Topic: Can Fighters be equiped with Ship mounted Missiles?

[Magnum357]

After my failed attempt to mod SFC1 to allow all races to use Fighters, I decided to work on a mode for SFCOP.  I'm working on the fighters right now and was wondering if anyone knows if Fighters can use Ship Mounted Missiles instead of Fighter mounted (ie. instead of DroI, could they be changed to DroA,B,etc.)?  I was thinking about messing with the fighter list file directly (instead of using shipedit) so that I can have different fighters use ship mounted missiles.  Is this possible?

[Age]

 I believe the missiles are the same as those aboard ships and cause the same amount of damge.They are just named differently.They just look different.

[Lieutenant_Q]

I believe it is possible.  I haven't tried it out, but you should just change one fighter, pick it for a skirmish and check it out that way.  Some thing I thought, was would it be possible to put FIGHTER Weapons on Capital ships or PFs?  I was wondering what a Bombardment ship with four Phot-Fs with fifteen shots a piece would be able to do.

[Magnum357]

Hmmm... never thought about using Fighter photons on ships.  It says in the manual that they cause 4 points of damage each, so 15 of them would dish out 60 points of leathal firepower.   

I think you may be wrong Age about the damage values of Fighter Missiles.  I found some data on another message link that indicates they do about 4 points of damage if set for Type 1 and do 8 points of damage if set for Type 6.  I think I'm going too try to change the Fighter list file directly too see if they can indeed except Ship missiles (which do more damage).

[Rod ONeal]

Yes. Ship weapons, in general, will work on ftrs. When you use ship drone racks on ftrs though the missiles will use the carriers drone control channels when launched. So, it's easy to overload the control channels and have tracking dropped on missiles when you don't want it.

[Magnum357]

I see.  That is very good to hear.  As for the Channel overload, that may be a good thing if you think about it.  Ship drones/missiles are more powerful, so if you want to load them on fighters you have too keep in mind that they will take up the Carriers missile control points.  This kinda keeps them from being superpowerful as you might as well make all ships carrriers.

Now what about other heavy weapons?  Like could load an ESG and such on a Fighter for example?

[762_XC]

You can put a drone RACK on a fighter, but there's no way to get it to obey any shot restrictions you place on it. It will just keep shooting until the rack is empty.

ESG's on fighters is just to unholy to think about.

[Magnum357]

LOL, ya, an ESG on a fighter would probably be too powerful for such a unit.   

Ok, if Fighters can except Drone RACKS and are not restricted by the number of shots, how many missiles do they normally carry?  What I mean is do they have full reloads? 

Also, I'm thinking about using Missile Fighters on ships.  Is this possible, and how many can they carry?

[J. Carney]

Ok, if Fighters can except Drone RACKS and are not restricted by the number of shots, how many missiles do they normally carry?  What I mean is do they have full reloads? 

You can mod the number of reloads to 0 manually in the shiplist.

A, C, and F racks with 0 reloads had 4 drones per rack.
B racks with 0 reloads had 6 drones per rack.

A and B racks fire once per turn.
C racks fire twice pre turn.
F racks fire once every two turns.

Personally, I'd mount something like 2 DroneA or 2 DroneF on a fighter.

[FPF-DieHard]

Fighters mounting "Real" drones steal drone control channels from the carrier.

Only reason why this hasn't been done in the DH123 Ubber-Cheese mod 

[Magnum357]

Thanks for the info guys.  Good to hear that they take up Drone control points from there carriers, otherwise they would be extremely too powerful in my opinon.

[762_XC]

Tell that to ADB. 

[J. Carney]

Tell that to ADB. 

Well, in SFB, you don't need lightning reflexes to prevent a 200 point barrage of drones from impacting, and can have minutes rather than seconds to plan a defense... not to mention a half-dozen more fighters if you are a fart-breather.

In SFC, it's too much firepower.

In SFB, it's rather balanced.

[Magnum357]

Also, I thought I read that Early Fighters that use Drones/Missiles are limited by their Carriers Drone Control Rating.  Am I right on that?

[Bonk]

Tell that to ADB. 

Well, in SFB, you don't need lightning reflexes to prevent a 200 point barrage of drones from impacting, and can have minutes rather than seconds to plan a defense... not to mention a half-dozen more fighters if you are a fart-breather.

In SFC, it's too much firepower.

In SFB, it's rather balanced.

Good point. Also, there was chaff in SFB, and dogfight drones only went 8 hexes.

[J. Carney]

Also, I thought I read that Early Fighters that use Drones/Missiles are limited by their Carriers Drone Control Rating.  Am I right on that?

Yes...

The Kzinti Attack Shuttle- the original SFB fighter- did not have it's own internal drone control systems, instead using their mothership's control channels. They were viewed by Kzinti High Command as a way to get drones closer to the enemy ship before launch (and thus allow less reaction time for the target to defend itself) without endangering a very expensive warship in the proces by exposing it to close-range enemy fire.