Space superiority top contender?

[Nerhesi]

My crew and I have recently returned to the game after a decade. We always enjoyed the aerospace aspect as a great secondary part of the mech focused universe. One of those things we enjoyed fooling around with was the march of technology and the new canon designs.

It was nice refreshing change to see that the hydraspes wasn’t necessarily dominating space superiority - thanks to proliferation of reactive armor and other high armor contenders that have un-threshold-able-hit locations (by the hydaspes that is).

I’m not seeing a clear single top dog here… the Simurgh looks great, as does the koroshiya, but then the Eisenstrum also looks good. Am I missing something?

Of course, I am discussing the space / high altitude superiority scenario.  Lawn darting is still the biggest threat in low altitude.

[DevianID]

So there are a few fighters with large re: lasers, that are good for boosting both accuracy and bypassing armor. A stingray has 3, the Morgenstern has 2.

However one I think that is the best overall is probably the tabanid drone fighter.  It hits the 10 speed threshold, has a probe, and an er large laser with good armor for its size.  It can hit from pretty far, fights in clouds of other drones, and has a shielded drone system.  While the heavier fighters might take 1 or 2 drones down, they won't escape them thanks to 10 thrust and 6 fuel.  Its also large enough for an AA arrow or antiship Arrow, or even 7 RL10s, while still having 8 thrust, so they can make for very dangerous strike craft as they maintain good thrust with a bomb load.

[Nerhesi]

If we were to consider the drones, looking at the Tabanid - it has a single ER, and you're getting 3 of them for a single Koroshiya, Striga, Shikra, Eisenstrum.  You're not going to threshold them even with reengineered lasers (except in Aft). Meanwhile one of those fighters us causing 2-3 thresholds a round and some of them delete a drone in a round.

Thresholds seem to be a significant deciding factor assuming you're mounting a decent amount of armor. Snowballing sensor, FCS, weapon knocked out etc, not to mention crits forcing control rolls in addition to taking 20+ damage - and control rolls basically guaranteeing you're not in a good position to fire that turn. Nose weapons are much more important than wing weapons at least on the initial joust. After which initiative rules almost guarantee a blindspot deflection shot on the enemy.  If you're reasonably protected against Threshold crits, then the next thing is consistent big damage from ballistic weapons it seems (because of the increase in reflec fighters right now and lack of .. longtom fighters? :) )

And lets park AAA missiles/ordanance for a sec because they wildly RNG results (control roll, threshold crit, single armor facing hit - not complaining I like the heavier RNG element in CBT).

So I think we're looking at 3 factors:

-Reflec armor or other great Armor (Shikra)
-High Damage Ballistic Weapons
-Overall non-energy High Damage

Koroshiya deals very well with the majority of clan fighters.  The Simurgh really messes up the Koroshiya and other reflective fighters while doing almost as well against energy fighters. But then the Eisenstrum does well against both while only being thresholdable by the big weapons in the nose. The Hydaspes Algar can be extremely stupid with HE ammo (range becomes short very quickly against other aerospace) - but  is usually 33% more expensive then the competition.

Thoughts? Love? Hate?

[Nerhesi]

Actually, I’m gonna have to revise my initial findings now that I’ve had a chance to do two dozen more small dog fights with friends and with princess on Megamek.

The clan ATM missiles, especially if loaded with HE ordinance really keeps the Hydaspes 2 as a top contender still against reflective armor fighters.  Even with testing 2v2 with improved gunnery to compensate BV difference for Koroshiya/Simurgh BV.

So no withstanding a lucky wing crit that removes a weapon or an early FCS crit, the Hydaspeseses generally come out on top.

[DevianID]

Was it BV balanced?  Also, did you try the fighters versus equal BV in drones?

[Lagrange]

The Hydaspes series has always been the dominant canon design in my experience, primarily due to a combination of heaviest armor and solid weapons load.  It is of course possible to do significantly better with a custom design.

[Nerhesi]

The Hydaspes series has always been the dominant canon design in my experience, primarily due to a combination of heaviest armor and solid weapons load.  It is of course possible to do significantly better with a custom design.

Yeah, ran a couple of more games with just 2x Snow Raven Hydaspes 2 (Funny enough, thats the only RAT that has it), vs 9 Tabanid Drones.
BV: 6615 (Drones) vs 6770 (Hydaspes 2s)

With the Tabanid's aggressively targeting a single Hydaspes, they stilled failed to bring one down.  In general, in any turn - the two Hydaspes fighters had a good chance of bringing down or crippling a Tabanid. As they start losing drones, they start doing less damage etc etc.. without being able to necessarily inflict the same reduction to the Hydaspes firepower (can only threshold crit the rear).

[DevianID]

Nerhesi very interesting.  Seems like armor is the most important factor then for space fighters, more then maneuver/thrust, as long as you have some guns.

I usually only do radar map aerospace or ground attack nowadays, as fighting the thrust/vector system was hard to do on the tabletop with limited maps.  Thrust plays a bigger part with the radar map, but its all very abstract.

[Nerhesi]

This is in Space mind you, in the atmosphere, without the special/optional rules for Controls only when you get Threshold Crit, the 2 hydaspes may have a very real chance of lawn darting ahead of the drones.

Also, as you mentioned, the Abstract combat rules can cause a very different experience. Example - fighters with range advantage and speed, can potentially consistently out-range slower and heavier fighters while trying to thresholding them from Long Range.