Your Ideas to make Carriers useful

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

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.

Not really, using your reasoning Battleships would make ALL other ships obsolete which is almost certainly false. If battleships were introduced for the main races (which there is precedent to say this wont happen in vanilla X4) then they would be balanced against existing ships in some way - almost certainly they would not be as fast or manoeuvrable as the current Hybrid Carrier/Destroyer designs.

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.

I disagree - transiting environmentally hazardous regions is a prime example of where they would be better off docked on a 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.

Unnecessary, service crew are supposed to facilitate own ship repairs on ALL craft.

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.

Carriers already have advantages over other ships - they can carry more drones than other vessels, they have faster S-sized ship launching capability than other vessels, they are currently the most heavily shielded vessels, plus they can equip the most ammo (an appropriate level for own ship use given the general design approach - no more, no less).

[sh1pman]

Not really, using your reasoning Battleships would make ALL other ships obsolete which is almost certainly false. If battleships were introduced for the main races (which there is precedent to say this wont happen in vanilla X4) then they would be balanced against existing ships in some way - almost certainly they would not be as fast or manoeuvrable as the current Hybrid Carrier/Destroyer designs.

They’ll also be huge targets, quite vulnerable without escorts. I’d also expect humongous resource costs. One should cost hundreds of millions to buy. Nice late game money sink.

[ArboriusCZ]

So how should we make Carriers actually doing something sueful and contributing to the overall military scheme?

I have no problem with carriers in 2.20, problem is user interface. 2 things:

1) Property owned list - I need some filter for separation stations, ships, wings, etc. I have 30 stations and scrolling is pretty boring ....

2) Expanding (opening) menu when clicking on any ship. I have 10 carriers and each 40S/10M with "defend" order. Imagine how long this property owned list is. It's like 1 hour scrolling ... (same for station subordinate, you click on ship and station list expand automaticaly ... )

825 hours ingame but these 2 things makes me

This is commander's personal hell ....

[linolafett]

1) Property owned list - I need some filter for separation stations, ships, wings, etc. I have 30 stations and scrolling is pretty boring ....

Soon™

[ArboriusCZ]

Thank god

[mr.WHO]

1) Property owned list - I need some filter for separation stations, ships, wings, etc. I have 30 stations and scrolling is pretty boring ....

Soon™

How about also wing naming? I mean Wing 1, Wing 2, Wing 3 doesn't help...when you have 50+ wings.


Regarding Carrier issue:
I think that the bare minimum would be to:
- nerf destroyer hangar space by half (there is no way it shoulf fit the same amount of fighters as Carrier, which is like dozen time bigger in volume).
- Additionally double the Carrier drone storage.

[spankahontis]

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.

Not really, using your reasoning Battleships would make ALL other ships obsolete which is almost certainly false. If battleships were introduced for the main races (which there is precedent to say this wont happen in vanilla X4) then they would be balanced against existing ships in some way - almost certainly they would not be as fast or manoeuvrable as the current Hybrid Carrier/Destroyer designs.......

You're skewing my words here, I didn't say it would make ALL ships obsolete.
I'm saying Battleships like all ships (Except Carriers in X4) have a purpose other than having the largest number of guns, hull, shields.

Battleships serve as a Command Ship, they would hold out against other Battleships, they'd cause large amounts of damage to stations and ships as well as destroy Frigates, Destroyers and Carriers that aren't protected.
But they'd be weak in the sense that they are slow, without support they'd be weak against Missile Frigates and bombers that can attack its surface elements (Guns/Shields etc.) Plus its guns would struggle against Fighters/Drones nullifying it's weapon superiority giving Destroyers and Frigates a Fighting chance.

As i'm trying to explain here.. All Ships have a 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' about them, weaknesses and strengths, yeah?

What strengths and weakness has a Carrier got? Good against Destroyers (Gunships) and Frigates (Gunships) - So does the Battleship and can destroy the Carrier.
Weak against Missile Frigates and Destroyers with allot of missile turrets. - Same with the Battleship.

Your key argument is.. "It has a docking bay for fast delivery of Fighters/Bombers".
You know what's faster? having those same Fighter/Bombers escort ships instead.
They don't require landing or taking off, they will fight when they see an enemy ship, they'll be ready.

Even Modern day Aircraft Carriers have repair facilities for fighters that have been damaged.
If the Colossus had the same ability for Fighters/Bombers? that would give it a serious reason to exist.
Bare in mind that Fighters and Bombers don't require refuelling in X4.. So that defeats the point.

So that means what other things an Aircraft Carrier can do? Rearm and repair Fighters/Bombers for another run.
The Mobile Equipment Dock in the upcoming 2.50 Patch will take care of rearming, repairing too.

The Carrier will be useless, it's only strength is second best to escorting ship commands.
If Egosoft nerfed my point to have limited escorts per ship giving Carriers a unique advantage? Then that would be great if you want to argue balance.

The M.E.D will make the Carrier useless, if they add a New and Improved Titan Class Destroyer then that's it for the Colossus, it'll only be visual Eye Candy.. Nothing more.
If you're trying to be tactical? I've already pointed out an alternative above.

So again I ask.. What's the point of a Carrier in X4?
Mobile Parking lot?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

...

Your argument is heavily flawed, especially with your hypothetical and currently irrelevant (regarding vanilla X4) Battleship reference that is based entirely on assumptions about how they may be balanced (should they ever be introduced). There is no good reason to believe main race battleships will ever be added to the game. Xenon Is were seemingly added as spawns in X4 2.0 as a direct response to cries about the Xenon being too easy to defeat. Given this, there is no good reason to believe that Egosoft would counter that with main race Battleships since it would effectively take them back to square one.

I have referenced the strengths and weaknesses of Carriers/Destroyers already but for the sake of brevity and clarity I will summarise them again here:

• Carriers carry double the drones of Destroyers
• Carriers typically are the only capitals capable of carrying M-size vessels - exception being the Odysseus Destroyers
• Carriers typically can launch a full complement of 40 internalised S-size ships in a few seconds while a Destroyer or any other ship that can carry 40 S-sized ships will take at least 5 times longer (ref. Colossus/Zeus - Condor has less internal launch bays) - the best non-carrier case probably been the L-size Paranid Miners
• Carriers typically have stronger shields
• Carriers have at least double the surface docks meaning faster ship/drone recovery and faster drone deployment
• Carriers typically have more M-turrets (c. double v. same race Destroyer)
• Carriers have typically 1 L-Turret v. 2/4 L-Turrets on Destroyers
• Carriers have no main guns v. Destroyers (destroyers having a longer direct attack maximum engagement range because of this)
• Carriers have a higher cargo capacity than Destroyers - Carriers are close to nominal Freighter capacity while Destroyers are closer to Transport capacity
• Carriers carry more missiles than any other ship - not enough to justify the rearm argument though
• Docked ship repairs is unnecessary since own ship repairs is a thing for ALL ships courtesy of service crews (even if docked ship repairs were implemented it should apply to ALL ships that can carry other ships - not just the Hybrid carriers that we have in X4, because own ship repairs is already a thing)
• The capabilities of real-life fleet carriers are moot since the same limitations do not apply - they are not exactly the same role fit regardless of any generic label similarities and there are other significant differences in overall context.

There are probably other points I could highlight but I think the above is enough to debunk your claims.

[spankahontis]

...

Your argument is heavily flawed, especially with your hypothetical and currently irrelevant (regarding vanilla X4) Battleship reference that is based entirely on assumptions about how they may be balanced (should they ever be introduced). There is no good reason to believe main race battleships will ever be added to the game. Xenon Is were seemingly added as spawns in X4 2.0 as a direct response to cries about the Xenon being too easy to defeat. Given this, there is no good reason to believe that Egosoft would counter that with main race Battleships since it would effectively take them back to square one.

I have referenced the strengths and weaknesses of Carriers/Destroyers already but for the sake of brevity and clarity I will summarise them again here:

• Carriers carry double the drones of Destroyers
• Carriers typically are the only capitals capable of carrying M-size vessels - exception being the Odysseus Destroyers
• Carriers typically can launch a full complement of 40 internalised S-size ships in a few seconds while a Destroyer or any other ship that can carry 40 S-sized ships will take at least 5 times longer (ref. Colossus/Zeus - Condor has less internal launch bays) - the best non-carrier case probably been the L-size Paranid Miners
• Carriers typically have stronger shields
• Carriers have at least double the surface docks meaning faster ship/drone recovery and faster drone deployment
• Carriers typically have more M-turrets (c. double v. same race Destroyer)
• Carriers have typically 1 L-Turret v. 2/4 L-Turrets on Destroyers
• Carriers have no main guns v. Destroyers (destroyers having a longer direct attack maximum engagement range because of this)
• Carriers have a higher cargo capacity than Destroyers - Carriers are close to nominal Freighter capacity while Destroyers are closer to Transport capacity
• Carriers carry more missiles than any other ship - not enough to justify the rearm argument though
• Docked ship repairs is unnecessary since own ship repairs is a thing for ALL ships courtesy of service crews (even if docked ship repairs were implemented it should apply to ALL ships that can carry other ships - not just the Hybrid carriers that we have in X4, because own ship repairs is already a thing)
• The capabilities of real-life fleet carriers are moot since the same limitations do not apply - they are not exactly the same role fit regardless of any generic label similarities and there are other significant differences in overall context.

There are probably other points I could highlight but I think the above is enough to debunk your claims.

As I've already pointed out, (to which you keep ignoring my key points) It's not about carrying them, it's about response time..
There is 2 ways for a Fighter/Bomber to travel with a fleet;
1) Inside a Ship via Docking Bay
2) Outside the Ship as an Escort.

Which method is faster in a combat situation?
Escort Fighters and Bombers don't require a Launch/Land so they will reach their target allot faster than those that come from the Colossus Launch Bay.
So assigning 40-60 fighters to a Destroyer would bring about a much faster response time than everything you have to go through to launch the fighters 2-4 at a time, by the time all your Fighters launch, my escorts are already on their way to the target.
Making a Colossus a waste of my time quite literally when there are much faster ways to reach a target.

So again, a slow-moving Mobile Parking Lot with some Big Guns, not a sound tactic.

The Colossus is slow, fighter response time (as i've proven) is second best to escort fighters and all it would take it to arm those Frigates and Destroyers with Heavy Torpedoes and the surface elements on your Colossus are toast and all chances of dealing with those ships with your own counter-attack would already be stuck fighting my fighters that will get there before yours do.

All it has going for it is it's Drone capability which would make sense as the US Navy would launch drones off their Carriers?
But again, another minor problem.
One could just counter that with making allot of corvettes filling them with drones. I've seen one, I think it's the Teladi Osprey that carries an impressive number of Drones (40 I believe?) Build enough of them and fill them to max with drones and can easily outmatch a Colossus which takes a long time to build (Depending on Workforce).

Again proven my point, Colossus has nothing I would consider 'credible' when compared to other ships that are more versatile.
And when Egosoft bring back the Battleship class (Because.. It's inevitable!) Then it's the death nail for the Carrier Class.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

As I've already pointed out, (to which you keep ignoring my key points) It's not about carrying them, it's about response time..
There is 2 ways for a Fighter/Bomber to travel with a fleet;
1) Inside a Ship via Docking Bay
2) Outside the Ship as an Escort.

Nope - I have not ignored your point at all, there are good reasons for at least the S-size ships to stay docked at a carrier until needed. I have highlighted at least one of these - transiting environmentally hazardous regions (at least when IS). The other one being that once you get over a certain number of ships you have to wait for them to gather at either end of an inter-system/sector trip (involving one or more gates/accelerators). Also, For long intra-sector trips they are better off-docked most of the time since even the Teladi Condor can have a faster cruise time than most fighters that have been optimised for speed in combat.

Better response time for docked ships is the entire point of the carrier design versus other ships, as I have highlighted carriers such as the Colossus/Zeus are AT LEAST 5 times faster at deploying their internalised S-size ships than any other ship not designated as a carrier. Internalised S-size ship deployment time for carriers based on empirical assessments done by GCU Grey Area in this thread are about 1 ship/tube/second and the Colossus/Zeus have 10 internalised S-size ship launch tubes.

There are some use cases where fighters are better off staying deployed but that is besides the point and on the most part irrelevant.

Carriers in general are being portrayed by some as merely slow moving parking lots - this is at best totally misleading and at worst an out-right fallacy.

As I pointed out, the general combat capital ship designs in X4 are Hybrid Carrier-Destroyer designs with Destroyers more focused on long-range direct damage (main guns/L turrets) and Carriers more focused on launch/recovery times (number of surface pads plus internalised ship launch tubes). Further to this, Carriers in X4 can carry more missiles and drones for own ship use than Destroyers (c. double in both cases) as it currently stands too.

As for the entirely hypothetical introduction of main-race Battleships in vanilla X4, I would not hold my breath - it is anything but inevitable and even *if* they are introduced, I have no doubt Egosoft will balance them appropriately. Carriers are highly unlikely to be made completely redundant by the introduction of Battleships in Vanilla X4 (should it ever happen in the first place).

The entire main-race/player owned Battleship v. Carriers line of debate is a red herring and irrelevant - they do not exist currently, and there have been no indications by Egosoft that they will be introduced either. It is more based on wishful thinking than reality and is comparable to the long standing I-want-an-M0 line of argument that has been going on in these forums since at least X2. That wish never truely came to pass either, and even when the more powerful M2P/M1P type craft were added late in the X3 sub-series they did not make the less powerful craft completely redundant.

[Shuulo]

1) Property owned list - I need some filter for separation stations, ships, wings, etc. I have 30 stations and scrolling is pretty boring ....

Soon™

How about also wing naming? I mean Wing 1, Wing 2, Wing 3 doesn't help...when you have 50+ wings.


Regarding Carrier issue:
I think that the bare minimum would be to:
- nerf destroyer hangar space by half (there is no way it shoulf fit the same amount of fighters as Carrier, which is like dozen time bigger in volume).
- Additionally double the Carrier drone storage.

I guess my VRO mod covers this pretty well.
Also, I will release optional scripts to make carriers more useful.

[spankahontis]

Nope - I have not ignored your point at all, there are good reasons for at least the S-size ships to stay docked at a carrier until needed. I have highlighted at least one of these - transiting environmentally hazardous regions (at least when IS). The other one being that once you get over a certain number of ships you have to wait for them to gather at either end of an inter-system/sector trip (involving one or more gates/accelerators). Also, For long intra-sector trips they are better off-docked most of the time since even the Teladi Condor can have a faster cruise time than most fighters that have been optimised for speed in combat.

They'll bail out of the dock as soon as a Xenon Ship is in range which they tend to spawn around the gate so it's a waste of time anyway to keep the fighters protected from the hazardous regions, and in Faulty Logic, the place is mined to hell.
You need to get your ships and send them to a safe region of Space.

Better response time for docked ships is the entire point of the carrier design versus other ships, as I have highlighted carriers such as the Colossus/Zeus are AT LEAST 5 times faster at deploying their internalised S-size ships than any other ship not designated as a carrier. Internalised S-size ship deployment time for carriers based on empirical assessments done by GCU Grey Area in this thread are about 1 ship/tube/second and the Colossus/Zeus have 10 internalised S-size ship launch tubes.

There are some use cases where fighters are better off staying deployed but that is besides the point and on the most part irrelevant.

They could deploy a hundred times faster, but you don't need to deploy a fighter when they are already outside the ship. (Deja Vu?)

Only it's not irrelevant. You have to go through the whole process of the ships launching and massing towards a target where Escorts are already outside and ready to fight when they're assigned, no faf-on they'll be there the moment an enemy ship is in range.
So you're still not winning me over on that.
If a Fighter is already in the air and the fighter on the Carrier goes up the Lift and Launches (Putting aside the time it needs to fuel, pilot to check systems, heading to the end of the runway, ignite engines and launch etc.) You're telling me that THAT Fighter on the Carrier will catch up to the one that's already 5-10 minutes ahead?

Carriers to me only serve as an aesthetic until they have some actual use that makes them stand out from the other ships; repairing docked Fighters like on actual Fighter Carrier does.
I wont be moved on that.

Carriers in general are being portrayed by some as merely slow moving parking lots - this is at best totally misleading and at worst an out-right fallacy.

Doesn't matter what you think, it's what those playing the game think through their experience, to you it's the best thing since sliced Bread and I wont deny you your opinion (I simply wont agree based on my experience, you're wrong).
To me, it's boring and there are better tactics out there. And I don't even think i've covered the speed of production. A Carrier takes the longest to make while Destroyers are almost half the speed and cheaper. Better to have a bunch of them and add Fighters and Bombers to support them than a Big Slow that's a huge target.

As I pointed out, the general combat capital ship designs in X4 are Hybrid Carrier-Destroyer designs with Destroyers more focused on long-range direct damage (main guns/L turrets) and Carriers more focused on launch/recovery times (number of surface pads plus internalised ship launch tubes). Further to this, Carriers in X4 can carry more missiles and drones for own ship use than Destroyers (c. double in both cases) as it currently stands too.

I'm not denying that a Single Destroyer Vs a Carrier, my moneys on the Carrier winning the fight.
But a whole host of Destroyers that you can build faster and in greater numbers, that Drone and Missile etc, superiority wont account for anything when they're surrounded and the response time of Escort Fighters will reach your Carrier before yours can reach my Destroyers. Those missiles and drones wont account for nothing if I get there first and while your superior armed Carrier is busy holding off the Fighters; in will come the Destroyers with a large enough payload of missiles/torpedos with very little fighter/drone resistance to stop them firing at the Carrier.
So again you're not convincing me here.. Response time! Response time! Response time!

As for the entirely hypothetical introduction of main-race Battleships in vanilla X4, I would not hold my breath - it is anything but inevitable and even *if* they are introduced, I have no doubt Egosoft will balance them appropriately. Carriers are highly unlikely to be made completely redundant by the introduction of Battleships in Vanilla X4 (should it ever happen in the first place).

Battleships from a marketing standpoint are a major part of the Space Sim Experience; even Elite: Dangerous got that one right.
And you tell the majority of X Fans that "Battleships are cancelled"? Sit back and ride the wave on that one matey.

Battleships will likely be slower than Carriers, so without Fighter Support.. They are screwed.
But again, Escort ships at the ready and they'll (Once again) with better response time than ships that have to go through the process of launching before deploying and you wont have your fighters reaching mine in time.
As soon as they reach the Carrier which will already be up to it's Neck in Fighters/Drones, it will get pulverized by the Battleships superior armaments with little distraction from Fighters (If the Destroyers haven't taken it out first?).

The entire main-race/player owned Battleship v. Carriers line of debate is a red herring and irrelevant - they do not exist currently, and there have been no indications by Egosoft that they will be introduced either. It is more based on wishful thinking than reality and is comparable to the long standing I-want-an-M0 line of argument that has been going on in these forums since at least X2. That wish never truely came to pass either, and even when the more powerful M2P/M1P type craft were added late in the X3 sub-series they did not make the less powerful craft completely redundant.

A Red Herring leads to a logical fallacy or seeks to mislead; find that kind of insulting as I could say the exact same thing about your views.
But it's a case of agreeing to disagree here.
I'm imposing a theory based on my personal theory that's simply not been researched which is why it doesn't exist. There are things in the Universe that scientists haven't discovered and theories that have not been proven, are they Red Herrings too?
But reality is, there is people in this topic that I agree with and those that agree with you, to dismiss them as 'irrelevant' is not how you engage different views.
If Egosoft treated opinion as "Irrelevant, that we've made up our Minds", how would Egosoft Fans take to that closed off attitude you think?

Every Space Sim game has their Battleship Class or similar, Egosoft going against convention? Now that IS the Red Herring.
The Split like their Big Ships like a Redneck likes his Big Guns.

[GCU Grey Area]

They'll bail out of the dock as soon as a Xenon Ship is in range which they tend to spawn around the gate so it's a waste of time anyway to keep the fighters protected from the hazardous regions, and in Faulty Logic, the place is mined to hell.

My fighters don't do anything like that - they always stay docked until I give explicit attack orders, then return to their carriers as soon as their assigned target(s) have been destroyed. Had absolutely no problems at all in Tharka's Cascade (the sector with the environmental hazard). Not even a single case of fighters launching just because Xenon ships were in range. Even when those enemy ships were firing on their carrier (there were quite a lot of them near the gate in that sector) all fighters stayed exactly where I wanted them (i.e. safe inside their carriers) until both my fleet & the Xenon capitals had flown to the fringes of the sector, where it was safe for them to launch.

They could deploy a hundred times faster, but you don't need to deploy a fighter when they are already outside the ship. (Deja Vu?)

Only it's not irrelevant. You have to go through the whole process of the ships launching and massing towards a target where Escorts are already outside and ready to fight when they're assigned, no faf-on they'll be there the moment an enemy ship is in range.
So you're still not winning me over on that.
If a Fighter is already in the air and the fighter on the Carrier goes up the Lift and Launches (Putting aside the time it needs to fuel, pilot to check systems, heading to the end of the runway, ignite engines and launch etc.) You're telling me that THAT Fighter on the Carrier will catch up to the one that's already 5-10 minutes ahead?

It's only useful to have fighters outside if they can keep up with the fleet. Mine can't - my capitals are around 3-4x faster than my fighters in travel mode (better mods for the capitals & different choices for engines & chassis). Would be an absolute nightmare keeping the fleet together without carriers (I have tried that approach). Fighters travelling more than maybe 15km at most under their own steam are essentially useless to me - I need them to attack enemy capitals first, not arrive several minutes after my destroyers have already engaged the enemy.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Nope - I have not ignored your point at all, there are good reasons for at least the S-size ships to stay docked at a carrier until needed. I have highlighted at least one of these - transiting environmentally hazardous regions (at least when IS). The other one being that once you get over a certain number of ships you have to wait for them to gather at either end of an inter-system/sector trip (involving one or more gates/accelerators). Also, For long intra-sector trips they are better off-docked most of the time since even the Teladi Condor can have a faster cruise time than most fighters that have been optimised for speed in combat.

They'll bail out of the dock as soon as a Xenon Ship is in range which they tend to spawn around the gate so it's a waste of time anyway to keep the fighters protected from the hazardous regions, and in Faulty Logic, the place is mined to hell.
You need to get your ships and send them to a safe region of Space.

There are options for keeping them docked - the auto launch on threat behaviours on the whole are overridable with manual orders.

Better response time for docked ships is the entire point of the carrier design versus other ships, as I have highlighted carriers such as the Colossus/Zeus are AT LEAST 5 times faster at deploying their internalised S-size ships than any other ship not designated as a carrier. Internalised S-size ship deployment time for carriers based on empirical assessments done by GCU Grey Area in this thread are about 1 ship/tube/second and the Colossus/Zeus have 10 internalised S-size ship launch tubes.

There are some use cases where fighters are better off staying deployed but that is besides the point and on the most part irrelevant.

They could deploy a hundred times faster, but you don't need to deploy a fighter when they are already outside the ship. (Deja Vu?)

Only it's not irrelevant. You have to go through the whole process of the ships launching and massing towards a target where Escorts are already outside and ready to fight when they're assigned, no faf-on they'll be there the moment an enemy ship is in range.
So you're still not winning me over on that.
If a Fighter is already in the air and the fighter on the Carrier goes up the Lift and Launches (Putting aside the time it needs to fuel, pilot to check systems, heading to the end of the runway, ignite engines and launch etc.) You're telling me that THAT Fighter on the Carrier will catch up to the one that's already 5-10 minutes ahead?

Carriers to me only serve as an aesthetic until they have some actual use that makes them stand out from the other ships; repairing docked Fighters like on actual Fighter Carrier does.
I wont be moved on that.

As pointed out - ALL ships already have self-repair courtesy of service crew, it is buggy in places but there are general issues with scripts not always running as they should which is not specific to this.

Your argument on the whole is totally fallacious in nature - fighters in X4 do not launch 5-10minutes apart, they launch in a matter of seconds on proper carriers. On destroyers, things are far slower in deployment and recovery especially when you consider the difference between an Odysseus and a Zeus or Colossus.

Carriers in general are being portrayed by some as merely slow moving parking lots - this is at best totally misleading and at worst an out-right fallacy.

Doesn't matter what you think, it's what those playing the game think through their experience, to you it's the best thing since sliced Bread and I wont deny you your opinion (I simply wont agree based on my experience, you're wrong).
To me, it's boring and there are better tactics out there. And I don't even think i've covered the speed of production. A Carrier takes the longest to make while Destroyers are almost half the speed and cheaper. Better to have a bunch of them and add Fighters and Bombers to support them than a Big Slow that's a huge target.

The assertion that carriers are sufficiently slower than destroyers to make their actual tangible benefits irrelevant is a factual fallacy - not subjective opinion in the slightest.

As I pointed out, the general combat capital ship designs in X4 are Hybrid Carrier-Destroyer designs with Destroyers more focused on long-range direct damage (main guns/L turrets) and Carriers more focused on launch/recovery times (number of surface pads plus internalised ship launch tubes). Further to this, Carriers in X4 can carry more missiles and drones for own ship use than Destroyers (c. double in both cases) as it currently stands too.

I'm not denying that a Single Destroyer Vs a Carrier, my moneys on the Carrier winning the fight.
But a whole host of Destroyers that you can build faster and in greater numbers, that Drone and Missile etc, superiority wont account for anything when they're surrounded and the response time of Escort Fighters will reach your Carrier before yours can reach my Destroyers. Those missiles and drones wont account for nothing if I get there first and while your superior armed Carrier is busy holding off the Fighters; in will come the Destroyers with a large enough payload of missiles/torpedos with very little fighter/drone resistance to stop them firing at the Carrier.
So again you're not convincing me here.. Response time! Response time! Response time!

You have yet to make a valid counter argument that is not based on hyperbole and supposition. The response time for ships docked on a Carrier is better than that for fighters of any quantity dock any other ship - this is indisputable fact.

As for the entirely hypothetical introduction of main-race Battleships in vanilla X4, I would not hold my breath - it is anything but inevitable and even *if* they are introduced, I have no doubt Egosoft will balance them appropriately. Carriers are highly unlikely to be made completely redundant by the introduction of Battleships in Vanilla X4 (should it ever happen in the first place).

Battleships from a marketing standpoint are a major part of the Space Sim Experience; even Elite: Dangerous got that one right.
And you tell the majority of X Fans that "Battleships are cancelled"? Sit back and ride the wave on that one matey.

Battleships will likely be slower than Carriers, so without Fighter Support.. They are screwed.
But again, Escort ships at the ready and they'll (Once again) with better response time than ships that have to go through the process of launching before deploying and you wont have your fighters reaching mine in time.
As soon as they reach the Carrier which will already be up to it's Neck in Fighters/Drones, it will get pulverized by the Battleships superior armaments with little distraction from Fighters (If the Destroyers haven't taken it out first?).

M0s where the battleships of X3 and prior - they never came to pass (in player owned or main race form) really. You can pontificate about battleships being inevitable but thus far it is pure supposition and wishful thinking.

If main-race/player Battleships were ever introduced in vanilla, they would probably be primarily floating targets/weapon platforms - they would almost certainly need to rely on Carriers/Destroyers for their primary defence measures rather than having carrier facilities of substance themselves.

The entire main-race/player owned Battleship v. Carriers line of debate is a red herring and irrelevant - they do not exist currently, and there have been no indications by Egosoft that they will be introduced either. It is more based on wishful thinking than reality and is comparable to the long standing I-want-an-M0 line of argument that has been going on in these forums since at least X2. That wish never truely came to pass either, and even when the more powerful M2P/M1P type craft were added late in the X3 sub-series they did not make the less powerful craft completely redundant.

A Red Herring leads to a logical fallacy or seeks to mislead; find that kind of insulting as I could say the exact same thing about your views.
But it's a case of agreeing to disagree here.
I'm imposing a theory based on my personal theory that's simply not been researched which is why it doesn't exist. There are things in the Universe that scientists haven't discovered and theories that have not been proven, are they Red Herrings too?
But reality is, there is people in this topic that I agree with and those that agree with you, to dismiss them as 'irrelevant' is not how you engage different views.
If Egosoft treated opinion as "Irrelevant, that we've made up our Minds", how would Egosoft Fans take to that closed off attitude you think?

Every Space Sim game has their Battleship Class or similar, Egosoft going against convention? Now that IS the Red Herring.
The Split like their Big Ships like a Redneck likes his Big Guns.

Nope - not true for the X-Series on the whole, Egosoft not having main race battleships would actually be in-keeping with X-Universe lore in the main. The main races counter the battleship threats of the Kha'ak and Xenon without their own Battleships.

The Terrans had a notional one-off Battleship-like craft, the Valhalla but outside of mods it was not really obtainable as I recall.

The general assertion that main-race/player-owned Battleships are inevitable for an X-series game is ignoring the precedent set by existing X-Universe lore - it does not matter what "other games" may do or not do.

[mr.WHO]

The general assertion that main-race/player-owned Battleships are inevitable for an X-series game is ignoring the precedent set by existing X-Universe lore - it does not matter what "other games" may do or not do.

In the past games the Destroyers were acting as battleships and the Carriers were no pushovers either.
In X4 destroyers are considerably weaker and Carriers barrely are able to defend themselves on their own.
This means X4 provide great niche for battleships (spiritual sucessors of M0 like Valhalla and M2+ like Kyoto) - they would suplemend greatly the existing destroyers and Carriers as ships of the like and station killers (it's irritating to watch bunch of destroyers trying for long to kill one station on SETA).

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The general assertion that main-race/player-owned Battleships are inevitable for an X-series game is ignoring the precedent set by existing X-Universe lore - it does not matter what "other games" may do or not do.

In the past games the Destroyers were acting as battleships and the Carriers were no pushovers either.
In X4 destroyers are considerably weaker and Carriers barrely are able to defend themselves on their own.
This means X4 provide great niche for battleships (spiritual sucessors of M0 like Valhalla and M2+ like Kyoto) - they would suplemend greatly the existing destroyers and Carriers as ships of the like and station killers (it's irritating to watch bunch of destroyers trying for long to kill one station on SETA).

I disagree on the whole - Destroyers (M2s) in previous X-games were not even close to being battleships as the cry for Battleships (M0s) in earlier games from some quarters demonstrated.

There is no doubt that the combat balance in X4 is "different" from previous X-games but that does not make main-race/player-owned Battleships either appropriate or justified for the Vanilla game.

The M0/Battleship cry is little more than a demand for an I-WIN-Button ship really, Egosoft presumably realise this.

I remember a quote from the X2 manual that has always resonated with how the Vanilla game has played out - "If you think you need one ship, take ten." (or something like that - exact wording may not be accurate).

[dholmstr]

The general assertion that main-race/player-owned Battleships are inevitable for an X-series game is ignoring the precedent set by existing X-Universe lore - it does not matter what "other games" may do or not do.

In the past games the Destroyers were acting as battleships and the Carriers were no pushovers either.
In X4 destroyers are considerably weaker and Carriers barrely are able to defend themselves on their own.
This means X4 provide great niche for battleships (spiritual sucessors of M0 like Valhalla and M2+ like Kyoto) - they would suplemend greatly the existing destroyers and Carriers as ships of the like and station killers (it's irritating to watch bunch of destroyers trying for long to kill one station on SETA).

I disagree on the whole - Destroyers (M2s) in previous X-games were not even close to being battleships as the cry for Battleships (M0s) in earlier games from some quarters demonstrated.

There is no doubt that the combat balance in X4 is "different" from previous X-games but that does not make main-race/player-owned Battleships either appropriate or justified for the Vanilla game.

The M0/Battleship cry is little more than a demand for an I-WIN-Button ship really, Egosoft presumably realise this.

I remember a quote from the X2 manual that has always resonated with how the Vanilla game has played out - "If you think you need one ship, take ten." (or something like that - exact wording may not be accurate).

I must ask, why are you so hell bend on keeping this status quo that we have right now in the game that almost all new things are wrong? You were a very hard defender of turrets and ships before the turret update, what everyone was asking for. And they changed it. Are you fine now with that change? Now you defend the carrier and says it allright when so many disagree. I'm not saying anyone is more right or wrong, it is about how people play the game and how it feels for them. I just want to know why so many changes are completely wrong in you opinion? How come you feel that it's good and working just right, and that's why the game shouldn't change?

The old destroyers were the big guns of old. The M0s were just silly ships in many cases. No matter the name, the M2s were "big" for many players and the ships acted that way. But why wouldn't Battleships (or bigger than current destroyer, what ever the name is) be either appropiate or justified? Because you don't want them or it would change the game once more?

BTW I haven't notice the fast launch from the carrier but OOS they do seem to pop out fast. But GCU Grey says his fighters don't scramble out when flying in bad territory UNTIL he gives the order? Are you just having them docked and not in a wing under the carrier? My fighters have a bad record of following the wing order (if the wing order code actually work) so thats why I'm asking. I do not want to explicitly tell all the fighters all the time. Rather give the commander an order and he'll do his job and the fighters gets order from him...automation.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The old destroyers were the big guns of old. The M0s were just silly ships in many cases. No matter the name, the M2s were "big" for many players and the ships acted that way. But why wouldn't Battleships (or bigger than current destroyer, what ever the name is) be either appropiate or justified? Because you don't want them or it would change the game once more?

The whole thing is based on how things are balanced in general, X4 is balanced substantially differently to the other X-games - the closest probably being X2 which IMO was the best vanilla combat balance of any X-game to date. There is not ONE single use case in X4 where I think a bigger more powerful combat vessel than what we already have would make sense.

Besides which, it would not fit with the current X-Universe lore in X4.

BTW I haven't notice the fast launch from the carrier but OOS they do seem to pop out fast. But GCU Grey says his fighters don't scramble out when flying in bad territory UNTIL he gives the order? Are you just having them docked and not in a wing under the carrier? My fighters have a bad record of following the wing order (if the wing order code actually work) so thats why I'm asking. I do not want to explicitly tell all the fighters all the time. Rather give the commander an order and he'll do his job and the fighters gets order from him...automation.

There are many different ways fighters can be managed. I believe GCU sets their fighters with a default order of "dock at carrier X" then orders them to engage manually.

An alternative is to assign fighters to the carrier in question, give them a manual order to dock and wait, then when you want to pull them out of standby you can just clear all current orders. At which point, standard subordinate behaviours will take over. When you want to pull them out of the fight, you can either multi-select and manually tell them to dock or do a recall subordinates on the carrier. The recall subordinates is not 100% reliable due to current implementation of reactive orders but it can work.

There are other options but the two above are probably the most straightforward to manage.

As for fast carrier launch, GCU has stated their empirical findings about this earlier in this thread - but to summarise, there is seemingly a maximum launch speed of 1 S-size ship per second is possible for each launch tube meaning a Zeus/Colossus will be able to launch a full complement of 40 S-size ships in under 5 seconds.

There is no doubt that some improvement of subordinate management is still required in X4 BUT to claim carriers do not serve a purpose currently is an out-right fallacy.

Carriers and Destroyers may not meet the expectations of some, but that is far from an unusual state of affairs for the X-series IME.

[GCU Grey Area]

BTW I haven't notice the fast launch from the carrier but OOS they do seem to pop out fast. But GCU Grey says his fighters don't scramble out when flying in bad territory UNTIL he gives the order? Are you just having them docked and not in a wing under the carrier? My fighters have a bad record of following the wing order (if the wing order code actually work) so thats why I'm asking. I do not want to explicitly tell all the fighters all the time. Rather give the commander an order and he'll do his job and the fighters gets order from him...automation.

Yes, my fighters are not organised in wings under their carriers. Frequently give carriers & fighters different orders (e.g. carrier: 'fly to', fighters: 'attack'). It's really not all that much more complicated to shift-select a bunch of fighters from the ship list & give them orders directly, than it is to give orders to a carrier & has the advantage that my carriers stays safe behind the lines (rather than joining the attack along with their fighters). As for automation, my fighters do have a bit of that - very fond of the 'dock & wait' behaviour so my fighters automatically return to their carriers after completing other orders.

[dholmstr]

BTW I haven't notice the fast launch from the carrier but OOS they do seem to pop out fast. But GCU Grey says his fighters don't scramble out when flying in bad territory UNTIL he gives the order? Are you just having them docked and not in a wing under the carrier? My fighters have a bad record of following the wing order (if the wing order code actually work) so thats why I'm asking. I do not want to explicitly tell all the fighters all the time. Rather give the commander an order and he'll do his job and the fighters gets order from him...automation.

Yes, my fighters are not organised in wings under their carriers. Frequently give carriers & fighters different orders (e.g. carrier: 'fly to', fighters: 'attack'). It's really not all that much more complicated to shift-select a bunch of fighters from the ship list & give them orders directly, than it is to give orders to a carrier & has the advantage that my carriers stays safe behind the lines (rather than joining the attack along with their fighters). As for automation, my fighters do have a bit of that - very fond of the 'dock & wait' behaviour so my fighters automatically return to their carriers after completing other orders.

Yes I know that shift-select all, use it myself. BUT that doesn't mean I think it is a good way. I am hoping for a better wing functionality (aka a working code). My vision of the Carrier wing command structure would be akin to :
Having serveral wings of fighters with different loadout of guns and different orders, big guns go big ships, small accurate guns go small ships and protect carrier. Bomber wings that have escorts that protect the bomber NOT the carrier. So when I tell the carrier to patrol a sector or stand ground at a point these wings would activate accordingly. So if a batch of small fighters comes into "view" the Carrier scrambles the fighters with light guns, shoot the victims and return. If big baddies it launches heavy fighters and bomber + bomber escorts.