Carriers. The final solution

[Aven Valkyr]

Before I go on my hiadas from X4, in hopes that certain things will be revisited and changed, I would like to discuss the second most majour thing that everyone seems to be pleading to have changed. And that thing is how carriers should function.

To start with, I would really like to hit home the mechanism in this game concerning docked fighters. In reality, only carriers should really be able to dock fighters in any sort of quantity. I can see being able to dock a medium transport ship or 2, since carriers are huge, and the smaller transport ships do not have drones to carry cargo over. So the fact that carriers now have that option is good.

What carriers need is automation. Just like how you have auto mine and auto trade, carriers should get their own category of automation. It should be called Carrier Command. And what are the things carriers should be able to do? Well in order to answer that question, let's look at what carriers do in real life.

- They launch fighters to patrol the skies
- They run defense missions for military assets
- They run assault missions to hit targets
- They have search and rescue capabilities
- They provide tactical intel and coordinate fleet efforts

I don't feel that any of these things should be tied to the pilot rating system. These are all basic functions of what a carrier can do, and a special UI should be available to the player in order to manage all of these functions. Where the star rating system could be utilized here is in how well the carrier performs any one of these tasks. This is going to be very indepth, but with a new UI just for carriers, and being able to set up the carrier in how it functions according to the pilots skill level, should provide a robust level of control over how the carrier performs.

I will attempt to break this all down to make it easy to understand and hopefully work with.

Carrying Capacity:
For starts, carriers should only be able to carry half the fighter compliment they can carry now, at best. No other ship should be able to carry more than one or two fighters. Carriers should only be able to dock around 15 - 20 fighters, with a docking bay that can accommodate 2 medium transport ships. No other ship in the game should be allowed to carry fighters like this, save frigates, which can carry 1 fighter, and large transport ships, which can carry 2 fighters. Going down to a much smaller compliment of fighters will make carriers more balanced, because docking and undocking a massive plethora of ships is a daunting task, especially when the pilot is in system, and accidents and crashes are likely to happen. It's utterly pointless to have 40 ships all trying to undock from a carrier at once

Fighter Groups:
Carriers should be able to make fleets of up to 5 fighters in each fleet. These small fleets are automatically formed and managed by the carrier itself, without having to rely on player intervention. This is all set up through the new UI window for carriers. The player can pre-define what ships they want to have involved in these fleets, how the fleets work, and when those fleets need to be undocked. When the carrier spits out a group of 5 fighters, those fighters are fleeted up, and they are given a set of commands, depending on the situation

Patrol Runs:
The carrier should be able to handle up to 2 patrol runs. These runs would have a pre-defined radius or distance from the carrier, from 5km - 100km. These fighter groups will always be launched and running around, keeping the immediate area safe from hostiles. The automated patrol runs would always be tethered to the carrier itself, so as the carrier moves, so does the "bubble" or radius from the carrier, ensuring that the fighters never stray too far. The carrier itself should be able to perform a sector wide patrol run, with up to 2 fighter groups buzzing around, keeping the immediate area safe

Defense Missions:
The carrier should be able to launch a single wing of fighters to go out and protect your assets as they come and go from a sector. This special group of fighters would have a range of 250km from the carrier. As your assets come and go, the carrier will check for any ships that are under attack while in system. The automatic deployment of fighters would be a really amazing thing for the player, so that while the player is not necessarily unconcerned, there is a feeling of safety in knowing that a carrier is in that sector, protecting assets as they pass through.

Engagement Missions:
The carrier should be able to determine the threat factor of an engagement automatically. Say it's just a single little fighter harassing your transports. It wouldn't be logical that the carrier would send its entire compliment of fighters to engage that one single hostile. However add a couple frigates and a small contingent of fighters to the mix, and now the carrier has to make a decision. The carrier would always leave at least 5 fighters for its own protection, but being able to send 3 full fighter groups to defend an asset would make the carrier useful and make the player want to have them around.

Fleet Operations:
The carrier should basically be a fleet boss. The carrier would not only automatically mange its own fighter groups, but it would also have command of the other ships that are associated with the carrier group itself. So if you have a carrier and a couple destroyers, and 3 or 4 frigates all in a group, the carrier can choose what ships to send out and when. The carrier is responsible for more than just sending out fighters. It's also responsible for managing any other large ships in its battle group. Going back to that scenario of a handful of frigs and a couple handfuls of fighters, now the carrier has to make a decision based on threat. So the carrier would instead choose to send out some heavy firepower, and instead of catapaulting the fighters into the fray only to be slaughtered by the enemy, they are instead launched and set to escort the heavy vessels as they make their way over to the battle.

Here's a simple look at the UI window and how it should function:

================================

Carrier Command
- [ SELECT FLEET ]

(Lists are automatically updated as ships are added to the fleet)
Carrier List:
- Flagship
- [ Assign Carrier Flagship ]

Fighter List:

Frigate List:

Destroyer List:

<Patrol Options>
- Minimum Patrol Range [0-20km] (This is a drop down menu)
- Maximum Patrol Range [50-100km] (This is a drop down menu)
- Fighter Group 1
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Fighter Group 2
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Fighter Group 3
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]

<Defense Fleets> (This option is used to escort and protect assets travelling through the system)
- Fighter Group 1
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Fighter Group 2
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Fighter Group 3
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Battle Group Defense
- [ AI option: Set all fighters to Guard Yes/No ]

<Assault Engagements> (This option is used when a group of enemies is in sector and the carrier wants to wipe them out)
- Fighter Group 1
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Fighter Group 2
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Fighter Group 3
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Fighter Group 4
- [ Add Fighters ]
- [ Associated Carrier ]
- Frigates
- [ Add Frigates ]
- Destroyers
- [ Add Destroyers ]

================================

As you can see, this would be a robust UI, and you can set many options. You could set up a carrier to mainly be a scout, with multiple patrol runs being issued by a certain carrier. Or you could set up a carrier to do mainly defense/assault. Being able to tweak how the fighter groups for each carrier work would allow the player to specialize their carriers within the battlegroup. In the case that a single fleet would have multiple carriers, you would have the option to set up a flagship, so that one of the carriers can issue orders to the whole rest of the fleet. Each carrier would be responsible for controlling their own fighters as determined by the carrier command UI. The carrier command UI would only accommodate up to a certain amount of carriers however. This doesn't necessarily mean that a player can't add more carriers, or have carriers do things outside of the UI. But if the player wants to automate the carrier, or carriers in a certain group, then I would say up to 3 carriers per battle group would be about what the game should be able to handle. That's a total of up to 60 fighters, all managed by a group of 3 carriers, as well as having however many other types of ships ranging from lone-wolf fighters to destroyers. Of course, the player could have as many of these types of fleets as they feel is needed, hence the drop down box at the very top. It would be beneficial to allow the player to name each carrier fleet and have that name be reflected in the drop down, so that group selection is easy.

I know this all sounds pretty complicated, and I admit it probably is. It would take a hell of a lot of programming to do this, but in all honesty, it should have been done from the get-go. Control of carriers has always been a nightmare in the X series, and honestly it's high time you guys at Egosoft addressed this issue. This game is more than just a trading/station building game. It's a tactical space-navy simulator as well. The UI for controlling our military assets should be both robust and easy(ish) to use, have plenty of options, and much of it should be AI driven.

What the X series needs and has always needed is a proper form of automation for the players assets. From mining to nuking xenon K's, the AI in the game should be able to make judgement calls and do things automatically, without the player having to micro-manage hundreds of individual ships. People are saying that carriers are useless, and frankly I have to agree. But let's do something about it shall we? And let's make it well implemented. Yes, it will take time away from your newest DLC. It will cost you money to do this up PROPERLY. But in the end, it's a function that you can carry forward into your future games, and at the end of the day you will still get paid to make these changes. I know money is always an issue when it comes to dev time, but please. This isn't some random request like "I want pink ships with purple poka-dots! With thrusters that go MEEEEEOOOOWWWW when ships zoom past me!". The lack of control over carriers in the X series is game breaking, as well is the poor implementation of the pilot ranking system. So please Egosoft, make the usage of carriers logical and easy for the player. Let's get this done already!

Thanks

[Socratatus]

You know what will happen as soon as you compare anything to reality- Someone will pop up and say it`s not reality. But I agree with you.

[Olfrygt]

Can be don much easier. It only needs 3 steps/Changes

1. Remove the highway and let L/XL Ships fly into to the middle of gates
2. Slow down S/M sravel speed and/or limiting the time they can use it but make them faster in fight (S/M balance needs work anyway here u can start it)
3. Buff L/XL travel speed the same way, make them faster and/or let them keep the speed up for a longer period of time

So if want to send your fleet only a short distance just send all the ships. If u want to travel from for example Argon Prime to Holy Vision let them dock at the carrier.

[surferx]

I don't get the reasoning when all models of all race's carriers have different designs, different weapons layout but all hold exactly 50 fighters. And a Mining vessel can hold 80??? The M1s in X3 had unique hanger capacities that certainly went into deciding which M1 to purchase/build/capture.

[Karmaticdamage]

I'd like to see the Condor get a shield generator for its engines. The Zeus and Colossus have one. Teladi ships in general could use some buffing, maybe move the phoenix's L turrets to the front of the mushroom.

[ei8htx]

Good write up.

I agree with most of it, except the capacities.

While the capacities are a little silly on some of the smaller ships (I'd probably restrict one docking pad to 1 ship on most), the carrier capacities are generally fine (as said before, they're all the same, and could use some tweaking across race).

U.S. corvettes (which are roughly M class) typically hold a helicopter or two. I don't think there's anything wrong with the L class (destroyer size) doing the same thing, with a few more ships.

[Aven Valkyr]

My suggestion to reduce docking capacity was mainly to alleviate the horrible undocking sequence fighters suffer from while the player is in system. Without CODEA the undocking sequence is an ungodly sight straight out of a horror movie. Those poor pilots. Oh those poor pilots

[Shuulo]

Can be don much easier. It only needs 3 steps/Changes

1. Remove the highway and let L/XL Ships fly into to the middle of gates
2. Slow down S/M sravel speed and/or limiting the time they can use it but make them faster in fight (S/M balance needs work anyway here u can start it)
3. Buff L/XL travel speed the same way, make them faster and/or let them keep the speed up for a longer period of time

So if want to send your fleet only a short distance just send all the ships. If u want to travel from for example Argon Prime to Holy Vision let them dock at the carrier.

Funny enough, that's exactly what I do in my VRO mod (and mod to disable highways is in recommended additions).
It really makes a lot of difference. Though I did not find a way to make ships go directly through front of the gates.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The underlying idea of improving the AI is reasonable but I disagree that such improvements should be limited to Carriers (nor are required to make Carriers useful).

Counter proposal, extend the ship assignment hierarchy roles to include more than just defend.

1. Defend - current automated logic
2. Mine - similar to current auto-mine logic with the parent deciding what subordinates mine and where they deliver it to
3. Trade - similar to current auto-trade logic with the parent deciding what is bought and sold by the subordinates (parent may act either as warehouse or team lead)
4. Patrol - similar to Defend but not quite, only engagement range from base of operations would be honoured
5. Scout - similar to Patrol but avoids engaging targets
6. Supply - automatically buys missiles and deployables for parent

[MakerLinux]

Can be don much easier. It only needs 3 steps/Changes

1. Remove the highway and let L/XL Ships fly into to the middle of gates

Why do you people keep asking this? Highways are one of the best mechanics in the game. They are a very useful and well implemented idea.
Do what you want with your tainted^H^H^H^H^H^H^H modified games, but let the main game alone! I for one am happy I'll never see your Ventures ship flying in my universe!

[SumUser]

Good ideas BUT too complicated and unlikely to happen in my humble opinion.

Proper AI is an elusive goal by every single genre of game since games were first designed. The more complicated the AI, the more bugs... Plus carriers just aren't that fundamental to most players games to justify such an in depth system.

I think lowering the amount of fighters some large transport, miner, and destroyers can hold (2-8 fighters, 1-2 med ships) and fully implementing the changes in 2.5 beta is great... Test how those changes work and revisit later.

In my game carriers are super useful for allowing me to group my fighters, transport them where I need them all at once, and cutting down on lag as unless I'm attacking a station i do not need dozens and dozens of fighters flying around. The new resupply and repair mechanics are fantastic... Maybe improve the congestion of fighters docking and maybe some simple carrier scripts would be a nice bonus.

But I do like the OP ideas, they just seem very in-depth and intensive for one aspect of the game most people probably don't rely on.

[Derp]

Can be don much easier. It only needs 3 steps/Changes

1. Remove the highway and let L/XL Ships fly into to the middle of gates

Why do you people keep asking this? Highways are one of the best mechanics in the game. They are a very useful and well implemented idea.
Do what you want with your tainted^H^H^H^H^H^H^H modified games, but let the main game alone! I for one am happy I'll never see your Ventures ship flying in my universe!

The highway loop. When people complain about the universe being too small, that's what they've got in mind. Any S/M ship can hop on the highway and whoosh to the other side of the map within a minute. Take them away and the map becomes bigger, your local region becomes much more important, and parking fighters on a carrier to benefit from its faster drive has positive utility.

[Red-Spot]

and parking fighters on a carrier to benefit from its faster drive has positive utility.

That, somehow that. In every X-game carriers and fighter escorts are a choice and by far a necessity. Often not worth the money and time spend. Making carriers able to deliver a payload of fighter using some faster drive to let fighter then benefit from maneuverability and acceleration would be a great way of making carriers very useful and possibly even mandatory to use.

[martimus]

and parking fighters on a carrier to benefit from its faster drive has positive utility.

That, somehow that. In every X-game carriers and fighter escorts are a choice and by far a necessity. Often not worth the money and time spend. Making carriers able to deliver a payload of fighter using some faster drive to let fighter then benefit from maneuverability and acceleration would be a great way of making carriers very useful and possibly even mandatory to use.

Changing a well working mechanic just to make carriers more useful seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Being able to get where you want to go quickly is not a problem. Removing that ability would make much of the game a bigger grind than it already is. If you want to make Carriers better, than make them better. Just don't do it by making the rest of the game worse.

[Red-Spot]

That is far from what I suggested, I never said anything should be made worse, just make carriers more acceptable, some way. Using difference in drive-technology is pretty realistic, big ships can carry large engines/reactors, small ships can not. It is a mechanism that is used in many different places so it would surely not be very original, but it surely is a proven well-working mechanism.

[Olfrygt]

Well a little bit offtopic but have to say it.

Removing the ring highway will solve some future problems aswell. If we get new sectors how or where? Will we have 2/3/4...rings? Will we have 1 ring and only subpar secondary systems? Expanding the universe in its current state will create tons of problems balancing the sectors. Just because of that ring.

So removing it (thanks to travel drive X4 does not need it) and it can solve carrier viability and even some future problems we will! see (just trust me i even for saw GW2s current mount/philosophy when the main game was not even a year old). The ring is one of the biggest missteps ES did with X4. Remember my words.

[Derp]

Goodness. It's not going to sneak into your bedroom at night and wear all your clothes or anything. It just trivializes small ship travel and makes the map seem smaller than it is.

[Tomonor]

Well a little bit offtopic but have to say it.

Removing the ring highway will solve some future problems aswell. If we get new sectors how or where? Will we have 2/3/4...rings? Will we have 1 ring and only subpar secondary systems? Expanding the universe in its current state will create tons of problems balancing the sectors. Just because of that ring.

With a bit of an imagination we can fix it already. But let's not go into that kind of speculation.

[Lazerius]

I love the carrier commands idea.

I Agree Large ships should be reduced in capactiy, but maybe just to 5 fighters and they form the wing. If a wing from a L is damaged/low on missiles, they can fly to a resupply or carrier ship to rearm.

I don't agree with dropping the number a carrier can haul that drastically. Maybe just limit the commands to only half the total fighters can be on on a 'mission' at once, and it's always the most fully repaired, fully armed ships. This way when a wing goes out on mission then returns damaged/out of missiles, they can return to the carrier for rearm/repair while a fresh wing goes out.

[phrozen1]

I don't think carriers in a space game should work like air-craft-carriers today.