Noob: Fighters covering capitals

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viking42
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Noob: Fighters covering capitals

Post by viking42 » Fri, 17. Aug 12, 13:27

Hi,

If you have a few big ships, firing from all sides towards an attacking fighter swarm,
How can i avoid that my covering M3 wings get huge friendly fire damage?

til now i was using the M3's in wings, is it any better to have all the ships added in a same fleet?

mistervec
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Post by mistervec » Fri, 17. Aug 12, 19:10

From my experience, the AI isn't smart enough to hold fire if your fighters are in the area. If one of your M3's gets between a turret and its target, too bad.

So! Solutions:

1) Don't be in-system. Friendly fire is much less of an issue, though fighters may not fare as well as you'd like due to the vagueries of OOS combat.

2) Don't use flak. If you're going to rely on your fighters to handle smaller ships, then don't use flak. If you'd still like something that will handle incoming missiles and will harry fighters, then consider PACs or PPGs. There will still be the occasional bit of friendly fire, but it won't one-shot your escorts.

3) Try out the bonus pack. The free bonus pack that Egosoft made available includes a function that will cause your ship to automatically fire mosquito missiles at incoming missiles and torpedoes. This, if used with the above suggestion, will help make up for the lack of flak cannons.

4) Use drones instead of fighters. Drones are basically disposable fighters. If you have a way of getting them easily, then losing a few on an engagement won't phase you. You can recover them by having them dock with your ship if you have an available fighter bay. If you don't, then you'll need to manually collect them after the battle.

That's a good start, I think.
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StarSword
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Post by StarSword » Fri, 17. Aug 12, 19:11

Friendly fire incidence really depends on what weapons your capitals are armed with. For instance, if you're using PSGs in Paranid ships, you're better off using your capital solo. :lol:

If you're like most people though, you're going to be arming your M2s with mainly PPCs and FAAs (or PSPs and SSCs, if Terran), and your M7s with (probably) IBLs and FAAs. The big anticapital guns pretty much can't hit fighters because the turrets track too slowly (and I always set them to target capitals only anyway), and the flak guns' range is too short, and unless you're using the CFA/ID combo the flak guns are too accurate to hit one of your ships by mistake.

I've fought a few fleet battles in my day, and I can't think of one single instance of destroying one of my own fighters with gunfire. On the other hand, I did manage to blow away a few Chimeras with a poorly timed Firestorm Torpedo at one point.
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Triaxx2
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Post by Triaxx2 » Fri, 17. Aug 12, 19:27

If that last one hasn't happened yet, you're not an X-player yet.

Honestly, the default AI is rather retarded. I went modified and didn't look back because it's just so much more capable. It's nothing at all against Egosoft though, since they were making a complete game, and those modders could focus on just one aspect.

I like MARS for turrets to make them smarter, and CODEA for fighters, also to make them smarter.

If you want to stay vanilla, remember that fighters are mostly faster than capitals, so sending your fighters out ahead as a screen is the best option.

Of course against larger ships, they'll tend to blow up very quickly.
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Vyrebird
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Post by Vyrebird » Sat, 18. Aug 12, 14:06

I'd echo StarSword - normal cap ship guns killing my own accompanying fighters is very rare. The only ones I can think of were cases where the cap ship was surrounded by enemy fighters, with the friendly fighters chasing - with the capship firing every-which-way, turrets lagging behind their targets, it was basically inevitable for *some* turret's target lag to match one of the pursuing fighters. But that's the rare scenario - the most dangerous (in terms of friendly-fire) turrets are anti-capital guns attacking close enemy fighters, and usually those turrets are restricted to attacking capitals.

FAA, PACs, and HEPTs pose little danger to friendly fighters. CFA is more dangerous, though, and would require more care. I found FBL was more likely to hit friendlies than enemies, but it so rarely hits anything at all, that doesn't change much ;p

Friendly-fire deaths via collisions are a far greater concern (at least for me), either between fighters and the capship or between multiple fighters.

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