[Mobius]

I noticed how the use of the fighterbay subsystems is greatly underestimated by the community.

With a simple modification to the table entry of a ship, the fighterbay would become a destroyable subsystem like the others. Using this formula...

and

  <normal arrival cue of a wing launched from the fighterbay>

 not
  is-subsystem-destroyed-delay
  <warship that houses the fighterbay>
  <fighterbay>
  0

...it'd be possible to fully integrate a realistic usage of fighterbays in custom campaigns. Canon evidences that fighterbays can be disabled - the Aquitaine and the Colossus are two valid and well know examples.

What do you think?

[Snail]

It's a well known trick actually, I believe lots of early campaigns/mods used it, but it went out of fashion.

[Mobius]

No doubt it was used but it's not a well known trick or it would be used in modern releases.

[Dilmah G]

I thought destroying the fighterbay worked anyway? (Basing this off hear-say)

T'would be an awesome addition to modern campaigns.

[Snail]

I thought destroying the fighterbay worked anyway? (Basing this off hear-say)

T'would be an awesome addition to modern campaigns.

Honestly I think it's more of a gimmick now.

"Alpha 1, destroy subsystem X, destroy beam cannon Y, scan zapkiller Z"

[Mobius]

I thought destroying the fighterbay worked anyway? (Basing this off hear-say)

You can inflict no damage to fighterbays because of the table entry.

$Subsystem: fighterbay, 0, 0.0

Adding a value other than 0 (4 would be reasonable, giving the dimensions of the Orion's fighterbay) would make the fighterbay subsystem a destroyable one. Used in conjunction with the FRED trick I posted above it's possible to represent the effective disruption of any ship's launch capabilities.

[Droid803]

I'm pretty sure that certain ship's fighterbays are killable.
Notably the Sathanas's, making it so that if you sit in its fighter bay and lob helios in High Noon, you may fail the directive of killing the Basilisks because the second wing never arrives.

[Mobius]

$Subsystem: fighterbay, 6, 0.0

True...

But does the code prevent any craft from taking off if the fighterbay is disabled or it's just a SEXP triggered effect?

Just checked - Cancer's wing arrival cue in High Noon is "has-time-elapsed 23". No reference to the destruction of the fighterbay, which leads me to believe that it's a coding matter. Interesting.

At this point, modifying the arrival cue isn't necessary: a disabled fighterbay will not launch any spacecraft.

[Dilmah G]

Soooo it does work?

[Bob-san]

If it gets used, you need to make sure it's not OVERused. Anyways--is it possible to make it destroyable with Helios or heavy beams?

[ssmit132]

$Subsystem: fighterbay, 0, 0.0

Adding a value other than 0 (4 would be reasonable, giving the dimensions of the Orion's fighterbay) would make the fighterbay subsystem a destroyable one. Used in conjunction with the FRED trick I posted above it's possible to represent the effective disruption of any ship's launch capabilities.

[Goober5000]

1) if the fighterbay subsystem has a hitpoint value greater than 0, it's destroyable
2) if it's destroyable, destroying it will prevent fighters from launching until it's repaired again

[Mobius]

If it gets used, you need to make sure it's not OVERused. Anyways--is it possible to make it destroyable with Helios or heavy beams?

It'd be destroyable, like any other subsystem. The effect will not be that realistic because of the absolute absence of a debris submodel(well, standard subsystems like "navigation" and "weapons" don't have one, unlike radar dishes, solar panels, and so on).