[Suggestion] Fighter Garrison for Land Battles

[Theren5534]

Hey all, I had an interesting idea for land and space battles to make them slightly better. Fighter garrisons on land.
How this would work is simple:
 -build a hangar, which has slots for 4 fighters.
 -building a hangar would then do one of two things: either build special fighter squadrons for land with only 3 per squadron, or just drag squadrons from space down into the hangar.
 -store extra fighters for land and or space battles (fighters would be able to fly from the surface to help land battles)

So yeah, whaddaya think?

[Wartank55]

AOTR did something like this as the empire you could build Landing Pads And get a Tie Fighter Garrison for Ground Battles.
Though it would be cool.

[Corey]

We tend to avoid having starfighters in ground battles for balance reasons. Either they're appropriately powerful and they're the only thing that ends up mattering, or they're basically just regularly powered airspeeders that happen to look like starfighters, which isn't great either. If fighters are ever worked back into ground battles, it would be through heavily-gated abilities.

[Theren5534]

Maybe it would be better if the hangar could only be built on high value planets only (i.e planets with 6-8 building cap), or the fighters could be incredibly expensive.

[Laimis]

Other mods have Tie and Xwings, simply just add them.
1) make them expensive
2) create building (hangar) which can spam fighter for planetary defense.

[t78]

Maybe like HVGs? 2 Hangers/ 2 fighters max?

It would be interesting to see the TR team interpret what Zahn meant by the 'pyramidal launch towers' of Morishim's starfighter command in Specter of the Past.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Morishim_New_Republic_starfighter_base

[AdmiralCypher]

I think Corey's right, the sheer firepower an X-Wing puts out would make it kind of bonkers in a ground battle. Stackpole's X-Wing novels describe them really just ripping through Imperial ground forces. AT-ATs just got blown to pieces and they shredded juggernauts too.

[Ordo]

Other mods have Tie and Xwings, simply just add them.
1) make them expensive
2) create building (hangar) which can spam fighter for planetary defense.

They were added before, it was decided that they were too powerful to balance out so they were removed in beta.

[Corey]

Other mods have Tie and Xwings, simply just add them.
1) make them expensive
2) create building (hangar) which can spam fighter for planetary defense.

Yeah other mods have them, but they also still tend to fall within one of those two issues that I mentioned- it's very easy for gameplay to became very air-unit centric. Like I said, you either have them be representative of their actual strength, in which case they wreck everything pretty easily, or you try to make them balanced and you really just have an airspeeder that looks like a fighter without doing anything that you'd expect a fighter to be able to do.

One of our big concerns with work on ground in 2.2 was trying to get air units to a point where they feel useful but don't become the powerhouses that they very often were in 2.15, and using ground fighters, you're basically introducing a unit that has to feel that way to feel correct, and you have to balance around that, in which case you'd basically need it to take multiple pop cap (and which makes it particularly bad for a garrison unit), which isn't always ideal either. Trying to base balance on just stuff like credit cost isn't a great thing to do, because, basically that doesn't make you feel any better when you're actually in the battle and they feel oppressively powerful.

This is why I've said if we're going to reimplement ground fighters, it would be in a different way that's not an actual standard unit.

[Lord Xizer]

Yeah other mods have them, but they also still tend to fall within one of those two issues that I mentioned- it's very easy for gameplay to became very air-unit centric. Like I said, you either have them be representative of their actual strength, in which case they wreck everything pretty easily, or you try to make them balanced and you really just have an airspeeder that looks like a fighter without doing anything that you'd expect a fighter to be able to do.

One of our big concerns with work on ground in 2.2 was trying to get air units to a point where they feel useful but don't become the powerhouses that they very often were in 2.15, and using ground fighters, you're basically introducing a unit that has to feel that way to feel correct, and you have to balance around that, in which case you'd basically need it to take multiple pop cap (and which makes it particularly bad for a garrison unit), which isn't always ideal either. Trying to base balance on just stuff like credit cost isn't a great thing to do, because, basically that doesn't make you feel any better when you're actually in the battle and they feel oppressively powerful.

This is why I've said if we're going to reimplement ground fighters, it would be in a different way that's not an actual standard unit.

Having some terrible PTSD about the early airstreakers from the EotH before they were balanced...(huddles in corner and cries for all the dead)

[t78]

Maybe a Heavy Tracker/ Chariot command vehicle could be given this role. They can call down an airstrike that follows a set of units for a short time before they leave the battlefield due to lack of fuel. Fighters would be no where as manoeuvrable as an airspeeder, having a terrible turning circle, with similer power in lasers. What they would have is a torpedo attack (if its an X-Wing) that has half the power of a bomber's bomb attack. Can attack other fighters, but vulnerable to ground fire. Say, 30/40 second loiter time on the map?

Of course, only one set of fighters, no matter how many command vehicles on the map. Would that be reasonably gated?

[kucsidave]

It's really not that easy. If we would limit it to 40 secs, it needs to be powerful enough to be able to do something, yet not powerful enough to be OP. You say that they wouldn't be as manoeuverable, but then again the player(and AI) has to control them somhow, which might be hard. Especially how the AI would handle the ability and not just call it in any time it can.

[DemonKingDan]

I like having Fighters in Land Battles as much as the next person, but like Corey said, it would be difficult to implement Fighter land forces in the game due to the AI. Mods like YodenMod and AOTR can use those as land units because they are a different unit altogether compared to their space counterparts. In the end, Fighter Land units would end up being a waste because the AI will just build AA (anti-air) turrets and take down the air units, same with Turbolaser towers. I would love to see them in-game, but it'd be too much of a hassle.

[Laimis]

yep, my suggestion is silly, but on the other hand:
 it could be hero unit, which you could have by completing missions.
 or unit with high cost, long buildable time and could have limited spawn (few times.)

[t78]

Just out of interest, where is the canon evidence that fighters are more powerful then airspeeders? I know they would be, but surely as air to space units, they would be lighter, and thus more fragile than ground hugging speeders. Ties certainly were weaker than V-Wings in every respect in the 1st rogue squadron game.

And yes, Stackpole has X-Wings dominate ATATs in Isard's Revenge, but I ignore Stackpole on issues of unit power as he generally depicts the Rogues as being good at everything.

I guess I saw X-Wings as V-Wings with moderately powerful missiles and similarily powered lasers- craft capable of firing off a good opening salvo, but thereafter very vulnerable ground fire, and thus not OP. Apologies if that is incorrect/ not what people want.

If you want a gated ability, how about making it like the bombing run or bombardment, but weaker and targeting a specific unit? With bombing runs and bombardments, you need to judge where the unit will be when the bombs or lasers fall- a fighter run would hit that unit, but no others, with the same recharge time for the ability.

Meh, V-Wings are good enough. It doesn't really matter.

[DemonKingDan]

I like the idea of having like a Hero use a starfighter in Land Battles (maybe Wedge or something 'cause he commands an Executor in Space and isn't a land unit) but seriously, Land Fighter units would be great to see in game besides good ol' Gold Squadron and TIE/Bombers, and Syca Bombers. The Hero thing sounds good to me, I dont know what the Development Team thinks about it but I'm all for it.

[sidnair]

I think it could turn out to be too powerful if not done right. Another option could be different kinds of strafing runs / bombing runs on a cooldown similar to the one already in the game

[zealot4160]

I like what t78 and sidnair suggested, with fighters acting like a tracking bombing run for a single unit (incapable of targeting buildings). This ability could be allowed by having a fighter in orbit or building a "hanger" structure.