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The Academy / Re: Fighter strategy
« Last post by gpt3 on June 01, 2024, 12:36:34 PM »What's the current view re beam fighters - I've noticed over the years that typically this hasnt been seen particularly effective compared with missile carrying fighters - but I thought I saw some recent posts (cant find them now) that suggested that beam boats were more viable again. Just wanted to check the consensus before I started a carrier fleet strategy.Like every other question in Aurora, the answer is: it depends - what's your fleet doctrine?
Advantages of missile fighters:
- Lower casualties: just like missile warships, they can unleash devastating salvoes from beyond enemy detection range (especially if you have dedicated scouts).
- Cheap to upgrade: You can easily upgrade a missile fighter by swapping out its payload. Obsolete fighters can be used for planetary defense.
- Less tactical micromanagement: You don't have to pay any attention to the targeting screen after missile launch.
- Useable for ground combat: You can load box launchers with fighter pods to support your ground forces in an emergency.
- Poor tactical flexibility: if your "devastating" salvo fails to devastate the enemy, then you're out of luck. Hopefully your strike group has time to reload at the carrier.
- Expensive to use: 20x size-6 missiles is at least as expensive as sacrificing a 300-ton boat. Often much more expensive since missiles are densely packed with expensive components like boosted engines.
- More strategic micromanagement: You have to establish ammunition manufacturing hubs, supply chains, and local stockpiles.
- Good tactical flexibility: they can attack enemies, reprioritize targets based on the situation, and even serve as backup point-defense.
- Overwhelm enemy targeting systems: Point-defense fire controls can target multiple missiles per round. On the other hand, each offensive fire control can only target one fighter per round. 50 fighters will always take longer to kill than 50 missiles or a 50-gun warship, even if the enemy has endgame weapons.
- Less strategic micromanagement: Beam weapons only consume a small amount of MSP; logistics are probably negligible compared to the rest of your fleet.
- High casualties: since warship beam weapons have longer ranges than fighter beam weapons, you will most likely lose several fighters each sortie. This means that your carriers will frequently need to return home for reinforcements.
- Expensive to upgrade: It's not really economical to upgrade beam fighters - you basically have to rebuild your fleet each time you inaugurate a new generation.
- More tactical micromanagement: It is tedious to coordinate dozens of fighters' fire controls. Fire at will might not focus on priority targets.
Also, when designing missiles for fighters to carry, would I be right in assuming that people generally designed them to be shorter range than ship borne variants - taking account of the distance a fighter would approach the target, or do people generally use the separation generated by the fighters to protect the main fleetI think that depends on if the fighters are carrying their own active sensors (in which case you'd want a shorter-range missile) or if they're relying on forward scouts (in which case you'd want a longer-range missile).
In general it's best to use the separation generated by the fighters to protect the main fleet. Carriers and battlestars typically aren't as effective combatants as specialized beam warships, so you should keep them safe unless you have a creative tactic in mind.