That's how I think of it.

I suddenly remember Carriers in Master of Orion (and - as someone else said - in pretty much every single Sci-Fi movie/game ever)...

As I notice in MOO3 (full patch no mod, at least), the Carrier pretty much dominates space battles due to its ability to sit back and let its fighters do all the fighting for it. Other ships just don't have the range, and so long as there's another type of fleet in there to serve as escort/distraction, the carriers won't fall and they just send out more fighters each battle. In Master of Orion 2, I remember the carrier design more as something akin to launching 'persistent missiles' ... the fighters flew in, faced point defence weapons (as PD is pretty much the only way capital ships can deal with fighters - larger ship-to-ship weapons just can't be maneuvered that quickly), dealt damage for a few turns, then returned for resupply before being launched again with a subsequent attack. I'm not entirely sure how well they performed in comparison to other vessels, as I tended to just have mixed fleets and didn't worry too much about what worked better than what. MOO3, however, makes it pretty damn clear as Long Range Armadas and Short Range Armadas start dropping like flies while the Carrier Armadas remain nearly untouched - SO LONG AS THEY HAVE SHIPS TO ESCORT THEM. This is the important point.

Homeworld - Bombers vs Battlecruiser. Ends in shame for the Battlecruiser unless it has ships with point-defence systems on them running escort (ie, Multi-Gun Corvettes or Assault Frigates, or even just the good ol' Interceptor).

Point is, Fighters can be countered with Point Defence. This is how it's supposed to be. Weapons downgraded to tiny, quick-to-aim/maneuver turrets/missiles can deal with fighter or missile threats, but can't deal substantial damage to capital ships. Large, overbearing weapons are great for anti-capital ship purposes, but can't hit the fightercraft that the carriers launched.

THIS is the balance of Fighter and Capital Ship combat. ACCURACY being factored in alongside a modular scaling of each weapon type. Not just saying Defence is all you need to avoid taking damage. Size and combat speed should be factors, as well. (Yes, I said combat speed, as opposed to just speed. I think there should be a distinction).


Also, all those saying the mechanics would be ruined... I already think they are with the damned Übertech. It's all ludicrous and, to be honest, it really intermingles near the end to the point where there technically shouldn't be a difference between the three damage types. Black Holes are Black Holes. They do one damage: Über. There's no Kinetic. There's no Explosive. It's just 'You are caught in a Black Hole and GRAVITY has now f**ked your a**'. I don't care if you have some ludicrous 'Zero-Point Armor' or a whole bunch of drones, PD guns, and ECM to protect you. You're getting screwed and there's no way out of it.

Anyone seen Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars? Throwing Black Holes (or Destructive Wormholes) around is uberpower. There is no counter. There is no defence. There is only ruin and destruction. It frightened ALL races present to witness the demonstration into never trying to pursue such again. Even the evil Scarrans were convinced not to mess with it (though it did take losing most of their fleet and nearly losing their flagship to the Wormhole Weapon before they relented).

But you are worried that the dark side lights of a planet may or may not work? Hmmmm, how odd is that?

No, I never cared about that.

An idea for an "easy add" carrier.
Carrier module, fits only biggest hull-types.
Fighters are like missles, kama-kazi drones.
Damage could be tied to starbase research or overall tech level.
Maybe someone could even "mod" this ...?

"they-won't-be-added, na-na-na-na-na"

How about some rasberries to go along with the na na na na stuff. LOL

This is all very cheesy. Cheesy like a Battlecruiser's main cannon being able to hit fightercrafts repeatedly.

It just doesn't happen.

Of course they are. That's the smartest thing you're going to get out of this entire thread.

However, bring back the space shark, to eat the cheese carrier!

I DONE EATEN YOUR BATTLESHIP! D00M!

You guys are freakin losing it!!

*deploys a Ticonderoga-Class Missile Cruiser*

Here's what you use to deal with fighters. And anything, really. AEGIS f**ks everything and anything. Ships get missile'd, submarines get torpedo'd, fighters get Phalanx'd... Nothing for hundreds of miles but the Cruiser and its captain that hit the big red button.

I think I'll play some Homeworld 2 while I check this thread...

Something to keep in mind: GalCiv2 isn't about accurate depiction of fleet battles. Though it'd be nice to have everything, wouldn't it?

Forty one replies, not counting my own two or three, wow. Sorry all, I never saw a thread on spaceship carriers, nor knew of anyone else wanting them. To those of you who say never, I say never say never. And to those who don't even like the idea, pooey on you. There seems to be more people for the idea than against although you wouldn't know that to read it here. Maybe someone who knows how to mod could be able to help. This game could have so much more, some good, some bad, but nonetheless, much more could be added. People want ground combat, carpet bombing, planet destruction, etc. etc. etc. Like I posted elsewhere, the game itself was fine. Anything we can think of after the fact needs to be addressed in expansion packs, EXPANSION PACKS. It is honorable that the devs keep adding things after the fact. I have never seen this before, but then I am really into this game so I am reading everything related to it that I can. The problem is the bugs and glitches that come with the updates and changes. I know you are going to have them, period. Nothing that can be done but playtesting to make it all work. But in a long winded way, the game should be left as is. Anything new, exciting, meaningless, or mundane can be added down the line in expansion packs, allowing the end user the option of using a said item/characteristic/whatever or not using it. Click the box. Simple. Besides, Stardock should be looking at the revenue generated off of expansion packs. LOL.

I agree about it not being moddable - Unless somehow the idea of the module that distributes the mounted ship's Life Support and Speed throughout a Fleet can be implemented. That sounds like it has the least amount of changes involved with it.

But this game focuses much on ship design, yes? And yet, the mechanics and such for ships are so simplistic. Weapon modules are just decoration that adds firepower. In Full Battles, weapons fire spits out of wherever the hell it feels like, and those 'weapons' sit there statically. There's really no point to them even being there. Just have them added internally if the stupid guns don't have any real physical purpose just to look neat.

They don't even fit their statistics, either. The higher Marks of the various weapon types are supposed to be smaller than the older models.. And yet, the models get larger and larger with each new advancement. This does not compute.

And, as I said, the higher-level weapon types have virtually no difference in theoretical effect, and the differences in damage types and defence types become artificial.

If there is such focus on ship design, then ship-to-ship battles should have more detail to them. Point Defence Disruptors that turn to shoot down smaller vessels. Spinal-Mount Doom Rays to blast away capital ships that have to have the entire ship turn to aim.

Otherwise, the whole concept of designing the ships seems all about asthetics with no real functionality. Might as well just have a gray slab of a ship with no module mounts and just add statistics (damage, defence, speed, range, etc) that take up space points. Then perhaps let the player put whatever apperance to it they feel like. It's all superfluous.

I certainly do not expect these things to be implemented in the current game. But such things would be appreciated in future additions.

Not talking mods silly one, adding it to the code, ya know!

And Stardock isn't going to do that.

On a side note, what was with every one talking about cheese for a while???  

I'm not sure. I started using it to say things were cheesy, like tiny fighters being too easy to hit with capital ship-grade weapons. Because we all know you can consistently hit an F-18 with 16-inch guns... *rolls eyes*