Small Fighters (XR discussion split from 'seamless' thread)

This forum is the ideal place for all discussion relating to X4. You will also find additional information from developers here.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Kitty
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon, 5. Sep 05, 19:59
x3tc

Post by Kitty »

Killjaeden wrote: In vanilla it was always: Spam a carpet of slow ass bullets, hope for enemy to fly into it - if he does, bueno he is dead. If he doesnt - well your lasergenerator is now empty. Completely overpowered weapons like the flamethrower PBG (which did more damage the larger the target is) and the PBE increased this issue considerably.
I wonder if we can really critic LPHE and PBE at the same time. If you like dodge-fight, then you should like the LPHE, and a wing of PBE equiped Xenon is a little pleasure killer (until you realize that this makes you think more to find a way). If you don't like dodge-fight but just want to shoot to kill, then PBE is a good weapon.
Personnally, I really find the flamethrower as overpowered, and I think that the PBE should not make it on M4 (on M3 it is OK). But this is just a matter of tuning. And LPHE are great weapons, slow enough to be avoided by good pilots, powerfull enough to justify a M3 cost.
In X2 and X3, the thing is: with a good pilot and a good armament, you can beat the class just above in one vs one. Yesterday again, I was in a Mamba vs a Khaak corvette. Long fight, long pleasure. Next oponent was a M7 Xenon with its escort, i flew away. And I'm happy of that. (I'm less happy to see that an "easy" patrol lead to fighting a M6 and a M7 with my mamba alone) Where would be the pleasure if you could beat any ship with any other ? About flamethrower, just a thing: you see them from afar if used, and you can scan the ship if you're near: your scanner is more than 4km range, this weapon is less than 1km range!

This game is not just a shoot them up. Skill is important. Thinking also.
Scoob
Posts: 11180
Joined: Thu, 27. Feb 03, 22:28
x4

Post by Scoob »

In XR, I recall NPC Fighters being very effective in numbers vs single Capital Ships. I've seen pirates totally disable larger ships.

The key difference between X3 and XR is surface element destruction of course. In X3, you might have noticed that fighters do indeed target turrets quite often during a fight. However, this is of zero relevance as it's still the same shield and hull going down. In XR this tactic become very effective vs. a simple direct hull attack.

For me, the issue seemed to be that pure AI fighter squads would generally be very effective at disabling their target Capital Ship. However, my own fighters tended to be far less effective. More explicit "Attack turrets" commands are needed really, ideally a distinction between heavy and light turrets.

Furthermore, a nimble fighter should be aware enough (pilot skill a factor) to avoid many of the much slower, heavy damage Plasma weapons, given enough time to react. There was an excellent mod for the original X3 that did just this. Seeing your fighter aware of incoming fire and able to dodge it was quite amazing...sadly this mod never made it into the later X3 games, nor into the general AI.

In my view, fighters - unless specialising in the role - should struggle vs. the heavy main shields and thick hull of a capital vessel. The damage reduction (or simply the massive hit point value / shield strength & regen rate) vs. their weapons of a capital hull and shield making them largely ineffective. However, vs. the light surface element shields and the un-armoured turrets etc. they should work well.

Any capital ship equipped with explicit anti-fighter weapons, so a faster / instant bullet speed, should perform as expected though.

Scoob.
A5PECT
Posts: 6191
Joined: Sun, 3. Sep 06, 02:31
x4

Post by A5PECT »

In XR, heavy, capital-class turrets (particularly beam weapons) were ridiculously powerful against fighters. Their tracking speeds were slow, but if a fighter wandered into their line of fire for even a moment they were toast. It feels like the weapons were designed as anti-capital in nature, but were a little too effective outside of their intended role.

I'd like it if heavy weapons like that were more dedicated to their role, rather than being a catch-all "kill anything and everything" button. In order for a heavy weapon to fire, there would be a brief delay (1 or 2 seconds) after lining up a target where the turret rotation is locked and the weapon charges before firing. That wouldn't impact their effectiveness against large, slow targets, but make them much less effective against small ships at close range. Fighter groups would then be an effective counter to heavy battleships.

Another option would be to restrict the range of rotation on heavy weapons. That way, a capital ship would have to be maneuverable enough to track a target in order to consistently attack it. The Sucellus operated this way, though for larger, even less maneuverable ships you could limit turret fields of fire to cones rather than going all the way to static, coaxial guns.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step in figuring out how to make it worse.
User avatar
ezra-r
Posts: 3423
Joined: Fri, 14. Oct 05, 21:04
x4

Post by ezra-r »

The feeling I get with small ships in rebirth is that they are just small drones, not sure if it's a perspective thing or what, but in previous X games, small ships, even the M5 ones looked much bigger than in Rebirth from the player standpoint, no matter if I was flying an M2 or an M6, M5 ships never looked tiny little flying bees, which is the feeling I get in Rebirth.
Alan Phipps
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 31785
Joined: Fri, 16. Apr 04, 19:21
x4

Post by Alan Phipps »

I think much of the massed fighter vs capital ships discussion here actually reflects what should be the role of cheap and more easily replaceable drones deploying from specialised drone carriers such as the Suls. There is no doubt that such a tactic could augment, or be augmented by, other forms of attack too.

If in the game mass drone attacks from drone carriers could be made to launch and assault more sensibly (which is already the subject of developing mods, I believe), then the role of fighters could more correctly be left to anti-fighter and anti-bomber duties or for attacking an enemy's tradeships.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.
Kitty
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon, 5. Sep 05, 19:59
x3tc

Post by Kitty »

There is a game to experiment various strategy with different classes of ships:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/41800 ... e_Battles/

You can win with swarms of small ships. But you'll loose many of them. Your choice.

I think the same result applies to many games. Small ships are just that: small ships. They are cheap, have low power, and WILL be destroyed. Big ships are just that: big ships. They are resistants, they can destroy small ships in a matter of seconds or less, they won't be hurt by a simgle small ship but cal be severly hurt by a swarm.

Balancing the game for this is quite difficult. I think EGOSOFT succeeded more or less in X2 and X3 (don't know about XR, I was too quickly fed up by the walking and uninterest by the skunk to continue past a very short time). They can do better, yes, but it's OK.

PS: you know what ? since I like profitsss in X3, I tend to use some maxims like:
- if you can beat this with two ships (and loose one), send four (and loose none) [loosing a 1Mn ship on a mission paid 1.4Mn is not good management]
- if you can win with no missile, don't use them [guns are free]
- don't send M5s, send drones, or nothing. [M5s are scout, and too expensive to be considered as expandable compared to drones]
- a good jump drive is better than a poor salvage insurance

Return to “X4: Foundations”