Questions about designing fighters

[Vorpeseda]

Having started getting into hangars and fighters, I'm starting with blueprints based on purchased fighter.

As I progress through, I'll start moving to custom fighters. The fighter factory dialogue box gives the option to load a saved ship design, but I don't see any way to make a design for fighters. Should I make a ship in creative mode, save it, and then use it in my main game?

Does the material used in a ship plan affect a fighter, or is it just the turret and stats chosen?

[Chaoslink]

The turret will decide the material. Fighters need to be less than 200 blocks or the game will not let you use it as a fighter blueprint. That said, I'm pretty sure you just need to make a ship less than 200 blocks and the game will scale them automatically. I think. I've never done it myself. However, that is what I'm assuming based on what I've seen.

[Leyline]

you should remember one thing: trading size of the fighter for increases cost is not worth it. just build a larger hangar and save mony on fighters by buying them big.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Leyline:

you should remember one thing: trading size of the fighter for increases cost is not worth it. just build a larger hangar and save mony on fighters by buying them big.

Depends on how you do it. With the billions of credits I make harassing a pirate faction’s mining stations, I made my own fighter factory, loaded it up with a massive production power and gave it a hangar to build fighters. So I made all the blueprints size 1 with a ton of points, and still crank them out in a minute. Haven’t been able to make a fighter take longer than a minute or two to produce.

Pretty sure that the original reference was towards designing a fighter over building them at a factory.

[Vorpeseda]

Useful information, thanks.

I've been trying to see if there's a way to going into building mode during the game for the purposes of designing fighters. As far as I can tell, the fighter factories just use saved plans, so I'd have to either make them in creative mode, or found a new ship, and first make it a fighter design, then make the actual ship I intend to make.

[Chaoslink]

Yeah, fighter factories are just for actually making the "item" that is fighters. Actually designing one has to be done outside. I don't believe you have to actually make them tiny though, you can make them somewhat large then have the game scale them automatically, though I dunno for sure.

[LORDSOL]

when making a fighter size 1 iis the smallest ship the smaller they are the harder they are to destroy my fighter have 630 fire power size 1 and since i made them i recall only 1 loss so far in combat and remember when choosing the the weapon to put on it the fire power is reduced by 2/3rds or more i'm not sure ,i made 1 using a cannon that was 12,000 and change to make a fighter and got a fighter with 128 fire power and 18 k range and there's no stat change on mining and savage fighters

[Beltor]

Originally posted by LORDSOL:

when making a fighter size 1 iis the smallest ship the smaller they are the harder they are to destroy my fighter have 630 fire power size 1 and since i made them i recall only 1 loss so far in combat and remember when choosing the the weapon to put on it the fire power is reduced by 2/3rds or more i'm not sure ,i made 1 using a cannon that was 12,000 and change to make a fighter and got a fighter with 128 fire power and 18 k range and there's no stat change on mining and savage fighters

This is usually the case, but i've had exceptions. Cannons used seem to get more of a reduction in damage than most others while lasers seem to get less. I've gotten a laser fighter with 110 damage from using a laser with only 680 damage originally. Another laser with a little 'more' damage was going to make a fighter with 60 damage, much less, same factory and same time. I don't know if it was a bug or if there was another factor i missed, like rarity or material. (I chose to make the 110 laser fighter and not the 60).

[Vorpeseda]

I have one more question. If I add salvaging fighters to an AI controlled ship that is ordered to salvage, does it deploy the fighters correctly?

Also, does it also work correctly with mining fighters on a ship ordered to mine?

[SivCorp]

Yes and yes. Though if the ship has weapons, make sure they are autofire or off.

[Vorpeseda]

Right, I read in a guide that salvage/mining carriers don't deploy their fighters if they have turrets, sounds like that's still how it works.

So I should redesign my mining and salvaging ships to only have autofire turrets, that means probably mostly using a few armed turrets for defense, and using fighters for actual mining/salvaging?

One other thing I'm not sure about, how do you remove fighters you're not using anymore, is there a way to sell them?

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Vorpeseda:

One other thing I'm not sure about, how do you remove fighters you're not using anymore, is there a way to sell them?

I've wondered the same thing. Thus far, I've resorted to dumping them in a newly built ship that is just the starting block and a hangar and... yeah. Boom.

[Vorpeseda]

Having tested out mining and salvaging fighters with my main carrier first before adding hangars to my mining and salvaging ships, I've found to my surprise, that the AI is much smarter with the fighters than with turrets.

It'll just deploy the relevant squads, and if you switch from mining to salvaging or vise-versa, it'll recall and deploy the correct squads.

Unlike with turrets, where anything set to manual fire will be used, even if it shouldn't;

You want to avoid having manual armed turrets on a mining/salvaging AI ship, but that's the case when it's purely using turrets as well.

[Cat]

I recommend you make the turret your custom fighters use.

Find a good turret maker, one that gets you triple or quad weapons with dmg or whatnot. When you make turrets, hit '+' on each and every material except targeting system. Use that weapon on a fighter, again + on the stats. You can get an incredible fighter to use as a blueprint.

I am mid-game on xanion levels, recently found and created 7k damage salvage turrets. Used one on a fighter, topped up on all stats for it made it small, fast and nimble and the fighter salvages at a whopping 710 damage. One squad of this is enough, quality over quantity, as soon as I issue an order they are done in a second. They are super expensive, 35k xanion each and take forever to make, but it's much better than making fighters and new blueprints all the time and throwing them away. Get it perfect the first time.

[The Ultimate Illusion of Wind]

Originally posted by Night Cat:

it isn't that simple to just get the best the first time because more often then not you have pretty much junk until end mid game or end game.

Originally posted by Vorpeseda:

Having tested out mining and salvaging fighters with my main carrier first before adding hangars to my mining and salvaging ships, I've found to my surprise, that the AI is much smarter with the fighters than with turrets.

It'll just deploy the relevant squads, and if you switch from mining to salvaging or vise-versa, it'll recall and deploy the correct squads.

Unlike with turrets, where anything set to manual fire will be used, even if it shouldn't;

You want to avoid having manual armed turrets on a mining/salvaging AI ship, but that's the case when it's purely using turrets as well.

if there is one mod you should try it's the CarrierCommander mod, makes ordering fighters painless.

more towards the OP.

rarity, what material the turret is, the turret stat numbers (damage/firerate/slots/ect) all affect the fighter.

rarity affects how many stat points you get.

material affects which stats get bonuses(they are highlighted green). also how much durability you get per stat point. example of bonuses being Xanion gives 3 to the speed stat and 1 to durability stat. these points cannot be taken out and can go above the max asignable point limit.
if a fighter has a turret then it uses the turrets material, if the fighter does not have a turret then it finds what material the plan is made out of and uses the highest material count it finds. so in 99.9% of cases ship material does not matter at all.

turret stats are self explanatory expect for slots, slots are armed turret/unarmed turret slots taken by the turret if you where to equip it on a ship.

the damage formula for fighter damage is, turret damage * 0.3 / number of slots
so a turret with 30 damage and it uses 3 slots would be, 30 * 0.3 / 3 = 3

[XMachHunt21]

My favorite part about the fighters other than convenience is actually flying the fighter letting the ai control the main ship.