Fighter Roles

[Thiosk (OP)]

I was wondering how folks use their fighters.  It seems that beam fighters are generally discouraged around here, but I'll still be putting a few together.  I had a flash of inspiration to do a CIWS fighter, but I believe CIWS does not do any form of area defense, shooting only at missiles targeting that unit, so I scratched the idea. 

My current plan calls for box launching fighters, each carrying 16 "photon torpedos" (i are original!!) which have a range of approximatly 35 m km.  I plan to launch large wings to overwhealm the defenses on middle sized ships; the fighters roar in to about 30 m km and deploy torpedos, then return to the carrier.

[Hawkeye]

That´s pretty much what I do.
Box-launchers are pretty much the way to go.
I played around with a size-1 gauss cannon and designed a PD fighter, pairing them at a ratio of 2 missile / 1 gauss figher, but the gauss fighter never fired and I scrapped the idea after a few tries.
I sometimes still put a PD squadron on large carriers to provide CAP, but it is more for roleplay reasons than because I have to.

[Father Tim]

I use my strictly as 'scout planes' - every cruiser carries one, and capital ships two to four.  Other than during a battle, they're the only active sensors turned on in my fleet (Note: I have extremely good passives) and I send one, on a dog-leg course, to investigate any contact.

There are no actual carriers in my fleet - yet.  The Graf Zeppelin is planned, but even so it will only carry gauss cannon-equipped anti-small-craft fighters (to kill the other side's scout planes/FACs) and more scout planes.

[LtWarhound]

A CVE (1000 ton hanger) and a wing of 100 ton interceptors makes for a dandy raider.  Also useful for border guards, keeping those pesty scouts and jump gate builders out of the empire.

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xFI Starhawk class Interceptor    98 tons     3 Crew     38.1 BP      TCS 1.95  TH 18  EM 0
38461 km/s     Armour 1-1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0.45
Annual Failure Rate: 0%    IFR: 0%    Maint Capacity 24 MSP    Max Repair 25 MSP    Est Time: 15.39 Years
Magazine 3    

FTR MagCon Fusion Drive E500 TH25 (1)    Power 75    Fuel Use 5000%    Signature 18    Armour 0    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 1.8 billion km   (13 hours at full power)

Size 1 Box Launcher (3)    Missile Size 1    Hangar Reload 7.5 minutes    MF Reload 1.2 hours
MFC FTR 3mkm (1)     Range 3.0m km    Resolution 4
SBM S1g2 W4 r4.8mkm (3)  Speed: 30,900 km/s   End: 2.6m    Range: 4.8m km   WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 185 / 111 / 55

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes


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xFi Starhawk - C class Interceptor    100 tons     4 Crew     44 BP      TCS 2  TH 18  EM 0
37500 km/s     Armour 1-1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 0%    IFR: 0%    Maint Capacity 28 MSP    Max Repair 25 MSP    Est Time: 16.24 Years

FTR MagCon Fusion Drive E500 TH25 (1)    Power 75    Fuel Use 5000%    Signature 18    Armour 0    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres    Range 7.2 billion km   (53 hours at full power)

ASS r20 S4.5m F.28m (1)     GPS 144     Range 4.5m km    Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH0.1-1 (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  1m km

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

The interceptor was an exercise in minimalist fighter design (i.e. what can 100 tons do) that I didn't expect to use.  The 250 and 500 ton fighters were expected to be the long range fast strike fleet element to replace the gunboats, but I've ended up using the interceptors instead.  Funny how that worked out.  There was an amusing problem with the initial design, as seen above.  The missile they launched was actually slower than the interceptor deploying it.  The latest fleet wide overhaul and refit fixed that.

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SBM  S1g4 W4 r6.3m  Speed: 48,200 km/s   End: 2.2m    Range: 6.3m km   WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 482 / 289 / 144 This is also used as the submunition in the fleet's long range two stage missile.

The 200t medium range fighter/bomber (missile range 60m km) has been deployed for planetary defense, based off PDC hangers.  They've never seen combat in this game.  Also designed (but never fielded) is a 500t long range bomber craft (slooow), deploying 160m km range missiles.  I expect the NPRs would not have much of a chance of seeing those bombers before they launch, or even before the missiles have arrived.  While the fighter/bomber and bomber have more effective utility, I find the raw speed of the interceptor too appealing.

[ZimRathbone]

Why the Thermal sensor on the Starhawk-C?

All units (military or otherwise) automatically get a strength 1 EM & Thermal sensors included as standard, you dont need to add an additional one (although I imagine its only a small addition to cost and mass)