be reasonably hoped for. If weapons are competing on a carrier, strike craft are probably too weak.

[Megas]

I do not consider modern Odyssey a carrier like the others with bays.  It has too few bays, and it has evolved into extra-large Shrike that happens to have few bays as an artifact from what it used to be.  Odyssey as a dual plasma playership can work fine without fighters, but I use fighters because what else can I use that is as good, not to mention Mining Pods are free... and are actually decent meat shields for an Odyssey that will brawl like a Shrike.  Plus, what fighters I do use on Odyssey, I use because they are infinite Sabots or Atropos (Longbows or Daggers), or meat shields (Mining Pods or Xyphos), and all of them are decent escorts that never need to "Engage".

Legion is the only carrier that can get away as a warship, but even it has to skimp on weapons (although that is partly due to horrible dissipation), although it has enough left to work with.  As for fighters, I use the 8 to 10 OP ones.  (If I wanted bombers on a capital, I would pick Astral for obvious reasons.)

Heron is too OP starved to fight as a warship and do well as carrier.  I tried warship Heron with Talons, but the results were mediocre.  If I use decent non-bombers, I do not have enough OP left for proper warship duty.  Not enough flux/dissipation, no ITU, or not enough PD.  Nevermind campaign mods that I can squeeze on most of the top-tier ships.  I did not have those loadout headaches during pre-0.8a releases.  It is not that Heron cannot do some of the warship-lite loadouts (but probably at the cost of fighter effectiveness), but it is worth it over making it Drover++ and hide it elsewhere?

The problem I run into when I try to do this is that, in order for the AI to use it, you have to make the carrier completely self-sufficient as a warship sans fighters entirely.

And Heron in previous releases could do that.  Kill off weaker assailants with a warship-lite loadout while it rallied around a nav/sensor relay.

Is there any sensible Astral build that actually uses more than maybe a third of its energy mounts?  And even if there is, would that build be better with fewer guns?

The most guns I put on Astral is five heavy burst lasers, sometimes less.  All other mounts are empty.  Everything goes into bombers (mix of Khopesh, Longbows, Cobras, and/or Daggers) and Expanded Deck Crew, and it is effective.

In old releases, I would use three heavy blasters and while it was worse than Odyssey, it could still brawl against cruisers and maybe other capitals if I had a skill advantage.  I do not bother with that today.  Just get the best bombers and abuse recall device.

Also if the issue with fighters was that skills made them irrelevant, then making fighters a separate ship would guarantee that would happen again since no one would ever waste an officer on a single fighter wing. My biggest problem with old fighters was that they died permanently like ships if the whole wing went down. They were basically just a frigate alternative for map control, and frigates are not very good right now, so I don't see them being worth fleet slots as separate entities. Tempests and omens are better at pursuits and map control anyway.

That was only true for releases before 0.6a, or pre-0.8a releases if you did not have a carrier in the fleet.  Fighters' main advantage from 0.6a to up to 0.7.2 was they were zombies... in releases where ships were rare and hard to stockpile.  (There was no ship recovery, just the aggravating slot machine of boarding.  And shops were no better than gambling at Gheeds - pay millions to clean out a store and hoping something you want spawns next month.)  You could kill fighters in battle, but they regenerate after battle as long as a carrier was in the fleet.

That said, none of the carriers were frigate-sized, and frigates were much faster than even destroyers once player got Navigation 10.  Carriers were no good for frigate-only fleets, but they were decent once bigger ships were used.

[intrinsic_parity]

The problem I run into when I try to do this is that, in order for the AI to use it, you have to make the carrier completely self-sufficient as a warship sans fighters entirely.

And Heron in previous releases could do that.  Kill off weaker assailants with a warship-lite loadout while it rallied around a nav/sensor relay.

Why would you do this though, when you can just deploy an eagle or apogee that will actually pull its weight as a combat cruiser for almost the same DP? Or you can deploy a falcon for less DP that will still perform better in combat or even a hammerhead or tempest that will do a similarly good job of contesting a relay and probably kill some frigates. Of course those ships won't support your fighters, but frigates can do the same job as old fighters (map control/harassment and objective contesting). Fighters costing DP and fleet slots means their contribution has to be much higher to be worthwhile as well.

[Megas]

The problem I run into when I try to do this is that, in order for the AI to use it, you have to make the carrier completely self-sufficient as a warship sans fighters entirely.

And Heron in previous releases could do that.  Kill off weaker assailants with a warship-lite loadout while it rallied around a nav/sensor relay.

Why would you do this though, when you can just deploy an eagle or apogee that will actually pull its weight as a combat cruiser for almost the same DP? Or you can deploy a falcon for less DP that will still perform better in combat or even a hammerhead or tempest that will do a similarly good job of contesting a relay and probably kill some frigates. Of course those ships won't support your fighters, but frigates can do the same job as old fighters (map control/harassment and objective contesting). Fighters costing DP and fleet slots means their contribution has to be much higher to be worthwhile as well.

Why would I use anything other than frigate horde in 0.6.5, or uber Onslaught during 0.7.x?  I would not use carriers during 0.7 because officers and the skills they brought made them obsolete, but during 0.6.5, I would use anything I wanted and it felt mostly good, although if I really wanted to be optimal in a fight and do it quickly enough before swapping fleet back to Atlas mob for the big food run, nothing could beat forty common frigates led by Hyperion because of how fast and cheap they were in battle and in campaign.  Heron might not have existed before 0.6.5.

At the time, ship (and weapon) rarity.  Ships that died in battle - along with most of the weapons they used - were generally lost for good.  Fighters were immortal.  Also, if I wanted to use fighters in the fleet, especially in battle, I needed a carrier somewhere, and a carrier that could fight or defend itself from minor was nice.  Having a lone enemy Hound or Lasher drive up and blow up a Gemini, Heron, or Venture because I did not bother arming the carrier would have been unthinkable back in the day.

Also, fighters lacked PPT.

Also, if I wanted to pilot a carrier, I want to brawl with it (in part because the carrier has weapon mounts that I would to use), not hide and wait.  Before Heron came, it was Odyssey or Venture.  When Heron first came, it was great.  It was a Wolf (when Wolves were good and could solo cruisers and Onslaughts).  I get that carriers should not brawl as well as a dedicated warship, which is why they have less flux slots and weapon mounts.  Basically, I expect combat carriers to work like Legion.  Less guns, but can still fight while sending fighters to kill stuff.  Heron did what Legion does now before Mora and Legion existed.

Heron may have been faster too when it debutted.  Like I said, super Wolf that traded skimmer for fighters.

[Mordodrukow]

I dont wanna live in Universe with even faster Herons 

The idea of different bay sizes is interesting. It is not good or bad, it will just make the game different. But idea of buffing carriers (except for colossus)? No, thank you very much.