Bombers & Fighters: Balance Discussion

Tumbler

Join Date 04/2006

Bombers & Fighters: Balance Discussion

I've been trying to force myself to use Bombers and fighters as a counter to certain ships and what I'm finding is that these units are nearly worthless.

If you deploy fighters they can do more damage to frigates and smaller ships, if you deploy bombers they do more damage to larger ships and hvy cruisers.

The problem is that it's suicide to deploy these units vs cruisers/frigates. They just don't do enough damage to make them a serious threat. With a swarm of bombers (10) plus 2 lvls of upgrades they still spend way too much time flying around and not killing things.

If they are supposed to counter certain units they are the worst counter I've ever seen. It makes more sense to counter certani units with the same unit. Hvy cruisers come in and you need to have a fleet of hvy cruisers of your own. But if you spend some of your points on bombers don't expect that to give you an edge. If anything if the enemy spent the same poitns you did on hvy cruisers he'd own you hard.

These things need a buff if they are going to be useful. As is I'm going to stop using them until something is done. The bang for my buck compared to other units is too low.

Some suggestions:

Bombers/Fighters make straffing passes which ends up making their refire rate terrible. On a moving vessel they should get in behind him and fire continuously. On a stationary vessel they should just orbit it firing constantly. You could also just up their damage so that one pass every few seconds packs a bigger punch and then things can stay just as they are otherwise.

I realize that bombers and fighters are essentially free units that regenerate for free but unless they do more damage there is simply no way they can be useful in this game.

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Tumbler, it IS realistic, and it is a used strategy to have that many strikecraft. Late game, it's not unfeasible to have 80 Carrier Cruisers, and then you count in strikecraft from capitals. And you can still be packing quite a mix of other ships too. And often, in big games with people who play together, you can have someone go full carrier-cruisers and carriers, with someone else having the full combat ships like HCs and all that.

Who are you playing against that sees that you have 80 carriers and they dont' make flak?

20 flak will EASILY stop all those fighters/bombers before they hardly kill anything at all.
And 20 flak costs 1/10th what those 80 carriers did.

Carriers are great.. against newbies.

But you only need 1 flak per 6 or 7 carirers(and the 1 flak costs less than half as much as 1 carrier!) to stop them. It's the hardest counter in the game.

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If a 50 carriers face the same amount of supply and resources in a pure kodiak fleet, sure, they'd probably get whooped. That's not the point. The point is that when you use them, you use them IN CONJUCTION with something else. They're backed up by forces.

Using them alone or using them in conjunction with other ships makes no difference. For whatever points you spend bringing your ships to the battle if the enemy spends a similar amount of points on ships that do not depend on fighters/bombers then you're going to lose the battle. (IMO)

Try taking a carriers with bombers along with a battleship against 2 battleship and watch what happens.

Explain to me how a fleet using carriers will ever beat a fleet without carriers in a fair fight.

The scenario's you describe sound like one side is hopelessly outmatched. If you have the points and logistics to support a carrier fleet that stays in reserve and still have a fleet of ships to fight head to head with the enemy that isn't a fair fight.

I'm going to go try and run a game to test this specifically, we'll send certain battlegroups against each other that seem to be evenly matched. Like say 1 carrier with fighters vs 10 light frigates? That seems to be a fairly even fight. I'll let you know what happens.

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use fighters to knock off siege craft and lrms. Bombers? Use them to knock out fleetless defenses. Actually, a fleet full of kodiaks is exactly what bombers can take out, as the kodiaks can't kill the bombers, and the bombers stay around for a hit or three even after their carriers die, and kodiaks are what bombers are best against.

Flack? thats what your basic light frigates are for.
Rock paper scissors.

Strike craft fleets are for hit and run, not slogging it out.

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Carrier Testing with Bombers and Fighters.

Setup is Advent carrier with extra strike craft upgrades. (first one free)

Carrier with full fighter with at start is 20 fighters. 2 Squadrons of 10 each.

1 Carrier w/2 squadrons of fighters (20) vs 10 Light frigates
Result
0 Carrier / 7 Light frigates remain

1 Carrier w/2 squadrons of bombers (16) vs 10 Light Frigates
Result
0 Carrier / 5 Light Frigates remain

1 Carrier w/2 squadrons of fighters (20) vs 10 LRM Frigates
Result
0 Carrier / 4 LRM Frigates Remain

1 Carrier w/2 squadrons of bombers (16) vs 10 LRM Frigates
Result
0 Carrier / 7 LRM Frigates remain

1 Carrier w/2 squadrons of fighters (20)
10 Light Frigates
vs
10 Light Frigates
10 LRM Frigates

Result

0 Carrier, 0 Light frigates / 10 Light Frigates, 2 LRM frigates remain.

These were straight up fights with both sides starting at full strength and no upgrades on weapons/armor etc. The costs of each force in these examples should be nearly identical.

I stopped at this point. I don't believe these weapons are a good value and in a multiplayer game unless you already have your opponent outmatched they put you at a huge disadvantage.

If you can do some test battles of your own and explain why I'm wrong I'll be happy to listen and learn but these tests seem solid. No matter how much bigger you make the fleets you have an underpowered, overpriced ship in the carrier. It's possible that after upgrading to lvl 4 or so this carrier will fare much better but you dont' get a lvl 4 carrier from the start, it's got to get trhough lots of battles first and a skilled opponent will crush you before you can do anything.

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Hm. Okay. I yield to you then, because it appears I'm wrong.

This, honestly, dissapoints me. I'll probably still use carriers, because I like them.

Have you tried a battleship vs 10 lrms and a battleship vs 10 light frigates?

Or a battlecruiser? Or dreadnaught? I'd be intrested to see how they stack up.

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How exactly are you piloting this carrier that you managed to only take out 3 LRMs? Also worth noting is that it is VERY true that a level 1 carrier sucks ass, since it carries only two fighters, while a battlecruiser would already carry one. Carriers really don't come into their own until they're carrying 5-6 squadrons and have cooperative special abilities boosting their strength. Does this make carriers a shitty investment if you intend to play rush games where people start 2 hops from each other and start fighting 2 minutes into the game? Absolutely.

But if you're fighting this sort of battle by taking your carriers and charging them head first into the frigates and LRMs, you are an idiot.

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I don't tend to use any fighters in a fleet , they just don't seem to be worth anything when you can pack a fleet with a few flaks and they'll accomplish the job.

Bombers however can be very useful , even more so if the AI actually built worthwhile stationary defences around it's worlds. They're also useful when it comes to mopping up
a retreating AI cap ship.

If the devs can clear up the Al's willingness to fight and its build decisions things should sort themselves out (single player wise) As for fighters , im not sure I don't really want to add to the chorus of people wanting nerfs but to me it seems like flaks do the job much better , whilst not taking away from a bomber slot on one of your caps. The only bonus is that they're free I suppose.

(Not a multiplayer)

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The way I see it every credit,metal,crystal point you spend will be spent by the opposing force on something.

You're not really making sense in that quote Tumbler. If I spend 50cr that doesn't give my opponent 50cr. As a general rule of thumb though I guess it is fair to assume two players with equal income.

As for trying to give every unit the same bang-per-buck, that does work for games. A real military planner has to just accept that sometimes you need an expensive counter to a cheap threat or get lucky with a cheap counter to an expensive one. Neither situation necessarily makes a difference to either a battle or a campaign's outcome. I think that means it is OK for games to sometimes have counter-units cost more or less than what they counter, but I have to agree that saying 1 credit is worth some set amount of damage per second makes it easier to balance units in the game.

My personal view on the strikecraft is that I don't get enough benefit from cruiser-size carriers to justify giving them space in my fleet. The strikecraft themselves are winning me games, but from fleets of capital ship carriers and fixed hangar bases. I haven't analysed exactly why I find cruiser-carriers lacking (across all factions), but I think it is partly the micromanagement implied by 1-squadron-per-cruiser and partly the fleet point cost of cruiser-size carriers. By using capital ship carriers I don't get quite as many strikecraft, but they have substantial other benefits. I suppose if my games got into a max-research stalement more often I would run out of capital ship allowance and start using the cruiser-grade carriers as a supplement but vs AI I don't need to and humans will usually quit or concede before the game reaches that point. (Heh, and sometimes I do lose, of course).

I'd like to ask the players who use the cruiser-size carriers to host really big strikecraft swarms what they think of the 1-squadron-per-cruiser rule. To me the only benefit of it seems to be that it does keep the cruiser-size carriers from being mini-capships.

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I'd just like to say that most "experienced" players agree that fighters/bombers from cruiser-carriers are not worth their cost in resources/supply (In the Sins IRC channel anyhow

). This is not to say someone cannot win WITH the carriers, but they would simply win faster/easier with another unit.

The biggest reason for this is that carriers have so many counters since they are wimpy targets that can't fire back (and thus vulnerable to fast ships)...and their not that effective most times because their planes die so easily to flak. So easily in fact that I ignore the enemy carriers in my battles. I simply use my other units (including flak) to kill the enemy's main-fleet while the flak clears the skies. Once their main fleet is dead, the carriers run :0. Why bother chasing something that can't hurt me once the flak clears the sky and their all busy "remaking" their squads?

innociv's post with suggestions for the 1.035 or 1.04 patch is a good place to check if you haven't seen it yet.

-Drexion

p.s. Someone mentioned having 50+ carriers and how that is effective because of one-hit-kills. 50*8 = 400 supply. If the enemy fleet buys 20 flak, using up a whopping 80 supply(for TEC)... those 50 carriers will be highly useless. As a side bonus, even if the enemy has NO carriers...the flak does well against LRM!

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The strikecraft themselves are winning me games, but from fleets of capital ship carriers and fixed hangar bases.

Are we talking about Multiplayer games? If so I'd love to see games where you think strike craft are helping you win because anyone who uses strikecraft against me gets their butt handed to them on a platter.

I've seen my opponent deploy 4 Hangar defenses bases and have full swarms all over my fleet and I walk through them with ease.

I've deployed 10 bomber groups to support my fleet and watched his hvy cruisers and cap ships move around owning everything I have while I may pick off one cruiser for ever 5 kills get gets on me.

They need to do more damage. 2x-3x boost would make them an interesting weapon.

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I have to agree somewhat with Tumbler.

You seem to get so few fighters/bombers for the cost of a Carrier capital ship. Only twice as many as a real capital ship with big ass ion beams and missles.

Even hangers are good for 2 wings (if I remember correctly).

Against the AI, the ai stupidly comes straight in from the jump zone to the planet so I can just put up gauss guns knowing exactly where their planet bombers will go and the gauss is alot cheaper and ALOT tougher than fighters. Actually its amazing how stupid the computer is wasting all its time on my cheap gauss guns rather than going around them.

To me, as in real life, a carrier should be able to field like 24 planes.

Also, for a game supposedly with so much AI, why do the carrier cruisers go right into the middle of the fight when they seem to have no guns of their own. Shouldn't they be smart enough to stay out of range like LRM's and do their deed remotely?

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I'd love to see games where you think strike craft are helping you win because anyone who uses strikecraft against me gets their butt handed to them on a platter.

You're not really advancing your own argument that strikecraft are weak simply by suggesting that people who disagree might be:

1. deluded and just think strikecraft are helping them win when they actually in your opinion help them lose

and also

2. worse players than you and likely to lose against you in multiplayer.

You use your own "war reports" as evidence to support your argument. They'll receive a more favourable consideration if you respect the war reports of other posters.

As for "waltzing". I think you may have misunderstood the role of active defenses like strikecraft hangars. They are not a barrier intended to prevent enemies from "waltzing" past defensive positions. The purpose is to deal attrition damage (if ignored by the attacker) or to split attacking forces while the counterattack fleet arrives (if the attacker engages the hangars rather than their primary target). They compare very favourably with fixed turrets in this game as a defensive mechanism.

I already explained the uses of capital ship strikecraft in my original post, so I won't recap it here.

I would suggest that if you really want to host a discussion of strikecraft balance you should move where it seems to be going rather than sticking on the points you started out with.

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innociv's post with suggestions for the 1.035 or 1.04 patch is a good place to check if you haven't seen it yet.

I just read these suggestions and from what I saw it sounds like they are not doing enough to make fighters/bombers useful. The numbers seem to make the fighters more useful against the small frigates but it's on par with what the bombers already do so what is the point...? Bombers suck against small frigates right now too so the changes they suggest are a step in the right direction but still doesn't make sense to use them.

I'd really like fighters and bombers to hit much harder. I'd like them to bump the damage up 2x on fighters and bombers with the changes they suggested and let us run some online games and see how those work. My guess is that will not be enough and 3x would be a better fit but baby steps are better so 2x first, then 3x if that isn't enough.

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What I've found interestingly enough is that using a small group of bombers as Visari while keeping my fleet in tight formation with heavy cruisers and flak type frigates I can counter any strike craft type group while still using bombers as "assassination" tools.

Example: While this may seem odd, in a 4v4 game as Vasari I did NOT go RA, and instead build 4 (FOUR!!!) Skintara carrier cap ships. Other than that, I massed nearly half assailants and half anti-strike ships (can't remember the name). Flying in tight formation with repair cloud and sending out the ~20-24 bombers (fully upgraded)at their cap ships and then heavy cruisers, I was able to take out every last cap ship from across the star's well before the actual fighting began. My anti-strikecraft frigates literally cleared the skies of fighters while the assailants began to pick apart their mix or LRMs, heavy cruisers (which the bombers would 1 shot per pass as well), and the phase missiles made the second opponents guardians mostly useless.

In this situation, the power of bombers to assassinate important ships while their weakness to anti-strikecraft frigates was used in my favor. While it seems like overkill, microing 4 different repair clouds is actually real powerful, and allows a strong bomber force without the need for carrier cruisers. Obviously there are counters to this set up, mainly flak frigates and light frigates, but in this case I had the scouting advantage and was able to take down a combined force of nearly double my fleet size.

Feel free to comment or flame as you see fit, just one more piece of anecdotal evidence for strikecrafts uses and weaknesses

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He also increased bomber hp by 50%.

You have to be careful with raising their DPS significantly or they will do more of those "1 shot kills" in decent numbers. Raising their durability on the other hand, has a smaller chance of making them "too good". Might just make them last more than 6 seconds against flak

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Does anyone want to play a game that focus's on you using Fighters/Bombers and me not using them? (I won't use flak Frigates) I'd like to play a full game on a small map that has one side using fighters and bombers any way they can while I use a force without these weapons and see if you stand up to me?

I know flak frigates would make the game pointless but I'll use everything but those ships and do my best to beat you and you can report back the results of this game? It's possible there is someone out there who can use these items to his/her advantage and I'd love to see this but I feel confident that the game won't even be close.

You can play anyway you like as long as you make it a point to include fighters/bombers in your fleet.

I'll be online around 4pm PST (3.5 hours from now) and will be looking to play a few games this evening.

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If I'm in front of a computer then I'll check in. Not that I think a battle can settle any discussion, but it's fun and a shared experience is a better base for discussion than non-shared experience.

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While this may seem odd, in a 4v4 game as Vasari I did NOT go RA, and instead build 4 (FOUR!!!) Skintara carrier cap ships. Other than that, I massed nearly half assailants and half anti-strike ships (can't remember the name). Flying in tight formation with repair cloud and sending out the ~20-24 bombers (fully upgraded)at their cap ships and then heavy cruisers, I was able to take out every last cap ship from across the star's well before the actual fighting began. My anti-strikecraft frigates literally cleared the skies of fighters while the assailants began to pick apart their mix or LRMs, heavy cruisers (which the bombers would 1 shot per pass as well), and the phase missiles made the second opponents guardians mostly useless.

Star Gravity wells seem to be the one place that carriers have an advantage as long as they start the battle out of range. Assuming you are on the other side of the well and your opponent wants to attack you...your bombers can be very effective in there because his ships will probably not catch you for a long time.

This isn't a mistake a veteran is likely to make, he'll move his fleet out asap rather than engage where you have the advantage. If carriers had this advantage in other star systems this would be a very different discussion.

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am online if anyone is looking for a game atm

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This is not to say someone cannot win WITH the carriers, but they would simply win faster/easier with another unit. (1)

The biggest reason for this is that carriers have so many counters since they are wimpy targets that can't fire back (and thus vulnerable to fast ships)...and their not that effective most times because their planes die so easily to flak. (2)

Someone mentioned having 50+ carriers and how that is effective because of one-hit-kills. 50*8 = 400 supply. (3)

If the enemy fleet buys 20 flak, using up a whopping 80 supply(for TEC)... those 50 carriers will be highly useless. (4)

As a side bonus, even if the enemy has NO carriers...the flak does well against LRM! (5)

(1) Exactly. Their is an opportunity cost associated with buying every ship. That is why massing LRM's works pretty well, because the equivalent cost of other options just isn't as good.

(2) Strikecraft are countered hardcore by flaks. Unbelievably so. This is why I suggested not using strikecraft in multiplayer, since flaks are cheap.

(3) That someone was me. I was demonstrating that strikecraft work best when there is a critical mass of them so that they can 1-shot ships. Their other strength is their speed and acceleration. A group of carriers can jump into a gravity well, destroy a single building, and jump out very quickly.

(4) Not highly useless, absolutely decimated. Such is the insanity of the hard flak counter.

(5) However, flaks suck against EVERYTHING else. I've suggested elsewhere that perhaps toning down flaks and giving them better damage against a certain type of armor would make them a more useful part of a fleet rather than just a totally insane hard counter to strikecraft.

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i love bombers and fighters i use them every game

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i love bombers and fighters i use them every game

+1.

First, I'd like to say this thread has been informative!

To the OPer. Tumbler, let me say that i give you props for being so persistent! some people (one at least) gave you a hard time for using your original selling point over and over... i think that was effective throughout the read to drive home the point you were trying to make.
2. having read everything on here.... I will have to start messing with my fleet mix now! i am usually Very bomber oriented, and having said that, i have Yet to play a multilayer game. (don't want the ego bruised to bad... i'm scared!) rotf!
3. As much as i love this game, and (also) as much as everyone complains about the AI, a few simple programing parameters would make th AI a Real challenge! I feel like the DEVs for this game are actualy listening to the community and will eventually get it right! (for the majority) there will always be complainers...

Main point> as far as fighters and bombers being the weakest link in the game balance, it all depends on your play style, i know there Should be some players out there that will be able to open your eyes as to the value of the fighter/bomber squadron.... i'm looking forward to seeing you post some positive constructive remarks on the subject once that day does happen.

Peace, (i need to get fraps so i can record my games in WVM) and start playing Multi-player,

Andy

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You need to move the carrier cruisers around, away from the battle where your other ships fight. Keep them circling and keep them away from hostile ships. Don't jump into a system where hostile ships are setup at the entry point. You want some distance between your carrier cruisers and the enemy ships, and you want to keep that distance for as long as possible. Upgrade the damage, and focus with your fighters. You really need always a mixed fleet to get them to work.

I have won multiplayer games with fighters, and once i have more than 10 squadrons, they make a huge difference in battle. Capital carriers cannot sustain much damage, so keep them at the edge of the well ready to retreat. Do that and give us new battle reports.

Flaks will counter them it's true but it takes them time to kill them off (during this time they do considerable damage), and a strategic point of building carriers is to have your enemy build flaks, while you move on to the next tier. And you can always try to micro your strike teams to hit targets away from the flaks, so the flaks keep running around while you blow things up.

Using carriers requires a little more micro, well it's not even real micro, let's call it tactics. You don't just jump in and maybe focus fire. It needs more work than that.

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I have to say I havent played multiplayer, and I havent tested systematically if strikecraft are better or worse than their equivalent fleet supply in other ships. (Fleet supply being the true limiting resource, not metal or crystal). I should also note that I use Vasari, which has nifty upgrades for missiles, which I almost always get, which MAY be influecing my views.

All that said, here is a scenario you might want to test:

Side 1:
Standard Battleship capital, level 1
5 combat frigs
10 LRMs

Side 2:
Standard Battleship or carrier capital, level 1
5 Combat Frigs
X Carrier Cruisers, where X = the supply cost of the 10 LRM from side 1. (So if a lrm is 8 and the carriers are 8, x = 10, but if the numbers are different, you do the math).

Now start the fight at opposite sides of the gravity well and let the AI vs AI fight.

Test 2: Side 1 is in the middle of the gravity well, protecting the planet from all sides equally, while side 2 comes from the edge (is the invader).

Test 3: Side 2 warps in right on top of side 1 at the edge of a gravity well.

After doing all that, you might want to have vasari be the carrier people with some missile upgrades and give equivalent gun upgrades to side 1.

What I SUSPECT will happen is that the strikecraft will be more effective than the LRMs, until short range. Until the LRMs get in range of the carrier fleet, the strikecraft are the only people doing damage. This should decrease the dps of the enemy and give them an advantage. This would be negated in test 3 of course, and then maybe they loose. (Dont know for sure though, maybe they can still pull it off.)

My point is that strike craft are an alternative for LRM type stuff. They have longer range and regen for free as long as you dont loose their mother ship. LRM's on the other hand, you have to rebuy if they die. Of course strike craft have a hard counter of flak ships. I forget what the hard counter (if anything) to LRMs are, but since LRMs have less range and speed than strikecraft, maybe they dont NEED a hard counter like strikecraft do.

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One thing about fighters im noticeing that people forget to mention
As long as the ship spawning them dosn't die.. they replenish themselves.. the fighters are free

Carrior groups make excelent harrasment teams, jump in, launch hit a few things and keep moveing them away from rival ships, you can pick off lots this way for free befor moveing in your larger groups

I tend to use small carrior groups backed by a few point defence ships and 1 or 2 ground assault ships to secure planets left with minimal ship defences..
Most planetary defences can be picked off with time with a small strike force that sits at the edge of the well for free.

As for people saying fighters are worthless.. Vasari Carrior capitals are considerably powerfull with their hull repair ability you bring in 2-3 of them in the center of your other ships.. and it can change a fight drasticaly.. especialy in epic games..

I took a fleet of 5 Vasari carriors and 5 of thier battleships against 3 Tec Capitals and almost 200 ships with them, i didn't even lose 1 of my Capitals, i could outregen the damage they did, admitedly my ships were level 6-7's, considering the effect of thier regen ability stacks.. its kind of broken.
I have also found that the Tec support Capital with a shield regen ability can also be used in a similar way.. large numbers of those paired with carriors can make an insane fleet. now i doubt you would have those kind of numbers in a Multiplayer game realisticaly.. but it is possible

The AI dosn't use carriors effectivly, it tends to run them into a firefight, where as a player will keep them in the back, compairing fleets with the AI will not work, the AI cant handel a player useing carrior fleets as well.. so by that logic carriors are the endall of everything?

Player vs Player best way to compair, and in a small scale fight, yes other cruisers are far better.. however when you get into a larger fight.. haveing 10-20 carriors in the back out of the fight can turn the tide easaly by simply constantly respawning fighters and should your front line ships lose, you retreat the carriors for free the fighters return .. and all your out is your frontline

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