Carrier, A lost legacy

Leonidus

we all know in HW1 you needed a Large force to take on a carrier loaded with support in its launch bays. this is not the case anymore.

post corvettes these things get blow to pieces under almsot any type of firepower. So i ask the community and the dev team to consider this option. what if we were to bring back the carrier days of old.

If you gave them either an innate or actual armor upgrade that made them durable like the mothership. same with shipyards to. so that a battleship would need to actuallys hoot at them for more than .5s b4 they died. so that if the carrier sees a few missile frigates it doesnt have to start planning to build its evac cell.

what harm could come to giving carriers a leg up when it comes to armor? its not like its a terribly offensive ship, we wont see carrier rushes because of this addition.

I may and probably will edit this with ideas to revise our dear old carrier, and turn it from a large moving target to something that perhaps needs to be thought about to destroy.

I mean honestly how many times have you seen a carrier coming towards one of your mining areas and thought to yourself. AWWW SHIT A CARRIER IS OTW! they just arent the same threat that they used to be. teh only way a carrier is deadly is 1 of 2 possbilities.
1) the carrier has a frigate facility, or has heavy anti corvette+ weapons on it.
2) the 2 modules teh carrier is aloud to have are a, Fire Control Tower, and a Platform module. in which case you've got a new prime target.

MaxTech · Admiral Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 398

I voted yes before I saw your third option, but my opinion on what the other changes should be is likely not the same as what others would vote for anyway. Stronger armor, larger actual ship size, larger quantity of docking slots, and increased docking and launch speed. For that last item I mean that there are several time delays for carrier operations in the ship definition files that should be reduced or effectively eliminated in my opinion.

I am trying to make many of those changes in the Complex revision I am working on independently, but if nothing else I'd like to see the improved Carriers in the standard release.

Pete J · Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:54 pm Post subject: Description:

Dammit! Did the same as MaxTech!

I would like to see upgrades for the carriers that make them, well, better. Definitely more armour for starters but it would also be cool to dock them with the Shipyard and turn them into a 'Carrier Mk2'. This carrier would have firepower similar to a destroyer. Of course, this would be Tier 3 tech stuff.

Just my two cents...

Edit: Spelling

vila · Moderator Joined: 28 Mar 2008 Posts: 1609 Location: UK

CloudAge · Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:00 pm Post subject: Description:

Faster docking times more importantly un-docking! perhaps another bay? and definitely more support weapons!

Sippio · Commander Joined: 06 Aug 2008 Posts: 121

Agree I am more likely to send my mothership over a carrier into a deadly area after it gets pass mid game. I like the turret idea a few of those nothing major but something other then the small guns it has now. maybe a few of those pulse turrets the higs BC have on the edge you know those micro turrets and maybe a single torpedo or ion turret.

MaxTech · Admiral Joined: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 398

I don't think the carrier should have more than one or two Rapid Sweeper sets at the most. This isn't the Battleship with a big hold after all, it's the Carrier.

npc_gman · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:48 am Post subject: Description:

What I have seen is this:
HW1: Carrier is the pride of the fleet, without one you cannon survive away from the mothership even with heavier cruisers.

Cataclysm: The Command Ship takes center stage, since it can actually fight and destroy other ships, so the carrier is more of a resource scavenger/support ship, but still is quite necessary.

HW2: The carrier becomes smaller than the battlecruiser, and is not as important. Fighters can be supported by a mobile mothership, and the carriers act as support ships and cannot lead pr be the central elements of fleets. The Vaygr carrier, at least to me, is simply cannon fodder.

Complex mod: Carriers are so thin skinned late game that they only serve to spam frigates and act as repair stations. Bombers wipe them out quickly, and they are not a threat to capitals, rather a nuisance in a battleship dominated world. I don't use them as much as I use my shipyard and mothership, as late game strikecraft are quite secondary.

nbates66 · Lieutenant Age: 33 Joined: 11 Apr 2008 Posts: 56

one thing that annoys me a bit with carriers and the like is that it can take so long just to dock/undock undamaged ships, i sort of like to hyperspace jump in a carrier and release it's figher/corvette squadrons as well as begin constructing frigates, but the dock/undock speed of fighters and corvettes is just too slow.

Sippio · Commander Joined: 06 Aug 2008 Posts: 121

Npc_gman: I agree with what you are saying the carrier just brings nothing to the table say a ship yard can not do better plus at lest shipyards have the hit points to take a few hits...hmm Maybe that is how we should look at this instead. leave the carrier how it is and get the shipyard a bit more able to work front lines. the higher crew cost lends to this and maybe simplfi that big ion cannon down a touch or leave it but have some other type option for that same spot. Like say a dock expansion. for defense just throw on a few Rapid sweeper/lasers (think that is the vaygr version) turrets maybe a emp special to use as a defense on cap ships. and a few of those micro turrets i spoke of before on the edage at say 4 spots. These defenses would be tier 3 and need to have something docked to the ship yard before they can be built.

Another unique idea would to let turrets dock some how to the shipyards but once docked they can not be removed unless you recycle or destroy them. Limit the number and treat them as a sub system once there so you can hyper space and not lose them.

(Edit: to clean up my post and add more.)

Leonidus · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:56 pm Post subject: Description:

ppl who vote be sure to at least post and defend your reason for voting. nothing irks me more than to have ppl vote and be done with it.

defend your arguement.

for the thing about shipyards.

it hink they need more health as well. as for securing an area ill leave that to much needed command station improvements. but really i usually in games that last this long will end up getting 2-3 shipyards to produce capital ships. but as for carriers i usually have what i built b4 shipyards. once i can build shipyards i generally would stop with carriers.

NXS · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:02 pm Post subject: Description:

Lest give the carrier something even better than a Sweeper. A Phalanx. It would be an uber Sweeper, any strike craft that gets close to it no longer exists.

The real life Phalanx:

**DJ Die** · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:36 am Post subject: Description:

make it support ships its supposed to be
after docking with SY it should have additional docking paths some anti-strike craft weapons and maybe weapon that would enable it to shoot down nukes that way while not offensively armed it would make good contribution to fleet because of its defensive capabilities
also maybe it could add some officers and crew to enhance its usability
this could be called assault carrier and would require docking with SY and maybe limited to 2 per fleet

ordinary carrier should get 50-100% armor increase to improve surviveability

npc_gman · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:11 am Post subject: Description:

**DJ Die** · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:14 pm Post subject: Description:

no destroyer turrets for carrier please that would make it bit too powerful it should rely on its fighters and bombers for protection
maybe some kind of fighter enhancing module would work fine too so while still not very powerful alone they could be much more useful with carrier in their group