Are fighters worthless?

[fancyPants]

Large ship turrets are just so accurate, they eat small ships for breakfast. Fighters just can't accelerate fast enough to dodge incoming fire.

Once factions come out, you won't even be able to fool the turrets with rock spitters.

Everything I see points to large ships being the only effective combat vessels.

If I'm missing something, let me know.

[Vilhelm]

I agree that the turrets are a bit too accurate right now. You can attempt to distract them by releasing "decoys" but they are eventually gonna knock that stuff away and tear you to pieces. I think if they just reduced the knock back effect from getting hit that would help a lot. (You could stop and the turret would lose site of you before it completely destroys you)

[freeskier93]

From a realistic perspective they don't make sense, in real space your on magnitudes of km/s and fractions of light speed. Computer controlled weapons are logically the only way to fight and human piloted fighters just aren't possible. Obviously for a game like this the magnitude of speed has to be decreased for playability.

For this game fighters get stuck in between and it will be interesting to how useful they are. I think the devs need to be careful with this game and how they listen to the community. They should stick true to realism as much as possible, if that makes fighters pointless than so be it. Small ships still have other uses.

I do think gattling gun accuracy should be turned down a tad, other than that I don't think weapons should be touched and are fine.

[arreclain]

Missile bombardment while staying outside of lock-on range is how I try and hunt ships presently. The weakness being ammo capacity at present. I'm not to worried, as I figure someone will work out some op trick or another.

[Mushlev]

there should be a manual control for the turrets that as accurate as you are, but if you set it to automatic fire, it should be a bit unaccurate

[Gekkibi]

Originally posted by freeskier93:

From a realistic perspective they don't make sense, in real space your on magnitudes of km/s and fractions of light speed. Computer controlled weapons are logically the only way to fight and human piloted fighters just aren't possible. Obviously for a game like this the magnitude of speed has to be decreased for playability.

For this game fighters get stuck in between and it will be interesting to how useful they are. I think the devs need to be careful with this game and how they listen to the community. They should stick true to realism as much as possible, if that makes fighters pointless than so be it. I do think gattling gun accuracy should be turned down a tad, other than that I don't think weapons should be touched and are fine.

The speeds of the objects are irrelevant. Did you know that right now you're blazing through our Solar system extremely fast? You don't notice it because the speed compared to Earth is small (or zero if you're stationary). On basic level the only thing that matters is the difference in speeds, just like in dogfighting in an atmosphere (except you also have to take air friction into concideration).

It's a good thing turrets are a real threat against fighters. They would be, especially with the ranges we have in Space Engineers.

[Tero]

Another option would be decreased turning speed in the turrets. While you are orbiting a ship, a greater distance requires less radial movement for the turret. As you approach, the rate of turret rotation is greater to compensate for your shorter distance in orbit.

If they decreased the turning speed on turrets it would maintain the advantage of large ship turrets while at a distance, but upon approach the fighter craft would have the upper hand. I believe this would make both fighter attack craft and defense fighters more useful.

[fancyPants]

There is some stuff you could add that would even the playing field a bit.

1) Long range torpedoes. They'd have to be pretty fast. This alone is the reason Earth navies don't invest in large ships much anymore. Ship-killer missiles are pretty effective.

2) Stealth. If stealth plating was expensive, you'd see it a lot more on small ships.

3) Chaff/Flares. Right now rocks serve this purpose, but having once turrets target by faction, you'll need something special. I'm thinking 'Angel Wing' flares would look pretty cool. Either that, or eject-able IFF decoys.

4) Automation. Small ships are plenty big enough to support computer systems; there's no restriction saying automation on small ships shouldn't be possible.

Most of all, these need to be cost-competitive options for them to make any difference.

[freeskier93]

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

Originally posted by freeskier93:

From a realistic perspective they don't make sense, in real space your on magnitudes of km/s and fractions of light speed. Computer controlled weapons are logically the only way to fight and human piloted fighters just aren't possible. Obviously for a game like this the magnitude of speed has to be decreased for playability.

For this game fighters get stuck in between and it will be interesting to how useful they are. I think the devs need to be careful with this game and how they listen to the community. They should stick true to realism as much as possible, if that makes fighters pointless than so be it. I do think gattling gun accuracy should be turned down a tad, other than that I don't think weapons should be touched and are fine.

The speed of the targets are irrelevant. Did you know that right now you're blazing through our Solar system extremely fast? You don't notice it because the speed compared to Earth is small (or zero if you're stationary). On basic level the only thing that matters is the difference in speeds, just like in dogfighting in an atmosphere (except you also have to take air friction into concideration).

It's a good thing turrets are a real threat against fighters. They would be, especially with the ranges we have in Space Engineers.

Yes you're right, in combat situations speeds are irrelivent but VELOCITYS are still very relevant. I urge you to read some space military sci fi books like The Lost Fleet to get a good idea of what REAL space combat would be like. It's not likely you're going the same velocity as your target, which means if you're traveling 30 km/s one way and the target is going 30 km/s the other you're looking at a 60 km/s difference in velocity.

[Mr B.]

Galtings are ok, but the missile turrets should have slightly increased firing time.

Apart from fighters, you want big ship battles to last more than 2 mins.

[AlexMBrennan]

Personally I found turret accuracy fairly abysmal strafing in a spacesuit (if you stand still you will get hit, and even with inertial dampeners you can't come to a stop... but if start strafing most of the bullets will miss, allowing you to stop and stop being targeted).

The speeds of the objects are irrelevant.

Yeah, but that's sorta missing the point - if there wasn't an atmosphere you could just fire your gun in New York and hit a target on the other side of the planet i.e. there'd be no need to bother with fighters at all. Dogfighting simply doesn't make sense in space unless the game arbitrarily puts a maximum range on all projectiles.

[Gekkibi]

Originally posted by freeskier93:

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

The speed of the targets are irrelevant. Did you know that right now you're blazing through our Solar system extremely fast? You don't notice it because the speed compared to Earth is small (or zero if you're stationary). On basic level the only thing that matters is the difference in speeds, just like in dogfighting in an atmosphere (except you also have to take air friction into concideration).

It's a good thing turrets are a real threat against fighters. They would be, especially with the ranges we have in Space Engineers.

Yes, it all depends on the inertial reference frame you're looking at, but VELOCITYS are still very relevatant. I urge you to read some space military sci fi books like The Lost Fleet to get a good idea of what REAL space combat would be like. What matters is not speed, it's VELOCITY (hint if you don't know the difference the difference is the addiction of direction). It's not likely you're going the same velocity as your target, which means if your traveling 30 km/s one way and the target is going 30 km/s the other you're looking at a 60 km/s difference in velocity.

Of course I know the difference: Velocity is a vector, speed is a scalar (more specific, it's the magnitude of the velocity vector). And instead of sci-fi literature I'd prefer actual books based on realism.

Your example is inconsequential because that would mean they are on completely different orbits. That's outside of "on basic level". On advanced level everything would be quite different because you have to take orbital mechanics into concideration...

[freeskier93]

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

Originally posted by freeskier93:

Yes, it all depends on the inertial reference frame you're looking at, but VELOCITYS are still very relevatant. I urge you to read some space military sci fi books like The Lost Fleet to get a good idea of what REAL space combat would be like. What matters is not speed, it's VELOCITY (hint if you don't know the difference the difference is the addiction of direction). It's not likely you're going the same velocity as your target, which means if your traveling 30 km/s one way and the target is going 30 km/s the other you're looking at a 60 km/s difference in velocity.

Of course I know the difference: Velocity is a vector, speed is a scalar (more specific, it's the magnitude of the velocity vector). And instead of sci-fi literature I'd prefer actual books based on realism.

Your example is inconsequential because that would mean they are on completely different orbits. That's outside of "on basic level". On advanced level everything would be quite different because you have to take orbital mechanics into concideration...

Your point is inconsequential because I never said they were in orbit. You're still wrong though, if they were in orbit the only difference would be one is in a prograde orbit and the other is retrograde orbit.

[Gekkibi]

Originally posted by freeskier93:

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

Of course I know the difference: Velocity is a vector, speed is a scalar (more specific, it's the magnitude of the velocity vector). And instead of sci-fi literature I'd prefer actual books based on realism.

Your example is inconsequential because that would mean they are on completely different orbits. That's outside of "on basic level". On advanced level everything would be quite different because you have to take orbital mechanics into concideration...

Your point is inconsequential because I never said they were in orbit. You're still wrong though, if they were in orbit the only difference would be one is in a prograde orbit and the other is retrograde orbit.

You're ALWAYS in an orbit. Yes, even outside the SoI of the Sun you would still be in orbit.

[xx]

Originally posted by fancyPants:

There is some stuff you could add that would even the playing field a bit.

1) Long range torpedoes. They'd have to be pretty fast. This alone is the reason Earth navies don't invest in large ships much anymore. Ship-killer missiles are pretty effective.

2) Stealth. If stealth plating was expensive, you'd see it a lot more on small ships.

3) Chaff/Flares. Right now rocks serve this purpose, but having once turrets target by faction, you'll need something special. I'm thinking 'Angel Wing' flares would look pretty cool. Either that, or eject-able IFF decoys.

4) Automation. Small ships are plenty big enough to support computer systems; there's no restriction saying automation on small ships shouldn't be possible.

Most of all, these need to be cost-competitive options for them to make any difference.

The devs have said that stealth plating is one thing they are considering. As for factions, the turrets will still have to target anything not broadcasting a faction ID, based on that the devs said. They were talking about turning of the antena to allow you to sneak closer to an enermy. The antena is key to broadcasting your faction IFF code.

Once we get remote control/programming we should be able to automate small ships to make drone fighters. Combined with decoys and rock dispenses they should be able to swarm large ships without layers of defences.

[Gekkibi]

Originally posted by xx:

Once we get remote control/programming we should be able to automate small ships to make drone fighters. Combined with decoys and rock dispenses they should be able to swarm large ships without layers of defences.

...At least those who can program (probably Lua/Lua-like) can make them... ;)