My opinion: What would make TC and AP better: bring back fighters to the forefront

[MagicSquid]

Fighter combat was a blast in Reunion, but it's somewhat lacking in TC and AP and there's several reasons for this. In my opinion, wings of fighters should be a substantial threat to capital ships and currently, that's just not the case. Carriers are little more than credit-sinks to throw your extra credits into once you've taken over the universe, and I don't think that's right. In my opinion, fighters should be at the forefront of the battlefield at every phase of the game.

Fighter combat has been neutered significantly since Reunion due to several reasons that I can spot:

1. Nearly auto-hit flak cannons trivialize nearly any fighter (or even M6) threat to M7 or larger ships. Flak cannons are basically too powerful for what they are intended to do. Groups of 2-4 high energy plasma throwers, particle accelerator cannons, or ion shard railguns would still be effective at keeping fighters at bay while not insta-vaporizing them like flaks do now. Making attack runs on capital ships while dodging their return fire is FUN and I think it should be brought back.

2. Nearly auto-hit plasma burst generators ruin fighter vs. fighter engagements because whoever brings a PBG will usually win. It completely dwarfs any other fighter weapon in TC or AP as far as effectiveness goes. TC and AP would be better off if this weapon were substantially changed or completely removed from the game.

3. The over-dominance of missile boats means that most battles are coming down to who is going to field the most M7Ms. This is the least of the issues, imo.

4. Xenon ships being armed with pulsed beam emitters. Again, dodging enemy fire while engaging them in fighter vs. fighter combat is FUN. Getting torn to pieces with no chance of avoiding their fire at all, and having a larger and larger ship as your only means to counter it is not fun and leads to slower and more plodding pace of gameplay as you're forced to resort to larger, slower, and generally less fun ships. Fighter on fighter combat should be fun! Blasting Xenon should be fun! It isn't, due to the Xenon being armed with PBEs on almost every ship and hitting your ship with near 100% accuracy and unavoidable shots. Equipping the Xenon fighters with particle accelerators on the M4s and high energy plasma throwers on the M3s would make them a lot more fun to engage when you're in a fighter. The only way to take on more than a couple fighters at once is to simply get into a bigger ship.


Anyway, that's my opinion on where this series has come from, and where it's going and how it could be improved. If I had the skills to mod it, I'd make a mod that implemented those things.

[Morkonan]

I'd have to say the differences between IS and OS combat have to be considered, as well as efficiency.

It would be nice if fighters were more effective, I agree. But, if you bump up their effectiveness, how much more will you have to increase their costs? If you make them more effective, what's the point in having capital-class ships with their enormous costs?

It's a trade-off, really. But, in OS, if I can send 32 Nova Vanguards, each armed with 8 HEPTs and a PSG into combat for the price of a fully outfitted Osaka, that gives me a lot of flexibility and speed that the Osaka doesn't have. Though, it could be argued an Osaka doesn't need flexibility and speed..

However, it's hard to argue against 256 HEPTs in OS combat that have infinite energy recharge... IS, however, those fighters are going to have to deal with flak, energy and will die in bunches.

[TheGoldElite]

In a mamba raider agaisnt a Xenon L, I just unload HEPTS at 3-4km in a head on charge, and they get vaporised. Remember PBE only has 1km range, and dismal hull damage. Not a major threat on its own. Flaks are pretty damn effective, but they have a massive energy drain, which means if you were in M7 vs M7, a small group of fighters would mean they lose alot of power to destroy them.

But yeah FIghters are very expensive and don't really pay for themselves in combat effectiveness, compared to larger ships. But still as the commander you should be in the largest ship you own anyways, IMO.

[jkjklkl]

I disagree, and for the sake of this post I will assume IS combat seeing as that seems to be what you're talking about.

1. Nearly auto-hit flak cannons trivialize nearly any fighter (or even M6) threat to M7 or larger ships. Flak cannons are basically too powerful for what they are intended to do. Groups of 2-4 high energy plasma throwers, particle accelerator cannons, or ion shard railguns would still be effective at keeping fighters at bay while not insta-vaporizing them like flaks do now. Making attack runs on capital ships while dodging their return fire is FUN and I think it should be brought back.

There are a couple of things to consider.
1) You don't run into a fight without being prepared.
Scan the ship. FAAs only have a 2k range. Stay out of range and scan it to check if and where they are mounted, and attack from a different side.
2) The AI hardly ever has copious amounts of flak.
There will always be weaknesses in its fighter defenses. Exploit them. And if they decide they want to run with all flak...
3) Fighters aren't your only tools.
Yes, fighters should be effective, but flak boats should also be effective. Against fighters. A flak boat is sorely lacking in it's anti-capital firepower. Exploit this weakness and bring in an M7 or M2
4) You are human
When an AI fighter attacking a flak-equipped cap-ship is taking fire, it keeps going and gets destroyed. When that fighter is you, you pull out of range and wait for the guns to target someone else.

2. Nearly auto-hit plasma burst generators ruin fighter vs. fighter engagements because whoever brings a PBG will usually win. It completely dwarfs any other fighter weapon in TC or AP as far as effectiveness goes. TC and AP would be better off if this weapon were substantially changed or completely removed from the game.

PBGs on a player ship are great. PBGs on a wing of fighters is a stupid idea. More often than not they'll end up roasting their wingmen. Remember that they also only have about 1k range. You can always use missiles to take out PBG-equipped ships from a distance, or just stay out of range and use HEPT/EBC/PAC/etc.

3. The over-dominance of missile boats means that most battles are coming down to who is going to field the most M7Ms. This is the least of the issues, imo.

In TC, this isn't much of an issue. The player makes M8s and M7Ms overpowered because under your control, they launch all out barrages. Under AI control, they're a lot more passive, and if it's not player owned, a lot more underequipped.

I can't comment on AP as I haven't played it.

4. Xenon ships being armed with pulsed beam emitters. Again, dodging enemy fire while engaging them in fighter vs. fighter combat is FUN. Getting torn to pieces with no chance of avoiding their fire at all, and having a larger and larger ship as your only means to counter it is not fun and leads to slower and more plodding pace of gameplay as you're forced to resort to larger, slower, and generally less fun ships. Fighter on fighter combat should be fun! Blasting Xenon should be fun! It isn't, due to the Xenon being armed with PBEs on almost every ship and hitting your ship with near 100% accuracy and unavoidable shots. Equipping the Xenon fighters with particle accelerators on the M4s and high energy plasma throwers on the M3s would make them a lot more fun to engage when you're in a fighter. The only way to take on more than a couple fighters at once is to simply get into a bigger ship.

Again, fighters can equip missiles for a reason. I know I'm bringing up missiles a lot, but you act like guns are the only weapons a fighter has when they're not. Like PBGs, PBEsonly have about a ~1k range. Launch missiles from afar and/or stay out of range and use guns that outrange them.

[Catra]

1. Nearly auto-hit flak cannons trivialize nearly any fighter (or even M6) threat to M7 or larger ships. Flak cannons are basically too powerful for what they are intended to do. Groups of 2-4 high energy plasma throwers, particle accelerator cannons, or ion shard railguns would still be effective at keeping fighters at bay while not insta-vaporizing them like flaks do now. Making attack runs on capital ships while dodging their return fire is FUN and I think it should be brought back.

not really, a while back there was a carrier QQ thread, i did a few attack trials with my carrier fleet(for reminders sake, my main fleet has been carrier based since i signed up.) and only really lost 4 - 5 each capital ship.

i hardly call that "trivializing".

the PSG however, yes now that trivializes fighters, but thats kinda, ya know, expected of that weapon. =P

2. Nearly auto-hit plasma burst generators ruin fighter vs. fighter engagements because whoever brings a PBG will usually win. It completely dwarfs any other fighter weapon in TC or AP as far as effectiveness goes. TC and AP would be better off if this weapon were substantially changed or completely removed from the game.

you can generally mow down a significant amount of PBG equipped ships before they can get in range. and even in range, strafeing up / down (as it doesnt expand as much up / down than it does side to side) i can generally avoid the plume.

3. The over-dominance of missile boats means that most battles are coming down to who is going to field the most M7Ms. This is the least of the issues, imo.

bring your own missile boat to act as an anti-missile missile boat.

4. Xenon ships being armed with pulsed beam emitters. Again, dodging enemy fire while engaging them in fighter vs. fighter combat is FUN. Getting torn to pieces with no chance of avoiding their fire at all, and having a larger and larger ship as your only means to counter it is not fun and leads to slower and more plodding pace of gameplay as you're forced to resort to larger, slower, and generally less fun ships. Fighter on fighter combat should be fun! Blasting Xenon should be fun! It isn't, due to the Xenon being armed with PBEs on almost every ship and hitting your ship with near 100% accuracy and unavoidable shots. Equipping the Xenon fighters with particle accelerators on the M4s and high energy plasma throwers on the M3s would make them a lot more fun to engage when you're in a fighter. The only way to take on more than a couple fighters at once is to simply get into a bigger ship.

well, yes. of course youre going to die if you try to rambo an entire xenon fleet. they could be armed with IREs, you would still die.

[garv222]

I'm going to agree with Catra on point 4. There is no reason to expect a single ship to take on overwhelming odds and expect it to survive. Most people would consider 2 to 3 odds bad.

I will agree that fighter vs capital ship combat is a bit stale, but again, unless a fighter is bringing heavy missiles to bear on a capital ship, fighter's shouldn't be able to penetrate the shields of a large ship. This would be different if there were subsystems, but thats what ES has planned for rebirth.

As for missile boats... I've been playing XRM a lot recently and they did an overhaul on bombers and m7m, and I think it's definitely superior to vanilla. Still dangerous, but not overpowering to the point where a single ships vaporizes sectors. They function as standoff range artillery with a 15-20 second cool down between barrages instead of ships capable of emptying 10k cargo worth of ordnance in 10 seconds.

[Llama]

This is why we have mods like Cmod.

The sole reason I installed it was because of PBGs, but it works nicely for all weapons too. I think the PSG may have been over nerfed, but I've yet to try it myself (just been shot and went holy crap i survived!)

[nap_rz]

well in CMOD and XRM, things are quite exactly the opposite of what the OP wanted, the OP want a fighter (m3/m4) to be able to solo xenon sector while in CMOD and XRM even an m6 can't do shit against average m7

many times fun in games is the opposite of realism and logic

[Virtualaughing]

.... But still as the commander you should be in the largest ship you own anyways, IMO.

I don't think that is a wise idea. You have to maneuver inbetween your ships. You need greate view of the field. You may end up in situations when all of your ships vs a simple M5 and CPU lagg n million blatst hit nothing n so on. My way is to use a middle size which capable of dealing with both big n small ships.

I will compare everything to Freelancer as that is the best fighter vs fighter simulator. My "only" problem is the standard (hept, pac,...) weapons accuracy is nowhere near to Freelancer.
Not to mention when the auto aim is targeting a small corner on a capship. Especially seen against Teladi capships

[Jumee]

.... But still as the commander you should be in the largest ship you own anyways, IMO.

I don't think that is a wise idea. You have to maneuver inbetween your ships. You need greate view of the field. You may end up in situations when all of your ships vs a simple M5 and CPU lagg n million blatst hit nothing n so on. My way is to use a middle size which capable of dealing with both big n small ships.

I will compare everything to Freelancer as that is the best fighter vs fighter simulator. My "only" problem is the standard (hept, pac,...) weapons accuracy is nowhere near to Freelancer.
Not to mention when the auto aim is targeting a small corner on a capship. Especially seen against Teladi capships

It is easier to hit capships without auto-aim than with it

[sadron]

I think the OP, and I'm sort of in the same boat, would like to have Battle of Endor level combat with fighters and capital ships.

[garv222]

I think the OP, and I'm sort of in the same boat, would like to have Battle of Endor level combat with fighters and capital ships.

...but fighters do shred capital ships. Effectively too from my experience. You just need groups of them. If you can count the number of your group on one hand, it's definitely not enough.

Even luke skywalker didn't go in by himself to take on the death star. He had like 20 something fighters flying with him. Just remember anythign that buff/de-buffs fighters works both ways. You'll see small wings of fighters wrecking your new capital ship, which shouldn't be happening because unlike the star wars universe, fighter's don't have anything like proton torpedoes. It's just dinky mass drivers.

[sadron]

Well I wouldn't call the mass driver dinky, per se, they pass right through shields. I'd call them effective, especially in large numbers me thinks.

[Morkonan]

I think the OP, and I'm sort of in the same boat, would like to have Battle of Endor level combat with fighters and capital ships.

I agree! We should be able to splat Ewoks with Gauss Canons and HEPTs! Little furry so-and-so's... Can't understand a darn thing they say and "zub zub" seems to mean everything.

On a more serious note - I'm no huge Star Wars fan, especially of the latest movies. But, I don't remember any fighters that survived a shot from a capital ship's flak or guns. They dodged.. a lot. We can do that in X3. In fact, you can launch a furball of fighters and they'll likely die just as quickly as the ships in the Battle of Endor. Of course, there's a difference - In the movies, it helps if your main character's have godly piloting skills and a bucket full of luck in the co-pilot's seat. In X3, we're kinda limited to just what we can bring to the table. So, capital ship's weapon systems are a bit more effective, not because they're more powerful, but because the main character happens to be "us" flying that fighter...

[sadron]

Oh I didn't mean it like that. I meant like, just how the fight went. I wasn't saying vs. capital ships. There were the capital ships and then on the smaller scale the fighters fought in between the capital ships.

[Morkonan]

Well, I don't see much in this you couldn't do in X3 -

Youtube - Battle of Endor clip (HD)

Now, sure, you wouldn't have an avatar piloting the ship and wouldn't have all the dialogue and such, but X3 is a "Sandbox" game for a reason - You're not limited by all the things an episodic rail-shooter is limited by.

Your "Battle of Endor" can be anywhere you want in your game.

[garv222]

I do fly around like that in battles in the early game. I fly through the grooves of Mammoths for cover from incoming fire. I can understand why some people don't because honestly I get REAL nervous the mammoth is going to make a u-turn and splat me, but i gotta remind myself it doesn't move like that. I once tried to do the same with a titan in my buster, but I got hit by a PPC shot that looked like it was the size of a house. Not cool.

[Morkonan]

...I once tried to do the same with a titan in my buster, but I got hit by a PPC shot that looked like it was the size of a house. Not cool.

Actually, no, that is very cool!

"That's no moon, it's a PPC shot!"