Fighters size 1 or 8 ?

[Paolini]

Google gives conflicted answers Does size increase the HP of a fighter ?

[Umbral Reaver]

The only thing size affects is how much hangar space it takes up. That's why reducing the size costs points when designing fighters.

[umop-apisdn]

I'll second that, in case you had any doubts. Smaller is better.

[LORDSOL]

yup i get a kick out of watching raiders launch torps at size 1 fighter ,i never built a size 8 fighter but i suspect that they could be torp vulnerable

[rickcarson]

There's a maximum of 120 hangar slots. Ergo if you have more than 120 hangar then you can have bigger fighters, you don't need to 'waste' points making them small.

Those extra points you saved could be put towards either HP, maneu...manue..manoo... zippiness or speed.

Hence bigger fighters don't necessarily have more HP, but they'll have more of _something_.

It's not hard to find workshop designs with 1200+ hangar, which in theory is just a waste but eh, aesthetics.

[umop-apisdn]

Originally posted by rickcarson:

It's not hard to find workshop designs with 1200+ hangar, which in theory is just a waste but eh, aesthetics.

A few thoughts, now that I have more time to write them out:

12 fighters per wing, 10 wings per ship, max 8 slot fighter size.
More than 960 Hangar stat is theoretically "wasted"; 1200 is way beyond "enough".

However! The more exposed hangar blocks, the more fighters can launch or land at once; you can technically vomit 120 fighters in a single "volley" with enough hangars, so perhaps it's not as wasteful as one might think.

If wasting space is a concern, it should be noted that smaller fighters means less space/processing power needs to be devoted to hangars, and the individual hangars don't have to be as large, either. There's 840 hangar slots' difference between 120 size 1 fighters and 120 size 8 fighters; that space could be engines, thrusters, armor...

Here, I'll spell out the math (if that's not an oxymoron):
A 4.5m^3 hangar gives 32 fighter slots; that's the difference between needing 4 hangars to max out your squads with 1-slot fighters... and needing 30 hangars that size to do it with 8-slot fighters.

That being said, bigger fighters can have more capabilities (as rickcarson pointed out). If you have the size to spare in your carrier, you can get some ridiculously strong fighters if you make them out of legendary turrets and leave them at size 8... that's a big chunk of build points that could be put into speed, maneuverability, damage...

On that note, never buy fighters. Instead, build one at a Fighter Factory out of whatever super-awesome turret you would like, then replicate it on-board by dragging the fighter into the empty box on the left side of the squad; this turns it into a blueprint. Add Assembly blocks to your carrier, and you can click the checkbox to turn on fighter production... at which point your carrier begins turning metal into fighters.

Once you have produced a fighter, pass it to another carrier and repeat the process. It takes a little while to fill the wings, but then you can instantly fill a new carrier with fighters by taking a few from each of your other carriers and letting them build new ones to fill the gaps. Full combat readiness in no more time than it takes to trade with the other in-system carriers, instead of having to fly around visiting equipment docks looking for enough "decent" fighters to fill the bays... and the more carriers you have, the faster you can produce more fighters; when you build your sixth carrier, you take two fighters from each wing on the other ships, and poof! All your carriers have 10 fighters per wing (except for the new carrier that ate one for the blueprint), and are busily churning out the other two (or three) to fill out the gaps in their squads (hangar space and material permitting, of course). In just a few minutes, you're at maximum fighter capacity again; no shopping required.

As a bonus, you never have to think about mismatched squads. Only keep your best fighters of each type, and discard those rando losers you picked up when you were broke; pass around "the good ones" and crunch 'em up to make more.

[Firefrye]

Counter argument:
Fighter size 2-4. Points in size suffer diminishing returns, but the first few points are VERY efficient

notes about hangars:
- they don't need to be connected
- fighters enter and exit relative to the NUMBER of exposed hangar blocks, not the size of the openings
- Put one "large" hangar inside your ship (200-400units depending on fighter size size)
- Install a large number of paper-thin hangars blocks on the surface of your ship. (I pattern them like weapon blisters in small grids or diamond shapes)
- Even if a lot of the blisters get destroyed in combat, because they're so thin the repair is almost free