Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (Full Version)

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Whiskiz -> Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (9/25/2014 6:46:29 PM)

Fighters Interceptors and Bombers - massive range, no damage drop-off, some of the best damage, allows you to set your ships on evade so you can run from the enemy while still doing your full damage, save on energy as it takes nothing extra to launch fighters from fighter bays as it does with actual weapons.

I can make a base with 3000 shields, 4 fighter bays that can literally fend off a 10-man fleet, albeit just and with no shields and a boarding attempt wich fails from 10 hab modules. Soon as they jump in, because of the range of the fighters etc they start attacking right away, and all other weapons either have range penalties or lower damage to compensate, these have neither.

Played a game on "hard" and "restless" settings and just built an escort with a fighter bay at the beginning for instant 45 potential firepower with around 25 cruise speed and 15 turning speed, built a few of those and thats all i needed for home sector defense and stayed on top of military strength scoreboards by 50% throughout even though in the end i only had 3 fleets of 5 ships with 2 fighter bays each and 2 carriers each.

Few hours in and i was still top military strength by miles with only 20 ships...

I saved a ton from minimal military ships, adding a fighter bay every now an then and keeping with upgrades, home sector was invincible and every station could take care of itself anyway which also meant i could build mining stations in any system i could get to, taking some good luxury resources and others with no risk/danger.

About 2 or 3 hours in i had enough cash saved from demolishing everything including pirated bases without losing a single fighter ship from the range and great damage and having minimal about of fleet to pay for maintenance, to do the 0 tax population growth trick even though it had been nerfed, from around 10% tax with 10% growth to 0% tax with 17% growth.

During this time the private sector killed it in Cash on hand, 300k then 700k then over a 1132K in the end, over a billion cash on hand meaning i could put 5 times the amount of stuff on mining stations and never having to worry abut them ever again. Then in a few years when my planet was maxed and i put tax back up, i started killing it with 160k cashflow and private sector was still making some form of extra money.

I then saved the game and left since all the challenge/fun had gone out of it.

What am i missing, why isn't the fighter bays considered as extremely op and broken as they are to/for me to not have been majorly reworked by now? Where are the downsides? Sure they are a bit heavier, but that means a few less shields maybe and a bit less speed which in the end wasn't needed anyway.



Goatse -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (9/25/2014 6:56:04 PM)

1.9.5.8?



Retreat1970 -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (9/25/2014 7:48:40 PM)

Yes they're OP, and always have been. There's a you tube video out there somewhere, where some planet destroyers warp in by a colony and get chewed up by fighters in 10 seconds. The only solution is fighters or PD, and the AI doesn't use either well. Maybe Icemania's mod does better but idk.



PsyKoSnake -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (9/25/2014 8:19:40 PM)

First: Play extreme difficulty
Second: Use Ai improvement mod



Vellarain -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (9/25/2014 9:27:19 PM)

Heh, the Ai improvement mod will mostly remedy your carriers ability to plow through every fleet.



Whiskiz -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (9/26/2014 1:00:38 AM)

Ha, funny thing, i am using an AI improvement mod, and yes 1.9.5.8.

I must mention though, if it matters, that in that play-through i hadn't actually yet got to going to war with other empires if that counts before i made all that cash easily and quit the game, that was only against pirates, but i cant imagine anything being completely different all of a sudden once facing actual empires not to mention the fact by the time i would go to id be that crazily cashed up that i could throw anything and everything at them broken fighter bays or not, because of them.

I am using "extended AI improvement mod 1.02" in with "DW extended Universe."

"Yes they're OP, and always have been. There's a you tube video out there somewhere, where some planet destroyers warp in by a colony and get chewed up by fighters in 10 seconds. The only solution is fighters or PD, and the AI doesn't use either well. Maybe Icemania's mod does better but idk. "

Not surprised at all, fighter bays are massively overpowered, again all the upsides to each weapon including some of the longest range with no damage drop off while being some of the best damage and none of the downsides and a crazy firepower boost per fighter bay. Its so massively powerful that im surprised an AI mod is even needed, surprised this wasn't changed within like 2 weeks of release lol.

Though i have only recently found out about the game, so i'm unaware of the history of the game including the fighter bays, maybe they started out weak and were buffed but a little too much and just haven't been looked at again?

Either way i smh over them, game breakingly powerful. I don't suppose that could still be fixed these days? Be a shame if not.



Retreat1970 -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (9/26/2014 1:15:10 AM)

It can be modded.



Bloodly -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/2/2014 8:11:59 PM)

You're really discounting potential size issues. 50 space per bay is a significant chunk of any ship or base, particularly early and especially in Pre-Warp. I'm interested that you seemingly started with them, which indicates you weren't on default settings(Where you never start with that research). Having them leaves the host ship or base badly weakened.

I'd been asking for a long time whether Fighters were effective, and never got a straight answer even during previous patches.



Nanaki -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/2/2014 8:34:38 PM)

Fighters are fine in normal combat, but obscenely overpowered in OOS (Out of Sector) combat which is calculated differently. I have had lone construction ships armed with 3 bays hold off entire fleets in OOS.



PsyKoSnake -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/2/2014 9:58:06 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Nanaki

Fighters are fine in normal combat, but obscenely overpowered in OOS (Out of Sector) combat which is calculated differently. I have had lone construction ships armed with 3 bays hold off entire fleets in OOS.


We are not in X3 Reunionm there is no OOS zone in DWU



Icemania -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/3/2014 4:44:18 AM)

Whiskiz:

As others have mentioned Hard is frankly very easy. Once rolling in the game you’ll need Extreme difficulty to have any hope of a competitive game against an AI in a game this complex.

You’ll have no problem staying on top of military strength and slaughtering Pirates with other weapons either, Torpedoes for example are my staple. It’s not Pirates you should be comparing against, they are just a nuisance, it’s Empires … and as you said you haven’t got to the Empires yet.

From what I’ve seen the relative performance of Fighters and Bombers depends on the opponent. For example the AI Improvement Mod Boskara use Shaktur Torpedoes with Point Blank tactics and their Energy Research Focus includes Shields which will help them withstand the initial barrage and then do massive damage at short range. Other races may use Torpedoes or Missiles that are longer range than what you have available from Fighters and Bombers. Some races have a speed/agility focus so you’ll struggle to stay at range. In short, there is a wide variety depending on who you encounter.

When doing Battle Arena testing with Vanilla, using ships of equivalent size/technology optimised for each weapon, I often found Fighters and Bombers were not competitive, so I gave them a buff in the AI Improvement Mod. As mentioned it’s easy to mod the weapons. Indeed I’m happy to update the AI Improvement Mod to fix problems but only with the results of similar testing rather than anecdotal observations.



Shark7 -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/3/2014 5:43:56 AM)

One thing about the fighters...they will seem very overpowered early in the game, but once all empires have point defense weapons, they become far less potent.



Nanaki -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/3/2014 12:07:28 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PsyKoSnake
We are not in X3 Reunionm there is no OOS zone in DWU


Believe it or not, there is. Whenever you are not directly looking at a battle, it handles battle calculations very differently. I would have never even known were it not for the fact my Carriers were performing rediculously different when I was looking at them and when I was looking away from them. Theres just no other explination for having a single construction ship with just 3 fighter bays holding off an entire fleet of mixed ships, with the construction ship only blowing up if I looked directly at it.



fruitgnome -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/10/2014 12:11:37 PM)

Do you all talk about 4 or 6 fighters per bay? At the moment i think 6 (AI/Beyond mod) is really overpowered, I will try 4.



Whiskiz -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/22/2014 3:16:41 PM)

"You're really discounting potential size issues. 50 space per bay is a significant chunk of any ship or base, particularly early and especially in Pre-Warp. I'm interested that you seemingly started with them, which indicates you weren't on default settings(Where you never start with that research). Having them leaves the host ship or base badly weakened."

Not at all, you would think 50 size is a big chunk and compensates for it, but it really doesn't. Just build 5 ships with just 1 fighter bay each on hardest difficulty and see how long that fleet lasts, let alone any more and your stations having them, from prewarp even. Also i did not mean i literally started with them -.- but researched them first and went with them early/as the first then only offense.

"From what I’ve seen the relative performance of Fighters and Bombers depends on the opponent. For example the AI Improvement Mod Boskara use Shaktur Torpedoes with Point Blank tactics and their Energy Research Focus includes Shields which will help them withstand the initial barrage and then do massive damage at short range. Other races may use Torpedoes or Missiles that are longer range than what you have available from Fighters and Bombers. Some races have a speed/agility focus so you’ll struggle to stay at range. In short, there is a wide variety depending on who you encounter."

Nothing gets close when have multiple ships with multiple fighter bays set to evade, no matter how slow they are or how fast the enemy are, a few seconds and they start getting destroyed, a station i think it was with 3000 shield, damage reduction and just 3 or 4 fighter bays destroyed most of and fended off an entire fleet of about 11 by itself. Also never struggled to stay at range when the fight is over in a few seconds, literally.

Plus out-ranging every single enemy structure including pirate structures making it possible to destroy them early easy without losing one single ship.

Try it guys, go the hardest settings, and research and use fighter bays only (i did at prewarp) starting off with only a few ships with a fighter bay each for awhile, then adding a second, then carriers and stations with shielding bit of armor and fighter bays, then sit back and watch the money roll in from saving so much on a massive army needed to protect everything and rebuilding stations, allowing you to do the tax to 0 max your home planet population out, before long. As soon as you hit about 20K you have saved early and are on decent income generation, feeding on that extra not needed 20K+ to max pop and by the time empires could become any real threat you are on a full maxed home planet pop earning 150K+ min a year with massive firepower from fighter bays, point defense cannons or not. (Waay more fighters etc than PDC)

Try it, and you'll see.










Icemania -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/23/2014 1:59:27 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Whiskiz
Plus out-ranging every single enemy structure including pirate structures making it possible to destroy them early easy without losing one single ship.

As I've said in a previous post, the same can be done with Torpedoes. Or Missiles. In fact their range is longer than Fighter/Bombers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Whiskiz
Nothing gets close when have multiple ships with multiple fighter bays set to evade, no matter how slow they are or how fast the enemy are, a few seconds and they start getting destroyed, a station i think it was with 3000 shield, damage reduction and just 3 or 4 fighter bays destroyed most of and fended off an entire fleet of about 11 by itself. Also never struggled to stay at range when the fight is over in a few seconds, literally.

I really hope we still aren't talking about Pirates like earlier ... ?

When I was doing the Weapon Balancing for the AI Improvement Mod we didn't have access to modify AI tactics so it was done with default tactics. So your comment about Evade tactics is an interesting one as I haven't got around to retest any of them with those tactics available. So I repeated some of the previous tests. I took a Boskaran Capital Ship (point blank tactics obviously) and placed it in a 1-1 battle with a Securan Carrier set to evade ... same technology level. It was really close, the Boskarans took a lot of damage but as they were a bit faster with tractor beams they eventually closed to point blank range and the tide turned and the Boskarans won, heavily damaged.

In some 4-4 battles the results varied and seemed to depend on placement and targeting selections. In one case the Boskarans won with three ships remaining, in another the Securans won with one ship left.

Since the Boskarans were faster, I thought I'd see how a Securan Cruiser would go as it was faster than the Boskaran Capital Ship and try to kite them. But the Cruiser's Fighters/Bombers couldn't do enough damage and once out of Hyperdeny range the Boskarans just jumped away.

I tested at three technology levels with similar results.

There are some other races that would cause similar trouble, specifically those with Point Blank tactics and Speed/Agility focus e.g. Gizurean, Kiadian, Sluken etc.

In short, the always win hypothesis is clearly false, it will depend on the opponent.

If the opponent is slower, you kite and win, just like you can with Missiles or Torpedoes. If you have less Fighters/Bombers per Bay and can kite, you still win.

How I wish we had a "Kite" tactic to give the AI!



Whiskiz -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/24/2014 4:19:27 AM)

As i said, try it and see, or not and just keep running tiny out of game tests with specific races and specific conditions.

And again, it is guaranteed early game where there is little empire problems and pirates are easily wiped out including the stations from the massive range with no drawbacks, allowing you to save tons of $$$ on tons of ships early that you'd otherwise need since even a fleet of 4 is literally invincible, and that's with just one fighter bay each, allowing you to save even around 20K before long to then do the 0 tax max home planet pop growth early and end up with 150K+ before, too much longer.

***maybe*** if you couldn't combo the 0 tax pop growth from money saved with the fighter bay spam, ***certain*** empires may challenge this ***later down the track*** in ***certain conditions*** but even then you still have saved alot of money from not needing nearly as big an army for a long while, whether its then used to create alot more income via 0 tax exploit or is actually used for even more fighter bays/armies and stations straight up as you go.

Even if a specific races 4 specific ships could beat 4 fighter bay ships in a test, by that stage in a real game with the aforementioned piled income either saved slowly but surely or massively from the 0 tax combo, is it even going to be an even fight? Is the said race going to have the strength of those 4 ship types in every ship of the opposing fleet? Instead of small escorts mixed with some frigates and destroyers and maybe a capital? Meanwhile your running full fighter bay fleet max range full damage carnage opposing PDC or no PDC. Also in your tests, who initiated contact with who or did the groups just cruise up to eachother? If you attack an empire or their army, you warp in far enough away to cruise up and have full fighter bay distance advantage to destroy anything you'll find likely, and those are just a few tactics/examples that you can't test with your out of game small experiments.

Again, try it and see.



Icemania -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/24/2014 10:17:30 AM)

I've played dozens of games playing races using fighters/bombers or against them.

I can play any race, with any weapon, on any difficulty, and use 4 ships (normally less actually) to defend my home system then do 0 tax to maximum population. It's got absolutely nothing to do with fighter/bombers specifically, you've hit on the most common base strategy in the game. Try it and see. Of course, if you are expanding or attacking you'll need more ships than that. Note that a homeworld only strategy is a long way away from the strongest strategy possible in the game.

I can kite the AI using missiles and torpedoes as well as fighters/bombers because they are all long range weapons. It's got absolutely nothing to do with fighters/bombers specifically, it's about the power of ranged weapons with a kiting strategy. Try it and see.

The tests I mentioned were all done starting at distance giving fighter/bombers the advantage. What I do is declare war so both ships start attacking at the same time. The Carriers were set to evade. The tests were done at various technology levels. Try it and see.

If I could give the AI a "Kite" tactic the other races you would struggle with are those use missiles or torpedoes as they have longer range than your fighters/bombers. If they also had a speed / agility focus, you would get slaughtered. One for Elliott and the wishlist.



Shogouki -> RE: Just Me or Are Fighter Bays and Carriers OP? (10/25/2014 1:06:37 AM)

Another major weakness for a homeworld only strategy can manifest later in the game by opponents repairing or creating world destroyers. The weapon takes no charge time (Though it does have a 32 second CD) and can be fired immediately from warp in range.




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