Topic: Assigning carrier load outs.

[Rogue]

I've been turning an idea over as of late and wanted to quarry the knowledge base...

Here's the idea... Go through the OP Shiplist and modify the preassigned fighters that SFC carriers come standard with. The reason would be to address the fact that the AI does not upgrade its fighter squadrens in campaign play. I find that when a SCS or CVA pops up you really don't get the pucker factor that should be involved because they are only loaded with the least capable fighters.

So... in the spirit and reasoning of Starfleet Battles could I get my memory refreshed as to the guidelines that were used for that purpose. It seems like I remember that there were restrictions on the use of the heaviest fighters. Something like only 1 in 6 of the fighters could be an A20 or another  leader class of fighter. I'm willing to instal the specifications for some of the missing fighters or I could just use the stock fighters with similar restrictions. If I add in some of the missing fighters I want the development to be even among the races so everyone gets similar upgrades in capability.

As an example... Take a Federation CVA with 4 squadrens of 4 fighters. Let's assign squadren 1, 2 and 3 as Raven 2's. Then assign squadren 4 as Raven 3's. And then with the CVA+ change that to having squadren 1 and 2 as Raven 2's. Squadren 3 as Vulture 2's and then have squadren 4 as the Raven type 3's. That would still leave the Federation SCS to make as evil as you can. Of course this means adjusting the BPV value to reflect the new standard fighter assignment. I would also think that you could make double entries of the more interesting carriers with a different configuration. This assumes checking for errors like using fighters that havn't been introduced yet.

To me this seems like a worthwhile little project that could make campaign play a bit more of a ride. I don't have the SFB modules with the fighter specifications. But I do have Fighterlists that have most of the SFB fighters. If any of you could remind me of the typical guidelines from SFB it would be of some help as to coming up suitable changes. Ideas are welcome of course.

Come to think of it... this might be an interesting step in the Fighter/Pseudofighter mod Rod O'neal created.  

[Rogue]

Rod O'neal, Thanks much! That is exactly what I was looking for.

SFC, being fitted for on-line play, makes sense with the entry level fighters. However, in this fantasy construct we have going for a SFB, the typical fighter compliments for the heavier carriers would look nothing like that. You and I both know you don't happen across a lone Space Control Ship in the first place. On top of that the fighter compliment is a lot more exotic for that kind of starship. Sooo,... I've decided to do something about that. I just have to see how a campaign plays with that adjustment. I do kind of dread going through the Hydrans, though.

Anyway, I appreciate what you had to say as you have gone through this already. Unfortunately this will be a one of a kind spec adjustment as my Shiplist is so custom it wouldn't work for anyone else. That's the reason I havn't played your mod as of yet as my game is in a constant state of flux... darn it. And I have been dieing to see how some of the new fast patrol ships worked out. I'll be giving that a spin very soon.

Peace  

[Rod O'neal]

I'd love to see what you come up with for your SFB ftr specs. As I said, "They have to be approximated." I did it the way that made sense to me. You might come up with something completely different. Feel free to check mine out, borrow from it, or whatever. I had nobody to give input to me when I made mine and you wouldn't believe how many times I re-did it. Like the old saying goes, "Two heads are better than one."
The "Manual Additions and Corrections" file with my mod has all the specs for the added ftrs and PFs. If you'd like seperate copies of the ftrlist and/or the Manual Additions and Corrections file to check out let me know. The ftrlist might be a bit confusing to look at since it has ftrs for all the races, including the PF races in it, and some are double listed etc... The Manual Additions and Corrections file though is pretty straight forward.      

[Sten]

I have screwwed around with SFB style fighters since I got EAW a long time ago.

I basically took the SFB fighter list and created a  fast version and slow version of the fighters. I did not use the EW or the Kzinti AS fighter.

Some comprimises I have made. I changed all direct fire weapons from FA to FH to compensate for the AI doing stupid things.

I use to use the DroM on the F-14,Z-Y, and TADS  variant fighters. Tends to overload the ships drone capacity so I have switched back to using just fighter drones in a different config.

On the ISC superiority fighters the one armed with 2 Plasma Ds I limited them to 1 rack of DroD with 1 shot.

Knowing full well they have 2 DroDs to many. To cut down on the fighters from swarming opposing fighters and incoming drones with excessive Drod firing I limited the firing arcs to FA only for the DroD. So Yea they can kill alot of stuff in the FA arc it cuts down the uberness of the DroD being installed on the fighter.

Another difference between my approach and yours was to use PlasmaF on the torpedo fighters for the ISC. I removed all the Taldren fighters except for some place holders so I could swap my fighterlist around without having to edit my shiplist.

So the ISC are back to having to use two distinct styles of fighters, Interceptors and Torpedo Fighters. Gone are the GATS so now the ISC must recover fighters if they want to continue to use them.

Lastly I have not used any Megafighters in SFC. In my opinion there are way to many rules not implemetned ala SFB to make me want to put them in.

Some of the slower fighters Spd 15 are still usable in SFC well into the late period.

[Rogue]

Rod O'Neal, I'd be happy to share anything I can come up with. I have a massive amount of messing with OP on the agenda. Part 1, finish extracting every specification from FireSouls OP+ shiplist. Part 2, Choose the specificatiions I want to use for my favored FASA models. I don't really want to make up too many specifications and OP+ is a great opportunity to have complete sub-classes of starships to draw from for this purpose. Part 3, reassign the fighter compliment for every carrier in OP. Part 4, rework the SFCSounds.zip one last time. The sound events for heavy phasers and a few others has to be changed.

BTW, I unzipped your Fighter/Preudofighter mod to see what it looks like. Well done guy! I can tell a lot of work went into it. I'm sure I will be drawing on it for ideas and inspiration. And I really want to see what has been missing in the way of pseudo-fighter duels. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to try to duplicate the fighter specs from SFB. If anything I'll probably try to keep it simple. A proper spreadsheet will probably be a great help as I want to keep the base specs for hit points, speed and other subsystems identical across the races. Then give them the race specific weapons and capabilities. Then perhaps give each race a unique fighter.

Fred_of_cyberville, thanks for what you had to say. I copied and pasted that and what Rod said earlier for reference sake. I'm really interested to see what the plasma-d equiped fighters look like. I remember that plasma-f equiped fighters were used in SFB. They were of the sort that were loaded in a stasis box and had to loaded aboard the carrier. Can plasm-f's be limited to a single shot or will they recycle like any other plasma-f?  

[Sten]

Quote:
Rod O'Neal, I'd be happy to share anything I can come up with. I have a massive amount of messing with OP on the agenda. Part 1, finish extracting every specification from FireSouls OP+ shiplist. Part 2, Choose the specificatiions I want to use for my favored FASA models. I don't really want to make up too many specifications and OP+ is a great opportunity to have complete sub-classes of starships to draw from for this purpose. Part 3, reassign the fighter compliment for every carrier in OP. Part 4, rework the SFCSounds.zip one last time. The sound events for heavy phasers and a few others has to be changed.

BTW, I unzipped your Fighter/Preudofighter mod to see what it looks like. Well done guy! I can tell a lot of work went into it. I'm sure I will be drawing on it for ideas and inspiration. And I really want to see what has been missing in the way of pseudo-fighter duels. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to try to duplicate the fighter specs from SFB. If anything I'll probably try to keep it simple. A proper spreadsheet will probably be a great help as I want to keep the base specs for hit points, speed and other subsystems identical across the races. Then give them the race specific weapons and capabilities. Then perhaps give each race a unique fighter.

Fred_of_cyberville, thanks for what you had to say. I copied and pasted that and what Rod said earlier for reference sake. I'm really interested to see what the plasma-d equiped fighters look like. I remember that plasma-f equiped fighters were used in SFB. They were of the sort that were loaded in a stasis box and had to loaded aboard the carrier. Can plasm-f's be limited to a single shot or will they recycle like any other plasma-f?    

If you set plasma F armed fighters to 1 shot they will only fire once and then you must recall them to rearm.

[Rod O'neal]

I'd like to try your shiplist and ftrlist when you feel like it's at least "beta". The ftr specs are really what I've struggled with the most. I think that the stock ftrs, because of the AI, are mostly worthless. Against most of the ftrs you can simply ignore them and go straight after the carrier. That's exactly the opposite, tactically, of how they're supposed to work. If you ignore the ftrs in my mods they'll kill you. Really fast! They can be defeated, but you have to deal with them first. Still, they might be a bit too powerfull. They crush AI opponents. I haven't been able to come up with designs that are both a challenge to deal with for the human player and have the AI be able to handle them. Maybe you can strike a better balance. I'd be interested to see what you come up with.  

[Rogue]

Fred of cyberville, thanks as I'm interested in seeing just that. I've read about some of the interesting damage differences with the plasma D shots. I'll try both and how it works. There should be plasma F assault fighters in this game. At least I think there should.

Rod O'Neal, Sure, I'll be happy to do that. I probably don't know what I am getting myself into but I'm disappointed with the weak performance of some of the most capable ships ever made. The large number of fighter options in SFB will be too much to seriously do and I'll shoot for something a little more conservative. Have you played the latest OP patch? I have to say I was stunned when my opponent recovered, repaired and refielded his fighters. I was never so happy to lose a skirmish as we were bothe down to tradind our last remaining weapons shots with hardly any shields left. It was a fun knife fight. Good job Taldren! I just thought my AMD got him and got a rude surprise. If only the AI would choose something like package a; self defense, package b; captital ship assault, package c; general purpose. Oh well...

BTW, what's the deal with disengaging fighters if anyone knows? I havn't seen it yet but hear of it being reported.  

[Strafer]

Quote:

BTW, what's the deal with disengaging fighters if anyone knows? I havn't seen it yet but hear of it being reported.  

Side effect of removing borderphobia long ago, they sometimes cross over the line and certain borders of the map will cause them to warp out. Not all of them, but I can't recall which.

[Starfox1701]

How did you put DroM on fighters?