Why Fighters?

[Sotanaht]

I'm kind of new to the series and struggling to understand the purpose of smaller (ai-controlled) ships in larger battles. It seems like involving anything smaller than an M7 or M8 in a fight involving an M2 or M1 on either side is just a complete waste of resources, no matter what the enemies mix is.

I would have thought that fighters counter fighters, and a destroyer without a fighter escort would be just be a sitting duck and die quickly, but flak turrets are just fine for swatting enemy fighters and there aren't really any fighter level armaments that can worry an M2 even in significant numbers.

It's even worse OOS because PPCs are just as likely to hit as Flak so fighters just get one-shot. I've read that massive fighter swarms can take down solo destroyers OOS, but even so it has to be the LEAST efficient tactic for doing so. In time if not money, fighters are tedious to outfit.

Obviously things are (sometimes) different for player controlled ships. At the very least, you should be able to keep the ship alive and therefor not just waste it for nothing.

Of course, if fighters are as worthless as they seem, that also means M1s are fairly pointless so the game really boils down to just destroyers, frigates, and bombers.

[Widow Maker]

IS fighters have a role against capital ships. I usually have a bunch of drones attack the target first to distract all turrets and then have my fighters engage. You're right that alone your loses will be great, but with additional measures you can take out capital ships without unbearable losses.

[KayEss]

It does seem to be true that if you have a capital ship that outclasses what you're up against then the fighters don't help much. They can be very helpful where you're outgunned though.

Try to give them some swarm missiles. Even if the missiles don't do damage on their own they'll confuse the targetting on the turrets and give your fighters a much better chance of not being destroyed.

[TTD]

If I had not had 60 fighters for the protect MO mission in the FF plot, I am not sure how I would have handled it.
I am not one for engaging in battles, if I can avoid them.

BTW...only lost 15 when all was complete.
My biggest problem was getting them out again .

[Infekted]

Clouds of fighters tear everything down. Send them against anything with flaks and some will die, but send 60 or so fighters and M2s and M1s will literally melt in seconds.
OOS it's even more effective. If you observe rounds last 5s, if you do not 30s. In this time the M2 will definitely kill one fighter. But the rest of those fighters will one shot that M2 if there's enough. 60 x 8 HEPTs does insane damage

[pref]

I go alone, had some similar bad experiences. The effort needed to look out for the wing caused more damage loss (unable to attack properly in playership because im in a command/map window) then the fighters could do in the battle.
It becomes really bad when you need to prioritize between targets.

Think wings are for times when you want a huge battle show.

They work as OOS defence in swarms, but need much more effort to manage then a few strong M2s guarding each gate.

[TTD]

In FF, all I did was to give them a wing.
Then set the wing to ...either protect MO or attack enemies...can't remember which.

When the mission was over,I commanded them to dock at MO.
I was given the mission three times.
Each time I docked them after mission completed.

To get them there I jumped in and dumped them.
To get them out I had to dock with loads of ecells and transfer energy to each fighter.
Then told each fighter to jump out to nearest available sector, after first removing their wing status.

[Sotanaht]

In FF, all I did was to give them a wing.
Then set the wing to ...either protect MO or attack enemies...can't remember which.

When the mission was over,I commanded them to dock at MO.
I was given the mission three times.
Each time I docked them after mission completed.

To get them there I jumped in and dumped them.
To get them out I had to dock with loads of ecells and transfer energy to each fighter.
Then told each fighter to jump out to nearest available sector, after first removing their wing status.

Give a TL a transporter device and supply command software. Keep the fighters all in one wing. Give the TL the command to "resupply ships" (special commands menu) and then select energy cells and the amount you want each fighter to have (up to) and choose any 1 fighter from the wing. The TL will then transfer ecells to EVERY fighter in the wing, and assuming it doesn't need to move to get within 5km it should only take about a minute of gametime. If you use "refuel ships" instead you won't have to select ecells or quantity, but it will only fuel based on the autojump settings.

[TTD]

Agreed under normal circumstances.
But when you are leaving a sector with swarms of Kha'ak, that is not such a good plan.

[ajax34i]

In my opinion, the situation is like this:

If you look at the DPS of HEPTs vs. the shields of a destroyer, AND consider the fact that FLAK turrets can only hit one fighter at a time, basically a large wing of fighters WILL kill a destroyer, while suffering some losses.

Also, don't discount missiles; if you give your fighters some of the heavier missiles and set them on 50-100% chance of fire, they will take out destroyers rather easily.

BUT, the problem is that collisions happen in game, and that means that a lot more fighters than intended will die against a destroyer (you need a mod called BOUNCE to fix the issue).

And an additional problem is that the devs have re-balanced the ships in X3AP, with the big ships being much tougher than in X3TC, so the fighters are much weaker in comparison. Basically, in X3TC fighter wings are awesome; in X3AP they suck.

[Lone Jedi]

TBH managing a carrier fleet can be fun, until you are too pissed off by the never-ending repairing and equipping jobs. Now if I want the similar effects of the fighter swarms, I'd go for fighter drones instead.

[TTD]

FD's... any more than 50 at a time makes my game crawl to a slide show,but they are useful at times.

[Threesixtyci]

We'll just have to wait until Nov 15 to see what they've done for balancing.

Personally, I only use M3's and M4's when I have to. Or for Freighter duty on TL's. Or for CAG weapon dealing.

Once I have the credits, equipping tons of fighter is too troublesome for it's own good. And once you have tons of credits, lost assets doesn't matter as much as manually having to replace them.

As for in system battles, I rather expend MK2 (or MK1's) fighter drones, since they are easily replaceable and easy to acquire once you have your own factories.

As for Player Ships, I try to get to a M6 as soon as possible. I'll also fly TP's and M5's but in pure passive mode. And with M5's pure attentive mode, since collisions of any kind equals a game over screen with those things.

[AgamemnonArgon]

I prepare myself for each new game by flying missions, to get good at them again, and flying a freighter to sell ore or crystals.
It takes time, but one gets into it.

For combat I will spend at least ten hours in a cockpit, but remember to use missiles that are fire and forget, to thin out the bad guys, and get less enemies so that you can engage them more fairly to you.

I will then use two TM class with between six to eight fighters, and also have a wagon train with freighters and learn how to manage them.


For larger scale set piece battles, I use a single Frigate with its own fighters, and a freighter to keep it fuelled and equipped.
That in itself is ten ships. I will explore and fight using that ship.

By now I am ready to build factories, and earn credits and start off some Sector traders.

Then I add the same M7 again, except with two of them, sixteen fighters, and a half dozen freighters like the TS to supply them.

Its like exercise, you slowly start, then build up to doing more.
The game is the same.

[mistervec]

You can reach a point in-game where fighters are just another expendable resource When you've arrived at this place, losing fighters is annoying but certainly not the end of the world.

Until you have the industrial base to support and/or manufacture them, however, buying, equipping, and setting up each fighter can take 5-10 minutes (or longer if you have to hunt down shields/weapons for them). When you're at this point, losing a fighter means throwing away a not-insignificant amount of time and resources, which can be upsetting.

Until you reach that point, you may find mk2 or even mk1 drones a more desirable alternative. Ones that survive a battle can be easily retrieved by anything with a hangar bay and losing even a dozen hurts your wallet far less than the loss of a single M4. The only down side is that you probably want to leave the system if your'e gonna drop a huge swarm of them lest you bring your game to a crawl.

[Infekted]

I find producing your own fighters, and equipment and doing all that to be a massive logistical nightmare. I would rather build something that makes me tons of credits and spam buy my fighters fully kitted straight from the shipyard ten at a time.

Whilst fighter drones are very effective. 100 Mk2s will chew anything up. But once you start getting into serious numbers it becomes very difficult to manage them en masse. And you basically have to treat them as a disposable single wing.

Fighter wings give far greater precision but you need to regard losing each one in much the same way you would a fighter drone.

[AgamemnonArgon]

No.
A fighter is a manned vehicle.
I will lose a Destroyer or a Corvette to rescue one fighter, and I have.

If a ship is destroyed and its fighter group try to get to a friendly area, they can be picked off by enemy ships.

In my game, I will commit any search and rescue forces to retrieve the fighters.

It adds to my game immersion, and I prefer to play the game that way.
A drone is unmanned, a fighter has some crew, and I plan to get the. rescued, in the same way as one would in the real world.

There are acceptable risks for flight crews, but I will not lose them for no good cause.

[Infekted]

I was talking purely in cost terms. I.E. Losing a few million per ship death shouldn't be something you would unduly worry about.
As for your actual guys as it were, that's something slightly different. And would probably go modified to fully go there myself.
Surely your pilots should be able to eject and you get them back right? The actual cost of the hardware not being an issue per se.

[Lone Jedi]

No.
A fighter is a manned vehicle.
I will lose a Destroyer or a Corvette to rescue one fighter, and I have.

If a ship is destroyed and its fighter group try to get to a friendly area, they can be picked off by enemy ships.

In my game, I will commit any search and rescue forces to retrieve the fighters.

It adds to my game immersion, and I prefer to play the game that way.
A drone is unmanned, a fighter has some crew, and I plan to get the. rescued, in the same way as one would in the real world.

There are acceptable risks for flight crews, but I will not lose them for no good cause.

So you would sacrifice thousands of crew onboard a destroyer for one or two fighter pilots? That's hardly a great fleet commander's decision. I don't know but both my destroyers and fighters are AI-controlled so that's not my concern.

[Masochisto]

I pretend my ships are all piloted by clones, ala the clone wars... Although, they fly like more like clones from multiplicity....