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Author Topic: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons  (Read 37775 times)

Ranakastrasz

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #90 on: October 30, 2015, 10:57:35 AM »

Ah, well, If flighers are carrier's weapons, I can think of two ideas.

First, if a carrier dies, all the fighters die with it. If it retreats, same deal.

Or

Fighters don't last long without a carrier. With a carrier, they have to dock to replenish their CR, going back to 100% (or matching the carrier, w.e)
They probably get at most 2 minutes of time for the hardiest, at most 1 minute for really high tech ones. Then they start to degrade and will consider going to the carrier. If a fighter is near it's host carrier, Combat readiness doesn't degrade/degrades slower.
If the carrier dies, all it's fighters immediately start to degrade, and at 2-3x the normal rate. Once they drop to 0%, they self destruct.
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First case, If you kill the carrier, the fighters die. It also cannot retreat and leave it's fighters.

Second case, similar, but delayed. The fighters will rapidly start to lose effectiveness and eventually explode. The carrier may also need to be closer to the front lines to keep topping the fighters up as they expend ammo and CR.

Drones, like the terminator drone, would only have that 60 seconds, or possibly 20-30 seconds. Hence, it has to stay near the carrier, otherwise it will rapidly fall apart. Without the carrier, same deal. Some of the lower tech but sturdier fighters might get 2-3 minutes, but it is unlikely.
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Thaago

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #91 on: October 30, 2015, 11:54:21 AM »

Ah, well, If flighers are carrier's weapons, I can think of two ideas.

First, if a carrier dies, all the fighters die with it. If it retreats, same deal.

Or

Fighters don't last long without a carrier. With a carrier, they have to dock to replenish their CR, going back to 100% (or matching the carrier, w.e)
They probably get at most 2 minutes of time for the hardiest, at most 1 minute for really high tech ones. Then they start to degrade and will consider going to the carrier. If a fighter is near it's host carrier, Combat readiness doesn't degrade/degrades slower.
If the carrier dies, all it's fighters immediately start to degrade, and at 2-3x the normal rate. Once they drop to 0%, they self destruct.
----
First case, If you kill the carrier, the fighters die. It also cannot retreat and leave it's fighters.

Second case, similar, but delayed. The fighters will rapidly start to lose effectiveness and eventually explode. The carrier may also need to be closer to the front lines to keep topping the fighters up as they expend ammo and CR.

Drones, like the terminator drone, would only have that 60 seconds, or possibly 20-30 seconds. Hence, it has to stay near the carrier, otherwise it will rapidly fall apart. Without the carrier, same deal. Some of the lower tech but sturdier fighters might get 2-3 minutes, but it is unlikely.

I don't like this, to be honest - whats the benefit? If a carrier dies it cannot repair/refit its fighters - they'll get destroyed soon enough. Or they could retreat and be picked up as cargo by the rest of the fleet afterwards.
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Aeson

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #92 on: October 30, 2015, 12:33:46 PM »

The fighter system that we have right now is not broken and works reasonably well. Why exactly are we trying to 'fix' it?
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SafariJohn

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #93 on: October 30, 2015, 12:41:16 PM »

Peak performance for fighters is interesting. Off-hand I wonder whether the added complexity is worth it, but I would have to think on it to get a proper view of its pros and cons.
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Gothars

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #94 on: October 30, 2015, 12:53:53 PM »

If a carrier dies it cannot repair/refit its fighters - they'll get destroyed soon enough. Or they could retreat and be picked up as cargo by the rest of the fleet afterwards.

Right, just like weapons. I like that this would making the loss of a carrier harsher than it is now, losing e.g. most of your carriers but none of your fighters as can happen now seems a bit implausible.


The fighter system that we have right now is not broken and works reasonably well. Why exactly are we trying to 'fix' it?

It's fun :)  I'd say it's more of a "how could this be further improved" than "this is broken and has to be fixed".

Tartiflette listed some downsides of the current system in the OP, further points are the lack of transparency concerning the survivability of your fighters and no scaleability of a carrier's fighter support ability, relative to its direct combat ability.





 
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Megas

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #95 on: October 30, 2015, 01:20:10 PM »

It may be a good idea to review this post from December 2010.

If the ideas from that old post remain relevant, then fighters should remain able to be used (deployed) without the carrier on the field.
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Gothars

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #96 on: October 30, 2015, 02:37:17 PM »

Quote from: fighter blogpost
Early in development, fighters were launched from carriers (being weapons, in a sense), but it became clear this limited fighters to being used only in battles that directly involved carriers, and that just wouldn’t do.

Well, seems as if we have come full circle ;D

I don't think there are good arguments for keeping fighters independent from carriers, though. Even now the barely are, you can use them without, but it just doesn't make economical sense. That old statement seems no longer relevant.
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Megas

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #97 on: October 30, 2015, 03:29:40 PM »

Before 0.6, if the whole wing was destroyed, the wing was gone.  In 0.6+, fighters are immortal as long as we have a carrier in the fleet.

I agree fighters are not very usable without a carrier in the fleet.  However, if a carrier is in the fleet, fighters are usable even if the carrier is not on the field.  I sometimes deploy a wing of fighters to capture points while I pilot my super flagship (with no flight deck) to solo the entire enemy fleet.

Turning fighters into weapons mountable only on flight decks is elegant unless we want to use fighters without carriers on the field.  If we can deploy fighters and not the carrier, while making fighters a carrier weapon, that would be good.

Currently, power (and speed) creep to bigger ships have left fighters useful only for their immortality.  Even then, they are slow to repair and eat a lot.
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Gothars

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #98 on: October 30, 2015, 03:42:15 PM »

Looking at the sleek deployment UI Tartiflette drew up, I don't think there would be any (ui) problem deploying wings without their carrier.
Actually, here's something cool: you could deploy a carrier but keep the wings in the hangar. Then, when the right opportunity has come, deploy the wing from the position of the carrier. That could be great for organizing surprise bomber strikes or keeping a security wing with a carrier.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #99 on: October 30, 2015, 04:13:05 PM »

I mentioned in my suggestion launching and recalling wings replacing deploying and retreating. So you'd pick them on the deployment screen and instead of burning in they'd launch from their carrier. Instead of retreating they'd return to their carrier and reappear on the deployment screen. If you select them without first deploying their carrier it auto-selects the carrier too; the carrier burns in then they launch.
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Ranakastrasz

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #100 on: October 30, 2015, 05:47:47 PM »

I don't like this, to be honest - whats the benefit? If a carrier dies it cannot repair/refit its fighters - they'll get destroyed soon enough. Or they could retreat and be picked up as cargo by the rest of the fleet afterwards.
Realism/lore wise, It would be something along the lines of the Fighters being remotely controled.
Balance or whatever wise it would make fighters somewhat similar to drones,

As for "Will be destroyed soon enough" this is partly a reply to the thing about terminator drones, for which the best way currently to deal with them is to kill the host ship. As noted, drone type fighters would have very low CR, so would decay fast without a carrier or far away from the carrier, while "Normal" meaning the current fighters, would last a lot longer.

Allowing them to be picked up as cargo. Well, Lore wise (As it is now, and hence not a good reason/excuse) is that the carrier had the onboard blueprint plugged into the autofactory. The excessive DRM locks mean that you have that one blueprint, which may be lost with the Carrier. Even if the fighters retreated, it wouldn't help much. Repairs might be possible, but even with another carrier, they would be unable to be rebuilt if destroyed.
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Unfolder

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #101 on: October 30, 2015, 10:19:33 PM »

I just wish fighters behaved more like they do "in real life" naval engagements, particularly WW2 naval engagements (the one and only sustained carrier warfare historically) Right now, fighters are basically just tiny somewhat fast tanky/dodgy frigates. It's okay I guess, but it's kinda boring.  

1. Fighters could be faster, twice as fast, at least in terms of "fast traveling" from one side of the battlefield to the other, they slow down once they engage their opponent for "maneuver." Or you could have very fast fighters, like the thunder, that don't slow down but "strafe" their opponent while just flying straight through their AA defense, then circling round to strafe again, maybe hitting the enemies rear before it has a chance to pivot. Maybe these fighters have a chance to hit "behind" shields, kind of like the Exigency cannons from mods. This would be the equivalent of the fighters attacking in three dimensiosn rather than two, basically being able to strike at the inefficient "poles" of the shield

2. Fighters could ignore zone of control behavior and just fly straight through enemy formations with no regard for self peservation, would be particularly useful for suicide bombing capital ships with a few wings of torpedo bombers, particularly enemy carriers.

3. Fighters could be regenerated in batches, rather than one at a time, to maximize their effectiveness and minimize the AI weirdness trying to "average together" fighter wings on opposite sides of the map. After a minute or whatever, the fighters return (or failing to return, die) the new batch is released immediately with CR penalties based on how many made it back.

4. Fighters in general more weakly armored and armed, but faster and in aggregate more quick to regenerate. Rather than being a concrete unit fighters would behave more as    
an "area effect" that continuously harasses their target. OR, for torpedo bombers, you could have them still be tanky and slow, but they attack in a giant wing, like of six to ten, that is the equivalent of an all or nothing gamble of the carriers resources to destroy the other enemies capital ship, used once it is engaged. This "weapon" can only be used once per battle or maybe once every five minutes in sustained engagements. This is definitely how torpedo bombers were used "in real life" - 2-4 or even 6-8 were pretty useless since half would miss and the other half would get flaked to death. But 20! Or 200! One will get through and win the whole battle.

5. The fact that fighters have their own CR is weird and I imagine a gigantic programming headache. Just make it derivative of carrier CR. Of all my suggestions I'm pretty sure this one will be in the final version.  ;D
« Last Edit: October 30, 2015, 10:23:14 PM by Unfolder »
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Ranakastrasz

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #102 on: October 31, 2015, 12:32:00 PM »

I just wish fighters behaved more like they do "in real life" naval engagements, particularly WW2 naval engagements (the one and only sustained carrier warfare historically) Right now, fighters are basically just tiny somewhat fast tanky/dodgy frigates. It's okay I guess, but it's kinda boring.  
I agree. Admittedly, they are more dodgy frigates than tanky, seeing even fragmentation damage is able to deal with them without too much issue.
Quote
1. Fighters could be faster, twice as fast, at least in terms of "fast traveling" from one side of the battlefield to the other, they slow down once they engage their opponent for "maneuver." Or you could have very fast fighters, like the thunder, that don't slow down but "strafe" their opponent while just flying straight through their AA defense, then circling round to strafe again, maybe hitting the enemies rear before it has a chance to pivot. Maybe these fighters have a chance to hit "behind" shields, kind of like the Exigency cannons from mods. This would be the equivalent of the fighters attacking in three dimensiosn rather than two, basically being able to strike at the inefficient "poles" of the shield
It should be possible to alter fighters to get a higher boost from zero-flux. The skill that gives the player's ship the zero-flux bonus at 10% (or something) and +25 speed, could be set to apply to fighters. Might require a skill for that to work, but might be possible as innate. Not really sure how it is implemented.

Fighters as is are extremely slow, at least compared to what you would expect. I would think fighters should be pretty much impossible to outrun without a frigate with significant speed mods, and even then only if that frigate is built for speed innately as well.

Strafing behavior would be an AI adjustment more than an actual alteration to fighters. That one would sort of require fighters with turreted weapons (I don't actually know if any currently have them) and enough speed for it to help.

Ability for any weapon to ignore shields could cause balance issues.
Quote
2. Fighters could ignore zone of control behavior and just fly straight through enemy formations with no regard for self peservation, would be particularly useful for suicide bombing capital ships with a few wings of torpedo bombers, particularly enemy carriers.
Thats another AI suggestion, admittedly. It depends on whether or not the fighters are cheaply replaceable, which, admittedly, they currently are and would still be with the general proposed changes in this thread.
Quote
3. Fighters could be regenerated in batches, rather than one at a time, to maximize their effectiveness and minimize the AI weirdness trying to "average together" fighter wings on opposite sides of the map. After a minute or whatever, the fighters return (or failing to return, die) the new batch is released immediately with CR penalties based on how many made it back.
You mean, they all dock together to repair and rearm, and all fighters in a wing can fit into a single deck. Then, they all launch after they finish at the same time (plus a short delay, .5 sec or so for dramatics/whatever)

And, if they don't make it back, or are too far away/enemies are in the way they explode and get rebuilt, possibly with a CR penalty.

Quote
4. Fighters in general more weakly armored and armed, but faster and in aggregate more quick to regenerate. Rather than being a concrete unit fighters would behave more as    
an "area effect" that continuously harasses their target. OR, for torpedo bombers, you could have them still be tanky and slow, but they attack in a giant wing, like of six to ten, that is the equivalent of an all or nothing gamble of the carriers resources to destroy the other enemies capital ship, used once it is engaged. This "weapon" can only be used once per battle or maybe once every five minutes in sustained engagements. This is definitely how torpedo bombers were used "in real life" - 2-4 or even 6-8 were pretty useless since half would miss and the other half would get flaked to death. But 20! Or 200! One will get through and win the whole battle.
Making them less durable but faster/more manuverable would make beam weapons more effective and projectiles less effective, Hence forcing some rebalance.

As for the massed attack, well, that kind of thing would be possible to do if we had better control over AI ships. The current command system leaves a lot to be desired, which goes with the impressive but still weak AI.
Quote
5. The fact that fighters have their own CR is weird and I imagine a gigantic programming headache. Just make it derivative of carrier CR. Of all my suggestions I'm pretty sure this one will be in the final version.  ;D
Well, the main thing is that all manifested ships, including fighters have a CR. I have no idea if fighter wings share the CR or not, but they probably do.

The CR I was talking about earlier was the whole "120 seconds until CR starts degrading" which after it runs out of time it starts to use CR, and loses effectiveness. But, once it docks with the carrier, it pretty much goes back to the original state, possibly costing the Carrier some CR, or whatever price is associated with launching fighters.
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I think is easy for Simba and Mufasa sing the Circle of Life when they're on the top of the food chain, I bet the zebras hate that song.

Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters. Perfectly harmless, until you put one in your mouth and light it on fire

Megas

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Re: Fighter as a Carrier's weapons
« Reply #103 on: October 31, 2015, 01:09:47 PM »

Fighters lost a lot of speed ever since zero-flux speed bonus was taken away from them recently.

Earlier today, my Eagle flagship chased down a lone Broadsword fighter nearby and fried it with a Phase Lance.
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