Expansion pack/addon idea

Carriers and fighters

A new ship class for the game, that of a carrier. (think aircraft carrier)

Being introduced as the most expensive ship class available to the player.

Whats being proposed is a new module that can be researched and subsequently put on a ships hull, that is if your ship has enough space. The module itself should be relatively large due to its offensive capabilities (ill get to that) and so that only large/huge hulls can mount them.

Once a hull has a hanger bay (or more than one) it can launche a number of fighters when its the ships turn to fire in combat(say 5 fighter at a time for each hanger module installed) these fighters/bombers/assault craft or whathaveyou will then cause damage to enemy ships.

The cool thing about the carrier is that because it doesnt do any damage directly it is a low priority target compared to any other friendly ships in a fleet engagement, thus it will be left untill last to be attacked. The fighters however have the capability to deal a great amount of damage (or greater amount of damage than anything else at your current tech level) than anythnig else. So it will be the very last ship destroyed in most cases in fleet battles, giving you a huge advantage. However to balance it out these new modules should cost a great deal, not just to build but to maintain every turn (talking 100bc's easily here) so at any given time you will have a maximum (if any) of a handfull of these ships.

It also opens the doorway for other options whilst assaulting planets if a carrier is present in an invasion fleet. For example having another invasion option, like "Airstrike/Orbital bombardment" etc providing new tactical oppitunities.

Aesthetically i can see it very satisfying watching wings of smaller ships scramble out of larger carries whilst in combat, doing bombing runs on other capital ships etc.


Of course gameplay wise you can go in another direction, i mainly want to see carrier class ships/smaller fighters become a reality in GC2. And the entire idea is in keeping with the evolution of naval warfare, even though the sea and the space are massively different they do offer similar strategic challenges which could shape the development of such vessels.
8,783 views 14 replies
Reply #1 Top
Oh wow, carriers.

Nobody has ever suggested THAT before

Tell, me, have you ever played Master of Orion by any chance? It seems to me that I now know more facts about how that game works than GCII itself, even though I've never played MOO.
Reply #2 Top
bad idea for gameplay.
we all like carriers, cause carriers are cool. but not in this game.

its like says well there in the future lets just make nuetron bombs, and but a lot of engines on them so they can go 20+ spaces a turn that would be cool. Well it would, but it would rune game play.
Reply #3 Top
I actually do want carriers in a certain form, but not as described in the first post...
Reply #4 Top
It seems to me that I now know more facts about how that game works than GCII itself, even though I've never played MOO.


U r so missing out! Find yourself a copy of Master of Orion 2. Its still utterly playable today, even through the graphics r dated.Its the daddy of all turn based sci-fi games. A true classic just like GC 2!

I am in favour of carriers but I said that in a similar thread a couple of days ago and there is no need for them to unbalance the game.
Reply #5 Top
I refuse to accept game purchasing advice from anyone who can't spell 'You' or 'Are'.
Reply #6 Top
The only carrier implementation I would support would be a great big module that only fits on large or huge ships that allows only tiny ships to share the big ship's engine speed and life support when they're grouped in a fleet. That would make carriers more appealing with high logistics scores for big fleets, but attrition of the fighters they support would hugely weaken the fleet. I think that could be easy (relatively) with only 1 module, 1 extra tech on the logistics tree, and coding support for sharing ship stats needed.

With that configuration, fleets where the extra guns and armor gained on the tinies in place of engines and life support outweigh the space lost on the capital ship to the carrier pod would benefit. Carriers would also work better on large maps than small ones where life support and engines aren't as vital.
Reply #7 Top
^ That's the form of carriers I was referring to
Reply #8 Top
i think the major caveat to carriers is that it is presumably very difficult to program the AI to use them effectively. at least within the confines of budget and time.

or else we would have had them in game, i'm sure. i haven't seen any text that mentions a dislike for carriers from the devs.

-0.
Reply #9 Top
Good point. How should a computer decide to select carriers? If I were programming my carrier proposal I would use
an equation comparing:

amount of extra damage gained by replacing engines, sensors, and life support on tiny fighters with weapons (preferably whichever class its opponent has weak armor in) multiplied by the number of tiny ships possible in a fleet with a carrier (logistics - 6 or 8)/2

minus

the highest damage value possible from weapons in the hull point space the carrier module takes up (maybe adjusted to use the class of weapon the AI believes you're weak in)

The more positive the number is, the more likely carriers are built. This could be adjusted by distance to nearest enemy or galactic size.
Reply #10 Top

Carriers would be cool The modules for them would also be interesting consider the fighter bays as a new tech level. Different levels have different defense/Attack abilities.

But I would really love to see is a ship that could create a space minefield or some sort of robotic ship that when an enemy comes within range it zips off to engage the enemy and once they are within range they detonate again this would be tech level based damage. You wouldn't need to put shield on this thing you would simply upgrade the speed to target and explosive damage ability. This in turn could also render a space grid unnavigatable for a period of 3 years or so. In the case of a minefield it should have a lifetime rate of 5 years before it has to be rebuilt.

But anyhow back to the main subject yes indeed Carriers should be implemented as soo many of the modders have shown they are into various SF based stuff like Trek ( which has carriers ) Babylon 5 ( Which had an awesome Pirate Carrier) and others. No real reason why GC2 couldn't do this as well. I'm all for it. Just remember the carrier is not the weapon it's whats going to be flying out which is the weapon and they won't have High Hit Points but they will have evolving tech for damage dealing. You could come across a carrier and all they have is Laser 3 fighters pit that against a Carrier with photon torp fighters and see who comes out ahead. The Carrier would have a low Logistic point but at that same time you would not be able to have 2 or more in a fleet. I do like the idea of what can comprise a fleet but I would also like to see fleets that could have 100 logistics ability instead of what is it 37 or so.

In the meantime just build yourself a Huge ship little to no defenses on it ( generally just use PD defense and a low end version of that) and load it up with Shredder Tech and just call it a Carrier that is sending out robot drones that have a 1 shot ability.
What would be intrigueing would be a ship that has a limited amount of ammo/fighters etc that needs to resupply or some sort of onship factor module for building new fighters ( which would take a few turns) I would say 3 turns for each fighter built up to a max of lets say 25 fighters. This again could take longer for more advanced fighters naturally.
at some point you would have it so that the fighters level up to a max of 2 shots before they are considered spent an have to return to the carrier. This would also require that the fighters are only missle based instead of beam.
But if beam weapons for the fighters were to be used I would have them at like 1/3 the normal damage done. Since these fighters would be considered smaller than the tiny hulls and are not able to go from grid square to grid square. They can only operate in the current square where the Carrier is located. This opens up other possibilities like using a carrier to send out a probe ship ( provided they have a module for this) it's a one shot deal and limited range and lifespan of operation. Carriers would be limited to 4 or 5 modules max. So you could have a probe module and 4 fighter bays. Carriers should also be limited to say Warp III or Warp IV max. They are not designed to be superswifts lets be real about this.. Another module type that you could use on the Carrier would be the Ship Assist modules that Starbases have.

Just some thoughts....
Reply #11 Top
Oh wow, carriers.

Nobody has ever suggested THAT before


That being the idea, the more suggestions for a 'carrier' type hull/module the greater the chances someone with some claut will pick up on it and then implement it.
Reply #12 Top
Me want carriers too, but what would be the point without tactical combat?? all it would be is little missile analogues going up and down the screen in the combat visualisation gimmicky thing...Sounds great huh??
Reply #13 Top
BTW - nice thoughts starlost, esp the ship assist idea.
Reply #14 Top
-I like carrier modules! I like carrier modules!

-I'll give you my carrier module for a nickel.

-How about two cents?

Carrier modules would be great.

--Wade