Hangars Regenerate in Combat

[Foefaller]

Depletable carriers serve a gameplay niche of ideally having superior performance initially, followed by much worse performance subsequently. Against a theoretically equal enemy, you should suffer tactical losses (but strategic victories) until the enemy force is depleted enough to not withstand your superior alpha strike.

'Consistent' carriers are just another form of missile combatant.


that is because of real life limitations on airplane limitations that rarely apply in video games. If WW2 carriers were capable of quickly launching all their fighters for a massed strike - like you can in Stellaris - they would have. WW2 planes also attacked once and then retreated - since Stellaris fighters don't use ammunition or fuel, the rational method of employment is to keep attacking as long as you are capable.

Additionally, in pure gameplay terms, regenerative hangars are rather pointless; if a massed strike is destroyed by point defense fire, a wave of 12 fighters or so (from a regeneration tick) will be knocked down before accomplishing anything at all.

As long as the regenerative capabilities aren't close to, equal or better than the enemy's ability to shoot down strike craft, you still have that "Big Alpha, not much sustain" dynamic on strike craft. I don't think people are asking for strike craft to be a different take on missiles, just not a wasted slot in a fight you plan on taking past the point emergency FTL is available.

And in gameplay terms, the fact is strike craft and missiles aren't being used "at all" unless it's early game (even the AI stops using both once it get it's hands on Kinetic Artillery, T3 disruptors and T3 plasma) or someone who isn't aware of how terrible they are compared to other options. Obviously there is the PD side of things that needs looking at as well, but as the OP says, this is a thread for Strike Craft in particular.

EDIT: Your superior initial performance does give me an idea. Historically, the one of the big appeals of Carriers is the ability to project power over much longer distances, attack targets miles away from where the ship actually is, even inland. If Strike craft could be deployed to engage combat on their own, that could create a very interesting dynamic where your carrier fleet can attack orbital stations and an incoming hostile fleet safely from the edge of the system, ready to jump out when the strike craft are driven off or the enemy fleet gets too close.

 

[Cordane]

If Strike craft could be deployed to engage combat on their own, that could create a very interesting dynamic where your carrier fleet can attack orbital stations and an incoming hostile fleet safely from the edge of the system, ready to jump out when the strike craft are driven off or the enemy fleet gets too close.

I'm not entirely sold on the idea that Stellaris should go in this direction, but I did a write-up on what a system like that could look like (also linked in my signature).

 

[Artigo]

I mean, we could use the lack of regeneration to balance strike craft in different ways. Neither of them are good, but here are a couple of balance scenarios that lead to more differentiation:

• Strike craft get their hit points buffed to the point where point defense does not meaningfully erode their damage, which makes them overpowered when used with missiles.
• Strike craft get their damage buffed to the point where despite point defense thinning their numbers they still contribute to the fight with a good alpha strike, which makes them overpowered when the enemy doesn't have point defense.

Strike craft could also be made non-targeted by point defense, but I think that leads to less differentiation rather than more.

These are scenarios that you should have to take into account though. It's like saying energy weapons are overpowered when your ship designs don't include any shields.

 

[AndragonLea]

It's not even a case of "big alpha and not much else" because the fighters don't launch in a dense cloud. They get launched wing by wing one after another and fly out in a long row, making it easy for PD ships (either destroyers or cruisers) or intercepting fighters to take many or most of them out before they even get to their targets.

I'd rather they rebalance the mechanic, take as much damage away as they previously put on to account for the losses and have the carriers launch a new wave of bombers as the old ones get destroyed, because right now they are borderline acceptable when virtually unopposed and absolutely useless when the enemy carries at least cursory PD. They're the worst kind of fire and forget weapons, because you fire them and can then forget about getting any more use out of those hangar slots.

 

[Lothmar]

I really wish my protoss battleship carriers were viable instead of just a fun secondary fleet I jockey in and out of engagements as necessary and have join the army transports once they're spent. *chuckle*

I mean if you have the facilities to maintain and build strike craft, you think they'd be able to build more over time to replace them, granted sure that doesn’t mean you always have capable trained pilots but isn't that why you have AI's? Giving ships with hanger slots the ability to que up more strike craft, even if it cost more minerals/energy would be amazing.

Though figuring out how to work that mechanic so it's not just an autodrain on resources as you need to make new craft so you dont accidentally bankrupt yourself in a war by throwing money at the enemy. *chuckle*

 

[Slynx]

It's not even a case of "big alpha and not much else" because the fighters don't launch in a dense cloud

there is a mod that do exactly this. it adds 3rd type of trike craft: Fighter-PD
this new type of SC just fly near your ship, protecting it from other threats. looks cool.
but the same problem as with normal strike craft - eventually all spawned ships will die, while the opponent will still have infinite number or torpedoes\missiles and bullets

 

[GC13]

These are scenarios that you should have to take into account though. It's like saying energy weapons are overpowered when your ship designs don't include any shields.

No it isn't. Shields protect against almost every weapon in the game. The only weapons that don't are restricted to specific slots and are late-game techs. Point defense only protects from missiles and strike craft, meaning you can very easily face an enemy that your point defense is completely worthless against. Even a fleet designed to make inordinate use of shield-penetrating weaponry would still have other slots on their ships doing damage to your shields.

 

[BrokenGale]

I agree that Hangars need to be able to regenerate strike craft during combat.

But I have to add that the reason strike craft are so useless as of now is because they are the primary targets of all PD. PD will completely ignore all missiles in flight until the last strike craft has been shot down, even if those craft are far out of range. If you want to see this played to absurdity, alter the fighter behavior to orbit it's mother ship and enemy PD won't fire at all (until in range obviously).

With the current rule set available to modding, we can designate how long we intend a flight of strike craft to survive against a particular number of PD guns. This would be all I need to make a balanced and interesting combat choice if the PD guns could be set to target missiles or strike craft interchangeably. But as it is you have two options.

1. Strike craft live longer than a few seconds and all missiles get a free pass through PD screens.
or
2. Strike craft die instantly but give them stupidly high firepower to compensate for the short life span. Which is also a horrible idea because then if the enemy has no PD your strike craft will be stupidly OP.

 

[Cordane]

I agree that Hangars need to be able to regenerate strike craft during combat.

But I have to add that the reason strike craft are so useless as of now is because they are the primary targets of all PD. PD will completely ignore all missiles in flight until the last strike craft has been shot down, even if those craft are far out of range. If you want to see this played to absurdity, alter the fighter behavior to orbit it's mother ship and enemy PD won't fire at all (until in range obviously).

With the current rule set available to modding, we can designate how long we intend a flight of strike craft to survive against a particular number of PD guns. This would be all I need to make a balanced and interesting combat choice if the PD guns could be set to target missiles or strike craft interchangeably. But as it is you have two options.

1. Strike craft live longer than a few seconds and all missiles get a free pass through PD screens.
or
2. Strike craft die instantly but give them stupidly high firepower to compensate for the short life span. Which is also a horrible idea because then if the enemy has no PD your strike craft will be stupidly OP.

Fully agree - that's why I've been putting together a number of different corrections/improvements for missiles and strike craft. Take a look at the first row of links in my signature to see what else I'm wanting people to look at and discuss. I'm trying to keep the discussions focused, hence why there's just a small example of a fix here.

 

[BrokenGale]

I'm already there with you and have commented in another thread already. Though I am focused more or Paradox giving us the tools to fix the problem ourselves. That's on the logic that it will cost them less development and be more likely to happen sooner.

Hangar regeneration and PD target control would allow a mod to fix the place of strike craft in Stellaris.

Missiles are already fixable, and I'd put them on a lower priority to fix than armor pen.