Space Engineers: Warship Guide - 'Fighters'

Hello everyone! In today's episode of Warship Guides we will be taking a look at the fearsome Battlecruiser class of ships. These large warships bring terror to any vessel in the system, with speed and devastating armour.
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Discord: / discord
SHIPS USED:
Trident class Frigate: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Corvette 'Wardog': steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Steadfast class Frigate: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Emerald class Fighter: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
[TFK] Strahl MK IV Interceptor: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
WEC SF-C1 "Omura" Light Corvette: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
[LKF] Alto Mk.V: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
[REC] Wraith class fighter: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
tags:
space, engineers, asteroid armory, scenario, world, new, blueprint, blue ship, big ship, warship, battleship, corvette, fight, fleet, gunship, large ship, small ship, fighter, artillery, cannon, update, red ship, frigate, base, asteroid base, fortress, bunker, fight, defend, attack, pvp, railgun, rail gun, rotor turret, lunar, kolony, lunark, lunarkolony, lunarko, review, walkthrough, planets, planet, warfare, warfare 2, dlc, guide, warship corvette, corvette, tutorial, frigates, destroyer, cruiser, cruisers, battlescruiser, gunships, gunboats

[@ALUCARD-us3il]

I build big fighters, for one I just like detailing and 2, the bigger ones tend to take more hits, my latest carrier can carry 6 of them, but I can totally see why you would want smaller, more expendable fighters in your fleet, however I will note that imo putting heavy armor on a fighter is worthless as it weighs it down thus effecting it’s speed and maneuverability, and even then small grid heavy armor doesn’t provide that much more protection. If your using mods just use shields, if you want vanilla I suggest sticking with light armor

[@commanderfreakkz5688]

But I build my interceptor with heavy armour

[@ALUCARD-us3il]

@@commanderfreakkz5688 if you ask me speed is more important on an interceptor, but you do you

[@GusCraft460]

I use heavy armor in key places, but only on my heaviest fighters.

[@GusCraft460]

I usually go for more survivable fighters as well, seeing as how it can be hard to put a large enough crew together to scramble more than a handful of fighters at once in space engineers. I generally use drones if I want something more disposable. You can make drones almost entirely out of iron, nickel, and silicon, with just a tiny bit of cobalt. I don’t even bother to charge them because I’m not really explicating them to come back. They are honestly more like guided missiles with weapons than fighters.

[@TheMhalpern]

honestly if you're going for a small light expendable fighter, you're best bet is usually drones, especially for atmo fighters, (because atmo thrust is REALLY efficient, cheap and effective- where it works) just have a bunch preconfigured for a single control seat if not using scripts, that way you can jump into the next quickly once one is destroyed. Its a different role though, light interceptor/ harassment/ piloted munition really. in a fleet with larger fighters and bombers, you can use them for target proliferation or even Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses as part of a small fast, expendable first wave because you dont really care if you lose the drones (you expect to lose them) because its a LOT cheaper to expend a squadron of them to weaken point defense than it is to lose a larger fighter because you didn't (usually small drones are easily printed).

[@leon.brocki]

I took this video to heart while designing my first vanilla fighter (I used to play hundreds of hours modded from the beginning) Worked on it for a week, working with feedback from SE Discord and ended up with a solid, cheap, small fighter that shall form the baseline of my fleet. Next up is a corvette This series of guides really give you a good guideline of what to have in a fleet

[@JuniperFinch538]

About a year ago i decided to design a fighterbomber specifically designed to cripple capital ships, The design revolved around a particular manoeuvre that misleads all of a large grids anti-fighter weapons at a reasonable distance. The keystone was an overpowered forward and upwards thruster assembly and a dorsal mounted turret (Assault cannon or missile depending on mission profile). The dorsal weapon takes out the turrets on the target while the fighter dances around streams of incoming fire. This strategy allows a single fighter to effectively neutralise the weapons on anything larger than a gunboat while remaining untouched by its counter attack. I then made a small flight deck warship designed to resupply and repair two of these fighters while providing artillery support. Overall i've had a lot of success with this strategy. Fighters are incredible

[@JuniperFinch538]

The fighters in question will comfortably fit in a 3x3 or 3x4 large grid landing area

[@cornboy2135]

@@JuniperFinch538 Do you have a workshop link? Quite curious now

[@tauIrrydah]

Dipping in and out of the turret engagement range can increase survivability, but it's hard to survive against large grid weaponry.

[@jacobwarkentin2156]

First time I’ve actually caught a notification! I always underestimate fighters in my own fleet as I tend to lose most of them in every battle, but never again will I underestimate the enemy having them. I have had dreadnaughts escorted by full fleets ripped apart because of a lack of PD and a few enemy fighters, I won’t be forgetting PD in any of my future designs.

[@LunarKolony]

point defense is very important, a skilled pilot in a good fighter can be very dangerous!

[@brunothebat4122]

@@LunarKolony Thanks for the tips. I know to have strike crafts and I can surprise my opponent if they don't have any.

[@DariusT32]

I have never been very happy with bigger ships, but I have built a lot of fighters, interceptors, and bombers

[@frumpkin9282]

Been hyped for this one! I tend to treat my fighters like 'space tanks', putting a huge amount of armour on the front and nowhere else. Due to their ability to strafe, they can always keep this facing the enemy.

[@slomow-1540]

I watched all your warship guides , and all of those really make sence, despite beeing an opinion , these guides were very well made at classifiying warships

[@TheIronbuster]

I build once a fighter i am proud of. He has a stormcannon in the nose, to Deal with heavy targets, autocannons and gattlings fir lighg targets. I called it the "Panzerquacker" and painted him like a Duck xD

[@yakiyaki5043]

Based and fighter-pilled, but a point regarding gatling vs autocannon; both have the same muzzle velocity, so are as easy to hit with as each other. Autocannons, however, have a much higher DPS (can destroy a SG light armour block in 1 hit, vs like 2/3 hits for gatling) so imo are better against fighters or large grids. I always mount autocannons, they're easy to switch out for each other tho which is awesome In the end, pilot skill is really the main factor for fighter effectiveness and yeah the best thing against a fighter is another fighter (or a custom railgun turret:)

[@LunarKolony]

More talking about the fact that gats will spit out alot more rounds, so more shots will connect if you get me, but yeah very useful info there! I still personally would go with gats + a rocket pod or two

[@yakiyaki5043]

The old school combo;) Gats are nice to use esp. with how little gunsmoke there is. Keen clearly hasn't heard of smokeless powder lmao, the autocannon gunsmoke is just stupid. When you hit with autocannons they hit like a truck though which is what I like, when you get in close they're especially brutal

[@yakiyaki5043]

I really wish they hadn't nerfed gats tho ;_;

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

Or a custom autocannon turret?

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

@@yakiyaki5043 they nerfed gatlings?

[@aurenian8247]

Micro fighters are my favourite. I keep them 4 blocks wide so they can be stacked into a carrier deck really tightly. Zip out, do some damage, die, respawn on the carrier and repeat. Currently my carrier has 20 of them, but really there could be a lot more than that as basically 1 large block=1 fighter. I keep them light armour, but put a handful of heavy armour blocks as a shield in front of the cockpit to keep them in the fight a little longer.

[@TheMhalpern]

at that point you might as well use drones, especially if there's a respawn timer

[@Grump3]

Really needed this guide, great work.

[@LunarKolony]

thank you!

[@RonnyRocks799]

Very nice, Im quite curious to see your definition of interceptors or bombers compared to a fighter :)

[@Geroskop]

Interceptor will almost exclusively use gats, bomer will use rails/rockets/PMWs. I like to call fighters Strike Craft as they multirole and use mixed weapon loadouts. Also, decoys on poles are small grid crafts best friends)))

[@mindlessmrawesome]

@@Geroskop well, they used to before warfare II updated how decoys work. Now decoys need to be placed near the blocks they're trying to imitate. This means that the most effective decoys will need to have a battery, a thruster, and a weapon of some sort near them in order to effectively draw fire. What I'm personally a fan of is adding wings with decoys in the tips and then putting the sacrificial blocks near them so that you can have effective decoys with a bit of armor, but also with their needed blocks to make them most effective, all without destroying anesthetics

[@scruffted]

great guide! can't wait to make some new fighters 😁

[@LunarKolony]

thanks! look forward to seeing them in the discord!

[@alpacaofthemountain8760]

With AI, fighters are now more important than ever. Great video!

[@v0id683]

Nice format for videos, this was pleasing to watch! Do bring more of these out

[@LunarKolony]

I have a whole playlist for these Vids, don't know if you've seen it yet!

[@v0id683]

@@LunarKolony Me discovering your channel is very recent, i’ve seen a couple of videos about fighting strategies and such but il def check out these types if videos

[@OmniArcher]

I wish someone would make a video showcasing where heavy armor would be applicable. IMO whether you use it as a superstructure to hold the ship together or as defective plating, it ends up being to heavy and you would need a substantial amount of thrusters(which you probably also want to armor) to compensate.

[@risenlegend9443]

use the armor replacer mod in creative make the whole ship light fight your friends look at what lived and what broke add decoys and add heavy armor on the things that are fully gone, anything thats left or on fire doesnt need it its survivor bias

[@reavvr643]

Glad to see the return of a great series, keep it up!

[@andrewfinlayson4416]

Love your content. Glad your back man. Missed ya bunch. 😊

[@LunarKolony]

Thanks Andrew!

[@alexhail9971]

Amazing video thanks for making it

[@LunarKolony]

no problem, glad you enjoyed!

[@SgtShultzTO]

I have made some expiremental fighters that also have two forward facing railguns to be used to pack a longer ranged punch against capitol ships

[@sdoo-ou2ni]

my opinion Fighters have various roles like in free space to Orin BattleTech that they perform and each fighter has to be designed for fill at the a very specific role for instance space Pharmacy space Supremacy are basically spiders that are deploy to kill other Fighters interceptors interceptors are something different with a space Supremacy you're killing other Fighters and only other Fighters interceptors are faster their craft is going to shoot down bombers gunship and even Small Castle yet they tend to prioritize weapons in speed over armour State Department

[@Hadfield15]

Thank you so much for this tutorial! I feel like this video has given me some valuable tips for fighter making. Now to see if I can actually design a good fighter.

[@LunarKolony]

good luck with that! why not join the LK discord and show it off in there when you're done? :)

[@Hadfield15]

@@LunarKolony I think I’ll just make a KZbin video showing off my first fleet that I’m making, thank you

[@LunarKolony]

@@Hadfield15 enjoy!

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

I have a question. Are autocannons a good and powerful AA weapon on ships and bases/stations? On fighters maybe a mix of Gatling guns and autocannons would be good?

[@LunarKolony]

I find it better to focus on one main weapon for fighters, otherwise you have 2 different ones so neither really excels but it can work in some situations. And autocannon custom turrets are arguably some of the best AA guns in the game!

[@ericevans9186]

@@LunarKolony I do autocannons 2-6 of them with a dedicated medium cargo container for ammo. Then I also do 1-3 assault cannons for large grid targets and or kill shots on disabled fighters. This to has a dedicated medium cargo container for ammo. But then I ad here to the design priciple of my favorite WW2 fighter. The P 38 Lighting.

[@Gxaps]

Mixing weapons with varying trajectories is very important. Otherwise you won’t even hope to hit a fighter.

[@friedec3622]

Rather than fighter, I prefer drones. They're cheaper, smaller, and you don't have to bring it back to repair it. Just kamikaze them onto enemy if you run out of rounds.

[@Geroskop]

5km radius is a bit of a bitch... and you give your position to enemy always.

[@friedec3622]

@@Geroskop Well, that's true. For multiplayer use the fighters then

[@karmatic2793]

No lone corvette would be capable of taking a fighter squadron alone and be able to live to tell the tale. Thus I like to employ the " buddy system " and have a minimum of 2 corvettes on scouting and even just flank missions.

[@StarWarsNerd1465]

Love these vids man!

[@LunarKolony]

Thank you!

[@ChilledRico]

I know it's been a while, but is there any desire to come back and make more of these? I can't tell you how much these videos have helped me improve as a builder, and I really love the content. Also, you could expand into other types of ships besides warships, such as exploration or freighters.

[@mrchonker1955]

You should make the how to build a fighter like the miner video

[@LunarKolony]

On the list!

[@reentrysfs6317]

Always good when he uploads these videos

[@LunarKolony]

Glad you like them!

[@deathstreak1156]

Wonder what your thoughts of what people like to call hulking behemoths Dreadnaughts would be like as with the new update i am very curious how you would plan out such a leviatain of a ship, what role, armourmants and all as there not considered the most practical by many from there sheer cost and time but feel like you could show how to make it work also when the drone update comes out will be extremly intersting to see your ideas of what roles they could fill.

[@madcat789]

I got two ideal fighters: Carrier based, and Installation based. Carriers are small, nimble, carry few weapons but make uo for sheer numbers and ease of protection. My lightest Carrier holds about sixteen. Then we've got Installation fighters, the kind thay launch from bases on ground. Theyre large, not very nimble, but hold large weapons. Sometimes even mounting one Capital-Grade weapon for a surprise. My heaviest Carriers got at least one. Ah, to play with someone.

[@mrJMD]

I wonder with the new AI blocks coming out, you could set your carrier to be flown by an AI block while you pilot the fighters. Or have your carrier flown by an AI block, and your fighters flown by an AI block, and your torpedoes guided by AI blocks, and you just sit there sipping coffee and waiting to see if your AI blocks defeat your opponents AI blocks. Damn, that makes me wonder about just having competitions like "Robot Wars" where your AI fleets go to war and all the humans just watch. Huh, that might be pretty cool.

[@little_lord_tam]

Realisticly drone carriers are the best. Remote controlled fighters where better anyways, but drones are even smaller and can come in numbers because they dont need a dedicated operator. A Carrier with Suizide drones, fighter drones and artillery/destroyer drones can sit compfortably kilometers away while his drones kill everything. A good Space-Pilot never hears gunshots.

[@admiralmallard7500]

Intresting points. We've had trouble implementing fighters and carriers into our series so far, though generally I think no ones taken the leap to use them yet. Is alot of it a numbers game to make the effective?

[@LunarKolony]

To be honest, numbers help, but surprisingly the main thing is the pilots, if u have someone who's has good knowledge of enemy vessels and their blidnspots etc, a fighter can cause a hell of alot of damage

[@admiralmallard7500]

@@LunarKolony Yes I think once a carrier or 2 deployed in the series well see good fighter pilots show up.

[@TheMhalpern]

dont be afraid to incorporate expendable drones to get a look at the enemy vessels and soften PD

[@Geroskop]

Use bombers with railguns - fire slavo and RTB.

[@stark599]

a cool video to make would be a warship guide on dreadnoughts. something big that is typically a one of a kind ship specifically made for taking out capital ships and must be protected by other ships. just a suggestion

[@PraetorPaktu]

Nice.

[@redleicestercheesemobile]

Fighters even effective powerful ones still get shredded by Gatling's and custom turrets with Gatling's which makes them a really easy kill if you have Gatling turrets they're more for style than anything else really

[@LunarKolony]

Since the armour buff in warfare 2, and in the middle of a fighter where enemy weapons are focusing on large ships, fighters are actually very good

[@Whydafuqineedayoutubenickname]

The fact small grid and large grid weapons have the same damage gives fighters a... Let's call it damage per size

[@darthtempest4722]

Hope they fix that sounds unfair to me

[@PraetorPaktu]

@@darthtempest4722it’s not.

[@darthtempest4722]

@@PraetorPaktu well maybe in the future or in a mod

[@PraetorPaktu]

@@darthtempest4722 have you played Space Engineers?

[@darthtempest4722]

@@PraetorPaktu yes a lot on my Xbox what is your point?

[@sorrowandsufferin924]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but bigger fighters are basically medium gunboats bordering on small gunships, aren't they? At least, that's how I understand it. If it's small, it's a fighter. Make it bigger, you quickly have a gunboat. Bigger still, and it's a gunship (although any troop carrying capacity of any kind would probably make it a gunship, anyway).

[@chrisbacon3071]

I’m nearly done with my fighter but Luna it might trigger you… 😅 Don’t worry I am on the discord!

[@LunarKolony]

why would it trigger me? o.o

[@chrisbacon3071]

@@LunarKolony let’s just say thrusters in doors shall we?

[@jeantnt7955]

Suggestion: Patrol Boats (I don't know if they qualify as corvettes or gunboats but you get the idea)

[@yimingwang8037]

although my ship definition are drastically different（with frigate，destroyer eta are representation of tonnage and size not role）the prefix of the ship is（eg artillery frigate，command cruiser，LR support BattleCrusier）but I still enjoys your video

[@coment0_138]

0:35 where can i get that fighter?

[@xesclipse14]

How does everyone fair with the Pcu ?

[@justnormal2521]

I wanna absolutely COAT a ship in gatling guns, my current idea is a large cargo container, junctions on 4 sides, put 4 guns on each one. That's 16 guns all firing at once, that's 11,200 rounds per minute or 186 shots per second. I'm literally gonna be the heavy from tf2

[@imofage3947]

Question: Are Loyal Wingman Drones possible in SE? There's no freakin way that I'm the only one to come up with this question.

[@DrPotato0]

Wht be accurate when you can use custom turrets smaller than the standard turret

[@CMTechnica]

Ah yes, the one class of ship made irrelevant by turret mods, experienced turret gunners, or the update to interior turrets

[@LunarKolony]

the update made interior turrets far worse.

[@CrystallineFoxCF]

Just, based on how long it's been, I'll assume we won't be getting our battleship video, which is kinda sad

[@MarqueOfWarNavalCampaign]

Bombers next?

[@isaaclussier8786]

I wish there was a way to make use of fighters as a solo player

[@hayden-hr8gq]

For my main fighter I use 6 Gatling guns and 2 rockets

[@jayjayflip5038]

I almost never deploy fighters, even as drones with a group. Generally speaking a person is the most valuable component to any ship and should only be deployed to frigate and above class ships or turrets, fighters and bombers simply don't have the firepower to combat large grid ships, better to kit some frigates as brawlers with a forward facing minigun and auto cannon turret array with variable range and use formations to decimate all fighters that come anywhere near a larger destroyer group. One properly kitted large grid ship can make any small grid ship an afterthought, even in atmosphere. If anything the best tactics I've seen for small grid have been in boarding vehicles with heavy forward armor to be used to ram opponents and deploy engineers with welders.

[@Geroskop]

But think economically here - for cost of one LG thruster you have fighter that even if it lasts 20sec will considerablybdrain enemy ammo. Also, if fighters could 1v1 large grids that would be ridicilous and they would be the only meta. To sucsessfully attack large grid you need at least 3 fighters - that the main issue, lack of players.

[@jayjayflip5038]

@@Geroskop sure but you could just as easy by that logic print out a user controlled missile or kinetic missile with stone inside to do more average damage and use the same enemy ammo if you're arguing economic value. A user controlled turret would probably be just as effective, or more if it's a rotor turret, at targeted damage. A fighter is ultimately just a mobile turret you have to kit for mobility and train to use, and you can make rotor turrets use ai rather easily but not so much with a fighter. A Corvette with two rotor turrets doubles the damage and almost 2.5 times the survivability of a fighter by being a large grid, one Corvette with 2 rotor turrets can wipe 4 fighters. The real issue here is simply the effective speed of a fighter even with a speed mod is too low, you can't do passes and loop around like a real fighter. SE combat is like pirate ship ranged weapons going as fast as WWI bi-planes, a fleet of tug boats will never destroy a large vessel. Ideally you could zip in at 500ms salvo rockets and scoot but that damage will never surpass a base missile turret and the ai turrets are fast enough to nail you at 500ms even if you could go that fast.

[@Geroskop]

@@jayjayflip5038 i will disagryy with you, i have couple of fighter designs with decoys that give you almost immunity when you manuver at 500m-400m and double life expactancy at closer ranges. Ive done a lot of simulations with other PVP server dvellers and even big, pvp dedicated capships with turret spam can take many times more damage, resourse vise, from fighter. Youll not kill the ship but youll waste its ammo, shave off 1-2 turrets and 2-3 thrusters. PMWs are janky in multiplayer now so i dont even consider them. About drones - I died in fighter much more quickly with antenae turned on than when it was off... with railguns you can do salvos from safe distance, say 600-700m.

[@jayjayflip5038]

@@Geroskop I mean I'd argue if you have enough players to run fighters effectively you can make frigates and destroyers fast enough to make a fleet composition that can counter a faction that runs fighters, but it's a different team strategy that I *suppose* could be viable if you loose elements of said fleet or haven't progressed to that point. I retract the statement that fighters are fully useless. I suppose that's my Tarken Doctrine showing, lol.

[@theprogrammer32]

still looking for a link or a name for the ion plane shown at 0:35 pls 😭😭🙏🙏

[@LunarKolony]

Not on the workshop unfortunately!

[@beaconofwierd1883]

If you’re playing on a server with PCU limits, small ships makes no sense. They take up more PCU than a large ship and are waaaay more vounerable. A large ship built using just 15 blocks is more capable than a small ship made out of 1000 blocks.

[@LunarKolony]

👍

[@SaabJAS39GripenE]

I lile to have 2 rocket pods 4 artillery 6 gatling

[@ColinJordanVanDerMerwe-tr1kv]

Hi can you build a torpedo from Star Trek ?

[@downgoldfish202]

So when do ya reckon you'll be covering battleships?

[@commanderfreakkz5688]

Can you do dreadnought or battleship

[@LunarKolony]

I don't currently have any battleships in my fleets which makes it a bit tricky, but it's definitely on the list

[@commanderfreakkz5688]

@@LunarKolony ok

[@returnofthetwats190]

btw the description is wrong

[@LunarKolony]

Ah yes, my bad, thanks for the heads up

[@0Kasada]

Not even a mention of assault cannons? Sad. Also what's with the description saying Battlecruiser? XD

[@jonathandiaz4997]

11 months ago