Should fighters really act as cannonfodder?

[Ophiuchus]

Regarding heavy fighters, Oberlus said on github: "Maybe double hangar_4 values? Or triple it. These heavy bombers get 3x less bonus than fighters."

I think that is fine. Use fighters instead if you have a lot of piloting bonus and do not want to target planets. Use main line weapons instead if you want to target planets. Use Heavy Bombers instead of Fighter/Bomber if you have bad piloting species.


Regarding heavy fighters PP cost, Oberlus said on github: "50 is too high, 2x the other fighters. Make it 25?."

Yes, I think I got that wrong. I thought 50 is exactly the PP cost you need to make the twice-Bomber-damage Heavy Bomber cost equivalent to Bombers. But 50 is the PP cost the PP cost you need to make TWO Heavy Bombers cost equivalent. So 25PP per hangar part is what I wanted

[Oberlus]

Yes, it will be always better, but not always worth the extra cost in terms of spending extra external slots/having to build more ships in order to do so.

Example to clear up my mind:
Bomber hangar has capacity 2 and costs 20, launch bay has capacity 1 and costs 10.
Symbiotic hull mounts 2 hangars and 2 launch bays, so launch pattern 2-2-0. PP=12+2*(20+10)=72. HP=10..20 (2..4 bomber shots, say 3).
Organic hull mounts 1 hangar 2 launch bays and 1 armor (better a flak, but that would be OP against above ship). PP=14+20+2*10+6=60. HP=16..21 (3..4 shots, say 3.5).
5 syms (360 PP, 15 hits to die, 10 bomber shots on bout 2, 20 on bout 3) vs 6 orgs (300 PP, 21 hits to die, 12 bomber shots from bout 2).
Mutual destruction.
Add to each fleet enough flak to kill all bombers in one bout (3 flaks could be enough for 10 bombers,4 flaks for 12 bombers), so +2*(12+2*20)=108 PP to sym fleet and +14+3*20=74 PP for org fleet.
Now org fleet only does 12 shoots on bout 2, then nothing, while syms fleet does 10 and 10, 20 hits.
Now slight advantage to syms. There is the extra PPs from the flak on that side, but not enough difference, I expected more advantage to orgs here.

OK, you're right, it could be not worth it if you don't have the right hull.

Maybe sym with 1 hangar, 2 launch bays (2-0-0). PP=52.
3 syms slow launching (216 PP, 9 hits to die, 6 and 12 shots) vs 4 sym fast launch (216 PP, 12 hits to die, 8 and 8 shots).

Now it's not that bad for fast-launching.

Oooook, I'm doing numbers for hangars that hold twice as much as fighters as they can launch with a single bay.
The stuff about slow refilling... not touching that yet.

[Morlic]

The merged PR only updated the player-available weapons.

Shouldn't targets of monster weapons also be restricted?

[Oberlus]

The merged PR only updated the player-available weapons.

Shouldn't targets of monster weapons also be restricted?

Currently, all monster weapons target everything. I think some should be restricted. But such changes should probably come along a revision of monster designs.

Krills (1 dmg, fighter type, ignore shields) targets everything, like Fighters, and that's OK.

Jaws (5 dmg) are in Kraken 1-3, Juggernaut 1-3 and Snail.
Tentacle (5 dmg) are in Kraken 2-3.
Ice Beam (9 dmg) are in Snowflake 2-3.
Spines (20 dmg) are in Juggernaut 3 and Bloated, and in Kraken White/Black.
Plasma Discharge (20 dmg) is in Bloated Juggernaut.

Jaws targetting everything seems OK (low damage, some monsters with Jaws have no other weapons).
Tentacles also seems OK targetting everything (again low damage, and also it "makes sense")
Ice Beam targetting fighters seems odd (high damage, fighters become a great damage soakers), but Snowflake 2 and 3 only have that weapon... Maybe add one Arc Disruptor to Snowflake 3 and make Ice Beam only target ships and planets (like SR_WEAPON_3_1, plasma).

Spines and Plasma Discharge doing 20 damage are clearly meant to scare off big or shielded ships, so these weapons should not target fighters.
Maybe Spines should get a revamp, making it a 3-shot weapon with 9 damage that targets everything. That would make White/Black Kraken and Juggernaut 3 unable to damage ships with plasma shields, more dangerous against chaff and more durable against carrier fleets.

[Ophiuchus]

You could also add flak/fighter weapons.

If the original purpose was that there should at least some damage even against the best shields, fighters seem to be an obvious choice.

Also i think we can be more experimental with monster weapons than with player weapons as access is quite restricted. So using CombatBout valueref in targetCondition should be fair game even for 0.4.10

Eg make jaws 20dam third bout only, spines two-shot 20dam second and third bout, plasma discharge 3 times 30dam only third bout