White Star fleet

[Lord David the Denied]

then add in the fleet carrier bonus for the whitestar carrier
as for the rutarion not being a thunderbolt, ok its secondarys are weak so go after hull 6 ships wher eit dont matter, but it dogfights better than a thunderbolt, it has stealth and not only is its primary a DD weapon its precise which doubles you chance of crits (plus your DD weapon on them too) so i put rutarians ahead of thunderbolts. you cant say the centauri dont have good fighters, with the rutarion doing a bit of everything and the raziks as good for dogfighting as nials.

That's fair enough where you can match the enemy fighter for fighter, but Centauri can very rarely do that. Raziks are great dogfighters but basically worthless against ships. Sentris are a it tougher and a bit better armed but not as good in a dogfight while the Rutarian is only as good as the as the Sentri in a dogfight, but better at anti-ship and comes with a low-end stealth system. Individually they're superior, but centauri fighters get swarmed very easily.

I think it's a bit unfair to rule that no one but ISA and Vree can get decent CQ values for their fighters except by the other duties campaign table. Ok, it's not common to have a CQ6 carrier but you could get it in a campaign and benefit a lot in dogfights. Now that elite crew is basically wasted on the carrier, but you can only transfer one crew to another ship at the start of the campaign.

 

[Triggy]

then add in the fleet carrier bonus for the whitestar carrier
as for the rutarion not being a thunderbolt, ok its secondarys are weak so go after hull 6 ships wher eit dont matter, but it dogfights better than a thunderbolt, it has stealth and not only is its primary a DD weapon its precise which doubles you chance of crits (plus your DD weapon on them too) so i put rutarians ahead of thunderbolts. you cant say the centauri dont have good fighters, with the rutarion doing a bit of everything and the raziks as good for dogfighting as nials.

That's fair enough where you can match the enemy fighter for fighter, but Centauri can very rarely do that. Raziks are great dogfighters but basically worthless against ships. Sentris are a it tougher and a bit better armed but not as good in a dogfight while the Rutarian is only as good as the as the Sentri in a dogfight, but better at anti-ship and comes with a low-end stealth system. Individually they're superior, but centauri fighters get swarmed very easily.

I think it's a bit unfair to rule that no one but ISA and Vree can get decent CQ values for their fighters except by the other duties campaign table. Ok, it's not common to have a CQ6 carrier but you could get it in a campaign and benefit a lot in dogfights. Now that elite crew is basically wasted on the carrier, but you can only transfer one crew to another ship at the start of the campaign.

Seems to me like the reasoning behind the CQ ruling for fighters is to do with simplifying bookkeeping rather than anything else and it really does help (unfortunately for the fun of having elite fighter pilots on the board).

I agree with you on the Rutarians - if you could field enough of them (or even enough Sentris as a screen) they'd work better than they do at the moment. Maybe time for the odd Patrol point spent on Sentris to get your Rutarians really into the fight as once they can actually hit a ship, they rock.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Points spent on fighters means less points for ships, and the Centauri can't really afford to be outnumbered a lot of the time. It wouldn't be so bad if Centauri fighters didn't all have weak weapons but it's a real handicap combined with low AD and low numbers of fighters in the first place.

 

[katadder]

well the adira and liati both come with rutarians. also nials and whitestar fighters dont come in huge amounts either, we can bring a carrier to the board with plenty of raziks to stop enemy fighters and rely on our ships to do the damage. plus even sentris cant be ignored when you have a couple of flights sitting behind something like a prefect or anything else without rear guns and armour 6.

 

[Ripple]

Centauri at a fighter disadvantage?

Outside of folks taking dedicated carriers only the earth force (early and mid at that) really outnumbers the Centauri. Minbari can in high end games, but hardly across the board.

Low AD? Centauri have 2 to 3 AD per fighter, better than a number of races that have only 1 AD and not much worse than the heavy fighters. The traits are weak on some of those but that is also true of some other races.

Your dogfight ratings are second only to the Minbari/ISA.

Not sure what you want, absolute superiority across the board?

You say you cannot have numerical inferiority in fleet ships, but that is hardly true. You have excellent front arc beam ships that can do the initiative sink ship job, if your worried about the numbers game go sit behind some boresighted races for a time. You will realize that of everyone the Centauri have the least to worry about initiative sink wise.

The Centauri can have issues if they take large numbers of their front arc skirmish hulls, but there is simply no reason to do so given the strengths of your other hulls.

Ripple

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Better in dogfighting than all but Minbari and ISA, are they? Starfuries are on equal footing with Sentris but much better vs ships. Thunderbolts are only 1 point behind Sentris, but so much better vs ships it's not even funny. Centauri fighters are good at dogfighting but, Rutarians aside, that's all they're good for.

 

[katadder]

well rutarian aside thats what centauri enjoy and 3AD against ships isnt bad if you go after the hull 6 ships. admittedly i dont think star furies should have been upped but thats me. but like has already been stated after the minbari and ISA we have the best dogfighters. after them we have the best anti ship fighters, DD precise weapons ona fighter? who else gets them? whitestar fighters thats who. really the centauri have nothing to complain about apart from maybe vorchans, everything else is fine and dandy over here in fanhead land.

 

[Triggy]

Better in dogfighting than all but Minbari and ISA, are they? Starfuries are on equal footing with Sentris but much better vs ships. Thunderbolts are only 1 point behind Sentris, but so much better vs ships it's not even funny. Centauri fighters are good at dogfighting but, Rutarians aside, that's all they're good for.

Well that's probably because the Starfury and Thunderbolt ought to have remained at their SFoS stats if they're to remain balanced with all the other fighters in the game...

 

[Voronesh]

I can agree with that.

Starfueries at increased dogfighting just smells funny.

T-Bolts are now better than pretty much anything else out there. They are better than LONAW fighters, concerning firepower, speed and dogfighting even.....

Against good stuff like Minbari Nials and ISA WS-Fighters, they can bring superior numbers to bear, nullifying the effectiveness of those fighters....

Its crazy i tell you, Crazy.........

No seriously, all the EA has to take is one Aurora base per 3 T-Bolts. Get the +2 from the Aurora, add in T-Bolts for support, and in Antiship, youre at nearly T-Bolt killing abilites....turning T-Bolts nearly into +2 dogfighters..... (Ok this tactic existed beforehand as well, but then fighters didnt fire first, and Auroras gave you only +1)

 

[LaranosTZ]

Going back to an earlier topic, I can see where the lightning canon would be somewhat more effective against certain targets then using it's firepower over two turns. Primarily, this is when fighting shadows, vorlons, or other ancients...something where you have to cripple, or outright destroy a ship with a single barrage, where if you spread out your damage you might end up missing your chance to destroy it. I haven't seen the new ancient stats in armageddon, but I assume that if the shadows or vorlons can get away for a turn or two they can recover from more minor hits fairly quickly.

 

[Triggy]

Going back to an earlier topic, I can see where the lightning canon would be somewhat more effective against certain targets then using it's firepower over two turns. Primarily, this is when fighting shadows, vorlons, or other ancients...something where you have to cripple, or outright destroy a ship with a single barrage, where if you spread out your damage you might end up missing your chance to destroy it. I haven't seen the new ancient stats in armageddon, but I assume that if the shadows or vorlons can get away for a turn or two they can recover from more minor hits fairly quickly.

Exactly - you can put out almost twice the Victory's normal damage with the Lightning cannon but at a rather large cost in the damage it will take and position it will be left in on the board. However, if you actually destroy that War/Battle level ship instead of damaging it heavily then you can stop its incoming fire completely and just take any other shots coming.

 

[katadder]

hmm well in one turn with the lightning canon going against hull 6 warship you could say 5 hits, then 2, then 1 maybe for 8 hits tripled is 24 damage plus crits.
other weapons with CAF as you can as they not boresighted:
nuetron laser- 3 hits rerolling should give abuot 5 hits then 2 then 1 as above gives 16 plus crits.
hvy pulse canon : 3 hits rerolling, gives about 6 hits, 5 more damage
fusion canon 3 hits, rerolling, gives about 5 hits total gives another 4 damage

lightning canon average 24 damage plus crits
other weapons average 25 damage plus crits

differance is you then get to fire the other weapons next turn too so even if not CAFed gonna do more damage, plus you have your own interceptors online. cant count in crits cos they random factor but average of 3 crit from 8 hits for the lightning canon, yes gonna give you TD but not always rolling the biggies
normal weapons can give you 3 DD crits and 2 others on average.

 

[Voronesh]

Calculate that against Ancients as in the scenario, due to nocritting, and Selfrepair? Vorlons have only Hull5, and Vree scouts should be a must if you play a ISA fleet at that lvl, theyre just plain evil with the WS and the boresighted Lighting Cannon. (Some say the combination is broken.....)

And as said by MGP about half a year ago.

The Lighnting cannon is not supposed to be something you whip out in every engagement. Its supposed to be a rare thing, mostly because something that makes youre ship go offline for (30secs? cant remember) isnt something of a primary weapon.

 

[katadder]

useful against shadows and vorlons maybe, but not so much against the ancients, they can be crit but repair the crits at teh end of the turn anyway, cant ever see my victory firing its lightning canon again tho, especially as shorter range than the nuetron lasers and now it cant fire any other guns in the same phase. good damage soak ship tho with AA and that much damage, and all its other guns are useful anyway.

 

[Reborn]

Going back to the fighters debate - a fluff point in question. During the EM war 6 Starfuries were destroyed to every 1 Nial in dogfighting. So Starfuries shouldn't really be as good as they are imo.

 

[Burger]

Better in dogfighting than all but Minbari and ISA, are they? Starfuries are on equal footing with Sentris but much better vs ships. Thunderbolts are only 1 point behind Sentris, but so much better vs ships it's not even funny. Centauri fighters are good at dogfighting but, Rutarians aside, that's all they're good for.

Spare a thought for the poor Brakiri and Abbai. They aren't good at anything.

 

[Reborn]

Well, the Brakiri gun is AP, but yes, I agree, they do suck. Whereas Abbai Kotha can be very effective dogfighters if you use weight of numbers. Which is likely seeing as the Milani is a good ship in its own right and has 4 flights at Skirmish level.

 

[Burger]

Abbai Kotha can be very effective dogfighters if you use weight of numbers

So can a Sky Serpent...

 

[Goldritter]

Going back to the fighters debate - a fluff point in question. During the EM war 6 Starfuries were destroyed to every 1 Nial in dogfighting. So Starfuries shouldn't really be as good as they are imo.

This is only statistical and don´t inform you how much Nials are on the Battlefield. If you look at the Movie ("In the Beginning" I think") you see, that the Minbari used only Sharlins to attack.
And the only EA Ships with more than one flight of Starfury were the Nova and the Avenger. And the main Battle Ship was the Hyperion with only one flight.

And if I remember the fluff right, it was the Starfury which was the most effectiv "ship" in the war. And that was the reason why the Omega was build. To get a ship with the arment of the Hyperion and the fighter complement of the Nova.

So you got only the Information how many Starfuries were destroyed for one Nial. Not how.
For example the Sharlin with it´s Fusion Cannons has shot down many Starfuries before the Nials attack.

 

[Voronesh]

But it still feels quite a bit overpowered.

That is from a fluff perceptive.

Centauri are supposed to excel in using fighters only in dogfighting, gearing them exactly just for that. And on top the Centauri pilots will try pretty much any stunt, that will give them advantage in a dogfight. Yet the Starfury is as good a Sentri, and has more speed to boot, while even having anti-ship firepower on top.

Centauri have theoretically good fighters, but they cannot match EA for the sheer numbers they can bring. Dunno about Crusade era, with the Marathon being the main warship, but 3rd age, it is very hard to get even with Centauri. Luckily they can just switch to Raziks and stay close to their own ships.....but that isnt the way it is supposed to work.