[Idea][Req][TC] ATF M7 Light Carrier

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Wed, 6. May 09, 21:33

As we all know ATF lack TL and TM class baseships. This means that the smallest hangar capable ATF unit is Odin which is more or less a battle carrier.

Looking at my favorite unit, Split M7 Panther I think that M7 Carrier would be a nice addition to ATF fleet.
Light Carrier would have a good anti-fighter guns and missiles (like those M7M anti-fighter barrage missiles) but no anti-capital weapons.

In addition, they would use their flat surface as M6/M8/TS docking points
(I mainly think about bombers resupply).
They would be a strict support unit that would launch indirect strikes (bombers and fighters) and supply them (TS as external containers) - they would be a nice contrast to other firepower oriented capships.

What do you think about those units:
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With change of colours those would look very ATF.
What do you think?

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Arrows - M3-M5 landing deck
Squares - M3-M5 launch tubes
Circles - M8 / M6 / TS docking pads.

Wolf-R1 · Post by **Wolf-R1** » Wed, 6. May 09, 23:32

Gotta love Macross...I think you have a great idea however you need someone to model it and script it into the game.

Dragon93 · Post by **Dragon93** » Thu, 7. May 09, 00:56

Very cool.
Any chance of a top down view?

In which case, I may give this a try, in between exams.

Could possibly do it without, I'm just slightly confused about the location of the 2nd/main deck.

Sodium · Post by **Sodium** » Thu, 7. May 09, 02:18

Top/Front/Side view would be nice. Will give it a shot if you can draw it up along something for scale.

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Thu, 7. May 09, 16:04

I'll dig up for some other shots for better perspective tomorrow. I'm glad that you like the Idea

Sodium · Post by **Sodium** » Thu, 7. May 09, 16:21

From a concept perspective I really don't get having a space "carrier". The control tower would be so vulnerable to weapons fire and the craft on the flight deck would be in the same position. Space is a different animal for nautical aspects to be prevalent.

The tower is high in order to see the whole flight deck and to mount radar/see more over the horizon. However in space, there is no horizon. It'd be better to find a spot either closer to the middle of the ship and not poking out of it.

That said though it looks sufficiently badass as is, enough to try to model into the game just to see it alive

.

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Fri, 8. May 09, 14:01

Found some other views:

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Here is the side view of the smaller Carrier:
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MutantDwarf · Post by **MutantDwarf** » Fri, 8. May 09, 15:58

Get rid of the wing on the bottom and color it properly and it'll look sufficiently ATF in my book. Allowing it to carry M6s/TSs might be a bit much, though, if no other carrier (even full-sized ones) can do it. Might want to trade out its flattop for some bumpy, spiky bits like other ATF ships.

Ska-Ara|Sl-A · Post by **Ska-Ara|Sl-A** » Fri, 8. May 09, 16:37

mhh this sekend ship of the last pics, this ship is very cool, an think it can use fpr my sg mod, when someone this ship make with a 3d prog, can he give it to me?

thiosk · Post by **thiosk** » Fri, 8. May 09, 22:00

reminds me of the Tiger's claw for the oldies like myself who remember wing commander

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mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Sat, 9. May 09, 11:56

Anyone care to make it (I like the bigger one, but smaller is Cool to) into TC?

Ska-Ara|Sl-A · Post by **Ska-Ara|Sl-A** » Sat, 9. May 09, 13:43

one of my Teammebers make the Big Goöden ship, cause ist a Pyramid and it is god for my SG Mod

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Sat, 9. May 09, 18:43

Guys, please stick to the topic, no mention about SG or that big Pyramid thing.

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Wed, 13. May 09, 22:37

Double post in hope that someone will notice my request

mikthescot · Post by **mikthescot** » Thu, 14. May 09, 11:49

looks great are you starting to work on it
and when do recone itl be ready

garrry34 · Post by **garrry34** » Sat, 5. Sep 09, 21:57

the bigger option is freakin awesome, i agree this would make a great addition, all aspects would be great, ie

M7M mini-carrier
docks M8
8-16 fighters

hell yes to them all, although i would suggest that maybe it should be a non-atf terran ship, for the fact that they have no M7M

Alkeena · Post by **Alkeena** » Sat, 5. Sep 09, 22:22

I wholeheartedly support this approach. If you look at my bomber and shuttle docking mod ( http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... eeb4b428ed ) you'll see that I gave almost all the ATF/Terran ships more docking than the rest explicitly because they have no light docking options in a TM or M7. If someone can get the overall model made, I can make her dock bombers externally as requested. =)

However, I would like to point out that this carrier deficiency is somewhat consistent with the overall Terran race design. Remember, they're new to the general x-verse and have explicitly shunned jump gates for a couple centuries. To them a light carrier doesn't make much sense since it simply cannot keep up with the fighters it's supposed to be supporting--everything had previously had to fly through every 'jump' they intended to complete. Thus carriers only made sense for really long operations and so seem to be only really justified when they're BIG.

That's changed now with the introduction to commonwealth space and the greater weight jumpgates now hold in their overall tactical and strategic philosophy. But still, only special ops and the like end up really leaving the solar system for much of anything, the Terrans are still very much self contained.

What am I blathering about? The Terrans don't have a TM or M7 carrier because they don't need one with the way the operate. Newly formed special expeditionary forces do though; so I'd suggest only making the ships available as prototypes that you get from special missions, not generally available in every terran shipyard.

I hope all that made sense?

Edit: Although I would like to say that you seem to be requesting a LOT of bomber docking for a mere M7...I tend to give M1s 2 bomber slots, and M7 carriers only 1. The reasons for this are:

1. The only way to accommodate external clamps is to add more overall docking. That means that if you add 4 external clamps you have to add 4 more docking slots to the ship. This can greatly unbalance certain ships. For instance a Boron Orca TL normally has 10 slots while a Split Elephant TL hs 14 in vanilla. Thought of differently the Elephant has 40% more docking to offset some of the deficiencies it has relative to the Orca. If however you add 6 slots to both then it's 16 vs 20 -> the elephant only gets 25% more docking, but the same deficiencies...that is effectively an Elephant nerf, if you follow. Thus the easiest way to maintain inter-class balance is to only add as few docking slots as necessary.

2. As of this moment I've not managed to separate bomber docking from universal docks. If it takes a bomber it can take an M6 or a TS or a TM...This can wildly unbalance things too. For instance the one downside of the split Panther vs a true M1 is that it doesn't really have the cargo bay to support a full flight wing with missiles and ammo. If you let it dock 4 TS, this is no longer an issue and suddenly there's no real reason to get a real M1... (I did let it dock a TS, but no bombers though to sort of account for this issue...)

garrry34 · Post by **garrry34** » Sun, 6. Sep 09, 01:33

ive just had another thought, maybe the 1st one would be the M7M and the 2nd one would be a M2M, lol just dont get on the wrong side of the owners