Using Fighters as Fleet Screen

[chrislocke2000 (OP)]

Hi all

I've been experimenting with using fighters to act as a screen for a task group through the use of the detachment function. Getting five fighters out to 100m at 5% offsets from one another seems to be working well for creating forward sensor coverage with little chance of them being engaged. However the relatively limited range of the fighters means I'm struggling to keep coverage up.

Anyone else had a go at this and found a reasonable methodology for rotating aircraft forwards that will hold relative position without a ton of micro management?

[Gidoran]

If your goal is to use the fighters as a Spacebourne Warning and Control System affair, then (assuming you're on 6.0) you could design a fighter engine for long endurance flight that would keep speed with your fleet. My fleet's speed is currently standardized at 3333 km/s since that's the first easy ratio I found at Ion tech levels, so I hashed together a quickie fighter, using a Size 2 50% fuel use engine.

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XF-120A Siren class Recon Fighter    175 tons     3 Crew     30.4 BP      TCS 3.5  TH 12  EM 0
3428 km/s     Armour 1-2     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 15.68 Years     MSP 11    AFR 2%    IFR 0%    1YR 0    5YR 1    Max Repair 14 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 0   

Pratt & Whitney PROTOTYPE F-12 Long Endurance Drive (1)    Power 12    Fuel Use 10.4%    Signature 12    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres    Range 197.8 billion km   (667 days at full power)

RN/APN-14 Fighter Backup Sensor (1)     GPS 1400     Range 15.4m km    Resolution 100

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

It's a tiny smidgeon faster than the standard fleet asset, but that would actually be beneficial in this role as it lets you reposition them easily without your main fleet having to slow down so they can. The sensor's not very big (or good, my sensor tech is kinda crap due to having a 0%, 5 lab scientist there) but given this is a 175 ton fighter what can you expect? If you expanded it to a full Size 1 instead of the Size 0.5, you might have to slap another engine on it or do a slightly less efficient engine design in exchange for a bit more power. But for the purposes of endurance, not sensor range, this design would actually handle it fairly well. And if you need more range, well, you just stick it further out from the fleet really. Almost 2 years of fuel, 15.68 years of maintenance supplies, and crew space enough for three years of deployment... Heck, you could dump these at jump points as a self-mobile sensat.

...You know what, I think I'm going to actually use this thing for that.

[Charlie Beeler]

Chrislocke2000,

It would be dependent on what function(s) you expect the screen to perform.  Early Warning of ships and/or missiles, ship intercept, smallcraft intercept, missile intercept are just a few possibillities that could have very different design approaches.

[SteelChicken]

I found this methodology problematic.  (Using fighters as a screen or active sensor platform).

The solution that works the best for me is one big giant sensor platform as the center of my fleet.  Usually a carrier.  Sometimes a dedicated scout platform.   Powerful active grav sensor, and a very large thermal sensor.  Fighters don't deploy unless something needs to be shot at.   The fighters actually use the carriers active sensor, so I don't need active sensor fighters in my squadrons...I put reduced thermal engines on them as well, so they are very hard to spot.  They usually can engage and retreat without ever being spotted.

[chrislocke2000 (OP)]

Thanks for the comments. I had designed my original fighter scout as an early warning system against facs. I've historically used one very large sensor on my carrier group to detect hostile ships but discovered that despite having a 550mkm range its res 120 focus meant it failed to give me enough warning against facs. The scouts were therefore designed as a cheap alternative to building a ship based res 20 range 125m sensor. (fighters have range 20 res 20 sensors).

I like the idea of using them on cap missions but as noted I could not see an easy way of doing this.

[o_O]

It makes sense, but between the special technology, hangar bays and micro I find it easier just to make ships with a 50 sensor. 

[MehMuffin]

I usually get around the FAC problem by having res 16 sensors on all of my attack ships as combat sensors, and then massive higher resolution ones on dedicated sensor ships.

[alex_brunius]

My fighter squadrons are made up off:
4x 500 ton Heavy Missile Fighters (4-6 box launched size 4 ASMs each)
1x 500 ton Scout which is basically an unarmed Fighter with one big active antenna that got 100m+ range against normally sized targets.

This means each group can operate alone a few days away from a Carrier. My idea here is that they can respond to anything within the same system.

These squadrons can thus fill a role as screens several 100m out with antennas active, even if their weaponry is pretty limited long range anti ship.

Doctrine is launching a first wave of fighters far out to get a feel for how tough the target is and depending on result either coordinate strike two together with the rest of the ships, or pull back for reinforcements before the enemy gets uncomfortably close.

The reason for 500 ton fighters is simply because I don't like to micromanage more then I have too  (Guess I've come to the wrong game!)

[Gyrfalcon]

To be fair, I've designed 250t and 500t fighters, and the 500t tends to have more box launchers for the same space. Yes, you also lose all those launchers if it gets destroyed, and they are more likely to be detected at a longer range, so it does come with tradeoffs.

[MehMuffin]

I've also often replaced my fighter squadrons with FACs, mostly because I can fit 25 launchers on a FAC whereas 4 250t fighters only carry 16.

[Zatsuza]

I found this methodology problematic.  (Using fighters as a screen or active sensor platform).

The solution that works the best for me is one big giant sensor platform as the center of my fleet.  Usually a carrier.  Sometimes a dedicated scout platform.   Powerful active grav sensor, and a very large thermal sensor.  Fighters don't deploy unless something needs to be shot at.   The fighters actually use the carriers active sensor, so I don't need active sensor fighters in my squadrons...I put reduced thermal engines on them as well, so they are very hard to spot.  They usually can engage and retreat without ever being spotted.

This, very much. Personally I do however use fighters as a screen for the fleet-- with reduced thermal engines it's incredibly hard to spot them so they won't be taking a lot of hits at all-- because no matter what the 5-9k Area defence/PD ships are going to have a mucher larger EM and thermal signature (and as well they should.) So as soon as I get missile contacts or the enemy is sending his FACs my way my fighters can move to intercept before moving in to swamp their heavy hitters. I've actually had my meatshield-class kinetic-armed fighters at early tech tiers gunning down several salvos of missiles before they can even reach my PD ships, although I certainly wouldn't like to suggest them as a primary means of PD-- hell, against some of the missile speeds I've heard the crew would probably be turned into chunky salsa from the inertia alone.

I've generally got 3 typical designs of fighters-- one a meatshield kinetic with gauss or rail, one a bomber with boxes and a third-- carrying naught but a missile detection sensor-- and a small one at that. It's primarily for giving a bit of early warning, like the OP suggested. I'd probably fit them with cloaking devices if I could, because if I saw an enemy sensor ping suddenly appear and disappear I'd be very damn cautious indeed. newbie question, at high tiers can you actually design a cloaking system capable of fitting on a fighter? how about a kinetic armed fighter? If not I might upgrade it to a more robust FAC... it'd allow me to fit in larger sensors anyway.

If my main fleet is out of their sensor range but I have good thermal contacts on the enemy I can move my fighters on an interception vector and generally pick up salvoes of missiles/fighters/small FACs as they come in, and depending on the threat at the time either engage them or have them burn in to their center fleet.

yeah, I think I'll upgrade it to a FAC after all... you could even fit in larger engines for a bit more fuel efficiency.

[Starmantle]

I love the idea of fighters as a fleet screen or for sensor coverage, but like many posters, I find a single large sensor ship works best on fleet operations.

It's interesting to think about, but I think AWACS and other areal sensor platforms in the real world mostly work better because of the curvature of the Earth.

And granted, space is curved too, but fighters don't let you rise above that horizon