1.7 - New life for Light Fighters?

There are 12 replies in this Thread. The last Post () by Tiber.

  • CF is the best Mod I've played so far. The one thing I've noticed that seems to be missing is a place for the light fighter. OP, your decision to keep flight characteristics of all the fighters fairly similar has resulted in a culture where everyone if flying VHFs in order to have a chance.


    there's a reason (theoretically) that Light Fighters are manufactured and it shouldn't be just to act as cannon fodder. It would be a lot of fun to see some of our top aces in LFs flying circles around VHFs, darting in and out of combat.


    Playing with Strafe, Reverse, Base speeds and turning characteristics could open the door for a whole new breed of CF player

  • Though it's hard to notice, there are already several light fighters in use (such as the Shroud for instance). There are some ships more and less manueverable than the others you see. If you meant ships with weaker hardpoints though, there are a few around if you look for them, but nobody wants to be the guy in the weakest ship :D.

    24/7 SWAT CF veteran from sometime before 1.6 up into 1.82. Lots of memories!
    Built 88 chars between DC, BD, UAC,
    STC, and freelancers. Ashes to ashes, alas? D:

  • Strange...maybe I'm overlooking something then...When I look in FLStat, the Shroud's maneuverability characteristics are identical to 40 other fighters. It's turning capabilities, it's speed, it's Strafe force...everything measured by FLStat...exactly the same.


    In fact, if these stats are to be trusted, the Shroud is really very average. The Kossac and Bullpup Mk1 are actually the most maneuverable fighters listed. So, either FLstat is wrong, not listing some critical statistic, or it's all perception. Since the difference between the average fighters and the best are around 5%, I'm inclined to believe it's perception.


    BTW in case there's any question...this is intended as a constructive dialog, not in any way a flame or criticism. :D

  • Quote

    BTW in case there's any question...this is intended as a constructive dialog, not in any way a flame or criticism. :D


    I think you'll find you do not need to tread too lightly here. It would be extremely difficult to construe your comments as anything but constructive and thought-provoking, and as such they are welcome.


    You are right in any case; almost all players will fight in a VHF. Personally I could never bring myself to use a light fighter or even a heavy fighter, unless, perhaps, it had at least two class 10 hardpoints. And it would have to have some spectacular maneuverability to make up for the shield and armor downgrade. It would indeed have to at least be able to <i><font face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial">trot</font></i> circles around the VHF's. But the concept of the VHF as the be-all fighter is a throwback to that first time we all played Freelancer and finally got enough cash to buy the coveted Eagle.


    Sometimes there are interesting observations and suggestions that come up here. I wonder what changes there will be in the next revision.... 8)

    <img src="http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6447/tukram151mi.jpg" />


    <i>Is that you John Wayne? Is this me?</i>
    &mdash;Joker

  • [27]My point of view is simple. We have pirates around here who like to hunt freelancers above a certain level (50 for LP). Do not look to the stats but just try your ship in combat. That is the best way.

  • Well, I took your advice and (thanks to Gunny) got permission to buy a shroud. It's a heck of a fighter...I'm having a great time flying it...


    Now, let's make it the interceptor that it seems like it's intended to be...


    - Drop the cargo by 50%, no light figher should carry 130
    - Drop the torp slots - it's an interceptor, not a bomber
    These decreases and the fact that it's armor is lower than most other mainline fighters would justify increasing it's maneuverability...
    - increase strafe to 30 or 40 - sideslipping is cool on LFs
    - kick up the other maneuver stats - it's so average right now
    - increase speed to 100 - interceptors should be faster


    Just one example...BTW, I'm relatively new to CF, but I've been playing (and working on) games for over 20 years. I'd love to get involved in a project to diversify the performance of the ships - if this is something that OP is interested in pursueing.

  • One of the nice things about the mod is that you can decide how much mass your ship has (to a certain extent). If you buy armor, than your ship is more resistant to hostile fire and losses a little manueverability. If you buy a weight reduction kit, than the opposite is true. It'd be nice to have some true "light fighters", but there are a lot of options already open to the common pilot. I like new ships as much as anyone else, but if we were to add new ones it'd be nice to make sure that they fit in and wouldn't damage the feel of the mod at all. If we can get a good shipwright to do it, why not :D?


    (btw, I think plenty of fighters should be modified, but not my beloved shroud. I like her just the way she is :P.)

    24/7 SWAT CF veteran from sometime before 1.6 up into 1.82. Lots of memories!
    Built 88 chars between DC, BD, UAC,
    STC, and freelancers. Ashes to ashes, alas? D:

  • The XF files are supposed to be protected and FLstat should not work with them - may be you are looking at an older version and the stats for new and old ships have been updated.


    Although I have been told that the Shroud, and others are VHF, the databse itself refers to it as light fighter mounnted with VHF equip.


    Shroud
    Class: Fighter
    Sub-Class: Light Fighter
    Guns: 6/0
    Armor: 9700
    Cargo Holds: 130
    Max Batteries/NanoBots: 65/65
    Optimal Weapon Class: 8
    Max. Weapon Class: 10
    Additional Equipment: M, CM, CD/T
    Price: 8,224,380
    Location Planet Prophecy
    Notes Local scientists have found the plans of several historical ships. One of these Ships was the light fighter Shroud. It was not possible to decode all information about the historical weapons, engines and thrusters because somehow parts of these plans got lost. Therefore some engineers came with the idea to mount modern VHF equipment on this ship. The result is a very agile and deadly fighter


    Some ships have been classified as very light fighter or just as light and maybe you should try them.


    I am interested in your post and wonder if the same ship with level 10 armour fought itself with no armour would the extra manuerverability on the lighter ship give it a chance against double armour?


    Let me test this theory in training.

  • I guess it's possible that FLstat is wrong - OP?


    if FLstat couldn't read the files then where would it be getting the numbers though? It couldn't be looking at a vanilla file because the Shroud wouldn't exist at all then...

  • first i say hello 2 all i was here a long time ago ..
    second is thet is many ships but they are in most cases the same ships with other skins so is like buy hummer who is looking like porshe .. . no 1 will fight in ship thet is got no lvl 10 guns when he can buy coal vhf now ... i think there is the way to make players need to use lf and hf.. just vhf should be vhf not light fighter with supb weapons shields and other's... vhf should be MUCh less agile and much harder to destroy but couse armor and greate weapon fire but ..
    lf should be really light and very very fast and agile so no vhf is able to just aim on lt ( like in x 2 game ) but alone lf lf is not able to kill vhf so 3 or 4 ppl is needet to kill one vhf but vhf is not able 2o kill this lf's couse he cannot aim .. the hf(air-superiority fighter) are god to protect vhf ( strike fighters ) light fighters( interceptors) are best 2 fast find and destroy small groups of enemys vhf ( if they aare in 3 to 1 )
    there shouud be a ship class based on vhf but with only fast
    lov dmg but fast tracking turrets to making it anti lf support ship .. but this class of ships should got no really weapons to fight with any other ships .. and last thing i think is auto turrets for ships .. know ship aim and fire closest ( ar any other option . or anti missle turret option or something like this ..m op look in x2 mods u see what aboute i'm talkin ) enemy .. so we can got true use of back turrets couse
    now no one is able to fight with enemy who is on front and control back turet in same time ..


    and last thing i say is thet there should be dynamic missions .. no pc vs npc but pc vs pc ... i know is hard to make bu i got few god ideas aboute teory ( i am not programmer) how this should work

  • some good points there...


    Just like in reality, there should be a role for each type of ship and this role should define the ships characteristics - handling, firepower, toughness.


    Right now everyone flies VHFs because there's been this slow power creep upwards that has left everything else in the dust. They are tougher, have more firepower and are as maneuverable as anything else in the game, plus they carry about 100 cargo...why fly anything else?


    Define the roles and relationships, then code the ships to match those roles.


    LFs - Speed=A, Maneuver=A , Firepower=C, Toughness=C
    HFs - Speed=B, Maneuver=B, Firepower=B, Toughness=B
    VHFs - Speed=C, Maneuver=C, Firepower=A, Toughness=A


    Average capabilities:
    Speed: A=120, B=100, C=80
    Maneuver: A=25% better, B=Average, C=25% worse
    Firepower: A=6 guns (4-6 cls 10), B= 4-6 guns (2-4 cls 10), C= 4 guns (2 cls 10)
    Toughness: A=10000, B=7500, C=5000


    There's obviously lots of room to adjust for individuality, these would kind of just be center points to work from. The cool thing is LFs/HFs wouldn't be worthless, and I'd be willing to bet that some of our top pilots could easily gut those lumbering VHFs in a well flown LF.