Ship weapon loadout

[primitive]

Since it was a minor flame, I guess I can offer a minor apology

But you still have not understood the point of bluffing and counterbluffing. Fighters you only pay for once, PDC you pay for when built, and then the same amount again in maintanance every 4 - 7 turns. The fighterbuilder got to be pretty stupid not to win the economic part of that game.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by primitive:
"Know when to hold them"
When your enemy have sufficient PDC ready, you hold them. You don't win many battles with them, but you win the war with economics. Strategy gaming at its best

I will agree there is some amount of satisfaction from planning and executing a strategy and having it come off succesfully. Hitting the enemy where is ain't can be quite exhillerating. And you might be able to get them to work marginally if you are extremely dilligent at maintaining the suprise factor and go through the micro managment neccesary to pull off the plan you have suggested here. But fighters aren't effective unless the enemy is totally unprepared for them. The plan you suggest depends too much on the enemy doing something to fall into your trap so to speak. It will work if they are unprepared, but will be a failure if they are, and isn't noticably cheaper in resources, isn't noticibly faster really, and has a lot more work involved in setting it up. The alternative, ships and no fighters, well, just works.

Maybe I am wierd, but I don't stop putting a couple of PDC on every warship just because the enemy stops, or never starts, using fighters and missles in a game. If the players you are facing do that, it would explain why you have success with fighters. I suspect it's just generally your level of skill though and not the fighters. I have faced you a few times and remember you to be a tough fight with or without them.

I'd love it if fighters could be effective longer into the game, but as far as I have seen in the stock game they aren't.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by primitive:
Fighters you only pay for once, PDC you pay for when built, and then the same amount again in maintanance every 4 - 7 turns. The fighterbuilder got to be pretty stupid not to win the economic part of that game.

Not really, because to have a noticible effect economically you have to have enough fighters to make him alter his designs, to use more pdc then he would otherwise. If he's just always building ships with a couple pdc either way and you don't throw enough fighters at him to overcome that, you aren't doing anything at all. And even if you did throw more fighters are him, you are in fact makeing it cheaper for him because pdc are cheaper by a significant margin then other weapons he might have otherwise chosen.

If the fighters were a viable threat then the slightly smaller amount you are spending would be a significant difference. Instead, you end up paying a little less, but get a lot less in the way of effective offensive punch. That isn't really a good tradeoff.

[ January 23, 2004, 19:38: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Paul1980au]

I would like to see a greater expansion on fighters and perhaps linking in with mines, drones and satelites ? fighter type a can pick up sats and move em around during combat ?

[Wardad]

The enemy's combat bonuses are the bane of units.

A single talisman can really help a stack of 100 SATs or a stack of WPs.
In one game I hoped to use the talisman SAT stack, but there were too many warp points. Also by time I got the talisman the enemy was well on the way to getting the warp point creator.


In fact the combat bonus system is so unbalancing, I blame it for killing interest in the game.

[ January 23, 2004, 19:52: Message edited by: Wardad ]

[Fyron]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Not really, because to have a noticible effect economically you have to have enough fighters to make him alter his designs, to use more pdc then he would otherwise. If he's just always building ships with a couple pdc either way and you don't throw enough fighters at him to overcome that, you aren't doing anything at all. And even if you did throw more fighters are him, you are in fact makeing it cheaper for him because pdc are cheaper by a significant margin then other weapons he might have otherwise chosen.

If the fighters were a viable threat then the slightly smaller amount you are spending would be a significant difference. Instead, you end up paying a little less, but get a lot less in the way of effective offensive punch. That isn't really a good tradeoff.

This is pretty much what I would have said.

Maybe I am wierd, but I don't stop putting a couple of PDC on every warship just because the enemy stops, or never starts, using fighters and missles in a game.

No, you are not weird. That is the only strategically intelligent way to play. Stop using PDCs and you are just asking your enemy to stomp you with missiles and/or fighters. Not using any PDCs is always a bad idea. That is not a blanket statement anyone could argue against very successfully, unless they want to bring in weird stuff like disabling fighter and missile techs.

[ January 23, 2004, 20:02: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[primitive]

Geo (and Fyron)
Believe what you will. I have seen plenty of players overreact to the early fighters and overextend their economy, and I have seen some loose vital systems because they dismissed fighters as useless. I have also seen a few guessing just right and neutralized the threath with minimal cost.

Point is: I, as the fighter builder sit with all the cards.
If I build more fighters than you build PDC, I have a potent weapon.
If You build more PDC than I build fighters, You have to pay extra maintanance.
Either way I win

When it comes to late game fighters, it's true they are micromanagement hell. That is why I seldom choose to use them, but it does not mean they are useless. There are plenty of small dirty tricks that makes limited use of them very effective as decoys or weapons. But as I do not believe they are any good as the main fighting force.