I have an affinity for fighter craft. It is an affinity that doubtless comes in part from a certain popular sci-fi movie franchise, in which daring rebels use swarms of tiny ships to bring down colossal enemy space stations. Multiple times, in fact—and for some reason, it always works.

The fighters in Space Empires cannot do that. Or at least, it is not likely that they will. This is (to my civilian mind) far more realistic than the film franchise I mentioned. In Space Empires, if you bring several squadrons of fighters against a Dreadnought, it is likely just going to smash through them and move on. You can throw so many fighters at it that you tilt the odds in your favor, but it is simply easier to build a few battleships instead to take it down, or even build your own dreadnaught. And since you will almost certainly be buying bigger ships eventually anyway, I tend to question the long-term strategy benefits of investing in fighters. Short term, they offer a possible quick leg up—for example, you can buy fighter technology and a carrier fully loaded with level 1 fighters for 52 CPs, while the technology and ship cost to build one battlecruiser is 60 (leaving out shipyard considerations). But as soon as your opponent equips his scouts with point defense or buys bigger ships, your fighters become basically cannon fodder.

All of this is to say that fighters may have their place, but they are not as glorious or far-reaching a place as I personally would like. Fortunately, the beautiful thing about Space Empires is its sandbox nature: if all players agree to have a game where the fighters are more of a force to be reckoned with, you can simply make a few rules changes and play that way. I haven’t figured out exactly what changes to make yet—I think I would try making Point Defense technology more expensive, probably by upping the cost to build scouts after Point Defense is purchased (perhaps by 4 CP, making a PD-equipped scout cost 10 CP). I’d also like to try making it harder for Class A ships to score a hit on fighters. Maybe due to the slower response times of these larger vessels, they are not able to lock their weapons on craft as small as fighters until the second round of combat.

Of course changes like this (or giving fighters a defensive value, or any other tweak you might want to try) will probably make everyone want to buy fighters—but then maybe there would also be some glorious space battles with hoards of fighters on both sides, maybe taking out a base or a dreadnought (or two) before they are eliminated or forced to retreat. It would certainly change the game dynamics, but I don’t think it would break it. To quote from the Scenario book, “this game is meant to be customized.”

The point? Don’t be afraid to make some tweaks and try them out! The rules are excellent the way they are, but changing things up is part of the fun of this game. You might never play with those rule tweaks again, or you might fall in love with your own particular way of playing the game. Long live those brave little fighters!

Author: David Waldorf