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[Cik]

fighters and bombers are very near and dear to my heart, and i tend to play large carrier groups with only a few stronger mainline ships, which in .65 was perfectly fine; there was a skill in the leadership tree that made them damn effective, as what they really lack is mobility (strangely enough) i searched rather thoroughly in .7 but i think it's been removed. my question is, why? i think most frigates are faster than fighters now, which makes the lighter ones almost perfectly useless considering they can be easily kited. the whole point of broadswords etc. is the ability to hunt and kill frigates in large swarms. unless i'm wrong, can you look into either putting the skill back in or buffing fighter base speed? they seem much less powerful now, which i doubt is intentional because they never seemed overly strong.

likewise, strike bombers (especially piranhas) seem very weak. in large battles they are easily slaughtered by casual backhands from destroyers, let alone cruisers. even massed piranhas are easily obliterated when attacking the targets they are supposed to be able to kill (enforcers, dominators and other types of slow, frontal shield ships) let alone things that are capable of motion.

the other thing that limits their effectiveness is how the flight deck mechanic works; as far as i can tell, if all flight decks are currently occupied any fighter unit that's totally destroyed is just removed from the battlefield, regardless of how many replacements are remaining due to CR. is this the case or have i misunderstood, and if that is the case should i just be fielding nothing but fleet carriers? with the attrition rate in battles of any scale even the 4-5 flight decks i have are not even close to enough. during the first line merge i lose half of my fighter force almost instantly due to the effectiveness of nearly any medium+ weapon at shredding fighters.

perhaps other opinions are different, and i'd like to hear them. was the indirect nerf to fighter effectiveness intentional or just an oversight? is the skill somewhere else that i haven't found? am i doing it wrong? opinions welcome

[CrashToDesktop]

There was no skill in vanilla Starsector that buffed fighters, and there never was.  That's in Starsector+.

Why does everyone think SS+ is vanilla Starsector?  Have they ever played the base game? :/


As for fighter effectiveness - the rule of thumb is usually to field one flight deck (not necessarily one carrier) per every 3 fighter wings.  Unless you're taking massive attrition rates (such as being hugely outnumbered in a bounty fight where there's an Astral with a huge fighter compliment), you should never loose fighter wings.

[Cik]

ah, that would explain it.

as to attrition, fighter battles i always win, it's the medium turrets of whatever destroyer swarm that kills all my fighters. the enemy fighters are never the issue, locally and strategically mine always outnumber theirs, which is almost a guaranteed victory regardless of fighter tech level. maybe you are fighting different battles than me, but 3 wings per carrier is about what i have and it's never enough.

i can still win battles of course, but i get the feeling just using nothing but line cruisers would be a million times more effective than even the most well managed carrier group. 

[CrashToDesktop]

In my playthrough, I never lose entire fighter wings unless I'm in the aforementioned situation.  Even when I'm up against a pack of Enforcers toting flak cannons, my fighters still effectively take out or help support an assault.

If you're making an entirely fighter-centric fleet - that's not a good idea.  Those can be absolutely hard-countered by flak cannons and lasers.  The fighters are the screens to the frigates and destroyers that close in to do the heavy lifting - if you lack the hammer, the anvil is no use to you.

[Cik]

hard countered sure, but the AI doesn't really set out to hardcounter, in fact it's PD is usually quite weak, isn't it? saying that they are the anvil and the hammer is all well and good, but i could just as easily replace all the fighter/carrier infrastructure with more frigates and it'd probably be straight better wouldn't it?

likewise, all the bombers can easily be replaced by wolves or frontline destroyer/cruiser groups and they'd do the same job better and more reliably. you can't even really "hard counter" a line cruiser, either. it's just a huge brick of nasty guns and strong frontal shields and armor. if that is correct, then fighters are underpowered, no? is that the case or not? it's not like one is cheaper than the other either. fighters are actually quite expensive, decent wings run to 20k and the cheapest carrier you can get (condor) is also pushing 20k. add in the fact that you'll need 2+ wings to really stack a reasonable amount of firepower into the battlespace and it doesn't seem more cost effective.

tl;dr if they're supposed to be a screen why is it done better by larger ships with PD, and if they are supposed to be strike why is that done better by anything with a heavy blaster?

could be wrong but that's how it feels to me.

oh and i should mention, fighters are helpful as a screen when set to escort but not that helpful; they tend to stick behind you and only briefly make forays to your front, which is where the missiles will usually be coming from. they'd help more if they stayed roughly in front of you, or did an orbital pattern or something.

[CrashToDesktop]

The point of fighters is that they're a disposable way of keeping the enemy occupied long enough for the main force to into range.  And even after that, heavy fighters like Broadswords and Gladiuses in combination with Thunders can do a massive number on line cruisers even like the Dominator.

In fact, I lost my Gargoyle (a Dominator-class cruiser) to a fighter and bomber swarm while I was occupied with a bunch of frigates, destroyers, and an Astral (as remembered in my story).  I my engines got Ion Cannoned by the Thunders, my shields brought down by a hail of light machinegun fire from the Broadswords, my armor stripped by way of Xyphos and Gladius, and the killing blow by Dagger.  And that was all with friendly destroyers with covering flak and lasers.

Fighters are a valuable part of your fleet - sure, you can make a fleet without them, but you're not going to get as many ship kills, and you're definitely going to lose more frigates and destroyers than you do now.  The point of fighters are force-projection, interception, and their expendability, with emphasis on that last point.  Fighters can take risks and take losses without having to worry hardly as much as other ships.  This is their strongpoint.


protip - get Gladiuses and Thunders.  Preferably in equal amounts.  You will rip apart pretty much everything that trundles along.  Those ion cannons will disable the engines and weapons while the Gladiuses strip armor and hull - as I found out the hard way.

[Thaago]

Yeah, each version for a while now fighters have been getting weaker. The lack of skills really hurts, given how enemy ships are getting those powerful L10 combat skills now. I still find them useful as low-risk frigate replacements.

I'm using fighters instead frigates in large battles - frigates just cannot take the levels of firepower getting thrown around. They capture points, harass, and draw enemy fire, without the possibility of dying for real. I usually lose a wing in battle - I'm running 2 Broadswords, a Thunder, a Talon, and sometimes 2 Daggers on a single flight deck and they tend to engage before my Enforcer line gets to the battle (which I am happy with as it drives up enemy flux and breaks them apart before the Enforcers burn in). But, there is actually no penalty (other than them being gone) for fighters getting knocked out of battle - they've already "payed" for the ships in play with CR. Just don't lose the carrier .

I find Piranhas piddly but Daggers deadly. Got to stick elites in them for aiming, but their torpedoes are quite powerful.


@ The Soldier: Is the Gladius still good? I've been sticking to Broadswords and Thunders so haven't seen them in action.

[TaLaR]

If we assume that fighters were balanced at some point, this point was before introduction of ship systems, skills, officers and 1000 range tac lasers.
And even then I preffered frigate swarms...

.7 buffs fighters in only one way - reduced supply costs. But with 25 slots total, 11 of which you want to allocate to officer and player piloted combat ships, you have only up to 14 slots for fighters + carriers (and cargo ships, if any).
Considering that fighters have to outnumber enemies to be anywhere near efficient (or at least not be badly outnumbered), that's obviously nowhere near enough. Especially considering that you often fight multiple fleets in single battle now.

[miljan]

Fighters with every update are getting worse and worse, and less viable. With implementing of officers and limiting the fleet to a hard cap of 25 (where 1 fighter wing is same as one capital), pure fighter fleets are not viable anymore as it was the case before. You can now use them only in mixed fleets, witch is bad as it removes one type of play style that I really like. The old fleet points mechanic would fix this.

[Megas]

We need skills that help fighters.

[TJJ]

Yeah, the increased range, accuracy & fire rate from skill buffs really hurt both a fighter's primary defense mechanism (evasion), and attack mechanism (close assault).
The only fighters that pose any kind of a threat on the battlefield are Daggers & Thunders, due to their high damage. Though the chance of that threat becoming a reality is far too low.

I'd suggest:
- An across-the-board speed boost to all fighters. Nothing subtle either - DOUBLE the speed of every fighter. The very fastest frigates should be able to outrun only the very slowest fighters.
- Skill that enhance their evasion. Perhaps an innate dodge ability? 5%/level of a projectile missing a fighter (passes through, no dmg). AoE attacks like flak, and guided weapons like missiles, would be unaffected.
- Perk that cuts the in-battle fighter rebuild time of carriers by 50%.
- Improve the AI! Fighters are far too passive in pursuit; they should aim to overtake a retreating enemy, not hover behind it. Also Daggers often don't fire their torpedo, and Thunders fire their Harpoon too early.

On a related note, Swarmer SRMs need hitting with the nerf hammer.

They're universally great against fighters, frigates, most destroyers, and even some cruisers; they relegate every other small mount missile system to being a niche weapon.
The change from Fragmentation to HE that happened a few versions ago was too much of a buff.

[CrashToDesktop]

@Thaago
Yea, they're pretty good.  From my experience, they seem to have better anti-armor capabilities with those duel IR Pulse Lasers than LMGs on Broadswords.

I can agree that fighters were gibbed a bit with the 25-ship limit.  Also probably the fact that everything can hit them....

Actually, you know what?  They're pretty weak now. Doubling the speed sounds like a good start.

[SafariJohn]

I tried doubling fighter speed and my first impression is that it feels pretty good.

[Megas]

One small consolation prize for fighters - Helmsmanship 5 perk was gutted.  Now ships cannot be so fast.  My flagships are slower than before.  +75 0-flux bonus was really good, but now I am stuck with the base +50.

On the other hand, the new Helmsmanship 5 perk either makes Evasive Action 5 perk less useful or the Auxiliary Thrusters hullmod unnecessary if you have both perks.

[Cik]

speed is good, because they can overtake and swarm the more annoying kiting frigates like that graviton beam tempest the AI likes so much, however even fixing that won't probably make them into a truly dangerous opponent. as it is their ability to survive is just very low. they are outranged by everything and are fairly easy to concentrate fire against with medium weapons, where even non-specialized weapons will ruin entire wings in seconds. the speed will help with this as the replacements will travel back into battle faster, but i still think something needs to be done about the primary problem, which is survival in a dense battlespace. even if you really try to micromanage them by setting up RV points, strike group points etc, even if they approach from side or rear quarter, they still get torn to pieces by pretty much anything, let alone dedicated ships or weapons. i'm not sure about a % dodge chance, but they need to be faster and 'juke' more. likewise, strike bombers built around medium weapons that can play range might be effective. piranhas especially need help.

IMO, piranhas should ditch that slow build up of bombs and simply release a pile of them and then break off, or at least be allowed to maneuver while releasing the bombs. they are borderline worthless because anything the bombs can hit can simply annihilate them (and likely 90% of the munitions as well) and anything that is small enough to have trouble can simply move out of the way. i'd really like to use them but daggers are simply far superior and even they aren't terribly effective due to their reluctance to fire torpedoes at easy-to-hit targets and their propensity to fly in a straight line and get blasted.

tl;dr buff fighters plx