(feature request) Destroyers repair fighters

[chew-ie]

Being forced to fly a fighter was luckily over with X² as very nice new ship classes with a wide array of customization were added. (not counting X:Tension as I barely played it).

When flying myself, fighters are shuttles for me, nothing more. And even for that I actually prefer the S trade ships

For my NPCs carriers + fighters are still a good choice, so a fighter-repair function for destroyers would be appreciated for the early game.

[Raptor34]

How many people actually enjoy flying fighters and are not just forced into them though?
If you look at daily drivers, ever since X3 where you can actually land M6 everywhere, that size and up seems to be the preferred option.

Edit: Wait a minute. If you remove TDs from heavy fighters and have carriers carry them, that would basically force your carriers to enter close combat regardless. Because any sort of range would basically come back to the issue that they just can't get anywhere fast.
Basically fighter interdiction and power projection basically becomes impossible after this. And any sort of range would basically force you to use M class ships as your primary force. But considering the damage they take from L class ships, especially Xenon Graviton turrets, this basically neuters any sort of variety.
Have any of you proposing this fully thought out all the ramifications?

[GCU Grey Area]

How many people actually enjoy flying fighters and are not just forced into them though?
If you look at daily drivers, ever since X3 where you can actually land M6 everywhere, that size and up seems to be the preferred option.

Not quite. In a recent poll on preferred ships the general order was M ships, then S, while L ships came 3rd. Incidentally this also tends to be my preferred usage pattern. Mostly I fly frigates, however I'm also happy to fly a fighter or destroyer when circumstances warrant it. For fighters that tends to be when I'm looking to steal someone else's S or M ship (as I understand it I have better odds of a successful capture if I fly an S) or when deploying sats etc, while a destroyer is often the better option when going to war. Although the poor manoeuvrability of L ships is something I can only put up with for so long & often end up ditching it for an S during big fleet battles (makes the battle a LOT more exciting).

[Raptor34]

How many people actually enjoy flying fighters and are not just forced into them though?
If you look at daily drivers, ever since X3 where you can actually land M6 everywhere, that size and up seems to be the preferred option.

Not quite. In a recent poll on preferred ships the general order was M ships, then S, while L ships came 3rd. Incidentally this also tends to be my preferred usage pattern. Mostly I fly frigates, however I'm also happy to fly a fighter or destroyer when circumstances warrant it. For fighters that tends to be when I'm looking to steal someone else's S or M ship (as I understand it I have better odds of a successful capture if I fly an S) or when deploying sats etc, while a destroyer is often the better option when going to war. Although the poor manoeuvrability of L ships is something I can only put up with for so long & often end up ditching it for an S during big fleet battles (makes the battle a LOT more exciting).

I'll note that the S at the top is the intentionally OP X-Shuttle. And the Moreya which I guess is more in line with what I think of when it comes to fighters. But most of the top are M ships.
And I'll note that it says M class is at the top by a significant margin.
This does basically agree with what I'll state now, that is most people prefer M class ships and that there isn't actually that many people who like to fly around in fighters.
Which I'm not surprised, because in X3 and up, there isn't actually much meaningful distinction between corvettes and fighters, since corvettes are basically fighters, but better. Not since you can dock anywhere in the former.
But well, I guess there isn't really that many missions that demand you take an S around. I still remember that time doing the Timeline QUE quest in a frigate and then they asked me to dock at a Phoenix... One of the few times where the S/M distinction is important. Also annoying because why the **** can't I comm them. I actually spent a bit of time comming the captain wondering why it didn't work.

[GCU Grey Area]

This does basically agree with what I'll state now, that is most people prefer M class ships and that there isn't actually that many people who like to fly around in fighters.

Latter assertion is not necessarily true. We simply don't have sufficient info to make that determination, poll just indicates that M ships are the most popular & that S ships tend to be more popular than L for personal use. Furthermore, just because many people voted for M ships does not indicate that they don't also enjoy flying ships of other classes. I thoroughly enjoy flying S ships myself (& do so quite frequently), although in that poll I voted for Falx & Cobra. Would be very surprised if I was the only one who enjoys flying ships of more than one size class.

[Feloidea]

I'm emphatically with Nanook on this one. S fighters without travel drive would make the game incredibly tedious and unfun. Arbitrary rules about what S ship may be permitted to have a travel drive or not do not make it any more palatable. I'd even go further and call it unnecessary gate-keeping ... an especially eggregious example even considering this is a singleplayer sandbox game where if you can freely place restrictions on your own playstyle if you so wish or mod it as you see fit (the game hardly railroads you into a specific META in order to keep up with NPC factions!). An earnest discussion in making S fighters worse simply because some players in endgame state playthroughs are struggling to justify the role of carriers and/or efficacy of destroyer fleets is as misplaced as the assertions that most people don't enjoy personally flying S fighters (or that they'd only enjoy flying unique and exceptionally powerful fighters).

If anyone feels strongly enough to propose balance changes that go beyond self-imposed limitations, then I suggest you work on proposals that add to the playability and enjoyment of all facets of the game, not make one experience notably worse in exchange for another performing better by comparision.

[jlehtone]

How many people actually enjoy flying fighters and are not just forced into them though?

That both is and isn't related to the OP, in a way. Isn't the question: Should we or should we not be forced to "invest a bit more"?

Should we feel a need to "move up" from fighter to frigate?
Should we feel a need to "move up" from escorted Destroyers to escorted Destroyers that have Aux or Carrier as support?

Isn't the more common issue that in no time we have billions of credits and thousands of ships, and nothing more to move up to?

[Raptor34]

How many people actually enjoy flying fighters and are not just forced into them though?

That both is and isn't related to the OP, in a way. Isn't the question: Should we or should we not be forced to "invest a bit more"?

Should we feel a need to "move up" from fighter to frigate?
Should we feel a need to "move up" from escorted Destroyers to escorted Destroyers that have Aux or Carrier as support?

Isn't the more common issue that in no time we have billions of credits and thousands of ships, and nothing more to move up to?

But are players forced by the game, or are they forced by themselves.
I did not make that statement blindly, it's anecdotal, but I'll note that in X3 you hear a lot about Hyps, Springblossoms and HCPs. And in X4 its all about the Katanas, Dragons and Nemesis, and I guess Hydras now according to the poll but I wasn't that plugged in to the forums at the time. How often do you hear the player talking about Takobas and Mambas? Most if not all context I hear player talking about fighters is about AI control, not personal control.

But coming back to it, in X3 iirc you definitely need to tech up, because higher ranked combat missions demand a more robust ship, consequence of the spawning system. Yet in X4 it doesn't, not really, you can do fighter combat and just run away from the big boys, assuming you don't want to deal with them. And also we have the S only Burst Ray too for anti-capital combat. But well, again anecdotal, you rarely hear players flying fighters in the end game.

[chew-ie]

The new Mini-DLC "Hyperion pack" introduces a S dock with repair and restock abilities - maybe there is hope for our destroyers to get the same treatment!

[azaghal]

This topic got derailed quickly, which is a bit of a pity. Back to the original topic... It would be nice to be able to repurpose some of those larger ships to behave as ad-hoc carriers. Heck, even non-combat ships could be interesting in such a role during early game. One way to make that possible without unbalancing things would be to have some kind of drawbacks introduced. For example, having to replace one or both main guns to make room for repair equipment, maybe the ships would not be repairable to 100%, maybe their flight statistics would be affected etc. Even the various ship modifications could be introduced to counter or affect some aspects of carrier-related statistics and behaviour. Some of the internal storage capacities could be reduced so that carriers still present clear advantages, or maybe the carriers should be remodeled to make their launching and docking capabilities better. But in general - I would love to be able to run a kind of ragtag fleet of carriers and other ships in a pirate-style play-through.

To give some anecdotal examples on destroyers as carriers and how new (uncorrupted) players might reason, on my first play-through I managed to grab myself a SCA Behemoth during early/mid game - almost by accident (destroyer attacked one of my ships, I got annoyed, managed to disable its engines, turrets etc, and actually had my traders/miners launch boarding parties at it). At that point I did not necessarily know that carriers are a separate thing of its own in the game. I saw Behemoth having four landing pads, and capacity to carry 40 fighters, so I figured it will do fine as a carrier. It acted as pilot training fighter carrier for me in Hatikvah's Choice I. The problem with this was that some of the behaviour patterns did not quite align with the carrier (for example inability to have reactive docking/launching etc - this was version 6.20, and I was still in early stages of trying to understand the game mechanics). In fact, it took me a very long time in that play-through before I finally decided to dish out proper money for a real carrier.

More generally speaking, personally I feel like some of the ship role progressions/mechanics are a bit forced/artificial - like the carriers and especially the auxiliary ships.

P.S.
As for the whole flying preferences spin-off... Personally, I enjoy and like using fighters more than the corvettes and frigates. Flying feels better with them, especially when using a joystick. The only reason why I end up going for larger ships like corvettes and frigates is survivability and ability to carry additional ships around with me so I can switch to them on-demand. In last play-through my main ship in use ended up being a heavily modded (for speed etc) Moreya.

[vvvvvvvv]

Part of the fun of games is having to make choices and deal with

We already have ships with no travel drive in the game, and the practical result is they are not being used. Those are racing ships from timelines, with exception of Dart. In my experience, early game was not about making choices, but figuring out how things even work. For dozens of hours.

I recommend to play X Rebirth. Explore Torride in the Albion Skunk. It is completely unfun. Skunk has max speed of about 320 m/s, and no travel drive. There's boost, but you'll spend eternity waiting for it to recharge. Novelty of this wears off in about 15 minutes then the only thing that remains is boredom. It doesn't help that Torride has navlines which wreck navigation of cap ships, meaning you cannot use cap ship as taxi there either (cap ships in rebirth have infinite boost, but you can't control them).Now... the most distant sector is ... I think... 500 kilometers away, so it'll take half an hour to get there. Actually I think it was a full thousand. Meaning a hour to fly to it. The sector also designed with assumption that you'll explode gas clouds to discover zones in it. Which is not interesting in practice.

So your suggestion will effectively delete ships from the game. Because player will not be using a ship without travel drive as their main. It is, in general, a good idea to occasionally stop and ask yourself "how is this going to be fun".

----

Going back to the OP's question, I think an interesting mechanic would be being able to use repair drones on other ships. That could make some of the frigates more useful.

[Raptor34]

Which again is why I think having internal loadout slots is a better idea. Think about it, removing TDs from fighters is equally as arbitrary as only carriers being able to repair fighters and have all that carrier stuff.
So if you have internal loadout slots instead, you can instead have a TD bay, though for X4 you can also just have specialized short range combat engines which forego TD entirely in return for better thrust and boost and all the short range combat stuff. It'll be an actual choice for the player, do I want TD for general purpose use? Or do I ditch it for shorter range purposes?

And coming back to the OP topic, you can have a fighter repair bay which gives fighter repair, a flight command center for reactive docking. A carrier can either have these built in or have reduced costs for fitting them. And for a destroyer you'll instead have alt choices like improved power plants or something that actively contributes to direct combat. But if you only own say a Behemoth or something, then you might want to trade out for fighter related stuff to be more a jack of all trades. This would both open up customization and also make things less arbitrary. Though for the record I assume carriers already do have repair bays and a place for fighter command which is why they can do carrier stuff, it's just not shown in game. But then you also look at the Osaka's description which describes how some destroyers and battleships, though not the Osaka itself, also has space for a command staff and all that so it's all a little weird.

[jlehtone]

Which again is why I think having internal loadout slots is a better idea.

Why not go fully modular (like stations)? Every feature and function a module, so you could do as small and bare or huge and loaded as you like. Granted, the only differences between factions that would remain are the colour and perhaps the combos that the NPC assemble.

[Raptor34]

Which again is why I think having internal loadout slots is a better idea.

Why not go fully modular (like stations)? Every feature and function a module, so you could do as small and bare or huge and loaded as you like. Granted, the only differences between factions that would remain are the colour and perhaps the combos that the NPC assemble.

You're missing the internal part. Factions would differentiate themselves with both how much space they have internally and also things which are inherent to the hull itself like HP, drag and mass. Some games even have shields being inherent to the hull itself and shield gens only provide recharge, that's another avenue you can go with, though also really irrelevant here since we already have customizable shields.
You could also just forego internals entirely for a faster and nimbler ship if you make the modules have mass, which they should. Not really relevant for a player ship, but for AI ships you might want to build cheaper and they really do not need all the bells and whistles.

[Nanook]

... as arbitrary as only carriers being able to repair fighters and have all that carrier stuff....

It's not at all arbitrary. Carriers are designed with equipment needed to make repairs. Putting that same equipment on a destroyer means not having sufficient room for other 'destroyer things', like big guns and the energy system to fire them. Not to mention, in the X-Universe, dedicated carriers are much larger than destroyers (with the exception of the Asgaard which has a much bigger gun than any other destroyer) so that they can carry the equipment, the ship's crew, and the fighters (with their crews) needed to perform their jobs. I see nothing arbitrary about it. To the contrary, I think the devs thought it through rather carefully.

[Raptor34]

... as arbitrary as only carriers being able to repair fighters and have all that carrier stuff....

It's not at all arbitrary. Carriers are designed with equipment needed to make repairs. Putting that same equipment on a destroyer means not having sufficient room for other 'destroyer things', like big guns and the energy system to fire them. Not to mention, in the X-Universe, dedicated carriers are much larger than destroyers (with the exception of the Asgaard which has a much bigger gun than any other destroyer) so that they can carry the equipment, the ship's crew, and the fighters (with their crews) needed to perform their jobs. I see nothing arbitrary about it. To the contrary, I think the devs thought it through rather carefully.

Read the rest of what I wrote.
And my point was that their restriction to fighters is the same as what they say for carriers.

[vvvvvvvv]

You're missing the internal part. Factions would

That resembles Elite Dangerous. However we already have a portion of that system, where weapons, engines and shields are swappable. There are also mods, which resemble engineering. Altering everything would be probably too much hassle, though it is not difficult to imagine one configurable ship.

The main question would be - what part of this is fun, and what problem is this introduction trying to solve. Because the system existing in elite dangerous had its own problems.

[Ryver_cryx]

Please consider fighters being repair at destroyer. (they dont have to re-arm, that can be left to carriers).
If you have 5 Behemoth's, thats 40 fighters to manually repair.

i agree and dont agree at the same time, maybe allow it but have the repair speed lowered to 5-10% in comparison of a carrier or aux ship