Print

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

[Megas]

As someone who does not use fighter skills, I avoid usually bombers because they drain replacement like crazy.  If I use bombers, I usually use Khopesh and sometimes Longbows.  I only use Daggers if they are on the flagship I pilot, or the ship (under AI control) has Defensive Targeting Array to prevent them from roaming.

About Broadsword, I like them more than Gladius because they are more durable and there are three at a time instead of two, so they distract better.  Also, they are Open Market and easy to find.  When my replacement rate is awful, I want fighters that can survive while they do their thing.  Admittedly, I mostly tried Gladius when they used to drop only one flare instead of three.

I usually use fighters to chase down cowardly small ships that outrun my bigger ships and shoot them down, and interceptors can do that.

I like fighters that can survive and not drain replacement rate too easily.

[Siffrin]

Broadswords still have a big advantage over the Gladius when it comes to escorting bombers. More flares and way more EHP lets them protect Daggers and Longbows way better than the Gladius whose speed becomes irrelevant.

[PixiCode]

Broadsword is so overrated. Gladius is the best fighter. Fight me.

Reason being Gladius actually has flux to spam its MG, causing significant shield damage. Its shield dps is superior to 3 Broadsword, and pulse laser can tickle armor of small ships.

Broadsword is tougher, but who cares. It will get deleted by stray shot anyways, so its actual impact is negligible under high intensity combat. Gladius speed will allow it return to fight faster.

Imma fight you! _{Okay not really, just going to politely give my opinion.}

I don't agree that Broadsword will get deleted by stray shots, it's more nuanced than that, but I'll play with the assumption that both Gladius and Broadsword die from stray shots often. Not saying that's true or false, just going with that assumption. While the gladius performs better dps wise in a sustained way, the alpha dps before broadsword fluxes out is higher since it's 3 models instead of 2. If the assumption is true, that means broadsword is more competitive in total damage with gladius, assuming they explode like within ~4 seconds? They'd probably have close to the same total damage by then, right? Just a guess. If they both only last 1-2 seconds, then broadsword can even out-dps gladius. The whole thing is complicated and I'm just giving vague guesses.

My understanding is that Broadsword and Gladius excel in different roles.

For the broadsword, HE Bombers are slower than the broadsword so the extra speed of gladius isn't much of a benefit as an escort for HE bombers and like Siffrin says broadswords fire off more flares. Even if the extra HP is somehow not a benefit compared to the gladius, they'll still get those flares off. The higher alpha damage also supports HE bombers more, and generally broadswords should be able to get in some kinetic damage before dagger atropos reaches. Also, their lower speed doesn't mean much if you put them on a battlecarrier and I've showed why the alpha damage of a broadsword is important if you think broadswords die that quickly.

For the gladius, their higher top speed and higher shield dps are very nice as support for wing swarm tactics. They pair better with things like massive warthog, thunder, talon etc spam than broadswords do, which are slower so they'll fall behind these other wings. Also, if you're spamming those sorts of wings, the gladius is more likely to live long enough to out-dps broadswords. Like you said, their high speed helps them get from a far away carrier to battle faster, too. And my favorite, gladius just happens to work well as escort for claws.

As someone who does not use fighter skills, I avoid usually bombers because they drain replacement like crazy.  If I use bombers, I usually use Khopesh and sometimes Longbows.  I only use Daggers if they are on the flagship I pilot, or the ship (under AI control) has Defensive Targeting Array to prevent them from roaming.

This is slightly off topic, but I wish a bomber returning to its carrier gave a % replacement rate refund when returning, based on the remaining % of refit time remained on that model. Give no refund under a certain %, then give a maximum value based on 100% refit time for edge cases like when a bomber gets flamed out but eventually returns to the bomber much later.

[Octavus]

Broadsword is so overrated. Gladius is the best fighter. Fight me.

Reason being Gladius actually has flux to spam its MG, causing significant shield damage. Its shield dps is superior to 3 Broadsword, and pulse laser can tickle armor of small ships.

Broadsword is tougher, but who cares. It will get deleted by stray shot anyways, so its actual impact is negligible under high intensity combat. Gladius speed will allow it return to fight faster.

Imma fight you! _{Okay not really, just going to politely give my opinion.}

I don't agree that Broadsword will get deleted by stray shots, it's more nuanced than that, but I'll play with the assumption that both Gladius and Broadsword die from stray shots often. Not saying that's true or false, just going with that assumption. While the gladius performs better dps wise in a sustained way, the alpha dps before broadsword fluxes out is higher since it's 3 models instead of 2. If the assumption is true, that means broadsword is more competitive in total damage with gladius, assuming they explode like within ~4 seconds? They'd probably have close to the same total damage by then, right? Just a guess. If they both only last 1-2 seconds, then broadsword can even out-dps gladius. The whole thing is complicated and I'm just giving vague guesses.

My understanding is that Broadsword and Gladius excel in different roles.

For the broadsword, HE Bombers are slower than the broadsword so the extra speed of gladius isn't much of a benefit as an escort for HE bombers and like Siffrin says broadswords fire off more flares. Even if the extra HP is somehow not a benefit compared to the gladius, they'll still get those flares off. The higher alpha damage also supports HE bombers more, and generally broadswords should be able to get in some kinetic damage before dagger atropos reaches. Also, their lower speed doesn't mean much if you put them on a battlecarrier and I've showed why the alpha damage of a broadsword is important if you think broadswords die that quickly.

For the gladius, their higher top speed and higher shield dps are very nice as support for wing swarm tactics. They pair better with things like massive warthog, thunder, talon etc spam than broadswords do, which are slower so they'll fall behind these other wings. Also, if you're spamming those sorts of wings, the gladius is more likely to live long enough to out-dps broadswords. Like you said, their high speed helps them get from a far away carrier to battle faster, too. And my favorite, gladius just happens to work well as escort for claws.

As someone who does not use fighter skills, I avoid usually bombers because they drain replacement like crazy.  If I use bombers, I usually use Khopesh and sometimes Longbows.  I only use Daggers if they are on the flagship I pilot, or the ship (under AI control) has Defensive Targeting Array to prevent them from roaming.

This is slightly off topic, but I wish a bomber returning to its carrier gave a % replacement rate refund when returning, based on the remaining % of refit time remained on that model. Give no refund under a certain %, then give a maximum value based on 100% refit time for edge cases like when a bomber gets flamed out but eventually returns to the bomber much later.

Very well written!

and I would like to second you on bombers refunding replacement rate when they return, it makes sense that servicing a bomber would take less resources than building one from scratch, even fighters too I would add.
Would definitely affect balance so adjustments are definitely needed but this just makes sense in my head.

[Thaago]

Agreed on the Broadsword alpha strike potential - its a much better "bomber leader" than the Gladius for all the reasons everyone's said.

[Princess of Evil]

Your comment about the odyssey is just wrong. The odyssey does have plenty of reason to want a large selection of the wings available in vanilla, especially since defense targeting array now exists. Not that you%u2019d use dta with some of these, but it opens up the selection even more than before. Talons are less of a bullet catcher than pods but threaten frigates or help apply some small damage to targets all for just 2-4 OP, broadswords create flares to help protect whatever missiles the odyssey is launching and also adds kinetic damage, sarissa or Xyphos are very good support craft, longbows are both pdburst point defense and kinetic sabot damage, there%u2019s so much the odyssey can want from its flight decks.

Many local Oddy pilots prefer not to use squishy and crew-draining fighters for support, especially since its weapons and hullmods are all expensive even for a capital. Mining pods take no OP, drain no resources and will occasionally catch a missile, either with their flashlight or by failing to dodge it.

Broadsword is definitely not a great fighter, in the sense of fighting enemy ships. It's mostly good for mixing into bomber wings, where it can generally protect them with its thick flares and its thick butt.

Slightly off-topic, but i wish the third option wasn't called "fighters" in game, but rather something like assault or strike. They are quite literally designed like ground attack aircraft and it's just confusing most of the time.

[TK3600]

Broadsword is so overrated. Gladius is the best fighter. Fight me.

Reason being Gladius actually has flux to spam its MG, causing significant shield damage. Its shield dps is superior to 3 Broadsword, and pulse laser can tickle armor of small ships.

Broadsword is tougher, but who cares. It will get deleted by stray shot anyways, so its actual impact is negligible under high intensity combat. Gladius speed will allow it return to fight faster.

Imma fight you! _{Okay not really, just going to politely give my opinion.}

I don't agree that Broadsword will get deleted by stray shots, it's more nuanced than that, but I'll play with the assumption that both Gladius and Broadsword die from stray shots often. Not saying that's true or false, just going with that assumption. While the gladius performs better dps wise in a sustained way, the alpha dps before broadsword fluxes out is higher since it's 3 models instead of 2. If the assumption is true, that means broadsword is more competitive in total damage with gladius, assuming they explode like within ~4 seconds? They'd probably have close to the same total damage by then, right? Just a guess. If they both only last 1-2 seconds, then broadsword can even out-dps gladius. The whole thing is complicated and I'm just giving vague guesses.

My understanding is that Broadsword and Gladius excel in different roles.

For the broadsword, HE Bombers are slower than the broadsword so the extra speed of gladius isn't much of a benefit as an escort for HE bombers and like Siffrin says broadswords fire off more flares. Even if the extra HP is somehow not a benefit compared to the gladius, they'll still get those flares off. The higher alpha damage also supports HE bombers more, and generally broadswords should be able to get in some kinetic damage before dagger atropos reaches. Also, their lower speed doesn't mean much if you put them on a battlecarrier and I've showed why the alpha damage of a broadsword is important if you think broadswords die that quickly.

For the gladius, their higher top speed and higher shield dps are very nice as support for wing swarm tactics. They pair better with things like massive warthog, thunder, talon etc spam than broadswords do, which are slower so they'll fall behind these other wings. Also, if you're spamming those sorts of wings, the gladius is more likely to live long enough to out-dps broadswords. Like you said, their high speed helps them get from a far away carrier to battle faster, too. And my favorite, gladius just happens to work well as escort for claws.

As someone who does not use fighter skills, I avoid usually bombers because they drain replacement like crazy.  If I use bombers, I usually use Khopesh and sometimes Longbows.  I only use Daggers if they are on the flagship I pilot, or the ship (under AI control) has Defensive Targeting Array to prevent them from roaming.

This is slightly off topic, but I wish a bomber returning to its carrier gave a % replacement rate refund when returning, based on the remaining % of refit time remained on that model. Give no refund under a certain %, then give a maximum value based on 100% refit time for edge cases like when a bomber gets flamed out but eventually returns to the bomber much later.

Broadsword and Gladius are different, generally pretty even, but everyone act like Broadsword is S tier Gladius is C tier, when they are both A tier, and arguably Gladius is A+. Broadsword can drop more flare, take couple more shots, higher alpha (negligible difference). Gladius is faster, 3x the sustained dps. On paper Broadsword is the better bomber escort, you use like 1 wing to supplement the bomber. It is the better distractor, but it does very very little on its own. It is useless to spam them. 1 distraction is enough. 2 of them gets deleted by flak about same speed, while provide minimal dps upgrade. Gladius on other hand scales a lot better in a spam. 300 kinetic dps is no joke, it will delete frigates all on its own. Under heavy PD, it will have higher up time than broadsword due to faster return.

As for alpha damage vs sustained, broadsword has 50% alpha for the first 2.5s. Gladius catch up in about 3.75 seconds, and afterward has damage advantage. The 1 second difference is too tiny for me to care, while fighters generally live longer than 2.5s. And if it live less than 2.5s... then neither is getting much value. In conclusion sustained damage is more important.

[PixiCode]

Many local Oddy pilots prefer not to use squishy and crew-draining fighters for support, especially since its weapons and hullmods are all expensive even for a capital. Mining pods take no OP, drain no resources and will occasionally catch a missile, either with their flashlight or by failing to dodge it.

You can fit an odyssey with 2x plasma, locust, 2x prox charge, 1 medium sabot, 3pdburst, ITU, EMR, hardshield, 50 vents and still have 20 OP left over. The OP budget isn't as tight as you're suggesting. Doesn't mean pods don't have their upsides but it's not so limiting that other options are bad.

Broadsword and Gladius are different, generally pretty even, but everyone act like Broadsword is S tier Gladius is C tier, when they are both A tier, and arguably Gladius is A+. Broadsword can drop more flare, take couple more shots, higher alpha (negligible difference). Gladius is faster, 3x the sustained dps. On paper Broadsword is the better bomber escort, you use like 1 wing to supplement the bomber. It is the better distractor, but it does very very little on its own. It is useless to spam them. 1 distraction is enough. 2 of them gets deleted by flak about same speed, while provide minimal dps upgrade. Gladius on other hand scales a lot better in a spam. 300 kinetic dps is no joke, it will delete frigates all on its own. Under heavy PD, it will have higher up time than broadsword due to faster return.

As for alpha damage vs sustained, broadsword has 50% alpha for the first 2.5s. Gladius catch up in about 3.75 seconds, and afterward has damage advantage. The 1 second difference is too tiny for me to care, while fighters generally live longer than 2.5s. And if it live less than 2.5s... then neither is getting much value. In conclusion sustained damage is more important.

Faster return doesn't matter as much if it is escorting HE bombers or on a battlecarrier on the front lines, as I explained. Legion, Odyssey and to a lesser extent Mora (Mora is just so slow it sometimes isn't on the frontlines for awhile <.<) are the best examples. Battle CH builds also fit this. In conclusion, sustained damage is not more important as a flat fact, it is situational. Situationally; Broadsword is imo superior to the gladius for HE bomber escort duty and fully competitive with the gladius in battlecarriers. Otherwise, the Gladius' advantages are better for keep-away carriers with no HE bombers (though gladius with longbow and no HE sounds silly), escorting claws and being paired with fighter/missile spam.

[Carkidd]

With how the shields end up being a straight up liability due to overloading, I wonder what people would think of fighters only overloading the shield itself, and not the guns. The shield could take at least one hit of any strength and wouldn't stop the weapons from firing otherwise (but it would max the flux). Would be interesting to see how that played out, and it would hopefully make them the improved protection option they're sold as.

Fighters already have a bunch of hacks, so this could just be another quirk, like the Xyphos not having any weapon flux.

[PixiCode]

With how the shields end up being a straight up liability due to overloading, I wonder what people would think of fighters only overloading the shield itself, and not the guns. The shield could take at least one hit of any strength and wouldn't stop the weapons from firing otherwise (but it would max the flux). Would be interesting to see how that played out, and it would hopefully make them the improved protection option they're sold as. Another option would be the overload being very short.

Thanks to modding, we’ve seen that frigates with shields can be good. Super thin shields are pretty good, and also ships with a lot of extra flux dissipation can make shields really good sometimes, likely if they have omni shield and not front shield.

But yeah vanilla shielded fighters suffer

[jojo67373]

Thank you. Very well written.

I agree that converted hanger (CH) spam is more DP efficient than dedicated carriers for non-bomber fighers. Since CH allows for one LPC per ship, would a combination of wolf pack with CH work? For example, Lance Sunder+ Gladius/Broadsword?

[Mishrak]

I feel like CH works really well in the early game when you want to add a little more firepower but your fleet is still lacking ships to fill the DP.  Adding CH Xyphos to a cruiser can help bridge the gaps.  Or just gaining some field superiority by doing what you mentioned, CH on destroyer to add broadsword/gladius/thunders to the field.

Once your fleet starts to fill up though, it's generally poor use of OP and DP to CH ships.  Adding 2-3 DP to all your ships starts to actively take away from your fleet strength.  Plus (in this particular example), a Sunder investing that much OP in fighters is not going to be as effective as if that OP was invested in caps/vents/better hull mods.  In larger situations it's better to use a dedicated carrier than to try and add CH.

CH in it's current form is pretty lackluster.  It has niche uses but it's in a far more dead state than I wish it was.

[Thaago]

My main gripe with CH is that there is no way to give support fighters range boosts. As you said, a CH Xyphos (and I'll add Sarissa) before the player is at 240 DP can be a nice boost. And even at full fleet size, there are some ships that are just better with CH, though I agree that the Sunder isn't one of them. But once the player has capitals and escort package going, the range on a Xyphos, Sarissa, or even other fighters with Defensive Targeting Array (shoutout to wasps!) just isn't long enough.

Example: Xyphos on Legion (I know, battlecarrier, but its the same with an Onslaught, Dominator, or Manticore). 1200 range ion beam sounds great until compared to a ship with  1+60% (ITU) +10% (Ballistic) + 15% (Gunnery) = 1.85x range. At that point the 1200 is equivalent to how far a "base" 650 range weapon will go. Sarissas at 700 range are on the defensive/shorter/brawling side even earlier in the game, but have a range equivalent to 385 base range weapons which is just ouch.