How are Drakh supposed to hadle fighters?

[Orphanmaker]

Hello again!

I was looking at the stats for the Drakh fleet when it hit me. How are Drakh supposed to fight fighter-heavy fleets like the Gaim or EA? They have no anti-fighter weapons and no fighters of their own to tie up the enemy fighters. The only thing they can use to combat fighters seems to be the light raider. Yes, the gun has the accurate trait, but with only 2AD you have to field a whole lot of them to make a dent in a dedicated fighter swarm, even if you split your fire you can only target two flights every turn. Have I missed anything, can anyone give me some insight into how I am supposed to counter my friends fighterswarm (yes, he plays Gaim)?

Cheers
Orphan

 

[Burger]

Drakh do have major problems against fighter-heavy fleets. Your best defence against them is your GEG, which stops damage per weapon, that means most fighters attacks will amount to zero. Do not use critical systems defence against fighter heavy fleets! Only those fighter attacks that score crits, or "heavy" fighters such as White Star Fighters, will do much hurt you through your GEG. You can pretty much ignore standard Gaim fighters' 1AD. Even the crewed missiles only have 1AD, though it is SAP, so likely to hit against your lower-hulled ships... you can still use dodge, and the 2 damage will be knocked down to 1 on a raider or 0 on a bigger ship by GEG, unless it is a crit. So in short; ignore them, and hope he doesn't roll crits. :lol:

Bombers can generally be knocked out by your secondaries, TL/AP is quite an effective combo. Putting 4AD per bomber you're likely to get at least 3 hits, and bombers dodge being quite poor, kill them. Just ask Kenny :twisted:

The Gaim e-mines however, are very scary to a Drakh fleet!!

 

[H]

having faced a swarm of Gaim, I can pretty much say that the larger ship are pretty much ok apart fromthe crits, and eventually, your secondaries will remove enemy fighters from your space. smaller ships will very slowly get whittled down, but you get dodge and then geg, so still have a chance of surviving for some time. never ever try to waste the light raider on fighters, it's a pointless excercise, fighters move after so more often than not, your light raider has nothing to shoot.
U ised overlappign firearcs on larger ships to take out fighters. I find the bigger problem is breeching pods from the Gaim, small ships just get swamped, Bigger ships will eventually get worn down too, so it's often better to ignore the fighters and get rid of the breaching pods!

 

[Burger]

And if you happen to have a mothership, you can transfer troops to your smaller ships to help fend off attacking troops, or to kill off enemy troops that have taken over a ship

 

[KennyBoy]

Do not use critical systems defence against fighter heavy fleets!

Bombers can generally be knocked out by your secondaries, TL/AP is quite an effective combo. Putting 4AD per bomber you're likely to get at least 3 hits, and bombers dodge being quite poor, kill them. Just ask Kenny :twisted:

Burger has highlighted the two main points in regards to the Drakh/fighter problem. In our recent encounter, he chose to have Crit Defense on his Amu rather than GEG. Now, by my own admission, I should have sent my fighters after the mothership as soon as he announced this, and this mistake - I feel - is what cost me the game. I sent my fighters after the smaller ships - that still had GEG - and they did only moderate damage... then Burger's secondaries on the Amu - which was nearby - all but wiped them out!

Needless to say, i'll whup him next time :wink:

However, as Hiff pointed out, WS Fighters will still make a mess of your little ships - especially with White Stars to supply redirects!