Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: December 24, 2016, 01:55:49 AM »A fighter barge is essentially building to get as many fighters in the hull as possible, as cheaply as possible, on the theory that the fighters are both the offense and defense arm, and should kill stuff as far from the carrier as possible.
It is unquestionably the right choice in certain circumstances, and horrible in others.
For example, if you control the warp point into an enemy system, a fighter barge that launches, ducks for safety back out of the warp point, and only comes back to retrieve the fighters can be very effective, if the target is within their strike range.
However, when moving through an enemy held system, where you do not know what is in the system or where stuff will come from, it would be easy to have one entire strike force away after stuff detected but not identified on passives, when something ugly and fast pops within range. At that point, being durable enough to survive to make other mistakes may seem the better option.
I am of the theory of present a target to the enemy that they think they can hit. And the big target will be armored and/shielded and definitely protected by point defense. Sort of why Batman has his batman crest on his chest armored. He can't protect everything, but he can protect what is the focus of attention. At least that was his rationale in the comic book, and please, ignore for the moment that by any standard Batman is totally insane.
It is unquestionably the right choice in certain circumstances, and horrible in others.
For example, if you control the warp point into an enemy system, a fighter barge that launches, ducks for safety back out of the warp point, and only comes back to retrieve the fighters can be very effective, if the target is within their strike range.
However, when moving through an enemy held system, where you do not know what is in the system or where stuff will come from, it would be easy to have one entire strike force away after stuff detected but not identified on passives, when something ugly and fast pops within range. At that point, being durable enough to survive to make other mistakes may seem the better option.
I am of the theory of present a target to the enemy that they think they can hit. And the big target will be armored and/shielded and definitely protected by point defense. Sort of why Batman has his batman crest on his chest armored. He can't protect everything, but he can protect what is the focus of attention. At least that was his rationale in the comic book, and please, ignore for the moment that by any standard Batman is totally insane.