What are your ideas for "the ultimate fighter"

[godmars]

Yes, but that range was defined by you! So it's still completely personal

I don't for one second claim that you're wrong, or that I'm right, but to me a fighter is smaller than that (just personal opinion).

I quite like Bench's classification system. Mass 537 in that would be a frigate:

people got bit by the gigantism bug and everything was up-scaled as a result. a 150 mass fighter is for the most part useless

granted it varies from server to server but i would say that the overarching meta has people making bigger and bigger fighters to make them more effective against the bigger and bigger ships they would hypothetically be put up against

 

[-Moose-]

Or you guys could define a ship by its role. In my case I define a fighter as a ship designed for short range engagements (small or no jump drive) that relies on maneuverability and can be easily mounted on a carrier.

 

[Panpiper]

Igive your fighter a single weapon type. The AI will engage its target at maximum range. So if you have a cannon and long range missiles ol bobby will move out of cannon range and stay in long range missile range. Rendering half your weapons moot. I plan on leaving specialized weapons on the carriers.

Secondly big guns. As big as you can get them while still being able to move. Having one fighter with a 4500 (total size) block cannon is bad enough, having four fighters means 18000 blocks of weapons are shooting with sustained fire. That's bigger than a lot of frigates can put out.

I completely agree with your advice. However if you are putting 4500 block weapons on your ship, you are most definitely not building a fighter anymore.

 

[Jojomo]

I mean no disrespect to Bench, but I find those mass estimates ludicrously low. Perhaps those are the sizes of ships people were building back in 2013 when he made that, but that is not anywhere near close to what people are building nowadays.

My asteroid miner is 35K mass, a miner! And I haven't even finished adding to it. Our server reset a week ago. There are already people flying around 1 million mass ships! Virtually nobody builds ships at the smaller end of that scale. Virtually everybody flies around in ships that classification would call battleships and dreadnoughts, or bigger. You cannot use a classification system that puts virtually the whole of the ship classes 'below' the mass threshold that virtually everyone is actually flying, it makes no sense.

Fair enough, fair enough. Yes, Bench's system might be too old to be useful now (looks like 2014 though, not 2013).

I can't personally think of something 50m long as a fighter though - a fighter should basically be the smallest armed ship a single person can fly around inside. (e.g. an X-wing)
If more classifications are needed then they should be defined on top of that starting point.
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people got bit by the gigantism bug and everything was up-scaled as a result. a 150 mass fighter is for the most part useless

Unless there are enough of them for their total mass to match the enemy's mass, right?

 

[-Moose-]

I completely agree with your advice. However if you are putting 4500 block weapons on your ship, you are most definitely not building a fighter anymore.

Of course that depends on what you define as a fighter. Class arguments aside. The 4500is total size so we are talking 1500Cannon with 100% slave and tertiary. Not impossible power wise. Your marauder has a gun that drains the same power as a 3600 gun.

 

[Zekester81]

I consider that a fighter. It's over 60 meters, but is the heavy fighter version of a bomber set I made. My medium fighters are around half it's size, and lights about a third.

 

[The Judge]

Fighters are practically useless without causing a tumor of solid lag to emerge on any server.

 

[kingreol]

Fighters, or as most people are now calling them drones. do have a use as a Ai distractor for turrets and missiles. so i would say the best fighter is one that can distract the longest without being to slow. perhaps what everyone is thinking as a fighter. is more of a bomber which i feel is more 3-20k size and does not have the same zippy turn

 

[AtraUnam]

Personally I count a fighter as 1k mass or less and generally as a manned craft. Drones are sub 500 mass and obviously unmanned.

 

[StormWing0]

Generally for me drones are 500 mass or less, fighters, bombers, and ultralight frigates are 3000 mass or less, and there's more but most of mine generally see anything over 100,000 mass as an ultralight titan or larger.

 

[MacThule]

yay! another circular discussion about so-called classes XD

 

[Edymnion]

I mean no disrespect to Bench, but I find those mass estimates ludicrously low. Perhaps those are the sizes of ships people were building back in 2013 when he made that, but that is not anywhere near close to what people are building nowadays.

My asteroid miner is 35K mass, a miner! And I haven't even finished adding to it. Our server reset a week ago. There are already people flying around 1 million mass ships! Virtually nobody builds ships at the smaller end of that scale. Virtually everybody flies around in ships that classification would call battleships and dreadnoughts, or bigger. You cannot use a classification system that puts virtually the whole of the ship classes 'below' the mass threshold that virtually everyone is actually flying, it makes no sense.

You also cannot use personal experience on one server as an indicator of the game as a whole.

Some servers are full of mega builders, some are full of tiny builders. What is small on your server might be bigger than anything in the universe on another server. Any arbitrary scale like this is going to be crazy large for one group and tiny to another.
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Fighters, or as most people are now calling them drones.

I still keep a distinction between drones and fighters.

My drones are smaller than my fighters, and I consider drones to be disposable while my fighters are not. I mean sure they're easy enough to replace, but I consider a fighter a big enough investment to be worth protecting, while I don't care if I lose half a dozen drones per fight.

 

[Panpiper]

You also cannot use personal experience on one server as an indicator of the game as a whole.

Over the last couple of years, I have played on quite a few servers. I have seen pretty much the same construction scales on every server. I am sure what you say is true, that there are some servers out there where everyone builds small, for some odd reason. I cannot for the life of me understand how that might be however, as all it would take is for one megabuilder to show up and they instantly win the cold war. Perhaps it is somehow enforced by heavy 'role play' rules and arbitrary limits, but on servers where the play is solely defined by the players and the game, the size scales I referred to are very solid.

 

[KiloZulu]

Over the last couple of years, I have played on quite a few servers. I have seen pretty much the same construction scales on every server. I am sure what you say is true, that there are some servers out there where everyone builds small, for some odd reason. I cannot for the life of me understand how that might be however, as all it would take is for one megabuilder to show up and they instantly win the cold war. Perhaps it is somehow enforced by heavy 'role play' rules and arbitrary limits, but on servers where the play is solely defined by the players and the game, the size scales I referred to are very solid.

Maximum build size in the advanced tools set to 1. See how big ships get then.

I hate building big ships. I prefer my ships to have at least one axis of rotation that is better than .1 on default settings. I can get away with that because I don't participate in PvP, and don't really bother playing in Survival Mode anymore (feels like a waste of time until development is substantially complete and there is a game to play.) I just build ships for practice, and hopefully so that I have a library of ships to choose from once the game really is a game. I recognize that most of my designs are small, and more for roleplay use.

 

[Edymnion]

Over the last couple of years, I have played on quite a few servers. I have seen pretty much the same construction scales on every server. I am sure what you say is true, that there are some servers out there where everyone builds small, for some odd reason. I cannot for the life of me understand how that might be however, as all it would take is for one megabuilder to show up and they instantly win the cold war. Perhaps it is somehow enforced by heavy 'role play' rules and arbitrary limits, but on servers where the play is solely defined by the players and the game, the size scales I referred to are very solid.

I've seen (and avoided) many servers where they put block/size/mass restrictions on the ships, and any ship found to be too large is admin deleted. I've even seen servers that prohibited the use of shipyards beyond a certain size. Claims were that it was to keep the serve from lagging out, crashing, etc.

I'm also on a server that has the advanced build area set to only 30 (and many keep it at default 10) meaning building really large is VERY difficult and time consuming.

 

[Ultragamer2000]

for me, its this thing

its cheep, fast has decent firepower to quickly kill ships of similar sizes, is nearly missile proof, and in large numbers can take down much larger ships.

the main thing you want for a fighter is for it to have a cannot that has a decent rate of fire and some missiles. it also needs to be armoured enough to not be immediately destroyed by another fighter of the same size, but it cannot be too armoured as to be very slow. I typically aim for a 2.5 thrust to mass, however this is hard and a 1.5 thrust to mass is rather common as it allows for system space for better weapons/shields. Do not forget about power and how the fighter would dock to a carrier, and how you will enter the core.

and if you have the room add turrets, even if it is just AMS, the fighter needs to be able to defend itself if you intend for it to go 1v1 against other fighters. also when used in large numbers having a lot of AMS coverage is always a good thing.

hey ive seen you before on a stream your the one with that massive titan
Ahh so my AMS turrets are me taking the right direction, and my high speed nuke interceptor is also a good thing
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What size/weight limits?

Um... 35m long, 15 tall, 20 wide is the max
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You also cannot use personal experience on one server as an indicator of the game as a whole.

Some servers are full of mega builders, some are full of tiny builders. What is small on your server might be bigger than anything in the universe on another server. Any arbitrary scale like this is going to be crazy large for one group and tiny to another.
[doublepost=1476975988,1476975859][/doublepost]
I still keep a distinction between drones and fighters.

My drones are smaller than my fighters, and I consider drones to be disposable while my fighters are not. I mean sure they're easy enough to replace, but I consider a fighter a big enough investment to be worth protecting, while I don't care if I lose half a dozen drones per fight.

How bout semi-disposable squadron nuke interceptors? Are those drones or fighters?
[doublepost=1476994006][/doublepost]My current strategy is to make powerful semi-disposable but durable, yet semi-cheap nuke interceptors with machine-guns that the AI use, or to make basic armour ships with decent firepower (or you know make swarm ships with rapid fire missiles that are dirt cheap and throw them with dirt cheap carriers)

 

[Edymnion]

How bout semi-disposable squadron nuke interceptors? Are those drones or fighters?

Are they built with the idea of a player potentially using them? As in, do they have interiors and doors and cameras?

My drones are pretty solid and not really meant to be flown by humans. My fighters are, and have more interesting weapon loadouts and heavier shielding.

 

[Ultragamer2000]

How about this? This is my main escort fighter. I know it looks tiny but when I built it 3 weeks ago my idea on fighters where "small/tiny ships"
Excalibur Heavy Interceptor

But now... fighters are apparently frigate sized ships sometimes, so a week ago I started a heavy fighter named "Avenger" that will carry 4 AMS, 1 machine-gun (size-5) ASB, 18 nukes (size-2, 2 size 5), 18 heavy ion missiles (size 2, 2 size 5) and 4 dual size 10 machineguns and a 15 long beam system with punch through and 100 percent cannon, and jump drives, sliding cockpit doors, 171 m/s speed and standard armour, as well as 30k shields, all in a fightery looking ship which is 35-40 meters. (still in production, needs more AMS and ASB)
This good?

 

[Scypio]

I'm also on a server that has the advanced build area set to only 30 (and many keep it at default 10) meaning building really large is VERY difficult and time consuming.

Or you just build on solo and upload your blueprints.

 

[Ultragamer2000]

Are they built with the idea of a player potentially using them? As in, do they have interiors and doors and cameras?

My drones are pretty solid and not really meant to be flown by humans. My fighters are, and have more interesting weapon loadouts and heavier shielding.

My heavy interceptor (its only 2k blocks) has a cockpit door that you get in. It has some space. My drone fighter is well, solid bu you can get in and my strike-craft has a small cockpit with not much room. I don't make large ships with interior (not yet, but one is in production)

The interceptor and strike craft have cameras too. The drone obviously does not.