We've played probably 50 games of TI over the last 4 years or so, and it is really starting to look like Advanced Fighters are almost worthless. You get them too late in the game for the technology to really be valuable, most of the time. The +1 damage is nice, but it doesn't make up for all of the prerequisites. By the time you get it, most people already have largish fleets floating around defending and causing havoc. It seems like by that time, building up enough fighters to really take advantage of the technology simply takes too long. There are very few times where you can build a full squadron of 6 fighters on one planet anyway due to unit production restrictions, and by the point in the game you've got the advanced fighters tech, other people have warsuns and dreadnaughts everywhere.

We've thought about two solutions for this. One would be to make it so that advanced fighters are only counted as 1/2 of a unit each for the unit production allowance, as well as the other benefits. This would make it so that you really can have a lot of fighters everywhere, quickly. Since they count toward fleet supply without a carrier or a warsun, you would almost never have a sudden flotilla of 20 fighters right out of nowhere, but you could make lots of fighters to fill in the gaps in defenses and guard blank squares to limit enemy movements. That seems like that's what Advanced Fighters are for, anyway.

The other option would be to make it so that instead of the other benefits, the Advanced Fighters technology card allows them to have a bonus attack round without retaliation, much like PDS fire or destroyer's AFB. The order would go PDS - destroyer AFB - Fighters - normal combat. That, to me, sounds a bit like a game breaker, though. It's still an interesting idea.

So any thoughts? Anyone else had a problem with that technology, or am I wrong about it being weak? Any other house rules out there?

I don't think I've ever seen anyone in a game I've played dig deep enough in the tech tree to even be considering this upgrade. I suppose that says something about how useful we find it.

Strange... you guys just never buy technology?

I think most of the advanced technologies exist primarily for Jol-Nar, or for Long War games. I kind of like your idea to boost the tech with the lowered prod cap, and as it comes into play so late in the game I don't see it braking anything. On the other hand, there are other technologies that could use a do-over. Daxcive Animators, anyone?

gruevy said:

We do, but usually not that deep into the tech tree (except Jol Nar, of course.) Most of the time we only really try for tech if there's an objective related to it. There are certainly some mainstays that people go for. DSC is popular for those races who don't start with it, Nano tech is not uncommon. The Blue tree in particular doesn't seem that popular, actually.

Maybe it's just the way we play, but we've found that anyone other than Jol Nar pressing for lots of tech is ultimately just throwing money away on stuff that - while it's all nice and shiny and everything - it isn't going to win you the game. Jol Nar can get lots of tech cheap enough to make the effort worthwhile, everyone else generally has better places to spend their money.

As some of the others mentioned, I think the thing with most of the deep-level techs is they are there more "if you are there already", rather than goals in and of themselves. The Jol-Nar have the best shot at them, obviously, but you should focus on the usually more useful mid-level techs, and only get the deep-level techs if you really need it for the game situation.

The only "high-end" techs I ever see as goals in themselves are lightwave deflector and x89 bacterial weapon.

gruevy said:

I do not believe this is correct. Page 21 of the rules states several times that fighters do not count towards fleet supply. The text of the technology card does not change this so unless there is some special errata rule somewhere I'm still treating advanced fighters as not counting towards fleet. You are still limited in the number you can produce per the standard rules. Where do you see that they count towards fleet?

I could not find my Advanced Fighters tech card from the base set, but the tech card from the expansion lists the fleet supply rule on it.

This tech was one of about 3 that were revised from base to expansion.

InvestFDC said:

He is correct, although the rule may have been vague or even errata'd prior to the expansion. With advanced fighters, any fighters that exceed capacity in a given system count toward fleet supply limits.

FAQ, pg 1:

" Technology Card: Advanced Fighters
The following text should be added to this card:
“Any fighters in excess of a system’s fighter capacity will
count towards your Fleet Supply limit.”

Example 1: If you have the Advanced Fighter technology, and
you have a system with a single Carrier and seven Fighters,
that System requires a Fleet supply of 2 or higher (the Carrier
supports the normal 6 Fighters, but the extra Fighter counts
towards the Supply Limit).

Example 2: If you have the Advanced Fighter technology, and
you have a lone system with 4 Fighter units (i.e., a system with
no Fighter capacity) that system requires a Fleet Supply of 4 or
higher (since every Fighter now counts as one ship)."

Also, fighters are one of the two units whose numbers are NOT limited to the plastic bits (the other being GFs.) This is why the game comes with umpteen little fighter tokens, intended to be used to bolster your numbers beyond the 12 (I think) plastic fighters that you get for each colour. They are one of the few exceptions where the supplies provided in the box are not limiting. If FT are not counted against Fleet when they exceed capacity for a system, you can literally swarm the board with a theoretically infinite number of fighters.

FAQ, pg 7:

" Q: Can I have limitless Ground Forces and Fighter units, or
once we run out of cardboard tokens am I stuck with what I
have? Can I use pennies, post-it notes, and dust bunnies to
bulk out my forces if I can pay for them in-game?
A: You can use replacement counters if you run out of the
Ground Force and Fighter supplement tokens provided with the
game."

Considering the errata in the FAQ, then I would have to agree with you, they are not quite worth the investment.

However, I have played through a few games with friends without any updates past the printed rules in the 3rd edition, and therefore without the advanced fighters applying toward your fleet supply... in which scenario they seemed quite powerful and worth-while. Having constant waves of 10 - 12 fighters pouring out from each space-dock every turn was well enough to over-run the other player's advancements. Clearly, some of the races have an easier starting point for tech needed, so it wasn't a constant strategy in our group.... but when the stars aligned and someone was able to justify going for that upgrade, it was game over.

Even in the most ideal of situations a space dock can typically only produce 6-7 units per primary production or activation. Each fighter counts as 1 unit so you can only make 6-7 of them.

Please note this section of the TI3 rules:

A Space Dock may only build a number of units (regardless of type) equal to the resource value of its planet plus two. This means that a Space Dock located
on a planet with a resource value of 3 may produce up to 5 different units (3 for the resource value of the planet, plus 2 for the Space Dock itself). This restriction is for the number of units, regardless of their total resource cost. Thus the above planet with a production limit of 5 may produce 5 Dreadnoughts or 5 Fighters (or any combination of those, and other, units).

Anyways I think that tech is really great for the Naalu because of maxing out your fighters is one of the only offensive/defensive weapons they have. I've seen maxed fighters(advanced fighters +1, cybernetics +1, racial +1) decimate a War Sun'd out fleet. The two ways to get a crazy amount of dice rolls are fighters and anti-fighter barrage. Those have been the only two scenarios where I've been able to roll 16 dice hitting on 6+. Naturally the Naalu racial tech would normally elminate one of those very damaging destroyers thru the lose 1 fleet supply. Also to get to that tech you need type IV which means you get the super mobile fleet and helps get the dreadnought to the dance. Advanced fighters along with the Naalu racial means they are a military threat on par with any race.

Outside of the Naalu, Yassril, and possibly Sol I don't see that its very useful for the rest of the races. You really need to start with some blue tech to make it a viable option.

Oh and the game I'm pulling this info from I won with the Naalu. I had no war suns(speaking of things that can distract you from getting points) and still won each engagement with my ton of legally produced advanced fighters w/6+ combat value!

Shadowplay said:

Unless you have multiple space docks in a system, in which case you could spam quite a few Fighters. If Advanced Fighters did not count against fleet supply, that would give you a MASSIVE fleet of fighters. Depending on the system, you could produce 11 fighters PER BUILD, for only 6 resources!

sigmazero13 said:

Yeah, but, still, you have to get the perfect double plant system close enough to occupy and defend, get the space docks and get the tech. When does the Imperium Rex card show up? Suppose you are the Universities of Jol-Nar, get the tech fast you still have a -1 penalty. Sure, Naalu have the bonus but you still have to get the tech, get the production capacity, get the units and then amass the units and THEN herd them somewhere.

I just had an experience where I got my second war sun right before the game ended. Never left the gate, the first war sun came the turn before. I was trying for a military victory of sorts with the Mentak but time ran out. Similar to war suns, Advanced Fighters only seem overpowered to me if I don't think about what goes into building and flying 20 of them to a target 6 hexes away. And that doesn't include the landing forces!!!

InvestFDC said:

Fighter swarms in general are probably the most cost-effective thing you can buy anyway - 1 resource gives you two free "hits" that you can absorb. The expansion mitigates this somewhat with some of the anti-fighter stuff, but even still, if Advanced Fighters didn't require you to abide by any fleet limits, Fighters would be king - there would be nothing stopping you from amassing this 20-fighter swarm every game round. Heck, there would be almost no reason to buy any other ship (except maybe carriers for ground forces). 10 Fighters is going to do more damage than 1 Dreadnought, and will last a lot longer to boot!

The errata to force you to limit your fighters to capacity or fleet supply keeps them in check. War Suns aren't "overpowered" because they are so dang expensive to produce, and you have to spend even more to provide protection for them (a lone War Sun is easy to destroy). For the same cost as 1 war sun you could buy 24 fighters - and 24 fighters would by far out-perform a single war sun in terms of damage and longevity. And it's really not that difficult to produce 24 fighters if you wanted to. The trick in the game isn't building them in most cases, but rather SUPPORTING them, and that's what keeps them from being overpowered.

Winnu can get to Advanced fighters pretty darn quick. They only need XRD and Neural(both of which they should almost always get).

Then it is just Type IV drives, which is another useful tech when playing with 2-die DNs.

Bill

Upon further analysis, there are nine technologies in the Advanced Fighters technology tree with eight of these being in the critical path, meaning that you must have eight of the nine. These include the Advanced Fighter technology card. I've looked at the starting technologies for the races that are currently available, those in the main box. The Shattered Empire expansion isn't currently available or I would have it and include those races. Here is a simple chart for the starting technologies that are in the Advanced Fighter tree:

3 Advanced Fighter Technologies - Universities of Jol Nar

2 Advanced Fighter Technologies - Yssaril, Xxcha, Hacan, L1Z1X, Naalu

1 Advanced Fighter Technologies - Letnev, Mentak, Sol

0 Advanced Fighter Technologies - Sardakk N'Orr

In a six player game assuming each player takes the Initiative and Imperial strategy cards as they normally would, It would take the Naalu eight turns of choosing the Technology card every time (except for those instances in which they can take the Initiative and Imperial strategy cards) to get the six technologies for Advanced Fighters.

I am assuming the standard rules are used to create the objective deck, so there are six stage one public objective cards and four from the stage two deck. There typically will be 7-10 turns of play due to the Imperium Rex card.

Sure there are some cards and Distant Suns tokens that could garner you some of the required technologies for Advanced Fighters but relying on these are hardly the basis of an Advanced Fighter strategy.

The Jol Nar are the only ones who seem to me to be able to get Advanced Fighters on purpose and with enough time left in the game to make them useful in a strategy. The Sardakk appear to have no chance at all. This doesn't make Advanced Fighters the game breaker that some seem to believe, unless they have altered the game mechanics somehow.

Finally, equating the logistical needs of a single fighter unit to that of a dreadnaught seems wrong. We haven't used the errata rule making unsupported advanced fighters count towards fleet and we have been ok. This technology is hard enough to get as it is, let alone making them count towards fleet. My 2 cents.