Carriers - What's expected and what's realistic

[TLI-Inferno]

I would suggest a complete redesigning of carriers.

A new class of Carrier turrets would be superior to Battleship secondaries, having similar dps and energy cost while having their speed and range upgraded from 1500 m/s 2000m to 1700 m/s 2300m. Likewise, the Solaris Battleship Turret would be upgraded from 2000 m/s 1800m up to 2200 m/s 2000m. This would make sense, since secondaries on battleships were not meant to be the main weapons of the ship, while the secondaries on carriers are intended to be their main weapons, used to protect the fleet from cruiser and smaller class ships while not being properly suited to take on battleships and battlecruisers alone. The reduced Carrier power core, and the terrible energy efficiency of secondaries, would prevent these newly improved secondaries from being overpowered, even if their energy costs were not increased. It might even be worth increasing the power core of carriers, since they already have no heavy slots to abuse.

To enhance its support role, Carriers would be given the ability to thrust up to 109 m/s and turn slightly faster than battleships. Much like in real life, where aircraft carriers are surprisingly fast. With carriers being so large and lacking heavy slots, this newfound speed would not allow it to become a deadly PVP ship against battleships; it would simply make it increasingly able to keep itself in the right place at the right time to protect allied ships. The carriers could also perhaps be again allowed to utilize nanobots.

[Hubjump]

I would suggest a complete redesigning of carriers.

A new class of Carrier turrets would be superior to Battleship secondaries, having similar dps and energy cost while having their speed and range upgraded from 1500 m/s 2000m to 1800 m/s 2500m. Likewise, the Solaris Battleship Turret would be upgraded from 2000 m/s 1800m up to 2400 m/s 2000m. This would make sense, since secondaries on battleships were not meant to be the main weapons of the ship, while the secondaries on carriers are intended to be their main weapons, used to protect the fleet from cruiser and smaller class ships while not being properly suited to take on battleships and battlecruisers alone. The reduced Carrier power core, and the terrible energy efficiency of secondaries, would prevent these newly improved secondaries from being overpowered, even if their energy costs were not increased. It might even be worth increasing the power core of carriers, since they already have no heavy slots to abuse.

To enhance its support role, Carriers would be given the ability to thrust up to 110 m/s and turn slightly faster than battleships. Much like in real life, where aircraft carriers are surprisingly fast. With carriers being so large and lacking heavy slots, this newfound speed would not allow it to become a deadly PVP ship against battleships; it would simply make it increasingly able to keep itself in the right place at the right time to protect allied ships. The carriers could also perhaps be again allowed to utilize nanobots.

Holy ****I think you just nailed it.
Just today I was considering exactly this. But with maybe enough unique carrier firepower to at least deter senseless EK'ing at a carrier by already damaged vessels.

But yeah carriers rn are useless and I miss flying the old version of the invincible like a dreadnought as I buttcloaked valors... Fun times...

[Tenacity]

I would suggest a complete redesigning of carriers.

A new class of Carrier turrets would be superior to Battleship secondaries, having similar dps and energy cost while having their speed and range upgraded from 1500 m/s 2000m to 1800 m/s 2500m. Likewise, the Solaris Battleship Turret would be upgraded from 2000 m/s 1800m up to 2400 m/s 2000m. This would make sense, since secondaries on battleships were not meant to be the main weapons of the ship, while the secondaries on carriers are intended to be their main weapons, used to protect the fleet from cruiser and smaller class ships while not being properly suited to take on battleships and battlecruisers alone. The reduced Carrier power core, and the terrible energy efficiency of secondaries, would prevent these newly improved secondaries from being overpowered, even if their energy costs were not increased. It might even be worth increasing the power core of carriers, since they already have no heavy slots to abuse.

To enhance its support role, Carriers would be given the ability to thrust up to 110 m/s and turn slightly faster than battleships. Much like in real life, where aircraft carriers are surprisingly fast. With carriers being so large and lacking heavy slots, this newfound speed would not allow it to become a deadly PVP ship against battleships; it would simply make it increasingly able to keep itself in the right place at the right time to protect allied ships. The carriers could also perhaps be again allowed to utilize nanobots.

I was just talking to you earlier tonight and you were claiming how amazing 2000m/s - 1800m solaris turrets were on your battleships >.>

While I'm not opposed to the idea, and I do like the concept of a battleship that focuses heavily on secondary turrets (this is basically one of the reasons why the Geb is so good as a battlecruiser - its heavy turrets suck, but having 16 secondaries makes it an amazing ship for taking out smaller craft, and technically it is a carrier under a different balance regime), you have to be careful with giving carriers the ability to use thrusters and ensure that they arent faster than battlecruisers or cruisers.

Also, since battlecruisers (which are smaller than battleships) cannot use nanobots, I dont think its a good idea to give bots back to carriers, which are inbetween those two sizes.

Also, given that the max range on most cruiser weapons (barring torpedoes/missiles) is right around 2.2-2.5k meters, having turrets with super fast projectile speed (your suggested 1800-2000m/s figures) that can also out-range cruisers would be a bad idea IMO. If a cruiser needs to get within 2k range to even hit you, you shouldnt be able to hit him at the same distance with faster/more accurate guns while also being able to thrust and having ridiculous power core and armor. That's a recipe for abuse.

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[Gardarik]

While carrier can not perform its function to actually "carry" the smaller spacecrafts or launch multiple drones, there is no point in it being a separate class. Since at the moment docking modules are broken and multiple drones would be too much of an issue for the stability of the server, there is no conceivable way to actually make carrier a "carrier". Even current system of drones is so badly balanced that it cannot outperform even a cruiser in terms of dps, not even mentioning the stupidity of drone's AI.

The only reasonable solution to make those viable for now is to make the BS again, maybe with more secondaries and less heavies. Speaking of my experience of piloting Tempest for quite a while, it is such a useless practice target for other caps that aside from its RP value one can hardly find the reason it exists. Coalition does not have a BS while massive fleet fights are impossible for the faction due to the RP limitations of the number of BS we can have. This is just a sole example of why current carriers are out of balance, especially for some factions.

[Titan*]

just make drones stronger and stop giving them stupid weapons they cant use i meant corona beam

1.reduce deployment time to 20 or 30 second
2.remove corona beam from drones it is useless and causing issues on drone ai
3.give 2 single launch torpedo launchers to Sdrone, one of them is single launch anti shield but faster, enough shield damage to deshield any battleship and single launch anti hull torpedo that deals around 1.000.000 damage but slower than anti shield torp and less mass to make it easy to counter with flaks etc.
4.add anti shield torpedo to Tdrone as second weapon instead of useless corona beam they cant use.
5.make carriers better at killing capital ships but easier to kill if its caught
6.give carriers anti shield and anti hull long range missile launchers

i think that is enough to make them good in combat and useful for who wants to command fleets and support team mates with drones

-Just in case if you guys don't have time to work on Carriers, I'd like to finish what i started

[TheShooter36]

Simply give heavy carriers 2 and light carriers 1 heavy, drop drone deployment to 15 seconds, remove corona as titan said, give antishield torps to drone loadouts, buff their HP and powercore back That is all have to be done. Or if you cannot make the whole thing work, admit it and reverse them to BS s again

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[LaWey]

just make drones stronger and stop giving them stupid weapons they cant use i meant corona beam

1.reduce deployment time to 20 or 30 second
2.remove corona beam from drones it is useless and causing issues on drone ai
3.give 2 single launch torpedo launchers to Sdrone, one of them is single launch anti shield but faster, enough shield damage to deshield any battleship and single launch anti hull torpedo that deals around 1.000.000 damage but slower than anti shield torp and less mass to make it easy to counter with flaks etc.
4.add anti shield torpedo to Tdrone as second weapon instead of useless corona beam they cant use.
5.make carriers better at killing capital ships but easier to kill if its caught
6.give carriers anti shield and anti hull long range missile launchers

i think that is enough to make them good in combat and useful for who wants to command fleets and support team mates with drones

-Just in case if you guys don't have time to work on Carriers, I'd like to finish what i started

Please, just give it to Titan on outsourcing. Cos, it all obviously need huge rebalance, every carrier should be balanced case to case manually, include their weapons, core, etc. Current state of things should be or given to somebody who actually care about, or reverted at all.

I also would add about drones:

Dividing on Heavy and Light was wrong, Heavy drone bay should just have extra heavy-high DPS drone, or reduced deploy time to represent more handy bays, or additional support drone options, but all lesser drones should be same for Heavy and Light carriers, just like it did in every damned game with drone carriers.

[kerfy]

Maybe use the POB module to create a "mobile" POB,, call it a carrier.... ??

[Kaze]

That....

Uh.

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[08:11 PM] Dusty Lens said: Well in that case. NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE & #SAVAGE & #STORIES

[TLI-Inferno]

with giving carriers the ability to use thrusters and ensure that they arent faster than battlecruisers or cruisers.

I suggested a speed of 109 m/s. Battlecruisers thrust at 119 m/s and cruisers thrust at 129 m/s. This extra speed would not allow them to outpace smaller ships.

Also, given that the max range on most cruiser weapons (barring torpedoes/missiles) is right around 2.2-2.5k meters, having turrets with super fast projectile speed (your suggested 1800-2000m/s figures) that can also out-range cruisers would be a bad idea IMO. If a cruiser needs to get within 2k range to even hit you, you shouldnt be able to hit him at the same distance with faster/more accurate guns while also being able to thrust and having ridiculous power core and armor. That's a recipe for abuse.

Cruiser mortars have 2475 range. Missiles have even more. Additionally, since cruisers are smaller, they are able to utilize their full weapon range. A carrier's weapons are spread throughout the large ship. While a cruiser can most certainly fire its mortar when within 2475m range, most of the carrier's secondaries with 2500m range will not reach the cruiser. The actual range of weapons on the carrier will be about 300m-500m less than the stat ranges due to the length of the ship taking some of the range. Additionally, a skilled cruiser pilot can still dodge enough of the carrier's 1800 m/s secondaries to reduce their damage taken, while a carrier will still be taking heavy damage from cruiser mortars at that range. Additionally, the cruiser can come in an out of range to fire mortars, while the carrier will only be tickling it each time it comes in range.

Also, even if this does result in carriers being highly effective against cruisers, that is not the end of the world. It's a game of rock-paper-scissors. Carriers do not have heavy slots, making them extremely vulnerable to battleships. In return, they will be able to protect allied ships from smaller craft. They will not be able to chase down and kill cruisers, because they would be straying away from the support of allied ships, leaving them vulnerable to enemy battleships.