Which Fighter to take ?

[Ripple]

Alex, if you are getting shot 'usually' without a dodge then you are not picking the best places to place your fighters or taking fighters against the wrong opponents. Many ships, and some entire races, do not have many anti-fighter weapons or have those weapons in limited arcs.

Ripple

 

[CZuschlag]

Ripple's right, fighters need to pick their targets. Here's the start a handy cheat sheet:

-- Any scout under Raid level.
-- Skirmish and smaller Vree (large stacks can just kill individual ships outright)
-- Many old EA (Nova, Sagg, Tethys)
-- Centauri if fighterless (rare)
-- Dilgar (only 4 anti-fighter dice in the whole fleet listing -- all 2" range!)
-- Drakh Raiders (yes! Drakh have an almost impossible time killing you away from the carriers and CA, so go crit-fishin' baby. There's no reason to stand in front of the Light Raider's beam. Ever!)
-- Shadows (Now that fighters fire first, this is the way you kill those ships that are almost dead before they regenerate all the way back to health. And those vile shadow fighters need to die, as well.)
-- Drazi (what non-boresight guns? On the Guardhawk, king of loser ships?!)
-- ISA ... if you can kill the CQ5 Nials somehow, someway, they are Very vulnerable. Big if!

Things you don't pick on:

-- the Z'Takk, Xill, and Xaak
-- almost any Minbari above of the Torotha, although you'll have to do something about all those dang Nials eventually
-- any Narn that could conceivably buy E-Mines or the G'Karith
-- new Vorlons .... the pulse, and the A-F beam of the Vorlon fighter death squad. Their fighters don't need to dogfight you to kill you.
-- any Brakiri that might have the Takata.
-- Drakh Carriers. They just don't care about you.
-- Abbai. Enemy fighters give the pathetic Kotha something to actually do.

Lots of good uses out there.

 

[Alexb83]

Alex, if you are getting shot 'usually' without a dodge then you are not picking the best places to place your fighters or taking fighters against the wrong opponents. Many ships, and some entire races, do not have many anti-fighter weapons or have those weapons in limited arcs.

Ripple

I mean to point out - if you're shooting them, by definition you're within their AF/minibeam range, and whilst there are ships with none, many ships have at least two arcs, or a turreted AF weapon (or interceptors). You don't get your dodge, usually.
Yes, there are races without AF weaponry, or with limited arcs, but these usually compensate by having something else to cause your fighters problems.

 

[Ripple]

Could you elaborate?

It is not that I expect your fighters to not get shot, but anit-fighter seems to be somewhat limited in the fights I have been involved in. I am unsure what else besides emines would give a fighter all that much trouble.

The other point I have mentioned in a number of threads. A couple of flights is not signifigantly stronger than they used to be, but a dozen flights attacking a single target is hugely more effective. Part of the issue might be how you are deploying, ie not enough to cripple/skeleton a ship in a shot.

Some fighers out range some anti-fighter, so not by definition but your point is taken. Typical ranges can be from 3-5 inch for anti-fighter while fighters generally are 2 or 4 inch.

I guess I am just having greater luck with mine at this point as I find I am usually only under fire from standar AD, and am able to dodge for most flights. But my main opponents have been Brakiri, Centauri or Drahk with just a little EA.

Ripple

 

[Slightly Norse John]

There's an obvious counter to the large attack formation; generally (perhaps this is just my bad habit, I don't know) they form up on the first or second round of the battle- in the gaps in their own fleet. Blasting a ship next to them and making it go boom is a very effective way of getting rid of them.
Apart from that, blindside wherever possible- it's a BGO, but it works.

 

[Voronesh]

Well cracking ships harde nough to make them blow up early....normally hard to do. And if youre able to achieve that, killing a few leftover fighters shouldnt be a problem anymore.....

 

[Slightly Norse John]

I'm usually Centauri or Dilgar (although doing a lot of EA at the moment.) Blowing up ships is easy; I've barely got an anti fighter weapon to my name, the only way I can deal with them is kill off their motherships so I win by VP. (OK, OK, centauri Razik. That works too.)
Given a choice betwen a weak target that I can attack successfully, and a well protected target that I should attack, not necessarily successfully, I'll take the weak one every time. Fighters can exploit gaps very effectively, now.

 

[Shadow Queen]

could of been a typo about not swopping the centauri Rutarian page 66 sky full of stars