I don't know if its been suggested but... carriers?

Good ideas. I am for it. There has been already a thread here about this topic. (several months ago...)

Maybe Mr. Frogboy could tell us if there is something like a "carrier" is planned or not? Or if it does not make it in the first version....maybe in one of the supplements? Thanks in advance for infos about this topic.

It could be also a fourth type of weaponclass (with point defenses as defence)

(just fixed a couple of typos)

It probably is to late for something like this to be put in. My guess is it would take alot of new code on all sorts of levels to get carriers to work, at least the way I see it anyway. Still it would be interesting to see what other ideas people come up with.

To give you that carrier feel, you could always build one or two big ships, then a smattering of really small ships and put them together in a fleet. With late-game engines and miniaturization, yuo should be able to build small ships with good speed and range to lump them in with the big destroyers and such.

Yeah, it's not a true carrier, but it's something to make those fleet battles look damn cool

To give you that carrier feel, you could always build one or two big ships, then a smattering of really small ships and put them together in a fleet.

I was thinking along the same lines for a solution, although I was also wondering 2 things for this.

1 if we could have the big ships in that fleet having great range but not all that much else and then having everything else (bar the range) on the little ships (I'm not sure how fleets handle range, is it based on the largest or smallest mod in the fleet?), also (relating back to my post on the flagship post) I think it'd be great if we could add extra logistics bonuses onto the big ships (maybe as they gain experiance), so that they could have lot's more little ships in a fleet with them.

I would say the big ships in the fleet shoudl ahev all defense, no weapons, which should make em really tough to destroy. And the little ships would be mostly weapons. That could make for an interesting experiment.

I hate carriers, they dam well ruined naval warfare,why the hell do we want them in space.I like the Battleship being queen of the sea(or space).

Seems like a partially good idea.

It'd be interesting to have a transport only "carrier" ship that'd have extended range and speed to carry cheaper, smaller, low range ships out to battle. But I don't think you need to have any automated combat functionality - just have them exist as a transport type of thing only. This way you could get smaller ships designed more for combat than travel to far away battles. This wouldn't be a true carrier - it'd be a transport - so you'd need to unload and load the transported smaller vessels - they wouldn't be able to launch and defend as with a real carrier - so there'd be some risk in transporting things like this (since the transport itself would most likely have minimal defenses).

I think it'd be great if we could add extra logistics bonuses onto the big ships (maybe as they gain experiance),

i've been thinking along the same lines - some kind of "supply" module that can be incorporated into a ship that reduces the logistic points of ships by one point *(tiny becomes 1, small becomes 2), encouraging a mix of big and small.

Vogar, that's a fairly common concept in military SF, probably more common in the hardcore SF than fighters.

If fighters were to be brought into GC, they'd have to add something that the regular weapons don't.
So what features do fighters have that might make them interesting to add?

1) Modern fighters are much faster and maneuverable than carriers, and can go places carriers can't. This isn't surprizing since modern fighters and modern carriers operate in two seperate mediums (air vs water), something GC fighters wouldn't enjoy. So they really can't add anything in this count.

2) Fighters are more expendable than carriers, even in large numbers. This could be reflected in a GC-like game, though GC itself doesn't have the details needed. In order to add to the game in this respect, you'd have to restock fighter supplies in your carriers. GC doesn't have anything like this, and it sounds like micromanagement anyway.

3) It's easier to upgrade the fighters on a carrier than to upgrade a different type of warship. Again, GC really doesn't have any way to represent this.

Good well thought out ideas, think it'll be too late to implement in the game though but could maybe come out in expansion pack

Maybe the fighters could assist the planetary battle(without bombardmend) ,and stay there(on planet) as guards.

If carriers were made, i'd like to think they would have some major drawback...

I like the idea of Carriers but it would probably be difficult to do since an object loadable ship is not part of the present concept.

It might not be so hard to add another weapon category like mini-fighters and choose them as the weapon of choice on a particular ship design. Size wise and logistically they might require a huge hull and high tech level. You might even have a choice of gun, laser or missile mini-fighters each with fp 1 and loadable in groups of 4-6 with each group taking 15 or so space points.

I like the idea of Carriers but it would probably be difficult to do since an object loadable ship is not part of the present concept.

There's already a way to group ships together: fleets. Make it so that each carrier module allows several fighters in the fleet to ignore their range and speed. Take a bunch of small hull ships that are all weapons and defense and put them in a fleet with a big ship that's all engines, life support, and carrier modules, and the fleet would have the range and speed of the carrier. You could even do battle carriers that can fight alongside the fighters but can only carry a few. I don't know how easy or hard that would be to implement and balance, but it sounds cool to me .

fleets

That sounds good.

It also occurred to me that object loading is possible in the game. Planets are object loadable so maybe it would just be a matter of graphics and adding movement points.

Since I am clueless about coding I have no idea if that would be possible.

IMO there's not much point. I use fighter swarms extensively and with a bit of miniturization there's no problem at all giving them all the range/speed they need. The only time you'd need more than you can fit is on a gigantic map, but in that case ALL your ships would be lacking the range and speed to cross the map quickly.

I would say the big ships in the fleet shoudl ahev all defense, no weapons, which should make em really tough to destroy. And the little ships would be mostly weapons. That could make for an interesting experiment.

If they have no weapons they are no threat. The little ships would be taken out first and then the unarmed big ships. It may take a long time to destroy the big ships if they have strong defenses and lots of hot points but without weapons they are doomed! There is no limit on battles and no disengaging!

Modern real-world fighters can refuel in flight. Rather than a carrier, how about a resupply ship that extends the range of fighters.

Modern real-world fighters can refuel in flight. Rather than a carrier, how about a resupply ship that extends the range of fighters.

We call them starbases.

Hee hee... That was a good reply there!



Well, I guess it comes down to the two distinct ways of having starships in SciFi... You can have all (even small) ships equipped with hyperspace / FTL / warp drives like in Star Trek, Stargate etc. or you can have basically only real cap ships and transporters with that capability while most fighters only have sublight drives like for example in Battlestar Galactica (or to a lesser extend Star Wars). When you go for the latter, you need carriers or cap ships with a similar capability to move the small ships (fighters) from one solar system to another.

After watching Stargate and BSG this weekend I also would like to see a carrier type vessel in the game, maybe fighters can be classed as missiles and fitted to the mothership as a hanger module unit. The ship then "launches" fighters to attack the enemy ship directly, counted by the enemies point defence like in the real world. The trick is to get the missile to return to the mothership after each successful attack, and only return the missiles not destroyed. Perhaps a modder can do this after the release, I'd be more than willing to help. I intend to heavily mod this game to fit my own personal preferences.

Looking at Earths military and SG as well as BSG as examples, it is reasonable to think that in the not so distance future the main weapon of choice in space dominance will be a carrier type vessel. It would have weak armour, GOOD defences but heavily rely on its fighters for its offence capability. Why is the carrier the prime choice for war? Simple, its ability to project its sphere of influence is far greater than any other warship that exists. A battleship can only project its power as far as its main guns, a carrier as that same potential but also the fighters add significate extra distance to the projection.

On close quarters one to one combat a carrier would have the stuffing kicked out of it in seconds, but in a battle where the first shot counts, the carrier offers the ability to hit the enemy before he even knows you are out there. Plus a fighter can delivery significate damage to a enemy vessel while over little to them in potential losses. Loosing a fighter isn't that big a deal when you have 29 others. But a single fighter can cripple or destroy a ship if properly armed.

Oh and btw the Earth ships in SG1 are Deep Space Carriers, not Battle cruisers as they keep saying. In the most recent episode Off the Grid, you can clearly see in the Briefing Room on the Odyessy the words Deep Space Carrier on the screen in the background. The armaments of the Odyessy also suggest it is a carrier, the rail guns are an excellent anti-fighter defence but extremely poor anti-captialship weapon.

In the real world rail guns would make a serious hardcore offensive and defensive weapon of course, but in sci-fi energy based weapons are considerably better. If a SG1 railgun using that tech and ammo was fired in the RW at a US Carrier, it would hit the with the equivilant power of a tactical nuke in an area no bigger than the size of a football. The damage without a doubt would tear the ship in two and force it physical back several hundred metres before it finally stopped. This all from a weapon firing at 10km/s, now imagine firing at 1000km/s. A round as big as a car could hit New York and remove it from the map.

You telling me you'd prefer energy weapons?

Now fire an asteriod 1km in diameter mostly made of iron at a planet 56,000km in diameter at 1000km/s and you can kiss that planet goodbye.


J

On close quarters one to one combat a carrier would have the stuffing kicked out of it in seconds, but in a battle where the first shot counts, the carrier offers the ability to hit the enemy before he even knows you are out there.

Or you could armor your carrier for a relatively small cost (relatively speaking) to have something like the Battlestars: They can carry several fighter squadrons, have quite some offensive capabilities with all these rail guns and also pack a lot of defensive power (can survive a direct hit by quite a big strategic nuke). Now, if they also had missile capabilities like Cylon Basestars....

It'd be interesting to have a transport only "carrier" ship that'd have extended range and speed to carry cheaper, smaller, low range ships out to battle. But I don't think you need to have any automated combat functionality - just have them exist as a transport type of thing only. This way you could get smaller ships designed more for combat than travel to far away battles. This wouldn't be a true carrier - it'd be a transport - so you'd need to unload and load the transported smaller vessels - they wouldn't be able to launch and defend as with a real carrier - so there'd be some risk in transporting things like this (since the transport itself would most likely have minimal defenses).

I Think this is an excellent idea.

My take on carriers is rather simple; the carrier's fighter bay modules would supply the ship with X number of Logistics Points that can be used to house tiny craft only. Then make the fighters require a module that gives them a very short range, but lots of movement. So if you're nowhere near your own systems, and that carrier buys it, the fighters are screwed. Very realistic, ask anyone who flies an F-15. The production of said fighters is pretty easy to do without uber-micromanaging - MOO2 just had the carriers build new fighters every few turns. If you don't like that, there's always the option of doing it like Empire Earth did - have the "build fighter" button as an option that shows up when you select a carrier - still costs $ and takes time, and makes you unable to overstock the carrier, but you can que up spares for when a few buy it in combat. As for designing fighters, there are 2 methods - the "fighter or LAC (see Honor Harrington by David Weber)" and the "corvette/gunboat/runabout" option. GalCiv2 goes the second approach, making mean little FTL ships that still require a crew (since a space fighter is useless in space until you can shrink down a reactionless drive w/ inertia sumps for a one-man ship anyway).

The problem rail guns suffer in sci-fi is the deflector shield problem - deflector shields in sci-fi serve to keep micro meteors from hitting the ship in flight - that's what they're FOR - and so a ship with decent deflectors will just ignore any projectile weapon. But things without shields are CRUNCHY targets for rail guns.

I recommend reading The Shiva Option, by David Webber and Steve White to see how both work in a hardcore military situation.

I think carriers would be great. Carriers obviously added to the power of naval fleets during WW2 by allowing the fleets to project their firepower a lot farther than the range of the big guns. And fleets on the opposing end were generally toast if they didn't have their own carriers to defend against.

Big ships are great targets for small, maneuverable fighters with powerful guns.

I would love to see a fleet setup system similar to MoO3, where you actually have to specify picket ships as well as core, escort, etc. Perhaps add fleet vs fleet combat bonuses if a fleet has the proper ratio of core and escort ships.

But maybe something like that is a bit more complicated than what we're looking for.