Lucian Gyiira, I have one question for you. How do you figure a scout craft wouldn't be as manueverable in space as a 1 seater fighter craft? Remember, manueverability in space is a function of engine ratio (amount of thrust produced versus total mass). RL fighters gain maneuverability primarily through aero package. You can design a really fast air craft, but that doesn't yield a craft that can turn a tighter circle then its opponents. Indeed, the faster you go in the air, the harder it is to turn tightly. But your aero package gives you handling back. That's why the ideal aero fighter is a variable wing craft with controlable vector thrusting.

But the fightercraft is still smaller than the scout craft. Lighter, weaker weapons? Yes. But it can still dodge weapons fire far more easily than a scout craft, due to the combination of its small size and fast speed. I factor that into it, in part. A fighter might not be able to take a hit, but it doesn't need to -- it's small and manueverable enough to dodge most fire from a larger ship.

But anyway, you're missing a point I'm trying to make of fightercraft -- they're sort of a "power through numbers" thing in space. I'm not talking X-wings here [I always hated those things, anyway], I'm talking TIE Fighters. Those are what I imagine space fighters really being like. Swarming, speed, manueverability, small size, cheap mass production. You lose ten, fifteen squadrons? Who cares? You can produce another fifty in a month! On the other hand, the scout ship you're mentioning still costs more to produce per product, making them more valuable than a single fightercraft overall. In the end, you'd end up with roughly the same power overall with either one, though, but wildly different tactics.

I think your fear of Fighters becoming some kind of "be all, end all" if it involves ranged assaults is unfounded. It's simple enough to get around, at least as far as concepts go -- Fightercraft should have bonuses attacking larger, heavier vessels which haven't the engines to provide them the thrust necessary to have good manueverability. But Fightercraft attacks against smaller, lighter vessels with better engines should have penalties. This balances fleets even more, actually allowing multiple classifications of larger ships form. Ships with heavy weapons and defenses, but lesser engines. Ships with heavy weapons and engines, but little in the way of defense. And ships with great defense and engine power, but weak weapons. Meaning one has to definitely make strategic choices for escorts -- will the enemy try to intercept me with fighters or a powerful ship? Or both? Perhaps I should send two escorts? Combined arms, essentially, with a use given to all different forms of ship rather than GalCiv1's "Capital Ship-centric" warfare. Which I found very, very tedious.

Though I'm not sure how difficult it'd be to actually implement it, there's the idea. Not quite sure myself actually how to implement, but then I'm fairly tired and need sleep. I've made stuff like this [at least, with pen and paper] for years, so it's not anything new for me. I'll think better sometime tomorrow, though. For now, I'm taking a nap. ;

But the fightercraft is still smaller than the scout craft. Lighter, weaker weapons? Yes. But it can still dodge weapons fire far more easily than a scout craft, due to the combination of its small size and fast speed. I factor that into it, in part. A fighter might not be able to take a hit, but it doesn't need to -- it's small and manueverable enough to dodge most fire from a larger ship.

Lucian, if the weapons are weaker, then it doesn't do any good, does it? "Are we experiencing a cosmic ray event, ensign?" "Captain! No sir! It's just those wacko Imperial TIE fighters! Their energy weaponry is too weak to break through our screens, and their missiles cannot scratch our neutrino paint job, sir!" "Ah. I see. How pretty. Get my personal Trid camera out so I can tape this for my kids."

Lucian, you are missing the point. All of them. You have to have effective weaponry. If you can make the weaponry for a fighter effective, then you'd want to pack in that weapony, as much as you can. And the bigger hulls would pack it in more, and you gain economy of scale as you go bigger. What's better, 2 World War 1 Sopwiths (air fighters) or 1 modern B-52? If smaller was truly better, we'd still be building fighters the size of a Sopwith (a mere few meters) rather then fighters that are a few 10 meters long and wide.

Anything you can do in a Tie fighter, in reality, you can do in a Star Destroyer, and do it better. That's where your reasoning keeps falling down. Both use the same engine and power generation. Devote the same proportion of space on the Star Destroyer as the Tie Fighter, and you get a Star Destroyer that turns as fast as the Tie Fighter, and has tons more space for weaponry and defenses! You do not gain "maneuverability" by going smaller in space. You only gain maneuverability by strapping on bigger engines!

As for being small... that is completely meaningless in space. Again. Being small helps here on earth because there's always something around to help hide you. A small aircraft can literally hide behind a rain cloud or a flock of birds here. In space, we can track targets the size of quarters that are orbitting the moon from research ships the size of small frigates on the ocean! Have you any idea how much better sensor tech gets in GC? Being small, means that the fighters have to get in close to hit with their minature weaponry. Getting in close means that the weaponry of that CAPITAL SHIP which can track a target at relativistic speeds several 10s of AUs away have no trouble tracking and firing one something the size of football field that is actively approaching them from a range of just an AU or two. Small only helps in space if you got something to hide behind, or you are being cold (not making any maneuvers, not thrusting, not putting out any energy) and stealthy! A fighter isn't going to "coast" in on their targets in a hot combat zone. On a first strike, sure, but those capital ships would be manevuering to hit other ships or maneuvering to force the fighters to maneuver to give themselves away!

Small doesn't make you maneuverable enough to dodge incoming fire. You've got to approach your target, you've got to follow your target. Again, in space, it's equavalent is PT boats fighting Destroyers, Cruisers, and Battleships. The PT boat is stuck at going near their speeds. It isn't the Tie Fighter/X Wing dance across the sky while artillery guns are pushed around entirely by the gunnery crew's spit. Nor is it in that same universe where light travels at speed discernable to the human eye. Remember that.

they're sort of a "power through numbers" thing in space. I'm talking TIE Fighters. Those are what I imagine space fighters really being like. Swarming, speed, manueverability, small size, cheap mass production. You lose ten, fifteen squadrons? Who cares? You can produce another fifty in a month! On the other hand, the scout ship you're mentioning still costs more to produce per product, making them more valuable than a single fightercraft overall. In the end, you'd end up with roughly the same power overall with either one, though, but wildly different tactics.

That's what fleeting is for. To allow smaller ships to "swarm" or "group attack" the larger ships. We are getting "Fleets" (a combat stack that acts like one unit) in GC2. I believe it's on the Beta schedule as a Stage 3 feature. Obviously, a squadron of fighters would be a "fleet", to begin with.

You will need GC2's production system changed, to support your needs. Right now, you can only make 1 ship per turn. Obviously, Fighters would need to be built in multiples. Of course, in GC style, they probably would never be built through the military build queue. Instead, you'd pay a one time cost when you build that hangar tile/module, or when you build that carrier. After that, you'd just be charged a maintenance cost as part of the ship. Your fighters would never lose strength, as they are just a weapon system (in terms of maintenace). Otherwise, it would probably be too much micro-management. It might be realistic to fly your fighters around between various bases up to your fleet on the front line, or having to build "ferry" carriers to bring them up to replace loses, but it wouldn't be fun to do for long.

Fightercraft should have bonuses attacking larger, heavier vessels which haven't the engines to provide them the thrust necessary to have good manueverability. But Fightercraft attacks against smaller, lighter vessels with better engines should have penalties.

So, maneuverability should grant bonuses to attack/defense? That's fine by me. Humm... tell me this. Why don't we just extend the concept, so I can build a mother "tender" ship, which has all the long term life support and maintenence functionality on it, and build large, highly maneuverable, highly weaponed ships? They can carry their own FTL and basic life support, but all the heavy non-combat tasks are moved to the tender. Hospitals, maternity wards, big maintenence shops/shipyard facilities, etc. Now, I have serious combat rated and combat devoted ships, but you whack my mother goose ship, and my fleet is in serious trouble. Unless I've got a spare that can get to them in short order.

Wow, sometimes less is more people

Anyway, the brilliant suggestion that fightercraft provide a carrier with an extended attack function reaching 1 to 2 squares away would make fightercraft unique and formidable. Personally, I would like to see more discussion on how we can come up with a good design to justify fightercraft in the game, rather than debate-to-death why fighters (sans any design context) are a bad idea

Way too much stuff to actually put in quotes

You and I are thinking in totally different realities here apparently, and we'll probably never see eye-to-eye. My line of thought is along those of a "fun" scifi universe focusing more on interactions between races than keeping battles overly "realistic", since realistic battles would be boring volley fests between ships over massive distances that disallow any real conflict. Perhaps we should save the thread the discussion on fightercraft viability and focus on the things relevant to the game.

Oh, and one thing before I continue...

Nor is it in that same universe where light travels at speed discernable to the human eye.

Blasters fire plasma, not light, so you must be talking about Star Trek. GalCiv1 had phasers, you know.

That's what fleeting is for. To allow smaller ships to "swarm" or "group attack" the larger ships. We are getting "Fleets" (a combat stack that acts like one unit) in GC2. I believe it's on the Beta schedule as a Stage 3 feature. Obviously, a squadron of fighters would be a "fleet", to begin with.

Not so obvious to me, it seems. Fighters are utterly useless in single numbers, so I wouldn't see why a squadron wouldn't be "one unit" or something along those lines. A squadron would cost about as much as a single ship, in my opinion. That's precisely how I've been seeing fighter squadrons as, anyway -- a single unit which consists of multiple little craft. You've spoken of abstracting fighters are a part of the Missiles tech branch, what's so different about this?

So, maneuverability should grant bonuses to attack/defense? That's fine by me. Humm... tell me this. Why don't we just extend the concept, so I can build a mother "tender" ship, which has all the long term life support and maintenence functionality on it, and build large, highly maneuverable, highly weaponed ships? They can carry their own FTL and basic life support, but all the heavy non-combat tasks are moved to the tender. Hospitals, maternity wards, big maintenence shops/shipyard facilities, etc. Now, I have serious combat rated and combat devoted ships, but you whack my mother goose ship, and my fleet is in serious trouble. Unless I've got a spare that can get to them in short order.

No problem with that at all, actually [bet you weren't expecting that ]. It's a fairly nice idea, especially for the new Thalan hive race. It works especially well for them, actually. By the way, thanks for the story inspiration. You've given me quite a bit of it through this discussion.

Lucian, we aren't thinking seperate realities. I'm just trying to push your idea to find out how it may be distinct from what we already have. If it's just another set of graphics for Missile and Point Defense (or even the other basic weaponry divs), I don't think Star Dock will give it to us. If it's something unique, we have a much better chance of getting it, if that uniqueness enhances the gameplay tactics or strategy. Ranged combat is an example of giving a uniqueness to carriers and fighters.

GC1 borrows a good deal from a lot of SF series. However, a blaster bolt isn't plasma, it's a blaster bolt. It is most commonly explained as plasma, but if it was, you couldn't "deflect" it with anything but a powerful electromagnetic field. I suppose that isn't impossible to be generated by a SF samuria using their special mega-strength chi, but I don't think you'd get modern Western kids buying into it.

You are welcome. I'm glad you are having fun. However, that's just basic "Mother Ship" and its combat group. You want a mimimal amount of support on your combat units. Just what they need to survive under their expected extremes away from their support. If you are never going to be more then a week away from a support facility, then you don't need all that long term stuff. Lets you pack more combat oriented stuff. But if you end up staying away longer then you can support yourself for, you suffer for it, and quickly. Whether it's called a carrier, a mother ship, or a base star, it's all the same thing. Just a matter of scale.

Actually, if we really want fighter implimented in this game, we should have them as supports, bombardment and raids. Think of it: you select your carrier, and input the "missions" to your fighter squadrons/group. Like, if you have a battleship a little ahead, you could "Support" it, which add some bonuses to attack/defense Versus fighters/capital ships (that is, if the battleship is within range of your fighters).

You never see or control directly the fighters, you just assign them mission, and have the result next turn. It is a realistic way to impliment "fighters" in a mass-scale wargame.

Or if you could choose "Raid", which means your fighters will hit-and-run an ennemy capital ship (or planet!), lowering his hit points, and maybe your fighter squadron took some damage if the capital ship was outfitted with proper anti-fighter defense or a fighter cover of his own.

But there could be a lot of "mission" available. From "Defense patrol", in remote area (if the fighters has the range) in which they intercept any ennemy trespassing, to "Trade Route Defense" put on fighters assigned on planets that has a trade route going close. People said that there should be an "auto-attack" for ships to help destroy trade routes, well the fighter mission "Economical Blocus" would solve that problem. Or even "auto-assist" would be nice to have.

There could be 3 platform of Fighter-lauches:
- Starships (Carriers). Expensive, but add versability to some fighters. Perfect long-range mission
- Planets. Mainly for defense and patrol remote areas. The cheapest, but take some space on your planet.
- Starbase. There could be starbases outfitted with MASSIVE fighter support, an ideal defensive position near a cluster of worlds, or to assists your nearby battlefleet. Not as expensive as a Carrier, but more expensive than a planet-based fighter group.

I'd say first that FTL fighters shouldn't be allowed at first. So fighters would be forced to defensive positions. But as "miniaturisation" come along, you could (with many BCs) input hyperdrive in some fighters and use them. Their "mission range" would expand as the technology (and the investment in new hyperdrives) improves.

The available missions could be: (the * are for the mission with a continuation, who continue as long as they don't receive counter-order or reach out of range)

- *Support (add bonuses to fight groups)
- Scouting (explore a designated area of space)
- *Defense (to protect the carrier, the station of the planet at all cost. default option #1)
- *Auto-assist (to flight at the rescue of any attacked ship in range. default option #2)
- Raid (hit-and-run, where the attackships/bombers can launch attack on a capital ship ONCE, and the interceptor escort them)
- Planetary Raid (same tactic, but could scout/bombard some ennemy developpment. You know, chirurgical bombardment?)
- *Trade Defense (Auto-protect a designated trade route within range)
- *Auto-attack (select a sub-option)
- Colony ships
- Trade ships
- Ennemy fighters
- Ennemy ships
- One kind of ship (press shift+left click to designated target)
- *Patrol (Continually explore a designated area of space, and warn you when they spot something. Then you get 3(+?) options: - Engage - Force them out - Ignore)

For the "fighter-designing" idea, it is a perfect one. You can creat appropriate star fighter to the appropriate mission. In your remote sectors, you want fighters with a long range and long sensor range too. For defense of your Motherworld, you want a low-rang. For scouting units, you could outfit them with cloaking device, etc.. etc..

I know it sounds maybe very complicated to impliment this in a A.I. processing, but that would be very realistic way of using "fighters" and very fun too. (when you think of it, I don't think the Supreme Commander of an army has direct control over each and everyone of his ships. It's even more irrealist if he had direct control over every FIGHTER.)

Fighter does't have crew quarters, command bridge or Warp engines so it is smaller than smallest ship. And faster and more agile. I'm for fighters in game, and they are not like missles cause missles have to be reloaded, can run out during battle, and also, ship surrounded by fighters can't fight back on your ships, also other ships nearby are occupied by killing fighters and that keeps their firepower away from your capital ships

You all getting too far
Personally I like carrier idea but I think that carier module should be a "weapon" module like a misiles (may be 2 types atack carier module - fighters atack enemy ships and defence carier module - fighters intercept missiles and enemy fighters).
The "level" of fighters should be corresponding to level of technology for this module ( atack 1, 2 or 3 ) and should not have any defence armor or shield.
The number of fighters in "carier module" should be limited (like 4 fighters ) if you wish more - add more modules To avoid problems with fighters being too powerfull (imagine 10 fighters with lev. 3 lasers) .
The type of weapons (lasers or guns ) should be also selected by type of "carier module" installed.

So you mean when carrier engages in combat it adds 4 more fighter ships for each module, and every fighter ship has its own attack and defense values. I like this idea- it's like you actually built 4 more ships but cheaper and they should recover if destroyed in battle.