Discussion about Different Playstyles

[Wingflier]

Fighters are no more a joke in waves then frigates. Neither are meant to hit heavy defenses.

I disagree with that.  Frigates eat my fleet alive from a huge distance and are much harder to kill.  They're immune to AoE and they seem to have a ton of health.  If they come in a dual wave, or alongside a wave of base-destroying units like Golems, H/Ks, or Bombers, I'm in serious trouble.  If Fighters come in a wave, I can simply outrange them/kill them with gravity turrets before they even become a threat.  Even if they come in range, the only thing they really even do damage to are bombers so I can just keep those away.

Turrets also can fulfill missile frigates role. MLR's trash most things frigates are good against. I haven't unlocked II frigates in months.

I think Frigates are extremely useful, even on offense.  If you look at the kill scores at the end of any given game (assuming you've kept the Frigate upgrades coming), they'll be much higher than both the Fighters and the Bombers in general.  However, if Frigates are underpowered, it's partly because the unit they counter is so non-threatening.

Haven't unlocked frigates in months. Fighters move fast so can hit guardposts unlike frigates who crawl from place to place. If any ship is guilty of taking advantage of blobs the best of the triangle ships, its the frigates.

Well Fighters can keep up with your Bombers and hit guardposts, but to be honest man, you could do the same thing with Frigates, it would just take longer.  That's another issue of Bombers being way too fast for how strong they are, but the point is you don't NEED Fighters to do that.  You could just as easily take all the Guard Posts with Bombers and Frigates, it just takes longer.

I'm not saying Fighters aren't useful for some things, I'm saying they could be replaced by the worst bonus ships and be just as useful.  That doesn't mean they're balanced.

[Diazo]

If the Fighters are actually effective, then why:

1. Are they such a joke in enemy waves?

Fighters are designed to kill enemy fleet ships, they therefore weak to heavy defenses. Attacking heavy defenses is the bombers role, not the fighters.

2. Do turrets replace their roles (according to you)?

Yes, in player controlled systems they do, and they are significantly better then fighters at their role. But turrets are not mobile so we have the fighter as a mobile fleet ship killer.

3. Are you able to beat an entire game without even using them on all but the hardest difficulties, when you definitely could not do this without Bombers or Frigates (I'm having no trouble so far in my 9/9 game against the Mad Bomber of winning so far)?

We are back to roles overlap. You need to fill the different roles in your fleet, you don't need specific ships, you need ships that can fill those roles. There are many ships in the game that can fill the 'fighter' role, the Fighter unit is only average at this role so it does not stand out. However, there is almost no ships in the game that can fill the 'bomber' role, with the Bomber unit probably being best 'bomber (role)' in the game.

So yes, not using the Fighter unit is a lot smaller handicap then not using the Bomber unit.

This goes back to what I've been saying.  Are Fighters useful for some things?  Yes.  So are Raiders, that doesn't mean I'll ever unlock them as a bonus ship.  Let's say we switched Fighters with Raiders, and they become the new Triangle staple in the Fighter role, and they were nerfed 25% to compensate (since bonus ships are supposed to be 25% better).  Or say we replaced them with autocannon minipods, or with Eye Bots, or with any underwhelming bonus ship type.  It does not matter what you put there, because an extra source of DPS is an extra source of DPS.

I'm saying:  Fighters should be more than a simple meat shield and an extra source of DPS.  Literally ANY ship could do that.  Hell, you could buff the Frigates and Bombers by 25% a piece across all Marks and remove Fighters, and you'd probably be better off.  Extra source of DPS/tanking does not mean useful or up to par at all.

But why should the Fighter be more then that? In terms of units in the game at moment, I agree the fighter is average and does not excel like the bomber.

Why is this a problem?

D.

edit: Okay, the only thing I really have to add from your previous post is that I disagree with dismissing that taking frigates is just as effective, it just takes longer. When I'm crossing half a system to take out a guard post, that's huge.

If the force disparity is big enough that you can waltz around the system and not take significantly more losses then I would argue you don't need to take bombers along, you can just wait for your fighters/frigates to kill the target.

[chemical_art]

Fighters are no more a joke in waves then frigates. Neither are meant to hit heavy defenses.

I disagree with that.  Frigates eat my fleet alive from a huge distance and are much harder to kill.  They're immune to AoE and they seem to have a ton of health.  If they come in a dual wave, or alongside a wave of base-destroying units like Golems, H/Ks, or Bombers, I'm in serious trouble.  If Fighters come in a wave, I can simply outrange them/kill them with gravity turrets before they even become a threat.  Even if they come in range, the only thing they really even do damage to are bombers so I can just keep those away.

Fighters are without a doubt harder to kill then frigates. The AI doesn't try to kite frigates, and they can't kite anyway. They have longer range. That is it. They do worst dps, they are slower, they are more frail. Even if part of another attack with golems or a second wave I fear the fighters more. Because fighters will chew up your bombers as they try to hit the other things, while if it is frigates the bombers kill everything.

Turrets also can fulfill missile frigates role. MLR's trash most things frigates are good against. I haven't unlocked II frigates in months.

I think Frigates are extremely useful, even on offense.  If you look at the kill scores at the end of any given game (assuming you've kept the Frigate upgrades coming), they'll be much higher than both the Fighters and the Bombers in general.  However, if Frigates are underpowered, it's partly because the unit they counter is so non-threatening.

How to counter a frigate wave

Two pairs of gravity turret + a shield. One of them near the wormhole, another along the path of wormhole and command station.  Add an extra shield and tractor posts if you feel really cheeky at the wormhole. Can't remember if frigates are immune to lightning turrets (I play schizo waves). If not, put them by the wormhole to and watch them fry insanely) Send in your own bombers and watch your basic turrets wipe out the frigates. Wave solved.Frigates only threaten fighters. Bombers absolutely trash them. Frigates can't pop shields at all, so you can often take your time in attacking them if you goof up.

Haven't unlocked frigates in months. Fighters move fast so can hit guardposts unlike frigates who crawl from place to place. If any ship is guilty of taking advantage of blobs the best of the triangle ships, its the frigates.

Well Fighters can keep up with your Bombers and hit guardposts, but to be honest man, you could do the same thing with Frigates, it would just take longer.  That's another issue of Bombers being way too fast for how strong they are, but the point is you don't NEED Fighters to do that.  You could just as easily take all the Guard Posts with Bombers and Frigates, it just takes longer.

I could also say you could send in frigates and fighters to accomplish the same goal. The reason I like the extra speed is because if the system is alerted, you have the fleetships move in and out faster. If you crawl with the frigates you might as well blob if the planet gets alerted.

I'm not saying Fighters aren't useful for some things, I'm saying they could be replaced by the worst bonus ships and be just as useful.  That doesn't mean they're balanced.

I could say the same thing about replacing frigates with sentinel frigates and bombards, because I don't fear swarm units at all. On defense they get creamed by MLRS, and if you are on offense they either die to the blob because they come piecemail or they die fast enough by fighters.

[Wingflier]

But why should the Fighter be more then that? In terms of units in the game at moment, I agree the fighter is average and does not excel like the bomber.

Don't you think all 3 Fleetships should be equally useful?  Your playstyle dictates that you want to Bomber to be the most powerful by far, but that polarizes the game in an extreme way.  I think all 3 Fleetships should be similar in power and usefulness, the reasons are obvious.

(Starting a DotA game, will reply to the rest later)

[Draco18s]

For the record, my 'standard' attack to take a guard post out sends in only the fighters and bombers, I find missile frigates too slow so they stay home.

I use Raid Starships for that.  They're highly effective at it too.

Let me show you how effective:

7 hours, 50 minutes
8 hours, 0 minutes
Highlights (The last DC is moments from being destroyed, at that autosave, which is why it's still listed)

At that point in time, 5 of the 9 raids are still alive (one Mk1 died by Zarae, which was left unfreed, as there is an ARS in system we're going to hack; debated over the other freed system as it has a dyson sphere AND an ARS).  We played a little farther than that autosave last night, but got overwhelmed by a CPA, and decided to go back in time (quit, no save).  Two of the raids survived well enough to make it home.

There was also a raid engine at Origarzon that I took out.

Killing six or seven guard posts in a neighboring system?  Trivial.

[Wingflier]

^ The Fighter's "role" of escorting Bombers to Guard Posts is still done much better by other options.  It's not a very important role to have imo.

How to counter a frigate wave

Two pairs of gravity turret + a shield. One of them near the wormhole, another along the path of wormhole and command station.  Add an extra shield and tractor posts if you feel really cheeky at the wormhole. Can't remember if frigates are immune to lightning turrets (I play schizo waves). If not, put them by the wormhole to and watch them fry insanely) Send in your own bombers and watch your basic turrets wipe out the frigates. Wave solved.Frigates only threaten fighters. Bombers absolutely trash them. Frigates can't pop shields at all, so you can often take your time in attacking them if you goof up.

You could counter a Bomber wave in a similar way.  You simply need Missile Turrets and Snipers instead.  Granted, it's a bit harder but if you prepare well, any single ship type isn't really that dangerous.

What I'm talking about is getting hit with a wave of Frigates and Bombers at the same time, or getting hit by a wave of Frigates and Advanced Hybrids AND an Exo-Strike.

Play 8/8 with a Sledgehammer and Mad Bomber, with Advanced Hybrids and Golems on Hard, you'll see what I'm talking about.  Yes, Bombers are a big threat to your defenses, but Frigates take out everything dangerous to them.  Fighters don't seem to do anything, you can basically ignore them.

Fighters are without a doubt harder to kill then frigates. The AI doesn't try to kite frigates, and they can't kite anyway. They have longer range. That is it. They do worst dps, they are slower, they are more frail. Even if part of another attack with golems or a second wave I fear the fighters more. Because fighters will chew up your bombers as they try to hit the other things, while if it is frigates the bombers kill everything.

It doesn't seem like people understand this - Raw DPS is not that useful in this game unless it's extremely high.  Frigates don't have the worst raw DPS actually, Bombers do.  Most of the damage in this game comes from multipliers.  Frigates have a 6x multiplier against 6 different fleet ship types, making their DPS against many different important targets very high.

I could also say you could send in frigates and fighters to accomplish the same goal. The reason I like the extra speed is because if the system is alerted, you have the fleetships move in and out faster. If you crawl with the frigates you might as well blob if the planet gets alerted.

I can do the same thing (escorting Bombers to Guard Posts) much more efficiently, and with less units (on Planets with Eyes for example, which is the only reason NOT to blob I can't think of), with Bombers and Starships.

For 2k research I unlock Zenith and Spire Starships.  With a cap of MKII Bombers I have 3 Zenith Starships, 3 Spire Starships, 4 Light Starships, 4 Riot Control Starships with double shields, 4 Bomber Starships, and 3 Parasite Starships.  This is a MUCH better defense of my Bombers, and at a fraction of the number, than are simply using Fighters.  I'm not sure what the slowest Starship is there, but they all move pretty dang fast.

And, like the guy said above me, you could skip all this and simply use Raid Starships anyway.  Nowhere in this equation are Fighters necessary to succeed...

[Diazo]

And slowly other units are brought in until we get to the game wide armor/hull/attack multiplier rebalance.

There is always another option in this game and different people are going to find different options suit them.

The way I play I do not feel fighters are weak.

Fighters do not excel either I admit, but by definition excel can only be applied to a few units, I don't think every base unit should excel, otherwise why have bonus ships?

D.

[Wingflier]

If you want a discussion on resources, you should make a separate thread. It could be a good discussion, I think. Or course, I suppose there is nothing wrong with the arcen policy of meandering threads. But the resource question is something comes up repeatedly. And if you want to change it, I would think channeling discussion on a separate thread is the best solution.

Personally, I have no reason to make a resource thread, because frankly I agree with the community.

At the moment, there's no reason not to have your whole fleet when you play the game.  When blobbing is the optimal strategy, have 999,999 resources or 0 resources doesn't matter, you've gotta wait until you're whole fleet is built either way.

If Fighters, which are the cheapest Triangle in the game, were actually worth using alone (the way bombers and frigates are in many situations), I'd be able to do some interesting things without using my entire Fleet, and even if I lost them it wouldn't be a huge hit to my resources.  In other words, I'd have something to do while my fleet was rebuilding rather than twiddle my thumbs.  The way the current system works, I agree that not having resources sucks, because resource management seems arbitrary when you have to build the same army every time.

Fighters do not excel either I admit, but by definition excel can only be applied to a few units, I don't think every base unit should excel, otherwise why have bonus ships?

I'm not saying every Triangle ship should excel, I think every Triangle ship should excel at their role.  I think Bombers should be nerfed and Fighters buffed, so that they are balanced with each other.  People don't like this because it changes their playstyle, they would rather have the game stay in an unbalanced state than make it so that all Triangle ships are equally useful.  I agree that the BEST solution is to change the hull distribution, but since that's not going to happen, the best option isn't stick our heads in the sand when we still have decent alternatives.

Bonus ships are supposed to be 25% better than their counterparts, and they add a huge amount of extra DPS to your army when unlocked.  You NEED them because they are a force multiplier, not because they should completely overshadow your Triangle ships (or in your philosophy, one of your Triangle ships).

[chemical_art]

The tactics would not work with bombers at all.

The bombers would pop the shields quickly and effective. Which frigates does not.

You are changing the arguement, and ultimately you are not saying that the frigate is strong, you are saying bombers are strong. Dragging in other things into the arguement does not change the orginal arguement you made, that a wave of frigates are inhertiently more dangerious then a wave of fighters.

You are doing the same thing to frigates that you accuse the fighter to do, which is support bombers (in a different way.) The fact you say frigates are only dangerious because they take out things dangerous to bombers all goes back to the fact that it is not that fighters are weak, it is that bombers are strong.

Again, you drag in those extra bombers, H/K's, golems, but ultimately if you want to take them out you want bombers, and ai fighters are the biggest threat to your bombers.

This is only furthered by you saying you would not bring either fighters or frigates to attack, but bombers and starships. Which I could go further and say why bring bombers at all, and then we go to the minimalist solution of raiders which Draco already elegantly demonstrated.


We are going around in circles. It all revolves around bombers being too strong. You want fighters to be bombers lite on offense. But then you say frigates which are inferior in every way but range are stronger the fighters on offense. When asked, you say they are stronger because they take out things which threaten bombers.

In the end, it all revolves around the bomber. So rather then buff everything else, nerf the bomber.

[chemical_art]

If you want a discussion on resources, you should make a separate thread. It could be a good discussion, I think. Or course, I suppose there is nothing wrong with the arcen policy of meandering threads. But the resource question is something comes up repeatedly. And if you want to change it, I would think channeling discussion on a separate thread is the best solution.

Personally, I have no reason to make a resource thread, because frankly I agree with the community.

What community consense? Keith himself said somewhere that the community is divided. There is no consenss. To quote keith:

By the way, is it likely there are going to be nerfs to player economy?  The harvester and energy changes have made economic factors pretty trivial recently

The difficulty is that feedback is heavily mixed on whether that is, in fact, true

At the moment, there's no reason not to have your whole fleet when you play the game.  When blobbing is the optimal strategy, have 999,999 resources or 0 resources doesn't matter, you've gotta wait until you're whole fleet is built either way.

No you don't. You can attack with part of your fleet. There is nothing stopping you. If you have max resources you should either be increasing your production or going on the attack. Period. A cap of stardocks will not keep you at 999,999 I assure you. Only your need to wait for your fleet is causing this.

If Fighters, which are the cheapest Triangle in the game, were actually worth using alone (the way bombers and frigates are in many situations), I'd be able to do some interesting things without using my entire Fleet, and even if I lost them it wouldn't be a huge hit to my resources.  In other words, I'd have something to do while my fleet was rebuilding rather than twiddle my thumbs.  The way the current system works, I agree that not having resources sucks, because resource management seems arbitrary when you have to build the same army every time.


It's been said repeatedly and you choose to ignore it, but you can use fighters alone. You are too often holding back doing anything if it is not the absolute most optimal thing but you don't need the absolute on the offense. Fighters alone can go onto worlds and pop guardposts. You say they don't do it as good as bombers, but guardposts are not tough to begin with. To pop a guardpost you need a fast, tough unit to get there. Raider starships follow the same principle. I did this every game with fighters until the champion, and if the champion cannot do it alone then I send fighters and the champion and then it works even faster

Fighters do not excel either I admit, but by definition excel can only be applied to a few units, I don't think every base unit should excel, otherwise why have bonus ships?

I'm not saying every Triangle ship should excel, I think every Triangle ship should excel at their role.  I think Bombers should be nerfed and Fighters buffed, so that they are balanced with each other.  People don't like this because it changes their playstyle, they would rather have the game stay in an unbalanced state than make it so that all Triangle ships are equally useful.  I agree that the BEST solution is to change the hull distribution, but since that's not going to happen, the best option isn't stick our heads in the sand when we still have decent alternatives.

Buffing fighters by 50% isn't going to magically make them do things they could not do it before. All they do is become more of sledgehammer and do good against everything. If you want them to excel at their role increase their multiplier. Fighters do good things now, its just not what YOU want them to do.

Bonus ships are supposed to be 25% better than their counterparts, and they add a huge amount of extra DPS to your army when unlocked.  You NEED them because they are a force multiplier, not because they should completely overshadow your Triangle ships (or in your philosophy, one of your Triangle ships).

[Wingflier]

In the end, it all revolves around the bomber. So rather then buff everything else, nerf the bomber.

A sentiment I can heartily agree with.

You've to realize that in the end, I just want all 3 Triangle ships to be balanced.  I'm amazed I'm getting so much resistance to this.  Do I really need to JUSTIFY why all 3 ships should be equally useful in different situations?

I think this is possible, but people have to be more open-minded and stop viewing the game through the lens of the bomber. 

What community consense? Keith himself said somewhere that the community is divided. There is no consenss. To quote keith:

Well I certainly don't see any people making Mantis Reports or threads about it, so as far as I'm concerned, it's a consensus.  When something bothers me, I make 3 threads and spend countless pages arguing with people about it.  I don't see anybody doing that for the current state of resources.

No you don't. You can attack with part of your fleet. There is nothing stopping you. If you have max resources you should either be increasing your production or going on the attack. Period. A cap of stardocks will not keep you at 999,999 I assure you. Only your need to wait for your fleet is causing this.

Attacking with part of your Fleet is much more dangerous than using the whole thing typically.  Except on planets with Eyes, in which you're forced to use a smaller fleet (I still think Starships are a much better escort than Fighters), sending only half your Fleet can be a recipe for disaster.

It's been said repeatedly and you choose to ignore it, but you can use fighters alone. You are too often holding back doing anything if it is not the absolute most optimal thing but you don't need the absolute on the offense. Fighters alone can go onto worlds and pop guardposts. You say they don't do it as good as bombers, but guardposts are not tough to begin with. To pop a guardpost you need a fast, tough unit to get there. Raider starships follow the same principle. I did this every game with fighters until the champion, and if the champion cannot do it alone then I send fighters and the champion and then it works even faster

Nobody uses Fighters alone, who are you kidding?  The cost:benefit ratio isn't worth it.  Having to rebuild a whole cap because you killed 1 guardpost is pathetic.

Buffing fighters by 50% isn't going to magically make them do things they could not do it before.

It will help put them in line with the other Triangles.  Nerfing Bombers by 50% isn't going to magically prevent them from things they couldn't do before, but it will make the player think differently about the game, and what ships to upgrade based on the situation.

[chemical_art]

So we come to it.

Nerf the bombers.

Using Occam's razor, that is the solution.

You want a talk about other playstyles, but refuse to acknowledge those that are not yours. This includes:

-You think there are too many resources, and because you are the only one who compains about it must be so
-Fighters, despite any evidence or examples of what they can do, are going to be pathetic. Since you don't use fighters alone, nobody sends fighters alone.
-The answer to strong bombers at the expense of everything else is to buff everything else.
-If you don't send your whole fleet, you think you lose. Therefore, everyone loses.
-The answer to something which doesn't fillful a damage role is to make damage everything, rather then what it is supposed to attack, better.
-Frigates are ok because they destroy anything that threatens bombers well. But that is not ok for fighters.

You continually brush off anything that doesn't fit your point of view. I don't talk to walls, so there isn't anything left to discuss.

[Wingflier]

My discussion in this thread is basically over. We have no initial agreement to base the argument on so the conversation is impossible.

My goal is ultimately balance the three triangle ships so that they're equally useful in different situations. If we can't agree that that's a positive thing for the game, then you can use any ridiculous argument since your playstyle is the only thing that matters, not the well-being or balance of the game as a whole.

Refer to my other thread, thanks.

[chemical_art]

To end this then, I shall refer to a quote from Keith, since he is the single most important person you shall need to convince. Direct any responses to him:

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11284.15.html

As guessed I don't really have time to consider redoing the triangle, but a couple of questions:

1) What's wrong with the Bomber being the point of the triangle that "points up" to all the juicy stationary/big stuff?  What's wrong with the other two points being largely (though not entirely) defined by their relationship to the first point?  Sure, you could largely capture their purpose by calling them the anti-bomber and the anti-anti-bomber, but what is actually wrong with that? 
- They have plenty of DPS to justify building them.  They're not as much of a priority as the bomber, but that's fine.
- There's less reason to justify spending K on upgrading them but honestly the bonus types should be the ones more interesting for upgrades unless you don't have a bonus type that fulfills one of the core roles.  Space Tanks and (iirc) Zenith Chameleons can be upgraded instead of bombers unless you need multiple bomber types, and there a variety of anti-polycrystal and anti-light bonus types out there too.  If you lack those, then upgrading the triangle type is the fallback.

2) Similarly, what's wrong with most of the juicy stationary/big stuff being Heavy, UltraHeavy, or (almost exclusively forcefields) Structural?  Why would fighters/frigates need to have bonuses against some of those?

I know you already responded, but I'm adding this more for others who may have missed the other thread.

[Wanderer]

Good grief, I take a week or two off from the forums to kill my burnout and y'all have 20 page discussions on me...  And a new expansion, but I'll post that in the relevant section.

I'm not a fan of the fighter because it doesn't fit my playstyle.  It is, however, a powerful enough ship.  This entire discussion however went from playstyle to fighter discussions... errr, hang on a second, let's drag that back over kicking and screaming, shall we?

What is your playstyle?  I personally like to definatively answer a system in one stroke, then leave it gasping for air as I move on.  What's good for this?  Bombers and whatever the hell protects them.  In my case, Missile Frigates.  I'll take the cost and speed loss for the overwhelming firepower and range counters.  Also, keep your damned fighters off my bombers, I lose them like candy at a children's convention anyway.

So, tossed into that is a bonus ship (or three).  I probably ended up with a fighter wanna-be along the way.  What does that have to do with the fighter conversation?  Not really a damned thing, actually... until you look at my early game.  We'll get there.  So, in general, my massive fleet-ball with some minor key-binding adjustments for extreme units (snipers/maws/special micro or uses) will walk into a system, plant a flag, and argue with the AI over continued existance.  One of us lives through it.  I only open Fighter MK II+ if I'm explicitly fighting a polycrystal heavy AI, and then they're invaluable.

However, that's not reasonable early game... or at least wasn't until recent economic improvements for early play.  So, let's back this off 'stupid difficulty' for a second and drag this back down to 7/7, neh?  The fighters were your permanent younglings.  While your main ball of frigs and bombers were out taking care of business, you could go and raid a system with your fighters, get them obliterated because your attention was on the rest of the fleet, and then come back and whatta ya know, they're pretty much rebuilt.  They're cheap, semi-effective, and an excellent experimentation and probing tool.  Raids are far too expensive to probe with.

The balance of any ship is cost to usage.  In late game and against significant wave/reinforcement, the fighter fails.  At that point, you're dumping huge volumes of mats (to the tune of thousands/second) into massive starship builds, streaming FRD assaults with younglings (much better at the cheap meatshield dental plan), rebuilding turret walls from waves, and if you're like me, cursing out your metal reserves because you're rebuilding your entire Bomber Flight AGAIN.  But that's later.

In the early game my fleet builds at 10 scout/50 fighter/5 bomber/5 frigate/x bonus (depends).  Those fighters are invaluable to get the early game going.  THEY ARE WEAK, and they should be, for their pricetag.  They don't have much use for me late game because they're utterly outshone lategame.  I personally think their MK II/III K costs should reflect that, but that's a completely different balance point, as the point of a K change would be to allow for early upgrades when the economy is a stringent issue and you haven't had a chance to raid deeply and get a huge econ going.

However, you have to consider the golden hours and the power of the fighter's cost there before it's dismissed.  Full fleet is usually busy tackling serious threats, like local MK III/IV worlds and digging out Tachyon posts so your scouts and get to work.  You need that disposable fleet to work. 

So, to the original question, what's my playstyle:
Heavy fleet on heavy targets with light ships doing side work while my Raid Starships get built.  Eventually, my fighters become cheap useless meatshields in the fleet as more effective bonus ships are opened up for whatever particular purpose I'd been using fighters earlier.  At that point, the fleet ball goes for defending freed ships while my Raid Starships free up enemy ships and chew them up as they escape the Raid assaults.