Strike Craft Need Some Love, Cherryh 2.0

[bbswfan]

I would by far rather have fighters target other fighters first. Makes giving your bombers a fighter escort meaningful.

From the perspective of the bomber that certainly makes sense. The argument can also be made from the perspective of the carrier that launched the fighter though, and that the carrier would much rather see the enemies bombers die first before its fighters. I guess if you wanted to mimic the fighters running interference for the bombers to complete their attack runs, it would make sense for the fighters to prioritize enemy fighters first. I could support that change as well, it only adds to the value of fighters which is my main concern, just in a smaller way.

Irregardless, whether fighters or bombers come first in target priority, the main problem I see is that once fighters run out of point defense targets they lose a significant portion of their value. That's why I'd like to see fighters target smaller ship classes first and work their way up the ship class scale once there are no point defense targets to engage with.

 

[GloatingSwine]

To be honest, I think fighters and other PD should get a debuff effect when it attacks larger ships. Instead of having a damage value, it reduces damage output of the target ship (representing attacks against weapon emplacements directly).

 

[bbswfan]

Strike Craft are getting love in Cheryh 2.0!

Bombers and fighters have now been rolled into 1 base strike craft ship according to the patch notes.

Does anyone know if the developers have expanded upon what role strike craft will now play in combat?

 

[Summin Cool]

Is that one base strike craft with choosable weapons or is that just one type of strikecraft?

From what I've seen so far I'm not going to bother downloading Stellaris again for 2.0

 

[bbswfan]

Is that one base strike craft with choosable weapons or is that just one type of strikecraft?

From what I've seen so far I'm not going to bother downloading Stellaris again for 2.0

If you choose, I could play a game and get back to you with the information you desire. I understand that the changes made in 2.0 were not to everyone's liking, but if you feel as passionately about the role (or lack thereof) of strike craft in Stellaris as I do, I can guarantee that I will get back to you with a rundown of whether or not they have been sufficiently incorportated into space combat and whether or not it would be worth it to invest future time into the game, for this feature at least

2 birds, one stone, if you have any other concerns you'd like for me to report back on, leave them below and I'll do my best to answer them as earnestly as I'm able.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Is that one base strike craft with choosable weapons or is that just one type of strikecraft?

From what I've seen so far I'm not going to bother downloading Stellaris again for 2.0

I suspect one type of strike craft.

Which at least means one of them isn't a trap.

 

[Summin Cool]

Is that accuracy bug still there? the listed dps for the strikecraft module didn't take into account the actual dps from the listed stats. Played hell with the AI for BOS.

 

[zizard]

Removing different types of strike craft is kind of the opposite of love though

 

[bbswfan]

Removing different types of strike craft is kind of the opposite of love though

But at least that means they're paying attention

I haven't finished my first full game, but I can report that strike craft are now a tier 1 tech capable of being researched before even point defense. So in that sense, they are now very strong early, but the only thing they can be attached to is spaceports because you don't yet have ships large enough to carry them. But now they can be attached to spaceports in lieu of other kinetic, missile, or laser modules which is cool in and of itself, and appreciated on my end!

Also I can report that ALL strike craft now have the space amoeba penetration bonuses and I believe they have the same target priority as well, which means that all strike craft in effect are bombers now with shield penetration 100% and armor penetration 50%.

That makes some sense, I still have my fears that there will be too much point defense late game for them to be very useful now that every class of ship including corvettes can carry point defense, but we will see. Maybe they scale well? Here's to hoping. Maybe the hope is that less people will invest in point defense because missiles are not as prevalent meaning strike craft fleets will do well, but if that's not the case, strike craft will probably be scrap late game. I'll report back either way.

 

[bbswfan]

Alright, so I've played about 7 games now on 2.0 and 2.02 combined (not to completion on most of them of course), and I have to say I'm surprised by how well strike craft have faired on this new patch! Even with the added point defense for every ship, the change to the way armor and shields work make missile/strike craft combos surprisingly effective compared to previous iterations of the game.

Strike craft have recieved a sizeable bonus to health, evasion, and now they even have shields! In addition missiles in all varieties have more health and are much more powerful, making an overwhelm the point defense strategy quite feasible. In addition, all strike craft and missiles bypass all shields, completely negating a defensive strategy and also forcing an opponent to tailor their defense to counter the threat which was always kind of the problem, strike craft were previously sort of the odd one out without a role, now they are pretty much mobile swarmer missiles with high health and evasion.

Are they as effective as kinetic batteries? No. Speed and first kill ability has a major advantage in all combat, but they definitely have a place in combat if you design a strategy around it.

My last remaining question about strike craft on the new patch is a weird one. Out of all my playthroughs, I haven't come up against a single empire yet who also deployed them, so I'm unsure if strike craft can still attack other strike craft.

Generally, I know that the target priority of strike craft is more similar to what bombers used to be, but I haven't been able to confirm if strike craft are still able to attack each other like fighters used to. That would be disappointing if that was not the case. One of my favorite parts of old games was the "fighter push" as I call it. That moment where each side's strike craft meet in the middle in huge fleet battles then one sides wins and carries on to the fleet. Just a visually very cool aspect of the game, but other than that, strike craft have indeed recieved some love on this patch and I hope to see continued developer attention in this area

Thanks!

 

[bbswfan]

I edited this into the first post for convenience, but I really needed to say something. Pretty sad the way the combat system is developing at the moment.

After several playthroughs of games on 2.02, strike craft still need some rather dire attention. With large increase of weapons range to L and XL weapons, fighter based fleets are almost useless in the current meta.

Not only is their damage not instant like the most powerful guns, their Range is also severly limited comparatively. Fighters made Battleships obsolete in warfare. In Stellaris, the opposite is true.

Once a player has the ability to kill your battleships at range 120, 130, 150, and finally 250, damage that is delivered Instantly, what chance does a fighter based fleet stand? Especially because fighters are linked to their motherships who do not share their evasion and can be easily eliminated by simply annihilating the carrier.

AT LEAST fighter launch range has to be increased to 250 because what happens now is that both sides engage, the fighters launch, but the fighters can't find a target until they enter their "weapon's range" which I believe is something like 100. So the fighters just fly off aimlessly in random directions until their mothership gets close enough for the fighters to aquire a target. By that time, the fighters are so out of position and so much time has passed that they are completey ineffective in combat.

Seriously guys, there is a LOT that you guys need to work out here. I'm frankly pretty disappointed. These were known issues that weren't addressed and made worse by the new patch. I'm fairly resigned at this point honestly.

 

[Acidpunk]

Well first off we need Strikecraft to die and have Fighters and bombers back or for Strikecraft to actually fullfill the fighter role also which they currently do not do. They are purely bombers.

Secondly the launch range as you said yes needs to be 250 like a Titan so that they can actually be useful and force the enemy into Flak to counter effectively and thirdly the stats of the strikecraft need to be adjusted because they have horrible speed and turn rates which leads to them dealing next to no damage.

 

[Jin_Cardassian]

Well first off we need Strikecraft to die and have Fighters and bombers back or for Strikecraft to actually fullfill the fighter role also which they currently do not do. They are purely bombers.

This is very true. The main aesthetic reason people want fighters is so that they can experience Star Wars style dogfights. Turning fighters into nothing more than variant missiles is streamlining the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Frank327]

One thing that still hurts is that there's so little room for strike craft. The cruiser is the first ship that has room for them, but only 40% of the slots is available for hangars. And when the battleship comes up, there's also the L-size artillery weapons that outclass strike craft. Any fleet focusing on strike craft just gets destroyed by the artillery weapons.

At the very least, cruisers could get an extra hangar slot to make hangars a more prominent choice.

 

[Jin_Cardassian]

One thing that still hurts is that there's so little room for strike craft. The cruiser is the first ship that has room for them, but only 40% of the slots is available for hangars. And when the battleship comes up, there's also the L-size artillery weapons that outclass strike craft. Any fleet focusing on strike craft just gets destroyed by the artillery weapons.

At the very least, cruisers could get an extra hangar slot to make hangars a more prominent choice.

Agreed. Hangar bow for cruisers is sorely needed. Cruisers are really the mainline carrier type. Battleship hulls are heavy carriers, just like they are heavy artillery. I think the devs realize this, hence the latest buff to cruisers which more or less finally lets them play the role of small battleships.

 

[bbswfan]

One thing that still hurts is that there's so little room for strike craft. The cruiser is the first ship that has room for them, but only 40% of the slots is available for hangars. And when the battleship comes up, there's also the L-size artillery weapons that outclass strike craft. Any fleet focusing on strike craft just gets destroyed by the artillery weapons.

At the very least, cruisers could get an extra hangar slot to make hangars a more prominent choice.

Yes, cruisers should get slots for at Least two strike craft. Currently they are more or less simply swarmer missiles that do even less damage, and cruisers can build three of those but only one strike craft? . . . :/

Agreed. Hangar bow for cruisers is sorely needed. Cruisers are really the mainline carrier type. Battleship hulls are heavy carriers, just like they are heavy artillery. I think the devs realize this, hence the latest buff to cruisers which more or less finally lets them play the role of small battleships.

I believe that the heavy artillery range should be substantially reduced honestly, or that missile range should be significantly buffed.

Carriers and fighters made battleships useless in real life, and there's no gameplay reason a carrier's fighters couldn't or shouldn't launch as soon as they entered a system with an enemy fleet. Fighters should be the first thing that engages an enemy. It makes sense. Additionally, fighters are now a tier 1 tech, but they can't really be used until cruisers or at your starbases where they have a limited impact and in only one system.

I strongly agree that fighters should be allowed to engage other fighters again. One of my favorite parts of the older versions of Stellaris was the "fighter push", where both sides fighters met on the battlefield and one side's won. I'm fine with them not being able to shoot down missiles, but other fighters? Why can't a fighter shoot another fighter?

Well first off we need Strikecraft to die and have Fighters and bombers back or for Strikecraft to actually fullfill the fighter role also which they currently do not do. They are purely bombers.

Secondly the launch range as you said yes needs to be 250 like a Titan so that they can actually be useful and force the enemy into Flak to counter effectively and thirdly the stats of the strikecraft need to be adjusted because they have horrible speed and turn rates which leads to them dealing next to no damage.

The turning radius problem is a large one. Shouldn't the smallest ship on the battlefield also be the most manueverable? And also have the highest evasion?

Frankly I'm pretty frustrated with the attention fighters have got. They are even worse than before even though their stats are better, and they suffer from programming and target logic problems that were already known issues or at the very least issues I have pointed out previously in This thread. However I will say, at least they have begun to start balancing them, even if their first balance was largely negative.

 

[klingonadmiral]

Fighters made Battleships obsolete in warfare. In Stellaris, the opposite is true.

I mean, that is just an accurate prediction of space warfare. Without line of sight and de facto infinite range, secondry ammunition deliverers become not very useful.

 

[bbswfan]

I mean, that is just an accurate prediction of space warfare. Without line of sight and de facto infinite range, secondry ammunition deliverers become not very useful.

Phew, deep, it is kind of hard to argue the logic as it makes physics sense, but it isn't "cooler"

Yes, with a computer with enough processing power, it would be theoretically possible to fire a large bullet from a space station that would obliterate an enemy planet. No need for ships or secondary delivery methods. Just a station that can kill multiple planets from one position using math.

How very exciting.

But since we want to make combat more interesting than realistic, I think it's reasonable to consider balance in the equation. And that the most powerful weapons shouldn't also be the ones with the largest range and instant damage making every other weapon useless late game.

Do we really want any more Starkiller bases?

 

[Bloodly]

Hmm. Strike Craft Engagement Range is set in Stellaris/common/ship_behaviours/00_strike_craft.txt. Could be worth messing with that and see if it helps.

Well first off we need Strikecraft to die and have Fighters and bombers back or for Strikecraft to actually fullfill the fighter role also which they currently do not do. They are purely bombers.

You're right, they ARE. Take a look at the higher craft in common/component_templates/00_strike_craft.txt Only the basic Scout Wings are using Fighter-type AI(Which still exists). All the higher ones are using Bomber-type AI. Which kinda makes sense given their statlines at the minute. If any of them actually used Fighter AI, practically no missile would get through, I think. Even then....hmm.

Scout Wings can do 2-4x8 craft.(I think it's 8 craft.) so 16-32 per wing. That could catch 2+ missiles each, depending on the missile(I forget exacts of missile HP), or 1 Torpedo up to Armoured. The main problem being it's actually hard to get a lot of fighters out there on the field. Defence Platforms can mount 2 hangers each(1 per section), Hangar Bays on Starports give 2, but you can't control what those equip. Cruisers can mount 1, Battleships 2+(Because I forget the exacts right now).

Torpedo Corvettes can still do saturation bombardments. Memories of TIE Fighter and Empire At War alike, there. Still, a flak-Point Defence/Scout Wing cruiser or battleship could catch a lot of missiles.

Oh, yes. Someone on Reddit's mentioned that Strike Craft DO inherit tracking/accuracy bonuses from their mothercraft. This isn't necessarily a concern for most strike craft, but Amoebas are very inaccurate by default to compensate for their high damage. So at higher tech levels, they become the strongest of bombers.

 

[Acidpunk]

Yeah it's pretty dumb, they need to give back fighters and bombers and given them system engagement range like the perdition range weapon.

I mean, that is just an accurate prediction of space warfare. Without line of sight and de facto infinite range, secondry ammunition deliverers become not very useful.

Who is to say you have an actual infinite range on mobile targets?

There's no reason space fighter/bombers wouldn't make traditional battleships worthless like they did in actual naval combat