A discussion on the usefulness of fighters

[Mered4]

Well, I do think that we should make it theoretically possible for a single small ship to annihilate a massive one, on three conditions.

1: The skill gap needs to be enormous - IE, the fighter pilot is a fucking ace, and the capship pilot is halfway to potato.
2: The fighter is extremely well made
3: The capship either has no turret coverage or very poor turret coverage.

This way, amazing pilots can punish people for not learning how to play or build before they move up to flying massive battleships.

I agree with this. You shouldn't be able to hop into this random flying cube-ish thing you threw together and just dominate a smaller ship, no matter the pilot. That said, your conditions cover the bases quite nicely.

I'd also like to point out that for the sake of pure efficiency, drones trump every other weapon in existence. They don't need buffed - they just need their mechanics fixed.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Well, I do think that we should make it theoretically possible for a single small ship to annihilate a massive one, on three conditions.

1: The skill gap needs to be enormous - IE, the fighter pilot is a fucking ace, and the capship pilot is halfway to potato.
2: The fighter is extremely well made
3: The capship either has no turret coverage or very poor turret coverage.

This way, amazing pilots can punish people for not learning how to play or build before they move up to flying massive battleships.

The only way to achieve this would be to remove combat regen entirely. As long as the big ship can regenerate shields a fighter or any significantly smaller craft can never win against the larger opponent.

 

[Mered4]

The only way to achieve this would be to remove combat regen entirely. As long as the big ship can regenerate shields a fighter or any significantly smaller craft can never win against the larger opponent.

But that doesn't come into play unless you out- weigh your opponent at least twenty to one.

At which point you should probably check your assumptions. :D

 

[Lord Daro]

Well, I do think that we should make it theoretically possible for a single small ship to annihilate a massive one, on three conditions.

1: The skill gap needs to be enormous - IE, the fighter pilot is a fucking ace, and the capship pilot is halfway to potato.
2: The fighter is extremely well made
3: The capship either has no turret coverage or very poor turret coverage.

This way, amazing pilots can punish people for not learning how to play or build before they move up to flying massive battleships.

Maybe one could insert a 4. item in that list. A single smaller ship has only a chance of killing a bigger one, if the size difference isn't too huge.
If you are sitting in a 200 fighter and try to take on something with over 200k mass (I know, pretty exaggerated. But i think the example still gets the point accross), it's almost impossible design the cap so badly that it can be hurt by such a fighter. The most you could accomplish would be a draw, where both of you walk awway in annoyance.
//Edit: Oh. Seems like a few were faster on this one.


And now my addition to the discussion in general:
Fighters might not be necessarily have to be used for direct killing.
In the game infinite space, fighters often don't have the firepower to inflict considerable damage on enemy fleets of equal level. (at least with my playstyle)
But they stop their movement wich leaves my fleet with an advantage in mobility.

Something like that might also be a viable option for fighter use in starmade.

 

[Winterhome]

Maybe one could insert a 4. item in that list. A single smaller ship has only a chance of killing a bigger one, if the size difference isn't too huge.
If you are sitting in a 200 fighter and try to take on something with over 200k mass (I know, pretty exaggerated. But i think the example still gets the point accross), it's almost impossible design the cap so badly that it can be hurt by such a fighter. The most you could accomplish would be a draw, where both of you walk awway in annoyance.
//Edit: Oh. Seems like a few were faster on this one.

Eh. I'd say the first three still cover that.

The bigger the mass gap is, the bigger the differences have to be.

 

[Lord Daro]

Eh. I'd say the first three still cover that.

The bigger the mass gap is, the bigger the differences have to be.

Essentially that's right, but it goes only till a certain diverence in mass is reached. Even the best pilot in the best fighter has no chance of overcoming the shield recharging rate of a ship that has a 100 times more mass.

True, it's possible that someone is thinking it's a good idea to put a 100 rechargers in his giant capital, but such scenario is very unlikely.
I got to admid tough, that i am probably just nitpicking here.

 

[Winterhome]

Essentially that's right, but it goes only till a certain diverence in mass is reached. Even the best pilot in the best fighter has no chance of overcoming the shield recharging rate of a ship that has a 100 times more mass.

True, it's possible that someone is thinking it's a good idea to put a 100 rechargers in his giant capital, but such scenario is very unlikely.
I got to admid tough, that i am probably just nitpicking here.

I'm not so much discussing the current possibility. I'm more talking about what should be the ideal balance setup in the future. Physical torpedoes and such, once warheads work properly.

Right now a pilot in a 300 mass ship can eventually take down a 20k mass ship if he blows the turrets off and hangs around behind his victim, regardless of how potato the shipmaker is (ie: over a quarter his shield blocks are regen or something else equally terrible for fighting equal size targets), and the same pilot can probably eventually knock off bigger ships with less regen - assuming the pilot doesn't jump or have 100% overdrive on their capship. Small ships designed for taking down large ships tend to have very high firepower missiles+machineguns and absolutely minimal shields, so they're not well suited to fighting against superiority fighters, and we get a bit of a Rock Paper Scissors effect there. Not ideal - the skill of the pilot currently has less to do with the fight's outcome than the design of the ship does, and that's not quite as fun (and I've seen some really, really badly designed ships fail to kill things 1/20th their mass).

 

[CyberTao]

In the game infinite space, fighters often don't have the firepower to inflict considerable damage on enemy fleets of equal level. (at least with my playstyle)
But they stop their movement wich leaves my fleet with an advantage in mobility.

First time I ever seen another person who played Infinite Space.
That effect is more or less mimicked by drone swarms in the current game. Unleashing a swarm of them with various effects (stop/push/emp) could easily harass a large ship in numbers. Problem is, not many people would want to play as one of the swarm methinks.

 

[Mered4]

First time I ever seen another person who played Infinite Space.
That effect is more or less mimicked by drone swarms in the current game. Unleashing a swarm of them with various effects (stop/push/emp) could easily harass a large ship in numbers. Problem is, not many people would want to play as one of the swarm methinks.

Which is why we will be getting fleet control soon. It will enable smaller factions to project their power based upon their economy and ship quality. Right now, the amount of power you can bring is limited by the number of folks on your team.

 

[CyberTao]

Which is why we will be getting fleet control soon. It will enable smaller factions to project their power based upon their economy and ship quality. Right now, the amount of power you can bring is limited by the number of folks on your team.

I don't really consider the ability for drones to automatically redock to really be "fleet control" so much as "proper AI function pathing", since fleets were suppose to be limited to something like 5 AI ships last I heard?

Fleets also wouldn't make people pilot fighters more, everyone would just end up in a flagship and spit out more drones. I guess that counts as usefulness if the drones are fighter sized.

 

[Mered4]

I don't really consider the ability for drones to automatically redock to really be "fleet control" so much as "proper AI function pathing", since fleets were suppose to be limited to something like 5 AI ships last I heard?

Fleets also wouldn't make people pilot fighters more, everyone would just end up in a flagship and spit out more drones. I guess that counts as usefulness if the drones are fighter sized.

Where was that stated by a Schine team member? I thought the 5 ship limit was just a rumor.

 

[Lecic]

don't really consider the ability for drones to automatically redock to really be "fleet control" so much as "proper AI function pathing", since fleets were suppose to be limited to something like 5 AI ships last I heard?

Fleets also wouldn't make people pilot fighters more, everyone would just end up in a flagship and spit out more drones. I guess that counts as usefulness if the drones are fighter sized.

You can only have 5 ships actively following you, but you can assign tasks to as many as you want.

 

[CyberTao]

Where was that stated by a Schine team member? I thought the 5 ship limit was just a rumor.

Back when we first got those NPC traders and stuff, we could only have 5 following us around at most. When we get fleets, we will be able to tell those NPCs to get into a ship core/cockpit/computer. The 5 ship limit came from the faction you could only actively control 5 NPCs at a time.