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[orost]

Now that all ships have one, this inconsistency is even more glaring. When even a massive battleship manned by hundreds of people can only stay in battle for 10 minutes, how does it make sense that a tiny 1-man fighter can fight indefinitely as long as it doesn't take any hits?

Right now a bunch of fighters can exhaust a bigger ship to death if it doesn't have effective anti-fighter weapons. That's quite silly, it should be the other way around. Adding a CR timer would mean that it's only possible with a carrier support, which makes more sense.

I think the timer should be reset on carrier refit, and fighters should go for refit when their timer is running out. Or retreat, if there's no carrier.

[Linnis]

Right now a bunch of fighters can exhaust a bigger ship to death if it doesn't have effective anti-fighter weapons. That's quite silly

I thought that was the point?

[Gothars]

Now that all ships have one, this inconsistency is even more glaring. When even a massive battleship manned by hundreds of people can only stay in battle for 10 minutes, how does it make sense that a tiny 1-man fighter can fight indefinitely as long as it doesn't take any hits?

Fighter are excluded from the timer mechanic because they can't be player controlled, and are therefore unable to effectively kite. They will take hits, and then they have to go to a carrier - which has a CR timer.

Right now a bunch of fighters can exhaust a bigger ship to death if it doesn't have effective anti-fighter weapons.

Only a group of fighter that is equivalent or greater in (theoretical, number derived) strength than their target can do that. For a capital ship it takes eight wings. With seven or less wings the CR timer will not run down.

[CrashToDesktop]

Actually, fighters do have a hard, built-in "CR" timer - the number of fighters stored.  Obviously the tougher fighters will be fewer in number, but can take a beating, and not-as-tough fighters like Wasps make up in sheer numbers.  So swat enough of them out of space and they will just become flat-out useless for the rest of the battle.

[orost]

Right now a bunch of fighters can exhaust a bigger ship to death if it doesn't have effective anti-fighter weapons.

Only a group of fighter that is equivalent or greater in (theoretical, number derived) strength than their target can do that. For a capital ship it takes eight wings. With seven or less wings the CR timer will not run down.

[/quote]

It makes sense, thanks. I was running into this problem in a frigate and I forgot that bigger ships get that going for them.

[Unfolder]

NO, DAMN YOU

[Unfolder]

Also, you can "justify" the fighter no CR limit by assuming the fighters are of such relatively simple components that there is no "wear and tear" within the void of space. After all, after a fight, all fighters are immediately regenerated fully (assuming they aren't destroyed outright) which always made me believe that fighters were modular, basically if half the fighter got blown up and riddled with shrapnel, the crew would just blowtorch it off and snap on a new half from the fleets supplies *shrug*

[Debido]

Fighters already have timers. Haven't you seen them go 'pop' when they're done being cooked by lasers?

[Wyvern]

@Orost: Have you actually seen this happen?  What fighters did you use, and against what bigger ship(s)?

@Argh: Have you seen situations where adding timers to fighters would have prevented you from making effective use of them?  Is there an actual gameplay basis for your opposition to this idea?

[Protonus]

Now that all ships have one, this inconsistency is even more glaring. When even a massive battleship manned by hundreds of people can only stay in battle for 10 minutes, how does it make sense that a tiny 1-man fighter can fight indefinitely as long as it doesn't take any hits?

I know realism does make a betterment of the game, but adding Timers to fighters well doesn't really affect much, honestly, since every individual fighter is succumb to 10 seconds of destruction when they enter their enemies' attack ranges.

In other terms, I don't see any point of adding these little buggers a timer if they couldn't even last a single Medium Mount shot, figuratively speaking.

NO, DAMN YOU

Calm down, man. It's only a suggestive reaction.

[orost]

@Orost: Have you actually seen this happen?  What fighters did you use, and against what bigger ship(s)?

I have. I was in very early game, flying an Afflictor with AM blasters. It's hopeless against fighters, so even after all other ships were dead, remaining fighter wings could easily harass me until I ran out of CR, unless I got really lucky with hitting them. It struck me as extremely backwards - with no carrier present, I would always expect a frigate to outlast a fighter wing every tmie. I ended up completely avoiding any enemy fleets with fighters until I got a second ship.

[MesoTroniK]

Your ship simply was not geared up for fighting strike craft, and that is fine... Meaningful choices and all that

[Wyvern]

Hm.  On the one hand, installing one tactical laser (especially in the turret slot) should fix that.  (Or any beam weapon, really, but the tactical laser's range advantage makes it the current winner for anti-fighter small energy.)  On the other hand, there is some sense to this particular example: a frigate feels like it ought to be able to outlast fighters that have no carrier support.

[orost]

Your ship simply was not geared up for fighting strike craft, and that is fine... Meaningful choices and all that

Maybe. But if you ask me, a ship shouldn't have to be able to handle strike craft if it can handle everything else. If I wipe out a fleet, I expect any remaining fighters to retreat or die, being unable to survive in a prolonged engagement without support, instead of harassing a larger ship until it fails from exhaustion while somehow magically operating forever themselves. It's a corner case that just doesn't make any sense, from a lore nor from a gameplay perspective.

I'm more okay with it now that I know that bigger ships don't get CR drain from fighters. I still think it's weird but I don't mind that much.

Hm.  On the one hand, installing one tactical laser (especially in the turret slot) should fix that.  (Or any beam weapon, really, but the tactical laser's range advantage makes it the current winner for anti-fighter small energy.)  On the other hand, there is some sense to this particular example: a frigate feels like it ought to be able to outlast fighters that have no carrier support.

Unfortunately in this particular example a tac laser doesn't work very well. It has low DPS, so it needs a long time to kill a fighter, and a phase frigate cannot afford to expose itself to fire for a long time, even from fighters. Unless it's something extremely nonthreatening like Talons (and you still have armor) or slow like Warthogs, tac laser doesn't help much.

[CrashToDesktop]

Big ships still have to worry about fighters if there's 8 or so wings of them (that equals 42 Wasps - literally a swarm of them)  or 8 wings of Daggers (24 Reapers) hovering around and beating at them.  Seems completely reasonable that the crew of an Onslaught could start freaking out and worrying at that point.