So is it just me or is what I said in my last post wrong, because I think that the true problem is that you can't use long range and close range combat together.

So is it just me or is what I said in my last post wrong, because I think that the true problem is that you can't use long range and close range combat together.

Edit: Whoops confused you with an earlier post.

And I think you're wrong because having a fleet that has long range support and close range vessels will do less damage over the long term that a fleet using all close range vessels. Assuming the fleets are a fair fight, your close range vessels will fall under his close range fleet and then they will close in on your long range vessels and kill them, all while your strike craft are attacking but failing to do enough damage to make any real difference.

If you have 10 LRM frigates and a carrier in the back of the system with fighters, and your enemy shows up with 20 LRM frigates (which is a reasonably fair fight points wise) you will lose every time. He'll crush your 10 LRM fleet and probably lose 5-7 of his? And then you have 13 LRM frigates at least chasing down your carrier and I believe your carrier will go down to that force. Although it would be interesting to test this because a straight up fight with a carrier and LRM frigates went better for teh carrier than any other setup. It's possible on the other side of the system and running from the enemy you'd be able to pull out a win but it would be very close. And I'm wondering if it would make more sense to go kill the carrier first in this battle...?

I think you still don't understand what I said tumbler. What you said is right and from the other post I have readed, you are also right there. The problem I trying to point out, is that there seems to me that there are three type of fleets.

Long range fleets: Make up of carriers that launch there fighter and withdraw when in close combat.

Close combat: any fleet fleet with no carriers, that run up to there enemy to get into close combat.

long/close range fleets: Ships with both close and carriers, who use there fighters to do damage before they close to close combat. And right now as it stands, the weakest comb, thougth the most comb arms.

Your right, carriers and close comabt ships do not mix. But what I am tring to point out is why(as well as what we could do to fix it). The reason that they don't mix, is that long range can not support close range ships, and close range can not support short range. That why I said there should be something do, so that carriers and close comabt ships can work together. This is also why there are abour 4 post on HC vs Carriers, as you can not find a middile ground.

What we both siad is ture, you siad that the mix is bad, and I said why it is bad.

Your right, carriers and close comabt ships do not mix. But what I am tring to point out is why(as well as what we could do to fix it). The reason that they don't mix, is that long range can not support close range ships, and close range can not support short range. That why I said there should be something do, so that carriers and close comabt ships can work together. This is also why there are abour 4 post on HC vs Carriers, as you can not find a middile ground.

I suppose we're on the same page but for different reasons. I don't agree that the lack of coordinating special abilites from long range/short range is the problem with carriers/strikecraft.

I see the problem as being the amount of damage they do to the enemy. Even if they could support all friendly ships with their support abilites it does not change the fact that you have a long range attacking unit that hits for less damage than a short range attacking unit.

They are the artillery of this game. Generally when you buy long range units you are accepting a higher damage output for less protection up close. But that is not what you get, you get a lower damage output and less protection up close. The flaw is in the damage. Support powers should be tweaked to extend to the rest of your fleet in a battle, I agree with that, but bombers and fighters need to hit like a tons of bricks if these weapons are going to be competitive because what is the purpose of buying artillery if that early damage is completely negated as soon as your enemy closes the gap?

Even if you had a huge fleet of fighters and bombers the minimal damage you'd inflict on an equal sized force would be irrelevant after yoru enemy was in close range with you for about 1 min. All that damage you did early, gets made up for in a fraction of the time by the enemy. So you may tag one or 2 of his ships on the way over, but he's going to annihilate your fleet when he gets there, and if you retreat to the next system he can follow you and chase you down.

So we have different ways of fixing the same problem. You way is increae damage so the you have high damage output and less protection close up, and my is that you have lower damage output, but are able to buff the protection, when the enemy close the gap. Two answers to the same problem. But this would mean that if the enemy is close up and your fighters still hit like "a tone of bricks", what is there form keeping you form make it a high damage output at close range, which would result in higher close up protection?

And my is that you have lower damage output, but are able to buff the protection, when the enemy close the gap.

The lower damage output is not offset by the buffs. Even if the cap ship abilites extended to the whole system and you could buff your friendlies anywhere, you would still be a significant disadvantage because you could not do as much damage, or absorb as much damage as the enemy.

You could test this if you like.

Get a carrier and dock the strikecraft and keep it far enoogh from the enemy that it can't shoot but that it's buff abilites can help friendlies.

Put 10 light frigates against 10 light frigates. I'm assuming the friendly side will win and depending on how many ships left you are getting a X% advantage to your combat effectiveness. IE if the fight ends with 2 light frigates on your side and none on his side that is approx a 20% advantage based on using buffs.

If you make it a fair fight and do 10 frigs with carrier and put that against 20 frigs (a test I've done) you'll see that the buffs don't do nearly enough. The end result in that test was 13 attacking frigates remain, all other forces wiped out.

My test didn't include a ship that has a shield recharge or repair ability though so it'd be interesting to see what happens when that is used.

So in the end, under your ideal Tumbler, how much less damage will the bombers and fighters do then that of a HC. Because if they do more, then what is the point of bring HC along. The carriers(i.e.artiller) are normaly near the grav. well, and so can have an easy time to run away(one of the old problems with this game). The reason that tanks worked well in other RTS, is that the artiller that they closed to attack, where slow, low hitpoint machines that where easy to destory at close range. So how much do we need to increase the damage, with out making the HC uesless.

Ran a test comparing how effective buffs are compared to other ships.

Advent vs TEC

8 TEC Frigs = 10 Advent Frigs
Both sides had hull upgrades 1 and laser upgrades 1.

First fight was 8v10 plain and the TEC frigs came out on top wiht one left at about 25% health. Very even matchup.

Tried the same test with a mothership behind Advent ships, was not attacking only able to use shield boost power.

Results with buff:

8 TEC vs 10 Advent = 5 Advent left. The advent were 50% more effective being buffed if I'm understanding this right. If the first test was considred a wash, ie both sides lost all their ships then this test shows that the TEC still lose all their ships but the advent keep 50% of theirs. AKA 50% more combat effective.

Next test I should run is to have the mothership fight in combat with the friendlies against a force of 16 TEC frigates.That way we can see how effective using a cap ship with buff abilites is compared to using all little frigates. I'm guessing the 16 frigs will win but we'll see.

Ok, but do you know how much the damage needs to be increased, for the fighters to be effective, while not making the HC useless?

Test results:

16 TEC frigates, no upgrades
vs
10 Advent Frigates, 1 mothership with shield regen upgrade. (and bombers)

The TEC frigs took out all ten Advent frigs and had 10 frigs remaining. The mothership advanced to level 2 during the battle and eventually won but has about 50% hull and no shields when the last frigate was destroyed. (approx 25% total health?)

I'm guessing this means that a mothership gives you about a 25% boost in combat effectiveness in a fight vs frigates.

If we can take this back to strikecraft and carriers if you give the ship less firepower, weaker armor, and give it an extra bomber squadron I don't think you're coming out for the better. Certainly not with advent, the carrier powers are awful and the only one I find useful is the extra strikecraft which do terrible damage so a bit useless.

I'm very interested to know what the battleships do and the battlecruisers. I'll do those tests later.

"I don't think these numbers matter to be honest.

1. Building a fleet is rarely based on supply alone. Cost is the major issue 99% of the time. You add more Supply when your fleet gets big enough.
2. The cost of the 2 units you are comparing are VASTLY different. You get 2-4 fighters total for the same cost you get 10 light frigates so by not factoring in cost of each unit you get this incorrect assumption that if you field an equal amount of fighters/bombers to his units you'll be ok... But you've spent a TON more resources than you opponent to just break even in battle power. Which means he's probably got a ton more units than you somewhere else."

To put 10 Disciples against 4 Aerias, you need a fleet capacity 25% greater. That's not cheap, cutting your income. And those numbers aren't "best" or "worst" scenarios for anything. They're the same scenario for all.

Yes, 10 Disciples are worth 4 Aerias in cost, but only 8 Disciples fit in the same supply cost. So lets take 4 vs 9.

DPS of 9 Disciples against:
Fighters: 0.00
Bombers: 0.00
Scouts & Long-Range Frigates: 57.37
Light Frigates: 76.50
Flak Frigates & Support Cruisers: 95.63
Heavy Cruisers & Structures: 38.25
Capital Ships: 38.25

... at the range of 3500 with a speed of 800.

DPS of 4 Aerias against:
Fighters: 31.12
Bombers: 71.82
Scouts & Long-Range Frigates: 95.76
Light Frigates: 35.70
Flak Frigates & Support Cruisers: 35.70
Heavy Cruisers & Structures: 71.4
Capital Ships: 53.55

... at range of 1 gravity well with a speed of 500.

Disciple Vessels count under "Light Frigates". Aeria Drone Hosts count under "Support Cruisers". You were comparing the 2 by fighting them against each other. Obviously the Disciples won. But that doesn't mean that the Aeria does "lousy DPS". They're better at crumbling Heavies, Caps, Scouts, LRMs, Structures, and Bombers than anything else the Advent have.

The Drone Host may be an over-styled tin can with 0 armor and negligible shielding, yes, but that is because it was never designed to get shot at. Iconus Guardians with Repulsion, or a Radiance Battleship with Animosity can take care of that. On the other hand, Defense Vessels will to an extent take care of the Drone Fighters/Bombers, since they don't self-repair at any useful rate like TEC/Vasari versions, and since they have pathetic armory(again unlike TEC/Vasari strike craft). So micromanaging the Drones won't be so useful.

Something occurred to me while mulling this over.

Sins suffers from the same problem related to fighters that most space combat games do. Compared to their modern day equivalents, fighters in Sins are painfully slow if we measure their mobility against that of their motherships.

An F/A-18 Hornet has a top speed of Mach 1.8, or right around 1200 mph. The nuclear powered aircraft carrier that it operates from has a top speed somewhere around 40 mph under optimal conditions. The average naval fighter aircraft is, therefore, about 30 times faster than the ship it operates from. Now, while strikecraft in Sins are much faster than any carrier, they're no where near 30 times faster. It's more like 3 to 4 times faster in Sins. Proportionately, Sins fighters are 1/10 as fast as modern naval aircraft at least viewed as a ratio between a fighter's speed and its carrier's speed.

In modern terms, the great advantage of naval aircraft over surface ships is range and mobility. Fighters can get where they're needed a lot faster than ships can. Furthermore, the most powerful guns and missiles in the world are of no use to you if your target is out of range. A naval fighter aircraft's speed and mobility allows it to strike targets from afar, far beyond the range at which a hostile vessel could fire back at the carrier it came from.

Another useful ratio to look at is how far a fighter can move in a given time period against the range of a surface ships weapons.

Most modern anti-ship missiles have a range of around 100 miles. There are notable exceptions, such as the TASM which has much greater range. A naval fighter aircraft running full bore could cover that 100 mile range in about 10 minutes. However, a ship could take a little over a day to cover that distance. A hostile vessel 200 miles from a carrier would be subject to repeated air attack for something like 30 hours (and this is assuming the carrier isn't moving away from the enemy ship). Dozens of sorties could be flown before the hostile vessels came into their own weapons range.

This is not the case with Sins. In general, if two fleets start on opposite sides of a system, your strikecraft might get two attack runs in before hostile vessels enter into range of your own vessels. A ship in Sins can cover an amount of distance equal to its own weapons range rather quickly. However, as discussed above, a modern missile cruiser could take over a day to cover a distance equal to its weapons range. If modern naval vessels were proportional to Sins ships in these matters, you'd have cruisers that could travel somewhere between 300 and 500 mph. And I can see if that were the situation that fighters would be far less potent as a naval weapon, especially considering the effectiveness of dedicated anti aircraft systems we tend to put into ships these days.

In short, in order for strikecraft to be truly effective, we either need for the battlefield to be much, much larger (impractical), the fighters have to deliver a lot more punch (either make them tougher or make carriers able to carry a lot more of them), or the carriers have to be much more able to withstand assaults from hostile ships.

@James,

If you want to see from a realism point-of-view, then yes, space fighters(or 'strike craft' as they are termed in Sins) are rather useless.

They operate in the same medium as their carriers(space), and are only 5.4 times faster(Fighters) or 4 times faster(Bombers). Not ~30 times faster like the F/A-18 Hornet, which is considered a slow fighter. The F-14 Tomcat, before it was retired, was even faster(>Mach 2).

In reality, naval fighters are severely more useful vis-a-vis surface ships because:
1. They're so much faster, obviously, since they move through air and not water.
2. They can carry enough punch, that too, of many different kinds(anti-aircraft missiles, anti-ship missiles, GPS/laser guided bombs, anti-armor missiles, electronic warfare equipment and a close-range cannon).
3. They can see over-the-horizon(see E-2 Hawkeye).
4. They're not easy to kill despite being small because of their maneuverability, their electronic countermeasures(ECM) and because...
5. They're much easier to hide/make stealthy in combat(see F-35C and X-47) than a giant aircraft carrier.
6. The battlefield is the open ocean, not a little gravity well like in Sins.

Thus, the old battleship has been relegated to the role of off-shore artillery, the destroyer and frigate have been railroaded into the role of close-range air defense(like Sins 'flak frigates'), and the cruiser still retains some surface-combat ability. But the surface-combat cruiser is mainly there to go wherever carriers would be an overkill(like anti-pirate operations), and to destroy submarines with their helicopters. Now the title of 'capital ship' is taken up solely by carriers.

But in space, 'fighters' are pointless because:
1. They technically should be nothing more than small spacecraft which accelerate and turn faster. Their engines and fuel load are small, and thus they have no excuse to be faster in top speed either.
2. They are smaller, and can thus carry fewer missiles, or less cooling equipment for lasers. This means longer reload/cool-down times(which is actually shown in Sins).
3. There is no horizon in space(except for maybe a star).
4. They needn't be any stealthier than a larger spacecraft, do they?
5. In Sins particularly, with the exception of the star's gravity well, the battlefield is not any kind of open field but instead is a bunch of closed gravity wells.
6. Even if the space fighter is a drone and doesn't require life support, it still takes 4 times the Delta-v(and hence, 4 times the fuel) of a large missile and is equally susceptible to being shot down. The ~4x fuel is required because it has to take off and reach the target, maneuver to avoid fire, approach and fire it's weapons, and then return to the carrier and be recovered. The big missile only needs to take off and go ram into the target. The fighter's problem can be partially solved by launching it off a large mass driver, but then, the missile can also use the same large mass driver(fictional example being the Novalith Cannon).

Here's a link to space fighters, and why they actually aren't so useful despite being cool.

In short, in order for strikecraft to be truly effective, we either need for the battlefield to be much, much larger (impractical), the fighters have to deliver a lot more punch (either make them tougher or make carriers able to carry a lot more of them), or the carriers have to be much more able to withstand assaults from hostile ships.

I had not considered a solution involving range. If we made strikecraft able to jump between systems and attack the enemy that would vastly change their combat effectiveness because you could put the carrier behind defeneses in another system! I think I'd prefer making them more powerful first, but letting them attack adjacent systems sounds like a great idea to solve this issue.

Disciple Vessels count under "Light Frigates". Aeria Drone Hosts count under "Support Cruisers". You were comparing the 2 by fighting them against each other. Obviously the Disciples won. But that doesn't mean that the Aeria does "lousy DPS". They're better at crumbling Heavies, Caps, Scouts, LRMs, Structures, and Bombers than anything else the Advent have.

I'd like to see a test proving this. Since Support cruisers counter Heavies, Caps, Scouts, LRM's, etc, please setup a battle and prove it.

Take a group of 4 cruiser carriers (or whatever number you want) and show me what enemies they can counter on their own. Any cap ship, and cruiser, any LRM group, whatever, you show me what they can beat head to head.

This is a critical test because if there is not a group of enemies they can defeat on their own (equally priced) then in a larger battle they must be countering a group worth less than themselves and this gives the enemy an advantage against you in a balanced fight.

So show us the results of a battle supporting your argument. You can even use supply if you want. I want to know what units these things counter effectively.

Logic problematic here. See Iconius Guardians.

Not that carriers have a support ability worth their cost, just that you cannot extrapolate in this way.

Not that carriers have a support ability worth their cost, just that you cannot extrapolate in this way.

I think that is what I'm trying to prove. If you take cruiser carriers into battle and your opponent takes something else and you both have reasonably even fleets the battle will eventually end up with your cruiser carriers vs his remaining ships, so if they can't beat those remaining this then you are at a disadvantage taking them.

Each unit needs ot have a combat effectiveness = standard cost of all units.

I think using the light frigates is an excellent base to start from. But more specific tests need to be done in certain cases.

I challenge anyone to even create a battle using cruiser carriers on one side, and something else on the other, (equally valued forces with 100 metal = 150 credits, and 100 crystal to = 175 credits which is EXTREMELY generous considering what you actually have to pay to use much more crystal/metal)

I'm expecting that every battle you put them up against will have yoru side getting whiped out even if you put it against units that they specialize in countering. Strikecraft just can't do damage fast enough.

Prove me wrong PLEASE! PLEASE, do some testing. Everyone has an opinion but no one is running tests and seeing how battle play out.

Create a "1v1 learning game", use point blank and ask the opponent to work with you on testing forces out. Have him bring whatever fleet you want him to bring and put your fleet in with either your carrier or you carrier cruisers and let them fight.

You should lose everything every time if I'm correct. If I'm not I'd love to learn where I'm mistaken.

And for the purposes of this test supply is ignored. Others have disagreed but I don't find supply to be a factor in competitive game. Any game where supply is the only issue in how to deploy your fleet is way beyond the scope of this discussion. Lets focus on small battles between units and make sure each is fairly priced otherwise once things get huge, with 10 cap ships and hundreds of enemies you have no way of knowing how balanced anything is at that point.

I always thought the strength of carriers (sorry to derail your test discussion Tumbler, I agree with you that carriers alone are pretty ineffective unless coupled with other units), was to destroy retreating fleets.

Granted, by that point, you have a defacto advantage (the fleet is retreating necessarily implies that you have the upper hand in that area of the map), but it can have a long-standing impact in the development of the game. Taking out 3-4 ships that would have retreated (or even better, a capital ship) can really add up over several battles.

For instance: Carriers are effective against the cowardly, dastardly tactic of sending a few planet killers to a remote, not well-defended planet. Given the cost of planet-killers (really really high considering their low armor), carriers are a cost-effective solution for wiping them out.

A few more things worth highlighting: Carriers can distract your enemy by providing you with hit-and-run tactics, which are especially effective against broadcast centers (local culture giving you a problem?), which particularly plays to the the Advent's strengths in culture.

They can also stave off an attack on your planets. I often eschew Hangar Defenses entirely and simply build Aeria drone hosts, sometimes with a Halycon as an attendant. When one of my planets is attacked and my second or third fleet is too far away or too busy to aid quickly, I'll drop in my Drone Hosts/Halycon and wax their planet killers. Then, the only thing attacking my planet is their Capital Ship- which can buy my second or third fleet valuable time.

Plus, lets not forget how effective Carriers are in a Star's orbit. Everything moves so slow in Stellar orbit that carriers/fighters/bombers really begin to shine. Thats usually where I park the defense fleet listed above.

Alone and against a mixed fleet, however, you can kiss your a$$ goodbye. I agree with you Tumbler in the sense that a pure Carrier fleet has a lot of holes you can poke through, but they still have their role in a game. I think they are balanced but maybe a little UP, they could use a damage upgrade or a rate-of-fire upgrade.

That idea about a Carrier sending fighters to another planet is bat-@#@@ crazy. I would love to see it happen (being mostly an Advent player), but that would be wayyy OP. If you could do it, it would definately require a high-tier technology and perhaps the loss of 50% of your squadron - mandatory.

That idea about a Carrier sending fighters to another planet is bat-@#@@ crazy. I would love to see it happen (being mostly an Advent player), but that would be wayyy OP. If you could do it, it would definately require a high-tier technology and perhaps the loss of 50% of your squadron - mandatory.

I like this idea a lot. When a carrier or cruiser carrier is destroyed the strikecraft remain but slowly lose health until they are gone. You could handle this the same way so strikecraft slowly lose health until they are dead or return to the carrier.

Don't forget just how easy it is to counter strikecraft. If the only change that was made was that strikecraft would warp 1 system away and attack that would not change the game too much, people would just want more flak defenses.

Tumbler, I don't disagree with you that carriers are mostly pointless, just that you can 'prove' this by extrapolating from their unit-vs-unit 'straight fight' performance. It is potentially more complex than that, so such a comparison is far from a coup-de-grace.

Like you, I'd prefer the power boost. My first instinct to this end is to simply increase the number of squadrons a carrier operates in Sins. CVLs should get 2-3 squadrons and CVAs should start out with 5 or so and get more as they level up like they already do.

Why are you comparing carrier cruisers to an up front battle? They aren't made for an up front battle! They have big engines and fully independent weapons for a reason, use them. Kite Kite Kite.

Most ships shoot out of their front arc. If you move your carriers, you will evade this front arc, saving them from taking damage. At the worst, the enemy will be forced to divide his fire among the ships he can hit. Split up your carriers. Race around the gravity well. Make the enemy take 3 times as long to take them out. This is a MAJOR factor that NONE of these posts have even mentioned yet.

In addition, carrier cruisers split up your fleet big time, which can help minimize your losses from powerful enemy AoEs. You can not do this with the "melee" or the long range ship types.

And that one of the thing, I was thinking about to talk with Tumbler about, JamesP81. After looking at most my ideals I came up with these options and there cons and pro. All there pro are that they fix the fighter problem.

1. Increase damage of the fighters: An easy fix, but make it easy for hit and run tactics, reducing the close combat ships next to useless.

2. Add special abilities: increase the in programing and RAM use, and that why I siad that Tumbler is right.

3. Increase the number of fighter squadrons: increase in RAM used

4. Increase hitpoint and armor: there fore reducing the ratio of eff. flak vs carriers, but may lead to the same problem as number 1.

The main problem in fixing the fighter problem, is to make the carriers more useful, while at the same time not making close combat ships useless.

Right now as it stands, carrier are only useful to people who fight with hit and run tactics. The main problem to me is that if I give up an HC supply points to a carrier, I end up with a less eff. fleet, it I hit for long range and then close to the attack.This is one of the reasons that I up special abilities in the post, as it would act like support ships do. If I give up a hc supply points for an support cruisers, it increase the overall eff. of my fleet(thougth this changes with changes in the ratio of ships)!

Thats true, but it requires a lot of micro. I'm already spending most of my attention on managing my cap ship abilities, front line combat ships, and flak frigates.

In general, I'd say that the power of strike crafts depend on your faction. As Vasari... I found them of very little use. TEC were slightly better with them, but the Advent really shine using them. I rarely build Carrier Frigates - enemies focus in on them due to their very low armor. However, anyone who hasn't played with a fleet of nothing but strike craft carriers has missed out - you can generally kill your foe before he/she(/it?) can even reach your ships.

The other great use of strike craft is from the orbital hanger bay defenses. Well, not so much with vasari, they get about 2 squadrons (with (2?) strike craft per squadron) per hanger, which will have pretty much no effect. However, Advent hanger bays get 6 per squadron normally, 8 with upgrades, and they can build 3 of these squads per hanger. This means that with two hanger bays, you can effectively defend a planet with no need of ships. I've found it an awesome retaliation to the TEC's insurgency, and with enough bays (enough being ~4) you can stave off a pretty large enemy fleet (By pretty large enemy fleet, I mean about 3 bars on the zoomed out planet view. Don't try to avert a multi capital ship force with them).

However, the best thing about strike craft is, of course, watching the battle from a fighter's eye view in cinematic view. Try it. Its awesome.