Fighters! What are they good for? - Page 2

dogscoff · #11 September 28th, 2001, 03:07 PM

Another good fighter tactic:

When your opponenet has decent PDC, launch your fighters in small Groups, or better yet as individual units. It's a nightmare to move them all around in tactical, but every shot that hits your fighter will waste your enemy's hitpoints:

For example, say your opponent's PDC does 50 damage per hit. Each fighter takes 30 damage to destroy (These figures are straight out of my head and completely random).

If you have one group of 15 fighters, that's 450 hit points. Therefore, it will take just 9 PDC hits to destroy your group. If you have the same 15 fighters in 15 Groups of one, however, they will have to hit 30 times to destroy them all, because 50 damage-30 Hit points = 20 damage points wasted per shot.

Lik I say, the numbers are made up but the principle still applies.

This does make sense. If it doesn't, you haven't drunk enough beer=-)

*Dogscoff has been down the pub again=-)

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Suicide Junkie · #12 September 28th, 2001, 05:32 PM

quote:
If you have one group of 15 fighters, that's 450 hit points. Therefore, it will take just 9 PDC hits to destroy your group. If you have the same 15 fighters in 15 Groups of one, however, they will have to hit 30 times to destroy them all, because 50 damage-30 Hit points = 20 damage points wasted per shot.

You might want to check your math again: if the PDCs are killing one fighter each shot, then it takes 15 PDC hits, not 30.

Askan Nightbringer · #13 September 28th, 2001, 07:18 PM

quote:
Originally posted by dogscoff:

This does make sense. If it doesn't, you haven't drunk enough beer=-)

*Dogscoff has been down the pub again=-)

Makes perfect sense to me (just coming back from the pub myself after another dominating performance on the pool table..wish my Space Empire strategies were as good).
Unfortunately the fact that the fighter Groups will take longet to get to combat and have more concentrated fire on them will suck a bit.

Now personally I think the only thing fighters acheive is to give lots of experience to the enemies fleets as they mow them down. I understand the now maintence thingie but my "living on the edge" sytle of economics means all my resources are for pumping the ships out. No minerals to spare for those fighters.

Askan

Cyrien · #14 September 28th, 2001, 11:26 PM

Anyone ever tried pumping some fighters full of shields and using a missile fleet with the fighters moving in first to soak up the PD fire?

Kadste · #15 September 29th, 2001, 02:13 AM

Cyrien,

Although I have tried this, I usually find it cheaper to create a defense ship and load it up with shields. Fighters die quickly, but the defense ships usually survive combat to be repaired.

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tesco samoa · #16 September 29th, 2001, 04:16 AM

ahh but fighters are cheap to build and require no maintence.

All comes down to balance. Fighters can tip the scale in a battle.

Now if you actually controlled combat fighters value jumps 100 fold.

I use them. A fleet without them can be destroyed quickly.

Jump an enemy with 3000 fighters and see what survives.

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Deathstalker · #17 September 29th, 2001, 04:53 AM

anyone tried the trick with the Heavy Carrier and the shipyard anymore?? (I think it was with a hvy carrier, ship space yard and fighters with kamikaze warheads....use them like 'missiles', use the carrier to build more after each battle)....Tried it a few patches ago, worked ok...Never tried it in strategic combat though...

I also love to build Starbases on wormholes with lots of fighters/launchbays onboard, this works good for planets too, use bases with cargo bays/launch bays to suppliment the planet space (or to leave planet space for those 1 armor riot troops....)

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[This message has been edited by Deathstalker (edited 29 September 2001).]

Askan Nightbringer · #18 September 29th, 2001, 04:55 AM

Actually I think fighters could be made alot better if the range of point defence was alot less (like 1 or 2 or something) or alternatively the fighter's weapon ranges were much greater (like 5 or 6)

Then they could get a shot of before the point defence hit.

Askan

Deathstalker · #19 September 29th, 2001, 04:57 AM

I think that point defense is TOO powerful, I believe that missile rof should be 2, (maybe 1 for crystal torp, too low damage), and pdc should have a rate of fire of 2....but heck that is just me...

fishnetPA · #20 September 29th, 2001, 06:35 PM

There is one minor fighter bug that I have used to get around the limitation of not being able to launch a fighter from a planet and being able to move it in the same turn.
The trick is to launch a fighter the previous turn (only need one), if you did this, then the fighters you launch the current turn CAN move the turn they launch!