A bomber with an beam would be nice. It could travel through the

shields of an oponent ( if not enough fighters to intercept) and

attack "behind" the defense.

might be a bit odd to implement as it might require more in action desision but still could be really interesting.

I was asked to take my comment over here and this thread seems relevant enough for me to avoid making a new one:

hostergaard wrote:
Hmm, I have just started playing ES and noted the same problem. One thing that might solve this would be to ad hangar capability/improvements to larger ships. I.e. larger ships can ad hangars where they can store bombers and fighters. Fighters counter bombers and bombers attack other ships. Small ships like destroyers would not be able to mount fighter bays and would be defenseless against the bombers. The bombers would have the advantage of spreading out on all ships and attacking where there is a gap in firepower to avoid overkill's.



Other possible solutions could be delayed firing missiles and intelligent missiles; the missiles are not fired all at once but in longer salvos and re-targets when it looses its target. Thus the missiles will attack a ship one at a time until its destroyed and then find a new ship. Maybe it could be a battle card or something. And to avoid missiles getting overpowered maybe stack flack defenses.



But there is one thing that would help massively; ship positioning and tactics. I would love for there to be a way to position my ships in the fleet and have it affect the battle.



For example; In my fleet I have a few Battleships and Destroyers. The battleship have a lot defences, flak and what not but little weapons. The destroyers is opposite. I place my battleships at the front/edges of my fleet and the destroyers in the centers. This means that the battleships will suffer the brunt of the attack, protecting the weaker destroyers (some of the attack would still get trough the breaches, but much diminished). This would make defensive ships more attractive as they could actually protect the fleet. But perhaps it would be a good idea to put in some penalties too; if you place the destroyers to far away from the action and behind a wall of battleships they will get a penalty on their damage output both from the distance and the fact that your own ships are in the way.



This could enhance combat as once could ad the option of moving the ships around during combat; deciding when to open your defenses and to let the destroyer have a free shot at the enemy would be vitally important.



If hangars was added this would make Dreadnought mother-ships with fighter/bomber fleets very attractive to have at the center of the fleet because the it would be able to send its payload to the front without risking itself, it could stay put far behind the front lines. One could also add in improvements that have huge tonnage requirements but give large bonuses to the fleet so you could have ships that functioned as command ships. Lastly, adding in this and perhaps a way to decide where to attack one might also see Dreadnoughts used as spearhead vessels where it have heavy armaments intended to punch trough a defense to get behind it and attack the support vessels.



Of course, these a just general suggestions, there might be a need for modifications to make it fit in to the game mechanics.



EDIT:



On the note of ship placement, it need not be overly complicated, do it like current combat mechanics and have 3 positions, at the edge of the fleet closest to combat, in the middle distance and far away from the combat. I made this shitty mspaint picture to illustrate.









This forum needs a spoiler tag.

Does anyone remember?!? Pah... I still play it sometimes. :P

There are some brilliant mods out there that still allow it to hold it's own.



Endless Space is definitely lacking small craft though yes.

Carriers & fighters is a fantastic idea! Flak should counter fighters and fighters should have possibility to counter enemy fighters.

VieuxChat wrote:
But what would be the counter ? Flak ? Shields ? Armor ? 1/3 of each ?

Well considering fighters as a 4th kind of weapon, or a mini mount for extra slots of said weapon, why not be able to choose a mini-version of any of the previous 3 kinds of weapons/defense just smaller and able to target more then just one spot... it's like have the same old weapons but the it would help balance out the issue people have been complaining about with larger ships losing just because they only target one smaller ship at a time.

Yea you're probably right. And I've just noticed most of what I wrote was already mentioned by others. Oh well, writing something in the morning's never easy...

Its easier to just not bring in fighter replenishment--we dont question where the missiles and ammo comes from and the game is better for it.

Merku wrote:
This idea seems along the lines of what people have been suggesting for carriers and fighters. In this case the idea of squadrons could be along these lines:



Design a ship with 'fighter squadron' or 'bomber squadron' offensive slots, like kinetic or laser. Fighters can have kinetic, we'll say, and bombers can have missiles/torpedoes. These can be defended against in the current battle system by a card, say, flak cannons or something. The visual animations of a fighter or bomber squadron could work similarly to the way missiles operate, but once they get around the enemy fleet they buzz around inflicting more damage until fought off. Fighters could additionally serve as anti-fighters/bombers themselves. Fighters engaged with other fighters could dogfight in the middle of the battle or around the ships, depending upon which side seems to be winning this side of the fight - like a tug of war.



I might have just stolen the thunder on the OP's idea, but hey, it's not bad when fleshed out a little.

Large ships should get a "Hangar Bay" module where a given number of squadrons could be parked and carried around. If carriers were to be implemented, they'd get a bonus for fighter/bomber wing capacity like Wenchbane said, they should remain behind the cover of other ships in a battle, since their role is to get fighters in and out of combat.

I think bombers should have more like some kind of plasma weaponry, rather than missiles, or they main weapons should be plasma(=beam, point is, it should be fast and relatively strong for its size), with some secondary torpedoes or something (maybe fighters could be designed, to?); we already have rockets on the large ships, and the small warheads wouldn't do that much damage, and would still be slow. Fighters on the other hand could get a limited amount of anti-fighter rockets.

Instead of a card, they'd be countered by other fighters and flaks, cards should just give some kind of bonuses/penalties to them. That being said, bombers should obviously be able to get past enemy shields and kinetic defenses, liek Virus wrote. And yea, there definitely should be a new research line for them (speed, dmg, wing capacity, new fighter and bomber models, etc).

Oh and there could be different purpose fighters: Interceptor, Fighter Bomber, Heavy Bomber, etc.



On a side note: Fighter wings engaging in battle should do so outside the fire screen of large ships, otherwise they'd get obliterated from friendly fire, and bombers should attack the far side/top/bottom of enemy ships, depending on where the given ship is in the formation and how many ships can flak them simultaneously.



Edit: Damaged and lost fighters should be replenished automatically in the hangar bay after battles in 1-2 turns, depending on how many were lost.

The fighter/bomber defense/offense should be global for all ships so you could stick dedicated carriers in your fleets and ensure no one has a pure carrier fleet or ignores fighters/bombers without paying for it when encountering them. The best defense for fighters/bombers should always be fighters and bombers but they should face all of the defenses also and be countered by all the weapons to. A carrier would be a force multiplier by diverting the enemys weapons and defenses unless the strikecraft themselves are diverted by other strikecraft.



The strikecraft themselves should be customizable to the point of weapon types and other modifiers. When mounting them on a ship it would be the matter of a flight deck which is a base tonnage then adding strikecraft into that flight deck. You would be able to design bomber strikecraft with slow firing high damage/crit weapons like missiles that provide the best punch for the tonnage but they would need time to get the shots off and have no offense against smaller craft. The difference between bombers and fighters would literally be how you equipped your strikecraft--do you want them to be multirole fighter bombers or do you want space superiority fighters?



The flight deck system would allow you to carry light strikecraft for smaller ships or single heavy strikecraft that take the entire flight deck. Now its no longer just 'oh hes got a carrier' its 'shit he has a large flight deck what the hell is it filled with?'. This would also help big ships since you could throw on a relatively small flight deck and fill it with light strikecraft who's entire purpose is to ensure your not caught with your pants down against bombers. Good luck playing the refit reaction game when you throw in strikecraft tactics--your going to have to plan your fleets tactics ahead of time and hope you did a good job!



Bombers should not just be extra damage they should have a very high critical chance meaning that if you let them through by not preparing(cheap destroyer fleet) your going to get anti ship weapons in all the wrong areas.

This is a brilliant idea. +1

It would make the battles really epic to have exploding fighters and better flak animation.

Rather than engineer an entire new set of commands and cards ,should fighters/bombers give a global (buff/debuff all ships in a fight) defence/offence bonus in combat? Nothing large of course but doing it like this would probably fit a lot smoother with the current battle system.



Mechanics (no numbers, just theory

- A "Bomber wing" module would slot into the defence tab and would give a fleet wide damage bonus (maybe a low damage over time to enemy ships). Visuals would have a couple of bombers buzzing around enemy ships.

- "Fighter wing" would fit into the weapons tab and would give a defence bonus to all ships in a fleet vs. all damage types (low bonus). Why defence? Fighters can 'take hits' for their parent ships (sacrifice) and intercept missiles.

-Fighter modules would be large enough that you either need very large ship or to specialize a small hull and forego significant offence/defence on it.

Cards

We now have 2 new techs to counter, these being fighters and bombers.

- Having a fighter module would unlock a card for negating enemy bombers. "Intercept": boosts passive defence, counters "bombing run".

- Always available, a new card that negates enemy fighters. "Dog fight": maybe minus your passive defence for a round but counters intercept (???).

- Having a bomber module would unlock a card. "Bombing run": Boosts passive damage, counters engineering (???).

Tech

With this proposal, you'd only need a new line of tech. Each node on this new line would flip between size of module, damage of module and defence of module. Probably throw in a discovery of strike craft as to avoid having them too early.

Visuals

- Tracer fire from flak shooting a what seems like a small swarm of bugs flying between the two fleets.

- If both fleets have strike craft, have dog fight animations in the middle?

- Tiny (and therefore cute) explosions every now and then.

I like the idea of them fighters/bombers being treated like a weapon, as it'd easily integrate into the current system. As was stated previously you could simply counter bombers with fighters. A flak should be able to take out the bombers, but shouldn't be as effective as fighters. Maybe because bombers can fire while still out of range of the flak, or simply because the flak cannot take out the bombers AND their missiles at the same time.

I'm not so sure about Kruos proposal about adding a tactical option (aka "card" ;p) for that matter. Imo Fighters = defensive, Bombers = offensive. And you decide what to stock when you include the corresponding module in your ship design. (So it'd boil down to a fancy looking new type of weapon.)

Does anyone remember that old game from 03' called Homeworld 2? Its not a turn based game like Endless Space, its a RTS. A hell of a good on at that. In the game you have a choice of 8 or so categories, most of these produce squadrons of 5 to 10 (depending on the unit time) one manned vehicle. I think implementing these in the game would increase the diversity of your fleet and present new challenges as you play. If added its added to the game, the squadrons should be able to dock in a dreadnaught and use it as transport, this would enable you to move a greater amount of units, resulting in more epic battles. I found a picture of all the HW2 units, it might give you a better understanding of my idea.



[AlltheunitsinHomeworld2]

Kruos wrote:
Other fighters! It could be a special kind of weapon by the fact that its nature (offensive/defensive) would be decided by the player, during battles, when choosing a tactical option (aka "card" - dont like this name, it kills immersion for me ) :

- Opt1 : bombard mission

- Opt2 : intercept mission (> help in defense against other fighters/missile)

- Opt3 : harass mission (diversion fire > help in defense against beam/kinetic weapon)

etc..



What do you think?

i like this idea



In the game gratuitous space battles you had fighters which you could modify (not very much though) and set tasks such as 'defend this ship' or 'attack cruiser/destroyer/battleship'.



Defending fighters would stay close to friendly ships, engaging attacking fighters/bombers, then engage enemy ships at melee range. attacking fighters/bombers would head straight into enemy ships from long range, usually getting mopped up quickly without friendly support by enemy ship flak or defending fighters, but inflicting massive damage if enemy ships did not have adequate defense (fighters, flak).



They were a real tactical threat if underestimated. in some battles fighters alone could seal your victory before your ships even got close enough to see who had the biggest stick and it was always fun to watch fighters dueling while the battleships where punching s**t out of one another. could make a battle alot more tactical and would definitely look awesome =)

VieuxChat wrote:
But what would be the counter ? Flak ? Shields ? Armor ? 1/3 of each ?

flak would definitely be a counter imo. flak cannons were used against bombers in ww2. why not against fighters in the 31st century?

Wenchbane wrote:
On the idea of the Squadrons moving between systems why not create a module that will let a ship carry them around. I'd imagine during combat they would act as was stated previously, like a missile that buzzes around and does additional annoying damage =D I would like to see a carrier hull with a bonus (Say it lets you hold an addition 2 squadrons?)

Carriers! Hell YES!!!

Added to Suggestion Summary thread /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13003-summary-of-suggestions-so-far-discussion

VieuxChat wrote:
But what would be the counter ? Flak ? Shields ? Armor ? 1/3 of each ?

Other fighters! It could be a special kind of weapon by the fact that its nature (offensive/defensive) would be decided by the player, during battles, when choosing a tactical option (aka "card" - dont like this name, it kills immersion for me ) :

- Opt1 : bombard mission

- Opt2 : intercept mission (> help in defense against other fighters/missile)

- Opt3 : harass mission (diversion fire > help in defense against beam/kinetic weapon)

etc..



What do you think?