There has been a lot of discussion lately about balancing the Strike Craft/Carriers and Its been observed the main problem is the un-counterable strike craft that focus fire on your capital ships making it go down in seconds. I thought there has to be a more elegant solution to just buffing Flaks, and while I do support a Flak buff and preventing Carriers from instantly replacing their SC without any cost, I also always wondered why SINs never had the elegant Interceptor.
Interceptor are designed for 1 thing: to destroy other strike craft, fighters and bombers in a Air-Superority mission. Their primarily mission and purpose is dirty messy dogfighting, taking the fight to the fighters/bombers and protecting the main capital ships from Strike Craft attacks. (There is some conflict with the real world definition of interceptors, but for the purpose of this thread we're going to take the Sci-Fi definition of specialized dogfighters.)
Bajorian Interceptor, Star Trek ; Colonial Viper Mark VII, Battlestar Galactica
The Interceptor is designed to be a class below the fighter and the bombers. Fighters being generally multipurpose can still take out capital ships by focus fire, while bombers will take them out in 2-3 passes (1 late game), Interceptors will do close to zero damage to ships larger than a LRM and cannot take out a HC or Capital Ships; they are meant purely for taking down other SC. In the spectrum of strike craft balance:
low Lethality against ships high
| ---------------------------------- | --------------------------------------|
Interceptor (none) Fighter (moderate) Bomber (Very high)
♣ ♦ ♥
WING COMMANDER Strike Craft.
♣ - The Bearcat Interceptor, developed as a pure interceptor customized to destroy other fighters
♦ - The Hellcat V Multipurpose Fighter
♥ - The Shrike Torpedo Bomber
The Thunderbolt Star Fury from Babylon 5, a remarkable improvement from the original Star Fury, and excelling at a Interceptor Role against enemy fighters.
In terms of lethality against Strike Craft, the scale is below.
low Lethality against SC high
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------ |
Bomber (none) Fighter (multipurpose) Interceptor (high)
Star Wars
The underrated Y-Wing Well-known X-Wing A-Wing, fastest ship in the Rebel Alliance
In almost all popular Science-Fiction we see Interceptor craft. In Battlestar Galactica, Vipers don't attack Cylon basestars, they take out the raiders (bombers do that) one could argue there are only Interceptors and Bombers in depicted battles on Battlestar Galactica. In Star-Wars we have esp. designed A-Wings and Tie Interceptors to have a more specialized role in dog-fighting. In real life, the F-16 (a interceptor) is considered to be better than the multipurpose F-14 Tomcat in air to air combat and is the primarily first choice for such roles.
Why we need Interceptors in SINs
The problem with just having fighters and bombers, is when the enemy spams a lot of fighters, they are effective against large ships as well as other fighters. In a fighter and fighter war, the person with the most fighters (Flak withstanding) wins hence to effectively counter his fighters you just need more fighters than he does. What if you only make SC to begin with to counter his SC? You end up having to dump a significant amount of your fleet just to counter 1 aspect of his fleet. This problem is solved with Interceptors. Interceptors will engage in dog-fights with enemy fighters and effectively protect your own ships, and if you are relying on a melee shp-to-ship combat strategy you can blunt his fighter/bombers with your own interceptors. Note, Interceptors will still take losses from fighters, but fighters will need to fight at at least a 2/3 to 1 advantage to defeat interceptors. The cost-effectiveness of Interceptors will make those 1 or 2 SC slots on regular capital ships much more useful as now you could load up on Interceptors to better protect your capital ships against enemy SC despite being outnumbered. Interceptors will receive a 75% huge penalty received dmg penalty from enemy fighter/interceptors for targetting bombers if in the presence of their own escorts. (If the player micros to target the enemy bombers instead of enemy fighters/Int erceptors)
Interceptors will offer more and better Tactics in SINs.
People will now have to use ALL THREE TYPES of SC to achieve the best results. He will now need to have the correct ratios of Interceptors to counter other Interceptors, Fighters to support your own Interceptors, and escorting bombers while also doing some dmg to enemy ships, all the while protecting your own bombers which will now be the primarily attack SC. To ensure, Interceptors do not annhilate bomber SC and effectively moving them from the game, make them target enemy Interceptors and fighters first before they target the bombers, add to the fact Interceptors cannot dmg enemy ships larger than a LRM (and even for them they will do crappy dmg per sec) it makes Interceptors fit in perfectly with the SINs game. This adds more dept to SINs and more strategic planning in the allocation of SC to Carrier groups.
Yes this will make the counter table more complicated, but thats what happens when you add tactics and dept to a game.
I'd gladly appreciate any suggestions, and I really hope Ironclad takes a serious look at my proposal. (Dorian)
Now Enjoy the deadly Imperial TIE interceptors:
OBJECTION & REBUTTAL COLUMN
—"fighters already fill this role..."
No they don't, a fighter vs. a fighter will be equal. Fighters are significantly good at destroying ships, even capital ships leading many players to make purly all fighter SC for their carrier fleets because essentially as I mentioned you can only counter him by having more fighters then he does which if he is going for a pure SC-spam fleet and you aren't it makes it very difficult to counter fighters. With the addition of Interceptors Fighters will again be even more crucial to serve the role as Escort Fighters protecting bombers and dog-fighting Interceptors.
—"Bombers will be obsolete because now they have 3 counters" (assuming Flak is buffed)
No, they won't. Firstly Flak should counter all SC, regardless of if they are bombers/fighters/Interceptors. Also Interceptors will only be able to target bombers with impunity only if the bombers do not have their own fighter/Interceptor escort to get slaughtered which happens already anyway if bombers don't have fighter backup against enemy fighters. Bombers need escorts, is that something new? If you do escort them, then there is little difference with the addition of interceptors apart from now you need to tactically manage your ratios more. Which is a good thing.
—This will make everyone go back to LRF spam because the interceptors will take out all the strike craft that can take out the LRF.
No, it won't. The Interceptors will still be able to take out LRFs pretty decently, Interceptors will not be able to damage any ships larger than LRFs. Furthermore, everyone won't spam Interceptors because they can't damage large ships at all. Furthermore Fighters will still be able to defeat Interceptors in mass and if they mix in a few of their own Interceptors they will surely win.
— "Why not have the fighter changed to the stats of the interceptor? That way fighters can't take down crusiers or caps."
No, that is a bad idea because the fighter does have an important role right now. Also that'll completely make the bombers obsolete and un-tendable. Fighters should be able to take out heavier ships while being able to fight interceptors in a multi-purpose role. Also just replacing the fighter with the interceptor is limiting tactical options again to two types of strike craft.
—I played a game last night where I was going against [_] Tax in a 2v3 (my two allies were playing another [_] player). He had more fighters then me and had air superiority, even when I ended up with more physical carriers as I lacked the AM to replace the SC. The game was largely a stalemate with my egg leveling up under a repair cloud while I pumped out LF and LRMs and tried to kill his carriers. It wasn't his fighters that I was worried about killing my cap - it was the assailants or HCs!!! Due to tactics, I was able to last. An interceptor would not have made a difference as we would have both spammed them and ended up in the same situation...
This is a Straw Man Argument but in any event Yes, it would have helped. With interceptors included it would have ALL mattered on the ratio of Interceptors/Fighters/Bombers. If you had a higher ratio of intercepters then you would have won allowing some of your bombers to damage his carriers if you didn't you would have had to change your ratio, this is called adding tactics to the game. In this event YOU WERE BOTH CARRIER SPAMMING, in addition to letting players depend on the ratio, Interceptors would allow non-carrier spammers to use Interceptors to protect their ships. Should this not be an option?
sounds good alot of effort went into your post.
the idea of this along with a flak buff would be best
good idea tho.
I agree, and fighters already fill this role. To destroy strike craft and bombers...
My idea, will be implemented alongside a general balance fix of carriers/Flak. I am not proposing this to replace a fix for the light carriers that are a big issues right now.
I'm saying AFTER, they give a general buff to Flak power and remove the ability of carriers to instantly replace their SC in battle, that having interceptors in SINs is a very good additional option to supplement your anti-SC insurance alongside your Flak Frigates (and hopefully flak on Capital Ships.)
REMEMBER: I am NOT saying you need Interceptors to counter fighters/bombers, there SHOULD be the possibility of counter them without ANY SC on your own, but Interceptors should you choose to make them will help appreciably.
^ Also to the above poster, I disagree. Fighter SC spam is still amazingly effective at destroying huge ships thru focus fire. This is a problem and no real counter to it unless as I mentioned you have more fighters than him. Fighters therefore do not furfill this role.
I agree with you CreditSuisse.
Doing this would be a great tactical addition to the game. Right now as you said, all you see is people massing fighters and killing everything in thier path, the only counter is to build lots of flak with fighter support or have more fighters than him. The interceptor concept adds more depth. It does so by many ways, like you said, which i agree with, is the whole factor of the purpose of interceptors, to counter other strikecraft. A interceptor is meant to engage other strikecraft with superiority but have little effect against frigates and up. yes fighters can counter them, but the concept of a fighter is to be mulitrole, not only to engage bombers and other fighters, but to do moderate damage to ships.
So an overview would look like this.
Interceptor = Excels in dogfighting, weak against everything else
Fighter = Mulitrole
Bomber = Excels in attacking heavy ships and structures.
would having an interceptor in the game unbalance it, no, would people spam interceptors, sure but all they would be good for is anti-strikecraft so your fleet (if not carrier heavy) wouldn't suffer. So it forces a player if thier being smart to diversify, otherwise thier fighter spam might encounter a mixed force of interceptors / bombers in which case it would be a good fight.
interesting sugestion. i also agree, it would add quite a bit of strategic depth to the game but then you get people complaining about micro management. to be really effective IMO, there should be a cost to initially build a squadron as well as a small ammount of antimatter per fighter (to rebuild them when they die) which would basically eliminate fighter spam once your carrier runs out of anti matter. also you would need to rework the armor/weapon system as well, since you will need the interceptors weapons ONLY do damage to fighters/bombers, also another thing that would need to be done is create a way so that only interceptors fire at this new armor type. its rare to see someone go into depth as you have on the idea, it least from what i seen, well thanks for the nice idea anyhow, hope it gets implemented.
Ok guys heres a better idea would it make you happy if Flak was given an ability to neutralize the weapons of all strike craft in a certain area. that way you can protect your ships better. The interceptor would be a good ship in theory but Fighters already fill this roll and this would still require carriers.
This will result in people purely spamming LRFs and carriers again because now you have interceptors to destroy all other SC that could stop LRFs.
No thanks.
The interceptors will still take out the LRFs, like I said; I am proposing this in addition to a general Flak buff and Carrier balancing fix. The only thing is to make sure the interceptors won't be too good at taking out fighters. A 2:1 or 3:1 ratio in interceptor to fighter effectiveness is a good one. That way fighters can still defeat them in mass and mixing in some of your own interceptors will ensure your fighters come out on top. Capital Ships already get up to 2 or 3 slots, fill them with interceptors, so you don't need carriers to use them.
You agree with me in theory, I think many people see this as a good idea as long as it can be worked out. Will you work with us?
Yes spiralblitz, people could start spamming carriers with interceptors and LRF's, but with only interceptors, thats alot of wasted fleet supply, since all they would be good at is anti-SC, an easy counter would be HC since you dont have to worry about bombers, or you could mass even more LRFs than him since he choose to mass intercepters. Its a two way argument.
STcobalt, yes i agree that new armor type and such would have to be implimented, heck i think they should have it in now. SC's should have thier own armor class, well since they are thier own class of craft, far different than that of a frigate. Im not an expert on how the current system works, but heres a way it might.
Fighter = SC Medium armor
Interceptor = SC light armor
Bomber = SC heavy armor
So it goes in terms of damage against certain armor for
Fighters: using a anti-verylight gun
VLA (125%) ---> SCHA (100%) ---> SCMA (75%) ---> SCLA (50%)
Interceptors: using a anti-SC light gun
SCLA (125%) ---> SCMA (100%) ---> SCHA (75%) ---> VLA (50%)
(VLA = very light armor, SCHA = SC heavy armor, etc...)
Like I said im not an expert on how it works but this could be used as an example on how to do it, of course the numbers aren't right since i really dont have a clue.
What not have the fighter changed to the stats that u want for the interceptor? That way fighters can not take down cruisers or caps.
Well I must say you certainly have put alot work into your presentation, nice job.
Whilst I'm neither for or against the issue regarding carrier spam/ SC etc. being an issue with balance, I can see you guys are obviously very passionate about the issue. Which can only mean you are very passionate about the game itself, which is good to see!
I do think however your idea for an extra intercepter class strike craft for the 2nd or 3rd expansion is a pretty cool idea. Probabley though you'd be looking at the 3rd as to my knowledge (things may change) the 2nd is going to be dealing with the none combat side of the game.
Also, I think this could be quite easy to implement. I have recently been mucking around with the "Sins editor" program by "jjz", which opens up files in the game. Not so much because I want to mod the game but just to check out the statistics of the ships and other abilities of the game, to perhaps improve my stratergies. Anyway I noticed that there are empty slots available to carriers for extra strike craft.
So, now with your idea, when Entrenchment comes out in full, I'm considering doing a little mod and and adding an extra strike craft. I have to addmit I havn't much expiriance in modding and I don't think I'd be able to import a new model itself, but I think could add an existing craft say the fighter with altered fire power to fill the roll. And I'm sure if I ask nicely the modding community would help out. Anyway I'm willing to give it a crack!
If you think this would be a good idea, any help with this would be most welcome. And who knows, in the spirit of giving good feedback to developers we might learn something.
@credit
ok what you just explained made no sense. What you said renders bombers and LRFs obselete and makes Fighters overpowered.
At the very top of your post you said Interceptors exist to Destroy other strike craft and bombers. Fighters exist to destroy other strike craft and bombers. Interceptors also counter LRFs and are pretty much useless against other ships. Et viola Fighters counter LRFs and are pretty much useless against other ships.
What you are saying about fighters being effective agaisnt other ships is not true they are however effective at damaging in large groups like any other ship in the game.
in theory the interceptor is a good idea but in actuallity the role is already filled and it wouldn't be adding anything new to the game except confusion.
If the interceptor destroys other strike craft then it should not be weak against fighters in the slightest. Maybe it should have a gigantic weakness agianst flak. For the interceptor to be viable it shouldn't even be able to damage any ship that isn't strike craft. Therefore it creates 3 roles for strike craft making fighters, bombers, and interceptors necessary to winning a match in sins.
Fighters Full fill the role over anti-bomber and light frigates
bombers are anti-heavy and medium
interceptors completely anti-strike craft
flak- anti-strike craft bonus anti inerceptor.
When it comes down to it the cycle will go in an average match.
Enemy1 builds fighters to counter LRFs = Enemy2 builds interceptors to kill fighters
Enemy1 builds flak to kill interceptors = Enemy2 builds LFs to kill flak
Enemy1 builds LRFs and heavies to kill = Enemy2 builds Fighters and Bombers
now both enemies have appropraite counters for each ship they are facing it all depends now on how they play to decide the winner.
So in a Sense you are right and both wrong about the interceptor. Thats why it should not be created cause it will only creat more confusion.
Interceptors are just less effective than fighters and bombers against smaller ships but will counter them nontheless. They are useless against anything larger than a LRF
Interceptors with the definition I will be using will be are just very specialized air-superiority fighters.
Please read my rebuttal section at the top of the thread. I already addressed how interceptors do not fill the role of a fighter.
Now I understand you want Strike Craft to only be able to fight other strike craft right? That is fine, but then you'll run into LRF spam, which I stated having the Strike Craft can soft counter (vs. fighters/bombers hard counter).
The only real arguement you have is: "Oh, people will get too confused and we shouldn't add it." This is not even an argument - its a red herring. Do you really have an argument?
this will not solve the problem ALL SC ARE OVER POWERED
they are replaced faster than they can be destroyed intecpters will help BUT a flak buff is still needed so that no one spams SC anymore and are forced to come up with a new uncounterble soultion
but this knew tatic is far cheeper than the old LRF spam those would become usless late game at least carriers own everything from early to late game and there is NO COUNTER FOR THEM THAT IS WHY FLAK NEEDS A BUFF
btw good idea this should help ballence but alone will do nothing
listen I have read your rebutal but it isn't clear and is missing the very facts. Please look up in the strategy section the units counter charts before hand and you will understand What I'm talking about. In the form you are suggestion Interceptors it makes LRFs the weakest ship in the game since it has more counters it makes bombers the weakest strike craft because it has more counters. Interceptors create more counters that only serve to weaken the chain of effect that we have going in the sins universe.
If interceptors come into the game they either become what fighters already are or Become the Anti-Strike craft and replace Flak making flak obsolete unless it exists to counter Interceptors. Do you get me. I'm talking pure counter knowledge here.
SideNote: You should really be worrying more about eliminating the element that is replenishing the strike craft you are trying to get rid of. I mean If you killed the carrier all that is left is to mop up the floating Squad of strike craft that is also dying from having its carrier destroyed.
Better yet If the carrier is destroyed the Strike craft should die instantly or die at a faster rate than what they currently are.
PS: I edited my previous post to include an example of what i'm talking about.
SpiralBlitz, its becoming more and more clear you are never going to argee with me or anyone else. I have nothing more to say because you'll just claim some BS you'll pull out of your ass will refutte everything and that this idea is worthless. People like you will never be convinced or even just other peole's opinion a fair chance, and thus I will not waste my breath.
Everyone else, I really really wanted to work with SpiralBlitz and hope work out his 'problem' I even asked him if he would work with us to further refine this idea. Instead I think its apparent to everyone he is only interested in Sabatoging this idea, which is a shame.
I hope everyone else can see the worth of this idea on its own merits and ignore SpiralBlitz's demagoguery.
Dude strike craft are not instantly replaced in battle. Carriers require antimatter to replace strike craft if the carrier does not have enought antimatter it can't build strike craft. THIS IS WHY LFs HAVE ABILITIES THAT DAMAGE ANTIMATTER USING SHIPS AND IMPAIRS THEIR ABILITY AND SUPPLY OF ANTIMATTER.
Carreirs also build strike craft slower when under attack.
So heres a shot in the dark what happens when carriers have no antimatter and are under attack.
Honestly if your having a problem with keeping Carriers from building Strike craft that is a revision in tactics that needs to be explored.
Currently I aggree that flak need a buff and capital ships should include their own flak guns.
just a suggestion but maybe you could make a maximum range for the strike craft to go away fromt their carrier, bombers going farthest (whole gravity well?), fighters shorter then bombers (possibly half or three quarters the well so as they can still take out lfs but bombers would be tactically better at attacking ships), and interceptors would have the shortest range staying right next to the carrier or capital ship in order to attack any strike carft attacking their hosts.
Not much into programming so not sure how any of this would actually be implemented...
This thread is a testament to how one demagogue can sabatoge an entirely honest attempt to get the developer's attention. It's really too bad.
I'm going to ask the readers of this thread to not be influenced by the demagogue as actually believe or not most people who posted in this thread agree with the idea. Shocker isn't it? Demagogues can pretend to speak for others when in reality they have nothing.
SpiralBlitz has nothing. Feel free to offer any and all suggestions.
Don't let this thread be siderailed! Keep the hope alive!
Looks like a normal discussion to me. No insults, no cursing, he just doesn't agree with you.
Disagreeing does not make one a troll, and the report function is not a tool to remove people you don't like or don't agree with. Please keep that in mind and do not abuse it to that effect in the future.
Have to agree with Kryo. Spiralblitz does make some good points. Just because they dont agree with yours does not always make them wrong.
Personally I like the idea of intercepters but they do bring their own problems and balance issues. So calm down and relax. Try to understand his point of view(yes I see you are trying) and just accept that some people will not always agree with you.
The thing is I agree with the idea of interceptors but the thing is we just don't really need them. There is already so much you can do to stop strike craft just starting at the source. I meant no harm by what I was saying. For that I apologize I was just bringing up a list of already implemented ways of betting strike craft mostly from just using LFs which is still negelcted because many players seem to think they are weak even though they are highly useful.
Apparently 80% of the community disagree with you on "there are a 1000 ways to counter Strike Craft spam guys! how can you be such morons, attitude". There are a lot of other trends on this subject and if you think Carrier spam is awesome and there is no balance problem that is your own minority opinion.
Let's say for the sake of argument, that Interceptor's are NOT needed (despite my fighter on fighter exmple you never respond to) Interceptor idea stand on its own merits because it adds more tactics to the game letting people use all three strike craft. It'll be better than the current state where everyone uses only fighters or bombers. It won't add "confusion" and attempting to shut this idea down with a red herring argument is just morally wrong.
You keep saying "I like this idea.." "It works in theory" so essentially what you're arguing for is: "Oh, its a good idea but it'll take a lot of work... so fuck it guys this idea is shit" That is called lazy. If every good idea got shot down in science because "Oh, its too much work, so FUCK it guys let's stick with our sticks and stones" then we would still be in the Stone Age. Good job.
I'm sure this will work. It is a great idea and I think it would be perfect if combined with my own great idea, which is:
Whole problem here is spamming any particular unit. The goal is to have balanced fleets. So:
Once a player builds any fleet unit beyond a certain percentage, then the additional units defect to the pirates with the alert sound "Yawr me Hearties!"
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