Drones or fighters?

[SolVali]

What's everyones opinions on Drones and fighters, at least in vanilla.

Drones - I find combat drones to be very underwhelming, useful for when i'm boarding a ship, and need to get it's hp down (overun), but that's about it. I think that there needs to be either a drone carrier ship, or a fighter carrier ship, not both. With drone bays being about 150 on every ship, except the Arawn, i don't see any point in taking a Sul let's say, over a Taranis, in any situation.

Are drones intended to be mass produced counters to fighters? Or superior to them? Or fulfilling a purpose? (say, swarming station defences?)

Fighters - These i found quite fun, only when flying with a swarm of them through Xenon turf, but it was the interface that annoyed me, i had to click 'Attack all enemies in this area' to get them to fight a whole swarm of Xenon, rather than just double click attack because otherwise they could just attack a single target and ignore the rest. Unless i came under fire.

I find that fighters get torn down far to easily, i think they are tougher, but fewer in number, superior to drones, but swarmed if the fight drags on?

At the moment i'm trying CES (combat enhancment scripts) on steam, and assault drones are pretty damn nasty with shields and Balor torps, drones launch in groups of 5, and you can get a single carrier launching upto 25 (i think) drones. But this doesn't change the whole 150 drone bay thing for everyone.

I think the benefits of drones should be all ships can have them, vary in the amount they can carry, and even though they should not be as good as fighters, they can be taken with the ship when it jumps. I think the Arawn should be a fighter carrier, and take fighters with them when it jumps.

Any thoughts on fighters and drones chaps?

[mr.WHO]

Both fighters and drones in vanilla game are useless waste of money - don't bother with them and go straight to Stormvok or Balors.

However with proper combat script mods or CWIR mod Drones become neat mass produced "swarmers" that are somehow effective if you are able to replenish the losses (and also kill your game frame rate if there is a several big ship and their drones involved).

FIghters are beyond saving even with these mods (you can try to dig for carrier mod in german moding forum).

[RAVEN.myst]

Pretty much agree with you: both drones and fighters are somewhat underwhelming, especially drones. Fighters I don't find so bad, except for the fact that there are no true carriers, as you've noticed. (Again, referring to your other post: in X3 you'll find true carriers.) Drones are weak, and I think are meant to be so, but the player can't counter this weakness with numbers because they deploy in such limited numbers. Also, the player has no control over the drones, which is simply awful. The above all adds up to the drones suffering high attrition while accomplishing too little - they serve as little more than decoys, as far as I'm concerned. Oh, and let's not forget that the combat AI doesn't know how to use them - it just launches whatever it feels like at whatever target it fancies, with no regard for using the right tool for the job - here again, player control could help to work around that somewhat, but it would have to be a damn sight better than what's available elsewhere in the game - as you've noticed with trying to field fighters.

Regarding fighters, I find them handy for defending local-area mining ships (which don't have to travel far from their station), but other than that, their potential uses are undermined by the deficiencies in fleet management.

Yes, a ship such as the Arawn (which, let's remember, calls itself a CARRIER) ought to be able to carry at least a wing of fighters IN ADDITION TO its drones (imo)

[ajax34i]

Neither drones nor fighters.

Gun capital ships, and, for the Skunk, missiles.

[Nikola515]

Drones and fighters are both useless in my opinion....

Drones are slow and expensive for its uses. Drones AI sucks and it cant use them for right jobs. For example it would send Overrun drones against fighters..... Drones should be cheap and sent in larger swarms. I think XR send only 6 at time or at least last time i played.
Only positive thing about drone is that they can add more firepower when OOZ and stupid AI can't blow them up as easily.

Fighters on the other hand are ok but they lack jumpdrive and boosters too keep up for escort. Also they are useless becuse they can't fix them self automatically. You can do it manually but one at time (waste of time). Also they can't keep up with Skunk and they have problem using highways...
On positive side if you assign them to manager it will send them to escort other ships.... This is useful if you are using M size traders. Also it will send them to escort capital ships where they can keep up do to lack of jumpdrive and boosters. Also unlike capital ships AI fighters AI is good. If you have good pilot it can target capital ship weapons and engines. But finding good pilot assign them and fixing them manually is just too much micromanaging. Egosoft should really spend more time polishing this....

[RAVEN.myst]

But finding good pilot assign them and fixing them manually is just too much micromanaging. Egosoft should really spend more time polishing this....

Yes, indeed! And the procedure is not intuitive - for a long time, I couldn't figure it out at all, despite being very experienced - and as you say, it's extremely tedious. A better system needs to be devised (perhaps a list ships and available pilots, with the player able to assign them that way - but this would only work if there was some way to "store" personnel, such as a TP class ship, or a personnel transport capital ship.) As for the repair issue: I don't believe that fighters should magically autorepair, BUT: when assigned to a manager or DO, a suitably skilled superior should be able to automatically send them to the nearest shipyard for repairs, with the cost coming out of assigned budget. Furthermore, if fighters could dock with carriers (which they SHOULD be able to do!), then the carrier's engineer could repair them for cheap or even free while they are docked - as would surely happen "in real life" (and does on aircraft carriers, for example.)

[Nikola515]

They had good idea but as always it was implemented in worse possible way
I think best way to improve this is leveling up system where crew can level up by doing their job. No more wasted time looking for best crew and smalltalk/seminars.

There are many ways to fix small ships and i agree they should be able to fix them self as capitals..... But capitals could use its construction drones to fix them when in squad or they can fix them self when they dock back to stations. For example when you dock with Skunk all ships in squad dock with you and get fixed (or we can talk to engineer to fix them just like skunk). Also if they are assigned to station they can dock back and fix them self. They should also be able to dock in some ships as well....

[RAVEN.myst]

I think best way to improve this is leveling up system where crew can level up by doing their job. No more wasted time looking for best crew and smalltalk/seminars.

Yes, I never understood why this has not been implemented from the start, and even to this day. After all, when someone does a job every day, they either get better at it or they get fired. A system like those in some RPGs could be used, where the skills being used are the ones that improve - for example, a freighter captain that is always travelling levels up his navigation quickly, leadership more slowly, but every time the ship has to engage or escape pirates etc, the captain's leadership and the DO's skills improve a bit; the engineer's skill could improve only when actually doing repairs, maybe... These are just examples, but that sort of thing. Or, they could just take the easy/lazy way out and have all the relevant skills improve slowly over time - even that would still be better, at least, and makes SOME sense (after all, crew could be doing training and studying manuals even if they are not doing some things.)

Oh, and while we're talking about fighters and carriers and such: a player should be able to order owned fighters and M-size freighters/miners to dock at an owned station (or carrier ship) at any time, and leave them there. Also, a station's M-sized freighters that don't have work at the moment should STAY INDOORS where it's safe and warm and there's music - instead of hanging around outside, or wandering around aimlessly, just waiting for a pirate or Xenon raid to come by and destroy them. This is actually where I lost maybe the most M-sized ships, when they are between jobs (for example, when there's no need to buy resources, or no-one to sell to) and therefore not moving, making them sitting ducks.

[Nikola515]

I think there is mod that actually level up crew over time.... Perhaps they didn't add it becuse it would have too much performance issues ? They removed a lots of things from Rebirth from beginning.... For example we used to have texture for crystals but now they removed it and added just regular rocks like ore and silicon.

I would like that too.... There is no point of M/S size ships to fly and get blown up when station have infinite room in them. X3 did something simular but it had limited docking bays.
I really hope they improve this in next title because it would make game much better.