two questions about fighters

posted on June 22nd, 2009, 11:54 am

first the great difference between federation and dominion fighters
here the stats :
fed -> o:5 d:6 s:2  squad size : 3  costs : 280/17/12
dom -> o:20 d:37 s:14  squad size 3-5  costs : 118/26/15  ( + all attributes increased by 2 and increase damage vs stations after upgrading )

is this not a bit unbalanced ? ( or only a tooltip bug )

second question
when a fighter destroys an enemy ship who gets the experience ? the fighter, the fightercarrier or nobody ?

posted on June 22nd, 2009, 12:12 pm

not speaking from experience but i see where you are coming from. It does seem unbalanced. As for the other question, i have noticed no change to the fight craft or the fighter so i think the expereince goes nowhere.

Anyother ideas anyone?????

posted on June 22nd, 2009, 12:17 pm

The exp probably goes to the fighter, which doesn't rank up.

posted on June 22nd, 2009, 12:19 pm

thats pointless then, it would be good when the fighter gets a certain amount of exp points that the fighter craft gets an upgrade to fortify the other vessels in combat or something like that otherwise pointless...

posted on June 22nd, 2009, 12:24 pm

1.
Should be a bug
2 maybe 3 hits by a spacestation and the fed and domfighters are dead.
And the Domfighter don't do more damage to ships then a saber...

Maybe the numbers are for one fedfighter and a 5 squad domfighters.


2.
Never seen a fighter killing something 

posted on June 22nd, 2009, 12:29 pm

2.
Never seen a fighter killing something 

I have, a Breen Cruiser the Borg took from me. After destroying a Romulan base, the fighters stayed behind and gradually wore down the ship when it repeatedly returned to the area.

posted on June 22nd, 2009, 1:47 pm

From the dynamicstringlist:

B-5 fighters:
Launch 3 Polar Beam armed Fighters (Offense/Defense/System): 5/4/1.
Fighter Energy Core Upgrade: Increases damage dealt to stations by 20 percent and increases all fighter attributes by 2. Researched at the Technology Lab.
Rank 5 gains Extended Hangars: Fighter squad size increased by 2 to a total of 5 fighters.

Avalon:
Launch 3 Peregrine Fighters (Offense/Defense/System): 5/6/2. Armed with Fighter Pulse Phaser.
Launch 3 Peregrine Bombers (Offense/Defense/System): 5/6/2. Armed with Fighter Quantum Torpedo.
Rank 5 gains Elite Squadrons: Decreases the time it takes to ready up the fighter hangars by 40 percent.

I'll check these again when I get back home, but I think something is obviously wrong...

posted on June 29th, 2009, 7:45 pm

Well, the bad thing about fighters is, that they get always hit, even phy phasers. This should'nt be there. Fighters are in my eyes (when you have an organized fleet) the first ones that go into the frontline, do some damage to enemy vessels in order to decrease the shield strength and then your main cruisers make the damaged ships down.

Sure, this wont work in Fleet-ops if you rush, because the fighters:
- stay on position
- get shot down very easy
- do very small damage

As they are now, they dont make much sense because they get destroyed too fast cause all phaser-weapons will hit.

posted on June 29th, 2009, 8:17 pm

Yep the dominion fighters got the wrong stats with a recent update, will be fixed with the next patch

posted on July 29th, 2009, 10:32 am

2.
Never seen a fighter killing something 

I haven't either, but it's due to the fact usually deploy the fighters in my base, spamming fighters with the five carriers (yes, the proto too) every three minutes. That gives my base 120 fighters in 30 minutes, and that makes almost impossible to know which fighter shot down which ship. Any attacker gets overwhelmed by the amount of targets and usually does two stupid things:

1) charge into my base, allowing more fighters to target the attacking ships, and
2) select fighters as targets instead of more expensive stations and shipyard-built units.

Of course, I'm talking about the AI and newbie players. Any seasoned player will try to blow up the fighters from max range or sacrifice the fleet, ignore the fighters and go for as many stations as he can, forcing me to spend resources and time in rebuilding the stations. Done right and targetting the right stations, the sacrifice brings huge rewards to the attacker.

Fighting against the AI, I allow the B5s to sortie in order to gain experience and reach the two goldbars. This makes them able to launch a 20 fighter volley every 3 minutes. That can be used against an enemy base very effectively. You get close to the base, spam the 20 fighters and walk away. They will wreak havoc without you having to bother to direct a single unit.

You can also drop 20 fighters on an empty mining spot. Any unsuspecting and unprotected construction ship trying to build something there will be torn to shreds.

Once more, this works only on unexperienced players and the AI. I wouldn't dare move the B5s away from my main base against a seasoned human player. They are not strong enough to sustain the kind of punishment they'd get as soon as they'd be spotted.

I'd say that as they are, the B5s and their fighters are correctly balanced for their price. IF you want to "correct" them, increase the armor, speed AND the firepower of the carrier, or double the amount of fighters and the hangar increase for experience from 1 to 2, making a 2 goldbar B5 spam 10 less-damage-dealing fighters. Or substantially lower the price/supply requeriments. Or remove the unit from the game altogether.

posted on July 29th, 2009, 1:14 pm

DarthThanatos: There will be a redo of fighter mechanics and fighter carriers--I don't know what that entails, but I think/hope it might make them more useful (the Avalon is crud right now imho). 

I must admit, your spam was impressive though, as I did lose nearly my entire fleet just to destroy your base 

posted on July 30th, 2009, 7:12 pm

You won the game. Even the "bugged" fighters are not invincible. you only need a cool head to think tactics to counter them. Still, as I said in another thread, they are too durable.

I think that the approach from Empire Earth to Carriers is the one that should be the right one for FO. You have a slot limit in the carrier and the fighters have a fuel limit, which when it's expired, the fighters get back to the carrier. If the "fuel" concept is not doable, may be a timed life for fighters, say one minute and they disappear, back in the Carrier, unless they have been blown up, in which case they have to be rebuilt/ordered.

After all, a carrier moves a limited amount of fighters, it doesn't build them. And it doesn't let them in the air indefinitely.

It makes sense that a fighter meant to attack space stations and ships has to have a high amount of firepower, but I agree that they are not durable. They simply cannot be.

It's also silly the limit on the carriers. Given enough time and if I let the carriers gain xp, I can end with 1000+ fighters flying around my base, just with four carriers.

posted on July 30th, 2009, 7:14 pm

Read my other post please. I win 2v1's (as do other people)---that does not make certain units any less or more unbalanced. 

posted on July 30th, 2009, 7:45 pm

No, but I'm suggesting a way to make the carriers still useful, but keeping some limits.

After all, if a unit is "crap", no one would build it, and then, what's the point of having it in the first place?

You want those carriers to be "cool" and "useful". You may not build them if they don't suit your fighting style, but you know that if you want to experiment, or give a player a surprise by switching tactics, they are there, ready to be built, with all their "coolness" and "usefulness". So the point is making the carriers and fighters good, but not godly.

By the way, could there be a cool animation for launching the fighters? The way they appear right now is a little... so-so.