I want an aircraft carrier!!!!!

I keep seeing threads on this - what are the gameplay characteristics of these 'carriers'?

Are the 'carried fighters' the equivalent to an attack stat that gets reduced? If damage to ships reduced their capabilities as opposed to just their hitpoints, (which doesn't happen now) this would be pretty easy to simulate. But as it stands I can see it necessitating a whole new type of damage assessment - obviously not a trivial exercise.

Are the 'carried fighters' an attempt to introduce ranged combat into the game or are they going to be restricted to the same square (as the 'carrier') like any other weapon?

Is the 'carrier' an attempt to get around logistics restrictions? Or is the logistics value the sum of a huge ship plus however many 'mini' fighters it carries? [I use 'mini' since these are likely smaller than 'tiny' hulls]

If the 'carrier' gets destroyed during combat do the 'fighters' hang on as 1 (or more) undefended attack vessel(s) and then die (if they are left at the end of the battle)?

Comments?

carriers... the stupidest idea in a game

they make all the other ship types useless, or they themselves are useless, they ruin game mechanics and AI would have a hard time using them

gg i hope i never see a carrier thread or a mutliplayer thread again

While I think carriers could be done fairly neatly (maybe as a huge hull that can carry X number of tiny craft or smaller) I don not think that they are needed at all.

carriers won't be in the game no matter what you or everybody else thinks, there is a post about it already, and they said that a carrier won't be....

The best idea for a carrier ship that I've seen is this:

A 'carrier module' on a medium or larger ship allows a certain number of tiny or small ships in the same fleet to travel at the speed and range of the carrier ship. Basically, you sacrifice space on the larger hull in return for extra space on the fighters.

Obviously it would be tricky to balance it so as to avoid either useless carriers or overpowered carriers. But that's not the same as saying it would be impossible. 'The AI can't handle it' is everyones favorite one size fits all excuse which can be applied to virtually any new gameplay concept.

It would be nice to see a bit more variety in ship design (other than just cosmetic), as at the moment it seems that you can get away with just building lots of the biggest hull and packing it with weapons and defenses.

Any logistic bonuses due to carriers would be ridiculously overpowering, not to mention confusing (what happens if the carrier was destroyed/removed from the fleet and the fleet now used too many logistics points?).

Thoughts on possible carrier implementations:

1) A ship component (takes up a lot of space, can only go in larger hull sizes) that shares the range attribute of the "mothership" with all (or up to a certain number) of tiny hull sizes that accompany it. Perhaps there's a also component that's available for tiny hull sizes that causes them to be potential recipients of this effect (e.g. something worded to give the impression of rails or attachments that allow the tiny hull to be carried/launched - gameplay effect would just be to make them viable candidates for the effect of the mothership componenet.)

2) A ship component (again, takes up a lot of space) that shares the speed attribute of the "mothership" with accompanying tiny hulls. Same comments as above.

The result would be the ability to deliver a sizable number of tiny hull ships quickly, and at extended range, without having to use up space on each of them for engines and life support.

Anyway, just thoughts...


-Cauldyth

Bah, beat me to it!


-Cauldyth

Tiny hulls are quite useless right now, so while I guess people are entirely sick of seeing these 'carrier' threads pop up right now, making tiny hulls actually useful would be one benefit I could see. For me personally, any hull that can't mount at least two engines in addition to sufficient firepower is worthless, and the low hitpoints further close off any desire to use tiny hulls.

I'm still not sure how useful carrier would make them however. Even without engines or life support or armor, the cost of the weapon will probably be more than that of the hull, and furthermore its pitiful hitpoints would see massive die-offs in every fight.

It might be interesting as a curiousity though. Carriers wouldn't be anymore useless than tiny hulls(which can be useful in some ways but don't have any inherent value other than low logistics cost).

A carrier would be a way to quickly bring ships with no warp engins of their own into a far off system. You could just make them part of the 'fleet' thingy, and so the only real change is that a non warp drive enables ship would 'tag along' with the mothership. Interesting idea for sure.

Tiny hulls are quite useless right now, so while I guess people are entirely sick of seeing these 'carrier' threads pop up right now, making tiny hulls actually useful would be one benefit I could see. For me personally, any hull that can't mount at least two engines in addition to sufficient firepower is worthless, and the low hitpoints further close off any desire to use tiny hulls. I'm still not sure how useful carrier would make them however. Even without engines or life support or armor, the cost of the weapon will probably be more than that of the hull, and furthermore its pitiful hitpoints would see massive die-offs in every fight. It might be interesting as a curiousity though. Carriers wouldn't be anymore useless than tiny hulls(which can be useful in some ways but don't have any inherent value other than low logistics cost).

i use tinys and they serve there purpose very well.

It would be a spacecraft carrier, though.
Not an aircraft carrier.

And the cost/size/speed of the higher engines make it better to use those than Impulse drives.

I guess they could have no drive at all and just be good for a single movement point, but that would also limit the carrier fighters to a single battle per turn.

I think you could add a carrier as a module to increase fire power and defense to the ability of the ship with the carrier module. You called also have a tech branch for carriers. They would make the ship look cool aswell....the module could look like the carrier part of the prometheus of Stargate - SG1!

All they'd have to do to make fighters worth while is give them a natural defense, due to their size, that makes them harder to hit. I'm sure they could code this in. Then fighters would be able to last longer in a fight, and thus, the opponent would need fighters to help defend.

If I see one more carrier thread, I think I will scream.
The carrier idea is dead, dead, dead. Frogboy said that it would ruin the game mechanics. So please, let this one die.
Much thanks!

I will bump, and agree on every single Carrier thread I ever see on this forum, no matter how many ppl are against them. I want em' in and I want em' NOW!!!

  
Monc34

Oops my post screwed up, how do you quote someone else's post?

Who do you mean???
Reply #14??

If it is, I would have to agree,
And if you would like to qoute somebody, you need to click with your mouse and darken what you want to quote, THEN hit the "Quote" Buton.


Hope it helps
Monc34  

The only way that I think carriers would be good for would be for the look of it, you gotta admit that seeing several fighters coming out of a huge ship would look cool, but I really don't think they would be any use, they would either be nerfed or superpowered for them to have any use.

gg i hope i never see a carrier thread or a mutliplayer thread again

Amen.

sorry guys, but Carrier threads will always pop up. It opens up a whole other level of tactics, if done correctly.

At any rate, I still feel that fighters should be harder to kill. They are small and fast and harder to target. Most Capital weapons could not track them. The game does become who can build the most of the biggest ship. That's not fun.

Carriers will debalance the game too much. With carriers you would only build suicide Squads of Tiny fighters, teleport them close to the enemy planet and trash their whole defence. The basic trade off is between Size and Speed, since at the higher weapon levels even a tiny fighter can crush a Dreadnough.(Especially an AI Dreadnought). At medium weapon level, bigger ships speed enables them to attack more often, thus making them more useful then the small ones again.

Small ships are more adaptable and much faster built then the big ones. Also they are much much cheaper to updgrade (if you care to upgrade, i usually sell the old ones).They are very good to be used to protect your empire, thus giving the defender an advantage comparing to the attacker. But if you remove this speed penalty what whould be the point of having any big ships.

Anton, you're full of it.
The was it is now, smaller ships are much less powerful than larger ships. Why? Because all weapons on a ship are fired at the same time, and count as one shot against one enemy ship. A wing of 5 Tiny hull fighters each with a Blackhole Eruptor will theoretically do 5-125 damage against an unarmored target. If the target has 3 Droid Sentries 3, however, that damage will be 0. A Large ship with those 5 BHEs will do 1-125 minus the 1-30 from the enemy defense, meaning it will do a whole lot of damage and kill the ship in one shot.
And what are you talking about "you would only build suicide Squads of Tiny fighters, teleport them close to the enemy planet and trash their whole defence"? Why can't I "you would only build suicide fleets of large destroyers, teleport them close to the enemy planet and trash their whole defence"?

Wow guys, I didn't expect such a response. As one of you pointed out, yes, I know it would be a "spacecraft carrier", not an "aircraft carrier". In my view, I didn't think that adding such a craft would throw off gameplay that much. It isn't meant to be an uber weapon of sorts, just a strategic element, and let's face it, what sci fi movie hasn't had some sort of carrier ship in their fleet? Even if it just piggybacked a couple of ships, it could work without destroying the combat rules. Again, I had no idea there would be an uproar from the no! crowd. Just thought it would add an element to the game. If only I knew how to mod,,, lol!

Another thread about carriers... *yawns*

Let's say it once again: They won't be added.

e-stab, in case you missed it above, WE KNOW THAT.

It is still an interesting topic for discussion. If it bores you, then then don't come here!!!

Carriers would NOT be an uber weapon. In my mind, basically all it would do is allow you to not put engines on fighters, and add an extra weapon. You wouldn't be able to "teleport" as you would still have to move the carrier. And the fighters would come into play only in battles. You could not send them out whenever you wished. And it would be a module that means you put less weapons and defense on your carrier, which would only give you a slight advantage in your weapons power, but you would have a ship with crappy defense and HP. (The module could reduce HP by 25%).

Fighters would have a better defense. A fourth, hard-coded one called maneuverability, that could not be improved. It adds defense for all weapon types, but it would only be 1 defense of each. If you want more defense, you have to add the ones already in game.