Carriers or individuals?

Currently, it's Rebellion-esque, but some of the ideas for an expansion pack involve modules that affect an entire fleet. Imagine a "carrier" who's modules are

1) Increased Logistics cap (optional, not really required for this idea)
2) Increased movement
3) Increased range

Now fleet it up with a bunch of tiny hulls that don't need engines or life support. You don't exactly have a carrier, but you've got something that feels like it.

That idea sounds remarkably similar to one I had involving support ships allowing extended range. Though, to be honest, I thought it would forever remain banished to the dark reaches of my imagination.

I do feel however, that these support ships should become a primary target for defending ships, at least under certain circumstances.

One example would be for the support ship to be the primary target if some or all of the attack vessels in the fleet are operating outside of their normal range. It would only make sense, in that situation, the support ship would be the most important ship to take out, even at the expense of your own ships, especially if you're defending your own territory. Once the support is gone, the attacking fleet would be forced to retreat back to their home space.

The AI automatically targets the most threatining but easily killed ships. If you loaded your support ship with no weapons, just defenses, it would be the last one killed.

maybe they can create a module that can be equipped on super-large hulls that will allow that ship to have a "range" that other ships can use (albiet a really short one or else it might be abused).

It does make sense that the carrier is the last ship to die. It could be justified as an effort by the fighters in the fleet to screen the carrier, so while the enemy may try to destroy the carrier, they can't because the fighters are in the way.

Leviathon, I know about the targetting priorities as they currently are in the game. I'm just saying that if you knew you could force the enemy to retreat by destroying a single ship, would you choose to waste time on the other ships first? What if you were at a disadvantage and you were fielding a last gasp defence against a superior force?

I'm not a programmer, so I wouldn't have the first idea on how difficult it may be to change the targetting code for this kind of situation.

Crows: You do have a point, fighters would try to defend the carrier at all costs. Remember though, that the attacker gets the initial move. This could be viewed perhaps as one side ambushing the other? Or perhaps something as simple as the attacking side using the initiative to get the first desperate strike in before the defenders rally.

On another point, I think it would be really cool if they included a very expensive (in terms of both cost and space), that gave any fleet with a suply ship outfitted with said module to always get the first shots off, even if they are the defending side in a battle.

....

Why do my posts always end up so long? This was supposed to be a quickie post.

If a starbase can be promoted into a terror star in an expansion, the drones could scale into real fighters dependant on the mothership.

I love how people think that anything they dont understand must be easy to do. That only makes sense right.