Best loadout for anti-fighter fighters? At different tech levels?

[mdoolitt]

My fighters consistently do poorly in dogfights. 2 x three beam ion gun, active missile traps, jump drive, lagon armor, AG engine. - nothing seems to help. Is it design, or maybe I'm not giving them the right commands? I park them close to my ships as escort - when the enemy fighters get close they engage - then 60 seconds laters it all KA-POW! dead. Then my ships die.

This is against pirate fighters BTW

[Shards]

Ion guns are slow moving projectiles and so relatively easily dodged by enemy fighters. Lasers and Missiles are better weaponry for designs to intercept enemy fighters I think.

Also, some races have more capable hulls for fighters than others (e.g. with 3 weapons hardpoints rather than 2)

[Agent Wigggles]

Design your fighters for roles. If they're meant to take on other fighters. Make them as fast as possible. Even if that means giving them one gun. And you can also try to just bring in more fighters to the fight. Make them cheap and fast as possible. Tie Fighter the other fighters.

If you're making anti ship fighters, then they need to be able to take hits to deliver their payload. Capitcal ships defeat fighters through saturation of fire.

[Shards]

I'm currently running with 4 "archetypes" of fighter:

1. An Interceptor armed with a combination of rapid fire and long range lasers with an onboard scanner on all
2. An anti-capital Ion gun craft
3. A variant of (2) but with a scanner which I mix into the wing
4. A torpedo bomber variant which is deployed only once I've gained fighter superiority

[Ufnv]

Check also for shields - enemy fighters can have them.

Also, the number and the density are two key factors - it makes sense to use formations.

For close combat the best weapon is some beam with high DPS.

Best is the combination of two fighter waves - one long-range equipped with missiles and something like gravitational guns (self guided energy weapon) - they should stay far from the main combat or be used as a first wave. The second wave is best played by some shielded fighters with beam weapon.

Another excellent combination is the torpedo + laser - but they should be used in big packs and manual work with torpedo launching is required.