You've got to be kidding. Bombers and fighters are a staple in my games.

Actually... thinking it over for a second... I use a lot of strikecraft, but I never use the cruiser-grade carrier ships. For me offensive strikecraft come from capital ships, defensive ones from hangar bases.

So I guess my experience is that the actual bombers and fighters are powerful, but the cruiser-carriers are a liability. Hangar bases make a prime defensive position, hard for humans to outmaneuver, strong enough to hold while a fleet counterattacks (well, if you make the correct mix with repair bases they last, not otherwise). The same applies to AI and pirate attacks but doubled. Capital-ship strikecraft make pretty good shock attackers. Fast enough to cross a system and engage defenses or harass vulnerable units and expendable so that I can safely pick off fixed defenses without permanently weakening the attack fleet.

I don't usually push the strikecraft as heavily as that .

It makes sense though, when a game has paper-rock-scissors balancing it usually will break down if you bring enough "rocks". Hmm. Maybe strikecraft are more like scissors... never mind.

Sykonaut has it right.

Rule #1: Put carrier cruisers in their own fleet. Do NOT mix them into your main attack fleet.

Carriers in a mixed fleet will drive their unarmed selves like wedges up against the enemy battle line, getting in your way and getting shot to pieces.

I make them their own separate little fleet, with a few repair/guardian/flak type ships for close support, and put them on hold orders. They stay nicely out of harms way at the edge of the system, ready to jump out at a moment's notice.

There's also nothing better at guarding a sun's grav well than carrier groups.

Ships move SO slow near the sun that it's just painful to contemplate, and since they have to move around the sun itself, you can forget intercepting anything. Strikecraft, however, zoom around just fine, taking out those little enemy raiding/scouting parties while they flounder in the heavy gravity.

I bias somewhat towards fighters, but I start from 1:1 and skew towards fighters as I build up.

TBH, I think as the game goes on, you should be building more bombers. You have little use for bombers early on, so go 100% fighters to kill the frigs that will be encountered.

Can someone provide a recorded game that uses fighters and bombers to win? I understand it's just a part of the fleet and all but if you're saying that in muliplayer games bombers and fighters can play a major role in victory I'd love to see a recorded game.

And I'm not sure how to record but this is an option no? Maybe I can just make a custom game that starts 2 sides right next to each other with huge fleets with an even point balance and see how that works...

In my experience building bomber bases for defense or fielding carriers, or cruiser carriers is all just a liability as the same points spent elsewhere will get you more kills, do more damage per second, and last longer. I've played a lot of games where I've tried to include bombers and fighters into my fleets and they just don't get the job done.

And talking about numbers like 30 or 40 bombers isn't realistic. Even with fully upgraded carriers you're hosting 6 squadrons per ship and that is between 5 and 8 fully upgraded carriers which if you're able to field that your enemy can field some other insane fleet and in multiplayer games I've played it's maybe 6 cap ships fighting in all, sometimes more but most are not level 6.

The realistic number of bombers/fighters that I've seen fielded is 10-15 and they get killed, my fleet just runs over them, or if I'm fielding them, I'm running around in fear hoping my ships will kill 1 or 2 enemies before I run.

The "Alpha Strike"(who coined that term?) is so deadly because the strikecraft rev up in <5 seconds and strike for what would be a hellish amount when converted to DPS from the start of the engagement, while ships spend more time to close range before they fire their first shot and settle into the normal DPS calculation of damage/cool-down. After the initial pass, strikecraft also settle into the attack/cool-down pattern, making a pass every 12(Fighters) to 13.5(Bombers) seconds, which is why they look so weak when they aren't.

40 Vasari Bombers with Level 2 NME Warheads are enough to assassinate any capital ship except for maybe a teched-up high-level Radiance or Kol. 10 or more of those shots will just ignore mitigation and punch through shielding while the other ~30 will tear apart the shields and then proceed to smash what's left of the hull.

In fact, when you count a capital ship's strike craft as part of it's firepower, you may see that they end up MUCH stronger than they are with their direct-fire weapons. A Level 1 Kortul does 47.3 DPS on it's own with 29.5 Pulse Beam + 12 Wave + 5.8 Phase Missile. But a Level 1 Antorak does 51 DPS with 12 Pulse Beam + 12 Wave + 10 Phase Missile + 17 Bomber Squadron(Phase Missile). The Bomber Squadron does more damage than any one of the Antorak Marauder's own weapons.

@Tumbler,

See the "Carrier Battle Groups" and "The best race for a carrier fleet" threads. Cruiser carriers cost only 8 supply points, while Heavy Cruisers cost 10(12 for Vasari). Sure, if you go in there with a whopping 'swarm' of 10 squads and fly your carriers right into the middle of the mess without proper support ships or kiting tactics, you're going to lose the engagement.

2 Antorak + 1 Skirantra + ~45 Lasuraks + ~10 Stilakus + ~25 Ravastras + ~10 Assailants could be quite formidable against an equivalent sized band of Kodiaks, Gardas, and Hoshikos with Kol/Marza capital ships tagging along, or an Advent equivalent of the same(Destras, Defense, Guardians, Radiances/Progenitors).

It won't necessarily be cheap, though.

I will try to get a replay up.

Keep in mind you don't need to -overwhelm- his flak frigs...Flak frigs take a surprising amount of time to actually kill strike craft, especially since they will only be in range for a couple seconds. The strike craft come in, fire a volley, and then get out of range again.

Not to mention their mobility allows you to dance around the battlefield striking whatever targets you please, saying out of range of his flak frigs. Oh, did I mention that you can simply dock them to keep them safe while your light frigs dispatch the flaks?


The power of strike craft is in their alpha damage...As stated before, they only actually need to be in range for a second to do their damage...it also almost negates shield mitigation.

They also are continually replaced throughout the fight.



One thing that may be causing you troubles is that usually, strike craft should be targeting a different ship than your frigs/cruisers/capships. One of their primary advantages is that their alpha damage reduces the effects of shield mitigation. Use that to your advantage and hit a target that is at 15% mitigation...

His flaks only get in range of your strike craft if you LET them, and they are pretty easy to kill with medium frigs.

I get cruiser carriers early on and never regret it.

That is an excellent point and should probably be made in the thread discussing the strikecraft targeting AI as well.

Except when I'm racing to prevent enemy capships from escaping I will usually have the strikecraft handling fixed defenses and the rest of the attack fleet fighting the defending fleet (siege craft excepted).

Lol, I LOVE bombers and fighters to kill retreating forces.

See their capships trying to pull out? Yeah, not anymore, with 40 strikecraft groups ripping through them. This is extra effective, because not only are the strikecraft much faster, but this means that your fleet doesn't need to give chase, and can continue the fight, without letting the cap go.

Bombers and fighters move nice and quickly, faster than any other ship type in the game. It makes them great for chasing down fleeing enemies or sneaky frigates. The "alpha strike" damage has already been mentioned, and that's good. So long as you can keep your carriers out of the fight (keep them in their own group outside of the gravity well good for quickly fleeing), a carrier can effectively attack without being attacked in return - flak frigates might take out your bombers or fighters, but your carriers are still effectively unscratched. Additionally, carriers are the only type of ship that can effectively change themselves to counter their enemies - in the early game, when frigates in abundance are the norm, carriers should be mostly (if not solely) transporting fighters. As the game progresses, you can scuttle your fighter squadrons and start loading up on bombers to counter cruisers. Suppose you get surprised by an enemy fleet that's much stronger on frigates or cruisers than you expected - you can retreat from your attack back to a friendly system, scuttle your excess fighter or bomber squadrons, and then create the type of strike craft that best suits the situation. That's pretty darn flexible.

Tumbler, there's the problem. You seem to be, excuse me if this comes out rude, stuck on the idea of a carrier fleet.

If a 50 carriers face the same amount of supply and resources in a pure kodiak fleet, sure, they'd probably get whooped. That's not the point. The point is that when you use them, you use them IN CONJUCTION with something else. They're backed up by forces.
Here's some points in here.

-Extremely flexible. Can used fighters to kill frigates, or keep hangar defenses at bay. Or bombers to attack structures. Turrets can't hit bombers or fighters, so got a planet full of repair bays and turrets? Guess what? Doesn't matter. You've got 60 bombers, and they don't take shit from anybody.

-Can retreat easily if used right. They don't need to be up in the battle. They hang back at the edge of the gravity well, and can retreat moments notice.

-Can make new squadrons whenever.

-Fairly cheap.

-Great for chasing down fleeing foes, so your fleet can focus on other things

-Alpha Strike, so shield mitigation is effectively canceled out.

-Early research.


I'm sure there are other points that can be used, but the main thing is, you don't have a purely carrier fleet, it's just asking for trouble. You used them as part of a team, for great effect.