The Carrier

All capital ships are carriers. That is, they all produce fighters that live in their hanger bays. The fighter capacity varies from ship to ship and can be increased through upgrades and such. "The" carrier probably just has a larger capacity than most other cap ships and lacks much in the way of other weaponry.

Last I heard, there were 3 classes of fighter: interceptors, bombers, and gunships though there was talk of removing the gunship. You detirmine how many of each by setting a ratio. For example, 40% interceptors, 40% bombers, and 20% gunships. The cap ship automatically produces these ships in the quantities that you specified. I'm not sure if a newly completed cap ship comes with it's hanger full or not but it seems reasonable for that to be the case.

Wedge nailed it.

Wow and i thought thered be room for more discussion. Well thanks, that set my mind to rest about that issue.

Now does anyone know what each fighter ship does?

strike-anti fighter-class (fighters, strikes and bombers)
fighter-general type
bomber-anti frig/cap ship.

drr.... in English that works out to:
Gunships kill interceptors
Interceptors kill bombers
and bombers kill cap ships/orbital structures/anything big and slow enough to hit

Gunships kill interceptors Interceptors kill bombers

I dont think this is it, lets ask blair.

I think that fighters can play a limited anti-capital role, and a limited anti-fighter class role. but I think interceptors are specialized for anti-fighter with near no anti-cap ship capacity, and that bombers are fully anti-cap with nearly no anti-fighter capacity

I think there a bit more balanced than what Schem says but not as simple as Wedges explanation.

I think there a bit more balanced than what Schem says but not as simple as Wedges explanation.

how so?

besides, who would take down strike craft if wedge was right.

I meant in the way that bombers wont be compeletly useless against figthers, and fighters wont be compeltly useless against capitatl ships. One will have the advantage, but no one would have "zero capacity"

I think fighters SHOULD be completely useless against everything but bombers. The reasoning for this is from what I observe from RTS games ive played...

For example

Total Annihilation , Fighters could hit ground targets. People would make fighters not for bomber interception but to use in swarms to effectively do the role of ground killing which isnt right. The person who built bombers for ground killing essentially does less well vs ground then the guy who just built fighters.

now compare to Supreme Commander, Fighters can only be Air vs Air. Now people have started to build bombers more regulary. Theres more tactics that involve the use of bombers.

Now look at homeworld 2. Bombers were just crap. This is because Fighters was better then the bombers at roles the bombers whould have had.

For example, taking out a module , you could essentially send in 3 bombers. But in homeworld , fighters would nail those bombers and because your behind , the guy makes up the full swarm of fighters and they would kill a module faster.

Now if fighters were only there to kill bombers , then the guy who makes only fighters will gain nothing but the interception of bombers , so they must make bombers inorder to gain some effectiveness vs caps ..to aid the cap v cap battles.

What we dont want is a general consensus that bombers are only built once you have "won the swarm battle" which means fighters first until u win the fighters war.

..as for how useless its up to the balancing

Yes, but then you could defend very easily against fighters with frigets. I think that fighters should be good at fighting smaller crafts, and then slightly efficient at damaging bigger ships.

One will have the advantage, but no one would have "zero capacity"

yeah, but still
almost negligable effect.

I think fighters SHOULD be completely useless against everything but bombers. The reasoning for this is from what I observe from RTS games ive played...

no, no stop. we've had a 7 page arguement on this exact point in the last forum. I'm not doing it again.

I support a minimum harasment capacity at the most for ships that are attacking their weakness. with the fighters capable of doing moderately significant damage to both.

Fighters could be good for taking out ship subsystems.

Example: Bada$$ enemy battleship approaching a squadron of your frigates and cruisers. What are YOU gonna do about it, if the ship gets in range it will tear you apart because a) it is bigger than you b) it is meaner than you c) it is faster than you and d) You're in a gravity well unable to jump away...what do you do?

Answer: Send bombers to disable enemy ships engines

PROBLEM: Bombers destroyed

>think< >think< >wipe sweat from brow< come on the ship is getting closer, almost in range >still thinking< AHA!

Split the fighter squadron in two, task one half with taking down enemy fighters while the other half make hit and run attacks at the enemy battleship, hopefully taking out its engines.

Now your small ships can make hit and run manouvres at it, getting in, firing, legging it, the come about, fire, leg it again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Mighty Mongoose January 13, 2007 10:01:26

Excellent description, I hope it works out like that

I hope it works out like that

Trust me, so do I.

Fighters could be good for taking out ship subsystems.

these arent extensive, it appears taht there are only basic ones on the big ships. nothing more.

So no critical points?

engines and something or others on big cap ships.
at least, thats what I remember blair saying. they wont be as important as HW.

So we cant knock out gun batteries and targeting systems, and hangars?

like I said, ask blair

Alright fine... where is blair when you need him?   

Alright fine... where is blair when you need him?

Prolly has off from work for the weekend! How dare he! Everyone at Ironclad should work like the EA slave camp coders, 24x7 365 a year!

these arent extensive, it appears taht there are only basic ones on the big ships. nothing more.

That wouldn't put too great a dent in the strategy, most people would just want to disable a ship (engines MUST be a targetable subsystem, I mean, c'mon) to give them time to destroy it. So we won't be able to take out individual gun turrets, I'm betting there's gonna be a generic "weapons" or "sensors" subsystem that will render the enemy unable to target you.

I'm willing to bet if ships have statistics like "crew", they are gonna have "Engine status" and "Weapons status"

That wouldn't put too great a dent in the strategy, most people would just want to disable a ship (engines MUST be a targetable subsystem, I mean, c'mon) to give them time to destroy it. So we won't be able to take out individual gun turrets, I'm betting there's gonna be a generic "weapons" or "sensors" subsystem that will render the enemy unable to target you.

I'd have an option to target the bridge, just think about it, bombing run takes out enemy ship's bridge, ship flails around in space guns firing in all directions, lol....

of course the bridge would have to be highly defended.