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Carrier Changes, and a Proposal
hereticknight085
Member Posts: 3,783 Arc User
According to the latest Dev Blog and some patch notes on tribble, carriers and their hangar craft are about to undergo a huge change and possible improvement. It's a rather large renovation, and looks to be rather interesting. A veterancy system? Cool! Boosted damage and hull? Even cooler! An improved carrier UI that finally tells carrier pilots how many of their craft are alive and what condition those craft are in? Gold! It's a wonderful change... or is it?
I won't deny that this veterancy system will definitely benefit frigate type hangars, like the Fer'jai, B'rothl Bird of Prey, Romulan Drone Ship, Jem'hadar Attack Ship Pet, etc. Those ships are good at staying alive, and can easily survive the 5 minutes needed to reach level 5 in the vet system. But... what about fighters?
In all honesty, most fighters don't survive 30 seconds, much less 5 minutes. You have occasional outliers, like Elite Scorpion Fighters, which can survive around a minute, but your average life of most carrier fighter pets is at most 45 seconds. And to make things worse, this vet system requires you to live for 5 minutes to hit level 5 veterancy. And it requires each individual ship to survive for that long. Most carrier captains will tell you that it's almost impossible. Their frigates will survive for that long pretty easily, but their fighters? They're expendable. They were designed to be flung at the enemy and no craps given about whether they lived or died since they could be easily replaced. But with the new vet system? Suddenly it matters if your ships live or die. And fighters are better at dying than living.
Doesn't seem fair to anyone not running frigate class pets. So here's my proposal:
Keep the actual vet system as is. Don't change it at all for frigates, and don't change how it works. Keep the 5 minute timer. BUT change how it affects fighters. Have it affect each individual SQUADRON. Not each fighter. When fighters get killed, you usually just replace them. However more often than not, when fighters get killed, one of the squad will survive, even if it's two squadmates die. So here's what I am suggesting: Make it so that as long as at least ONE fighter in the squadron is alive, the ENTIRE SQUADRON retains the veterancy.
Here's an example:
Squadron A has three fighters, fighter 1, 2, and 3. Say fighters A1 and A3 are destroyed, leaving A2. But A2 reaches level 2 veterancy since it stays alive. Then when A1 and A3 are redeployed by the carrier, all 3 fighters in A squadron are level 2 veterancy. But then say A2 and A1 are destroyed, but A3 lives to reach level 3 veterancy. When A1 and A2 are redeployed, again, all 3 are level 3 veterancy. But then say all 3 fighters are destroyed. Then all of A squad goes back to being level 0.
That is what I am proposing. That way you can still have fighter squadrons being viable, and frigates won't be affected at all.
Thoughts?
I won't deny that this veterancy system will definitely benefit frigate type hangars, like the Fer'jai, B'rothl Bird of Prey, Romulan Drone Ship, Jem'hadar Attack Ship Pet, etc. Those ships are good at staying alive, and can easily survive the 5 minutes needed to reach level 5 in the vet system. But... what about fighters?
In all honesty, most fighters don't survive 30 seconds, much less 5 minutes. You have occasional outliers, like Elite Scorpion Fighters, which can survive around a minute, but your average life of most carrier fighter pets is at most 45 seconds. And to make things worse, this vet system requires you to live for 5 minutes to hit level 5 veterancy. And it requires each individual ship to survive for that long. Most carrier captains will tell you that it's almost impossible. Their frigates will survive for that long pretty easily, but their fighters? They're expendable. They were designed to be flung at the enemy and no craps given about whether they lived or died since they could be easily replaced. But with the new vet system? Suddenly it matters if your ships live or die. And fighters are better at dying than living.
Doesn't seem fair to anyone not running frigate class pets. So here's my proposal:
Keep the actual vet system as is. Don't change it at all for frigates, and don't change how it works. Keep the 5 minute timer. BUT change how it affects fighters. Have it affect each individual SQUADRON. Not each fighter. When fighters get killed, you usually just replace them. However more often than not, when fighters get killed, one of the squad will survive, even if it's two squadmates die. So here's what I am suggesting: Make it so that as long as at least ONE fighter in the squadron is alive, the ENTIRE SQUADRON retains the veterancy.
Here's an example:
Squadron A has three fighters, fighter 1, 2, and 3. Say fighters A1 and A3 are destroyed, leaving A2. But A2 reaches level 2 veterancy since it stays alive. Then when A1 and A3 are redeployed by the carrier, all 3 fighters in A squadron are level 2 veterancy. But then say A2 and A1 are destroyed, but A3 lives to reach level 3 veterancy. When A1 and A2 are redeployed, again, all 3 are level 3 veterancy. But then say all 3 fighters are destroyed. Then all of A squad goes back to being level 0.
That is what I am proposing. That way you can still have fighter squadrons being viable, and frigates won't be affected at all.
Thoughts?
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once. 
Post edited by hereticknight085 on
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Comments
elite STF's --> if you have a good run about 15 minutes. It takes 1/3 of the mission to advance my fighters...if they survive that long.
CC/ECC --> cc is usual under 10 minutes and this is with the 2 energy discharges which wipe my fighters. ECC...well i dont think they last more than 15 seconds. Sure, I can recall them and let them dock (soon)..but it will take some time to get them back into action.
FE's/normal missions --> exept for some romulan missions, i never, ever spent 5 minutes on a space map, always finished the 3 or 4 kills and had to change maps.
So its nice to see some improvements to the carrier UI, but the ranking system needs some serious work to be useful.
They did make changes to the AI as well, so the hangar pets won't die as often in warp core explosions (probably the No.1 scource of hangar pet deaths).
Are your observations made by actually testing out the new UI oin tribble, or are you just interpreting the dev blog and patch notes?
Even though the inclusion of AI for warpcore explosion avoidance may increase pet survivability, that isn't the only AI that needs to be changed to in order to recover the 4% pet damage reduction via increase to rank 2.
AI pet behaviour that leads premature death:
(1) When changing from one carrier command to another (e.g. intercept to recall) scorpion fighters stop in mid space until they respond to new command. Essentially making them unresponsive and vulnerable to destruction in combat. If this happens out of combat it means they can't keep up, because your ship has travelled too far from them during their coffee break.
(2) Lack of responsive to AOE attacks, for example when an aceton assimilater is already present they will fly straight into it's AOE radius and blow up.
The OP has a good idea about ranking fighter wings as opposed to individual fighters.
The question is how long will it take for pets to reach rank 2 to offset the -4% dps loss.
The 4% dps loss we can live with. That is afterall only marginal.
What we can't live with however is the total loss of control of your pets.
In case you missed it the core of the changes to the carriers is removing "pet spam".
And as OP rightfully points out trying to make up for it with a veteran system makes no sense - not only is the system flawed it and of itself but no amount of added dps is going to change the problem and solution to carriers: respawning your pets.
See, the AI was always bugged.
In addition to dying in 30 seconds, they will fly off and attack the wrong target, attack the wrong shield facing and only use top weapons right after spawning.
By removing the ability to respawn pets you effectively made the worst possible change to carriers, taken the control out of players' hands and made us depended on the AI.
As much as warp core/singularity core breaches are good at killing pets, even with that update, you will still lose fighters pretty quickly and often. But again, you don't always lose the whole squadron, but you lose fighters enough that they won't rank up often, if at all.
Your average frigate can keep itself alive long enough to be recalled and allow it to level up. Your average fighter is a member of the Japanese Imperial Air Force sent on a kamikaze mission (and in the case of the Jem'hadar fighters, they actually use ramming speed, which is awesome btw), and ready to die. Your fighters have no sense of self preservation. With how the new update to the pets goes, that's not good.
And as for testing? I am not a carrier pilot. All of my friends and everyone in my fleet will tell you that. The closest thing I have to a carrier is my Scimitar (and drones rule btw), so this update only helps me. This thread and my OP is based on what my friends have done on tribble, and based on the patch notes and dev blog. So no, I have not tested directly, but my friends have done so, and they said the new AI doesn't keep the fighters alive very well, even though frigates now do amazingly.
So to confirm, I went on tribble, got into my Scimitar, and went into a battle with them. I stayed cloaked the whole time and watched their fighters and their behavior. Sufficed to say, I was unimpressed. Their fighters were just as suicidal, and died often. I saw maybe 2 fighters out of the 24 out there get to rank 2, and those two died a few seconds later. But I noticed that while fighters popped like crazy, more often than not, the entire squadron was not destroyed. Just members of it.
That's where my idea came from, hence this thread. XD.
Any other questions? Good feedback so far.
needs to be like 2 minutes top..
in 5 minutes time you can almost guarantee you will have no fighters left alive that will ever get to 5 stars.
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
That AI does not exist. This change is going to TRIBBLE over all carrier players.
Sucks to be you guys.
Very helpful... -.-
Anyways I once got a single pet to 4 stars before it died! But normally I'm lucky if I get 2 stars on a fighter.
Honestly just can't see getting any use out of the vet system as I can't use frigates.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
My only complaint is...most missions don't last more than 4 mins...even long ones because they're split into sections and everytime you switch to a new part, you lose the fighter ranks.
Another thing is frigates and Danubes/Delta flyers are really survivable while fighters are a lot less survivable. It would be nice if fighters level faster than them because of the lower survivability. That, and if you have the kar'fi's fighters they kill themselves long before they reach rank 5.