Massive loss of fighters - please help!!!

Jason2 · #1 February 8th, 2001, 03:32 AM

I am currently playing a game in a large, cluster universe with not all warp points connected - so I am moving cluster to cluster.

I started everyone at medium tech and the Computer on High/High (difficulty/bonus).

I had a fleet with 6 Carriers each carrying 79 large fighters and attacked a large planet owned by the Sergetti (non-mod). I usually play on Strategic since tactical would take too long. I had just finished wiping out a system of Sergetti and had the blueprints of the large weapon and medium weapons platforms - each only had 1 point defense cannon. Yet, all 474 of my large fighters were wiped out in about 3 minutes! Assume whatever weapons you want - what could do this so quickly to so many fighters??

Help!!!

Taqwus · #2 February 8th, 2001, 03:47 AM

Well, many non-PD weapons can hit fighters as well, just not as accurately (lower +hit) and not automatically. You might want to check the combat replay and see if your fighters were being hit from a decent range before they could close and do some damage...

(You *are* using 1.19, right? With the combat replay option available from the turn log, and without the bug where destroying a single unshielded fighter in a stack usually destroyed the entire stack)?

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Tomgs · #3 February 8th, 2001, 11:50 AM

Did you check to see if you had blueprints for fighters too? Maybe they had a large stockpile of them on the planet also. If you are using one of the mods that correct the sensor problem the WP's might have had sensors and since your fighters would get up close to fight a planet they would be able to hit them with any beam weapon also.

Atrocities · #4 February 8th, 2001, 12:59 PM

I would say that the planet you attacked had a lot of Weapon Platforms. I ran into this problem too, and that was what it was. The AI had put 50 WP on one planet. (thought it was a bug at first) and when I attacked it, poof, no more fighters.

I learned to counter this with various types of fighters. Some have sheilds, some use just beam weapons while others use Rockets or Torpedos only.

You may want to consider specializing your fighters and setting a few up to be a specific type.

IE Bombers: Rocket Attack: Beam Attack:

Good luck.

Jason2 · #5 February 8th, 2001, 03:15 PM

Thanks for the replies

I ran the replay and it was a combination of two things. 1) The computer had a lot of Weapon Platforms and 2) there were 118 satellites which had PD cannons... my fighters were too stupid on Strategic to take out the sats first so they kept charging ahead and getting mowed down as they tried to reach the planet.

I still plan to play Strategic since one battle with that many fighters would take hours... but I will definitely take the suggestion about mixing my fighter types.

Thanks!

Jason2

Atrocities · #6 February 8th, 2001, 03:33 PM

No prob.

PD sats are most effective against fighters, but they suck horribly against larger ships.

I would go back to that world and glass it for the inconveince it cost you.

Markavian · #7 February 9th, 2001, 02:37 AM

I really think that PD cannons are way too powerful against Fighters.

What they shoudl do is:

1)Make them 8 times Weaker
2)But make them aobut 10 times smaller in size.
3)Make them less accurate.

You'd be able to fit more on a ship, but less would hit. It'd alsobe more realistic: Firing a hil of shots to try and stop ships.

John Beech

Nitram Draw · #8 February 9th, 2001, 02:47 AM

I agree with Markavians. If you equate PD cannons to AAA cannons then they should be rapid firing, have low damage values, low accuracy against fighters and be small in size.
I have found that one or two per ship now is sufficient regardless of the ship size. Cruisers and larger should be loaded with them but right now I don't see the need.

raynor · #9 February 9th, 2001, 08:55 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Tomgs:
...If you are using one of the mods that correct the sensor problem the WP's might have had sensors...

I saw that you can't use Sensors in the TG tournament but didn't understand it. Would you please tell me what the sensor problem is?

Thanks!

Tomgs · #10 February 9th, 2001, 10:49 AM

Well the next patch that comes out will fix the problem and the Mod pack and other mods have fixed it already. Basically there is a misprint in the AI Design files (in the races folder) that calls for combat to hit Dec and Add this should read combat to hit Defence Plus (for ECM) and Offence Plus (for sensors). I changed mine with the find and replace function of wordpad. But there are a lot of races in the game and every one of their Design creation files needs to be fixed(and the default file in the AI folder too if you want Neutral races to use them ). Its easier now that there are mods out there that help other areas also to just use them.