Fighter bays

[Pob]

I've had a look and I cannot find any specific details on fighter and hanger mechanics, lots of stuff about the 1hp issue, how to assign them and how they are weak/costly to run.

 

I'm currently trying to build/design a carrier and trying to figure out the mechanics and what the numbers actually mean?

 

Stick a hanger on a ship and it give you two numbers, what are they relevant to?

 

Now I understand that you cannot block both the open faces of a hanger in any way or the fighters cannot launch.

However can you have a small exposed hanger and the a much larger one that's covered?

It'll still push the numbers up, would small fighters be able to use the small open hanger but large fighters not be able too?  or will they all be able to use the small hanger?

 

It's important to my build for looks, as hangers use the same volume minus a fixed layer system that cargo containers use so cubes are most efficient but I want lots of little individual hanger bays for my design. 

[DivineEvil]

The two numbers given are per-ship and per-size limits. Having more fighters counts towards first, having fighters with greater size parameter counts for the second.

 

You need at least one of the two hangar doors exposed. One of them can be obstructed, however the second one must be completely open all the way to prevent fighters from getting stuck or having path-finding problems.

[Pob]

You need at least one of the two hangar doors exposed. One of them can be obstructed, however the second one must be completely open all the way to prevent fighters from getting stuck or having path-finding problems.

I understand that, but what happens when you have 2 separate hanger blocks?

Here is an example.

Ship has 2 hanger blocks

hanger block A has both sides covered, size is 4x4x4, fighter numbers 3-21

hanger block B has one side open, size is 2x2x6, fighter numbers 0-6

total fighter number is 3-27

 

so does this mean a max fighter size of 3 and total of all fighters of 27?

But will only 0 max 6 total work because that's the only exposed hanger?

 

EDIT

Just did some testing with the above, I bought

5x size1 miner titanium

9x size1 chaingun Iron

1x size6 chaingun titanium

it will not allow me to buy any more because there's no space.

 

But these numbers make no sense, from my understanding I'm not allowed size over 3 but it let me buy size 6, I'm allowed 27 total size, but it's capped me out at 20.

 

Oh and they will all happly use the smaller unblocked hanger

[Warrax]

Hey Pob

 

I appreciate your timely questions and that you shared what you learned so far.

 

Once I hit the Trinium, and I get to launch my new build (and if someone has not already answered your questions), I will share what i find out.

 

Good luck :)

[Lord_Greyscale]

I've had a look and I cannot find any specific details on fighter and hanger mechanics, lots of stuff about the 1hp issue, how to assign them and how they are weak/costly to run.

 

Part of the problem with Hangars is that they really do work "better" with one single gargantuan hangar than with lots of little ones.

 

All sufficiently exposed hangars can launch/recall fighters, so long as there is a hangar large-enough to store them somewhere on the ship.

 

EX: I built my own carrier to have one truly colossal hangar in the center of my ship, which is not in any way exposed to space.(that hangar cannot launch/recover fighters, but oh boy does it store 'em)

It does, however, have dozens of hangars so small they could only store a single size 1 fighter, which are exposed to space.

 

The giga-hangar in the middle allows me to store, and launch, 90+ size 5 fighters, even though the hangars they're actually launching from couldn't do so. (and even though the User Interface on a "mere" 1366x768 screen won't let me launch more than 40, due to being unable to click the "new squadron" button, as it has shifted itself off-screen)

[Pob]

All sufficiently exposed hangars can launch/recall fighters, so long as there is a hangar large-enough to store them somewhere on the ship.

Yep I understand this now, again though information on hangers and fighters is vague and lacking.

We need to do more testing to figure this stuff out.

I haven't touched avorion in the last couple of days, when I get the time I'm going to do more testing, esp on trying to figure out what those numbers actually mean and how multiple hangers effect them.

 

One thing I'll note is an interesting AI behaviour I've witnessed.

This happened when a sector was under attack by another faction, we are going to call them A and B

A Ships attack, B reinforcements are called in, fighters are launched by both A & B

While combat is going on fighters will be targeted, however once all of the attacking A ships are destroyed something interesting occurs.

defending B ships recall any remaining fighters, if any of the attacking A fighters survived, they keep attacking, but are now totally ignored by the ships of B.

I sat and watched a ship get slowly ground down by a wing of fighters while totally ignoring them and a 2nd ship also sat there ignoring the destruction and kept ignoring them as the fighters attacked it next.

This 2nd ship didn't succumb because a group of Xsotan jumped in, which caused the 2nd ship to wake up, fly off to intercept the Xsotan while casually butchering the fighters attacking it.

 

[Blondersheel]

Part of the problem with Hangars is that they really do work "better" with one single gargantuan hangar than with lots of little ones.

What do you mean by this? You basically said it works if you hide your "giga-hangar" in the center of your ship. Does this cause some issues that you didn't mention that having the "giga-hangar" exposed would solve?

[Pob]

The only real "issue" it fixes is the looks.

 

Hangers seem to function with the same internal volume system used by cargo bays, the actual usable volume of a block is the volume of the block  minus an internal thickness value of the walls of the block.

 

if you look at these numbers

total volume 64m³, size 4x4x4, fighter numbers 3-21

total volume 32m³, size 2x4x4, fighter numbers 1-9

total volume 64m³, size 2x2x16, fighters 2-18

total volume 64m³, size 2x4x8, fighters 2-20

note, these numbers are the same no matter which axis is size2

so halving the size of of the hanger means less than half the fighters, conversely doubling the size of the hanger more than doubles the number of fighters and cubes are far more space efficient than non-cubes

 

So you might want a 20x20x20 hanger for fighter numbers but for looks only a 2x4x0.5 on the outside for looks

 

edit ok this is odd, there's some non-intergers going on here, #I just added multiple 2x4x8 hangers and got this

1st hanger 2-20 fighters

2nd hanger + 3-19 fighters

3rd hanger + 3-20 fighters

lkooks like there's some hidden rounding going on.

[Pob]

Another oddity but more of a bug.

 

if you delete a hanger after buying fighters they work as normal until you try to return them, then some will land and others will just hang about waiting for space to land.

You can also launch fighters then buy more while they are out of the hanger.

[Splutty]

You can put hanger blocks anywhere in any orientation, they'll add to your total fighter volume.

 

Then put 2x2 hangar blocks on the outside of your ship with the opening facing out. This will enable fighters to launch and land. Keep in mind the wonky fact is that every hangar opening can only process one fighter at a time. So your want lots of little ones.

 

The most likely reason you couldn't buy another fighter was because you didn't have a pilot, not because you ran out of space. For some reason that error gets suppressed and I'm not sure when. I have seen the error, but most of the time I'm not getting any error and it'll just fail to buy anything. Other times I can buy fighters just fine without having pilots. It's odd.

 

Also if you *do* have the pilots, and buy the fighters that don't fit, they'll just be circling around you.

 

The whole setup can be fun, but is mostly just annoying and utterly not worth it.

 

I have one ship in my main system where all my factories and my AI defenders are with salvage fighters and repair fighters, but I don't use them in my normal exploration at all, and never the actual combat fighters. They just die.

[Pob]

nope I had pilots, 40 to be exact and the error message was "you don't have enough space in your hanger"

 

I think I might know what's going on, hidden rounding or hidden decimals.

 

I got rid of all the fighters, fly around till I found a higher material/rank station to look for bigger/different fighters.

in the Trinium area, these are the fighters it would let me buy before giving me the  "you don't have enough space in your hanger" message

10 size 3 fighters = 30 total

4 size 6 fighters = 24 total

4 size 6 fighters +2 size 1 fighters = 26 total)

12 size 2 fighters = 24 total

21 size 1 fighters = 21 total

 

none of these equal 27, so what I think is happening is that the fighter size is being rounded up or down, to the nearest whole number on the information display, but it is using the true decimals values in the actual number of fighters you can hold.

 

edit: ie if the size 3 are actually size 2.7 x10 = 27

or the size 2 are actually 2.2 x12 = 26.4

 

Although I've still got no idea what the first number from hangers is as it's not limiting the maximum size of a fighter you can use.

even if it was rounding down on the hanger number and up on the fighters number there is no way I should be able to fit a size 6 fighter in a size 3-27 hanger.

 

hanger =3.99 rounded down and the fighters where 5.01 rounder up still no good.

and from the testing so far it look like fighters are rounded up or down to the nearest whole number for the info only, not the calculations, so a size 6 fighter is actually 5.50 to 6.49 (to two decimals, it might be more)