Need help using fighters

[kerensky]

Is there any way to make fighters effective in late game? Whenever I try to use them they always get mowed down by PDT fire. Currently I am running teh unmodded Version with teh latest patch.

[primitive]

Just one question. Are your opponents human or AI's ?

[mac5732]

PD's pretty strong later game, however, ways to get around this varys, My opinion and what I use, use combination of lots of ftrs and missles and or drones, this way they have to fire at one or the other and leaves you a chance for the other type to get in and do damage. You just have to overwelm their capacity. another way is to pick out and destroy the enemy ships that have the most pd's on them, then send in your ftrs or combinations of any of the above. Good luck and enjoy
I'm sure other members have other ways to making them effective in later games

just some ideas Mac

[Grandpa Kim]

In the late game, I generally use them in warp point defense. In combination with satellites, they can do an outstanding job against against any fleet. At a warp point, they will be very close to the enemy ships and some stacks will fire before moving, avoiding PD completely. Those that move will take hits, but not nearly the intensity you see in frontal assaults.

If you must attack, give your carriers weapons and an attack strategy. They will then move toward the enemy along with the fighters, releasing more fighters all the while. Makes for a massive assault, instead of the small waves of fighters you get with a retreating carrier. If you're playing tactical mode, you can set up the massive assault manually.

[kerensky]

Just one question. Are your opponents human or AI's ?

I am playing a single player game so my opponet is a massive ai empire that is nearly four times the size of mine and has become the mega evil empire. There are some other AIs on the map, but none of them have over a hundred ships, so they stand no threat to my enemy.

[ April 13, 2004, 16:16: Message edited by: kerensky ]

[bearclaw]

I use a combination of fighters. Fast, cheap fighters with minimal weapons and shields to soak up PD fire with slightly slower, heavily armed fighters with shields. The fast buggers will reach PD range first, soak up most fire, then the heavy armed fighters typically can get close enough to deal their damage. As mentioned earlier, expect heavy casulties.

[Intimidator]

I tried once to design my fighters as fast as my missiles. So they where ariving at the enemy fleet roughly at the same time. That worked out pretty good....

If I'm playing tactical mode I always launch my fighter manualy in grooups of only 2 fighter.
In that it's easier to overwhelm the PDC defenses.

Intimidator

[primitive]

Fighting AI's is a bit different from fighting humans. The AI's basically composes their fleet of wathever is in their design file, without adapting to spesific threats. Most AI's bring a lot more PDC to the battles than an unecpecting human would normaly do, so fighters is not always usefull for major battles (unless you can bring a lot).

When you do use it for major Battles: Use shielded fighters as they can take a bit of pounding from PDC and the biggest stacks possible. Make sure their battlespeed is not larger (or max 1) than your ships and that your Carriers moves forward instead of running to the corner.

However, the best use of fighters is not in the major battles but for harassment. Have some big and fastmoving stacks available in border systems to pick of the lonley ships the AI tend to move around. Also, try to reconquer the warppoint with the fighters as soon as the AI leaves it. You can pick of lots of ships for free this way.

[Alneyan]

If surprise can play a part, you may want to use the Light Carrier as your main hull for your warships, giving you pretty good warships (roughly on par with a Light Cruiser, with more armour but lacking the +10% bonus to defence) with added versatility.

Such a ship could very well feature only direct fire weaponry (no fighter coverage), and so the other players may expect you not to use fighters at all. If you ever see a weakness in the PDC coverage (such as only one or two PDC per ship), you ought to start building fighters to put on these carriers, especially ships with shields. (The best shields give them +64 hitpoints for 4kt, almost enough to sustain the 65 damage points of a PDC V)

Obviously, it mostly works in the early game, as the Light Carrier becomes overgunned later on by the regular hulls. (And the following Carrier hulls do not pack the same punch as the Light Carrier, and do require a lot of research) But sheer numbers should be able to do decent damage, and having a period of peace would allow you to build up a sizeable force of fighters (which do not require any maintenance, unlike ships). A force of several thousand fighters is not to be laughed at, and could deal serious punishment during a battle. Unfortunately, you should also expect heavy casulaties, as such a battle is more likely to happen in deep space rather than at a wormhole. (Unless Warp Openers are disabled that is)

Lastly, fighters lack defensive and offensive bonuses past the early game, as ships can be on par once some research is done. (ECM III and the two armours giving defence bonuses are enough to cancel the fighter's offence bonus ; likewise, Combat Sensors III will nullify the fighter's defence bonus) Besides, ships can be trained while fighters cannot, and so your fighters will be even more prone to enemy fire, either from PDC or from direct fire weapons. (You can put your fighters into a fleet however, but you should be careful while doing so since they eat up a lot of supplies if put in a fleet along with ships) So a combined arms operation seems the most effective way to use them, as otherwise they will not Last long against ships with high offence and defence Ratings. Either that, or bring a *lot* of fighters with good shielding and cross your fingers.