Shadow Fighters - Just why

[Da Boss]

none of the ships you listed have 3AD AP DD.

thoruns make up 4AD total over 4 flights versus the 6 the shadows have the rest only have 4AD compared to 6. ok the rutarian has precise but no AP to get the hits in the 1st place. firebolts i never liked anyway but they still have less AD compared to the shadow fighter combo.

not all ships have AF, and hull 5 is actually quite a good protection against it anyway.

as for why things were not changed, who knows, perhaps it was changed to the way it was after we last saw it, perhaps other playtesters think differantly (as they do) like on other subjects.

The Firebolts like em or not have 4AD DD AP and Precise and as I keep mentioning ALL of the above have the range to use their guns with total impunity if there is AF and usually have additional guns to make up the AD if they do go in close if the target does not have AF.

 

[katadder]

actually the firebolts have 2AD AP DD P between the 2 flights, which is 3 times less than the shadow figter.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

It is, however, superior in other ways. Like the other fighters Da Boss mentioned.

 

[katadder]

yes but then some ships as i said are superior to others, shadow scout to delphi for example.

not every fighter can or will be the same, the shadow fighter has superior anti-ship firepower in one weapon to anything except a WS fighter. and if either of them go after ships they both have the same problem.

 

[Da Boss]

its all very well pointing out fighters at same cost do this much in this fleet but then you can do that throughout fleet lists comparing ships that cost the same. am sure EA players would love their delphi to have self repair, dodge and shields on top of its stealth, as well as be SM with 6AD of SAP DD weapons. but they dont as they are in a differant fleet.

"Sigh" :roll:
No I am pointing out that across many fleets the same cost fighter is always better and is always cheaper to replace.

So you consider the Shadow fighter is worth 2 per flight - hand on heart!?

 

[katadder]

i have said maybe 3 as the shields dont work against the main threats to them. but if they go 3 then so does the nial have to. the others at 2 per can stay the same.
but then you have to look at everything above them and probably increase their flights by one or 2 per wing also.

across the many fleets there are ships at every level that cost the same as others but are better/worse. its the same principle.

 

[Da Boss]

I'm sorry but now I really don't understand - you agree that the Shadow Fighter is not worth its present level so should go upto in flights.

However the Nial which does seem to be balanced should also go up - lost you completely :?

This is about changing one fighter slightly to make it competative to the others in its class. If, as you imply, it was tested (with shields working against Af and dogfight) then the balance was obviously wrong as this important factor was incorrect - so its simply putting right this mistake?

 

[katadder]

no the nial is as balanced as the shadow fighter. one is an interceptor one is an antiship fighter. what i am saying is those 2 really are about equal.
the shadow fighter does where it is IMO ok its not quite as good as a WS fighter but like i used as other examples, a delphi is not a patch on a shadow scout but they both cost the same. but if it were to go up you have to consider every other fighter as well.

your 2 shadow fighters outgun a bluestar for example at that PL already. both have same dodge and almost equivalent damage except the fighter has the advantage of always moving last so will kill a bluestar.
in fact 2 flights of shadow fighters could do for alot of patrol ships, its just no good against other fighters, and thats how its going to stay by matts explantion.

 

[Da Boss]

IMHO The Shdow fighter is a second rate anti ship fighter compared to the dedicated ones - for the reasons outlined.

The Nial is an excellent top of the line fighter...................

Thats the difference here - plus the campaign cost - or does that not matter?

Ie are you happy with the fact they cost the same as a Skirmish ship to replace 2 flights of fighters ? or 4 fighter flights the same as Raid level carrier and its 8 flights of fighters?

 

[DrSeltsam]

no the nial is as balanced as the shadow fighter. one is an interceptor one is an antiship fighter. what i am saying is those 2 really are about equal.
the shadow fighter does where it is IMO ok its not quite as good as a WS fighter but like i used as other examples, a delphi is not a patch on a shadow scout but they both cost the same. but if it were to go up you have to consider every other fighter as well.

your 2 shadow fighters outgun a bluestar for example at that PL already. both have same dodge and almost equivalent damage except the fighter has the advantage of always moving last so will kill a bluestar.
in fact 2 flights of shadow fighters could do for alot of patrol ships, its just no good against other fighters, and thats how its going to stay by matts explantion.

Regarding the Delphi / Scout :
The Delphi is a very good scout with a great special rule ( unlimited scout range ).
The Shadow Scout is a scout that is the only raid level combat ship for the fleet.
It has to fill two roles where the Delphi is "only" a scout - and a very good one. If the Delphi would be the only Raid level choice for the Crusade EA it would also have to fit more than one role and be suited with weapons and traits to match this task or people might start complaining :roll:

 

[katadder]

IMHO The Shdow fighter is a second rate anti ship fighter compared to the dedicated ones - for the reasons outlined.

The Nial is an excellent top of the line fighter...................

Thats the difference here - plus the campaign cost - or does that not matter?

Ie are you happy with the fact they cost the same as a Skirmish ship to replace 2 flights of fighters ? or 4 fighter flights the same as Raid level carrier and its 8 flights of fighters?

only 2nd rate if your opponent has lots of AF, and even then they have hull 5. then like i said they are top of the fighters alongside the WS fighter for actual firepower. which is why they are the position they are.

ok for campaigns they cost you more, but thats life. you dont have to spend anything on repairing/recrewing ships so just buy your fighters back advantages and disadvantages you see.

on the delphi/scout thing. yes the delphi has unlimted range, but a shadow scout has range 36", and can always move double to make sure its in range. and the delphi is one of 3 choices, the others being explorer and hyperion so even there not a great deal of choice, and the shadow scout could take any of those 3 IMO.

 

[Da Boss]

ok for campaigns they cost you more, but thats life. you dont have to spend anything on repairing/recrewing ships so just buy your fighters back advantages and disadvantages you see.

We already pay double for the ships to counter that - no reason for the fighters to cost double as well............

 

[Locutus9956]

Nope I disagree completely Katadder and I'll explain why succinctly:

The Nial is an excellent interceptor, it can engage and destroy just about any fighter in the game with the odds in its favour of success, indeed against MOST fighters it can engage two or 3 of them and still have the fight stacked in its favour.

The Shadow fighter is a good antiship fighter if you look at the stats of its weapon and the ability to be launched miles on its own, BUT:

It is dogmeat to pretty much ANY enemy fighters in the game, and furthermore generally massively outnumbered in fighter terms thus further exagerating this flaw. Even if they DO get past the enemy fighter it cannot launch an antiship attack from outside antifighter range and due to their small numbers will, against most ships with any middling level of antifighter defence, get shot down before it can actually make an attack.

Now I could overlook this and still consider it a decent anti ship fighter if the shadows had a good way of clearing enemy fighters out for them to attack (every other race with 'attack fighters' has either some good alternate way of clearing enemy fighters (either their own interceptor/superiority fighters (EA, Minbari, Dilgar) or emines (Narns, Gaim) or just masses of A/F dice all over their ships (vree/vorlons).

The shadows dont, putting the shadow fighter in the same ballpark, league or frankly GALAXY as the Nial in terms of usefulness is just silly. Now PERSONALLY I dont have a problem with the shadow fighter sucking donkey balls, the shadows have MORE than enough OTHER things going for them and their ships are fast and touhg enough that they can to an extent afford to more or less ignore fighters until theyve wiped out the capital ships and then pick them off slowly, using their own fighters only for things like picking off stray ships or catapulting them way behind the enemies long range support ships once his fighters have already closed to engage in the main fight. But DONT try to claim theyre GOOD as quite frankly theyre not and it really doesnt do people faith in the playtesters much good to see comments like 'theyre nearly as good as whitestar fighters' about a fighter that is unlikely to get more than one or two shots off ever before theyre all wiped out.....

The problem with the shadowfighter is not their ability to hurt ships its their innability to survive to get the chance to do so! It woulnt matter if they had 30AD quad damage beams if they never got a chance to FIRE them your opponent need only spend a single patrol point on fighters from just about any race to counter them completely.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Blue Star could ace the two Shadow Fighter flights pretty easy, though, before they got to fire back...

 

[katadder]

ok for campaigns they cost you more, but thats life. you dont have to spend anything on repairing/recrewing ships so just buy your fighters back advantages and disadvantages you see.

We already pay double for the ships to counter that - no reason for the fighters to cost double as well............

only when buying new ships, your starting fleet doesnt cost double. and as a user of ISA in my last campaign i know how much of an advatage that whole SR is although the ISA dont get it for crits, cripples and crew. i would say its worth more than double your ship in a campaign, especially if you ever had to repair a crippled victory versus say an ancient shadow ship reduce to 10 damage.

its sometimes fleet as a whole rather than just fighters. your fighters are worse than othe rpeoples for range/dogfighting but better firepower up close. your ships are better overall than other peoples.

 

[katadder]

Blue Star could ace the two Shadow Fighter flights pretty easy, though, before they got to fire back...

wanna tell me how? bluestar has range 8, shadow fighters always move last. talk to drakh players about how ineffective the light raider is versus fighters and you will find out how the bluestar would lose every time.

 

[Locutus9956]

Park two bluestars pointing at each other with 5-6" between them and all stop. Im fairly certain there is no point within 2" of either ship now that cannot be hit by one or the other (or both). Come get me shadow fighters.... blamblamblam... oh theyre all dead....

Granted if the shadows win initiative they could maybe get one shot off BEFORE the bluestars blow the to bits but even if they do and are very lucky and take one out they will be in the fire arc for the other.

Now if your talking LITTERALLY 1 bluestar vs 2 Shadowfighters, the bluestar can still at least DRAW by simply outrunning the shadowfighters, then turning round and waiting for them to come to itand running any time they get to a position where they can move close enough to attack out of the front arc. And in all honesty how often have you ever seen someone field ONE bluestar anyway. Skirmish ships always work better in groups (ok so that applies to any level of ship when you get down to it, but cheaper ones tend to appear in groups as its easy to field them as such)

 

[katadder]

hmm so parked bluestars. lol wont bother with the usual drakh players comments to doing that with ligh raiders as am sure you all know them by now
plus i was on about one patrol point so you only have one bluestar. get into the whole fleet thing and both sides get a fleet.

and you all think the shadow fighter is bad, at least it can act as an interceptor on your shadow ships the kotha cant.
and before you say 8 kothas can beat 2 shadow fighters in a dogfight remember there is 8 differance between the inits on these fleets, the kothas are too slow to get into that dogfight and should never be allowed to.

 

[Locutus9956]

Yes I will happily agree, the Kortha sucks. But then again it sucks at EVERYTHING. It doesnt have a basically wasted potent gun and shield trait that are made basically useless as shadow fighters die to easily to enemy fighters.

As for the dogfight issue, sure the shadow fighters can avoid the Korthas but not if they want to attack abbai ships now can they? The Korthas just wait near the ships or as escort fighters.

Then we have the issue of shadowfighters working as interceptors. This is acutally a good point Ill grant you, that is actually quite a useful prupose for them but again you can clear them off easily with just about any fighter (and in any case its beams that shadows really fear anyway for their pinning abiliity). And still doesnt really justify only getting 2 of them per flight for a fighter that dies so quickly and costs so much to replace.

However as noted in campaign play what you spend on fighters Id wage you will more than save when compared to most fleets on the repair bills your NOT paying....

I guess what Im trying to say is that shadow fighters DO suck, but that in my eyes thats just fine, its a weakness of the fleet, live with it

 

[Sulfurdown]

katadder is pretty right on about the "Park & Defend" strategy, I've tried it and it's only minorly effective, especially since while you're parked the opponent's capital ships can take down one of your P&D ships while the fighters chew apart the other.

in fact 2 flights of shadow fighters could do for alot of patrol ships, its just no good against other fighters, and thats how its going to stay by matts explantion.

In this case why aren't the Shadow Fighters given a Damage 5/1 and made Capital ships?