6 replies to this topic

[Admiral_Antilles]

Ive just though of this....

where are the Hangers!!

[slornie]

they've been taken out - something to do with the inability to upgrade the launched fighters in relation to the unit upgrades the player may have made - i think.

[Phoenix Rising]

I'm actually surprised how popular the hangars are with the fans. Unfortunately, there is no way to do traditional EaW starfighter launching with the upgrades (besides the fact that I don't like the inflexibility of choice or the lack of cost). I was playing around with some other options though to make carriers more useful.

I tried giving them garrisons so you could withdraw fighters from the battle, but that actually caused a fatal error with EaW. Turns out that hero attachment and unit-in-unit garrisoning are actually the same system and they don't like to be mixed.

I'm going to try tactical building as an alternative. I know you can't actually "build" ships from hangars, and there's no way for me to keep track of how many squadrons have been built/launched, but it can simulate launching fighters if that's what people want.

[FormulaRedline]

That seems like a tough issue because there are multiple things working aginst it. The tactical building sounds interesting, but I think not being able to keep track of how many have been built is going to be a fatal flaw.

I kind of think we were just left out in the cold by the programmers for this issue. We really need a system like from Rebeliion, where each ship has a capacity for star fighters and troops, and it's your job to fill them. Even better would be if it also had a button that would allow you to launch one squadron at a time like the AT-AT troop deployment (possibly one button for fighters, one for bombers). But those are definetly code issues.

What are your ideas for the carriers?

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, nothing is a good solution. The AT-AT (and Executor for that matter) launch ability suffers from the same problems as the spawn squadron tags that control fighter garrisons unfortunately and couldn't be done with upgrades.

As for building, the units would still have to adhere to the population limit, so even though the Venator can carry 35 squadrons, it would be impossible to "launch" them all at once. I would end up doing the same thing as I do with missiles (which I also can't count), which would be to just take the capacity and divide it by a constant to determine what multiplier to apply to tactical build times. In other words, super carriers like the Venator-class could build/launch very fast opposed to capital/carriers like the Imperial-class. Actually, now that I think about it, the units would probably build to your reinforcements like they do in Skirmish, which isn't very visually satisfying...

[FormulaRedline]

Actually, now that I think about it, the units would probably build to your reinforcements like they do in Skirmish, which isn't very visually satisfying...

That's what I was thinking too...the only way to "launch" your fighters would be to choose to hyper in the reinforcements near the ship.

/sigh


As much as it sucks not being able to watch the fighters launch from the bays and having to watch your TIE Fighters hyper into battle, from a strategic standpoint the current implimentation actually seems to be the best.

[Phoenix Rising]

I may still do tactical building just for something different since dedicated carriers right now are virtually useless. It would just be noticeably slower than galactic building.