2e EA wish list

[Valen is my name]

My 2nd ed wishes are pretty simple at this point...

EA fighters are too good. Starfury back to +1 dogfight, and Thunderbolts down to +0 dogfight, and reduced hull scores. Hull 5 is far too much for a fighter.

i actually got SFoS after Armageddon, so i never played starfuries and t bolts with those stats, were they much more fair and more equal to other fighters? they seem to strong compared to most fighters these days

 

[Lord David the Denied]

The Thunderbolt at +0 dogfight needed to be escorted, since most decent fighters could muster up at least +1, and so have a good chance of beating them in a fight. Starfuries at +1 were decent but not overpowered, since you got enough to balance better fighters' lower numbers.

Now it's +2 it's as good as a Sentri and better than nearly all the League fighters. Only the Centauri Razik and Minbari fighters are better, and they're available in lower numbers. Much lower for the Centauri. Loads of people said it was too much at the time, but it's never been changed that I know of.

 

[Da Boss]

Of course the new Antifighter prob makes it a whole new thing to assess fighter worth / comparisons in 2nd ed?
If it works like Star Wars - hulls less likely to go down...............

 

[pwrserge]

Hull 5 is far too much for a fighter.

So I suppose hull 6 is right out? Let's not forget that fighters are only as good as the fleet that carries them. Without serious big gun support, even EA fighters will get nuked.

SERGE

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Hull 6 for fighters is ludicrous. Totally, utterly sick.

 

[katadder]

the hull 6 fighters tend to be the super heavy ones, that are actually more like small ships with 1 damage point that fighters.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

It's still too much. Patrol level ships don't get hull 6, do they? Why should a heavy fighter have a better hull than a light patrol boat many times larger? It's not on. If it has dodge and fighter as traits it should be low hull. Hull 4 should be the highest any fighters go.

 

[Da Boss]

I suspect the argument might be that there are 6 small hard fighters vs one small less hard patrol ship. As I mentioned low hulls may be more problematic if antifighter hits them befor they shoot?

It does complicate it when some small patrol craft are fighters and some are ships..................

 

[emperorpenguin]

It's still too much. Patrol level ships don't get hull 6, do they? Why should a heavy fighter have a better hull than a light patrol boat many times larger? It's not on. If it has dodge and fighter as traits it should be low hull. Hull 4 should be the highest any fighters go.

this has been answered many, many times. Matt answered it a few days ago

basically this is what results from the limitations of a single D6 system

 

[Locutus9956]

High hull value is not ludicrous for fighters. Good greif how many times does this need to be explained, hull value is not just armour it also represents difficulty in actually HITTING them in the first place. Sure they have dodge, but whoop de doo. Stop and think for a minute just how many weapons in the game ignore dodge.

I personally think EA fighters are about right at the moment. I'm not saying theyre necessarily fair compared to other races fighters but I'd say if anything changes it should be to IMPROVE THE OTHER RACES FIGHTERS.

But seriously lets take a look at WHY hull 6 for a fighter is not sick.

1) 1 hit point. All it takes is one hit to kill that thunderbolt. Sure it makes them very hard to kill with non-af weapons and as a centauri player you may well have found yourself up against a wall with this one but seriously, try using T-Bolts agaisnt virtually anyone but Centauri or Narn and they get ripped to bits by AF fire. With 2nd ed's upcoming anti-fighter rules, it will be even LESS of an issue Id wager.

2) Ah but they have dodge! Yes. They have dodge, when shot at with regular antiship weaponry. Hull 6 makes no difference whatsoever if you chew them up with Raziks or Nials, or blast them with an emine, or shredd them with particle beams or anitproton guns etc etc etc.....

From the Centauri point of view 1 Razik can take on THREE thunderbolts and have even chances of winning. And your SHIPS are better generally.


Seriously its getting a bit silly, yes EA fighters are very good, so if your fighting EA take some Raziks instead of 9 billion beams! You cant have it everyway! If theres one race who in my oppinion REALLY are in no possition to winge about any other race currently, its the Centauri. I don't think theyre broken (not even the Teritius/Prefect) but they ARE the best fleet in the game at the moment imho. EA doesnt even come close, despite mongoose giving them so much attention I would say EA are still 'average'. (In that respect they are very much like Space Marines in 40k, the company gives them laods of attention as their 'flagship line' but they aren't one of tha actually nastier fleets/armies, sure they've got some good stuff, but theres WAY nastier out there....)

 

[Greg Smith]

Its not just the difficulty of killing a single Thunderbolt, its the difficulty of killing 6.

Now if fighter flights had 6 damage points and hull 2 or 3, that would be more realistic. But like many things in ACTA, there is a level of abstraction.

 

[H]

so then, when AF becomes 2" and only your normal weapons can reach the thunderbolts, portafais, and god knows how many other super fighters that get added, I suspect this issue will come up again.. and again... and again.
I watched a fleet of 24 portafais take on the abbai yesterday, they did quite a mess untill a shedload of twin linked guns decided to take them on not the cap ships. then they all died off (my 4 t-bolts died quicker!) so non AF weapons can rip bigger ones to shreds, the biggest issue is if/when we get a hull 6 with dodge 2 then their are problems with fighters! as it stands, its merely a target number representing your wepon getting a lock on a tiny tiny object traveling at x hundred miles per hour. these weapons are not guided missiles, they are turret mounted slugs/energy blasts, course they will struggle to hit, hence a high number represents a mix of armour, and a lock on/tracking of fighter. the dodge then represents the fighters evasive action. meh.

I see why people complain don't get me wrong, it is after all, a small flying coffin! but this IS A GAME! the numbers are used to represent all sorts of things, their are more fundamanetal issues to care about other than a fighters hull/to hit score!

 

[Locutus9956]

the main thing is though I think fighters die too easily still, and only the very toughest ones LIKE T-Bolts can actually survive to be any kind of threat. I cannot overstate how much I DONT want to see them nerfed, as I said before Id like to see ALL fighters that much more surviveable vs cap ships.

If you dont bring any fighters of your own to screen enemy attack fighters you damn well SHOULD be vulnerable to them!

 

[Lord David the Denied]

the main thing is though I think fighters die too easily still, and only the very toughest ones LIKE T-Bolts can actually survive to be any kind of threat. I cannot overstate how much I DONT want to see them nerfed, as I said before Id like to see ALL fighters that much more surviveable vs cap ships.

If you dont bring any fighters of your own to screen enemy attack fighters you damn well SHOULD be vulnerable to them!

Centauri are totally boned vs a fleet with lots of fighters, like... EA! Flip through SFoS and check just how many Centauri ships can bring a reasonable number of fighters to the game. Now look at the fighters. Now get over your arrogant "don't whine, you're teh best!!!111one" attitude and think. I'll spell it out for you.

Centauri fighters are poor overall and available in very low numbers. EA fighters are good overall and available in large numbers. So a single Razik flight can take on three Thunderbolt flights and have a 50% chance to survive and eliminate a single enemy flight. Great. They'll need to do that over and over to keep the enemy fighters off the Centauri fleet, and if the EA win initiative they won't be picking their dogfights. The EA will be picking them. So the vaunted Razik will (hopefully) kill one enemy fighter flight while the other two from the above example race past on afterburners to pump rockets into a capital ship. The capital ship shoots back and gets a few hits past the Thunderbolt's silly hull score. These are then, in all probability, dodged, and the Thunderbolts get another turn to hammer the ship with rockets. How many anti-fighter guns do the Centauri get?

Leaving the Centauri aside, only the Vree get any decent fighters in the League, and they only have one ship that carries them. Plenty of AF guns, of course, but that's scant comfort after your low-hull ship gets killed by fighters who fire first. What about the Minbari? They can mini-beam the fighters to death at close range, but their own fighters are grossly outnumbered. Not a huge problem for them, maybe, but still an issue. The Narn are basically immune to fighters and get enough of their own to stave off any attacks that get past their e-mines, so no problem there. Vorlon and Shadow fighters are fodder in dogfights against EA, same for Raiders. Drakh don't have any fighters at all.

Given the numbers EA fighters are available in they're just too good. SFoS stats were fair. Armageddon stats aren't.

 

[H]

hail pointy haired goon ;-)

the narn will sell you a dag'Kar for a grossly overinflated price to deal death upon your fighter enemies,but we will keep this handy cutoff code should you try ot use it against us,

The Magnificent Narn regime awaits your reply ;-)

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Damn you, Hiff... deflating my ire with your cheap comedy... :wink:

 

[Locutus9956]

Well its like I said LD, I happen to think the Arm upgrade stats for EA fighters are what SHOULD have been done to pretty much ALL fighters.

But anyway, if your really worried about all those T-Bolts you could always try dropping one of those gigantic beam cruisers for a carrier FULL of Raziks? If I was facing EA I know I would!

I've won my fair share of games vs Centauri with EA but I can't honestly think of ANY of those where fighters were a signifigant factor, in fact the only Centauri ships I've EVER had any success against with fighters are Vorchans and Darkners, both of which can, should they wish to, OUTRUN T'Bolts (and I don't particularly rate either of those ships at the moment anyway).

As for it being arrogant, Im sorry but come on, I dont care how many fighters EA have Centauri can just blast the EA cap ships to bits with their rediculous beam team at the moment and then jump out before the fighters tickle them to death over the 300 turns it generally takes even 5 or 6 flights of T-Bolts to down a Primus or even a Sullust. Ive tried using fighters on mass to see how they work, even with T-Bolts they just dont pack the offensive firepower to be worth. Even with hull 6 and 2+ dodge theyre STILL die fast if you concentrate even non AF weapons on them.

I'm sorry if my original post came of a little personally LD, it's really not you I'm getting at but the general attitude on the boards that anything thats at the top of its class is automatically unfair and should be nerfed until every race works exactly the same way and has no advantages in any given field over any other race.

EA: Excellent fighters, not that great ship weapons, will usually lose a straight firefight with the big beamers.

Centauri: Lousy antifighter defence but eat cap ships for breakfast

Ok so thats a massive generalisation and you can take choices to minimise your weakness but doing so comes at a price. If the Centauri take a Balvarix loaded with Raziks for example thoes EA fighters are in a spot of trouble imho, but then again, you could have spent that battle point on a Primus to blast those EA ships to bits from the other side of the table....

 

[Lord David the Denied]

You must forgive my harsh words, Locutus. I find this whole thing equally frustrating.

It's true, I can take a Balvarix loaded with Raziks, but doing so uses up a lot of my FAP total and the fighters are worthless once the enemy birds are cleared out. Not true for the EA, even Aurora Starfuries can hurt ships, but Sentris and Raziks will find that difficult.

I don't see the EA fighter stars being fair since they're so far above every other fighter. Only the Vree Tzymm is really on their level and that's far harder to get on the table. EA line choices bring plenty of good fighters to the table, but other races' line choices don't. That's the crux of it.

 

[H]

cue the design of the new EA Destructinator heavy fighter, with more firepower and range than anything else!

 

[katadder]

cue the design of the new EA Destructinator heavy fighter, with more firepower and range than anything else!

yep thats called the firebolt.