[TC] Air Superiority Fighter Choice

[moleman122]

Hey all, it's been a long time since I've played and I'm back into the flow of it. Loving the current state of the game, what with x3wiki being dead (thank god for archive.org) and having to scour the german forums with google translate to find not-broken download links for various scripts, it's like I'm playing a terribly ancient game but no! Just terribly obscure.

Currently on day 6 of my playthrough with a measly 3 UTs, as well as 2 LTs boosting terran economy. My Split Panther is the flagship of my fleet, with cerberuses on patrol duty in a few sectors I consider valuable, backed up by Zephyrus'. All are filled to the brim with 8x HEPT Nova Raiders, making effective OOS killing machines, and CODEA is guaranteeing first strike capability. All that works great OOS, but in-sector we all know that 8x HEPTs leads to energy issues, even more so with AI. As such, my panther's fighter fleet changed to both 2x HEPT 6x EBC and 4x HEPT 4x EBC, and either way didn't get the job done as efficiently as I'd like, too many deaths and EBC doesn't hit fast movers very well due to small round size. As a result, I've been pouring over information on m3s and m3+ to decide what I'd like my personal carrier fighter to be.

TLDR; I'd like a little bit more IS punch and survivability than a nova raider and am willing to sacrifice a little bit of speed to get there. I've been looking mainly at the M3+ class.

Note, I do not have PHQ yet, as hopefully evidenced by my small UT network, so prototypes, enhanced, anything I can't mass acquire and equip myself is out of the question.

Since I'm looking for an UPGRADE, it needs at least two of the following: Better shields, Better kill capability, or better speed (this one is unlikely since i'm looking at m3+) So far, it seems like this leaves me with the following choices:

Spoiler

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First Choice: Terran Cutlass
Mighty Shields falling short of only the Eclipse, EMPCs aren't dead in my game so easy to equip, good speed with a negligible 17m/s difference from the nova raider. It seems like I can just fill 'er up with spectres and be on my merry way. The DPS wouldn't be as good as my nova raiders, but the ability to stay on target would be considerably better with practically endless energy reserves. If I go with this, do I set turrets to attack the ship's current target or to attack enemies? what do you feel is more effective?

Second Choice: Split Chimera
A seemingly odd choice, or at least I feel like this ship is viewed negatively. 3x25 is standard shields, more than the mamba, but same as the nova.... and a little bit slower. Why do I like it? PBEs and great weapon energy. 2x PBE in the main gun and 1x in the front turret might have a significant impact in combat, paired with whatever other lasers the energy can manage that will still hit the target, and it's definitely something I'd like to experiment with if I can't get any feedback on this configuration. Also, that x-wing style conquers the LEGO Cutlass any day

Third Choice: Argon Eclipse
Only here because I keep seeing people swear by it as an air superiority fighter. Slower than a brick, but with good weapon energy and impenetrable shields. I've tried to field this thing in a fleet before (4xHEPT 4xEBC) but they got taken out left and right regardless of CODEA maneuverability, they're just too slow and can't avoid fire, I think the ship size and shape doesn't help with that either. The only way I can see this working is just... to always have more of them than your enemy has fighters. If they can't outnumber, it feels like they can't outfight.

These are the choices I'm interested in, but I'd like to hear your opinions. This is for MY personal fighter fleet, so money is no object, and I'm fairly set on no standard M3s. The mamba is nice but not enough energy/s, and the nova raider isn't satisfying me, the scimitar only has 6 guns, the more i look at standard m3s the more "meh" i feel. Please let me know your opinions!

[Hemmingfish]

I usually fly a Cutlass when not doing missions. I hadn't considered it seriously until doing the Terran plot forced me into one for a battle. It's a true joy to fight in, but its main downside is it's very difficult to capture ships because EMPCs do a ton of damage to hull. Normally I set the turret to Attack Enemies because it has enough single target damage that the turret doesn't make or break a fight, and I like having pre-weakened enemies flying around.

I'm also not a fan of the Eclipse, it's in the awkward spot where it's too slow to be comfortable and not beefy enough to be powerful. I have one for PBG memes but don't enjoy flying it very much.

Haven't tried a Chimera so I can't comment on that.

[Fulgrymm]

I would say Cutlass for now, and upgrade to Fenrirs once you have your PHQ.

[Alan Phipps]

Please note that the OP is looking for a suggested fleet of carrier fighters and not for a personal ship.

My personal choice was whatever was really easy to replace given that there will be combat losses. Hence my carriers had several 5 ship groups made up of compatible types of captured ships equipped and roled to play on their advantages and downplay their disadvantages. I had 'ready spares' available 'in storage' for the losses.

[Triaxx2]

If you're insistent on M3+, you're best served by Buddying up to the Yaki and purchasing massive numbers of Tenjins. They're fast, heavily shielded and can mount an absolutely beastly number of weapons. (11, 9 spinal, two turrets)

Personally I find M3+ almost too heavy for standard attack duties, barring the Tenjin, but my fighter groups tend early on to consist of Boron Pike M4+ They're fairly quick, but have and extremely short front to rear profile so when they're flying at speed shots tend to miss around them, as opposed to something like a Split Scorpion that has a very long thin profile and will take more hits because it's in the target window longer. The Pike does have energy issues, but those I solve by using 4 PAC's meaning it almost exactly expends it's weapon energy during an attack run and then is recharged by the time it comes around for the next pass.

For weapons, I'd avoid mixing too much. The more mix you have the harder it is for the AI to appropriately fire. If you're going EBC, go all EBC. If you're running HEPT, go all HEPT. It sounds strange, but that single massive burst from emptying your capacitors is going to be more valuable than sustain while fighting because a single snap shot alpha will do more than a dozen spread out shots.

Since you are using CODEA, I would suggest some super heavy fighters for your interceptor wing. Teladi Kea's, or Falcon Haulers are a good option. Keep your eyes open for the chance to pick up a Falcon Sentinel. They're horrifically slow, but have Corvette class shields. Once you have the PHQ, you can reproduce them and they're basically a wall of shielding that nothing shy of a capital ship will punch through.

[Altruist]

[...]with x3wiki being dead (thank god for archive.org) and having to scour the german forums with google translate to find not-broken download links for various scripts, it's like I'm playing a terribly ancient game but no! Just terribly obscure.

Oh yes, I feel the pain about the lost wiki and have also gone to archive.org.
Just in case you missed those 2 good sites:
# https://roguey.co.uk/x3tc/ships/
# https://eng.x3tc.net/x3_tc_map/

[...]All that works great OOS, but in-sector we all know that 8x HEPTs leads to energy issues, even more so with AI. As such, my panther's fighter fleet changed to both 2x HEPT 6x EBC and 4x HEPT 4x EBC, and either way didn't get the job done as efficiently as I'd like, too many deaths and EBC doesn't hit fast movers very well due to small round size. As a result, I've been pouring over information on m3s and m3+ to decide what I'd like my personal carrier fighter to be.

At least for M3s if energy is the bottleneck I switch to the good old PAC in main (or PRG if possible and credits are of no concern), PRG in turrets or even IRE in the back turret. A short overview:
[ external image ]
The most interesting columns are en/s and dm per en/s (vs shields) which show that PRG and PAC are more than equal to HEPT in terms of dm vs shields. Considering also speed and the higher hit ratio they are even better which makes the PRG by far the best choice especially equipped in turrets. Many M3s can't equip the PRG in main, so PAC is the next choice. My habit to put an IRE in the rear turret is a kind of energy fail proof to make sure missiles get shot even if energy is near zero.

Spoiler

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First Choice: Terran Cutlass
Mighty Shields falling short of only the Eclipse, EMPCs aren't dead in my game so easy to equip, good speed with a negligible 17m/s difference from the nova raider. It seems like I can just fill 'er up with spectres and be on my merry way. The DPS wouldn't be as good as my nova raiders, but the ability to stay on target would be considerably better with practically endless energy reserves. If I go with this, do I set turrets to attack the ship's current target or to attack enemies? what do you feel is more effective?[/code]

Second Choice: Split Chimera
A seemingly odd choice, or at least I feel like this ship is viewed negatively. 3x25 is standard shields, more than the mamba, but same as the nova.... and a little bit slower. Why do I like it? PBEs and great weapon energy. 2x PBE in the main gun and 1x in the front turret might have a significant impact in combat, paired with whatever other lasers the energy can manage that will still hit the target, and it's definitely something I'd like to experiment with if I can't get any feedback on this configuration. Also, that x-wing style conquers the LEGO Cutlass any day

Third Choice: Argon Eclipse
Only here because I keep seeing people swear by it as an air superiority fighter. Slower than a brick, but with good weapon energy and impenetrable shields. I've tried to field this thing in a fleet before (4xHEPT 4xEBC) but they got taken out left and right regardless of CODEA maneuverability, they're just too slow and can't avoid fire, I think the ship size and shape doesn't help with that either. The only way I can see this working is just... to always have more of them than your enemy has fighters. If they can't outnumber, it feels like they can't outfight.

Spoiler

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Well, a bit unsure if the spoiler tag is necessary but if you tag it, I follow.

All 3 good and strong ships. The Chimera, though, especially in comparison with the other 2, is a bit lacking in shields and, may it be OOS or in-sector, shields keep ships alive.

Cutless is relatively fast, good shields, 2x2 turrets is powerful, with missiles as strong one could call it unbalanced. If one of your main concerns was that EBCs weren't fast enough to hit "fast movers", the same might be true for EMPCs, though.

The Eclipse is slow but at least can keep up with your Panther, 200 MJ shields are a power in itself, turrets are good and PRGs can be equipped in every weapon slot which makes it very efficient. It's difficult for any missile to challenge the Spectre but the Tempest and Wasp aren't bad, either: Wasp much faster and with slightly longer range than the Poltergeist, Tempest a lot weaker than Spectre but with much longer range (distance- and timewise) and with the ability to lock onto new targets when the initial one is gone (which is not to be underestimated if you plan to mass-launch them). Against "fast movers" the Eclipse, although slow, is probably better... IF it can engage the enemy (well, you do notice the big IF)... nevertheless the role to defend your Panther I'd expect the Eclipse to fill out superbly.

Difficult to decide... what about a wing of each and then let the bloody practice decide which one fares better? Depends surely also how you use them, offensively hunting enemy fighters or with orders to defend your Panther.

About turret orders:
I am using the script Missile Defense Mk2 and have made good experience with:
front turrets: attack enemy
rear turrets: missile defense (fires on enemies but gives missiles priority)

So... after reading this forums for months, my very first post here. Hopefully I did not only point out the absolute obvious.

[jlehtone]

My personal choice was whatever was really easy to replace given that there will be combat losses.

This.

This is for MY personal fighter fleet, money is no object ...

Okay*, you can call SY: "Hi, send me 1000 ships, please. Now."
After that, in vanilla TC, the real cost is setting them up for action.
If that CODEA can automate that too ...

... then there is only one cost: the shame of losing a ship. It is probably easier to cope with that feeling than to find near-invincible fleet fighter.



*Why do I have an eerie feeling that "personal fleet" sets rather strict limit on the numbers? A number that at most in Oddys could be financially objectionable.

[moleman122]

So... after reading this forums for months, my very first post here. Hopefully I did not only point out the absolute obvious.

Quite the opposite! This is exactly the sort of well-researched information I was hoping for, I do know of Roguey's and x3tc.net, both are lifesavers but don't offer the same level of "car reviews" that you get from x3wiki, the userbase and longevity of that site gave it a lot of well-informed opinions on its articles.

Your information about damage/energy usage is very interesting.... I've always known PRGs and PACs are really not so bad but this is going to completely shake up my fleet composition, longer salvos of PRG is better than little HEPT poots flying across the sky at measly speeds, although the low bullet size of a PRG always seems to give me trouble. Greater range is also not always a good thing since the change of hitting a target at range is terribly low in most cases, but I'm definitely gonna be experimenting! Maybe a simple 4xHEPT 4xPAC setup, since PAC has reasonable speed? Or just have faith in the PRGs to do their job?

My plan was already to do exactly as you said, make a wing of each and see how they perform in combat, but now I think I'm going to have to add a few extra wings with different weapon configurations.... Especially in the case of the eclipse and chimera. The chimera loadouts I tried last night for my "prototype" were 4xHEPT 4xPAC and 4xPBE 4xMD. The lasers were powerful and good range, with a long, cozy salvo (218 energy/s on an m3!), but still not quite great accuracy. The PBE/MD combo was lethal against m5's and m4's, but m3's were only slowed down little by little and eventually chewed up, not quite the Air Superiority I need. In addition, I got to experience the chimera's shielding first hand, with more than a few deaths during weapon testing.

I'm definitely going to be downloading that turret script, it's exactly what i've been looking for. Please let me know what you think about the above setups.

If you're insistent on M3+, you're best served by Buddying up to the Yaki and purchasing massive numbers of Tenjins. They're fast, heavily shielded and can mount an absolutely beastly number of weapons. (11, 9 spinal, two turrets)

Personally I find M3+ almost too heavy for standard attack duties, barring the Tenjin, but my fighter groups tend early on to consist of Boron Pike M4+ They're fairly quick, but have and extremely short front to rear profile so when they're flying at speed shots tend to miss around them, as opposed to something like a Split Scorpion that has a very long thin profile and will take more hits because it's in the target window longer. The Pike does have energy issues, but those I solve by using 4 PAC's meaning it almost exactly expends it's weapon energy during an attack run and then is recharged by the time it comes around for the next pass.

For weapons, I'd avoid mixing too much. The more mix you have the harder it is for the AI to appropriately fire. If you're going EBC, go all EBC. If you're running HEPT, go all HEPT. It sounds strange, but that single massive burst from emptying your capacitors is going to be more valuable than sustain while fighting because a single snap shot alpha will do more than a dozen spread out shots.

Since you are using CODEA, I would suggest some super heavy fighters for your interceptor wing. Teladi Kea's, or Falcon Haulers are a good option. Keep your eyes open for the chance to pick up a Falcon Sentinel. They're horrifically slow, but have Corvette class shields. Once you have the PHQ, you can reproduce them and they're basically a wall of shielding that nothing shy of a capital ship will punch through.

Help me understand: How is the Tenjin better than a Chimera? Identical in speed, shielding, a smaller cargo bay and less energy reload, with one more gun to drain it. That's not really an improvement

I already use Solano M4+ as the fluff of my personal fleet, set in the CODEA "Attack fighter" role with the nova raiders to support them and allow them to enter combat safely. So far they're doing fantastically in that role with 6x mass drivers, although now I may switch it up to 4x PRG 2x PAC as per Altruist's suggestions

Now, as for using heavy ships as an interceptor.... that's an interesting idea. I was thinking that with the way CODEA handles interceptors slow ships benefit more, but if they use the 20km "targetting me" network they may be unable to tag m5's. I'll have to do some experimenting with this. Maybe give the eclipses another shot? I don't see why so many people swear by the falcon, it has no weapon energy in all forms, no speed in all forms,, and great shielding is good for everything but I don't just want to fill it up with EBCs and expect it to do good.

[moleman122]

My personal choice was whatever was really easy to replace given that there will be combat losses.

This.

This is for MY personal fighter fleet, money is no object ...

Okay*, you can call SY: "Hi, send me 1000 ships, please. Now."
After that, in vanilla TC, the real cost is setting them up for action.
If that CODEA can automate that too ...

... then there is only one cost: the shame of losing a ship. It is probably easier to cope with that feeling than to find near-invincible fleet fighter.



*Why do I have an eerie feeling that "personal fleet" sets rather strict limit on the numbers? A number that at most in Oddys could be financially objectionable.

The number will be strictly low, I'm just looking to get some opinions! Easy to replace is a prerequisite for all of these, the cutlass would be the hardest to replace due to lack of jumpgates in terran sectors but it's still reasonable for me to equip a few dozen of them over a relatively short period of time.

Also, utterly pointless but something kind of entertaining to me; that was post number 17171 for you, which is symmetrical and pleasant to look at.

[Altruist]

Quite the opposite! This is exactly the sort of well-researched information I was hoping for, I do know of Roguey's and x3tc.net, both are lifesavers but don't offer the same level of "car reviews" that you get from x3wiki, the userbase and longevity of that site gave it a lot of well-informed opinions on its articles.

Thanks for the thumbs up.
By the way: Why is the old x3wiki down? I couldn't find any announcement about it or did I miss it?

Maybe a simple 4xHEPT 4xPAC setup, since PAC has reasonable speed?

I share Triaxx2's distrust about the AI and mixing weapons in the same battery or same turret to such an extent that it never even occured to me to try it. I use mixes on my personal ships by switching between them but I doubt that the AI switches. How should the AI (or anybody) be able to aim with weapons of different range and speed in the same battery or turret... I'd expect a horrible hit ratio or rather only random hits. Mmmh, actually quite an interesting question: How does the AI aim? Let's say there are 4 PRG and 4 HEPT in the main battery, the speed of both weapons is very different: 1560m/s and 431m/s. So if PRG and HEPT are shot together at the same point in space, only either the PRG or HEPT has a chance to hit, the other will surely miss. For which weapon is the AI actually aiming: PRG or HEPT or worst scenario: at a point inbetween?

This raises also questions wether even mixing in a PBG or PSG is really such a good idea.

My plan was already to do exactly as you said, make a wing of each and see how they perform in combat, but now I think I'm going to have to add a few extra wings with different weapon configurations.... Especially in the case of the eclipse and chimera.

Splendid. Definetly keep us informed about the results.

By the way:
When your personal air wing gets into combat, do you fly the Panther or a M3? If the latter which one?

I already use Solano M4+ as the fluff of my personal fleet [...]

There was once a big tournament, read the forum thread a few weeks ago, quite thrilling videos, too. Everybody had the same amount of cash. If I recall correctly, coin for coin a mass of PAC-Solanos accompied by Zephyruses (as a rule you were only allowed to field as many M3-5 as you had docking spots) wiped the floor to the bitter embarrassment of M6-corvettes, M7-frigates and even proud M2 destroyers. But then again, who wants to be accompied by a "personal" wing of 120 Solanos and 30 Zephyruses... not to mention the boiling cpu and fps below 5.

[moleman122]

So far, from my own observations of CODEA AI, CODEA pilots use fight command software auto-aim (or something scripted similarly) on front guns, and as such mixed guns all land on target, even visibly aiming at different locations based on round speed. This works best when the speed difference is minimal, less than 400 m/s difference seems to be the sweet spot. My two remaining novas with a hept/ebc loadout have good accuracy, it's just the ebc doesn't has more shots flying astray due to round size. HOPEFULLY I can confirm this when I get around to wing testing

Another loadout I might try: Mamba Vanguard with 2xPBE 6xMD, as a sort of interference factor to support the heavy fighters in smaller numbers, maybe a 1/3 mamba to bigger fighter ratio. The close range means even with a huge round speed difference I should (hopefully) see some good hits

I usually just hang out in my Panther and let the PALCs do the talking, fighters and two skirts escorts get the job done almost always, excepting assassination missions in which case I hop in my blastclaw prototype

Note: my phone autocorrected Skiron to skirts and I think that's awfully appropriate considering their beautiful shape, and their "escort" service. gonna be calling them skirts from now on

[SirNukes]

My two remaining novas with a hept/ebc loadout have good accuracy, it's just the ebc doesn't has more shots flying astray due to round size.

Glancing at the bullets file, it seems all fighter weapons have a 0.07x0.07 bullet cross-section except for: mass driver (5x5), ion disruptor (1x1), PBG (1x1 expanding), and EMPC (0.08x0.08).

[moleman122]

Glancing at the bullets file, it seems all fighter weapons have a 0.07x0.07 bullet cross-section except for: mass driver (5x5), ion disruptor (1x1), PBG (1x1 expanding), and EMPC (0.08x0.08).

So the physical model of the projectile isn't even slightly indicative of the hitbox, interesting. I'm not the first one to have believed HEPT was better due to big rounds, but mass drivers??? That's HUGE for such a small in game model, the HEPT looks way bigger, same goes for the EEMPC, it looks far too tiny I'm shocked that it's bigger than Commonwealth lasers

[Altruist]

So far, from my own observations of CODEA AI [...]

I usually just hang out in my Panther and let the PALCs do the talking, fighters and two skirts escorts get the job done almost always [...]

I've read up a bit on the CODEA script... whow! Calling it script sounds somehow wrong and belittleling. That's an whole own world of playing. I do understand the fascination to sit back, being a proper admiral and to watch how your forces fare against the enemy.

[...] excepting assassination missions in which case I hop in my blastclaw prototype

Hehe, at the moment that's my favourite personal M3, too. Much too slow for my taste (the usual result after having flown too much in the Mamba Raider) but the combination of 2 double front and rear turrets (feels almost like cheating sometimes), good shields, cargo space and the range of possible weapons let's me jump into it more often than into the Mamba when I am honest.

Getting a bit offtopic here but what weapons do you use with your Blastclaw Proto?
I have PRGs in the turrets and have just switched from EBCs in main to a mix of 2 PACs + 2 PBGs, work like a charm together (the weapon switch is actually a result of our discussion here, although so far I am not sure wether it really makes a difference using 1 or 2 PBGs, does the damage stack?). Kills the pesty Xenon Ns almost faster than I can rotate my ship to the next target.

[moleman122]

Getting a bit offtopic here but what weapons do you use with your Blastclaw Proto?
I have PRGs in the turrets and have just switched from EBCs in main to a mix of 2 PACs + 2 PBGs, work like a charm together (the weapon switch is actually a result of our discussion here, although so far I am not sure wether it really makes a difference using 1 or 2 PBGs, does the damage stack?). Kills the pesty Xenon Ns almost faster than I can rotate my ship to the next target.

PRG in the turrets, front turret attack enemies, rear missile defense, and EBC in the main gun. The damage of the EBC on the blastclaw prototype is very reliable because of that tight weapon spread in the front guns, m5 to m3 pop like balloons, no issues with fast movers. I myself am far too paranoid of friendly fire to use PBG, especially because my entire fighter fleet is faster than me and I do hop in the blastclaw and join in the dogfighting if there's a LOT of enemy fighters.

I believe PBG does stack? At least I don't see any reason for it not to, the weapon applies a heavy damage over time effect across an area but I believe the way the damage is calculated it should stack...

[Triaxx2]

The AI doesn't really use the sweet spot on the PBG so it's less effective in AI control. It gets away with using it by just using a ton of it. It's also not actually damage over time, it's just a hold trigger, weapon does damage.

As for weapon energy you're assuming incorrectly that it matters. You're basically going to see them expend all their energy in a single pass no matter which fighter you choose. The difference in weapon recharge is so negligible that either one will fully recharge it's weapon capacitors before making a second pass on a target. More important is the physical profile. The Chimera suffers from the Split flaw of being very very long. So it will, the same as with the scorpion, catch more fire than the Tenjin which hurts it's overall survivability. I do like the side turret placement on the Tenjin as well, which supplements it's slightly reduced turning.

Attack Fighters use the 20km sphere to attack. Interceptors use an 8km defensive sphere. They're not meant to be haring off chasing squirrels, but acting as a close defense against something that's managed to bull it's way through the attack fighters. But also to act as target bait while the defensive guns on the carrier itself do their work. M5's react rather explosively to being shot with flak so being unable to catch them is only an issue if they survive long enough to be chased. And unless you're running CODEA on a TM, M5's aren't enough of a threat to be concerned about.

Are you mounting missiles on your fighters? I like 20 Mosquitoes and 10 Wasps per fighter. It's enough to provide distraction while the enemy tries to evade and close anti-missile defense without the fighters having to go to the same extreme defensive measures as the enemy. Also are you using recon M5's? They're not always a good idea, but being able to set them up and take control of an area can help on patrol missions because it expands your sensor sphere and the carrier's sphere of influence to 30km.

[moleman122]

As for weapon energy you're assuming incorrectly that it matters. You're basically going to see them expend all their energy in a single pass no matter which fighter you choose. The difference in weapon recharge is so negligible that either one will fully recharge it's weapon capacitors before making a second pass on a target. More important is the physical profile. The Chimera suffers from the Split flaw of being very very long. So it will, the same as with the scorpion, catch more fire than the Tenjin which hurts it's overall survivability. I do like the side turret placement on the Tenjin as well, which supplements it's slightly reduced turning.

I'd like to point out, while I'm unsure if this REALLY is a CODEA thing since it's not in the featurelist, CODEA does seem to manage weapon energy on its own, I wasn't making a baseless assumption. When you observe CODEA fighters they pace their shots if weapon energy is running low, and they also do NOT fire a full salvo until they're at a reasonably close range, at a distance they always pace their shots. As a result, I'm pretty sure it does have a significant impact on their firing rates to have a better energy reload rate.

However, what you said about the physical profile helps me to understand what makes the Tenjin special, definitely going to be adding it to the list of test subjects. Side turrets are also a nice touch.... Maybe it's time to grind some yaki rep

Are you mounting missiles on your fighters? I like 20 Mosquitoes and 10 Wasps per fighter. It's enough to provide distraction while the enemy tries to evade and close anti-missile defense without the fighters having to go to the same extreme defensive measures as the enemy. Also are you using recon M5's? They're not always a good idea, but being able to set them up and take control of an area can help on patrol missions because it expands your sensor sphere and the carrier's sphere of influence to 30km.

I've had my heavy fighters set to 10 tempests for a while now, at 10% fire rate. Lighter fighters are at 20 wasps. They work well together, the wasps seem to scare the hell out of the small fries and get them to bug out, leaving room for the tempests to hit the slower targets. I haven't set up my scout m5's YET, but It is something I'm going to do once the fleet size increases a little bit (for example, I plan on adding two escort Astraeus to my personal fleet) Like you say, patrol missions are a little bit of a pain without it. Do you know if the m5's will engage in combat if attacked? I can't find a lot of documentation on just how fancy the CODEA AI gets

EDIT: Got my memory mixed with AP, astraeus aren't available so i'll probably settle with cerberus

[Triaxx2]

That's actually vanilla behavior. They'll keep firing as fast as the weapon capacitor charges will allow. Waiting for the full-salvo is the AI waiting for a good shot to fire all it's guns.

The recon M5's will intentionally not engage because it's not their job, but I believe they will run away.

Have you setup fleet tenders? If not, I'd suggest picking something like the Elephant, which has it's own large hangar bay, that can be stocked with it's own wing of interceptors and ordered to retreat on enemy engagement.

I tend to actually run my CODEA carriers unsupported, because I tend to faster carriers that most support vessels can't keep up with. Cerberus is a good choice, though against capitals you'll either want something heavier, or to take advantage of Bomber wings.

[moleman122]

That's actually vanilla behavior. They'll keep firing as fast as the weapon capacitor charges will allow. Waiting for the full-salvo is the AI waiting for a good shot to fire all it's guns.

The recon M5's will intentionally not engage because it's not their job, but I believe they will run away.

Have you setup fleet tenders? If not, I'd suggest picking something like the Elephant, which has it's own large hangar bay, that can be stocked with it's own wing of interceptors and ordered to retreat on enemy engagement.

I tend to actually run my CODEA carriers unsupported, because I tend to faster carriers that most support vessels can't keep up with. Cerberus is a good choice, though against capitals you'll either want something heavier, or to take advantage of Bomber wings.

I haven't set up tenders yet, at first I was intimidated but I've been planning on getting it set up soon. Elephant seemed like the OBVIOUS choice for a tender due to being the most..... well..... I won't call it the most survivable because all TLs are blimps waiting to explode, but it's certainly the most military TL, and I expect I shouldn't run into any issues with it. I might just dump all the PAC solanos in there as cheap defense.

I was going unsupported for a a while, but as it stands my lovely skiron ladies can keep up just fine and thwack any M6s that dare to irritate me. They're both set to missile bombardment mode with typhoons as well, so it's nice seeing them take out a Q as soon as I can see it.

I'm scared of bomber wings! I've NEVER experimented with bombers or m7ms, showing how I'm still fresh meat to X3. I also don't know if they'll have enough space for a good bombing run if I keep energy cells in their cargo bay for jumps, and I know that the Military Transport supporting script allows them to dock at my carrier but it looks even more complicated than CODEA for some reason

[Triaxx2]

CODEA docks it's Bomber wings internally, using docking computers so there's no need for jump fuel. Then you issue orders with the Bombard Command. They launch, fire and then redock. It's actually pretty simple.