Ground support fighter troubles

[DFNewb (OP)]

1. First of all I can't seem to get my carrier to reload the fighter pods. It has the fighter pods, it has the fighters landed, it has the add parasite ordinance turned on. The fighters are set to be loaded with the pods, but they are not getting loaded? They load fine at my colony but not on the mothership.

2. Is it normal for 50 fighter pods, 1 per fighter, to get such results on search and destroy mission? is search and destroy worthless? The most hits I've seen is 1 hit out of 200+...

[Froggiest1982]

2. Is it normal for 50 fighter pods, 1 per fighter, to get such results on search and destroy mission? is search and destroy worthless?

The only thing I could think here is that they are so dug in that you cannot make any hit. Have you done the math?

Anyway, nice to see that spoilers have been fixed 

[DFNewb (OP)]

2. Is it normal for 50 fighter pods, 1 per fighter, to get such results on search and destroy mission? is search and destroy worthless?

The only thing I could think here is that they are so dug in that you cannot make any hit. Have you done the math?

Anyway, nice to see that spoilers have been fixed 

what is the math for search and destroy? I can't find it anywhere.

[Froggiest1982]

2. Is it normal for 50 fighter pods, 1 per fighter, to get such results on search and destroy mission? is search and destroy worthless?

The only thing I could think here is that they are so dug in that you cannot make any hit. Have you done the math?

Anyway, nice to see that spoilers have been fixed 

what is the math for search and destroy? I can't find it anywhere.

33% of Normal

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110233#msg110233

[DFNewb (OP)]

2. Is it normal for 50 fighter pods, 1 per fighter, to get such results on search and destroy mission? is search and destroy worthless?

The only thing I could think here is that they are so dug in that you cannot make any hit. Have you done the math?

Anyway, nice to see that spoilers have been fixed 

what is the math for search and destroy? I can't find it anywhere.

33% of Normal

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110233#msg110233

Ok but what is normal when you have no FFD?


To Hit Chance with a base of 0.2 / Fortification Modifier / 3 ?

so pretty much 0.07 / Fort modifier?


So something like 0.02 or 0.01 ? Still seems like I am getting less hits than I should.

[Froggiest1982]

2. Is it normal for 50 fighter pods, 1 per fighter, to get such results on search and destroy mission? is search and destroy worthless?

The only thing I could think here is that they are so dug in that you cannot make any hit. Have you done the math?

Anyway, nice to see that spoilers have been fixed 

what is the math for search and destroy? I can't find it anywhere.

33% of Normal

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110233#msg110233

Ok but what is normal when you have no FFD?

to work the whole chance to hit you need to consider also how fortified they are and the terrain. How fortified they are should require a peek to the DB, however, you could do it assuming they are fortified as per max.

Now, without God Steve confirming, I assume that PODs follow the same rules as the ground unit as they do are ground units indeed. I then assume we should follow these rules http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109786#msg109786

So in your case 33% of  Hit Chance / (Fortification Modifier * Environment Modifier * Terrain Capability Modifier)

EDIT: Actually I've found the answer from another changes post. I am just giving you the important info
Ground support fighters have the same chance to hit as ground units, although they are not affected by any negative environmental modifiers (such as high gravity or extreme temperatures). Each fighter's to hit chance is affected by its own crew grade and morale.

[DFNewb (OP)]

2. Is it normal for 50 fighter pods, 1 per fighter, to get such results on search and destroy mission? is search and destroy worthless?

The only thing I could think here is that they are so dug in that you cannot make any hit. Have you done the math?

Anyway, nice to see that spoilers have been fixed 

what is the math for search and destroy? I can't find it anywhere.

33% of Normal

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110233#msg110233

Ok but what is normal when you have no FFD?

to work the whole chance to hit you need to consider also how fortified they are and the terrain. How fortified they are should require a peek to the DB, however, you could do it assuming they are fortified as per max.

Now, without God Steve confirming, I assume that PODs follow the same rules as the ground unit as they do are ground units indeed. I then assume we should follow these rules http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109786#msg109786

So in your case 33% of  Hit Chance / (Fortification Modifier * Environment Modifier * Terrain Capability Modifier)

look above I editted it.

The base to hit is 0.2 then divide that by 3 makes it 0.0666 divided by fort multiplied by Environment Modifier which I can't seem to find what that is but the enemy AA is hitting me what seems to be every time and I am getting like 0.005 hits in.

[DFNewb (OP)]

anyways it seems like search and destroy fighters are not capable of winning a ground war any time soon when it seems like 1 AA tank can kill a fighter a round while the fighters can't seem to get any hits on the AA tank, or anything for that matter.


I was really hoping that you could beat ground forces with just search and destroy fighters but it seems impossible to even get any hits with them....

[DFNewb (OP)]

anyways it seems like search and destroy fighters are not capable of winning a ground war any time soon when it seems like 1 AA tank can kill a fighter a round while the fighters can't seem to get any hits on the AA tank, or anything for that matter.


I was really hoping that you could beat ground forces with just search and destroy fighters but it seems impossible to even get any hits with them....

You could, but you need thousands of them. I believe due to the modifiers that PODs are valuable only in a defending war as you'll not go against fortification bonuses. I am still puzzled on how the PODs know if you have an FDD or if you are launching from a ship. There could be a small error/bug there to squash as it may be possible you are not getting even lucky hits due to that.

On the other end, the check could be done on a formation level (orbit/ground).

I think it is a worthy question.

The problem is that 1 AA infantry unit can kill 1 ground support fighter a round while your ground support fighter needs something like 200+ rounds of combat to ever even have a chance to hit that 1 AA infantry, and a ground support fighter costs much more than an AA infantry...

Not to mention your search and destroy fighter hits randomly while the AA will always target the fighters, meaning that not only do you need a 1/200 chance to actually hit, those odds come after you get lucky and your fighter targets the AA and not some other unit.

[DFNewb (OP)]

Also flak suppression has so far not even attempted to attack anything yet on my testing after a few rounds, sadly couldn't test it more cause the invaders came and destroyed my fighters which were set on flak suppression...


Seems to be a case of:

Only hostile AA elements will be attacked. If none are present in the selected formation, no air-to-ground attack will take place

But I haven't seen any attacks done after multiple rounds of 30 fighters meanwhile the fighters are getting killed by AA 2 a round.

[Froggiest1982]

I have removed the FFD part as it is said they not affected by it.

[DFNewb (OP)]

I have removed the FFD part as it is said they not affected by it.

Well it seems that the conclusion is that fighters are useless in most cases. They might be ok with FFD and ground support, have not tested that yet but they are useless on search and destroy and flak suppression.

[Froggiest1982]

I have removed the FFD part as it is said they not affected by it.

Well it seems that the conclusion is that fighters are useless in most cases. They might be ok with FFD and ground support, have not tested that yet but they are useless on search and destroy and flak suppression.

Steve should rework rando to priority. Fighters should prioritize AA then probably Bombardment and then other units. That is what you would do anyway in modern warfare, use your fighters to hit where you cannot.

I cannot see US scrambling fighters to hit soldiers, unless are hitting sensible targets or helping pinned down units.

[Garfunkel]

Would be very useful to test this further as ground support fighters were very bugged previously. It's possible that there are still bugs in the code.

[Droll]

Well FFD allows 6 fighters to directly support a formation. But as mentioned, they should probably target prioritize based on unit base type. Largest vehicles get bombed first, and it goes down all the way to light vehicles as appropriate targets run out, finally bombing infantry when there's nothing else left. Otherwise you can keep the randomness based on tonnage.

There is also the problem that as it currently stands, using any moderate amount of CAS fighters is an exercise in frustration, as there is no way to quickly assign CAS to support formations and you must do it one-by-one. I tried using 42 once, I will never bother using CAS again after that.