I've heard several questions about the Fighter class. Namely, the one that comes to mind is "Why do fighters suck?" In this post, I'm going to answer such questions about the Fighter, and hopefully reveal its true role and use in the wider spectrum of Ares combat.

I must be blunt. Disregard the Fighter as a ship or combat vessel. That's right, think of it as some new and unknown object, and analyze what you know about the Fighter and what is written in this post before you come to any conclusions.

There is a reason why you can't build fighters in multiplayer or the later stages of single player. Simply because, the Fighter is a weapon , not an actual vessel. If it were an actual ship class, we could laugh at it like we do now. But, did you know that the launch bays on Carriers are turreted? This is my first arguement for the Fighter being a weapon. I believe the launch bay is turreted because the role of the fighter is to knock ships off the Carrier. Another reason is the small amount of shielding on Fighters. Supposedly, with the view of the Fighter as a Squadron vessel (see Rock-Paper-Scissors Theory of Ares), 3 fighters (the most fighters you can build that are less than or equal to the price of a Gunship) should be able to take a Gunship on and win. We all know that this is simply rediculous and untrue. However, we see that 2 cruisers could take on a Gunship and win. This leads me to think of the Fighter as a weapon as well, actually more of a counter-weapon. The fighter's miniscule shielding makes it impossible to engage any other ship successfully (in other words, killing the same amount of resource credits) no matter how many fighters there are. And being onboard a Carrier, I think that the fighter is more of an obstacle/barrier/pestulence. A single fighter can bring any enemy ship to a dead halt, leaving that enemy ship open to the fire of your ships. A cloud of fighters can block, with their own lives, any incoming fire that might threaten the longevity of the Carrier (i.e. Fullerene, C. Missiles, even A. Missiles will be stoped). Lastly, the distraction provided by fighters can help a Carrier destroy any nearby ships.

I believe all these reasons to call the Fighter a complementary weapon on the Carrier class, rather than a stable ship class.

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-Vegeta
Alter Ego: Erich Blossey
Website: (url="http://"http://www.axis.n3.net")http://www.axis.n3.net(/url)
Email: (url="http://"mailto:AresAxis@aol.com")mailto:AresAxis@aol.com(/url)AresAxis@aol.com

I would agree with most of that. What's unfortunant about fighters though, is that they count as ships for final win/loss checks. Hopefully, the next rev of ares will count resources killed/lost, instead of actual ships, so an HVD kill will count more than a fighter kill.

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Pax - Drew Harry
sagitar@earthlink.net
(url="http://"http://www.axis.n3.net/")Ares Axis - axis.n3.net(/url)

"...they say that every five minutes someone dies in a car accident, but how often are there seven hundred and sixty one armless and legless corpses in one hangar?" - Terminal 2, Where are monsters in dreams, Marathon Infinity

I hope it will too.

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Commander-in-Chief of the Nijayias Interstellar Navy.

Same here... unless fighters are beefed up a little bit. And fighters aren't really all that bad when you think about what their purpose.

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"Well try to kill them with a fork-lift!"
The Notorious Bounty
Hunter,
Boba Fett
judygeof@ix.netcom.com

Yeah, I think everyone who plays Ares, no matter how they deny caring about their kill/loss ratio, would love to have really complete stats on themselves - # of losses, # of resource points lost, # of games won, % of accuracy, even stupid things like % of time spent in hyperspace.

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Replicant
www.axis.n3.net

well, technically it aint hyperspace, it's lightspeed,hyperspace is for long range space travel, it takes you ten minutes to cross a system at lightspeed(try it)

-Captain M. J. Pharris,

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I agree with everything.

Now, imagine, if you will, a world in which all carriers come equipped with 200 fighters. Then you'd be quite the winner. No ship is a loser when they are in large servings.

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room!"
-Dr. Strangelove
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Will Oram

Hyperspace, lightspeed, FTL, warp, jump... different names for one thing in Ares. Most people say use hyperspace, or use jump as the verb.

Notice that this thread is less on topic with every post?

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Replicant
www.axis.n3.net

now, that's what I'm talkin about!
time to hack me some super carriers
(or superfighters) who knows.

-Cpt. Pharris

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I disagree, Sal fighters are good in numbers, they can take 2 missile hits, it's hard to see so it's good against human players, and it's weapon is long range so it can hit you before you can hit it.

Against another Sal? Yah right!

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Commander-in-Chief of the Nijayias Interstellar Navy.

The only fighters that are worth mentioning are the ones that don't die in one hit from a lepton beam or whatever. Sal and aud fighters aren't too bad, because they actually do distract ships, since you actually have to shoot at them, not just through them as with gaitori or whatever. Sals also have a range advantage, while auds do some decent damage.

However, while I think vegeta's right about the turreted stuff, and how they're just to knock ships away, chances are you're going to be piloting your HVD and when it dies you'll go to a gunship, because the computer's piloting skills are too bad to allow it to fly your good ships. You're wasting your skills in a carrier, because its good weapons are (generally,) turreted. And, when the comp pilots a carrier, it launches everything as soon as it can, so it becomes a moot point.

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In the next world war,
In a jack-knifed Juggernaut,
I am born again.