In combat, fighters are going to be a bit more versatile than they are in base Sins, while also being a lot more vulnerable. Essentially, every ship in the mod will have some way to deal with fighters and bombers, but fighters and bombers will also be capable of making much more of an impact on their own. Although they're especially vulnerable to the CR90, Lancer and Asdroni, these ships don't spell extinction for them in the same way the Garda Flak Frigate did for fighters in Sins. We're still working on exact combat balancing however, so right now the more interesting (we feel) and better fleshed-out aspect of fighters is the supply system.
It's important for us to be able to represent in some way the canonical roles and abilities for ships, including fighter complement, without negatively impacting game performance Each ship, instead of having antimatter, now has a value representing the total number of fighters which they could hold, canonically. They are also gated by a second number determining how many squadrons a ship can sustain on the field at one time. Dedicated carriers will be able to sustain more fighters on the field at once. So, for example, the Imperial I can canonically hold in the neighbourhood of 72 fighters. It can maintain 2 of those squadrons on the field at any time. Every time it launches a squadron, 12 of its fighters are subtracted from the total.
The ISDI's unit card, displaying the squadron system.
For performance purposes, however, we're likely to combine the stats of a few fighters in each squadron into one fighter, so we will likely have a squadron of four representing all 12, for example. There are also some very powerful fighters which will be gated by taking up more of your fighter supply than others, for example the Imperial TIE Defender and New Republic K-Wing. The other important part of this system is that the fighter values, once used, do not passively regenerate. You will not be able to hang carriers back, and infinitely spam fighters. This means you have to use your available squadrons more carefully, plan your campaigns more thoroughly. It also makes ships with larger hangars more important strategically because they can be deployed for longer missions away from your own bases, even if tactically they tactically aren't at a huge advantage. The Remnant will also have a researchable tech which can increase their hangar sizes, allowing them to have extra squadrons available.
...Supply Lines...
You're probably asking, "if my ships don't replenish their own fighters, how do I get them back?" This is part of a larger system which will be explained in its own update. However, the basic principles of this system as it applies to fighters are that you need to rely on resupply/repair stations at your own planets, so you'll often need to rotate fleets between battles after you've established yourself on a new world, and we have dedicated fleet tenders which can (more slowly than the stations) replenish your number of available fighters. These are the Altor for the Remnant, the Hajen for the New Republic, and the Alaria for the Empire of the Hand.
...Mod Progress...
Typically we don't give anything even vaguely resembling a release date or timeline, because there's every chance that whatever we say will be completely wrong. However, it's looking increasingly likely that we'll be able to get something out by the end of the summer. At the very least we should be able to have the first alphas started on the Remnant within a few weeks. I'll say right now that if we feel like the mod needs more time, we won't hesitate to delay it, but I'll be dedicating as much of my free time as possible to it. We're still taking applications for beta and alpha testers, so use the link below to get to the thread for that. We've also started working more on the wiki, which we'll be using instead of a manual. If you see something that's not on it, feel free to fill it in; that's what it's for. Also, we're still taking any ideas, suggestions or feedback for the mod. Especially tech and ability-related, so if you have anything you want to see, we encourage you to post it on the forums or ModDB, or even the Facebook or Steam groups. We check all of them regularly.
Finally, there's something we've been planning off and on for years and leaving some small hints/references for in news posts since the announcement. Recently we've gotten a bit less subtle. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out.
...Further Information...
FAQ Thread - Progress Thread - Tester Signup - Mod Wiki
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That sounds super interesting and innovative. I'd argue that the need to regain fighters (and so rotate fleets) wouldn't really matter all that much but if they really are more important, like you, said then I am really liking the change.
Fighters tend to be pretty useful, the problem in base Sins which this solves is that you essentially get an unlimited supply until the carrier is killed. That creates a lot of hidden power and make carriers overly valuable. Now, you now exactly what you're going to get out of a ship before the battle starts and makes you (whether you're playing with or against them) able to plan out your actions more carefully. Doing this means fighters will be limited in any given fight, and therefore also gives us room to play with power. It'll definitely need some tuning within the fleet tender abilities to make sure it works as intended, but it gives us a lot of room to work within.
So what limits ability use now? Cd gated only? I thought maybe useshields to represent energy reserves now?
It'll be determined more on an ability-by-ability basis. Some will be cooldown only where it seems appropriate. Some will have tradeoffs to their use which limit when they'd be used, for example the ramming ability which destroys the ship. Some may cost resources.
Sounds awesome.
Yeah, very creative. Good work.
Will fighters move more slowly than in regular Sins? Those zip around so fast that you rarely ever see them, and that would be a real shame considering all the effort you guys put into the fighter models.
looks really nice man