Your Ideas to make Carriers useful

[sakura006]

In the real life, the point of an aircraft carrier is that the fighters and bombers just can't fly too long, especially that they can't fly across the Atlantic or the Pacific. While in X4 it is a totally different story. Ships do not need to refuel at all to travel across the whole universe. So basically I don't see there is any point of implementing the idea of Carrier Class ships.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

It is worth noting though that the paranid (L-size) mining ships have 4 internal S-size launch tubes to the 10 tubes on the Paranid/Argon Carriers (6 on the Teladi Carrier) so could serve well as a light patrol level reaction force. Anticipated launch speeds with those ships would probably be around half that of the carriers (at best) but with a much slower recovery time due to only having one surface pad at last check.

Thanks, useful info - will have to try to remember that if/when I start a Paranid game. Sounds useful early game when full sized carriers are a bit too expensive to contemplate.

To clarify: if it takes 10 seconds to launch 40 S-size ships (with all 40 ships internalised) on a Zeus/Colossus then I would expect it to take around 17 seconds on a Condor, and around 25 seconds on a Paranid mining ship.

17 seconds is a little too high for Condor. Out of curiosity decided to test. A Condor with a full load of 40 fighters in internal storage can be emptied in around 8 seconds. Would expect other XL carriers to manage this in around half the time, since they have substantially more launch tubes.

Based on your numbers for the Condor, I am guessing the maximum AI launch rate for each of the internal tubes is 1 ship per second (maybe a little slower) which sounds about right to me. That would mean about 4-5 seconds for a Collosus/Zeus, 6-7s for a Condor, and around 10s for a Paranid mining vessel. That is of course assuming optimal launch tube usage.

If the surface pads are used during deployment as well then that would make things a little more complicated where the calculations are concerned.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

In the real life, the point of an aircraft carrier is that the fighters and bombers just can't fly too long, especially that they can't fly across the Atlantic or the Pacific.

That is not entirely accurate, fighters and bombers can refuel mid-air thus operational range is not the primary reason.

Carriers in real life are about fast deployment and force projection in the main. It is about strategically deploying assets quickly to specific locations without having to worry about having arrangements with local neutral/friendly countries. Depending on the carrier design there are (at least) subtle differences in their actual roles. The super-carriers that the USA deploy for example are more like small floating cities with full aircraft support facilities but that is not the only potential role fit for carriers in general.

Carriers in X4 are probably closer to the principle of an Attack Carrier than the Fleet Carriers that some seem to think they should be.

[sware]

In my opinion i don‘t think that carriers should be the almighty killing machines that some wish they should be. What would be the purpose of (real) destroyers? I even think that destroyers can carry to many ships. I mean the purpose of a destroyer/battleship is to pack a lot of guns on one vessel and not carry an amada of ships (like 40 at the moment), i know they are some how lacking a lot of firepower.

But i think carriers just feel useless because all L and XL ships can carrier a lot of ships ( a magnetar can carry 80 s ships ?!?! ) . The only benefit of a carrier over a destroyer are the fast deployment and +10 ships / or M ships.

Also you shouldn‘t be able to send a carrier alone into fight. Like in RL the carrier needs protection with other ships (destroyers or frigattes/corvettes) from hostile forces.

[GCU Grey Area]

In my opinion i don‘t think that carriers should be the almighty killing machines that some wish they should be. What would be the purpose of (real) destroyers? I even think that destroyers can carry to many ships. I mean the purpose of a destroyer/battleship is to pack a lot of guns on one vessel and not carry an amada of ships (like 40 at the moment), i know they are some how lacking a lot of firepower.

But i think carriers just feel useless because all L and XL ships can carrier a lot of ships ( a magnetar can carry 80 s ships ?!?! ) . The only benefit of a carrier over a destroyer are the fast deployment and +10 ships / or M ships.

Also you shouldn‘t be able to send a carrier alone into fight. Like in RL the carrier needs protection with other ships (destroyers or frigattes/corvettes) from hostile forces.

Purpose of destroyers is having the longest range guns in the game - they can shoot up a Xenon K, for example, while often staying outside the range of the K's turrets. Try using a carrier instead to do this & it's likely to take considerable damage, since the K has significantly more powerful turrets & (unlike a destroyer) a carrier would need to be well within the range of those turrets in order to use it's own. Since 2.0 I've pretty much only been using carrier turrets to demolish disarmed stations (they double up quite nicely as strategic bombers if you fit enough Plasma) & exclusively use my destroyers to deal with capital ships. Those destroyers work much better with a bit of fighter support to keep enemy capitals distracted & in that regard carriers are MUCH more practical as a means of transporting fighters - destroyers are orders of magnitude slower at deploying fighters (particularly in a Teladi game where destroyers only have two S docks). For me the internal hanger capacity of any non-carrier is almost completely irrelevant, I'm never going to use them for transporting fighters - would be far too annoying waiting for them all to launch.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Also you shouldn‘t be able to send a carrier alone into fight. Like in RL the carrier needs protection with other ships (destroyers or frigattes/corvettes) from hostile forces.

In RL, a protection force is not entirely necessary in all cases - the term "carrier" covers a multitude of role fits and cases. You are right in the case of modern Fleet Carriers, but that is only one of the possible role-fits.

Carriers in X4 are neither pure Fleet Carriers nor engines of mass destruction but somewhere in between - balance wise, roughly speaking they are on par with same race Destroyers in X4 with the Destroyers offering long range damage capability courtesy of their main guns and Carriers offering faster ship deployment/recovery at the expense of long range weapons. X4 Carriers typically have half the L-turrets of their corresponding destroyer and no main guns. While carriers can carry more missiles than destroyers, the overall weapon balance is more defensive than offensive given the range of M turrets and the size of the Carrier hulls (physically bigger than destroyers by a significant factor).

I believe we do not know exactly how the pending mobile equipment docks (slated for V2.50) are going to be balanced but I would not be surprised if they are more like more heavily shielded trade ships than the carriers we have currently - i.e. more defensive weapon outfitting (probably no L-turrets nor main guns) and probably more limited in ship launching speeds. These are likely to be closer to Fleet Carrier role fit that some seem to want to see.

Those expecting M1+/M0 type vessels (c/f Valhalla in X3:TC/X3:AP) are probably going to have to use mods for such vessels - there is no good reason for them to be part of the Vanilla X4 game at this time.

[spankahontis]

In the real life, the point of an aircraft carrier is that the fighters and bombers just can't fly too long, especially that they can't fly across the Atlantic or the Pacific. While in X4 it is a totally different story. Ships do not need to refuel at all to travel across the whole universe. So basically I don't see there is any point of implementing the idea of Carrier Class ships.

Which is a valid point, so a Carrier would have to have 'an incentive' to make them useful.
All I can think of at the moment..

- Repair Buff for all Fighters, 5 star Engineers can only repair a Fighter to 85%, when Docked on a Carrier they have the facilities/engineers/mechanics to repair/replace broken parts to 100% Hull.
- When a Fighter loses a percentage of it's Hull (Depending on Piloting/Morale Skill Level), they will land on the Carrier they are assigned to, repair and then return to the fight.
- Missile Fighters run out of ammo they will land and restock depending if the Carrier has them on board? Otherwise they Dock and wont come out until they are ordered to by the Player or they are restocked on the missiles it needs.

If they can't be refuelled? Then provide other means to bolster a fighter?

Here is a real life example of carrier usage as most understand it. An aircraft carrier is ordered to attack something, do they crash into shore, start shooting off the deck while planes are trying to take off? No, they launch their planes which attack the target while they maintain a lower risk distance. Within each wing that takes off, there is a wing leader that designates the target assigned to them and the remainder follow their lead.

Regardless of how you are using them, whether that is a punching bag, weapons platform or a transport, I was addressing that the function of a carrier is not being met because it's only purpose right now is a transport.

For your issue of moving so many fighters, shift select them all, remove orders and tell them to fly to a location and they will go directly there. The only time they run off chasing red dots is when you are attempting to use wings as they should work ( follow the leader ).

Great Point!

Can't be hard for Egosoft to have 2 different Attack commands

1) All Fighters Attack, Carrier Hold Position
2) Fighters & Carrier Attack

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Which is a valid point, so a Carrier would have to have 'an incentive' to make them useful.

They already do, faster launch and recovery times than any other ship type on the whole.

As for their point being valid, not IMO based on my knowledge of real world militaries - which while not even close to being complete is still pretty comprehensive. Their point about fighters/bombers requiring carriers because of maximum operational range is fundamentally flawed and false. Maximum flight time is a factor but not the primary factor.

If they can't be refuelled? Then provide other means to bolster a fighter?

IMO Unnecessary and OP, as for repair/rearm - unnecessary, current ship ammo capacities are enough for a reasonable level of own ship use and ships already have self-repair courtesy of the service crew mechanic. The mobile equipment docks slated for V2.50 will however allegedly provide mobile repair/rearm facilities.

[spankahontis]

Which is a valid point, so a Carrier would have to have 'an incentive' to make them useful.

They already do, faster launch and recovery times than any other ship type on the whole.

As for their point being valid, not IMO based on my knowledge of real world militaries - which while not even close to being complete is still pretty comprehensive. Their point about fighters/bombers requiring carriers because of maximum operational range is fundamentally flawed and false. Maximum flight time is a factor but not the primary factor.

If they can't be refuelled? Then provide other means to bolster a fighter?

IMO Unnecessary and OP, as for repair/rearm - unnecessary, current ship ammo capacities are enough for a reasonable level of own ship use and ships already have self-repair courtesy of the service crew mechanic. The mobile equipment docks slated for V2.50 will however allegedly provide mobile repair/rearm facilities.

These new mobile equipment docks will make Carriers even more useless, the moment you reintroduce a Battleship into the Argon Fleet? Carriers are simply Fighter/Bomber declutterers.
Mobile Equipment Docks will simply replace them. Not even nerfing their turrets would help the Carrier.
Just having Fighters escort a Destroyer would suffice than have a mobile Parking Lot with turrets.

[mr.WHO]

With introduction of supply ships at 2.5 I think the only thing left would be to convert carriers into battlestars - that way we would have useful carriers and XL battleships in one package.

Current XL ships lack L-size turrets that are the only one with long enough range for proper XL vs XL combat.
Giving Carriers several more XL turrets would make the much better fire support.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

These new mobile equipment docks will make Carriers even more useless, the moment you reintroduce a Battleship into the Argon Fleet? Carriers are simply Fighter/Bomber declutterers.
Mobile Equipment Docks will simply replace them. Not even nerfing their turrets would help the Carrier.
Just having Fighters escort a Destroyer would suffice than have a mobile Parking Lot with turrets.

I doubt if your assertion is going to be even close to being true.

I doubt that the mobile equipment docks will be as heavily shielded, nor have the same internal launch capability as current carriers.

As for non-xenon battleships, I would not bet on there being any added to the vanilla X4 game. Even if they are introduced, I would not bet on them being able to carry other ships.

[Sir Warwick]

So long as the ships that a carrier can carry have no useful place in current combat, then the carrier itself is obsolete.

At this stage all I do is build task groups of destroyer backed up with corvettes as either a ultra heavy fight type loadout or as a 5x torp loadout. I do not use fighters at all - I tried - they just seem to have no place while they refuse to engage other fighters and charge at the biggest and baddest target they can find and get shreded or disappear off sectors away where they will suffer a lonely and un-noted death

The other thing you may want to stick on a carrier is a bomber. Bombers don't really have a place either - a corvette does the job far better. As the corvette are also M size in this, then I guess that is the 10M slots filled, but TBH as we end up using corvette for anti fighter and probably in groups of multiples of 10, then expect a strike group to have rather more than 10 Ms in it. So still - carrier is a bit useless.

A carrier tradition is a battleship control and force projection ship. Take a US naval carrier as a basis for the carrier role - one of its job is basically to provide a full mobile local theatre base. It provide fleet defence through any on board fighters, but mainly it is about force projection through on board bombers and cruise missiles. Frigates may be further out to provide early warning and point defence.

In X I would suggest that the primary role of a carrier should be the same - battle space command and control, and force projection while not itself being directly exposed to enemy fire. In X that means it needs a convincing first strike capability - either via smaller ship launched ordinance or by means of being able to itself launch large and devastating missiles. The current bomber are TBH a bit useless and actually a corvette does the job better with 5 torp launcher being possible, but even then I don't consider it an effective first strike weapon even with 10 corvettes -0 they just dont do anywhere near enough damage. Bomber need to become dedicated long range first strike craft carry very devastating torpedos. This would actually then give fighter a position of real value as a defence against both bombers and incoming torpedoes. If fighter were to deal with bombers, then it also suggest a role for fighters as anti-fighter screens to escort bombers. Moving the first strike from destroyer to bomber does not have to mean the missile spam of X3-AP - that was a stupid fault of the scripts not considering what was enough which I know was possible as I wrote a fully automated boarding and capture script based upon small group of M7Ms (two to take the shields down and one to conduct the boarding op - it was near 100% reliable against any target until the AP swarm missile spam was added). Make them launch in smaller numbers (2 at a time from a bomber that can only carry maybe ten of them before it has to return and rearm in an automated manner at a launch range of between 10-20km perhaps with best pilots going in closer maybe) but also make them absolutely devastating - ie expect to loose most you shields with a single hit to a destroyer or carrier. But also consider that getting a hit though good layered point defence screen may be hard as well.

A carrier wouold then also need to be the immediate point of repair and resupply of its squadrons. Storage wise - it should be capable of at least a single re-arm and repair cycle and maybe no more than two such cycles. This is where the fleet auxillary comes in - not in it current forms with S and M docks, but purely as a well armed (with point defence) massive transporter as its job is to resupply carriers and anything else that is not carrier based. It could have some M docks (to service non carrier based frigates or corvettes), but I don't see a need for S docks.

For such to work at all, then there needs to be functional command and control structure - ships need to be engaging appropriate to their weight instead of this idiotic broken free for all we currently have. Then what of the destroyer if they are no longer the main first strike? Well destroyer traditionally may serve as protection escort for the carrier groups with frigate much further out doing picket duty (early warning and first line point defence). So long as destroyer are the first strike ships as currently, then basically nothing else has a place beyond the occasional need for something faster purely for the purpose of catching faster smaller ships and wiping them out instead of letting them get away as they are quite capable of mounting their own defence vs smaller ships. The rason is simple - while combat occures at relatively short distances, then whatever is engaing in that combat needs to be very robust in order to survive to deliver its damage. That means destroyers currently.

I think that the current frigate should be given a special point defence beam weapon specifically for taking down missiles and torpedos. Such a weapon to be mounted only on frigates and carriers. Destroyer may well have to engage other destroyers, so their current setup is not unreasonable with the exception that they should loose most of their hangar space. They should however be vulnerable to torpedo and thus rely upon frigate and or escort carriers to defend them from such. I also think that in a universe that uses combined fleets properly, then their could be a place for multi-role task group small carriers - ie the same size as a destroyer, but without the main weapons and given back say half the hangar space of a carrier - lets say 4M, 12S. These could serve as small task group multi-role destroyer + carriers - so they should include S launch tubes. Corvettes and Frigates shouldnt really be M (somewhere between M and L perhaps - as they were brefore in the form of the M7), but I guess it is simpler that way.In general I would expect to see faction running mostly multi-role destroyer/carriers instead of carriers and full destroyers as patrols. It would also be a good mid game ship for players to start the concept of a fleet as it was in X3 TC (before everythign got burried under sawm missile spam). I would see bother these multi-role L ships along with corvettes being the primary choice as boarding ships. Corvette probably become the primary ships of pirate groups - ie covette and a couple of fighter escorts leaving the frigate very much as a larger fleet support ship with a very specific role.

You cant think of a carrier on itwn own - it need to be thought of in the context of how a fleet should work and how combined combat should work. A carrier would need to see its battle space out to about 40Km with frigates provide an extra 20Km out beyond that. This significantly expands beyond the current tiny battle space and but I also think that would be a good thing, but probaly not at all posisble with the current script APIs - it wasnt easyt to make this work well even with the X3 APIs anbd hot key support etc.

For most p[lay egangement it wouldnt have to change the game that much if one were encoutering small task force esort carrier groups. However, it would and should signficantly change how you engage a full carrier battle group whihc would normally comprise of very many ships - think carriers + aux + 6 destroyers + 12 frigates for eg as a minimum + fleet logistics in the form of traders re-supplying the auxiliaries.

OK, so maybe small compared to the typical destroyer forces we are spamming right now (20-100 of them depending on the capabilities of your ship yards), but I suggest that is a direct consequence of the way the game is set up and made worse by everything being a bullet sponge and other destroyer being the thing we have to worry about and nothing else really being of any use. I would see destroyers becoming more expensive to make and carriers much more so with smaller escort carriers being the more common task force ship for all.

I really think they should bring back an equivalent of that merchant carrier that could hold 4 fighters. That really was one of my favourite early game ships in the transition from single fighter into beginning to trade and have some teeth - combined with the corvette, it would also make another logical pirate gang ship as well as a potential early boarding attack ship. Sadly there is no way that current ship scripts are even good enough to support that fun little ship either and until they are and the engine APIs behind them are flexible enough and that user interaction is also good enough, then as interesting as this discussion is, it also seems to be a bit moot.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

A carrier tradition is a battleship control and force projection ship.

This is a fallacy in essence, there are many different types of carrier fulfilling different roles. Just because the space ships in general in X4 do not map well on to current real world sea going ships/aircraft does not make their general approach incorrect nor bad nor useless.

In X4, both destroyers and carriers are warships with some role overlap - the carriers are more focused on the carrier aspect while the destroyers are more focused on own ship weapons. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this approach and it does fit with the current state of X-Universe lore. Both vessels can be considered multi-role/hybrid designs but with a focus on a specific use case, this may not fit with some people's wants and desires perhaps but it does gel well with the X-Universe lore - a universe which is really only just emerging from a long period of mutual isolation during the gate network shutdown where resources in general are tight and focusing ships on hybrid/multi-role designs makes sense.

I also disagree with your assertion that carriers in X4 are obsolete in any shape or form. In big fleet engagements, the utility of fighters may be limited but only a fool would take a knife to a gun fight or a gun to a knife fight.

I agree that the AI in general still needs work but that does not alter the fact that Carriers in X4 are not currently the white elephant that yourself and some others are trying to make them out to be.

Carriers in general can already operate as command and control vessels, and their carried fighters are better kept under manual control than currently relying on the subordinate logic to use them effectively. Missile balance does not need to be changed in order to make fighters useful, they already are. You just need to not expect the game to play itself for you where carrier use as carriers in a combat setting is concerned.

I currently have a Xenon Task Force consisting of 5 Carriers and 16 Destroyers, the way the fleet is organised is one of the Carriers is a task force leader and the other four Carriers each have four destroyers assigned to them. None of these ships have fighters assigned to them currently, but they do each have a complement of defence drones and repair drones (50:50 across all ships - meaning 10 Defence + 10 Repair on the Carriers and 5 Defence + 5 Repair on the Destroyers).

Defence Drone logic worked better at release than it does now, at least at release the drones would reliably RTB at the end of a mission but as it currently stands the RTB logic for drones is either broken or heavily flawed. I have seen some cases of drones RTBing to storage properly but I have seen more cases of them not RTBing to storage at all.

Where actual fighter usage is concerned, the current situation is flawed but workable. The main issue is with the AI, game balance on the whole is fine despite your assertions to the contrary.

Overall, there are subordinate AI issues that need to be addressed across the board but the current situation is workable. Where carriers are concerned, they have utility in both capital ship fights and smaller ship population control. Repair and rearm facilities are reserved for the mobile equipment docks slated for 2.50 but as it currently stands, we have own ship repair already courtesy of service crew. The mobile equipment docks are likely to not be workable as carriers nor warships. I would not be surprised if they are comparable to an XL variant of say the Shuyaku (1 or 2 L/XL docks along the sides, 1 or 2 S/M surface docks, very few M turrets, weaker shields than a Destroyer but oodles of cargo space) they may even work along similar lines to the Builder ships and require deployment to be fully functional.

[sh1pman]

I currently have a Xenon Task Force consisting of 5 Carriers and 16 Destroyers, the way the fleet is organised is one of the Carriers is a task force leader and the other four Carriers each have four destroyers assigned to them. None of these ships have fighters assigned to them currently, but they do each have a complement of defence drones and repair drones (50:50 across all ships - meaning 10 Defence + 10 Repair on the Carriers and 5 Defence + 5 Repair on the Destroyers).

Am I understanding this correctly, you’re using carriers, but without fighters? And yet you disagree with pretty much everyone else’s suggestions on how to make carriers more useful as, well, fighter carriers?

[GCU Grey Area]

So long as the ships that a carrier can carry have no useful place in current combat, then the carrier itself is obsolete.

No useful place? Find fighters invaluable myself. Big swarm of fighters (around a dozen or so) can essentially keep a Xenon capital locked in place & thoroughly distract it's turrets, allowing my destroyers to keep their distance at optimal range for their main guns. Fighters are small enough to evade most of the fire a capital puts out, whereas a destroyer can't. If a destroyer ends up in range of a Xenon's L turrets their shields & hull drop alarmingly quickly, they're simply too big a target to miss. Occasionally have to replace fighters but they're a LOT cheaper to replace than destroyers. Without fighters suspect I'd need several times as many destroyers (in order to have sufficient combined DPS) to reliably eliminate Xenon capitals fast enough to avoid significant risk of damage or destruction of my own capitals - something I'm rather keen to avoid. It's not just the monetary value, all of my capital ships are heavily modified & would hate to lose purple mods if I don't need to. In my opinion fighter support is critical for that.

[Althalos]

No useful place? Find fighters invaluable myself. Big swarm of fighters (around a dozen or so) can essentially keep a Xenon capital locked in place & thoroughly distract it's turrets, allowing my destroyers to keep their distance at optimal range for their main guns. Fighters are small enough to evade most of the fire a capital puts out, whereas a destroyer can't. If a destroyer ends up in range of a Xenon's L turrets their shields & hull drop alarmingly quickly, they're simply too big a target to miss. Occasionally have to replace fighters but they're a LOT cheaper to replace than destroyers. Without fighters suspect I'd need several times as many destroyers (in order to have sufficient combined DPS) to reliably eliminate Xenon capitals fast enough to avoid significant risk of damage or destruction of my own capitals - something I'm rather keen to avoid. It's not just the monetary value, all of my capital ships are heavily modified & would hate to lose purple mods if I don't need to. In my opinion fighter support is critical for that.

I have just about this same experience with carrier based fighters. So far I'm really satisfied with their performance. I have a single Colossus leading a wing of 40 Eclipses (20 full Pulse, 20 full Plasma), 6 Behemoths (3 full Pulse, 3 full Plasma), and 4 perma-docked Minotaurs (4 extra Pulse turrets each) guarding Hatikvah's Choice I Tharka's Cascade gate, and the fighters have been doing the major bulk of the work killing everything Xenon in sight. Both in and out of sector, they shred Xenon destroyers in a minute without losses. It's always amusing seeing the bullet storm rip a K appart without it being capable of properly defending itself.

At this time, I'm slowly building up the fleet to include two more such wings to invade the Tharka's Cascade sectors and end the direct Xenon threat to Argon territory. Again, I'm expecting the fighters to do the first charge before letting the capships clear whatever is left.

I took quite a long time to decide between building up a wall of destroyers or a few carries with a mass of figthers, and the fighters ultimately won. The only issue I have with the carriers so far is the lack of ability to repair and resupply them, and I honestly believe that the equipment dock ability for S and M class ships should rightfully belong to them.

[spankahontis]

These new mobile equipment docks will make Carriers even more useless, the moment you reintroduce a Battleship into the Argon Fleet? Carriers are simply Fighter/Bomber declutterers.
Mobile Equipment Docks will simply replace them. Not even nerfing their turrets would help the Carrier.
Just having Fighters escort a Destroyer would suffice than have a mobile Parking Lot with turrets.

I doubt if your assertion is going to be even close to being true.

I doubt that the mobile equipment docks will be as heavily shielded, nor have the same internal launch capability as current carriers.

As for non-xenon battleships, I would not bet on there being any added to the vanilla X4 game. Even if they are introduced, I would not bet on them being able to carry other ships.

I agree that Battleships will be heavy-hitters, not Carriers by design; but I totlly disagree with you that we wont see any amongst the other Factions in future expansions.
If the Xenon have the Xenon I then the Argon are going to need something to combat that, so I can't see Egosoft giving the Battleship Class the Heave-ho.

But it still negates the Carriers purpose, I predict Battleships will make Carriers as a Weapons Platform Obselete which leaves the only purpose for a Carrier AGAIN to carry Fighters.

The choice between having your fighters either in escort mode on the wings of a Destroyer or for Fighters to sit in a Carrier Docking bay.
They're better off battle ready in an Escort position than they are sitting in the Carrier.

If Carriers had crew aboard that aid in repairing damaged Fighters better than an engineer aboard the Fighter? That would make Carriers here more immersive and actually have a point of existing.
Even if Carriers were simply designed to carry a mass number of Drones like the Griffin in X3 Terran Conflict, even that would give it purpose.
But you're not convincing me here.

[GCU Grey Area]

Battleships? Is there any evidence I've missed that such ships are going to be introduced to the game?
Only new ships on the horizon I'm aware of are the Resupply ships due to be added in the 2.5 update.
Fairly certain that if these were intended to be battleships it would be mentioned somewhere - it would be quite exciting news.
Instead suspect they're going to be more akin to X3TC Aran (rather than an M0) - huge slow vessel with docks for every class of ship & a very big hold.
Since they're described as being "like a flying equipment dock" presume they'll also have the ability to repair docked ships & manufacture missiles, etc.
No mention of armaments so far, but to maintain balance with existing ships suspect they'll be comparatively weak in that area - high value target which will need to be protected, rather than a mighty battleship which can crush Xenon sectors all by itself.

[pref]

Since they're described as being "like a flying equipment dock" presume they'll also have the ability to repair docked ships & manufacture missiles, etc.
No mention of armaments so far, but to maintain balance with existing ships suspect they'll be comparatively weak in that area - high value target which will need to be protected, rather than a mighty battleship which can crush Xenon sectors all by itself.

I expect the same.
Though no clue how that would be useful, protecting them with current AI would be much more of a hassle then sending ships back to a nearby EQ dock if needed. Since there is self repair the only thing we can run low are missiles.. everything else can be exchanged already.
Lots of pain with not much gain.
Anyway once you can protect a huge impotent vessel in enemy space the battle is more or less over already.

If all this holds true, then having carriers with more utility would be much better then a new type of ship with half the functionality and more additional stress on AI issues.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I currently have a Xenon Task Force consisting of 5 Carriers and 16 Destroyers, the way the fleet is organised is one of the Carriers is a task force leader and the other four Carriers each have four destroyers assigned to them. None of these ships have fighters assigned to them currently, but they do each have a complement of defence drones and repair drones (50:50 across all ships - meaning 10 Defence + 10 Repair on the Carriers and 5 Defence + 5 Repair on the Destroyers).

Am I understanding this correctly, you’re using carriers, but without fighters? And yet you disagree with pretty much everyone else’s suggestions on how to make carriers more useful as, well, fighter carriers?

Some of my carriers have fighters, others do not - depends on the mission I am assigning them to. As I have stated a few times already - both Carriers and Destroyers are hybrid ship designs and already have utility, there is no need to change them. :rolleyes: