Should FFD avoid combat or not?

[trabber Shir (OP)]

I am embarrassed I can not find the answer to this. My gut says not, but real life FFD may always or never avoid combat depending on your definition of combat. So does FFD work while avoiding combat?

[xenoscepter]

It does.

Avoid combat gives a 80% "buff" to target selection, meaning they are 80% smaller for target selection purposes. But it also gives an 80% accuracy malus.

The buff applies to FFD units, but since the FFD is not a weapon for the purposes of the malus, it isn't affect by it.

[Ghostly]

FFD should have "Avoid Combat", but they currently have little use outside of roleplay reasons, as all forms of orbital bombardment are very, very weak and inefficient.

[Andrew]

To be fair saturation bombardment with missiles or beams is quite good for wrecking a planet, and beam bombardment is a good way to neutralise STO. however an FFD is not needed for that and the equivlant cost of infantry with PWI will do more damage than an FFD with a 50,000 ton battleship on call, and you won't waste hours of your life setting up the bombardment. The nightmare of ineefectiual micromanagement which is fighters linked to FFD I will leave out in case it gives me nightmares tonight

[Xkill]

But what about using "fighters" that mass over 300 tons and sport huge weapons? An airship that might fit right in on Highfleet or something. I'm waiting on the new version before trying this, but it seems like it would cut down on the micro.

[Ghostly]

To be fair saturation bombardment with missiles or beams is quite good for wrecking a planet, and beam bombardment is a good way to neutralise STO. however an FFD is not needed for that and the equivlant cost of infantry with PWI will do more damage than an FFD with a 50,000 ton battleship on call, and you won't waste hours of your life setting up the bombardment. The nightmare of ineefectiual micromanagement which is fighters linked to FFD I will leave out in case it gives me nightmares tonight

Aye, I'm a big fan of "terraforming" enemy planets with saturated beam fire to invade on more favorable terms myself, but engaging non-STO GU's with ship weapons is meaningless whether done with FFD or without.

But what about using "fighters" that mass over 300 tons and sport huge weapons? An airship that might fit right in on Highfleet or something. I'm waiting on the new version before trying this, but it seems like it would cut down on the micro.

You'd still have to consider the unfortunate mathematics of orbit-to-surface weaponry. A comparison I've done a while ago told me that my destroyer escorts fire 196 10cm railgun (10/20 damage) shots at 5200 BP for ~26BP/shot, and railgun fighters cost me 51 BP/shot, while it costs PW infantry 0.15 BP for a 15/15 shot, and 0.24 BP for CAP infantry to fire 6 such shots. Of course, a specialized anti-GU design (a beam base?) would be far more economical to field, but I don't think even that could overcome a hundred-fold difference in cost-efficiency.

[trabber Shir (OP)]

You'd still have to consider the unfortunate mathematics of orbit-to-surface weaponry. A comparison I've done a while ago told me that my destroyer escorts fire 196 10cm railgun (10/20 damage) shots at 5200 BP for ~26BP/shot, and railgun fighters cost me 51 BP/shot, while it costs PW infantry 0.15 BP for a 15/15 shot, and 0.24 BP for CAP infantry to fire 6 such shots. Of course, a specialized anti-GU design (a beam base?) would be far more economical to field, but I don't think even that could overcome a hundred-fold difference in cost-efficiency.

Your cost math sounds like it comes from before the fighter pods were added. A large fighter (400t) with my current tech can have 6 size 25 fighter pods and each pod (if Autocannon) does 3 shots with roughly 4 times the penetration of PWI and twice the damage. To get a comparable effect from a ground unit, I would have to go up to a MAC on a light vehicle (quite a bit less penetration, but as close as I see) which is almost exactly half the cost of the pod.

A design with armor and theoretically good survivability using micromanagement comes in at 175BP plus 30BP for 6 size 25 pods so 205BP versus 15BP (62.5) for ground vehicles which do similar damage. So yes the fighter is 14 times the cost, but you get arguably simpler logistics and much better survivability (in theory). If you used a Ultra-Heavy Vehicle with Ultra-Heavy Armor and all HACs, you would need 3 to roughly match the firepower and that would be 360BP. So Fighters and FFDs are only as stupid (in terms of cost) as the big ground unit types, well within reasonable costs for the role play value.

With that said, I have no actual experience in ground combat with the new system, or using FFD at all. So my guess that the armor will give me the chance to pull them back to the carrier for repairs may be totally off, thus making the "survivability" completely irrelevant.

[nuclearslurpee]

With that said, I have no actual experience in ground combat with the new system, or using FFD at all. So my guess that the armor will give me the chance to pull them back to the carrier for repairs may be totally off, thus making the "survivability" completely irrelevant.

This last bit is the incorrect bit. The reality of ground support fighters is that the AI deploys copious amounts of AA to the point that fighters have virtually nil survivability. Even with heavy armor (which is quite inefficient until rather high tech levels), MAA/HAA deal enough damage to eat through armor quite rapidly and the shock damage can destroy a fighter even without an armor penetration. The survivability of ground support fighters is, in fact, terrible in practice, and that's before even getting into the intensive micromanagement involved in using the things.

For as much as people are attached to the idea of aerospace fighters, I don't think I've ever seen ground support fighters actually used in an AAR, which is quite telling.

[Andrew]

I did use them in one major planatery invasion in one campaign and after a lot of micromanangement to set them up as the radiocative beverage said they all got shot down and before they died scored almost no hits and most of those did nothing.  They are at most effective as the same tonnage of ground forces , require many, many times more micromangment and have the survivability of a snowflake in hell. Fitting ground support weapons into the missile bays of your actual space combat fighters is worse, they are less effective , at least as vulnerable and vital for your space combat force so you really cannot afford to lose them.
I restarted the campaign with a new strategy

[Droll]

I've only gotten use of fighters when I played with a max+ tech modded db where I went beyond what vanilla allowed. The only way for them to survive is miniaturized shielding as shield hits seem to trigger shock damage

[nuclearslurpee]

I've only gotten use of fighters when I played with a max+ tech modded db where I went beyond what vanilla allowed. The only way for them to survive is miniaturized shielding as shield hits seem to trigger shock damage

This is one of two major reasons I have suggested that shields should be changed so that their strength scales linearly but their recharge rate scales superlinearly, the opposite of what we have now. This would make small shields usable (and help balance shields vs. armor a bit better).

[xenoscepter]

 --- GSFs would be made infinitely better if their speed granted them evasion versus AA fire. So massed AA would suddenly no longer be the insta-kill beam laser of doom that it is now.

 --- Some ECM options for GSFs, both pod mounted and ship module versions, would be a welcome addition as well.