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Random thought/suggestion about fighters |
Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
|  Posted: 2008-07-29 18:50
Don't have much time to post, so sorry if this is rushed a bit.
I was thinking about fighters recently, and after noticing a thread, it got some cogs turning in my head.
Basically, the idea I had to reduce fighter "lag" (server overhead) and at the same time allow "fighter swarms" is as follows:
Basically, instead of launching one fighter, you launch a wing of figthers.
Woah, hold on, listen to the rest. The "wing" of fighters act exactly like how one fighter works now, with a few modifications.
1) It's based off of gadget level. A lvl 2 gadget would spawn 1 fighter, a lvl 4 would spawn 2, lvl 6 3, lvl 8 4, and lvl 10 5. That means cruisers would spawn 3, dreads 4, and stations 5. In betweens would round down.
2) The number of shots fired is directly based off the number of fighters.
3) This part here may or may not be the breaking point. Basically, the fighter wing will now need "health" that represents how many fighters there are. So let's say the wing has 4 fighters. It would fire 4 shots at an enemy. Now lets suppose it gets hit by a point defence beam. It would loose one fighter, and only have 3 fighters. It would still act normally, but only fire 3 shots. The down side to this is that now a local variable has to be stored in memory to track every fighters hp.
So basically, this idea would use less CPU overhead, but would require more memory. However, I don't know what the server situation is, so perhaps the idea has some merit.
Anyway, if you notice any gaping "you're stupid rob" holes in logic, please feel free to point it out.
And discuss, of course.
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Junky Da FunkyMonke
Admiral
Joined: May 14, 2007
Posts: 347
From: The Hotel California, takes excursions to Deep Sexys Space every now and then
| Posted: 2008-07-29 19:40
Quote:
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On 2008-07-29 18:50, Fattierob wrote:
3) This part here may or may not be the breaking point. Basically, the fighter wing will now need "health" that represents how many fighters there are. So let's say the wing has 4 fighters. It would fire 4 shots at an enemy. Now lets suppose it gets hit by a point defence beam. It would loose one fighter, and only have 3 fighters. It would still act normally, but only fire 3 shots. The down side to this is that now a local variable has to be stored in memory to track every fighters hp.
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So the server will now not only keep track of swarms of fighters, but add more and have to calculate health of each one?
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2008-07-29 20:13
Quote:
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On 2008-07-29 19:40, Junky Da FunkyMonke wrote:
So the server will now not only keep track of swarms of fighters, but add more and have to calculate health of each one?
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No. Let's say the agincourt fires 5 fighters now, with 1 fighter per "fighter" gadget
What I am suggesting is to "group" those 5 fighters into one gadget AND group the 5 (technically 4 with the lvl 8 gadgets on a dread) fighter "nouns" into ONE fighter "noun" that has the above mentioned properties.
Basically, it cuts down on the CPU usage of tracking fighters, but slightly increases the memory usage of fighters (one byte per fighter wing in my example, since it will never increase more then 7 using the numbers I suggested)
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2008-07-29 22:04
Cruiser - 5
Dread - 6
Elite Dread - 7
Station - 8
Gaifen - 12
FYI, since it would seem to screw with your numbers a bit.
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Junky Da FunkyMonke
Admiral
Joined: May 14, 2007
Posts: 347
From: The Hotel California, takes excursions to Deep Sexys Space every now and then
| Posted: 2008-07-29 22:37
Oh ok maybe you didnt say that mabye you did cause i didnt catch it.
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Axianda The Royal
Fleet Admiral
Terra Squadron
Joined: November 20, 2001
Posts: 4273
From: Axianda
| Posted: 2008-07-30 07:51
here are my 2 cents on how the currrent fighters could improve a bit * i hope * while not messing to much with the current function of the fighters.
first of all a fighter bay should be renamed to squadron. ill explain later.
as pointed out it is not possible to make a ship launch a group of fighters as 1 object. but how about this.
the number of "craft" would increase when mounted on a bigger ship.
a cruiser would have 2-3 a dread would go to the full 5 and a station hell i dont know any more would be cpu kill. but it can mount more devices.
currently what makes the fighters weak is the following.
Long "reload" times. you launch a fighter but if the enemy cloaks or jump or gets killed the fighter returns and you have to wait the reload times.
it is impossible for a carrier to effectively deploy its power to the field in a reasonable time.
my solution is this.
make the reload FAST. personally i would like to test with this myself but im not a dev 
by making a reload time lets say 2 sec or so a carrier would be able to deploy its fighters fast and effective. but more importantly it can redirect the firepower fast to another target. the fighers flight duration would have to be cut dratically to try and minimize CPU load.
with this a carrier pilot will instead of smashing N group each bay to a number... a number becomes a squadron that can be directed to the enemy, recalled if needed and launched again in a more direct approach
what keeps us from spamming fighters? well currently you cannot have more fighters out then you can have in your bay. that is good. other than that i dont know what prevents us from grabbing missile ships and spamming the server with missiles?
not for another personal opinion, bombers should become the anti capital/station weapons of the carriers.
currently they work as followed:
Interceptor - scout-destroyer
equipped with a beam these are the perfect weapons to send out against fast and agile targets.
Fighter - Destroyer-station
Although you cant send em effectively against a station this is what is done atm for lack of anything better. they are however quite the eyesore for destroyer/cruisers.
Bomber - Planets
They bomb planets... why take a specialised ship out when you have these things eh? *get my point?*
anyway, by tinkering with the reload times i think we could make fighters more effective with not to much effort.
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Deltabacon
Fleet Admiral
Joined: August 17, 2007
Posts: 395
From: Liverpool, Great Britain
| Posted: 2008-07-30 12:44
but think, if there is a big fleet battle.
Think, some aggies, some CC's etc. how many fighters will there be?
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Axianda The Royal
Fleet Admiral
Terra Squadron
Joined: November 20, 2001
Posts: 4273
From: Axianda
| Posted: 2008-07-30 14:53
Quote:[/small]
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On 2008-07-30 12:44, Deltaflyer wrote:
but think, if there is a big fleet battle.
Think, some aggies, some CC's etc. how many fighters will there be?
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quite a lot but also think about this.
ICC - Pulse beam and Pulse Wave
these will put a serious dent in any fighter/Missile battle.
due to this advantage i have yet to see an ICC vessel that can match the number of fighters of the other races.
Kluth - Cloak
Cloak also removes the target lock of any weapon fighters included.
it is if you will a non lethal pulse wave, it resets any weapon that has locked on to it. and even then they are heavy on the beam department if needed
UGTO - UGTO carriers.
The UGTO carriers are the biggest fighter spammers around, but those numbers are neutralised by either the pulse weapons or the cloak of the Kluth.
it is however these number that make up for they lack of defensive "flakk" if you will. they trade basic defense for a bigger punch.
all in all i do not think that the current fighers have a long enough life expectancy to form a serious spam threat. hence my suggestion to reduce the reload times.
yes the load will increase a lot if we can enter more fighters a lot faster but they will still have the same problem there is now. they wont live or stay active for long.
[ This Message was edited by: Axianda The Royal on 2008-07-30 14:54 ]
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Eledore Massis [R33]
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: May 26, 2002
Posts: 2694
From: tsohlacoLocalhost
| Posted: 2008-07-30 15:14
Axi hits on all the good points.
Only thing i disagree partially is the reload time.
Reload time should be long for fighters returning to base, because of re-arm maintenance and re-fuel times. but launching the next squadron this should take less time.
unfortunately i doubt this can be programmed in the devices with ease.
I can think of a theoretical work around of sort, but i still see some problems in that one.
In perfect conditions i would like to see the following.
But with the current fighters, this is only a dream.
A fighter bay (gadget) launches three to six fighters.- Destroyer: 3
- Cruiser: 4
- Dread: 5
- Station: 6
Fighter bay amount on ships.- Destroyer: 1
- Cruiser: 2
- Dread: 3
- Station: 4
This is for a normal design, while special designed carrier ship should be able to double that. but that depends on reduction of weaponry.
(p.s. I usually only think in Human terms, so i am NOT suggesting this for K'Luth!)
[ This Message was edited by: Eledore[NL] on 2008-07-30 15:15 ]
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Junky Da FunkyMonke
Admiral
Joined: May 14, 2007
Posts: 347
From: The Hotel California, takes excursions to Deep Sexys Space every now and then
| Posted: 2008-07-30 16:00
Modern carriers can launch planes every 45 secs. Also fighters are incredibly usless, i mean they do damage but it dosent take hardly anything to kill them, and then your out of planes till the next reload time. :|
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Axianda The Royal
Fleet Admiral
Terra Squadron
Joined: November 20, 2001
Posts: 4273
From: Axianda
| Posted: 2008-07-30 17:00
if we look at the current ICC cruiser it should be able to launch if im correct 20 fighters total.
that are 20 Railguns that are pelleting you ship. if launched all at once.
now combine that with a 3 sec reload it will take that carrier 15 seconds to send its full fighter wing out.
base the ammo the bay has on the hull type and you should have a good ballance between firepower and device space used.
i agree that the reload on returning fighters should be a tad higher this is just the easiest way i can think of for the current way the fighters work.
fighters are powerfull when they are around in numbers...
remember 1482? fighters did not do much but a death star type planet was murder when it had time to send the fighters out.
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2008-07-30 18:40
Quote:
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On 2008-07-29 22:04, Shigernafy wrote:
Cruiser - 5
Dread - 6
Elite Dread - 7
Station - 8
Gaifen - 12
FYI, since it would seem to screw with your numbers a bit.
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tsk. Well, I was just making up numbers and using them. I'm sure some kind of math could be worked out (or just scaled by hull)
Also, Gaifen as 12? Shouldn't it be like 9001?
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2008-07-30 23:11
It would be nice if the actual fighter interface was put in...
You know, being able to launch fighters but keep them around your ship (circling perhaps), directing them to attack specific enemies, defending others, etc.
Also, I didn't see what was wrong about a type of fighter having missiles, just not omgspamtonsofmissiles just like, a single small version of an AR missile, or something of that sort.
Also, Fighter bombers meant for anti capital ship would be interesting.. imagine bombers with like one torpedo slot (and one or two shots).
-Ent
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Axianda The Royal
Fleet Admiral
Terra Squadron
Joined: November 20, 2001
Posts: 4273
From: Axianda
| Posted: 2008-07-31 02:50
indeed ent a bomber for the figher group always had my interest because then you would have to choose what kind of situation your fighter would be able to handle.
as for the missiles i can understand why they are gone.. the server already has to track a fighter and suddenly it also has to track the missiles this fast lil bugger shoots.
combine that with 10 flying around at different angles etc etc and you got a big load for your server. i believe they made the right call in putting cannons back. they could always try Sabots though for a bit more realism.
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2008-07-31 06:56
Gaifen actually vary based on the exact type just like other ships; I just wanted to throw in a Gaifen, and I chose 12 at random.
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