Introduction​

The Fighter is a class of sub-ship belonging to the Strike-craft family, along with their counterparts: Bombers. Strike-craft differ from normal ships in that they must be attached to a fleet ship with a special module to enter battle.

Fighters can be placed into any ship class with Special Module Slots , on the far right of the Ship Design Window. Early Fighters only require one slot, but late game fighters require two slots to be built into the ship. Additionally, the class of fighter can be changed by the <> signs at the top of the module, and their type (Either Balanced, Invasion, or Battle) can be altered by the drop down menu. By default they are set to balanced.

Strikecraft engagement

There are two ways of fighting against strike-craft:

• By using Battle-Oriented Fighters
• By using Point Defense Modules

Firstly, any battle-oriented fighters will engage other strike-craft.

Point defenses can be researched relatively early in the Galactic Warfare tech tree, weigh ten tonnes, and require one special slot. These defenses act as AA Flak Turrets that shoot at attacking Strike Craft. The damage done to the Fighters/Bombers is directly correlated with the standard defense levels of the ship on which the defenses are based. I.e. A ship with many defenses (Flak, Shields, and Deflectors) will shoot down Strike Craft faster than a Ship with few of these defenses. (The specific damage formula will be added later)

Battle Behaviour

As mentioned, Fighters must have a mothership from which they can launch. The behaviour of the fighters in a battle is related to this fact, and said behaviour will be described on a phase-by-phase basis.

Phase 1 (Introduction)

In this phase, Fighters simply fly behind their "mother ship" and await their orders for the battle as the intro music plays and enemy fleet arrives.

Phase 2, 3, 4 (Battle Phases)

In this phase, the opposing Fighters will fly towards one another for the first few rounds. As they come within striking distance, the opposing fighters begin dogfighting. Their dogfighting behavior is as follows:

• One group of fighters are only allowed to engage one group of enemy fighters. If one side has more fighters, the "Surplus" will fly with the bombers and attack the ships, while any surviving fighters will attack the enemy bombers as they try to attack your ships. All fighters that engaged in a dogfight will remain in between the fleets and attack enemy dogfighters until only fighters from one side remains.
• If the amount of fighters are equal, the Fighters simply fight to the death. The winning side divides its surviving fighters in half, with one half protecting the friendly fleet and the other half attacking the enemy fleet.
• If they enemy has no Bombers then all the surviving fighters attack the enemy fleet.

During the next two phases, the fighters do their specified jobs, whether attacking enemy bombers or attacking enemy ships. Whichever they are doing, they will shoot two volleys per round at their specific targets.

Phase 5 (Report)

In this phase fighters return to their ships and re-assume their positions behind the ships. However, if they have no ships to return to, they fire one more volley at the enemy fleet before flying towards the nearest planet.

Damaged Modules

When fighters get shot down, the game sorts out what is what as follows (as observed by players, not as specified by developers)

• If 3/5 fighters are shot down, then that special module is 60% damaged (40% left)
• This can be repaired in friendly territory automatically
• This can also be repaired by a repair module (rate is specified by the repair module)
• Alternatively to the two methods above, all special modules can be immediately healed by paying dust to repair the ships. This must be done in a system in which you have sufficient ownership over.
• Thus if 3/5 were shot down (2 left), and the next turn your fleet repairs the module by 25%, one new fighter will be created. In total this will be 3 usable fighters in battle.

Screen Shots 

Fighter

Ships
Classes	Fighter • Bomber • Transport • Corvette • Destroyer • Cruiser • Battleship • Dreadnought
Modules	Weapon Module • Defense Module • Support Module