Credit where it's due - fighter bays are amazing

Caspar

Caspar
Having come back to this game after a break (literally - no graphics card) I've finally gotten round to kitting out a Keelback with a fighter bay.

The implementation feels seriously slick to me and I'm really impressed. Multi-crew / hire AI / switching roles / sending commands. All of it seems really well thought out. The best thing is that flying a fighter feels genuinely worth it. It's not some lesser sidewinder - it's a thing of beauty and grace in its own right. I'm running with an Imperial fighter and 2 x beams. Fully expected it to suck - but the experience is awesome. The manoeuvrability and acceleration are spot on - repeatedly making passing runs and emptying my capacitor as I go, only for it to be recharged for the next pass.

I'd happily run multi-crew full time rather than pilot solo now.

Well done FDev, you really nailed this one.
 

verminstar

Banned
verminstar
Its actually quite surprising what yer crew can do once ye get them trained up...ye could literally have them complete some kill missions on their own or take on the supporting wing to distract a main target and score a kill or two before going down in a blaze of glory.

Obviously, training them is a time and credit intensive task so it hurts like hell losing them, although as a large ship player, losses are mercifully rare. Mercifully because to lose a deadly or elite crew member...its akin to losing yer little toe sorta annoyance later trying to walk and run with just 4 toes left.

In saying that, Im a huge fan of canyon racing...when I explored more, I had more bookmarks fer canyons than everything else combined...not a bad thing when ye consider the only thing worth shooting out there is the mothership. Its why I would dearly love to see an exploration fighter which swapped guns fer scanners and maybe a bit more range that the current 30km...they can cover a lotta ground in a fraction of the time it takes an srv and can go high to get a birds eye view which an srv can only pretend to do with big jumps.

I use the imperial fighters too fer two reasons...first of all role play cos Im imperial and secondly cos yer choice of those with beams are great fer helping kill shields and its one the most nimble...its not like they cost anything although perhaps cost is somewhat more urgent if yer in a keelback and ye only got 6 fighters if memory serves me right?

Can be lost in canyons too when ye bounce them off the floor, they tend not to handle too great ^
 
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IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
I use different kinds of fighters on different kinds of ships, for different kinds of reasons.
The Multicannon Condor is great, because it's a multicannon fighter, and the only one of its kind.
The Imperial Fighters just look right with Imperial and Saud Kruger ships.
Taipans in Lakon ships look right, and are fun to fly. Plus it's neat to see their little wings fold up.
 

krylite

krylite
Indeed, fighters was one of the best features introduced with Horizons. Yet very little praise besides the usual complaining about Horizons not being worth it. Very little to no criticism of fighters so the salt went after multicrew instead.
 
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DeathStroke

Banned
D
The fighters are the only good thing about multicrew. I got tired of it 5-10 hours in, I suspect most people are about the same, I also suspect your opinion will change in about that much time as well.
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
If you splash out on an engine color for the SLF (orange, for example) you can see where it's been, or where it's heading.

Colored weapons help to confirm it is doing it's job when you instruct it to attack target. Surprising how fast the NPC pilots jump to it when they know you are checking up on them :)
 

Whipley

Whipley
The Condor with fixed multicannon is my favorite (Rogue F variant). That thing shreds and it's super fun to fly!

The GU97 with fixed beam and heatsink launcher (Gelid F) is also a favorite.

SLFs were an amazing addition to the game, I hope they add more types of small, dockable ships in the future. A cargo shuttle that large ships could use to ferry cargo to outposts would be cool. You could order your npc/multicrew crewmember to offload cargo while you nip out for a smoke! Perhaps you could also have orders like: pick up all cargo/materials in a 3km radius. Your little npc could follow behind, hoovering up the goodies as you go on a killing spree in a hazrez or CZ.
 

Sebastian Rooks

Sebastian Rooks
IndigoWyrd said:
I use different kinds of fighters on different kinds of ships, for different kinds of reasons.
The Multicannon Condor is great, because it's a multicannon fighter, and the only one of its kind.
The Imperial Fighters just look right with Imperial and Saud Kruger ships.
Taipans in Lakon ships look right, and are fun to fly. Plus it's neat to see their little wings fold up.
Click to expand...
I like the multi cannon Condor if I've only got one choice, (class 5 fighter bay). It deals some damage, if you can get the target shields down.
I like the Taipan plasma for tankiness when hitting larger, slower targets. Surprisingly, it can take some punishment. I have to agree, the animation for it is pretty cool.
I like the iFighter plasma for taking out other fighters. Wish I could get my Buzzard to turn like those things.

Rooks o7
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
If you're new to multicrew, be aware of the possibility that you might get some twonk joining your ship and doing dumb things such as wasting all your ammo, deploying your heatsinks/SCBs or using the fighter to attack cops and lawful ships.

Not saying it's going to happen a lot but just be aware that it can happen.
 

GTwannabe

GTwannabe
Fighters are great but the menu system to deploy them can die in a fire. I want auto-deploy, NPC pilot, engage all hostiles whenever I'm in combat.
 

Sylow

Sylow
Yea. Fighters are what makes multi-crew good and enjoyable. Any other part of multi-crew is "meh" at best.
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The gunner role is best to be ignored, and i really that multi-crew and wings would be compatible. I mean i sometimes get myself into my FGS, Type-10 or Cutter when playing with friends. I don't like these ships too much, but my friends love the SLFs and it's much faster and more convenient to have them join in multi-crew than having them fly for ages in their low tier ships to meet somewhere.
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Direly missing are the feature to combine multi-crew and wings, so to perhaps have two ships with two players on board in a wing. Even more direly i'm missing the option to do a wing mission in a multi-crew ship and have my fighter pilots get credit for the mission. That's a lot of unused potential.
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Despite of these still existing gaps, these ship launched fighters are awesome and really help the game a lot, at least the way i play. (Or rather, the way my friends play. )
 

Sylow

Sylow
Stealthie said:
Not saying it's going to happen a lot but just be aware that it can happen.
Click to expand...
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Yea. There's a reason why i only go multi-crew with friends. Establishing the rule that whoever gets me wanted pays a round next time we go out did miracles to trigger discipline... :D
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