Should Strikecraft cost money/resources to build?

no

Eh, strikecraft really are extremely imbalanced when used en masse. I always like ot have a fleet primarially composed of two heavy carriers and a dozen or so light carriers, with a ratio of 1:3 fighters / bombers.

When playing as Vasari, my bombers can destroy any capital ship in two passes. Nothing short of fifty plus anti-fighter frigates will even stand a chance of stopping this onslaught, and while they're busy tangling with the strikecraft, I'm just chugging out more and more, replicating my carriers, etc. I've taken down whole fleets with this carrier group and lost only a couple transports.

The problem is there just isn't an effective counter to strikecraft. Anti-fighter frigates only destroy one and damage a couple strikecraft when they fly by, and since they have such large, arcing flight paths, it results in low DPS output from the frigates. IE: Bombers fly past a Flak Frigate. Flak shoots at bombers, damages them. Bombers proceed to shoot their target, and fly past. Bombers loop around, shoot target again, and pass target. Bombers fly back in range of anti-strikecraft frigate and get shot again. Not very effective.

Fighters are the same way - they have a low ROF, meaning generally they'll chase a squadron, fire, and then disengage and do one of those annoying, huge loops, and then turn to reengage and have to play catch-up. Finally, every race has at least captial ship with one massive anti-fighter AOE ability. The problem is, obviously, the fighters have to be around the specific capital ship, and you actually need to time it so it hits a large group. Due to the cooldowns and antimatter drain, relying on the capital ship abilities (some of which are less than useful) is impractical.

Frankly I wish we had some Homeworld-style anti-fighter frigates. IE: the Flak Frigate that obliterated bunched groups of fighters, the Drone Frigate that would individually target them...

50+ anti-fighter frigates are pretty damn cheap. Both in terms of fleet supply and resource cost. They're FAR cheaper than the amount of resources needed for carriers.

But no-one uses them. At least, not against me. Most people prefer to counter strike craft with strike craft (which does work).

But no, strike craft should not have deployment costs. This discussion was had a long time ago, and they raised to cost of frigates (a good idea). Now, the frigates and bases cost far too much to be viable if the strike craft costed as well.

The problem is when you come across something besides strikecraft,  your flak frigates aren't going to do anything. Even still, with that many anti-fighter frigates, I have nothing to lose. Say I jump into a gravity well, where you have your fleet with all your anti-fighter stuff. I can deploy my bombers while maneuvering to leave the gravity well. If you destroy five, ten, or a hundred I've lost nothing, whereas I still stand a very good chance of crippling a capital ship. Even with that many flaks, what exactly do I have to be scared of? The flaks will take ages to whittle through a light carrier's armor, meaning you need a fleet twice as big - one to destroy strikecraft, one to destroy the carriers. Whereas I just need my horde of bombers. Not only that, but on my end, it's easier to manage - just alt-click bombers, click target, watch it explode. I can divert my attention and energy elsewhere.

Perhaps the solution would be an anti-strikecraft cruiser?

Yeah I'm really not seeing why carriers should have 2000 health, 1000 sheilds, and 4-5 armor with just some basic upgrades. Whose bright idea was that?

I say it every carrier wine tread and will say it here.

Light frigates. All races light frigate have antymatter disrupting abilaties, good for killing the carriers abilaty to produce mroe fighters. They do 150% dmg and if you bother investing money in research for their weapons and armor/sheild their though little buggers. They can chase dow carriers even if he's runnign the around. People just need to realise that light frigates are the new spam. They can do wonders how ever you do need to read the how to manual in order to be able to use them properly.

This is true, and I've tried it, even in several recent games.  It seems like a good idea.  Unfortunately, it just doesn't seem to work.  For one thing, it seems to take FOREVER to turn out the numbers required, even using multiple frig factories from multiple systems.  For another thing, well, it just seems the flak frigs suck.  I can't really counter the other guy's bombers and fighters with them, even if I have enough to do the job.  Just doesn't seem to work for whatever reason.

Cheers for the inputs guys.

I'm not sure about that.  They are certainly POWERFUL when used en masse.  But imbalanced?  Not sure.

Name something that isn't powerful when used en masse.  LRFs?  Yup - powerful en masse.  Heavy cruisers?  Yup - powerful en masse.  Everything is powerful when used en masse, especially when focus-fired en masse.

Yet none of those posess the intrinsic properties of fighter/bombers.

1) Can't be blocked.
2) Can't be permenantly destroyed.
3) Can cross a gravity well in a few seconds.
4) Replaced for free.
5) Immune to most abilities.
6) Require very specific counters - are in no danger whatsoever from most ships.

Etc. etc. etc.

Every ship is powerful en masse. Bombers / Fighters are powerful in small GROUPS. En masse they ascend to a level of instant destruction. You can jump your Level 10 capital ship into a stellar gravity well, and in just one or two passes, my Vasari bomber spam will turn it to scrap before it can even jump out. If you're going to fight me, you have to cross the entire gravity well, as I just position my carriers to jump out at the last possible moment, while you lose ships, and therefore both time and money, the entire way.

And I've not lost a thing!

I had a Vasari fleet that consisted of:

2 of every capital ship, level six or above.
25 anti-fighter frigates.
30 heavy cruisers.
25 LRM cruisers.
4 Overseers.
10 Subverters.

It took them roughly three to four times longer to destroy a Vasari starbase as my fleet that consisted of:

3 Capital Carriers.
10 Light Carriers.

And my carrier fleet was never actually in danger as it died.

I still laugh when someone spams strikecraft, only to run into my fleet that has two Kols with maxed-out flack burst...needless to say the lag goes away once all the craft are dead. Plus, if you have Dunov, then with the flux ability, those Kols do the same job as my 40+ flak frigs backing them up.

Of course the AI won't be very bright when it comes to using a fleet properly like that, but it still does a pretty good job. It tends to abandon LF's in the end and stick with LRFs and flak for the light ships, but even then...it spams enough strikecraft to counter my own strikecraft spam. If someone is spamming strikes, spam a fleet with capitals that have anti-strike along with some flak. Add in some healer/support units and some ships to soak up dmg (Advent rule at this last one), and those strikecraft are gone. Then you bring in your own carriers and take down the defenseless carrier spam on the other end of the grav well.

Yes, they should cost per squad. Strikecraft should be weaker....like 10 health...and weaker damage.  They should also come in greater numbers per squadron and also more squadrons.  The cap ship carriers should be able to house about 200 of these nimbler fighters//bombers.

Thanks,

Phalnax

More brainstorming - What if Strikecraft could only replace partial losses by docking at a carrier and waiting for repairs (albeit brief ones)? What if instead of single ships, hosts had to build the entire squadron? I imagine there'd be some reduction in build times with this, but just an idea, to avoid the inexorable tide of fighters you have now, where they get replaced one-by-one faster than you can destroy them...

Thats a neat idea!! I favor this must be docked to replace lost SC. It would allow a well placed and well timed Flak Burst and Flak frigates to effectivly deal with massed SC. Without overpowering the damage output itself. Though I do think this should only apply to cruiser carriers. This is one advantage you could gain from using more Cap carriers in your fleet and may promote more useage from these caps.

Another idea is having all carriers build SC 50% slower  while an enemy fleet is in the same gravity well. I know currently they build 50% slower if under attack. Yet at times it is very hard to attack the carriers when they kite and/or are across the gravity well. Maybe increase the build time to 75% while under attack. I personaly think they shouldnt be able to build while under fire at all. But thats me.

Hey Uranium, I actually agree with everything you say here.  I even have my own thread "Do flak frigs suck?" and you've posted there, so it's not like I'm tone deaf on this.

From the points you listed above, I'd take out #3, because what is the point of strikecraft if they can't cross a gravity well in seconds (they must have RANGE, and they must have SPEED, or they aren't strikecraft, and they do the carrier no good)?  Also, with #5 (immune to most abilities), that cuts both ways, i.e. they can't be buffed by most abilities either, except abilities which buff ONLY them (microphase aura).  Otherwise, yeah, you make some good points.

No question about it (see my post under the flak frig thread about recent game I just played - it was the exact scenario you just described).  However, lets be fair.  Many of the complaints issued by people against strikecraft could be said about any unit in the game.  If you have 100 illuminators sitting there as a capship jumps in, it is toast just the same, right?  So do we unfairly single out strikecraft here?  Sometimes we do.

Here's where you (and the OP) are starting to convince me.  You aren't unfairly singling out strikecraft here, you are quite fairly singling them out.

Mines have been adjusted to cost money/resources in Entrenchment, and it seems to be working well so far.  This kind of adjustment would ensure that you indeed do "lose a thing" when you lose strikecraft.  Would also make flak a little more viable, as they aren't just costing you a little antimatter if they take out strikecraft, they are costing you resources.

Sounds good to me!

If your saying what i think you are saying then i believe that would be quight reasonable - good idea.

building on that another idea i think could "possibly" work if done correctly was that when a strikecraft is destroyed then the carrier takes a percentage of that damage itself, hence you can't just sit back with loads of carriers and destroy a non-moving starbase without any risk. (As technically the strikecraft is only thing the carrier can use to attack - like a long range weapon - even long range missle frigates still take damage due to being in range of a starbase - and i believe their is an starbase upgrade to increase the range to hit anti-structure vehicles).

What do you think?

I don`t think so. That said, I think your idea has merit in a different way.

It would be neat to have the capability with carrier vessels - at the cost of resources - to equip them on a per fighter/bomber basis, with a different type of fighter/bomber/fighter-bomber. Something superior or something peculiar. Buying these units would be on an individual squadron basis, and they would replace regular squadrons for their lifetime. If they were destroyed, one would need to repurchase them (?). Perhaps only certain factions would have access to them. Perhaps Research would be necessary to unlock them.

Just an idea.

One idea might simply be to nerf the antimatter supply, and antimatter regeneration rate on carriers.

against a hard AI, my 97 flak frigates for the most part..actually ignored most of the strike craft that flew directly passed them. i was very upset about that lol, but they didnt have enough to do any real damage, unlike a real player would. Either way, the problem IS the anit-fighter frigates, being far too weak/dumb. with auto-attack they seem to fail to attack fast enough and on manual attack theres waaaay too many to attack, if they had better AI and slightly more damage it would be great

Now that mines cost resources, why not fighters and bombers?

Getting all your fighters killed to wipe out the enemy LRF's should come with a price tag - other than having to retreat the carriers and the inconvenience of having to wait for the free rebuild.

At the very least carriers should have their fleet supply costs increased to lessen the effects of carrier spam kiting around.

A different idea, if necessary - make the replensihment of squadrons cost the carrier unit antimatter/energy.

It already does.

I have always said when enemies are present in grav well strikecraft should not rebuild. Carriers must be resupplied when enemies arent around. I think 75% reduction build time when enemy is present would work good to.The reduction while under fire is kinda dumb since you dont attack all of them at once.