What the hell are fighters good for?

[ScorLibran]

Those advantages are only for space skirmishes. For campaigns and galactic conquest games, X-Wings have greatly reduced value for almost any purpose.

 

In those scenarios, there are no space mining facilities, and on the tiny space maps flanking an enemy means leaving a capital ship with no corvette escort for protection against bombers, plus the fact that he can be easily isolated and crippled, eating up 3 or 4 slots in your pop cap with no benefit gained for the rest of the battle.

 

The best strategy on these maps is concentration of fire. This means having all your ships within weapons range of the same enemy ship, and in one group in order to provide covering fire to each other.

 

Believe me, I'd prefer larger maps and a higher pop cap, so that flanking/pronged/time-offset attacks would actually be useful in campaigns and conquests. But as it stands, the best strategy is the simplest one: one large group attacking the same enemy ship until it goes boom, then another, then another.

 

And in that setting, properly-used corvettes eat fighters and bombers like Cheetos.

[TronusNavigon]

Absolutely.

 

Fighters have their use, but in GC games, these clausterphobic maps renders any type of strategy useless. It's just, point and click at hardpoints and nothing else.

 

This is part of the reason why many critics bash this as not being a real RTS, but instead an extremely dumbed down version of Rebellion combined with Force Commander.

[DS_Vespidbat]

i killed a whole SS with just fighters.I can even kill of acc/Vsd/Isd shield and bale to to destroy their shield generator, then i would attack hangers.So they are not worthless , unless u know how to mass them and tell them where to go and most important on what kind of fighters they are.

so guess which one i always use and no im thinking of skirmish(most popular)

[Hothman]

The good news is PG have confirmed they're making Corvettes tech 2 in patch 1.05 so fighters will be key early-game until your first station upgrade because Corellians/Tartans won't be available from the start.

 

The other thing I'd like to see is make fighters even cheaper to encourage their use more.

 

After 1.05 their role will be more significant. Just like in early-game Starcraft with Tier 1 Zerglings/Marines/Zealots, the fighters will duel for mines and players will have to face the choice of going early rush and produce more fighters or going to Tech 2 to bring the devestating Corellians/Tartars into play.

 

I like the potential of this 1.05 change.

 

On a seperate note I think Tie Scouts and Z Wings are next to useless.

[Rust_Lord]

A Corvette has like 2 guns. How can it annihilate fighters? The Imperial "Tartan" or whatever is stupid too. Imperials should have a Lancer frigate. That is a ship designed for whipping fighters asses.

 

They balanced the crap out of the game with no regard for the true ship designs laid down in many books over the years. This is why I haven't played anything but the demo. That was enough for me. Rebellion is the superior game.

 

A TIE Bomber with torpedos could cripple one quick. That's how it should be.

 

Champ, your right on a number of points. It is a shame they didnt blend Rebellion and EaW. The plantary conquest in Rebellion is still way better than in EaW although you would have to say Rebellion is more strategically focused than EaW. What really craps me is when you have a massive fleet hovering over a planet in EaW and you can't orbital bombard the crap out of the enemy on the planet. Jesus, this is how warfare is nowadays even with our comparably primitive tech level. Instead its like Normandy...you land with a handful of units and the enemy gets to hit you with everything.

 

Back to this debate, fighters are not very useful. Corvette class is really way too powerful. It amazes me how fast they can shred numerous squardrons. It should take two salvoes of torpedoes to destroy a corvette but it doesnt. And they can take a fair hammering from Turbolasers too. They should not be anywhere near that tough. If they have to be made cheaper, do it. I am really disappointed at how slow TIEs are too. Sure they are weak, they are supposed to be, but they are no where near as fast as they are suppossed to be.

 

You can do alot of things with fighters/bombers but if you factor in cost,losses, time, etc, they are the worst way to to do it.

[DS_Vespidbat]

pirates fighters are best because they are either 350 or 400 credits, fast to build, and more effective than x-wings or ties

[Naso]

Yeah, corvettes and such really should be for harassing transports or just a really cheap early combat unit, with medium cap ships like strike cruisers or neb b's for making rather less mobile fighter-screens

[lukeiamyourdad]

Instead its like Normandy...you land with a handful of units and the enemy gets to hit you with everything.

 

Quite ironic that the combat in the OT is mostly based on WWII...

[Admiral Z]

I love fighters. I only use them to capture pads and mining facilities.

[Darth Alec]

As an imperial, I use my (free) fighters to soak up the first burst(s) of enemy fire. Thus allowing me to fokus fire before my enemy. and they are annoying to my enemy, just being there is good, and if caps fire at them, even better.

[PoiuyWired]

Well, for GC if they have Z95 they might be more useful than Xwings due to their low cost.

 

The only thing I can see Fighters being useful is for air contrl, since in GC computers can build ships without a space station as long as their orbit is clear.

 

That having said you can do the same with a unit of Ys, and Ys are better cause they give Orbital when your ground force arrives.

 

In skirmish Xwings are useful, cause with X-foils locked they last for a long time, perfect for spying and resources grabbing.

 

But Yes, bang for bucks any corvettes are going to be better than any fighters. Don't get me started on the elight fighters, they are even worse. Anyone see any real use of Awings? Unless you count "lure stupid computers to shoot them instead" as a function, then yeah they are almost useful, but other than that its just as useless as the Imp elite. For the Imps, Map revealing ability is great on ground battles (ground battles you can instant orbital generators ftw), but in space it accounts for much less.

 

Generally speaking, to make fighters useful, they have to cost less pop-cap. I think if they are like 2-3 units for each ONE pop-cap like ground Inf they might be better. Raise the price accordingly if you want, but at least then they provide more firepower for the battle.

[The Source]

They take too long to build, they cost more than a Tie Fighter, and they die off very quickly. This is just another reason why people shouldn't (No Comment).

[deriko]

I vote that the ability is given for fighters to be released at a chosen time from the capital ships' hangers. The imps would still get their fighters free, and the rebels would still have to buy their own fighters, but the rebel fighters would automaticaly get packed in the cap. ships. If their are no or not enough cap. ships, then the rebel fighters hyperspace in. This would allow the fighters and bombers not to get thrown away at the start of a battle.

 

Another option is for the devs. to add the ability to choose which units in your fleet come in at first. This should have been in the game in the first place.

 

OR the devs. could increase the worth of fighters. Add the x-wing proton torpedos and everything, and the fighters could really help. The fighters would cost a lot more and the x-wing proton torpedos would be different than the torps. in the game right now, because then the x-wing would replace the y-wing. Or the y-wings could be changed.

 

Anyway, just a few brainstorming ideas.

[mattwild]

Hmm. Well I find both useful. The bombers are spectacularly good at taking out shield generators on capital ships that the enemy has forgotten to cover with Corvettes / Tartans. And the fighters are good for running interference for your capital ships against weapons platforms (which will fire at the fighters first), and also for capturing mines and other capturable stuff quickly.

[jedi3112]

For the Empire I think fighters are still usefull. Mostly because they are free and with lots of them you can quickly take out enemy bombers. The Empire also has the benefit of fighters coming out of ships that can take out corvettes somewhat quick (though I think they should take them out even faster). A common tactic I use.

 

Just hyper in as much VSD and ISD type ships. Their fighter capacity is more than enough to take out any reasonable amount of bomers. The bombers can quickly take out any shield generators and hangars that might be there. After teh hangars are gone, the Fighters can go hunt all other enemy fighter size ships. Meanwhile the bomers take out weapons and once the fighters are finished they can join up with the bombers. The big ships can quickly destroy any other ship, due to their numbers. Single fighter squads also won't last against full SDs, their shields will recharge fast enough to prevent any damage. Every once in a while a fighter gets hit by a turbolaser and blows up right away. It may take a long time, but in the end you will win. It took me a whole hour once, but I did win and I hardly ever have any losses.

 

Folr the rebels, fighters are useless. Their bombers seem to do their job well, but the gunships can do the same thing only slower. Still the gunships can take much more of a beating so by using them I actually still lose less and I can get out with no losses. However if the gunship was to be armed with, say, guns (I wonder why they called it a gunship in EAW, at least TIE Fighter had them armed with guns) I would have a greater need for bombers for the rebels as well.

[vadermandude]

 

Anyone got a second opinion? Maybe I'm dumb?

 

fighters are realy usefull to capture mines AND to zoom ahead to bring in rienforcements! other than that theyre pretty useless but for hyperspace scouts they can't be beat!!!!!!!!

[YertyL]

IMHO the corvette damage against fighters and their HP vs. Capital ships should be decreased quite a bit (caps should maybe deal 1.3 - 1.5 times their current damage against corvettes), while the fighter damage vs fighters and bombers should be increased.

This way, a corvette could still take down a lot of fighters, but fighters would work better for covering capital ships and bombers (since they could take them down faster than corvettes).

[vadermandude]

another use for fighters is keeping enimies busy while your capitol ships snek around lol.

[jedi jim 1989]

i love my fighters and bombers(imps). when goin into battle i usually have a few tartans to protect my isd's vsd's etc, i group my fighters and bombers seperatly, send the fighters in firstm and sneak the bombers up slowly with the rest of my fleet. then when you can see there space station(if they have one) send the bombers to take out the hanger bay and then the shield gen, followed by proton torps and concusiion missiles, once there gone, they are expendable, but the whole point to sending you fighters in is to scout out the enemy and ditract them while you bring your main force up. courvettes and most ships will fire at the fighters, giving you time to take out their bigger ships.

 

 

they are also useful when the enemy have mauraders or broadsiders, send you main force up the middle, and as they are slow they will be attacked, but just before you do that send the fighters around the edge of the map and come from behind, if you stay behind them, they wont fire at anyone. yur main force will be generally ok.

 

 

all in all fighters, are generally cannon fodder, ut for this reason they are useful, bombers are great as a group of about 3 or 4 squads will take out a hard point in one hit

[mrsparkle]

EDIT: This applies only to rebels.

 

You guys are missing one big point when it comes to fighters: Capital ships have a very hard time hitting them. You can use corvettes in place of xwings or awings, but those corvettes will be destroyed very quickly by imperial capital ships. And then you wind up with a bunch of TIE bombers bearing down on you.

 

But if you have a few squads of xwings or awings, they can fly around relatively unmolested by the capital ships' big guns and take out those bombers. You have to worry about tartans and boba fett, but with a properly balanced fleet you will be ok. Make sure you target the tartans first. And when there's no bombers or TIE fighters around, they can get to work on shields and hardpoints. They do pretty well vs them actually.

 

There's another plus to using fighters (as rebels): You may force the imperials to build more and more tartans. That severely weakens his fleet. Sometimes in team games I just flood the battle with fighters while my teammates use capital ships. The imperials can either respond to that by building more anti-fighter ships, weakening their fleet overall in the process, or ignore it and watch their fleet slowly succumb. You'd be surprised what a couple fighters can accomplish when tartans and boba fett aren't in abundance.

 

Only rebels can get away with using fighters though. TIE fighters are nothing more than annoying gnats and no self respecting imperial ever builds them.

[Darth Alec]

Of course no self respekting Imp builds them, we get 'em free. Thats our benefitt. They are the second most cost effective ship in the game, only after the bomber.

[YertyL]

EDIT: This applies only to rebels.

 

You guys are missing one big point when it comes to fighters: Capital ships have a very hard time hitting them. You can use corvettes in place of xwings or awings, but those corvettes will be destroyed very quickly by imperial capital ships. And then you wind up with a bunch of TIE bombers bearing down on you.

 

But if you have a few squads of xwings or awings, they can fly around relatively unmolested by the capital ships' big guns and take out those bombers. You have to worry about tartans and boba fett, but with a properly balanced fleet you will be ok. Make sure you target the tartans first. And when there's no bombers or TIE fighters around, they can get to work on shields and hardpoints. They do pretty well vs them actually.

You know, I wish that were true so much - however it is my experience that right now a single corvette can take down a squadron of fighters much faster that the whole rest of your fleet can take down that corvette ... :-(

The AI is rather fond of this tactic: they often send a single Tartan into my rebel fleet. However, instead of laughing and shooting it down, I have to frantically move my fighters to the edge of the map to prevent them from being annihilated ... :-/

[shadowsi]

Well the fighters arent comepletly usefull...

 

If you quickly destroy corvetes you can use the fighters to draw enemy fire from stations and capital ships while your bombers take their shields down.

 

And like said above, without x-wings and ties it just wouldnt be the "real" star wars...

 

Anyway, reminds me of a case when it was just like this:

 

2x X-Wing + 1x A-Wing + ION CANNON Versus 1x CPT. PIET

 

Lol, i won!

 

Ion cannon was keeping the ship disabled while i first destroyed the fighters it managed to launch and then I simply destroyed the hardpoints.

 

But i won mainly because of the Ion cannon, which is another story....

[vadermandude]

HELOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

 

 

you all seem to be ignoring my point which is that fighters can zoom over behind the enemy base, hyperspace in a helofalota capitols and blow away the base in less than 5 mins!

[Darth Anarch]

So? Keep some of your own capital ships close to your base to deal with them.