Fighters vs Bombers

that, is real up to you,

but I would takr fighters, for the defense platforms, because there is no flak platform.

And for the fleet themselfs, I use only bombers, as it is easy to defended against fighters and bombers, with capital ship special abilities,and flak frigates. But that is just me.

fighters good against scouts, long range attack ships, bombers and siege fighters. bombers good against basic assault ship and cruisers and capital ships and structures.

so, depending what you are up against, you choice can vary. if they are lrm spamming i tend to go fighters as they do 200% more damage vrs light armor and they are faster response. if they are spamming assault ships i go bombers and late game i almost always go pure bombers (at least in my fleet) because as said above, you can take care of fighters with abilities and other ships.

i tend to go 1 and 1 with base hangers. fighters are good at taking down scouts so i keep a few for that, and to take down enemy bombers and siege craft.

I usw a 2 to 5 fighter to bomber ratio giving me a fighter cap to protect against bombers and light frids.

I, like Orion, favor a ratio in terms of planetary defense, although it's not always set at 5:2. It's all situational. If you think a planet is going to be hit by a full-on fleet, I usually take Fighters since the AI seems to love them and any one AI-built fleet is likely to be almost half fighters/bombers. If its still early-ish in the game and I think they're going to execute the Trademark-Gayness-Of-All-RTS-Games where the AI sends one or two seige units to some back-ass sector, I'll load up on bombers.

In late and mid game I tend to favor a fighter-heavy ratio for my planets furthest from my homeworld, and a bomber heavy (since if they progress past my initial defenses they probably have heavy ships and/or planet bombers) ratios in the back, closer to my homeworld.

In my fleets it's a different story. It really depends on what I'm reacting to (there is no "perfect fleet," only what counters your opponent) but as a general rule I go 4:1 or 5:1 in favor of fighters in my fleets, due to the AI's aforementioned predeliction for massing fighters and bombers.

Personally, I will almost always go with pure bombers in fleets and a 1:4 fighter to bomber ratio in defenses. However, when against AI Advent, whom I have noticed use cap carriers more often than the other caps (wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong on that, though), I change my tactics to a 1:4 fighter to bomber ratio in my fleets.

Fighters are a lot better vs Seige frigates by the way. Fighters are extra poo vs pirates though cause of the amount of flak they bring. The best way to deal with AI Seige frigates and pirate seige is a few well places turrets covering where you think the AI would seige from, they are super scared of turrets and don't know how to avoid them. If they get brave then the turrets do actually take out the Seige frigates pretty nicely.

Yeah, it depends on whether I'm expecting the capship or a strike force of (usually) 3 or more Purge Vessels or whatever the Vasari one was called. In games with pirates though I'll usually go straight up 4:1 or 5:1 on bombers, at least at first.

I do half and half for my D and all bombers for my Offence. I just feel that they will attack more buildings but I have only tried this on AI so far.

I usually do an even number split of each for all counts. If i have an odd number I always do bombers over fighters. The mix helps ina lot of combat situations.

It depends on the fleet makeup. Generally i consider fighters to be defensive (to kill their bombers) and bombers to be offensive (to kill their larger ships)

since i usually dont build flak frigates, i use more fighters, usually 2:1 or 3:1. If i were to build flak frigates for my fleets, i would flip that ratio, or maybe go all bombers.

I first build two fighters in defensive situations, then I go on a 1F:2B ratio giving odds to the bombers. If you have a weak base they'll probably just send a few frigates and siege frigates, but at a stronger base/chokepoint they will send cruiser/capital ships.

However, in a fleet I prefer to just go all bombers unless I'm building carriers. I find what slows me down the most is taking out those buildings, particularly late in the game with armor upgrades and and hull reinforcement techs. Bombers just have more targets than fighters when you're on the offense.

Im just thinking, that since the most popular strategy is lrm spam, isnt fighter the best choice? given their 200% damage to light?

Perhaps it is. However at the moment, strike craft do have a lower rung on the power ladder. If the enemy with Lrms brings a couple flak ships, it really won't matter weather you have fighters or bombers. Of course the enemy can always have Flak, but if you micro well, you can navigate your fighters and bombers around them.

I'm just trying to say that most of the people who "Play to win" (those who have massive Lrm/Heavy frigate fleets) generaly won't have much strike craft to begin with, and will probably be countered by other players Lrm/heavy frigate fleets. Its a tough choice when to use strike craft period. Not to say they arent usefull, they are just a lot harder to use than an lrm spam.

I am a big fan of strikecraft.

They are certainly not the end-all be-all of ships, but only HC's are and they're expensive.

Early game fighters are probably going to do the most (clearing planets of militia), but by mid games I tend to roll with a 2:1 bomber to fighter ratio. Even more bombers if they are HC heavy or you have killed off their fleet and are now taking out their buildings.

If they LRM spam then switch to fighters.

The best things about strike craft are that they are free to build on their respective hosts and that they can switch from anti-light to anti-very-heavy.

As for hanger defenses I use all fighters to take out planet bombers quickly.

Usually most ppl and AI don't roll with a mass of flak so I usually dock my craft and FF the flaks with light frigs or HC's and then let loose my strikecraft when there are only a couple left. It hurts your DPS, but they are ready to go unopposed when those flaks are down.