Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I understand that Fighters are a unique and important selling point of Carriers and their ability to be assigned across a system is a important part of that but in their current state they are far too powerful while offering minimal risk similar to remote Doomsdays.
As broken as they are they shouldnt return to their old useless state of not being able to track subcaps properly.
I suggest a mechanic that reduces assigned fighter damage by the distance between the carrier assigning them and the ship receiving (10%/AU distance for example, or a reduction based on km).
This would put more emphasis on carrier mobility and generally restore a risk/reward balance.

Put the carrier on grid and the problem is gone because the carrier is at risk. 10%/AU mean the carrier could be just off grid by creating a BM 1000km away and lose no damage. It could even slowboat aligned to another safe in case and never lose damage as it will never slowboat anything close to a AU.

Which totally destroys the benefit of using fighters, thanks non-carrier pilot for your uninformed opinion.

You could always let them follow a target into warp but starting an engagement from off grid is stupid as ****.

Your damage can still be applied while you are off-grid. You should not be able to provide a few hundred dps into a fight without being on that grid. I'm even willing to let you do it in special circumstance so you keep your advantage of fighter/bombers having a warp drive by letting you apply some off grid IF the target was correctly engaged in the first place while on the same grid as you.

The target is correctly engaged. Look at any killmail where there were designated fighters used, the carrier does zero damage unless it's off grid. Your mistake is that you think designating control of fighters is the same as assisting them, it is not.

Assisting drones will shoot the same target as the player they are assisting, but still count towards the owner's maximum allowed drones as given by the Drones skill.

Designated fighters take the place of the designated player's drones, meaning if they carry their own flight of drones, but have 5 fighters assigned to them, then they cannot launch their own drones without returning control of the fighters back to the carrier, which causes the fighters to warp back to the carrier. Additionally, bonuses provided by the carrier are not supposed to carry over to fighters deployed off grid, but I cannot verify whether they do or not, as I'm smart enough of a pilot to avoid fighters so I haven't been shot by any.

Specifically, when you consider the time devoted to training for a carrier, there really isn't much of an issue to being able to assign a few hundred DPS without being on grid. The other ships that take as long to train for, at least ones that take as long to train to be effective in, provide a few thousand DPS when on grid. IIRC, a thanny maxes out a hair under 3k DPS when using fighters on grid, but doesn't even provide half that if the maximum 15 fighters are assigned off grid.

Docked ships can't interact with other ships at all, be it in a friendly or hostile manner.

Carriers providing assigned fighters are in-space and thus open to retaliation. The fact that said retaliation may be difficult does not negate it's possibility.

Your example doesn't hold water, but I appreciate you answering my question in the manner I requested.

Comparing apples to zebra to try and prove your point only appears to be a desperate move by someone losing the debate.

The ability to do something while not in space does not, in any way, compare to being able to do something while in space, but not on grid. If you could designate fighter control while docked, then that would be a valid argument. As it currently stands, you cannot designate fighter control from inside a station, nor can you do so from within a POS shield.

It's actually you who's claiming that a zebra is an apple.

You can assign fighters while partially peeking out from a force field, which is in practice exactly the same as being inside a station. The target ship is on grid, engaged with the ship that's using the fighters from the carrier, meaning that there's no game mechanic that allows you to interact with the carrier in any way.