FreeOrion

L29Ah wrote:With fighters it's possible to destroy sentinels and any low-tech opponent w/o taking any damage using cheap ships and stealth.

True, but you do need to invest some research into stealth to do it, I have zero problems with maintenance ships being slowly whittled away by cheap fighters, I'm more concerns at the easy you can take down Sentinels with very early game tech: I'm thinking to up the detection of Sentinels to 50, meaning you need better than a Symbiotic Hull and Electromagnetic Dampener—do you think that'd be enough?

I like that stealth can be viable with this, I suspect we need to also introduce something so that players/the AI can detect the above stealth 45 ship in some way before they've got Neutron Scanner (which is quite expensive), I've been thinking of having an in-system stealth reduction element to Radar parts and similar, so you'd get a first strike against visible opponents but then be revealed, I think that would probably be enough.

Also, flak cannons costing only 1PP makes it quite cheap to take down unshielded targets in the early game.

Y'know when testing I completely forgot to look at PP cost for flak cannons, good point, that needs to be adjusted.

Caveat - I pretty much only play 250+ systems, which means I may run into this problem more than average

When you're in a battle with a few hundred fighters on each side, the combat log becomes mostly unreadable with "fighter attacks fighter" taking up most of the space. For me it'd make a lot more sense if those were aggregated per combat round, something like:

27x fighter attacks fighter
44x fighter attacks fighter

Perhaps as a UI option for those, like me, who get into monstrous fighter battles in the late game on the regular.

oond wrote:Caveat - I pretty much only play 250+ systems, which means I may run into this problem more than average

When you're in a battle with a few hundred fighters on each side, the combat log becomes mostly unreadable with "fighter attacks fighter" taking up most of the space. For me it'd make a lot more sense if those were aggregated per combat round, something like:

27x fighter attacks fighter
44x fighter attacks fighter

Perhaps as a UI option for those, like me, who get into monstrous fighter battles in the late game on the regular.

Didnt occur to me yet, but I see your concerns.
Actually this maybe indicates a broader issue. As order in each combat turn does not matter, first do sorting and then maybe aggregating (for fighters).

• first sort by empire (maybe your own empire always first)
• then sort by ship hull
• then aggregate
• then sort by ship design
• then sort by ship name

So you would always have the same order and know where to expect what in the combat report.

Yup, I'd like to see something like a Dogfight: X fighters from SIDE-A and Y fighters from SIDE-B were destroyed by each other, the current long list is relatively superfluous.

It would be good to be able to put different fighter types in the same ship. I wanted to put bombers in one hangar and interceptors in another, but I could not save that ship design.

From my testing, all fighters die near instantly. Makes them very impotent and ineffective. Leaves the carrier left alone as an overcosted (in terms of both research and production) land whale. If they were dirt cheap, i could excuse it as being a budget option... but as is they are VERY overcosted imo.
I would suggest giving fighters 'dodge'. Like a 40% base chance to dodge any attack. And a few 'dogfight piloting simulator', 'onboard fire analyzer', and 'phased evasive maneuvering' research lines (with cheap RP) to add a couple more chunks of 10%.

MatGB wrote:Also, flak cannons costing only 1PP makes it quite cheap to take down unshielded targets in the early game.

Y'know when testing I completely forgot to look at PP cost for flak cannons, good point, that needs to be adjusted.[/quote]
Okay, next step: taking any planet's shield and defenses out is extremely cheap if you can pause your empire capital ship production using the 1pp flak cannons on the cheapest available hull (usually the starting scout one). Then after you've done with the enemy, you just scrap them and go on with your strategic expansion plans, and the game turns into the game of Go with a bit of randomness. I think it should cost about ⅔ of the Mass Driver to counter that.

I like that stealth can be viable with this, I suspect we need to also introduce something so that players/the AI can detect the above stealth 45 ship in some way before they've got Neutron Scanner (which is quite expensive), I've been thinking of having an in-system stealth reduction element to Radar parts and similar, so you'd get a first strike against visible opponents but then be revealed, I think that would probably be enough.

There is distortion modulator, ship part that gives -stealth to ships in same system, but it's gated behind Theory of Everything and is not accessible soon enough. Maybe move it to the same tech as Interstellar Lighthouse, name it say "Deep Scanning"?

L29Ah wrote:

MatGB wrote:Also, flak cannons costing only 1PP makes it quite cheap to take down unshielded targets in the early game.

Y'know when testing I completely forgot to look at PP cost for flak cannons, good point, that needs to be adjusted.

Okay, next step: taking any planet's shield and defenses out is extremely cheap if you can pause your empire capital ship production using the 1pp flak cannons on the cheapest available hull (usually the starting scout one). Then after you've done with the enemy, you just scrap them and go on with your strategic expansion plans, and the game turns into the game of Go with a bit of randomness. I think it should cost about ⅔ of the Mass Driver to counter that.[/quote]

Agree, flaks are hacky. Maybe make them work only against fighters? Encourages less universal ships.

Voker57 wrote:Maybe make them work only against fighters? Encourages less universal ships.

It would be nice if the weapon type could have a broader purpose than a single weapon (same as spinal cannon).
Assume the flak cannon might also target missiles, which would not target fighters.

L29Ah wrote: I think it should cost about ⅔ of the Mass Driver to counter that.

I think you underestimate how weak 1 damage packets are against shields. I would suggest a figure more like 1/3 to 1/4th the price.
Having flak be efficient early game would add a bit more to player's decision to research shields early on.

SkyCore wrote:I think you underestimate how weak 1 damage packets are against shields.

The flak cannon is supposed to be ineffective against everything but fighters. Being the main defence against fighters is the flak cannons primary purpose. Consequently, it's price has to be balanced against fighters/carriers.

Vezzra wrote:

SkyCore wrote:I think you underestimate how weak 1 damage packets are against shields.

The flak cannon is supposed to be ineffective against everything but fighters. Being the main defence against fighters is the flak cannons primary purpose. Consequently, it's price has to be balanced against fighters/carriers.

Yup, but with the current setup, an unshielded ship in the early game going up against, for example, an Eaxaw crewed ship with Flak Cannons will be in trouble as the extra shots they get are scary: and Misiorla are worse.

So, what I'm thinking: Flak Cannons go to 2 shots per, with a mild cost increase, and a tech that increases their shots by one unlocked by or after Laser Fighters.

I think, medium term, that a more thorough review of the relative strengths of the different hanger types, launch bays, etc might be a plan, but that'll need to be taken in the round with other stuff including shield and weapon cost/strengths, for now I'm happy with the relative power of fighters to other weaponry and finding them an interesting addition that, crucially, can slow fights down and not have all fights over in one turn, which was one of the objectives I sought setting out with this.

I'd also like, in the future, to explore different ROF effects, maybe a mid to late game tech that reduces Mass Driver strength but increases ROF, so that early game MD hulls can be useful or you can mount MDs in place of Flak in the later game. But again, not for this Release Cycle.

Yup, but with the current setup, an unshielded ship in the early game going up against, for example, an Eaxaw crewed ship with Flak Cannons will be in trouble as the extra shots they get are scary: and Misiorla are worse.

So, what I'm thinking: Flak Cannons go to 2 shots per, with a mild cost increase, and a tech that increases their shots by one unlocked by or after Laser Fighters.

I think it would be better to solve this particular problem by excluding flak cannons from the species offense bonuses/maluses.

MatGB wrote:Flak Cannons go to 2 shots per, with a mild cost increase

This. At least.