so currently i have a fleet that consists of
1X Gemini
1X Lasher
1x vigilance
2x talon
3x broadswords
(i have this massive fleet of fighters because it seems hanger space is no longer used as well as having logistics replace fleet points. so it seems viable)
im currently using 26 supplies per day (sometimes more if im also repairing hull after a battle but usually not less than this)
i just got out of combat and still have the game paused.. for reference for the following.
currently my Gemini is using 2 supplies per day and gaining 8% combat readiness per day and will be fully combat ready in 2 days so will only use ~4 supplies
the Lasher and Vigilance are also both using 2 supplies per day but gaining 15% combat readiness per day and will be ready in just over 1 day. so about 5-6 supplies total
but the fighters.. hoooo boy i can only imagine all my pilots are like 500 lbs and drool chunks of un-chewed food or something.
the talons only use 4% of there CR when they enter battle but they also lose 4% combat readiness every time they replace a hull in battle, that does not sound too bad.. and honestly i dont even think that is that bad either. the bad part is what follows to get them back into fighting shape.
they use 4 supplies per day for only 4% CR recovery per day. which means if you can get CR up to 80% you can possibly expect up to 20 days to return them to full fighting power. where my other ships would only take a fraction of that.
now i thought to myself.. well, how long do you think it REALLY would take to build a new hull for a ship.. and yea probably some time. but at the same time, i cant get over that my destroyer being much larger, more advanced, more ship systems etc. still can be fully repaired and combat ready in a short few days compared to building simple cheap glued together fighters that take weeks to build.
this was the same with the broadswords.. only its 3 supplies and 3% CR instead of 4 and 4%. (more advanced.. takes longer sounds legit, i agree. still painfully slow though)
so now that i got that little math lesson out of the way for people who may not have realized what was going on under the hood (or so it appears) lets look at the game play point of view.
i can hold 340 supplies with my current fleet. (which i was planning on making into a carrier fleet of sorts thus the number of fighters in it)
im losing ~26 supplies per day mostly to fighters eating me out of house and home. with a full cargo of supplies i can go ~13 days before were boiling our shoes to eat. that means i have to constantly either 1. purchase very expensive supplies. (not really feasible.. you will go broke before you get fully combat ready) or 2. fight some pirates etc. for supplies and cash to buy supplies. the kinds of pirate fleets you would want to target this way would likely be full of cargo haulers buffalo II and hounds. which for a carrier fleet means your going to have to deploy said fighters. (because your light on other combat ships) now even if you win you will likely lose a few fighter hulls.. as well and since you deployed them you will lose some CR from that as well. thus putting you right back into the hole you were in before you fought them pirates... making you need a LOT of supplies to regain your CR with fighters. i have been playing a few hours with just this fleet makeup and its quite the vicious cycle. LOL i get up to about 40k in cash in a few fights.. and a full hold of supplies.. then stop fighting for a while.. to get my CR up.. buy all the supplies i can.. still not get to full CR.. rush to find another fleet to engage before my supplies are gone and then repeat.
sure i could sell a fighter wing or 2. maybe 3. but then my fleet isnt really a carrier fleet like i wanted because im going to have to replace them with frigates or the like to stay combat effective for the pirates im raiding.. or go back down to 2-3 ship pirate fleets. (a Gemini a combat ship does not make but carrier yes. thus no trust in AI to avoid the enemy so i fly it)
(idea start)
the best solution i can think of with a few minutes of brainstorming my predicament was to introduce a new commodity for fighter craft to go along with supplies. called "fighter craft parts" where fighter craft parts are specifically used to replace fighter hulls instead of supplies. run out of fighter craft parts.. no more hulls will be made (or eat a ton of supplies to do it kind of like now) it would also let us separate out the way the 13ish extra hulls that wont be flying right away anyway factor into the combat readiness of the 2-4 actual pilots that will. if you lose a pilot during combat have the combat readiness drop like we do with frigates after a certain amount of time. also the wing would lose more CR per deployment by default this way for balance because we don't have to worry about how the hulls factor into the equation at the start of battle.
also while hulls are being built it would still affect your logistics as supplies do now. to keep that balanced.
purchasing enough fighter craft parts to replace a wing should not cost more than the wing itself for balance, and could be balanced with the cost of fighter wings currently with pricing them cheep and just requiring more of them per ship for expensive wings. though this may also require them to take up less than 1 space per part so that they can stay at a reasonable size within your cargo. depending on how many would be required for some of the pricier advanced fighter wings with this method.
the flip side would be to make each one expensive.. but then to require much fewer to replace each hull in a fighter wing. (<-- my preference)
anyway that was my long drawn out thought process on how fighter wing CR affects supplies currently. i hope it was not that complicated to understand and just long winded.. though i could not think of a way to make it shorter sorry.
what do you think?
*******edit********
this would also help move off of supplies = logistics capacity. currently i feel people will see there logistics as kind of to the side of supplies in there relationship.I feel that it will not mater if they take leadership to increase logistics because even small carrier fleets will run through there supplies so fast that increasing logistics really wont make a difference in the size of fleet one can fly around with because you just wont be able to to hold enough supplies for long enough to get your fighters back into combat readiness before you run dry of supplies. instead having a fleet of cargo ships to hold your supplies and move in tandem with your smaller fleet of fighters and carrier would more directly influence your fleet size. until you hit a critical mass where you just cant earn/ purchase enough supplies fast enough before you run out of fleets to fight.
instead with my idea, we could maintain your fleet size with logistics more due to logistics still being used to replace hulls as it is now.. but also with the cash it costs to buy the fighter craft parts to maintain your fighters. saving supplies for food and larger ship repairs (perhaps even large ships could have a similar commodity for repairs as well.)
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Topic: [suggestion] balance fix for fighter supply use. (HEY stop eating all my FOOD!!) (Read 3738 times)