Print

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

[ahrenjb]

If this has been brought up before, mods can delete this thread.

Every time I start a new campaign, I try a different play style and fleet composition to continue getting a more well rounded understanding of the game balance and mechanics. This time around I have a carrier and fighter wing heavy fleet, and decided to try to rely on strike craft for heavy hitting. But, I've noticed a problem.

Torpedo bombers are terrible at hitting their targets. Even vs large, cumbersome targets like capitals I notice them missing almost half the time. They don't seem to be able to predict target movement or lead at all. Vs even marginally agile cruisers like the Eagle or Falcon they just totally lose it. They all feel like rookies to me. Now, I don't think the wings themselves or the weapons need any sort of a buff, they seem to be pretty good as is. It's the AI that could use work, and even then it isn't TERRIBLE, but I would like to see some more options for fighter/bomber heavy fleets.

So, how about a new skill for fighters / strike craft that improves their ability to lead and hit smaller or faster targets?

[DeMatt]

What is the skill level of the crew in your strike craft?  Better crew have better aim.

The ships are assigned crew based on a priority system - the first ship in the fleet list gets the crew it needs to be at the highest possible skill level, then the second gets its pick of the remaining crew, and so on and so forth.  If your fighter squadrons are last in the list, then they're probably getting the dregs.  If so, move them to the top - it only takes a few crew to make them elite, and those half-dozen hands probably won't affect your carriers in the slightest.

[Schwartz]

My carrier fleet playthroughs are usually among the easiest, especially once you get your hands on a Heron or a Charybdis. Considering how cheap they are and the fact that they rearm, Dagger wings are brutal. But yeah, they don't always hit. Elite crew helps. Don't use Thunders, by the way, they're still bugged.

[ahrenjb]

What is the skill level of the crew in your strike craft?  Better crew have better aim.

The ships are assigned crew based on a priority system - the first ship in the fleet list gets the crew it needs to be at the highest possible skill level, then the second gets its pick of the remaining crew, and so on and so forth.  If your fighter squadrons are last in the list, then they're probably getting the dregs.  If so, move them to the top - it only takes a few crew to make them elite, and those half-dozen hands probably won't affect your carriers in the slightest.

For some reason I didn't think crew skill level affected aim, I thought all crew level affected was CR. Silly me. My capitals must have been hogging all my elite crew, I'll crew switching things up a bit.

[lht]

no use, they aim better doesnt mean they know how to predict movement.
if they aim those falcon or eagle 100% accurate, they will never hit it... maybe a rookie may hit it by a original "missed" hit. =D

[Thaago]

To be fair, with their maneuvering engines an Eagle or Falcon can actually dodge torpedoes about the same as most destroyers. Give them a Nav point and its a fairly tough shot.

[Linnis]

Well, I feel like in the dagger aiming predictions, they only "line" up shots, even tho in many cases they can turn 50degrees sideways and launch the torpedo to still hit the target, they dont. Same thing you notice with warthogs, who sometimes dont fire even when they are facing the emy.

[Histidine]

The bad shot Daggers are kind of annoying (though given how often I myself miss with Reapers, I'm not really in a position to criticize), but the one that's really ridiculous is the Dagger that overflies its target without firing.

[tchan]

.....Don't use Thunders, by the way, they're still bugged.

Bugged?  How so?  I bought a few wings because they were one of the fastest I could find.  I didn't really check on their performance since I couldn't do it in the simulator.  I mostly used them for grabbing beacons super fast >_>

Also, thanks to OP for bringing up this topic.  I was gonna make a fighter wing build for my next play through.

[orost]

Thunders think they're bombers with the single Harpoon as their primary weapon and go back to refit immediately after firing it, never engaging with their actual primary weapon.

[Aeson]

Also, thanks to OP for bringing up this topic.  I was gonna make a fighter wing build for my next play through.

Carrier fleets are fun and reasonably viable, at least for me; I don't know that I'd say that they're the most cost effective fleet configuration, however. I'd suggest that you either have a carrier or three which can act as reasonably capable combatants in and of themselves or that you keep a reasonable group of light to middleweight ships around to deal with forces that aren't worth deploying a full carrier + fighter group and to give your fighter wing some time to work in larger battles. Herons and Ventures are reasonable options for this, as Herons make decent light cruisers and Ventures can take a beating. If you find yourself going up against fleets that often contain a capital ship or two and a couple of the heavier cruisers, I'd suggest getting a minimum of half a dozen bomber wings. I prefer Daggers, but Piranhas perform acceptably.

[ahrenjb]

Seems like I got strike craft working reasonably well with elite crew and using rally commands to have them attack en masse. The AI still isn't perfect, but it's workable.

Since we're on this note, how many fighter wings do you guys run per flight deck in your fleet? I had three carriers with two decks each for a total of 6 flight decks, supporting 6 wings of bombers and 6 wings of fighters, and it seems like maybe 6 decks was more than I needed.

[Schwartz]

You should be fine doing 1 flight deck for 3-5 fighter wings. Depending on how survivable they are.

[Harmful Mechanic]

Yeah, 1 deck to every 3-5 wings is my average, too. Shielded, phase, and heavily-armored fighters, or fighters with a wing size of 2, push towards the high end and weak or lightly-armored fighters with large wing sizes towards the low end. And concentrating your fighters will help with survivability; nothing passes through a good fighter cloud without getting sanded down.

I wouldn't say Thunders are bad, even bugged; I keep a pair around to grab objectives early and guard my Herons (which I like to park on objectives, so. Match made in heaven). And if a Thunder wing runs into a Hound trying to contest the objective, well, the results are really ugly for the Hound.

[Aeson]

I tend to agree with Schwartz and Soren, though I'd add that the frequency with which the fighter wings can be expected to need to rearm is also a consideration when deciding how many flight decks to bring. I'd tend to go with a flight deck per two bomber wings and a flight deck per four or five fighter wings.