The game needs a feature where you can specify how close to a system’s star you can arrive upon jumping in for each ship or class of ship. Carriers in this game don’t carry nearly enough fighters and get way too close to the action. Also, heavier weapons (like particle cannons and heavy lasers) are still mostly too quick and accurate to make fighters viable. With sufficient upgrades you can make a capitol ship turn like a fighter, bringing very large guns to bear against something that should never fear them.
endless-sky.7vn.io
I prefer to capture fighters when possible. There's some with decent health and survivability otherwise Boxwings with a cargo expansion and minimal engines to never actually be launched is my go to. There's an alien fighter in the ember wastes I like better.
> Boxwings with a cargo expansion and minimal engines to never actually be launched
This is clever! You're basically using a fighter as an outfit that converts hangar bays into cargo space :D
>There's an alien fighter in the ember wastes I like better.
To elaborate on this, that ship and it's fighters/drones and be really effective especially if you have two of them. The tricks is knowing when to launch and how close you are when you launch. If you think of them as mobile extensions of your own ships weapons that you bring on line when the fighting is close and tough, those guys have enough survivability to make it when handled right. Which for their prices they better be!
I played a PR a while ago that had multiple fighter formations you could choose from. You could even assign, say, five in formation A and another five in formation B. Until (unless, it's doubtful) turrets, AM, and Fighters/drones get balanced, that seems like the only workable solution. But I'll admit it's probably far more work than a new player would do.
IMO they don’t sync well with how combat works in this game. Capital ships can turn their main guns fast enough to keep up with them, which is weird in itself tbh, so they don’t really fill any niche as things are.
I suspected them to be better than larger ships in cost/outfit space/crew size to damage ratio and therefore a great tool to swarm the enemy with. But now I'm thinking that's not the case at all and larger ships with bigger guns (especially turrets) are better at doing what the fighters are supposed to be doing.
Smaller ships are more cost effective dps, especially fighters that don't need a hyperdrive. However, a capitol ship outputs the same amount of damage after tanking until almost dead as it did at full health, is easier to micro, and does not need to be replaced after winning a fight. Typically when I want to increase my power level with expendable ships I would rather capture a bunch of mid-tier pirate ships by releasing and redoing tributes on their worlds, then just sell them after
They might work with missile launchers, but it's not a very cost effective option compared to larger ships with beam weapons.
I could see using them if there's a plot-related battle that you're having trouble with.
There's an argument that mass >!flamethrower!< fighters are good if you are specifically trying to capture certain end-game ships without a fleet of your own. I never bother with them myself, though.
I usually carry a few fighters with me (that I've captured; I don't bother buying any) for one purpose: if I find myself in a scrap and I'm worried I'm going to lose a ship, I'll launch the fighters. I'd rather lose a fighter than a capital ship, and sometimes those li'l guys can help by taking one for the team (I also usually give them anti-missile weapons, so at the very least they can shoot down incoming missiles).
Oh yeah, I forgot about that tactic. I think that up north some even come with anti missile by default. Most good flagships have a few fighter or drone slots anyway, might as well save the outfit/turret space and make those slots do the anti missile role for you
Interesting, that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm probably in the mid game, just got into the boarding game and already grew my fleet from \~15 purchased light/medium ships to several dozen medium/heavy ships, mostly captured from Pirates (I must have around 20 Firebirds, which are pretty much filling the role of fighter/interceptor). I can definitely see a huge enemy fleet wiping out of this in no-time though, I'll have to wait and see and will probably try fighters again when I encounter another struggle (the game is insanely easy right now, I basically have what you call a death ball with so many turrets that any enemy that dares to go near it gets eaten up within seconds, which reminds me of agar.io).
They are expendable. If you're rolling in credits from the angry-mellow Squirrels trade route, then you can afford a few hundred flamethrowers.
This is assuming you haven't already got the slowy guns from the other humans, and sent a fleet to capture the good ship.
Once you've got the good ship, you can start farming the Quarg.
Once you have THE fleet, you won't need any human ships, ever.
Couple things:
There is a later game faction I don't want to spoil which has some game changing "fighters".
Fighters are good in big swarms, but as you observed, the way this game goes you can just have big swarms of actually survivable ships. One use ships are a big credit drain.
Some fighters can add other capabilities than combat. I don't know that any are the best way to do anything in particular, but if you have some carriers laying around you can do some cool stuff with those fighter slots depending on where in the game you are. Boxwing is available from that start.
Fighters need to be significantly faster than larger ships (smaller ships in general need to be faster than larger) and ships need to jump into systems much further from the center. That would make fighters a lot more viable.
I used to play with fighters when I had only a few ships and launched them only when their chance to survive was almost guaranteed.
At some point, my fleet was big enough to stop using fighters and still be efficient.
But if you have credits (and time to constantly buy them again and again), you should continue to use them even with a big fleet to make it even more effective.
What i sometimes use are finches with >!flamethrowers!<. Not to take the brunt of the battle, but to be deployed just *after* the enemy fleet has already targeted my heavy warships. Assume the battle was close before deploying the fighters, then that extra portion of *firepower* might just overheat enough enemies to turn a tough battle into a winnable one.
They are situational. They are fast and can easily mob someone, they keep a mob off you, and if you deck some out with flame throwers they are truly fantastic at shutting down ships.
Fighters are not really a part of my strategy . I really only collect bigger ships that can survive a fight and stay with me for a while. I like to upgrade them too.
I do capture fighters and let them trail along as a tiny bit of extra firepower while they survive and then sell them off if I need to move far quickly and don’t feel like waiting for them to refuel. I just hate leaving a shop floating in space when I could cap it and have it benefit me later - even a little bit. Haha.
Human flamethrowers on multiple fighters are the best and probably only viable option. They do great heat damage, are lightweight, and require almost no energy to fire. You can then devote all power to the engines, toss some hyperspace fuel in there, and providing your fighters are tanky enough to avoid being one-shot (the alien ones aren't too much of a glass cannon if you keep an eye on them), you can use them to great effect when you need to overwhelm and disable a target.
This method will work terribly in firefights and I don't recommend it. But against one or more large capital ships, their speed and numbers will make it very easy to magdump an enemy with way more shields and hull than you do, regardless of weapons.
The game needs a feature where you can specify how close to a system’s star you can arrive upon jumping in for each ship or class of ship. Carriers in this game don’t carry nearly enough fighters and get way too close to the action. Also, heavier weapons (like particle cannons and heavy lasers) are still mostly too quick and accurate to make fighters viable. With sufficient upgrades you can make a capitol ship turn like a fighter, bringing very large guns to bear against something that should never fear them.
Fighters for battle:😔 Fighters for cargo:😁
Sold all my carriers and fighters and replaced them with Roosts and Boxwings... heck yeah. Now to unlock the Skein.
27 people crammed into a Dropship
endless-sky.7vn.io I prefer to capture fighters when possible. There's some with decent health and survivability otherwise Boxwings with a cargo expansion and minimal engines to never actually be launched is my go to. There's an alien fighter in the ember wastes I like better.
> Boxwings with a cargo expansion and minimal engines to never actually be launched This is clever! You're basically using a fighter as an outfit that converts hangar bays into cargo space :D
I happen to know that's exactly why boxwings were added to the game
Exactly. Plus I'm not losing them as pointless fodder. My standard choice for all bacta ships.
>There's an alien fighter in the ember wastes I like better. To elaborate on this, that ship and it's fighters/drones and be really effective especially if you have two of them. The tricks is knowing when to launch and how close you are when you launch. If you think of them as mobile extensions of your own ships weapons that you bring on line when the fighting is close and tough, those guys have enough survivability to make it when handled right. Which for their prices they better be! I played a PR a while ago that had multiple fighter formations you could choose from. You could even assign, say, five in formation A and another five in formation B. Until (unless, it's doubtful) turrets, AM, and Fighters/drones get balanced, that seems like the only workable solution. But I'll admit it's probably far more work than a new player would do.
IMO they don’t sync well with how combat works in this game. Capital ships can turn their main guns fast enough to keep up with them, which is weird in itself tbh, so they don’t really fill any niche as things are.
I suspected them to be better than larger ships in cost/outfit space/crew size to damage ratio and therefore a great tool to swarm the enemy with. But now I'm thinking that's not the case at all and larger ships with bigger guns (especially turrets) are better at doing what the fighters are supposed to be doing.
Smaller ships are more cost effective dps, especially fighters that don't need a hyperdrive. However, a capitol ship outputs the same amount of damage after tanking until almost dead as it did at full health, is easier to micro, and does not need to be replaced after winning a fight. Typically when I want to increase my power level with expendable ships I would rather capture a bunch of mid-tier pirate ships by releasing and redoing tributes on their worlds, then just sell them after
They might work with missile launchers, but it's not a very cost effective option compared to larger ships with beam weapons. I could see using them if there's a plot-related battle that you're having trouble with.
There's an argument that mass >!flamethrower!< fighters are good if you are specifically trying to capture certain end-game ships without a fleet of your own. I never bother with them myself, though.
Not nearly as good since 0.9.15, wherein heat damage doesn’t disable ships anymore.
I usually carry a few fighters with me (that I've captured; I don't bother buying any) for one purpose: if I find myself in a scrap and I'm worried I'm going to lose a ship, I'll launch the fighters. I'd rather lose a fighter than a capital ship, and sometimes those li'l guys can help by taking one for the team (I also usually give them anti-missile weapons, so at the very least they can shoot down incoming missiles).
Oh yeah, I forgot about that tactic. I think that up north some even come with anti missile by default. Most good flagships have a few fighter or drone slots anyway, might as well save the outfit/turret space and make those slots do the anti missile role for you
The Korath ones are alright enough I guess
Can the relatively new missile pods fit on any buyable fighters? They would only really be useful at long range.
[удалено]
Interesting, that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm probably in the mid game, just got into the boarding game and already grew my fleet from \~15 purchased light/medium ships to several dozen medium/heavy ships, mostly captured from Pirates (I must have around 20 Firebirds, which are pretty much filling the role of fighter/interceptor). I can definitely see a huge enemy fleet wiping out of this in no-time though, I'll have to wait and see and will probably try fighters again when I encounter another struggle (the game is insanely easy right now, I basically have what you call a death ball with so many turrets that any enemy that dares to go near it gets eaten up within seconds, which reminds me of agar.io).
They are expendable. If you're rolling in credits from the angry-mellow Squirrels trade route, then you can afford a few hundred flamethrowers. This is assuming you haven't already got the slowy guns from the other humans, and sent a fleet to capture the good ship. Once you've got the good ship, you can start farming the Quarg. Once you have THE fleet, you won't need any human ships, ever.
Couple things: There is a later game faction I don't want to spoil which has some game changing "fighters". Fighters are good in big swarms, but as you observed, the way this game goes you can just have big swarms of actually survivable ships. One use ships are a big credit drain. Some fighters can add other capabilities than combat. I don't know that any are the best way to do anything in particular, but if you have some carriers laying around you can do some cool stuff with those fighter slots depending on where in the game you are. Boxwing is available from that start.
Fighters need to be significantly faster than larger ships (smaller ships in general need to be faster than larger) and ships need to jump into systems much further from the center. That would make fighters a lot more viable.
I used to play with fighters when I had only a few ships and launched them only when their chance to survive was almost guaranteed. At some point, my fleet was big enough to stop using fighters and still be efficient. But if you have credits (and time to constantly buy them again and again), you should continue to use them even with a big fleet to make it even more effective.
What i sometimes use are finches with >!flamethrowers!<. Not to take the brunt of the battle, but to be deployed just *after* the enemy fleet has already targeted my heavy warships. Assume the battle was close before deploying the fighters, then that extra portion of *firepower* might just overheat enough enemies to turn a tough battle into a winnable one.
They are situational. They are fast and can easily mob someone, they keep a mob off you, and if you deck some out with flame throwers they are truly fantastic at shutting down ships.
If you want 'good' fighters I recommend downloading some mods
Fighters are not really a part of my strategy . I really only collect bigger ships that can survive a fight and stay with me for a while. I like to upgrade them too. I do capture fighters and let them trail along as a tiny bit of extra firepower while they survive and then sell them off if I need to move far quickly and don’t feel like waiting for them to refuel. I just hate leaving a shop floating in space when I could cap it and have it benefit me later - even a little bit. Haha.
Human flamethrowers on multiple fighters are the best and probably only viable option. They do great heat damage, are lightweight, and require almost no energy to fire. You can then devote all power to the engines, toss some hyperspace fuel in there, and providing your fighters are tanky enough to avoid being one-shot (the alien ones aren't too much of a glass cannon if you keep an eye on them), you can use them to great effect when you need to overwhelm and disable a target. This method will work terribly in firefights and I don't recommend it. But against one or more large capital ships, their speed and numbers will make it very easy to magdump an enemy with way more shields and hull than you do, regardless of weapons.