Proportions....

[PvK]

Oh, and of course, you can also try capturing the planet via invasion.

[PsychoTechFreak]

Originally posted by PvK:

If I get time to do 3.0, I may expand the fighter tech tree a bit, though, and adjust things a bit, so it takes more research to get the better fighters, and add other toys.

PvK

Race specific techs, like small organic armor, small talismen engines?

[oleg]

I like how fighters are handled in Proportions.

They are tough to hit by regular weapons (even PDC) and you must build dedicated anti-fighters ships. Even better way is to use fighters against fighters ! They have equal attack bonus !

I also like how PvK design fighter weapons. In short, there are two Groups: high accuracy, low damage weapons like small APB, DUC. They are optimal for interceptors but not very efficient against ships. Second group are less accurate, high damage anti-ship weapons like small rocket pods or antimatter torpedos. It really forces you to build both fighters and bombers, not just generic SE fighter !

In fact, fighters are my second most favorite aspect of Proportions after planet development.

[PvK]

Thanks oleg.

PTF, yes to racial fighter toys, and probably something for Religious - I don't know exactly what a "talisman engine" would be.

Mainly I'd probably flesh out the fighter tech tree more, giving less capable early fighters, and requiring research into specific abilities. I'd probably add some anti-fighter seekers and some countermeasure components. I'd probably make engine variants too which more closely associate speed and maneuverability with defensive and offensive bonuses. Also might revisit the to-hit advantages for the heavy weapons, damage done by PD, and damage resistance of fighters, to further accentuate the differences between anti-fighter, anti-ship, and PD weapons.

I do think it seems to work pretty well as is, though. In Fryon's Adamant PBW game, I have been having some fun massive multi-turn battles with the Druschocka involving fighters and a wide range of ship sizes on both sides, and lots of missile boats slowly wearing through PDC.

PvK

[Puke]

i think a talisman engine runs on a prayer. sort of like a chevy nova.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by oleg:
I also like how PvK design fighter weapons. In short, there are two Groups: high accuracy, low damage weapons like small APB, DUC. They are optimal for interceptors but not very efficient against ships.

This Last statement depends on how many you happen to have built. If you are using Fyron's Quadrant Mod, the abundance of asteroids makes it easy to afford thousands of fighters, which make even low damage weapons very scary.

[PvK]

Sure, but a couple thousand fighters still require over a million resources, and corresponding construction time, and ships to move them between systems. I can think of lots of things for that investment that are also scary.

PvK

[oleg]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

---

Originally posted by oleg:
I also like how PvK design fighter weapons. In short, there are two Groups: high accuracy, low damage weapons like small APB, DUC. They are optimal for interceptors but not very efficient against ships.

This Last statement depends on how many you happen to have built. If you are using Fyron's Quadrant Mod, the abundance of asteroids makes it easy to afford thousands of fighters, which make even low damage weapons very scary.

---

But Prpoprtions has very effective emissive armour (high level armour plating, IIRC).
That or 4-5 CA makes ship almost immune to average sized fighter stack, say 10, if fighters use damage 4 weapons.

[PvK]

True. However, you can get much larger stacks if you launch during strategic movement, particularly from planets. This deployment method has similar effects to deploying heavy anti-ship weapons, but less efficiently. That is, these mobs become more effective against ships than other fighters, because while they can concentrate fire to bLast through heavy armor plating, if they fight other fighters which are deployed in smaller Groups, they will tend to waste shots, since they can only target one enemy fighter group at a time, while the fighters in smaller Groups will never waste firepower firing into a huge stack of fighters.

Also remember that it's not hard to make ships with lots of structure and/or shields in Proportions, using armored structure, which at lower tech levels is very cheap (20/40/80 mins for 60/90/120 structure in a 10kT component). I think there are several designs and methods which can deal efficiently with fighters, without making them at all obsolete. Fleets that are unprepared for fighters though can get completely smashed by them, though. This is exactly what you see in a lot of sci-fi, btw. That is, practically any sci-fi which includes fighters, makes them quite dangerous to ships, especially if they lack their own fighters or other countermeasures.

PvK

[oleg]

Originally posted by PvK:
This is exactly what you see in a lot of sci-fi, btw. That is, practically any sci-fi which includes fighters, makes them quite dangerous to ships, especially if they lack their own fighters or other countermeasures.

PvK

Exactly. "In Death Ground" by S.White&D.Weber is a very good example. Actually, so far that book is a best story writen about SEIV game