Impressive!
How many of those can you load upon a carrier?
They can´t be expensive in terms of minerals either.
How many of those can you load upon a carrier?
They can´t be expensive in terms of minerals either.
Of course, the upside is that it also provide twice the decoys for the Prix.
Will they reload faster?
We can carry twice as many aircraft (20 instead of 10), but they only have 1/3rd the firepower... so it's a trade-off: only 2/3rds as much total firepower, but offering twice as many targets to the enemy, and much harder to hit (9400 kps instead of around 4000 kps). They also have improved FC, and the new Composite Armor instead of the old Duranium Armor. New models of Spitfire and Hurricane are also being produced, to take advantage of the newest Armor, FC and Command Module. Speeds increase by about +1000 kps, with no loss of cruising range and somewhat better firing range.
At 9400 kps they can match the speed of Prix warships as well, can they not?
About 200 kps slower still than the Prix, but essentially yes.
That gives us some ability to pursue the bastards though.
Out of interest how large and fast would a compromise fighter, one with two missile launchers rather than the one or three the other fighters have, be?
We can certainly pursue DAMAGED Prix vessels, and perhaps damage them further... enough for the Fleet to catch them.
So... given six carriers, each of which can either carry twenty of these or twelve heavier fighters with three missiles instead of one... what's the optimum force mix?
Two carriers filled with Gnats and the other four with Spitfires?
Another possibility is to reduce our heavy fighters from three missiles to two, which would add another 1400 kps and allow fifteen instead of twelve to be carried.
judging from the previous engagement it's good to have a fast fighter that can get in range and absorb missiles that would otherwise go towards much more expensive and important targets; in the previous engagement you started pulling back the big ships to wage a fighting retreat so if you launch the slower but better armed fighters at this point their speed doesn't matter that much, they simply got carried into battle then deployed as the carriers start pulling back. I think an extra 1.4k speed (from an initial 4k IIRC?) isn't important here except maybe if it (exceeds or at least) closely matches the speed of our carriers. If they are still significantly slower then chances are if you'll have the luxury of slowing down your carriers to pick up the heavy fighters at X+1.4k speed for rearming, you'll also have the luxury at slowing down to X speed to pick them up. If there is a need for these fighters to be rearmed then at this point it takes 36 minutes which is a long time anyway. So basically if these guys aren't expected to race circles around either the enemy's nor the home fleet you may as well prefer the extra missile which can actually hurt the enemy, as opposed to speed which is not always the best strategic option (a faster plane could also simply allow it to fly towards death more quickly, whereas a missile is always promising to bring more death to the enemy).