| So really, what is the "entirely new level of startegic and tactical nuances"? It's pretty much the same as putting a bunch of fighters in a fleet, except they have more room for weapons, obviously it unbalances the game, fighters are already practicly an exploit. |
I'd more blame this on the fact that the 'capital ships' aren't immensely larger than the fighter hulls. In games such as Master of Orion, the 'fighters' are tiny things that are comparable to capital ship missiles in size and mechanics. In Galactic Civilizations, the fighters are about the right size, but the Frigates, Cruisers, Battleships, and Dreadnoughts (all names for ships I believe I've seen the AI use to name their ship classes) are not really all that much larger than them. Comparing a Medium to a Small, it's really only a very slight increase in visual size and hull space (Only a little less than 2/3ds).
In comparison, you really would need a decent force of Bombers to take down a Battlecruiser in an efficient manner, and any lucky shots by the Battlecruiser's many heavy guns is going to be instantly lethal to any of the Bombers. With smaller ships escorting that have lighter, better-tracking weapon systems (Frigates, Corvettes, or even dedicated Interceptor fighters), it becomes even harder for the Bombers and they are quite likely to fail in their attack unless those escorts are dealt with.
Current naval weapon systems integrate what is called the Phalanx CIWS for anti-fighter and anti-missile defence. This is a
Close-
In
Weapon
System, or
Point
Defence gun. Without these guns, naval vessels stand little chance against fightercraft unless they have air cover.
Back on the subject of scale... In the real world, a Frigate (which would presumably be equivalent to the Medium hulls) is vastly larger than a 'heavy fighter' (say, the Su-27 Frogfoot or F-15 Eagle). Of course, this places the two types of craft in vastly different leagues.
EDIT: Actually, now considering this fact, the larger ship types really aren't large enough to be carriers. Sure, with the addition of Extras to the hull, they would, conceivably, have space for fightercraft.. But from what I can tell, they just don't have the internal capacity by default to carry any substantial amount of fighters. Especially if you consider actual Hull Space statistics. At best, a Huge could maybe fit four or five. Three with a Large. And if you look at a few of the Tiny frame types, they look like at least half their frame is taken up by the ship's cockpit, if not more.
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