Aircraft Summary

**THIS IS A DRAFT/WORK IN PROGRESS**

**Location:**  Infinite Lagrange Wiki -> Combat mechanics / Ship -> Fighter/Corvette

**See also:**

* Transporting Fighters and Corvettes
* Strategic Strike

**NOTE:**  The massive Patch of 2023-04-06 made changes to how aircraft work and how AA weapons work - air is still pre-eminent, but the balance is someone less lop-sided.

**TO DO:** Update with changes made in the most recent patches. Finish the Aircraft Battle Data table, may need to mention some aspects of Strategic Strike, add list of relevant patches in an updates section

## How Fighters Work

The fighter attack cycle consists of:

1. Target lock-on/move to attack position
2. Attack rounds
3. return-to-base (RTB)/cooldown

The time it takes a ship to move to attack position is the **lock-on** time of the main weapon, and the RTB time is the **cooldown** of the main weapon.

The important thing about RTB is that when it begins, any weapon locked on to the fighter immediately loses lock. During RTB, the fighter cannot be locked on or attacked. This is one of the aspects of fighters that make them hard to kill.

Target lock-on consists of two separate actions: selecting a target (if it does not have one) and moving into attack position (front row). The total time will be the same, even if only one or the other is needed. For example, if the fighter is targeting a capital ship, it will not lose lock, but will still have to move to attack position after each RTB. Another example, if the fighter is targeting another fighter, it will lose lock if that fighter does an RTB, it will then have take the lock-on time to acquire another target, even though it is already in the front row. It is possible for a fighter to acquire a fighter target and then lose lock when the target RTBs, acquire a second fighter target, lose lock when the second target RTBs, and repeat this cycle indefinitely.

For fighters that have secondary weapons, those weapons will not be able to fire during RTB, but will be able to lock on and fire once RTB is complete.

**Please note:** the Hayreddin's Loyal - Pulsar Fighter is the only fighter that **does not** RTB (but still has cooldown). This has the unwanted side effect that other fighters, once they lock onto it, will continue to attack it until it is destroyed.

### Fighter Size

Fighters come in three different sizes: Small, Medium, and Large. Hangars come in two sizes: Medium and Large.

The net result of this is that the three bombers (Vitas-B010, Bullfrog, and Stingray) can only be carried by ships with large fighter bays.

**See also:**  Transporting Fighters and Corvettes

### Squadron Size

Each "fighter" is not actually a single ship, but rather is a **squadron** of two to five ships.

This is an important factor for two reasons.

First, the number of weapons listed is **per ship**. Normally the **damage per minute** calculation for a weapon is: (damage per hit) \* (shots per minute per weapon) \* (number of weapon installations). With fighters, this would also be multiplied by the number of ships per squadron. The two images show the theoretical DPM of an enhanced and adjusted Mistral - Combat Attacker. The values in the blueprint view are four times the values in the system view because there are four ships per squadron.

Also, core damage (not system damage) is the total of all the ships in the squadron. When the unit has sustained an amount of damage equal to one ship's worth (total divided by squadron size) then one ship is considered destroyed - along with its weapons, reducing the total firepower of the squadron. In the example image, the total squadron hit points are 5000, or 1250 HP per ship. For each 1250 HP of damage, the squadron's theoretical anti-ship DPM will be reduced by 626, and anti-air DPM will be reduced by 1302.

### Fighter Type/Role

Part of the full name of each fighter includes the type or role of that fighter in combat.

* Attackers - anti-air
* Bombers - such as Vitas-B010 - Bomber, are pure anti-ship (in other words, capital and super-capital ships)
* Fighters - multi-role (anti-air, anti-ship)
* Interceptors - anti-air
* Scouts - jamming

## How Corvettes Work

Corvettes lock on to a target and then continue to attack that target until it is destroyed.

1. Target Lock on
2. Attack Cycle - repeat until target destroyed
	1. Attack Rounds
	2. Cooldown

**NOTE:** the S-Levy9- Heavy Torpedo Escort Corvette has a **return-to-base** after each attack. The main effect of this is that the RTB breaks the target lock of any ship that has acquired the S-Levy9 and it cannot be targeted or attacked during the RTB.

So, for example, **unenhanced**, the S-Levy9 has a 15 second lockon, a single 38 second attack round, and an 18 second cooldown. So its first attack will occur after the 15 second lockon - it fires all three torpedoes and damage is evaluated immediately, even though the attack round takes 38 seconds. After the attack round is the 18 second cooldown. Altogether, the S-Levy9 fires approximately 15 seconds into the battle and then every 56 seconds after that.

## Aircraft Enhancements

What makes aircraft enhancements complicated is that all carrier ships have enhancements that add to the enhancements of the aircraft themselves.

For example: the S-Levy9 has an engine enhancement that reduces the **duration** by 20%, from 38 seconds to 30.4 seconds. In addition, it has two weapon enhancements that reduce the RTB time by 30% from 18 seconds to 12.6 seconds. The 15 second lockon is unaffected. Enhancement, therefore, reduces the time for the attack cycle from 56 seconds to 43 seconds.

Now, if the S-Levy9 was loaded into the Corvette Dock (module B2) of the CV3000 - High-Speed Carrier, it has three additional enhancements. One increases the target lockon speed by 70%, taking that down to 4.5 seconds. Two others would decrease the RTB by an additional 40%, taking it from 12.6 seconds down to 5.4 seconds, making the total time for the attack cycle 35.8 seconds.

## Attacking Aircraft

One of the most common complaints in the game is that **ship based AA does not work**. This complaint, while it has some validity, is born mostly out of a lack of understanding of the mechanics of AA, which are not really all that simple. Ship based AA can't be "fixed" because it isn't really broken - it just suffers from unfavorable game mechanics. If players would like to see more parity in the game between ships and aircraft, they should make suggestions on specific changes that would make sense to the developers within the framework of the game as a whole.

### First Issue: Target Size

The class of the target ship is the main factor in determining the chance of any given weapon hitting a particular target. In general, larger ships are easier to hit than smaller ships. And, of course, fighters are the smallest ships, so they are the hardest to hit, with corvettes being a close second. The table below shows the size ranges of the different classes, and it is clear that those differences are significant.

Also, consider that larger ships are less maneuverable than smaller ships, contributing to the difference in hit rates.

But the bottom line is, this is one aspect of the game that is unlikely to ever change.

### Second Issue: AA as a Special Problem

There is a quote by Dan Groat: “Don't ever use a shovel to swat a fly.” And, undoubtedly, there are other similar sayings and variations. But the upshot is that some systems, while they **can** attack aircraft, just aren't very good for that purpose. This is reflected in two hidden parameters.

The first is the Anti-Aircraft Cooperative Efficiency, which is a value between 30% and 100% based on the number of weapons in the system, and that is multiplied by the base hit ratio for the class. For example: the Defensive Pulse Cannon System of the Mare Tranquillitatis - Pulse Cannon Frigate has an anti-aircraft cooperative efficiency of 80%. It also has a fighter class ratio of 30%, which makes the actual hit probability against fighters 24%. The class ratio for corvettes is 50%, making the actual hit probability 40%. The CG-130D of the Vitas A021 - Heavy Attacker, on the other hand, has an anti-aircraft cooperative efficiency of 100%, a fighter ratio of 75%, and a corvette ratio of 90%, so its actual hit rates against fighters and corvettes are 75% and 90% respectively.

The second is what Null Pointer calls the weapon ratio, which is a value between 3% and 500% that is multiplied by the weapon damage per hit (DPH) when attacking aircraft. The pulse cannon of the Mare Tranquillitatis has a DPH of 20 and a weapon ratio of 200%, making the actual DPH against aircraft 40. Not that it matters, since it is energy damage. The CG-130D on the Vitas A has a weapon ratio of 150% making the DPH against aircraft 22.5 (fractional damage is truncated).

### Third Issue: the futility of AA "Self"

**NOTE:** This is one of the areas that may be significantly affected by the 2022-11-30 patch, though it is not yet clear as to the extent.

Most ship based weapons that are AA capable are labelled with AA support of **self**. What this means is that, if the weapon is looking for a target, and it just so happens that the ship is currently being attacked by an aircraft, that it can chose that aircraft as a target. If the ship is not currently being attacked by an aircraft, then the weapon will select some non-aircraft target and will stay on that other target until that target is destroyed - AA weapons don't just change targets because the ship comes under attack.

This is probably one of the areas in which a change to the AA mechanics could be made that would actually make sense.

### Fourth Issue: Return-to-base (RTB)

During the time that an aircraft is performing an RTB (which varies from aircraft to aircraft) it cannot either target or be targeted. At the beginning of RTB, any ship that has targeted the aircraft will lose lock and must lock on to a new target.

Since most fighters are constantly performing RTB, it is difficult for ships (even other aircraft) to consistently target them, making them hard to kill.

This is one of the game mechanics affecting aircraft that I do not believe would ever make sense to "fix".

### Fifth Issue: Enhancement

Back to the pulse Mare Tranquillitatis, and it's actual hit rates against fighters and corvettes of 24% and 40%.

The pulse weapon system has two enhancements, each of which improve the hit rate by 15%, so together, that would take the base hit rates from 30%/50% to 60%/80%, correct?

No.

Hit rate enhancements are not **additive**, they are **multiplicative**. So 1.3 times 30% is 39%, times the 80% system rate gives an actual hit rate of 31.2%, and 1.3 times 50% is 65%, times the system rate gives an actual final hit rate of 52% - and that's not completely awful, but many ships have base hit rates against aircraft of 20% or less, and 1.3 times 20% is 26% - not really much of an improvement. The CG-1105B of the Predator - Anti-Aircraft Cruiser has a class ratio of 8% and a system ratio of 60%, giving an actual hit rate of 4.8%, for which a 30% improvement would give a final hit rate of 6.24% - nearly useless.

## Targeting Categories

Aircraft weapons fall into three categories, based on their preferred target.

1. Anti-ship: these weapons will attack enemy capital ships and super capital ships (CS/SCS), mostly ignoring other aircraft. Weapons in this category do not list theoretical AA DPM.
2. Offensive anti-air: these weapons will attack any enemy aircraft first, and CS/SCS only if there are no air targets available. Weapons in this category are marked with AA Support of "all".
3. Defensive anti-air: these weapons will attack enemy aircraft that are attacking the fleet or some part of it, and CS/SCS otherwise. Weapons in this category are marked with AA Support of "self", "row", or "support". As mentioned above, AA Support of self is nearly useless.

Weapons that are anti-air may have a preferred type of enemy air target. For example, the Spore A404 single weapon prefers to target fighters.