This needs to be generalized, but it’s particularly important for fighter-bombers.
If you have a bomber unit, the only way to get them to drive in on “real” targets and not get distracted entirely by other fighters is to delete the attack fighters order.
This results in bombers with perfectly good defensive laser turrets getting slashed to pieces instead of at least defending themselves on ingress to target.
I’d broaden this even more. Sometimes I want a middle ground apart from simply deleting the ‘attack fighters’ order. My cruisers I want to basically ignore fighters as they manuver towards the enemy, but I also want my cruisers to fire their weapons at the fighters if there are no other higher priority targets around. Even crappy anti-fighter weapons will slowly do some damage, especially if nearby escorts are grabbing with tractor beams.
So some kind of low-priority order would be good for fighter engagement. ‘do not manuver to engage fighters, and do not shoot at fighters if there are prioritized targets, but go ahead and fire at nearby enemy fighters if there are no other targets around’ This would cover a bomber trying to defend itself as well as be useful for frigates and cruisers.
From a general standpoint, it would be nice to have a line for every single weapon in the txt file that says: doesnt_shoot = (pick 1 or more: FIGHTER, FRIGATE, CRUISER)
Then the fighter torpedo can be set to not ever shoot at fighters. The huge cruiser beams, same thing, etc.
QFT!
I’ve noticed that there is an option for this, and it is setting the priority of engaging fighters to 1%. My cruisers, when the engage fighters order is set to 1% will USUALLY ignore fighters for maneuvering and chase down the frigates and cruisers. However, if there’s a big swarm they do seem to enjoy swatting fighters first…
silly tater bombers are supposed to be practically useless against starfighters :3 realspace 3 is a good example … Bombers = bad dogfighters which means although it can take a few shots from a starfighter … they are helpless alone and also like realspace 3 says … Fighter Escort! bombers shouldnt be left totally alone to fend for themselves since they are bombers therefor slow and have poor handling, thus … Escorts!
but yea sure i suppose 1 WEAK turret to at least be able to take down another starfighter in like 3~5 hits i suppose … still you minus well just have a Fighter escort with them or osmething …
That is why I said in my quote DEFENSIVE LASER TURRETS.
I want bombers to have defensive guns (I made one for SB mod) with a very very short range and low damage. Ideally, a fighter coming in against a squadron would face all 16 defensive guns and get chewed up. When you look at bombers set to not attack fighters at all, you could literally task a single fighter to attack them, and he’d knock out every one in time since they’d not defend themselves.
Note also that since you cannot have defensive weapons on bombers (since you must uncheck attack fighters), that encourages bomber designs that lack the requirement for a defensive gun since it will not be used anyway. That makes them artificially fast, usually.
really? whenever i put fighter torpedo’s or missles they are sloooow! at like .50 speed or so (the speed of a frigate?)
but yea although a turret defence for bombers would be great the more i think about it hte less i think it would work out … unless you can somehow set the AI to attack frigates/cruisrs and ignore the fihgters while the defensive turret picks off the fighters. so i guess its more of a problem with the AI and hardpoints
I suppose I was thinking of the stock GSB “rocket fighter” concept. Infinite ammo for almost no weight so that these “bombers” are the fasted ships (not to mention they are not “rocket” fighters, but rather “missile” fighters since the so-called rockets are guided (whereas real rockets (weapons) are unguided).
A note on bomber torpedoes: They are one of the worst possible weapons in the game for damage. The only “benefit” outside of the penetration they have is that their damage is strongly frontloaded, which is not something the AI intentionally makes use of. A weaker shot but with higher DPS would probably be healthier for the weapon system as a whole until there is some change in the dynamic - like a reload mechanic.
This often results in the oddly hilarious problem of a defense turret outperforming the torpedo for killing capital ships.
It’s a symptom of having the firing and driving instructions together.
65% attack fighters but never drive towards them is a perfectly reasonable order set that we cannot express with such a system. I don’t even mind if my ships are ‘wasting’ shots at fighters - most weapon types save for missiles reload fast enough for it not to matter - but once that driver glues to something inappropriate, the game falls apart.
I have to add that my desire for being able to have some weapons not be fired at fighters is thinking ahead to a proper ammo limitation for missiles.
For frigates and cruisers, the magazine spaces are likely unlimited from a single battle POV (less so with frigates and particularly small frigates). For fighters, OTOH, a very small number of larger torpedoes/missiles should be carried. A handful.
It would be a significant change to the game, but I thought this would be great too. Fighters with torpedos and rockets would have TRUE ‘hardpoints’ loaded with expendables. A rocket modules would buy you say, six rockets. The fighter would launch them then have to return to a carrier module to get its rockets reloaded, ditto for torpedos. It would make attack fighters tremendously more tricky to use effectively, and really make having fighters + carriers a big commitment. Fighter rockets and torpedos would probably have to have their damage scaled up slightly to make it worth it. You would probably need to have a frigate fighter tender module too, for maps which don’t allow cruisers, so that attack fighters could still be used. Frigate escort carriers, baby.
punt.
Not only would I love that functionality on my bombers, but the rest of my various starships as well. God, yes!
Tater, I like the way you implemented those defensive bomber turrets in your Star Blazers mod. That’s the kind of performance I would love to boost by way of the suggested weapons-engagement order you mentioned as an addition to all guns in the game. The combination would clean up so very many mis-executed orders and other weirdness.