Was going through some clips of things, and ran into this:
Its from the live action Space Battleship Yamato, but pay specific attention to what the fighters are doing (aside from just fighting).
They're painting targets.
For those that don't know, "painting a target" is a military term meaning that you are marking a specific target for destruction. Laser guided missiles work by "painting the target" with a laser that the missile then follows. You could also have a spy/scout go into enemy territory to paint targets by getting exact GPS coordinates for gun embankments so that an offshore ship can fire on that location.
I think that could be an INCREDIBLY fun mechanic if we could figure out how to make it work in Starmade. Give fighters some really good practical use beyond just being glorified flak or death by a thousand cuts. If fighters could be used to scout targets and send priority target lists back to a main gunship, which in turn would direct all turret fire to those specific targets it could be really fun.
Imagine a nice large scale fleet vs. fleet fight where the turrets on the big ships are shooting at everything until a fighter gets in close to the other guy's command ship and starts painting high priority targets so that the gunships on your side can all focus fire on the same spot.
Perhaps a change in shield mechanics to allow targeted strikes on turrets to drop the turret shields for half a second or so before the main ship's shields re-establish so that enough concentrated fire could break through and destroy the turret without the main ship becoming especially vulnerable.
Or maybe some kind of close proximity shield jammer that could be carried by a smaller ship to drop the shields on a docked entity, allowing main guns to take it out? Make it so a human pilot in a fighter could have a direct and individual outcome on a battle between titans by using actual skill to fly in close enough to paint a main turret and fire off a shield jammer pulse so that the big guns behind him can vaporize the target.
Its from the live action Space Battleship Yamato, but pay specific attention to what the fighters are doing (aside from just fighting).
They're painting targets.
For those that don't know, "painting a target" is a military term meaning that you are marking a specific target for destruction. Laser guided missiles work by "painting the target" with a laser that the missile then follows. You could also have a spy/scout go into enemy territory to paint targets by getting exact GPS coordinates for gun embankments so that an offshore ship can fire on that location.
I think that could be an INCREDIBLY fun mechanic if we could figure out how to make it work in Starmade. Give fighters some really good practical use beyond just being glorified flak or death by a thousand cuts. If fighters could be used to scout targets and send priority target lists back to a main gunship, which in turn would direct all turret fire to those specific targets it could be really fun.
Imagine a nice large scale fleet vs. fleet fight where the turrets on the big ships are shooting at everything until a fighter gets in close to the other guy's command ship and starts painting high priority targets so that the gunships on your side can all focus fire on the same spot.
Perhaps a change in shield mechanics to allow targeted strikes on turrets to drop the turret shields for half a second or so before the main ship's shields re-establish so that enough concentrated fire could break through and destroy the turret without the main ship becoming especially vulnerable.
Or maybe some kind of close proximity shield jammer that could be carried by a smaller ship to drop the shields on a docked entity, allowing main guns to take it out? Make it so a human pilot in a fighter could have a direct and individual outcome on a battle between titans by using actual skill to fly in close enough to paint a main turret and fire off a shield jammer pulse so that the big guns behind him can vaporize the target.