Ok, got the Parasites expansion and love em. Switched over from Federation on the spot. The only problem I’ve been having is: my fighters are performing consistently poorly.
Now, as Parasites have the outrageously effective flak cannons it’d be fully justified balance-wise for their fighters to be sub-par, but I can’t tell the difference between that and “I just fail at designing them”. Does anyone else find them sub-par or is it just me?
Also I’d like to emphasise this is not a call for a buff for Parasite fighters, again the fact I have flak cruisers makes most enemy fighter attacks into a joke, but it makes me really struggle on fights where cruisers are banned.
Anyway, onwards to my observations on the 3 fighter hulls, pick out any flaws you can find in them:
The hulls
Hydrozoa
Seems like the best choice overall: 3 slots, 1 hardpoint; speed, armour and hull bonuses. I took this, gave it a laser cannon, advanced ablative armour, power III and engine III. Seems pretty well rounded on paper, but unless used in superior numbers seems to fare poorly in dogfights. Am I just doing it wrong?
Myxozoa
I honestly don’t see why this hull exists. 1 less slot, and the power bonus it has so far hasn’t let me really do anything the Hydrozoa can’t. Am I missing something huge with this? Is it just meant to be an inexpensive rocket fighter or something? Because so far I don’t understand what the niche for this hull is and would really like some input :S
Edit: Decoy fighter perhaps? Seems a bit strange though to dedicate an entire hull to this role (and with some slightly misleading bonuses to boot.)
Sporozoa
Looks nice in theory: a fighter hull that trades off some speed for higher slot count and weaponry. Cool idea.
In practice: no matter how many engines I crowbar onto it, they get shot to bits so fast it makes my head spin. Armouring them up produces similarly dismal results. I just can’t find a use for this that justifies the cost of a single squad of them, let alone a meaningful number.
So, am I wrong on any of these, or do I need to just suck it up and work on building effective frigates that fill the no-cruisers-allowed niche?
Thanks in advance!