Should Fighters Be Able to Kill Capitol Ships?

A short debate on relative firepower, gameplay, and realism.

As plugin developers we must balance two factors in our game design: realism and gameplay. Realism refers more to internal consistency and a game working within the confines it sets for itself, regardless of whether or not those initial constraints are realistic. Gameplay is, of course, the enjoyment the player gets from playing the game. These are often in both opposition and cooperation. A game isn't a lot of fun if it's completely realistic, it is, after all, a game, not a training simulation, but if it is not realistic enough, you loose the suspension of disbelief. This is as true in a fantasy RTS as a modern FPS, or, in our case, a sci-fi RPG.

You all already know that, but I bring it up by way of introduction. The specific question I am thinking about is this:
Should fighters be able to kill capitol ships (carriers, and the like) as easily as they can?

Now I would suggest, in discussing this, we come at it from both realism and gameplay:

• Realism: In the world we create for the future, how difficult should it be for a fighter to kill a capitol ship?

• Gameplay: Is it fun to be able to easily kill a capitol ship as a fighter?

Perhaps I should give some examples both modern and sci-fi on different scenarios:

• Escape Velocity: Nova : More advanced fighters can easily take down some of the less advanced capitol ships (for example, Manta v. Fed Carrier or Fed Destroyer isn't even a fair fight). Across the board patrol-type ships (Starbridge, RAGE Gunship, Fed Gunboat, Valkyrie, Zephyr) are able to take on capitol ships with relative impunity, with the possible exception of maybe the Raven or Scarab. Some members of the community (cough cough Quaanol) can kill Ravens in shuttles.

• Star Wars : In Star Wars, especially in the books, fighters clearly are dominant, though less so than in Escape Velocity. X-Wings take down Imperial ships around the light capitol ship strength all the time, and occasionally take down Star Destroyers. However, usually it's a squadron of fighters against the Imperial ships. This is partly because the movies were based on World War II air battles, see below.

• Escape Velocity (Classic): While the vast majority of ships are really fighters, all but the best have a very hard time against the Corvette and Rebel Cruiser and even the best have an incredibly hard time against the Kestral and Federation Cruiser. I would say that the fighters are only slightly dominant.

• World War II : Here you have three real cases to examine. The first, fighters versus carriers, is clearly in the favor of the fighters, but fighters were often very hard pressed to deliver the strike they needed. Attrition rates of over 50% was not uncommon in the great naval air battles early in the war. In the second case, fighters versus battleships, the numbers are quite different. Heavily armed and armoured battleships were rarely sank by enemy bombers after Pearl Harbor, and Iowa class battleships could take on vast fleets of enemy aircraft quite easily. Lastly we have fairly light naval ships versus capitol ships. In this case barring factors like night strikes, light ships, with the exception of submarines, were fairly ineffectual.

• Star Trek : Fighters rarely appear, at least in the first few series, and when non-Federation fighters appear, they seem to pose relatively little threat to the Enterprise. Most battles are large capitol ship battles. (Note I'm not a huge Trek fan, so take this with a grain of salt.)

• Modern Naval Combat : While the aircraft carrier is still a relatively vulnerable target, advances in technology have rendered it much less so. Of course, this is really just theoretical since there haven't been any major naval battles recently.

Ultimately what all of these cases come down to is firepower density. How much firepower can a small craft bring to bear on a larger one. Note that in many of the cases above (WW2, Star Wars, and modern combat) fighters had very limited capacity to effect larger ships, one torpedo in World War II, up to six proton torpedoes in Star Wars. In EVN, the primary weapons available to fighters allowed for them to bring to bear significant firepower on a capitol ship, while capitol ships could bring relatively few weapons to bear on a fighter.

Now, what about gameplay? Which way is it more fun? Ultimately, this is what it comes down to.

To my mind, I would prefer more powerful capitol ships. Strong capitol ships mean that the rewards for progressing in the game go much further. When you can kill almost anything with most ships, then you only need to get about a million credits. However, once you've gotten your million credits, there is nowhere to go, except the missions. Thus, the missions define the majority of the gameplay. I think it would be a better game if you could keep getting different ships to deal with different threats and do different things. For example, if you want to do the whole melee bit, you would get a lighter ship, while if you wanted to see major space battles you would get a capitol ship. Each would have its own special techniques which you would have to figure out. I find in the EVN model, I rush to get a decently outfitted Starbridge and then I can take out anything I need to. This is especially true when the player's ship far outperforms the AI's. I would also advocate giving capitol ships more fighters and more gun spaces. I think that it would lead to more customized ships, and if you weaken fighters you have to make up for it other ways. If two opposing fleets of two carriers a handfull of battleships and a dozen frigates each fought each other with each carrier disgorging three dozen or more fighters I think it would make battles a bit more interesting. (Ignore, for the moment the capabilities of the engine.)

I'm interested in seeing other peoples oppinions.

Another important thing to consider is how your universe is set up shield wise. In Star Trek and the EVs for instance all ships are protected by shields, which means you can't physically damage the ship until you blast through the shielding. In Babylon 5 most ships had no (apparent) shields, and thus fighters could be used to get in close and target a capital ship's offensive and defensive guns rendering a ship useless in battle allowing friendly ships with big guns to score hits.

As to whether a fighter or small ship should be able to significantly damage a large ship that again depends on your universe works. But in real life we can badly damage a full size surface vessel with a single anti ship missile fired from a fighter. In most SciFi shows capital ships are always way way way bigger in relation to fighters than our Aircraft Carriers.

So in the end I think fighters and small ships can be as powerful as the universe you design allows.

IMO, a lone fighter should be easily swattable by carriers, assuming the fighter doesn't dodge the shots being shot at it. The biggest advantageto a fighter is being small and dodgy. Anti-fighter guns and such should be dodgable by all fighters. The fighter doesn't need capship-like weaponry and shields as long as it has recharging shields and if fast enough to get close enough to the capship to do some damage and get out alive. I think that the medium gunboat ships in EVN are too powerful when flown by the player, and so is the manta.

Personally, If I was building a fighter from scratch, I wouldn't worry too much about armor, I would give it decent sheilding and a good reactor, 2 jumps of fuel, an afterburner, a jammer, and 1 fast-firing fast-reload energy gun, and two longer range slower-reload normal guns that require ammo. Remember, in real space, energy weapons dissipate, but a bullet is forever.

As an aside, a fighter or small ship can significantly damage an aircraft carrier. A battleship can take upwards of three Tomahawk missiles and survive them. Some can take a small nuclear hit and survive it. Even at Pearl Harbor, the old West Virginia took six torpedo hits and two bombs, one of which blew up her spotter plane. While the Wee Vee was allowed to sink in shallow water, she probably could have been saved at sea, since there would be no chance of salvage. All this despite sitting in a sea of burning oil from Arizona and Oklahoma.

@flavius, on Feb 8 2007, 06:47 PM, said in Should Fighters Be Able to Kill Capitol Ships?:

() Star Wars : In Star Wars, especially in the books, fighters clearly are dominant, though less so than in Escape Velocity. X-Wings take down Imperial ships around the light capitol ship strength all the time, and occasionally take down Star Destroyers. However, usually it's a squadron of fighters against the Imperial ships. This is partly because the movies were based on World War II air battles, see below.
() Escape Velocity (Classic): While the vast majority of ships are really fighters, all but the best have a very hard time against the Corvette and Rebel Cruiser and even the best have an incredibly hard time against the Kestral and Federation Cruiser. I would say that the fighters are only slightly dominant.

This is actually untrue, in both cases.

In the Star Wars books, fighters do do a lot of damage, but in the movies, the opposite is clearly true -- fighters essentially place up a "skirmishing screen", while the capital ships hammer each other, and do all of the real damage. Fighters are primarily used to hit weak spots (such as in the Death Stars), where capital ships cannot. "All the time" is hardly the case, and there are no instances of X-Wings, in the movies, taking down Star Destroyers on their own. The myth of X-Wing superiority was invented primarily by the X-Wing novels, which were based primarily on a game, by the same name. Game mechanics leaked into the Expanded Universe, and gradually created both the "X-Wings > Star Destroyers" and "Tough X-Wings" myth (the claim that X-Wings are dramatically more durable than TIE Fighters -- if you look at the movies, they're about the same).

In Escape Velocity, there are eight fighters in the game:

Defender
Hawk
Lightning
Rapier
C. Patrol Ship
C. Gunboat
R. Manta
Alien Fighter

A few examples of capital ships:
Corvette
Kestrel
C. Frigate
R. Destroyer
C. Cruiser
R. Cruiser
Alien Cruiser

All of the fighters save the Defender and Rapier can be launched. There are about as many capital ships as fighters, especially if you count the "weak" Kestrel accessible through the derelict Bulk Freighter. There's a good number of fighters, in other words, but not a vast majority.

Ah, and it's the "Confederation", not the Federation.

I know the above seems like a bash-fest, but it was intended to correct some small errors I saw, that irked me. Now, my opinion on the matter is essentially that EV got it right the first time. Maintain capital ship superiority, but not so much that they cannot be defeated by smaller craft. Fighters are not so powerful that it is better to fly them than a capital ship, but capital ships can still be overwhelmed by a skilled fighter pilot, so the game has a good balance and ring to it, though it may not be the most life-like. In my opinion, gameplay mechanics take precedence: Being able to cheap out a larger capital ship (the afore-mentioned Raven) through simple mechanics exploitation is utterly obnoxious, and so special features should be used with care, to ensure that the overall scale works.

- Bob

Personally, I do think some Nova Fighters are too tough; in the Unrelenting, if I am distracted, I can be dropped (or at least gutted) in seconds by about three thunderheads. What is possible is that you can make it so that ONLY larger ships get better weapons, so that even though you have the space, a Thunderhead CANNOT mount, say, an Ion Cannon. I also think that the Navy talk isn't all that pertinent, although it has an analogy, our navies are at one of the same points they were about 200 years ago: firepower is awesome, but the defense, not so much. A carrier or battleship is pretty much doomed if they take a few torpedoes. BTW, the 200 years ago thing: A single cannonball could almost destroy a wooden boat, if hit right. Another example: there is a novel series, The Dark Wing (and sequels) which is a space sci-fi, and it does it well, I think: the carriers hold 4-12 squadrons, (16-48 ships) and they don't do much, with 2 exceptions: 1. If the defensive fields (shields) go down, a hull can't hold up to much anything; Death is usually instantaneous. Also, the fields have an error: you can sometimes slip a shot THROUGH them, and fighters got that more often than anyone else. However, with the shields up, and no "cracking" them, a fighter is almost useless. In that series, the fields were very powerful, but hull was not, which is quite realistic (HINT) because a class-5 modern laser can easily cut through steel or titanium, so accelerate that a couple of hundred years, they're class 5s would be like modern class 20 or something so metal wouldn't stand for long, assuming that we haven't found a wonder metal by then.

@consul-bob, on Feb 8 2007, 08:36 PM, said in Should Fighters Be Able to Kill Capitol Ships?:

In the Star Wars books, fighters do do a lot of damage, but in the movies, the opposite is clearly true -- fighters essentially place up a "skirmishing screen", while the capital ships hammer each other, and do all of the real damage. Fighters are primarily used to hit weak spots (such as in the Death Stars), where capital ships cannot. "All the time" is hardly the case, and there are no instances of X-Wings, in the movies, taking down Star Destroyers on their own. The myth of X-Wing superiority was invented primarily by the X-Wing novels, which were based primarily on a game, by the same name. Game mechanics leaked into the Expanded Universe, and gradually created both the "X-Wings > Star Destroyers" and "Tough X-Wings" myth (the claim that X-Wings are dramatically more durable than TIE Fighters -- if you look at the movies, they're about the same).

While no X-Wing takes out a Star Destroyer, an A-Wing does.

I'd say the majority of the effort devoted to such things should be towards whether the additions/changes make the game more, or less, fun. At a certain point, 'realism' just gets in the way, and it can be easy to lose sight of what you're trying to do.

@zurdo, on Feb 8 2007, 11:04 PM, said in Should Fighters Be Able to Kill Capitol Ships?:

While no X-Wing takes out a Star Destroyer, an A-Wing does.

The A-Wing crashes into the unshielded bridge of a Star Destroyer (and who do you think brought those shields down?)

This damages the ship's controls, which causes it to collide into the Death Star II.

A ship crashing into the bridge of something that's already been heavily battered by an entire enemy fleet is certainly the same thing as a squadron of fighters taking a ship out entirely, by themselves. I see the light now!

- Bob

Well, given that modern combat is the best analogy we have, I thought it wise to include it. Incidentally, at the Battle of Trafalgar, the great naval engagement of the Wars of Coalition (The Napoleonic Wars), out of three fleets totaling 66 ships only nine sank, and none of those during the battle. In fact, the majority of these were destroyed in the storm which followed the battle.

@flavius, on Feb 8 2007, 07:47 PM, said in Should Fighters Be Able to Kill Capitol Ships?:

(*) Escape Velocity: Nova : More advanced fighters can easily take down some of the less advanced capitol ships (for example, Manta v. Fed Carrier or Fed Destroyer isn't even a fair fight). Across the board patrol-type ships (Starbridge, RAGE Gunship, Fed Gunboat, Valkyrie, Zephyr) are able to take on capitol ships with relative impunity, with the possible exception of maybe the Raven or Scarab. Some members of the community (cough cough Quaanol) can kill Ravens in shuttles.

I gotta say, I always found the power ramp up in Nova to be a little shallow - by most accounts, most players go something like "Shuttle -> Starbridge -> Final super-ship" without a lot of serious experimentation in-between.

Personally, I always thought the game would be improved by capitol ships being improved enough so that the average player in an average patrol-type ship would feel at least a little leery of engaging them in direct combat.

There's a benefit to both gameplay and realism I believe when there's more of a power difference between the weakest and strongest ships.

BTW, it's capit a l ship (not capitol ship). (While both derive from the Latin for head, Capitol derives specifically from the Capitoline - a Roman hill - and only refers to a certain place on that hill, and other places that have been named after it since. All other uses are 'capital'.)

Now that's out of the way, I agree with Consul Bob:

Quote

Now, my opinion on the matter is essentially that EV got it right the first time. Maintain capital ship superiority, but not so much that they cannot be defeated by smaller craft. Fighters are not so powerful that it is better to fly them than a capital ship, but capital ships can still be overwhelmed by a skilled fighter pilot, so the game has a good balance and ring to it, though it may not be the most life-like. In my opinion, gameplay mechanics take precedence: Being able to cheap out a larger capital ship (the afore-mentioned Raven) through simple mechanics exploitation is utterly obnoxious, and so special features should be used with care, to ensure that the overall scale works.

Realism isn't a helpful term here: we really mean internal consistency. If a 10 million credit ship can be easily defeated by a 100 thousand credit ship, then why would anyone buy/build/fly the more expensive ship? Conversely, if naval fighters are ineffective against enemy capital ships, why would anyone bring these - easily destroyed, costly to replace - fighters to battle?

"Flavius" said:

Incidentally, at the Battle of Trafalgar, the great naval engagement of the Wars of Coalition (The Napoleonic Wars), out of three fleets totaling 66 ships only nine sank, and none of those during the battle. In fact, the majority of these were destroyed in the storm which followed the battle.

Only nine (or ten) were lost , but more than 20 enemy ships were taken by the Royal Navy as prizes (of which nine or ten subsequently sunk, were scuttled, sank in the storm …). It was an entirely decisive engagement: it's just that ships of the period just didn't tend to sink. Edit: And since captains and crews would profit financially from a prize, it was in their interests to take a ship as intact as possible rather than destroying it.

"waladil" said:

BTW, the 200 years ago thing: A single cannonball could almost destroy a wooden boat, if hit right.

Just not true, sorry. (Assuming by 'boat', you really mean 'ship of the line' - the equivalent of a capital ship.)

However, why we're talking about the Napoleonic era when it didn't involve anything resembling 'fighters', I don't know …

This post has been edited by pac : 09 February 2007 - 06:09 AM

I personally think the only time a small ship should be able to single-handedly take down a capital ship is if it is carrying a very specialized weapon. I'm thinking along the lines of a completely unique warhead designed specifically to take advantage of a flaw in one kind of ship.

I think I have already expressed my opinion on this one, but here it is. Let me warn you first that I'm a big fan of X-Wing and TIE Fighter, which might explain my slight pro-fighter bias.

I think that capital ships should be better than fighters: capital ships should be able to take down one, two or three fighters in AI vs AI battles (even when involving a technlogy gap, such as Manta vs Fed Destroyer) without any problem (except of course being damaged a bit). However, it should be possible for a skilled player to take down capital ships using a fighter, of course not necessarily all capital ships with all fighters (unless you've got the awesome skills our friend has, though a Raven is a bit like the EVC Alien ship in the extent its limited maneuverability, and now you add its lack of inertia, so it can be less hard to take down by a fighter than smaller warships). It's kinda rewarding for the player to be able to do things like that. Plus, big capital ships have to be somewhat massive and slow in order to fit all their weapons, so that makes them prime targets for small and nimble fighters, though the attrition rate is likely to be big (provided it's not the player, of course). And you could add an intermediate class of ships (gunships) which are too big to be able to take on capital ships the same way but have anti-fighter weaponry and are still maneuverable enough to be able to destroy fighters, even the player's, unless he's damn skilled.

One issue with this is that, in order for the fighters not to be completely powerless alone, they need to have acceptable weaponry, but either the fighter can get ridiculous amounts of space by selling this weaponry (think Crescent Fighter Bay equipped on Crescent Fighters), or it's too light and any cargo ship can be equipped with that too. One solution I propse to this is to have the fighter, when bought, come with special versions of the guns or rocket launcher (UE Fighter, I'm looking at you) it's supposed to be equipped with, this special version being lighter, cheaper, and impossible to buy (easy, just set the max amout to 0). This way, the player won't be able to get much space or money by just selling them. This makes sense: we're used to complete modularity, but it's unlikely to be necessarily the case, think of the X-Wing for instance, it's obvious this ship is built around the firepower provided by its four laser cannons and Proton torpedo launcher, there is not much to gain by removing them (though that should still be possible Just In Case™), while it's obvious that adding such stuff to a random ship should take space, as much has to be modified to fit these guns into a ship not initially designed for that.

@zacha-pedro, on Feb 9 2007, 01:24 PM, said in Should Fighters Be Able to Kill Capitol Ships?:

One issue with this is that, in order for the fighters not to be completely powerless alone, they need to have acceptable weaponry, but either the fighter can get ridiculous amounts of space by selling this weaponry (think Crescent Fighter Bay equipped on Crescent Fighters), or it's too light and any cargo ship can be equipped with that too.

Things like this are very easy to get round with the Nova engine though. In AotC, I'm handling it by having every ship over 100 tons have a flag. Amongst the things that require this flag are fighter bays. Also, if most weapons used by fighters are forward-firing, they won't be especially suitable for cargo vessels (or, again, you could just use flags if you wanted).

The ideal way to do fighters might be to have many more of them. I remember a long time ago an early Star Wars mod where ships would carry 20 fighters or something - they'd also have about 20 turrets - because this was 'realistic'. You also hit the max ships and max shots caps in no time, so the whole thing simply didn't work. Those limits are higher now, but they're still there. So we need few strong fighters because: we want fighters; and it's impossible to have lots of weak ones. (Also, lots of weak fighters means they are no longer attractive ships for the player.)

This post has been edited by pac : 09 February 2007 - 08:47 AM

@consul-bob, on Feb 9 2007, 05:52 AM, said in Should Fighters Be Able to Kill Capitol Ships?:

The A-Wing crashes into the unshielded bridge of a Star Destroyer (and who do you think brought those shields down?)

The sequence of events in the film suggest the sheilds were at least finished off by an X-Wing and A-Wing destroying the sheild tower.

However, I've seen some sources claiming that tower thing was just a sensor dome, despite the fact that the officer reported the sheilds down immediately after it blew.

Ok, I'm fairly certain that was a shield generator, or why go to the trouble to have the Imperial bridge crew in the very next scene saying that their shields were out? If it were sensors, the logical thing would be a report of a targeting or navigational problem.

Furthermore, that was no mere Star Destroyer, it was the Executor , a Super Star Destroyer and Vader's personal command ship.

Simply put, a few fighters should have a great deal of difficulty dealing with capital ships. A bunch of fighters should be able to destroy or at least badly damage it. Of course, a few and a bunch are both much smaller numbers due to limitations in the engine. Its impossible to have a bunch of carriers launching clouds of 40+ fighters each in Nova, so thats where things get messed up.

I would guess that, on average, something like five fighters oughta be a threat to a capital ship. It might also help to have specialized fighters. Some quicker and more agile, designed to engage other fighters, using cannons and fast missiles. Others slower with heavier offensive and defensive capabilities, designed to target capital ships specifically, such as launching heavier missiles, rockets, or bombs.

I assume that is the concept behind the Viper/Anaconda (and Firebird/Phoenix) deal. I actually think that that may be the best solution. Something like, say, the Arada is (or ought to be) designed as an interceptor designed to destroy enemy "bomber" type ships in the Outer Sphere Battle, whereas something like the Lightning or Rapier (from EVC) is more properly a "bomber" type and designed to deploy one or two big bad weapons at extreme range.

Honestly, in any universe? 1v1? Realistically? There is no way that a single fighter would be able to take out a single cap ship. However, the thing about naval warfare (referring to space as well here) is that it never really IS just 1v1.

Sure, one fighter CAN take out one cap ship - kamikazees, for example; or the A-Wing example. However, that one fighter is not there all by itself. You have fleets, you have squadrons, you have battle groups. Different types of ships serve different purposes, and by working together they serve their various purposes.

Now, in terms of the actual game mechanics of the EV universe, the understandably simplistic and basic AI is the reason you can pretty easily take out cap ships in fighters. Nothing more.