Heart goes out to all the federal pilots.

Gwyvern

Gwyvern
(this opinion was formed while flying about a federal distress signal, fighting for the freedom of the Eranin people)

Your ships are: not particularly quick, about as agile as your average civilian craft, the hulls are made of tissue paper, the shields are sub-civilian quality, the pea-shooters they pass off as cannons cant even scratch the shielding of a sidewinder, and the pilot's training is (as judged by their tendency to crash into their mother-ship) almost non existent. You people must either be very brave or very insane to get into the cockpit of one of those things.

Definitely not what i would expect from a specs-classified military grade craft.

I understand they are supposed to make up for their shortcommings in numbers, but in history, all the best numbers tactics had at least one thing going for them. The T-34 has a revolutionary armor layout that made it almost invincible to german guns of the early war, the american PT boats made up for their fragile wooden hulls by carrying firepower almost equivalent to a destroyer. The federal fighter has nothing, it does not even have overwhelming numbers, they just...mildly outnumber you in most situations.

Either way, i hope at some point in the future that federal fighters might get an upgrade, if i make the feds angry, i want them to actually give me pause ;)
 

Daeron

Daeron
Federal light material production should not be interfered with, it is for the good of the environment, since higher density materials just pollute the environment. As a friend of nature, I think they should skimp even more on those dirty alloys. :cool:
 

Cosmo Bozo

Cosmo Bozo
The fighters don't really ring true to me.
Certainly here and now on earth a fighter jet is pretty much near the top of the military food chain, certainly when it comes to dogfighting, the clue is in the name.
Fighters in elite (and most other space games to be fair) are pretty much the bottom of the pile.
Maybe they should rename them from fighters to targets...not sure they'd get as many volunteers to fly them though.....

On the other hand the combat scenarios would be too hard if there were swarms of ships as tough as vipers...
 

Defacto

Defacto
I must say, as it is right now, I struggle to see what the fighters are for...
For dealing with missiles and torpedoes, the cap ships have Point Defence, which is more efficent than fighters. The fighter's can't attack cap ships either, because they don't have any heavy weapons. They would be useful against bomber-type ships but their guns are so useless that they barely scratch a Sidewinder. They're somewhat useful against other fighters, but you don't need to worry about fighters in the first place, so...

I do think that they make sense, though. The Eagle is a pretty good combat craft, and if you dismount the FSD's from an Eagle you would get a lot more room for more stuff, so Carrier-based fighters would still be able to pack the fighting power of an Eagle in a much smaller ship, and a Carrier-based fighter similar to the Eagle would have a lot better Sub-light engines, protection, or weaponry.
 

Mars

Mars
Gwyvern said:
the hulls are made of tissue paper, the shields are sub-civilian quality, the pea-shooters they pass off as cannons cant even scratch the shielding of a sidewinder, and the pilot's training is (as judged by their tendency to crash into their mother-ship) almost non existent.
Click to expand...


In the future welfare statism is (still) no longer viable. So you just get offered work as a fighter pilot instead of benefits.
 

Gwyvern

Gwyvern
Cosmo Bozo said:
The fighters don't really ring true to me.
Certainly here and now on earth a fighter jet is pretty much near the top of the military food chain, certainly when it comes to dogfighting, the clue is in the name.
Fighters in elite (and most other space games to be fair) are pretty much the bottom of the pile.
Maybe they should rename them from fighters to targets...not sure they'd get as many volunteers to fly them though.....

On the other hand the combat scenarios would be too hard if there were swarms of ships as tough as vipers...
Click to expand...

Well fighters aren't going to be on the top of the food chain in space, because unlike today, where a fighter is an entirely different vehicle with an entirely different set of operating principles from say, a tank, or an aircraft carrier, fighters in space are effectively miniaturized versions of their motherships, they fly and fight using the same sets of technology as the ships that house them, the only differentiating principles are the limits of human engineering, in fact, it is entirely possible that fighters might not actually work in space at all, being too fragile to stand up to larger craft.

That is why usually in scifi you see a bunch of handwavium to explain why fighters are useful (non-perfect accuracy of antifighter weapons, torpedoes needing to get very close, or generally relating to the idea that a ship's agility can be an effective tradeoff to thick armor)

I just find it hard to believe that a military grade craft with classified specifications cant stand up to a base level civilian craft that is literally handed out for free :p
 

Cosmo Bozo

Cosmo Bozo
I think they need punchier weapons, the peashooter multicannon barely touches your shields... everything else is probably not too bad.
 

Carcharodon

Carcharodon
Gwyvern said:
I just find it hard to believe that a military grade craft with classified specifications cant stand up to a base level civilian craft that is literally handed out for free :p
Click to expand...

I think we can work out from this just who exactly is in charge of the Federation Navy...

BvNuC4S.jpg
 

insanephoton

insanephoton
The trouble is that they aren't being flown to their best advantage. Essentially they are being flow as Mooks. Though personally I see them more as Red Shirts.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mooks

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedShirt

And as such they usually adhere to the laws of Mook chivalry

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MookChivalry

In contrast the 'heroic' Eranin rebels will often gang up on you and prove quite effective despite most of them only flying standard Sidewinders.

It's just a continuation of the theme from Alpha 2/3 faction battles where the Imperials seemed to prevail more often despite using inferior equipment. It's just another piece of Imperialist propaganda from that arch Imperial sympathiser, Michael Brookes.
 

Defacto

Defacto
I think the real problem with fighters right now is that htey are basically purposeless. I mean, instead of extra hangar space for 5 new fighters, the battlecruiser Damocles could get a whole array of Point defence, or Antiship artillery, or torpedo tubes... or hangar space for something like a
Cobra Mk.III, which would be a lot more useful...

I think this would be solved if fighters either were to have good anti light-ship armament (class 2 stuff, against Sidewinders and such) or torpedoes for attacking Heavy ships, from Anacondas to Capitals. Right now I think the fighters have something equal to Class 1's, because they seem to do pretty much nothing to anything.
 

Trafalgar Law

Trafalgar Law
Why on Earth would the Feral Military Procurement Division buy better fighters for their pilots? They'll only crash them anyway as they can't fly for toffee.
 

Zvanya

Z
The Fed fighters suck? Dang I've been fighting on the wrong side! As bad as I still suck at combat I need easier targets. I will now dedicate myself the Eranian freedom! (temporarily)
 

Teiwaz

T
The Federal Fleet has been trying to halt production of their outdated, useless fighters for years, and would much rather buy "off the shelf" combat craft from private manufacturers like Faulcon DeLacy which would be cheaper and far more effective.

The problem is that the parts for the Federal Fighters are sourced from more than 200 Federal congressional districts, so the appropriations bills force them to continue purchasing equipment they don't need.

Can you imagine a real system of government being so dysfunctional?
 

Trafalgar Law

Trafalgar Law
That's' because armies usually try to gear up for the last war. Afghanistan and Iraq were counter-insurgency type wars and tanks aren't much use in that type of fighting. Attitudes might change if the situation in Eastern Europe keeps worsening. The Russians have over 20000 tanks of various mks ranging from t-54/55 to the latest t-90's. Most of which are in reserve, but do still work (the Russians never throw anything away, I read somewhere that they've still got WW1 artillery pieces in case they ever need them again).

Maybe that's the Federation Fleets mistake. Small starfighters weren't invented in the last war.
 

InMemoriamSirocco

Banned
InMemoriamSirocco
That explains why the federal naval ship DAMOCLES was so quickly overwhelmed by the Imperial Interdictor: Elite Dangerous Battle Trailer

Do you see what the beam lasers of those agile Imperial fighters do to Tarek's Sidewinder? The federal fighter wing probably got wiped out in the first few minutes of the fight. No wonder you don't see any federal fighters around in that video!

Wouldn't want to have to battle Imperial fighters, though... as fragile as they appear to be... they DO pack a punch and are agile as a humming bird!
 

Comrade Napoleon

Comrade Napoleon
Teiwaz said:
The Federal Fleet has been trying to halt production of their outdated, useless fighters for years, and would much rather buy "off the shelf" combat craft from private manufacturers like Faulcon DeLacy which would be cheaper and far more effective.

The problem is that the parts for the Federal Fighters are sourced from more than 200 Federal congressional districts, so the appropriations bills force them to continue purchasing equipment they don't need.

Can you imagine a real system of government being so dysfunctional?
Click to expand...

You are American I guess :D
 
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