Ophiuchus wrote: ↑Sat May 30, 2020 10:17 am
comparing against max damage is not really valid
Why not? That's how I do it always. Just in case: I mean maximum full-combat damage for the whole "weapon" (so the whole set of fighters from an hangar), I'm not talking about damage per shot.
With current three bouts, an un-countered fighter will be shooting at the enemy for 2 bouts, while if it is killed asap it will shoot just one bout, so either 100% or 50% damage.
With four bouts, it shoots between 3 and 1 bouts, hence between 100% and 33% of total damage output per part.
For 6 bouts, shooting 1 out of maximum 5 bouts, between 100% and 20%.
The more bouts to put in, the harder to balance that without messing with more stats (costs of parts, fire rate of PDs, fighters per hangar, etc.)
Ophiuchus wrote: ↑Sat May 30, 2020 10:17 am
we could double the fighter damage if that theory is valid (so a 6-2-1-2).
Absolutely not, that would be totally broken: it would make PD defense mandatory since un-countered bombers would be wreaking havoc like no other weapon. If any fool would not mount PD, you could send bombers for 1/4 of the cost of the enemy fleet and destroy everything.