About efficient fighter-design

Hi guys. I want to know from the real SE-fight approved people:

What makes a good, efficient fighter-design?
For me it is all about dodging/strafing.
-A good fighter has normal acceleration, but two or better tree big thrusters on the sides or bottom/top for dodging!
-A fighter has to be very light. In order to be so, he can only have multiple dodge-thrusters in one of the two directions: up/down or left/right. otherwise it is to heavy. depends on the pilots taste.
-For me the big thrusters are way better then the small ones for maneuvring.

-A fighter has to be as small as it gets. especially the front profile (becourse you allways point to the enemy and strafe like a bouncy ball
-if you dodge sideways - the profile has to be vertical like a fish.
-if you dodge up/down - the profile must be flat.

Batteries are better than reactors!

no wings!

what do you think? show off your efficient fighters and explain, why you builded them that way!

 

-projections for false targets
-shielded thrusters
-wide spread wall of machine guns for efficient shooting.

 

Cockpit well protected. Most definatly not on the front of the ship where it would go on a fighter jet.

From here on I think my idea of a good fighter is different from yours. I prefer heavy drones that can take a lot of hits.
Redundancy! Have lots of spare systems so you can take hits. My heavy drone has 4 remote controls and 3 antennas, 3 cameras and a bunch of small reactors. For this reason small thrusters may be prefered. You lose one, it does not matter as much as if you lose a big one.
Use armor where it is needed, not where it is not. Going on the principle that I will ideally be facing my enemy and shooting them I put massive amounts of armor on the front of my drone and less so on the sides or top.

Oh, and if you have a front facing camera, don't put it right next to the gatling cannons. You'll be dazzled by the muzzle flash.

 

@Herr Quengler I agree with pretty much everything you've said. I would add balanced guns to the list though, unnecessary recoil is not good in a dogfight. Here's my take:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=441756535

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=441755424

Both have around 20m/s2 forward acceleration and weigh around 30 tons. More thruster up/down than left/right. I find my designs that work best left/right end up looking weird.

 

i prefer having most of my thrusters at the rear, and enough gyroscopes for fast turning. im more of a dodging-while-jousting type, than strafing one. ^And yeah; more small thrusters rather than one large, same thing with reactors, cockpit positioned at the rear end of fighter, as much heavy armor as you can before your fighter gets sluggish. Also depends what you design your fighter for, having an armored decoy block on a proper position is good for fighting turrets.

 

The Devastator Mk II. It's a heavy fighter, but it's designed to be extremely maneuverable and low-profile; it handles like a good light fighter. I'm not joking, either; try it. The goal is to make the most out of its low profile by packing as much firepower into a small space as possible. The area that must be exposed should be pure death. Features: full heavy armor hull, six fully recessed thrusters left / right and up / down, 10 reverse thrusters, and forward propulsion is 3 large thrusters and 12 small. It also has an onboard oxygen generator and a full internal conveyor system. It's able to circle strafe and perform other advanced combat maneuvers.

 

@Fidel Battista : Why are you using small reactors? they are poorly inefficient! they weight 130kg and give only stupid 0,1MW!
batteries weight 1054kg and give you 1,44 MW. and you will need them. 12 small reactors are the same size than one battery and don´t give you the same power.

think about it.

 

Same for small thrusters:
A small thruster weight 93kg and give you 12.000 thrust (0,0336MW power)
A big thruster weight 645kg and give you 144.000 thrust (0,4MW)

one big thruster give you 12! times the thrust of a small one and is only 7 times as heavy!
it takes only 6 blocks in the thrustdirection.

using big thrusters makes your fighter way way lighter, faster, and consume less energy.

@WardenWolf : your fighter is a good target. it is relatively big, has not enough maneuvrepower for its weight. and it is better to put the gatlings compact together at one point for precise aiming. rocketlauchers are good positioned.

@iN5URG3NT : those are looking damn nice! but they are not efficient. much too big and heavy.

 

While I prefer the realistic approach this isn't what he's looking for. Your cockpit will be gone in 2 seconds because it's just hanging out there. The SE fight approved types usually put it in the rear behind everything else and bury it in armor, then use third person to see.

 

So, if I destroy with a stray rocket a single big thruster, it´s like if I had destroyed 12 of the small ones?

´Hmm, that means a single lucky rocket could cripple you a lot

 

No, it has 12 small and 3 large. It's FAST. And it actually is very maneuverable if you know how to run it.

If you prefer a slightly smaller target, there's the Devastator Mk I

 

efficient fighter
wall of rocket launchers, with everything else behind it.

 

@PLPM : you cant put 12 small thrusters in the same room as one big thruster take (thruster damage). you only get 6 small thrusters on that gap. and if one rocket hits there not only one will be destroyed.
@WardenWolf : you only have 6 small thrusters for u/d or side moving. by that weight it will move slowly. again forward acceleration is not as importend as sideway acceleration. and you have no connector. how do you load your ship?
don´t get me wrong please! I don´t want to offend you here. i want a constructive discussion about fighterdesign


this is only the inner skeleton. the decoys are optional.
it bouces from left to right like crazy.
it is very hard to hit
cockpit is hidden inside, two backupreactors and the gyros are in the back.
the sopplylines are left and right (redundant)
the cargocontainer is behind the less important oxytank.
gatlings are compact together
if you armour it, it is only 5 blocks high and 13 wide
cocktip only accessable from the back

 

1: Cockpit: It all depends upon the world settings. If you have 3rd person active, you can and should bury your cockpit into the fighter design and then use 3rd person. Even 1 layer of heavy armor around your cockpit can save you from a lucky shot. Even if 3rd person is disabled, have your cockpit at least 3/4th's covered and use camera's to your 6 corners (front, back, left, right, up and down.)

2: Gatling Guns: Weapons should be grouped for attacking large ships. Small Gatling guns are useless against light armor if not properly grouped to quickly destroy enemy ship weapons. Fighters designed for anti-fighter roles need spread out guns for strafing. You will be needing a ship that can cover more space with bullets.

3: Cargo Containers: Which brings us to number three: You want to have plenty of ammo and an easy way to quickly reload. 1 medium cargo container is what I typically go for, but you can also row-up lots of small containers. All I know is that you do not want to be left without ammo in the heat of battle.

4: Rocket Launchers: Rockets destroy one another when they hit a target, it is best to fire individual rocket pods 1 at a time or in spaced groups to keep them from destroying one another when only one actually makes contact with the surface of a ship or fighter. Though grouping and firing 4 rocket pods next to one another seems like a good idea, if one rocket is hit, it will destroy the other 3 that are next to it before they have the chance to strike the target.

5: Power/Energy: 2 small reactors provides enough power for 2 small thrusters to run at max output. However, if you try to include a secondary direction or any other thruster control inputs, they will not be able to hold up. Now small reactors are great as they can provide a very easy and simple backup power system. They are small and can be placed anywhere as long as you can access them. However, as was mentioned, batteries are the best choice. They provide overwhelming power for their size and are rather tough considering. Large reactors are overkill for any sort of fighter design.

6: Thrusters: Main thrust should be directed forwards. Fighters are designed with guns positioned forwards for direct attack, as such any course correction or alteration will likely have you pointing at your target. Besides that, left and right strafing thrusters can be just as important for specific fighting styles and designs. Up and down thrust is not really a very important requirement and reverse thrust is next to useless unless you are one of those really aggressive players who like to get right up next to an enemy ship. If you are flying at a proper distance, you should not really need to reverse your course.

Additions involving remote controls and sensors are all well and good. I'd advise at least 1 remote control block to have it set to automatically return your ship to your base if your cockpit is lost. Antenna's are only good for scouts or whatnot. Drones... well, they are a little more difficult to operate in a dogfight and once you get the camera's down, they are next to useless.

 

I'd like to point out, a good pilot shouldn't need a super-armored cockpit.
The fighter itself is irrelevant. It's the pilot that wins, not the ship. (For the most part.)

 

Wow thank you Levits! That was one of a good constructive post.
have you builded a good fighter?
what do you think of my design?

and for reverse thrust: my only thought is if you are hunted at high speed you can stop point and get behind him.
don´t know if it´s importand and doable in this game

 

even a timer block can used to trigger weapons in a pattern, so a full wall of rocket launchers is not a bad idea anyhow.
like consider it be say 8x8 if you like. or even larger. you can fire them in a non interference pattern.
there are a lot of ways to do that. an alternative way is to play with how you place the launchers,
make a pyramid out of a wall of 9x9 of them.

the best part is, if you are fired upon, it will first hit a projectile from your weapon. so it acts like a shield-
if 3rd person view is available nothing should stick out from behind the wall of launchers.
the ship can be pretty long , so you can pack some extreme amount of thrust on.
and tada.
there you have it.

 

Un-manned, remotely controlled and as tiny as possible.

 

That would be great if drones had longer range, and workable AI / unlimited players to back it up.

Generally speaking larger, heavy drones or pure fighters are better options as far as I can tell.

Or better yet, pure fighters with remote controls for short-range engagements while allowing pilot safety for longer range encounters.

 

space

 

if you are fired upon and the rocket has just left the pod- boom

 

Sad that no one mentioned testing, dueling, field tests, attacking defended targets, etc.

 

Candidates for WORST fighter design:
- Cockpit at front, exposed on 4-5 of 6 directions
- Decorative armor wings and other features to add unnecessary mass
- Costs more to build than the thing which kills it
- Costs more than the sum of things which it can kill
- Guns spread out to waste ammunition and decrease the DPS that can be brought onto a single target/point
- Rockets grouped tightly and chain-fired to explode themselves. Preferably mounted close to the hull and far back so that you can accidentally rocket yourself while turning
- Pretentious naming
- Highly visible bright colors, preferably coupled with a bright "I AM HERE" beacon

 

The best fighter is the one you don't see, but in case you are.

Very good forward acceleration, and pulling up acceleration.. fly it like a real aircraft in space.

Don't face your enemy front on and just strafe fire, the reason why you see people saying cockpit at front is bad design.. it's not.. it's just them compensating for bad piloting and tactics.

 

yup, thats why im waiting the scenarios to start working properly...

 

Exactly. Without third person, hidden cockpits are nonsense. Cameras are worse than a cockpit for spatial awareness in first person. Accuracy is also better in first person since you can aim down the barrel.

On a fighter, heavy armor is daft too. Unnecessary mass. It far better to dodge than to block. Why are people getting hit anyway? If you are traveling less than 80m/s in a fighter, you probably deserve to die. Learn to toggle your dampeners.

Besides, who wants to fight in an ugly box? And if you do, why not just mass produce turret drones instead?

 

-For the exposure I don't agree with you, wherever you can place it, it's how you prefer, you can protect it even at the front if you want to. Like KissSh0t said : "the reason why you see people saying cockpit at front is bad design.. it's not.. it's just them compensating for bad piloting and tactics."
Moreover you're not suppose to be face to face all the time, instead if you don't know how to fly.
-I agree, but you can want an aesthetic fighter, it can be beautiful and efficient, it all depends on the pilot way to fly/fight
-Well... True ! If you want to show you're rich, then, waste your ressource in building fighter that doesn't last for than 2 sec ^^ Or do it because you like fighter well done and fully equipped
-/
-All depends on the preference of the pilot.
-/
-I don't realy think the name matter in any way on the fighter efficiency...
-Can't tell anything aginst this...
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I think anyone want to make his perfectly optimized ship design test it in all the way, all the scenarios that can involve his fighter.
What you mentionned is a must do in "efficient-ship" design.

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I know the whole ship is modded. That's my prefered fighter that I've made a long time ago... At the beggining, I made it for aesthetics purpose but at the end, this design was suiting me to perfection, I know I wouldn't manage to fly anything else than this (to many hours spent flying it).
It can be cheap if you lighten the equipment however, there is everything a fighter needs to have in my opinion.
It has a good forward acceleration and a good pulling up acceleration too, it's supposed to be used more likely as a plane than a space ship.

 

can happen, but preferably both me and my opponent will fire as soon as possible, so stuff will not explode in my face.
piloting skills are still required.

by your analogy, even the rear mounted cockpit has a disadvantage, get a shot from the rear, and you are dead.
intentional mis-use is nowhere proper way to judge anything

 

Wouldn't up and down be just as important as left and right? I mean you can strafe horizontally or vertically to get out of the target's line of fire while still keeping your guns pointed at them, or am I missing something?