Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: February 15, 2008, 01:34:30 PM »Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
I have been toying with the idea of changing fighters so they are designed on the Class window. I would create a tiny engine along the lines of the FAC engines (but at only 1 HS or even less) plus components such as cockpit, fire control systems, etc. To make that work, the launch rails of the fighters would be replaced by an option to build missile launchers that are single shot and no reload, perhaps at 1/5th normal size.
I should also note that I haven't really figured out the exact mechanics for this. One option is to treat fighters just like any other ship, which would make many things in the game a lot easier as from a programming perspective as fighters would no longer need rules catering to a separate category of unit. On the other hand, it would then make targeting harder because fighters would be targeted individually rather than as a squadron, as they are now. There would also no longer be the concept of a squadron identity and fighters would be commanded individually. On the gripping hand, many of the restrictions around fighters would be removed and they could fire and move individually as required with the same flexibility as a ship.
Perhaps a combination of the two might be a possibility. A "fighter" would be identified as such by using a fighter engine. If you could create squadrons as an administrative entity, they could have names, etc. Each fighter could be assigned to a squadron and then when you want to launch fighters from a ship (from parasite hangars, not the current hangar bays), you could instead launch a squadron name and all fighters from that squadron would launch together and form a single fleet. "Fighters Squadrons" would still be fleets in all but name and would receive orders on the fleet window. To solve the targeting issue, perhaps another option would be for any shots against fighters that are already destroyed to be re-allocated to any other fighters within a certain radius (perhaps using the anti-fighter PD mode that was suggested in another post)
I have added some auto-assign options for fire control in v2.6 where the computer figures out what fire control and weapons you would likely assign to one another. This would make assigning weapons, etc for small craft such as fighters much easier.
Comments welcome on this idea.
Steve