Carrier trait

[Voronesh]

Well that is the actual problem yes. Narns were abel to get around their weak ship, shadows cant.

Expendable and expensive? Thats like buying a second 50" plasma TV, since practicable TVs are just not produced for some mysterious and totally unkown reason. (Bad example i know ^^)

 

[Locutus9956]

Well it IS worth bearing in that you CAN still send a shadow ship home for repairs to refill its fighter compliment for free if you really dont want to pay the cost! It means your without said ship for a turn but if you keep 2 or 3 of them in your list then you can alternate them except in cases of really big games of course!

 

[DrSeltsam]

Well it IS worth bearing in that you CAN still send a shadow ship home for repairs to refill its fighter compliment for free if you really dont want to pay the cost! It means your without said ship for a turn but if you keep 2 or 3 of them in your list then you can alternate them except in cases of really big games of course!

Yes you CAN but "send back home" to get back 2 fighters ?
So you think it would a plan to keep 2 (or 3) War Ship in your list just to get back 2 fighters ? That would be 4 (or 6) out of the 10 battle points in your campaign fleet list !

Would you send a not damaged Sharlin / Octurion / Warlock / Bin'Tak home to get its fighter compliment for free ? And the mentioned ships even get more fighters ...

Sorry but i do not think that this is a good plan :wink:

 

[Locutus9956]

Actually in the case of the Sharlin, depending on how I was doing for RR points, I might! With the shadows, Id do it on a turn I felt I could spare the ship (and in all honesty Id keep 2 or 3 shadow ships around ANYWAY because theyre SHADOW SHIPS and playing a shadow fleet that didnt consist at least largely of them would just be deeply wrong in my eyes )

In all honesty though its a case of something you can do if you REALLY want the fighters back and cant spare the RR (frankly for how useless they tend to be I would probably not even LAUNCH the shadow fighters unless my oppoentn either lost all his fighters or didnt bring many/any) and if I DID lose them Id still be quite happy to deploy an empty shadow ship. The fighters suck for the most part anyway and are hardly going to be greatly missed!

 

[Da Boss]

The fighters suck for the most part anyway and are hardly going to be greatly missed!

Agree for the most part but thats kinda part of the point of this thread I think - how to make them suck less.

 

[Locutus9956]

In all honesty, I woudl actually leave them as they are but increase them to perhaps, 3AD DD P Accurate each thus making them VERY nasty little bombers but still quite easy to stop with AF or dogfighting (but at least making them too dangerous to ignore) and also giving them a small chance to shoot down enemy fighters if they DONT move into dogfight....

Furthermore I would make it would consider allowing shadow ships to regrown them after a fight for free (youd still have to pay if you wanted indendant wings but

 

[DrSeltsam]

In all honesty though its a case of something you can do if you REALLY want the fighters back and cant spare the RR (frankly for how useless they tend to be I would probably not even LAUNCH the shadow fighters unless my oppoentn either lost all his fighters or didnt bring many/any) and if I DID lose them Id still be quite happy to deploy an empty shadow ship. The fighters suck for the most part anyway and are hardly going to be greatly missed!

Agree with you on this one totally
Currently a good tatic will be to wait until you can use the fighters in a battle ... if this will happen at all ... or let'em stay in the Ship to save points :roll:

 

[Sulfurdown]

Without the Carrier trait, you still have to engage with the Shadow Ships in order to empty it's fighter holds before you can send it back for repairs.

I ran some of the numbers for Fighters versus the Shadow capital ships and it looks like the Scout is probably the most able to survive against fighters assuming it's stealth operates and 50% of the incoming shots can't lock. Assuming a single point of fighters at the capital ship's level, though I wasn't able to account for the limit of fighters that can swarm ships. Ships like the Double-V or Pikatos are massive threats which can potentially destroy Shadow vessels bigger then the Scout in a single round. But even the Kotha can provide a threat to Shadow vessels.
So if you're bringing Shadows, beware the Fighters.

 

[Ripple]

Just drop the requirement for ancients to pay double for fighters. Flights of fighter don't pay for themselves at the price for either of the fighter capable ancient races. That way you only pay double for the ships that actually get some use out of the self-repair trait.

Ripple

- shadow fighters should still be better...and accurate on the gun may be a good choice. Shadow anti-fighter defense then become initiative.

 

[DrSeltsam]

I ran some of the numbers for Fighters versus the Shadow capital ships and it looks like the Scout is probably the most able to survive against fighters assuming it's stealth operates and 50% of the incoming shots can't lock. Assuming a single point of fighters at the capital ship's level, though I wasn't able to account for the limit of fighters that can swarm ships. Ships like the Double-V or Pikatos are massive threats which can potentially destroy Shadow vessels bigger then the Scout in a single round. But even the Kotha can provide a threat to Shadow vessels.
So if you're bringing Shadows, beware the Fighters.

Agree with you on this.
The combination of stealth/dodge ( on top of being only a "cheap" Raid ) makes the Scout the top-choice against fighter attacks ...

 

[Voronesh]

Just drop the requirement for ancients to pay double for fighters. Flights of fighter don't pay for themselves at the price for either of the fighter capable ancient races. That way you only pay double for the ships that actually get some use out of the self-repair trait.

Ripple

- shadow fighters should still be better...and accurate on the gun may be a good choice. Shadow anti-fighter defense then become initiative.

This is a good choice, or give Shadow ships a Carrier 1 trait, just so they can get their fighters back.

I mean you do pay twice the standard RR for getting something for free. Which simply doesnt apply to shadow fighters in any way.......

 

[Iain McGhee]

Given that you won't be paying RRs to repair surviving ships, it's not that difficult to replace Shadow fighter flights after a battle, as long as you win. 3RRs for 2 flights isn't too bad. I only really use them to hunt down ships with no AF left so that my Shadow vessels can concentrate on other threats and don't always launch them if the enemy still has large numbers of fighters active.

no you pay 6RR for 2 flights which is too bad

Only 1 point more than you paid in SFOS, still a good deal when you consider my other point.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

I'd let Shadows regenerate fighters as a fleet special rule for campaigns, yeah. No different from self-repair meaning they never pay to repair their ships.

 

[Da Boss]

Given that you won't be paying RRs to repair surviving ships, it's not that difficult to replace Shadow fighter flights after a battle, as long as you win. 3RRs for 2 flights isn't too bad. I only really use them to hunt down ships with no AF left so that my Shadow vessels can concentrate on other threats and don't always launch them if the enemy still has large numbers of fighters active.

no you pay 6RR for 2 flights which is too bad

Only 1 point more than you paid in SFOS, still a good deal when you consider my other point.

lets put it another way

6 pts gets you 2 Shadow fighter flights or anyone else (save Vorlons) a Skirmish level ship

12 pts gets you 4 Shadows Flighter flights or your opponent A Raid level ship - for example a EA, Brakiri, Centauri Carrier with 8 fighter flights...............

 

[Spideredd]

what about increasing the range of the gun an inch or two.
Judge it right and AFF is just out of range
Judge it wrong, fighters are dead.

Oh, and i think that the shields trait should be the ONLY trait against AFF as only the shadow fighters have them, i believe.

 

[Voronesh]

what about increasing the range of the gun an inch or two.
Judge it right and AFF is just out of range
Judge it wrong, fighters are dead.

Oh, and i think that the shields trait should be the ONLY trait against AFF as only the shadow fighters have them, i believe.

Well the thing is, there is no judging or guessing a range in ACTA. YOu just check it, and you know if your within AF range or not.

The idea of getting back Shadow fighter flights during a campaign is a good fix for a campaign, but it still doesnt make them good for one offs.....Shields give you a net dogfight of 0. Damn those things must fly like bricks....or torpedo bombers, but they just dont have the power to feel like a heavy bomber. More like a mid powered anti ship swarmer. Tzymm or Riva like firepower is what should get you only 2 flights.

How about turning shadow fighters into real bombers? 1 fighter flight per base, immensely increased firepower and a dogfight of 0 plus maybe a single AF die. Since bombers normally have a negative dogfight score, they shields push you up to 0.

 

[Sulfurdown]

Part of the problem is that they do have some pretty respectable firepower, but since the Shadows have an inherent vulnerability to fighters to begin with, pushing it to even bigger firepower and lower numbers is going to widen up the vulnerability and you are probably still going to suffer from the current complaints or do something like increasing firepower and range and risk pushing the power curve into the abusive range rather then the underpowered range.

 

[David Anla Shok']

Just drop the requirement for ancients to pay double for fighters. Flights of fighter don't pay for themselves at the price for either of the fighter capable ancient races. That way you only pay double for the ships that actually get some use out of the self-repair trait.

Ripple

This is probably the best solution. The Shadow ships were controlled by a single entity (telepath) embedded within. We never got any sort of fluff on the fighters. I've always assumed that they were either remotely controlled by the launching ship or were a semi conscience entity on their own. This would explain their less that stellar performance vs other fighters.
Regards,

 

[Silvereye]

I've always assumed that they were either remotely controlled by the launching ship or were a semi conscience entity on their own.

I guess they need to tweak those self-preservation instincts in the controlling AIs, or make the ships CPU pay for the losses to sort that one out.

 

[David Anla Shok']

I've always assumed that they were either remotely controlled by the launching ship or were a semi conscience entity on their own.

I guess they need to tweak those self-preservation instincts in the controlling AIs, or make the ships CPU pay for the losses to sort that one out.

Eh? Maybe it falls under the Great Secrets of Life... "never post while very tired", "never fry bacon naked", and "if you are an ancient race make sure that your fighters are the baddest around".
Regards,