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Author Topic: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework  (Read 15658 times)

BillyRueben

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #30 on: May 15, 2012, 05:25:19 PM »

Yeah, those ideas might work. I lol'd at the thought of a Thunder running out of fuel, its momentum carrying in one direction while it was spinning out of control. If fuel for fighters was added in as you stated, I'd rather the fighters just be forced to retreat off the map. It would be a lot simpler. However, I still don't like the idea of having to assign my fighters to a carrier. It just seems like too much micromanagement, and it doesn't get you anything.

The dedicated carriers in this game (I guess there are only two real ones), are easy pickings IMO. As for the non-dedicated carriers, the Venture is one giant damage sponge, and the Odyssey is scary.
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PCCL

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #31 on: May 15, 2012, 06:09:06 PM »

ofc they're easy pickings, they're supposed to be...

that's why you protect them... As is I feel they're barely worth a dedicated protection detail nor a taskforce to snipe the enemy one...
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KDR_11k

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #32 on: May 16, 2012, 12:33:04 AM »

I think that would screw small fleets over too much, especially early game fleets often consist of frigs and fighters.
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PCCL

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #33 on: May 16, 2012, 12:53:36 AM »

2 ways could address that:

Make fighters have roughly enough fuel to last through small scale engagements
Make smaller fleets mainly frigs that can fight on without fighters

Lets face it, in smaller engagements fighters don't move around that much and can do all the damage they need in a rather short amount of time, so IMO the 1st way is probably best...

or go the IRL navy way and have smaller ships carry like one fighter (not a squadron) on their backs like a weapon or something...
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Karmashock

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #34 on: May 16, 2012, 02:51:51 AM »

First, let me say I didn't mean to offend anyone. I just felt the idea was being dismissed without consideration. And while some might not have liked my stress on that point, you can see by being insistent I actually provoked some ACTUAL suggestions on the point rather then the flat dismissal. So while I could have done it differently, I was obviously reacting to something that was real.



That said, why don't we give frigates a TINY amount of hanger space. I mean, enough for one squadron and no ability to repair a squadron in combat. That way small fleets can still have fighters. We'll say they're latched onto the hull of the frigates when out of combat to satisfy lore.

As to real carriers with flight decks and not just cruisers or destroyers that might have hanger space. I think their hanger space should be upped significantly.

I think fighters are really powerful and really interesting and I'd like big fleets to field a large number of them without being forced to sacrifice capital ships or cruisers. Particularly if you have an odyssey carrier or any other carrier focused capital ship, there should be a serious hanger space partition.


In this way, any large fleet should have at least one ship that has a flight deck and every large fleet should have a fair number of fighter/bomber craft.


As to retreating off field. Is it possible to retreat and then redeploy retreated ships? Obviously they don't get auto repaired or whatever by doing that. But it might be an interesting way to shift fleet composition from something that is effective early battle but less effective late battle.
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Catra

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #35 on: May 16, 2012, 02:57:07 AM »

some frigates already do have room for 1 group of fighters.
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Karmashock

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #36 on: May 16, 2012, 03:37:42 AM »

some frigates already do have room for 1 group of fighters.
Well there you go, the change wouldn't even be that big a deal then.
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NikolaiLev

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #37 on: May 16, 2012, 04:52:16 PM »

I feel as though Carriers need to be more vital.  I can understand the concern against requiring a Carrier for fighter operation, but as it stands now they're only important if you're relying on bombers.

I think what we all can agree on is that we ought to make a full carrier+fighter setup about as viable as a balanced fleet.  Billy is concerned the changes would necessitate bringing in at least one Carrier capable ship to merely use a Thunder to capture objectives.  But what I'd like to know is if this is really what we want to use fighters as - fast moving ships to only capture objectives.  Honestly, that's not really what I'd like to see them be used for.  Removing the ability of fighters to cap objectives, however, is another discussion altogether.

Tangents aside, the proponents of this suggestion want to see Carriers being used in a more central role for the deployment of fighters.  However, its detractors, and the developer want fighters to see more action, because they're cool (and let's face it - they are!)  Can anyone think of a compromise?  A way, outside of the current system, to make Carriers more important to the operation of fighters, but ultimately allowing fighters to be fielded even in their absence?  It seems to me like solving the problem of fighters being independent of carriers created a new one - carriers are no longer needed at all.

The current system only encourages carriers for long term efficiency of limited ammunition weapons on fighters, or in situations where the enemy fields many PD ships, or at least that's the way I perceive it.  If a fleet wants to field a lot of ships instead of one or two carriers, they ought to have to invest in point defense and strike frigates instead of fighters and bombers (and by the way, I never seem to see the former two, so there's another benefit we could reap from this.)
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PCCL

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #38 on: May 16, 2012, 05:45:04 PM »

As I said before, limited fuel but allow fighters enough fuel to last a smaller battle and refuel between battles

If they want to take on larger fleets odds are they'll run out of fuel before winning and be forced to retreat or drift offmap without carriers, only carriers can refuel them
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KDR_11k

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #39 on: May 17, 2012, 01:14:24 AM »

I don't think we need to force the use of carriers, it's simply a good idea to bring one carrier when you're using fighters just to enable repairs and stuff. It's the bigger (i.e. more expensive) carriers and bringing multiple carriers that seem superfluous right now. I always field a Venture or Odyssey along with fighters but Astrals currently rank as vendor trash for me because I don't need that much carrier and would rather invest the FP in actual firepower.

If you remove fighters as the map control option then people will bring fast frigates instead. Whatever is fastest to get to those points.
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NikolaiLev

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #40 on: May 17, 2012, 03:44:18 AM »

I don't think we need to necessitate Carriers.  I just think we want to encourage their use more than it is now.
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Karmashock

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Re: Fighter craft and carrier hangar rework
« Reply #41 on: May 17, 2012, 12:05:45 PM »

I don't want to necessitate them. I want a fleet that is nothing but carriers and fighters to be viable. I want to enter a battle with a few big carriers (like the Odyssey class) and then engage the enemy forces with both my carriers and my swarms of fighters.

As it stands, fighters cost too much in fleet points and hanger points to be efficient. Even the big capital ship carriers don't have much hanger space. And hanger space aside the fighters use up a lot of Fleet points.


I really like fighters. I just wish they were viable as the primary strike force.
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