Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: May 15, 2020, 01:43:23 AM »Fighters will be even easier to manage in 1.10 as you can now join your squadrons as sub-fleets and land them at the same time, easy... 
Posted by: kenlon
« on: May 14, 2020, 11:54:10 PM »I don't find carrier based fighters to be terribly difficult to manage...
Also if one is using beam fighters there is no ordinance micromanagement.
How many fighters are on your combat carriers?
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 13, 2020, 10:42:53 PM »I don't find carrier based fighters to be terribly difficult to manage...
Also if one is using beam fighters there is no ordinance micromanagement.
Also if one is using beam fighters there is no ordinance micromanagement.
Posted by: JacenHan
« on: May 13, 2020, 09:22:59 PM »Almost all of those things can be done as easily to a hundred fighters as to one, and I personally can't imagine wanting to assign officers manually to any significant number of ships. Between fleet orders, ordnance templates, and combat "Assign to fleet/sub-fleet/class" it isn't that much more difficult than FACs or a fleet of full-sized warships, especially with improved fighter landing orders coming in v1.10. They're more work than other options, to be sure, but not unreasonably so.
Posted by: Ri0Rdian
« on: May 13, 2020, 08:27:13 PM »A lot more masochists playing this game than I thought. Way too much micro with proper number of fighters to be worth it. I can do FACs but not too many, fighters would kill me (land, unload, select target, give commanders, replace commanders, repair, refit, refuel, rearm....aaaaaaaaaaaaaa). I would need fighter wings instead of individual carriers to be able to actually use the carriers.
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 13, 2020, 01:40:15 PM »Fast fighters are definitely the way to go. Actually, that was exactly the design parameter that drove me to fighters and carrier task forces in the first place.
The situation I once found myself in (many years ago now) was that I could not catch NPR ships using my existing tech missile destroyers. Bigger ships would have been horribly resource inefficient. So I needed something fast that could get close enough to engage the enemy, and fighters were the only practical solution I could actually design and build. As I recall, meson fighters were my first successful fighters. I don't remember their exact specs, but they were easily the fastest ships in my territory (> 1000 km/s at least). I was able to chase down and overwhelm a hostile NPR fleet of 5 or 6 10-20 kton ships using about 30 fighters launched from my single (50 kton? can't remember now) carrier. This was in the VB6 era when mesons were very powerful, and these fighters worked very well. I lost one or two but I was able to blockade the NPR home world after this battle, so for me, fighters won me the war.
The situation I once found myself in (many years ago now) was that I could not catch NPR ships using my existing tech missile destroyers. Bigger ships would have been horribly resource inefficient. So I needed something fast that could get close enough to engage the enemy, and fighters were the only practical solution I could actually design and build. As I recall, meson fighters were my first successful fighters. I don't remember their exact specs, but they were easily the fastest ships in my territory (> 1000 km/s at least). I was able to chase down and overwhelm a hostile NPR fleet of 5 or 6 10-20 kton ships using about 30 fighters launched from my single (50 kton? can't remember now) carrier. This was in the VB6 era when mesons were very powerful, and these fighters worked very well. I lost one or two but I was able to blockade the NPR home world after this battle, so for me, fighters won me the war.
Posted by: consiefe
« on: May 13, 2020, 01:19:54 PM »If PB strenght 2 is 250t it would destroy the purpose of PB weapon on fighters. One S2 PB does worse than railguns. I think PB fightets are just not practical. Actually I still couldn't find very much uses for fighters. Gauss fighters can not hit anything reliably and they eventually got shot. Box launchers take a long time to reload. Fighter mesons are very short ranged so fighters should be very fast to avoid getting shot down. I'll now try lasers and rails to see the situation.
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 13, 2020, 01:12:18 PM »Seems you are right. No spinal mounts for particle beams. Lasers only. Oh well, standard mount PB fighters will still be interesting to test.
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 13, 2020, 01:09:28 PM »And there is no option for normal spinal for particle beams (anymore?).
Really? I haven't quite gotten to the point of actually trying to design a spinal mounted PB fighter. Will investigate shortly.
Posted by: kks
« on: May 13, 2020, 10:56:59 AM »Can lances be equipped to fighters? I've never gotten them researched so I have no clue how large or small they might be.
I've almost got to the point where I am ready to build my first wing of PB spinal mounted fighters. I'll post the design for critique purposes once I finalize it.
I don't think so. The smallest lance (strength 4) is 500t. Strength 2 PB is 250t, Lance doubles size and dmg.
And there is no option for normal spinal for particle beams (anymore?).
Besides, when looking for that, I found that PBs are bigger than other weapons, but don't seem to increase in size as much:
Railguns compared to beam: lvl1 -> lvl5:
Particle Beams: Strength 2: 250t -> Strength 9: 450t
Railguns: 10cm(4x1dmg): 150t -> 25cm(4x5dmg): 400t
So a strength 18 lance has the same size as two 30cm(lvl6) railguns (8x7=56 dmg).
But, this is just some observation and has next to no value when comparing weapons.
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 12, 2020, 01:01:35 PM »Can lances be equipped to fighters? I've never gotten them researched so I have no clue how large or small they might be.
I've almost got to the point where I am ready to build my first wing of PB spinal mounted fighters. I'll post the design for critique purposes once I finalize it.
I've almost got to the point where I am ready to build my first wing of PB spinal mounted fighters. I'll post the design for critique purposes once I finalize it.
Posted by: DFNewb
« on: May 11, 2020, 11:22:47 AM »Particle beam technology also lead to Particle Lances who are truly scary weapons.
Yea I am starting to think having a bunch of small ships with 1 lance each is a really solid way to go. After you take down their shields lances are incredible at scoring penetrating hits which is really what matters. Pack them full of engines so they can run away out of enemy weapon fire range and just keep kiting. They would have to be larger than 500tons so not fighters but you can give them 3x fuel consumption and have them flown around with a carrier or civ carrier.
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 11, 2020, 11:09:39 AM »In VB6 I had experimented with PB and meson equipped fighters. That seemed to work well though I only ever used them in perhaps 5 battles. I am planning on testing out particle beam and plasma carronade fighter wings in my next campaign.
Posted by: consiefe
« on: May 11, 2020, 10:26:50 AM »I wonder which ship type is best suited for PBs. Fast small ships with 1 or 2 PBs could be effective. Big and robust ships are more suited for brawls I think. Lances are another story. Maybe they are better on pre-brawl or on carriers as a support fire.
Also do you like to use mass high fire rate weapons or one big weapon per ship I wonder. It seems mass use is more viable strategy.
Also do you like to use mass high fire rate weapons or one big weapon per ship I wonder. It seems mass use is more viable strategy.
Posted by: Shodan13
« on: May 11, 2020, 09:04:40 AM »Quote from: Pedroig link=topic=11253. msg130642#msg130642 date=1588596501
Particle weapons are sniper/fire support weapons. They are great a a single job, equally effective for their entire range. In general, they trade off rate of fire and/or space for that ability. For brawling there are much better options. For sniping, hard to beat a particle lance battery, especially with the lance's "no bloom" perk.I feel this would be much better represented by having all PB use the laser damage template.
They are after all, not suppose to be equal weapons. . .
