Which Fighter to take ?

[Martin]

Hi All,

Getting on well with my 5pt Centauri Battle Fleet time to think about fighters. My fleet contains:

2 x Primus Class BC
2 x Centurion Class CA (can be used as Prefect if I am feeling nasty)
2 x Dargan Class CS
2 x Darkner Class FF
2 x Corvan Class Sc

I tend to buy ships in pairs.

This fleet has 10 flights of integeral fighters my problem is what to take Sentri (good dog fighter), Razik (good fighter bomber) or a mix main opponents will be EA or Narn. Views appreciated.

Martin

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Erm... Raziks are not fighter-bombers. They're basically interceptors with piss-poor weapons. There's very little reason to use Sentri fighters, they're poor against ships and outclassed in a dogfight by Raziks.

You can't afford to take Rutarians in your fleet, you'd need to drop the two Corvans to get eight Rutarian flights, so your choice is between a good dogfight and a better dogfighter. That's really no choice at all.

 

[Martin]

So Razik's is the choice then. Sorry about calling them fighter bombers I thought as they are better against capital ships than Senti's if I understand the stats right. I will just call them interceptors.

 

[Voronesh]

Well yer go with raziks.

Sentris have pratically no antiship capability anyway. 3 weak AD isnt anything good. Especially Hull 5 is laughing at it.

Cut your firepower by a third, and gain a good dogfighter.

Against EA your outnumbered anyway. So at least to stem their tide, so they cant bring enough fighters close to actually kill ships.

Same against Narn, they kill your fighters very fast. So youre forced to hide them, and then hes lower numbers often prove better.

 

[katadder]

always raziks, especially as the EA starfury is just as good as dogfighting as a sentri but better at everything else.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

So Razik's is the choice then. Sorry about calling them fighter bombers I thought as they are better against capital ships than Senti's if I understand the stats right. I will just call them interceptors.

You've got them confused with the Rutarian strike fighter. That has limited anti-ship abilities, the same dogfighting ability as the Sentri and stealth to boot. Its dodge is lower (3+ to 2+) and it costs you a patrol point to replace four Sentri flights with Rutarian flights, or a patrol point to buy two independant Rutarian flights.

 

[Davesaint]

Erm... Raziks are not fighter-bombers. They're basically interceptors with piss-poor weapons. There's very little reason to use Sentri fighters, they're poor against ships and outclassed in a dogfight by Raziks.

You can't afford to take Rutarians in your fleet, you'd need to drop the two Corvans to get eight Rutarian flights, so your choice is between a good dogfight and a better dogfighter. That's really no choice at all.

Why on earth would you drop the Corvans for Rutarians? The Corvans are too useful in redirecting and reducing stealth to eliminate them.

As for fighters against the EA - Go with Raziks if you want to win dogfights, go with Sentri's if you want to try to hurt ships. While they are 3AD Weak against ships, they make nice Chronos hunters as you are essentially just 3AD against hull 6. They do a nice job of crit fishing.


Dave

 

[Lord David the Denied]

I didn't say he should drop the Corvans, merely that that would be the easiest way to get Rutarians into his fleet.

I still say it's hardly fair to charge for Rutarians when the EA gets Thunderbolts for free...

 

[Voronesh]

Well but T-Bolts dont have stealth. And no precise weapons too.

And dogfight worse. they only have a little better weaponry.

And Chronos will only appear in a Crusade era list, those are short on Fighters anyway, unless a Poseidon is chosen. Then the Sentri becomes semiviable for a whole different reason. That of less enemy interceptor resistance.

Against the 3rd age fleet, theres no Chronos, and bucketloads of fighters. Early era EA gets even more fighters with raid lvl Avengers :S

 

[Lord David the Denied]

T-bolts don't have stealth, true, but they have much better firepower, and all for the loss of 1 dogfight point.

Rutarians lose a point of dodge in exchange for stealth 3+. That's 2+ if the Rutarian is in range to use any of its weapons. Not going to fail that often, but the 3+ dodge instead of 2+ will show. Plus they've only got 1AD that's really worth using against ships. The other 2AD are weak, at range 2".

 

[Ripple]

Rutarians are in a bit of a box given the T-bolts effectiveness. But stealth is a big deal.

The Rutarian does fairly well in the dogfight ratings, maybe not a big enough deal against the big four opponents, but useful.

On the weapons thing I guess I am not sure your at a disadvantage. Two AD weak against two AD standard down one hit on hull five on average for a wing. Eh, against hull six ships your even up. The two AD of AP on the T-bolt will get more hits than the DD precise of the rutarian but it is DD precise which puts the damage capacity of the rutarian fairly high. The respective wings get three hits for the T-bolts vs .6ish for the rutarian. That's a 50/50 for the T-bolt to get a crit vs .2ish for the Rutarian but the rutarians is more damaging.

Maybe if the bumped the wing size to three rutarians/trade six for a patrol it would be a better buy.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Or give them 3AD weak instead of 2. Or 2AD DD precise instead of one. Or dodge 2+ instead of 3+. The justification for costing a patrol point is that the Rutarian loses nothing over the standard Sentri, but that's just not true.

The Thunderbolt gains more than it loses over the Aurora, but it's still free.

 

[Target]

Forgeting about the hull 4 vs hull 5 on the t-bolt it's bit of a biggy. They do need to increase the trade amount i think. I'd take a T-bolt any day over a rutarian.

 

[Alexb83]

Centauri fighters are nasty... and here am I with my Nials. Oh, for some minibeam precise armament, or hull 4 even :S

 

[Silvereye]

Or more then 1 flight for a Patrol point.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Especially now that the EA fighters have increased dogfight scores.

 

[Alexb83]

Yeah... EA get shiny new toys, whilst the Minbari are retrograde.
The explanation for Nials not having Minibeam is a bit weak, IMO, as is their dogfight score - bumping it up to +4 might be good.

Also, since stealth is now ignored in base contact, and reduced within 8 inches, reducing the CQ check on skin dancing might be prudent.

 

[Silvereye]

Its only Auxillary craft that ignore Stealth within 1", so you still get your stealth lock-on if your within 1" of a ship your attacking. However the -1 at less than 8" mean that Nials are seen on a 3+ at this range.

 

[Alexb83]

Yep, seen on a 3+, hit on a 3+, usually without a dodge. And if they've got interceptors... good luck getting past them with your non-mini beam mini beams

 

[Slightly Norse John]

In reality, a fleet consists of a mix of the effective and efficient, the bog standard, the outdated, the shiny new and possibly functional, the creaking relics whose most powerful weapon is the flagpole, and the simply badly built.
Some fleet lists model this better than others; the Centauri list is actually pretty reasonable, some ships that are past their best, some that are new and spiffy, several that are just ploddin' along- and of course we gravitate towards the best.
The Rutarian was never meant to be good at it's job. It is statted up as an over- ambitious and partly successful attempt to create a one size-fits- all top line multirole fighter. I'd take them if I got them for nothing, but I wouldn't pay for them.
I wouldn't increase the Nial's dogfight to +4, partly because it's super- mingy already, but also the Tishat, the minbari light fighter, already has that rating.
I'll say it again; the EA fleet lists should have changed the ships' stats to be appropriate for the era. Ships without pulse cannon from befre the Dilgar war, ships without heavy lasers from the early stages of the Earth- Minbari war. Older versions of the Starfury, too.