Bombers vs. Fighters

Fighters excell in taking out other fighters and bombers, while bombers will blast almost anything to pieces that is not a fighter. The fighters themselves can also damage larger vessels, but anything above a lightly armored frigates doesn't really seem to notice.

Thanks!

That is what i was thinking, but wasn't positive. I figure if I have some sort of Flak frigate (or equivalent) to counter the enemies bombers/fighters... i can load up my own carriers with bombers.

Probably, yes. Although i find the Fighters are quite a bit more efficient at hunting down enemy bombers/fighters than the racial anti-aircraft frigates. Its mainly a case of making sure they actually stay near the vessels they're supposed to protect.

Form a fleet, preferably with the ships you want to protect, set the fleet to tight formation. That should keep the flak frigates on screen duty instead of run-down-fighters-like-dogs mode.

Did I read in the last Beta that fighters were more effective at destroying turrets? I could not figure out why this would be, maybe someone could explain.

To an extent. The flaks will protect ships and bombers near them, but that tends to leave your bombers vulnerable to fighters when they're attacking (if you move the flaks into the midst of the enemy ships to provide anti-fighter cover for attacking bombers, they don't tend to last too long).

You're supposed to be able to select a fighter group and right-click a friendly ship to assign the fighters to 'CAP' around the selected ship. There was a dev post saying that this was a little bugged (it works as long as the guarded ship doesn't move, but can get messed up if they change position), but I don't know if it was fixed in 1.02 (no patch note about it).

Fighters also do a fair amount of damage to LRMs and supposedly Siege Frigates as well (anything with Light Armor).

It seems to me that choosing a ratio between fighters and bombers to protect my planets, I would go for more bombers since they have more destructive power against most threats...

I usually try to go for an even split between fighters and bombers... heavier on fighters if I'm facing the Advent. For planetary defense I think it is important to have plenty of fighters because the fighters housed in the hanger bays are the only tactical structure that is capable of fighting off enemy bombers.

By what I know thus far, a majority of fighters are good for hangars and a majority of bombers are better for carriers. Fighters are good at killing other fighters, bombers, LRM frigates, siege frigates and scouts. Bombers are good at killing cruisers and capital ships. Thus you want fighters to defend your planets against LRMs, siege attacks, and enemy squadrons, but bombers are best at bashing up the enemy's main fleets.

I go 3 parts bombers, 1 part fighters. Mind you, this is as the Advent (who get 3 squadrons per hangar + additional fighters per squadron).

And fighters are good at killing anything other than other strike craft? Huh?

Yes, people have said that fighters do horrific levels of damage to LRM frigates. Scouts and Siege frigates also use the same Light or Very Light armor used on LRMs, so fighters obviously get a 2x damage-dealing bonus against them too.

Bombers don't get any such bonus against light craft, AFAIK. They get a bonus against heavier ships instead.

does that bonus also count for shields or only armor? (would be kinda difficult - fighters having a hard time getting shields down, bombrs not being effective vs. armor... so where to go=? )

I don't know whether they have updated the descriptions, but if you hover over the 'build fighter/bomber squadron', you will see what they are effective against.

In essence -

Fighters: Fighter/bombers, scouts, siege frigates and LRMs (and their vasari and advent equivalents, I guess). They really rip them apart, it's frightening.

Bombers: Everything else

LRMs, scouts and siege frigs don't have much shielding, so fighters will still eat them.



Eh... LRMs are TEC only? Their Vasari 'equivalent', the Assailant, fits the description of 'Long-Range Missileer' better than the TEC Javelis. The Advent has the Illuminator, but calling it an LRM would be a misnomer since it uses beam weapons.

There's a perfect synergy between long-range strike forces. See,

Fighters kill bombers.
Fighters kill LRMs.
Fighters kill fighters.

But Fighters have to operate from hangars and carriers.

Bombers kill hangars.
Bombers kill carriers.
LRMs kill hangars.
LRMs kill carriers.

Factor in flak and...

Flak kills Fighters. Fighters are rebuilt.
Flak kills Bombers. Bombers also get rebuilt.
LRM kills Flak.(no bonuses to damage, but invulnerability vs. short-ranged flak guns)

Rock - paper - scissors with a twist. Although Carriers and LRMs can kill cap ships and cruisers without too much trouble, cheap frigate-spams or flak-spams are things that long-range weapons will get stumped by regardless of numbers.