Apparently, Egosoft just can't make fighters land on carriers

[Ragnos28]

Hello everybody,

Please enjoy this fun little clip showcasing how fighters land (or more like vigorously try to do so) on the Tokyo carrier: https://youtu.be/QCENdeTF6XQ

[Raevyan]

These are the moments where I ask myself: did someone even tested this? Devs? Closed Beta testers? The answer is apparently not.

[aquatica]

To me that looks pretty clearly some misplaced landing vector, might be a simple thing or might not be.

Luckily I still have no carriers and when I do, it's gonna be Raptor pretty surely...

[terodil]

Everybody knows that the pilots in your fighters need at least 3 stars to be able to execute highly advanced maneuvers such as docking -- 6 stars is the minimum for docking 'in reasonable time', e.g. after issuing a 'flee' command to the carrier.

Loved the video, btw. ^^

[Raptor34]

To me that looks pretty clearly some misplaced landing vector, might be a simple thing or might not be.

Luckily I still have no carriers and when I do, it's gonna be Raptor pretty surely...

My Raptors used to have issues docking too iirc.

[Jeraal]

Has anyone tried manually docking on(in) a Tokyo? In a recent T. Cadet start, I took a 'my ship left me' mission. It was to a Tokyo. It seems there is a VERY tiny window to maneuver in that tunnel. All pads were full except one in the middle. It was like when a station traffic vehicle pushes you when near a station.

[Ragnos28]

To me that looks pretty clearly some misplaced landing vector, might be a simple thing or might not be.

Luckily I still have no carriers and when I do, it's gonna be Raptor pretty surely...

No, no..is all working as intended..this is just my pilots showing focus, commitment and sheer f-king will

On a serios note, Raptor might be a more safe bet as it has less landing incidents, but they are there don't worry...

[Ragnos28]

These are the moments where I ask myself: did someone even tested this? Devs? Closed Beta testers? The answer is apparently not.

Beta testers?...no, my friend..WE ARE the beta testers <insert Terminator theme here>

[Raevyan]

These are the moments where I ask myself: did someone even tested this? Devs? Closed Beta testers? The answer is apparently not.

Beta testers?...no, my friend..WE ARE the beta testers <insert Terminator theme here>

I’d still say X4 is in alpha.

[jakotheshadows]

To me that looks pretty clearly some misplaced landing vector, might be a simple thing or might not be.

Luckily I still have no carriers and when I do, it's gonna be Raptor pretty surely...

The raptor tries really hard to be both a carrier and a battleship, and is kinda sad at both scenarios. As a battleship, compared vs the Asgard's 3 XL shields, it is about as squishy as squishy gets. As a carrier, rather than utilizing quick launch tubes, it relies on just having a large number of docks inside the hull to launch ships. This sounds great until you actually watch how long it takes for the fighters to all launch and slowly meander out from inside the hull, meanwhile whatever you were trying to bomb from a distance has likely already made it over to your "carrier" in travel mode and is laying waste to your precious raptor. The ton of docks concept also sounds great if you think it means more ships can dock faster, but think again. Just as slowly as fighters meander out to launch from the hull, so too do they slowly meander back inside to dock. You literally need SETA to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time with a raptor.

TBH, with resupply ships apparently able to fulfill all the functions of a carrier and then some, I wonder why the carrier class exists at all.

[SunGod1]

The Raptor is a Picket Ship/Carrier not a destroyer or Battleship Carrier...IMHO

Asgards with Raptors for AA cover might be the most OP fleet combo you can have. When I get the money to buy the print I am going to put that idea into action.

[Maebius]

Maybe they see that neon-pink paint job there and don't want to be associated with it?

[SunGod1]

Maybe they see that neon-pink paint job there and don't want to be associated with it?

You should see the wack paint I have on some of my Cap ships... my PSYOP master Dal Buster has calculated it all to induce maximum terror from the lack of our color coordination.

[Ragnos28]

Maybe they see that neon-pink paint job there and don't want to be associated with it?

Yeah...w/o ventures, my paintjob options are rather limited..and since EG took the "wise" decision (like manny of late) to NOT make white, default skin for terran ships...that and grinding for paintjobs being as excitind as watching paint dry (irony, I know)...here we are

[Fenris321]

To me that looks pretty clearly some misplaced landing vector, might be a simple thing or might not be.

Luckily I still have no carriers and when I do, it's gonna be Raptor pretty surely...

My Raptor does the same thing. At one point with only 20 fighters I watched them try to land for a full 15 minutes with the Raptor at a complete standstill. They were all clumped together and in map mode it appeared as though they couldn't clear up the bottleneck to land. I didn't check external view to see what was happening, maybe I should have. After that I moved the Raptor forward a bit then came to a complete stop to see if they would recalculate their landing pattern and be able to land. After watching them not figure out how to land for another 5 minutes I teleported to another sector and they then landed within seconds.

So now my Raptor is regulated to OOS station defense with 100 fighters onboard. The Raptor is still a fun ship when taken into a swarm of fighters it just completely melts them, I even used one to take on a Xenon shipyard and just watched as a couple of Xenon fighter swarms melted and what looked like repeated swarms of a 100 or more defense drones popped as soon as they got within range of the Raptor. I think the shields went down to 80% at one time, but that was before the Terran shields and upgrade mods were installed. And I'm not positive I didn't fly into reach of the station guns. When I start going to war with factions I'll probably still build a few with no fighters to use as antifighter cover for other cap ships, but wont build any to use as carriers.

I'm normally against ships teleporting to landing pads, but for carriers I'd make an exception and be happy with it if they had orders to land and got within a certain range of the landing pad. Or at least turned off collision if they are bottle necking within a certain range of the landing pad and not under fire. Again, those are two options I'd normally be against, I'd rather have them land properly. But as it stands now, I will never use a carrier as a carrier and that's just sad. Better fighter control would be nice also, but that would be another thread in itself.

[jakotheshadows]

The Raptor is a Picket Ship/Carrier not a destroyer or Battleship Carrier...IMHO

Asgards with Raptors for AA cover might be the most OP fleet combo you can have. When I get the money to buy the print I am going to put that idea into action.

TBH you don't need the raptor, its an expensive hunk of junk. You can go comfortably hang out in Xenon space completely unsupported in a single Asgard right now just use ARG L Beams and ARG M Flak all set to attack all enemies for your turrets and go all Terran MK3 shields on everything. GG. Your batteries will be more than enough to outrange and kill Xenon capitols. Even if they do get in range your 4 XL Terran Mk2 shields will take plenty of time for even every L Graviton turret on a Xenon K to even make you start to worry. For bonus points, park a Jian in the M dock with all ARG M Flak turrets for extra AA.

[SunGod1]

To me that looks pretty clearly some misplaced landing vector, might be a simple thing or might not be.

Luckily I still have no carriers and when I do, it's gonna be Raptor pretty surely...

My Raptor does the same thing. At one point with only 20 fighters I watched them try to land for a full 15 minutes with the Raptor at a complete standstill. They were all clumped together and in map mode it appeared as though they couldn't clear up the bottleneck to land. I didn't check external view to see what was happening, maybe I should have. After that I moved the Raptor forward a bit then came to a complete stop to see if they would recalculate their landing pattern and be able to land. After watching them not figure out how to land for another 5 minutes I teleported to another sector and they then landed within seconds.

So now my Raptor is regulated to OOS station defense with 100 fighters onboard. The Raptor is still a fun ship when taken into a swarm of fighters it just completely melts them, I even used one to take on a Xenon shipyard and just watched as a couple of Xenon fighter swarms melted and what looked like repeated swarms of a 100 or more defense drones popped as soon as they got within range of the Raptor. I think the shields went down to 80% at one time, but that was before the Terran shields and upgrade mods were installed. And I'm not positive I didn't fly into reach of the station guns. When I start going to war with factions I'll probably still build a few with no fighters to use as antifighter cover for other cap ships, but wont build any to use as carriers.

I'm normally against ships teleporting to landing pads, but for carriers I'd make an exception and be happy with it if they had orders to land and got within a certain range of the landing pad. Or at least turned off collision if they are bottle necking within a certain range of the landing pad and not under fire. Again, those are two options I'd normally be against, I'd rather have them land properly. But as it stands now, I will never use a carrier as a carrier and that's just sad. Better fighter control would be nice also, but that would be another thread in itself.

I had the Raptor in the Beta and it seemed fine for me... tho seems it happened after "awhile" of combat and take offs and landings. I think it really might be a pilots skill level if they are going to derp out or not. OH and I have heard that the more ship rooms mod can cause all kinds of trouble with hit boxes and vectors. I can not confirmed this myself and have never used that mod yet, but it is something to consider.

[Ragnos28]

To me that looks pretty clearly some misplaced landing vector, might be a simple thing or might not be.

Luckily I still have no carriers and when I do, it's gonna be Raptor pretty surely...

The raptor tries really hard to be both a carrier and a battleship, and is kinda sad at both scenarios. As a battleship, compared vs the Asgard's 3 XL shields, it is about as squishy as squishy gets. As a carrier, rather than utilizing quick launch tubes, it relies on just having a large number of docks inside the hull to launch ships. This sounds great until you actually watch how long it takes for the fighters to all launch and slowly meander out from inside the hull, meanwhile whatever you were trying to bomb from a distance has likely already made it over to your "carrier" in travel mode and is laying waste to your precious raptor. The ton of docks concept also sounds great if you think it means more ships can dock faster, but think again. Just as slowly as fighters meander out to launch from the hull, so too do they slowly meander back inside to dock. You literally need SETA to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time with a raptor.

TBH, with resupply ships apparently able to fulfill all the functions of a carrier and then some, I wonder why the carrier class exists at all.

I used to love the Raptor flexibility for capital engagement. Had on them 100 chimera, organized in 5 "wings" of 20 fighters each (by "wing" I mean 1 fighter+19 asign to defend the leader).
Let's say, one I and 3 k's appear, wing 1 and 2 engage 1 k, wing 3 and 4 engage the other k, all wings engage the 3'd K after which all wings engage the I. In worst case, I used to lose about 10 fighters. Of course, after that you had to teleport your ass out of the sector, if you did not want to spend the next half of hour watching the fighters derping around the Raptor.
Well, that was in the times when Xenon were actually a threat (3.3) not the sad joke they are now.

[Midnitewolf]

To me that looks pretty clearly some misplaced landing vector, might be a simple thing or might not be.

Luckily I still have no carriers and when I do, it's gonna be Raptor pretty surely...

The raptor tries really hard to be both a carrier and a battleship, and is kinda sad at both scenarios. As a battleship, compared vs the Asgard's 3 XL shields, it is about as squishy as squishy gets. As a carrier, rather than utilizing quick launch tubes, it relies on just having a large number of docks inside the hull to launch ships. This sounds great until you actually watch how long it takes for the fighters to all launch and slowly meander out from inside the hull, meanwhile whatever you were trying to bomb from a distance has likely already made it over to your "carrier" in travel mode and is laying waste to your precious raptor. The ton of docks concept also sounds great if you think it means more ships can dock faster, but think again. Just as slowly as fighters meander out to launch from the hull, so too do they slowly meander back inside to dock. You literally need SETA to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time with a raptor.

TBH, with resupply ships apparently able to fulfill all the functions of a carrier and then some, I wonder why the carrier class exists at all.

While I will admit there are some problems, I think people are kind of asking for too much. I am not talking about technical limitations, I am taking about game play features. Let me explain.

Take the Raptor. It can carry more than double the fighters of any other carrier in the game, 100 of them to be exact. To balance this it has to have some sort of disadvantage. That disadvantage is that Split haven't developed a fast launch system of their own so they rely on launching fighters the old fashion way, right off the pads. This means they take a longer time to get out their fighters but they still can launch 60 more of them than anyone else on a ship per ship basis.

As far as your strike range capability on a Raptor, it is effectively limitless. What, are you using it without escorts and recon? Is that why the enemy can get close enough to reach you before you can launch your fighters? Again we are talking about a game play feature here. Other Carriers launch faster and can get their 40 fighters out fast enough to engage something they spot on their own, great, however we are talking about a Raptor that has to rely on having recon to be its eyes so it can launch its massive 100 fighter strike force at the enemy from 200 km away. Basically because it is different, it requires a different tactical doctrine to use effectively. That isn't broken game mechanics, that is just making gameplay more interesting and varied between the factions.

As for the Raptors offensive and defensive capabilities, most if not all other factions carriers are gimped destroyers with very little offensive firepower. If an enemy Destroyer gets close to them, while their fighters are away doing something else important, they are going to lose that fight. No so with the Raptor. Its offensive capabilities are extremely high especially if it gets into medium turret range where it will melt anything. Defensively, its shields are sub par but it has a huge amount of hull so while you might get beat up and need extensive repairs when going toe-to-toe with enemy destroyers, your not going to go down much easier if at all than those more heavily shielded ships.

As far as the recovery time, well yeah I with they would streamline that a bit but the again you have to ask yourself, in real life, how long would it take a US supercarrier to recover its entire attack wing? The answer is probably a lot longer than it takes a Raptor to recover all 100 fighters so aside from being annoying as hell to have to wait and wait and wait, isn't this kind of a game play feature too?

As far as AUX ships. No, they don't fulfill all the functions of a carrier, in fact they are the bane of our existence. First of all they don't seem to dock any of their assigned fighters which I guess is ok cause at least they are always out and ready to fight but part of the reason I like carriers is that them docking the fighter, reduces the screen clutter. Also I call them the bane of our existence because I can't seem to figure out how to stop any ship in the same sector as them for running to them to repair the second they get their paint scratched. It is horrifying to watch, 3/4th of your fleet disengage from a big fight to go repair, while they are still above 95% hull, leaving the rest to get overwhelmed and die as they too eventually try to disengage and repair. If anyone, including yourself, knows of a way to keep this from happening let me know but with it happening, no AUX ship is going to function like a Carrier. Personally I use the mod "Mobile Repair Service" to do basic repairs in the sector where I am engaged in active combat and manually send my ships over to the Aux ship chilling in the next sector, only when basic repairs aren't enough or they need rearmed.

[Ragnos28]

Guys...I like the Raptor as much as anyone, but could we please return to the issue of the Tokyo?

Maybe share your experience with it, maybe what occur in my clip is an isolated incident and never happen to anyone else...

I would greatly appreciate it,

Thank you!