Carriers fullfilling the wrong role.

[Bass_masta992]

The role of a carrier is to be a mobile base for fighters and craft, along with a proposed fleet to sail with. Carriers are not generally designed to be a massive defense fortress capable of fighting as a ship itself, because it's main purpose is to carry fighters/bombers in to battle. Some of you may see where I'm going with this.

I'll use Liberty and The Order as an example, as they are both in the same situation where I can give the right examples.

In "Real life" there are battleships, and there are carriers. Didn't know that? well look at this...

The USS Kitty Hawk is a Carrier. It can carry up to 80 different fighters and maintain all of them. It's Freaking huge. Here are its defense systems:

Armament:
The Kitty Hawk is armed two Mk 29 Sea Sparrow Guided Missile Launch Systems, two RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile) systems, and two Mk 15 Phalanx 20mm CIWS (Close In Weapon System.)

Not much, eh? But you're carrying 80+ Vessels on your ship, each with enough guns to eat apart base after base.

The USS Iowa. Battleship. A floating fortress designed for heavy gun use. Accurate, powerful, destructive. Weapon armaments look like this:

1. MK28 5 INCH (54 CAL.)GUN MOUNTS (6): This twin barrelled 127mm gun is accurate against fast, surface targets, some air targets and shore bombardment threats. A left over from WWII it is one of the battleship's oldest weapons. Three of each of these turrents in mounted on each side. The others were removed to accomodate the Tomahawk missiles.

* PRIMARY PURPOSE: Anti-Ship/Surface targets
* SECONDARY PURPOSE: Anti-Aircraft
* RANGE: 14.9 miles Versus Surface targets / 5 miles Versus Airborne targets
* DAMAGE: 3D8 x 10 M.D. each barrel
* RATE OF FIRE: 10 rounds per melee
* PAYLOAD: 500 round magazine stored below.
* NOTE: Several other types of ammo can be selected: Chaff, illuminating, and practice rounds

2. MK 143 ARMOURED BOX LAUNCHING SYSTEM (8): The primary missile weapon of the battleship are the 8 ABL Tomahawks situated on the aft of the superstructure where several 5 inch gun turrents were removed. Each launcher carries 4 missile each and are lightly armoured.

* PRIMARY PURPOSE: Anti-Ship
* SECONDARY PURPOSE: Land attack
* MISSILE TYPE: BGM-109C Tomahawk Cruise Missile
* RANGE: 1,000 miles (1,600 Km)
* SPEED: 550 mph
* DAMAGE: 4D6x100
* BLAST RADIUS: 200ft
* RATE OF FIRE: Volleys of 1-2 missiles each launcher.
* PAYLOAD: 4 missiles each for 32 missiles total

3. MK 15 BLOCK 1 20MM VULCAN PHALANX (CIWS) (4): The Primary Close in defensive weapon of the battleships are the primary defence against inner range aircraft and missiles. These guns are almost totally automated and are very effective against low flying aircraft/missiles. Two defend each side of ship. Generally the battleship depends on escort for air/sub defence.

* PRIMARY PURPOSE: Anti-Missile
* SECONDARY PURPOSE: Anti-Aircraft
* RANGE: 1 mile (1.6 Km)
* DAMAGE: 5D6 MD per 60 rd burst, and 1D6 x10 for 100rd burst
* RATE OF FIRE: 5 bursts per round
* PAYLOAD: 1550 rounds
* BONUSES: +4 to strike

4. MK 141 HARPOON MISSILE LAUNCHERS (16): These are the principle Anti-Ship Missile Batteries aboard ship and are carried in two launchers, (featuring 4 tubes each,). They are designed to protect the battleship and the rest of the Fleet that it is attached to by taking out enemy ships at long range before they can get to close to pose a higher threat.

* PRIMARY PURPOSE: Anti-Warship
* MISSILE TYPE: Self-guided missiles
* RANGE: 92 miles
* SPEED: Mach 0.9
* DAMAGE: 2D4 x 100
* BLAST RADIUS: 150 ft
* RATE OF FIRE: Volleys of 1, 2, 3, 4, 8
* PAYLOAD: 1 missile per tube. 16 missiles total

5. MK 7 406 MM MAIN GUN BATTERY (9): The main armament of the battleship is it's guns. These monsterous 16 inch guns are capable of obliterating most anything it hits in today's navies barring carriers. They have been used for shore bombardment only since the Korean War and haven't fired against a ship since WWII.

* PRIMARY PURPOSE: Anti-Surface
* SECONDARY PURPOSE: Assault/Shore Bombardment
* RANGE: 14.9 miles Versus Surface targets / 5 miles Versus Airborne targets
* DAMAGE: 1D6x100 M.D.
* BLAST RADIUS: 150 feet.
* BONUSES: + 2 to strike With Pioneer Aloft above target area. (The ROV Pioneer craft aid in targeting of these guns on shore bombardment)
* RATE OF FIRE: 1 per gun every other round. Volleys of 1 to 9 per volley.
* PAYLOAD: 16-inch Projectiles : Turret I (387,) Turret II (456,) Turret III (367,) Total: 1,210

6. AN/SLQ-32 (V) 3 ELECTRONIC WARFARE SUITE: Used to defeat hostile radar and Sonar, the ECM/ESM, (Electronic Counter Measures,) jammers will confuse all radar and sonar so that the ships is much harder to be detected or locked onto with radar/sonar guided weapons. This does not give away the position of the ship but it does let the enemy know that they are there. The only way that it can be defeated is with ECCM, (Electronic Counter-Counter Measures.)

* PRIMARY PURPOSE: Block Enemy Radar/Sonar
* RANGE: 30 miles (48 Km)
* RULES: Confuses all radar/sonar within 30 miles, but can be defeated by ECCM, if the ECCM operator gets a higher Sensory Instruments percentage roll against the ECM operator.

7. MK 36 SUPER RAPID-BLOOMING OFF BOARD CHAFF/ FLARE DECOY DISPENSORS (6): The ships counter-measures dispensors consist of six six-barrelled 130mm Chaff/Flare launchers. Triggered by the Principal Weapons Officer, (PWO,) they will release either a chaff cloud or single flare depending on what the PWO chooses. They are used to confuse enemy missiles attacking the ship. Smart missiles get a 20% bonus when rolling on the below chart.

* 01-50 Missile/s detonated by Chaff/Flare
* 51-75 Missile/s loses track of target and veers away in wrong direction, (may lock onto another target)
* 76-00 No effect, missile is still on target

* Payload: Three of each type (per launcher) Reloads are automatic with 3 reloads per launcher before a manual reload is required. Stores hold 10 full reloads of the system.

The battleship also carrys 1 Helicopter and 3 UAV's, at the expense of not using the rear cannon.

My question is this: Why can a Carrier in game outpower dreadnaughts and battleships, if that isn't their main purpose at all?

Liberty's Dreadnaught: Carries 12 guns, 840000 armor, with an 8000000 Power output. Size is small, but it's capable.

Liberty's Carrier: Carries 16 guns, 1,100,000 armor, with a 9000000 power output. Very large.

Armor is not my concern here, size wise it seems accurate. But why would a Carrier vessel be capable of a 9000000 output weapons array along with carrying such a display of weaponry? It completely defeats the purpose of a Dreadnaught in game, if you can do the same thing as a dreadnaught in game, for the same price, as well as "Carry" Hundreds of ships.

Here's one that I can relate to a bit more. The Order's capital ships. I am a co-owner of a Light carrier, that holds several other bombers/fighters. Running recon missions alongside it is a lot of fun, and it's a great help for repairs on the spot when they're needed.

The Order Light carrier has 18 cruiser class guns. 18! Top a battleship shield with that, and I can take on other cruisers no problem. But, I only have so many bats/bots.

The Osiris has 12 battleship guns. It can still handle a Light carrier, but the carrier is able to put up a very strong fight. It's also agile, boasting a Thruster that most other ships flying with battleship shields don't get to enjoy. But that fits, since it's "Light" right?

I'll attack this at two points. a Roleplaying standpoint, and people's choices in ships.

First off, is the Roleplay of the ship. A Carrier is designed to carry, but so far they are capable of mass destruction, often times outdoing the ships that are supposed to be damage weapons wise. Carriers harbor a ton of ships, and are designed to maintain them. So, they should have a large number of bats/bots and be capable of repairs to the ships going into combat. That's my first arguement: Make Carriers capable of repairs towards its harbored vessels. The second is the idea of its firepower. With the exception of some long range missiles, a Carrier isn't going to have ANY defense against another capital level ship, but it does have some defense against other fighters. They shouldn't be capable of destroying other capitals, because that isn't their role. Making a Carrier somewhat capable against other fighters/bombers. There's a huge deal of danger with this, because an anti-fighter cap would be potentially overpowered. The Carrier is not an offense ship itself, it really shouldn't be directly involved in an attack unless it is under attack. But it's not entirely the job of the carrier to protect itself, it has tons of able ships to do that for him. My third resolution to make carriers fulfill a role is Make the ships incapable against capitals.

A lot of people would consider keeping the Carriers the same, as the ship doesn't "have" to be that way in order to roleplay it. But what about when people are choosing ships to fill purposes? I'll use some OOC standpoints. Someone goes in, wants to Captain a big ship because that's all the game means to him. Clearly a lolwut, but that doesn't matter. He goes and looks at ship descriptions, and sees the Carrier is much stronger and within his price range. So that's what he buys. Later, he's found soloing missions and soloing other players like nobody's business, because he happens to be good at capspam. Many people don't choose the role of the ship based on what it's supposed to do, they choose based on what it can do, so having a large transportation vessel capable of killing a battleship is very unreal to me.

Many of the spammers of capital ships often fly solo, despite that being a poor idea, and potentially OORP. Carriers are not meant to be on their own, they are filled with hundreds of ships, or supposed to be. Seeing a Carrier with escorts from its hull would make sense in game, yet you'll see them flying on their own doing whatever with just their guns. This is only done because they're a better option over the ships that are supposed to be designed to handle things via Firepower. Carriers shouldn't have a power supply large enough to support 16 battleship guns, because most of the ship is supposed to be put towards supporting its fighters. But when they're firing off heavy mortars like it's nothing, there's a problem. Battleships shouldn't be flown solo, but they sure as hell should be more fitted against ships than a carrier.

There's my thinking in a wall of text. If you can finish reading this, and place your comment, I applaud.

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