How do deal with Fighter swarms?

Gratuitous Forum Gratuitous Space Battles
1

I’ve been playing Gravity Well on Expert and the Imperials field these huge masses of fighters that I am unable to deal with. I’ve tried my own fighter swarms (they don’t last) and anti-fighter frigates (both AF-missile and beam, but neither clear enough fighters before blowing up), but nothing seems to work.

Is there a reliable way to get rid of fighters or do I just have to focus on enduring the onslaught long enough to take out the main fleet?

2

Try building a light cruiser with two super tractor beams and cruiser defense lasers. One or two of these will eat fighters for breakfast. Also, make sure all your ships that you care about have at least 8 avg armor. That will protect them from fighters. A nanobots isn’t a bad idea either, since fighters still get critical hits that take down the armor.

3

Thanks! I needed four of them, but that did the trick.

4

Found that anti-fighter missiles and target painters seems to work real well.

5

Yeah, that’s a pretty recent development! Anti-fighter missile before 1.13 weren’t so hot, but they’re making a big impact on the opposition fightercraft these days :slight_smile:

6

I find that they’re so hyper accurate now that target painters aren’t even worth it. With 4 anti-fighter missiles I’m getting an almost guaranteed kill every time they fire a salvo. The limiting factor is no longer whether or not they hit but straight refire rate vs. number of fighters.

7

Good. Fighters have been a PITA for a long time.

8

Agreed.

9

The adjusted DPS on anti-fighter missiles, after taking into account accuracy, is about ten times as high against super fast (3.7+ speed) fighters as most any other weapon in the game without a tractor beam to assist. Tractor beams will help a little, but more missile launchers are probably better, unless you have a lot of heavy direct fire weapons on nearby ships that you want to bring into the fight. Against fast fighters not above that 3.7 speed threshhold, you can use cruiser defense lasers to great effect, but frigate anti-fighter missiles are still superior.

10

Just an FYI - I find regular tractors seems to work better vs fighters. They fire longer even if they don’t slow as fast. They seem to hold the target immobile for longer too…