Make it a setup option when you start the game. No reason not to be able to choose at game launch right?

Yes, there are lots of reasons not every minuscule feature should be a setup option in the start of the game. The primary 3 reasons if you ask me are:

1.) It makes it even harder for new players to get into the game and setup their first game without spending 10 hours trying to understand what the setup options means.
2.) There is limited space both on the start new game option panel, and on the mouseover tooltip that is supposed to explain what the setting do.
3.) Not every minor detail needs to be controlled here IMO, and adding it would be a waste of development time better spent on other things.


Don't get me wrong, I do love setup options. But I can think of dozens of other options I'd much rather have instead that actually impacts and influences how the game will play to a large degree.

I like the idea of a checkbox to turn it on or off. And perhaps have it editable after a game is already going if possible.

Or some people noticed but didn't think it was important enough to bug report or write on the forums about 

But yeah, fix if it's simple to do seems to be the reasonable action here.

Yep.  Noticed, just didn't care.  Wrote it off as a minor bug.

Leave it in.

I haven't and I haven't read anything from anybody about noticing this behavior before with FAC's and it is less prone to cause additional issues.

i never had a carrier taken down while reloading a strike package. it highly unlikely for it to happen to an AI, plus missile reload time on a fighter is below an half hour on average. this is a non issue in my view

For now I would leave it in.  While having the fighters reload extra fast may seem like a huge advantage, I don't think it really is.  Most fighters carry smaller sized missiles (3-6 msp)  that can be reloaded in under an hour (generally around 30 minutes).  The flight time for those same fighters is generally around 8-12 hours.  As long as the time in flight from firing their missiles is greater than the reloading time they are getting a small advantage.  Assuming a flight time of 3 hours returning to base and a 30 minute time frame for the reloading then the difference between flying 3 hours and reloading for 30 minutes vs. flying of 3 hours and immediately being able to return for a second flight is only about 15% faster.

As for noting the difference in after action reports, it shouldn't make much difference.  Something as small as fighters usually can't be seen at the kind of ranges we are talking about.  The fighters would show up on the sensors, fire their missiles and then leave.  At some point their signatures would disappear, then probably several hours later they would reappear when returning for a second strike.  If you have sensors able to see the entire flight time and the fighters base then it might be an issue, however most times that this would happen would be because the flight times were really short.  If they are that short then there will probably be some delay between landing and completing the reload time that would allow the fighters to launch and attack again.

Brian

I'm with alex on this one: I'd prefer the bug get fixed.

Most of the NPR rules exceptions take place outside of the player's sight, but the behavior of enemy ships in combat is one of the most scrutinized areas of the game. I would expect some clunky explanations to work their way into the fiction if the bug remains.

Are we going to see the results of this bug in the Rigellian campaign? How did you address it narratively?

Leave it. 

It sounds like a fun new complication.   

Leave it in, if it becomes a problem in the future then fix it, you'll be the first one to find out if it gives them too much of an advantage :p