Carriers - What's expected and what's realistic

[Hubjump]

Inferno for carrier dev pls

[TheShooter36]

+1Make Inferno carrier dev

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[Tenacity]

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.

You're forgetting how freelancer calculates ranges. A cruiser might have 2475 range on its mortars, but you wont actually get a crosshair on a larger ship until you're well within 2200, sometimes closer. Distance is calculated to the center of the target. Blind fire might make up for this, but against a ship with a thruster will be ineffective. That mortar also has a speed of 900m/s, which means more than a 2 second travel time to the target, while your proposed 1800-2000m/s carrier weapons would have half that at the same distance.

The last thing disco needs is more big ships that counter small ships. We need to be moving away from battleship-lancer.

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[TLI-Inferno]

That mortar also has a speed of 900m/s, which means more than a 2 second travel time to the target, while your proposed 1800-2000m/s carrier weapons would have half that at the same distance.

Except, a cruiser is much smaller than a carrier. I've flown cruisers against solaris battleships before. I can still dodge a large amount of their shots, vastly reducing my damage taken, while they are too large to dodge my 900 m/s mortars. Look at a bomber vs cruiser fight. The snub will dodge the vast majority of the cruiser's 1000 m/s projectiles, while the cruiser will get hit by the majority of the bomber's 400 m/s projectiles.

You're forgetting how freelancer calculates ranges. A cruiser might have 2475 range on its mortars, but you wont actually get a crosshair on a larger ship until you're well within 2200, sometimes closer. Distance is calculated to the center of the target. Blind fire might make up for this, but against a ship with a thruster will be ineffective. That mortar also has a speed of 900m/s, which means more than a 2 second travel time to the target, while your proposed 1800-2000m/s carrier weapons would have half that at the same distance.

The last thing disco needs is more big ships that counter small ships. We need to be moving away from battleship-lancer.

There's a difference between countering small ships with a carrier, or countering small ships with a battleship.

You won't see a fleet full of carriers simply annihilating all small ships, because they will be vulnerable to battleships. With no heavy slots, a carrier can be annihilated by a quadcerb battleship simply ramming into it and firing everything it has.

For comparison, think of a full solaris cruiser. It annihilates gunboats and snubs, but leaves itself vulnerable to capital ships, because it lacks the heavy firepower to fight them.

These carriers would protect the fleet from smaller ships, but they would become the target of enemy battleships. These carriers would have to be well-protected by cruisers and bombers in order to survive.

Also, let's not forget that I am not suggesting a full thrust speed. I am suggesting 109 m/s thrust. It will still take the carrier, depending on the type, 3-5 seconds to fly its length, compared to a battlecruiser's 119 m/s taking about a second to fly it's own length, as it is much smaller, and doesn't have to fly as far before shots aimed at it are no longer hitting it.

Additionally, let's not complain about what the ships carriers are meant to fight, would do to them. That's like complaining about it being hard to kill a gunboat with a fighter.

The carrier will kill cruisers and gunboats.
The battleship will kill carriers.
The cruisers, bombers, and other battleships will kill battleships.
The fighters will kill bombers and disrupt cruise.
The gunboats will kill fighters and bombers.

The battlecruiser will go anywhere in the mix depending on how it's equipped.

And, of course, skilled pilots can still transcend the lines of countering and continue to fight against the classes that are meant to beat them.

[Lucas]

That mortar also has a speed of 900m/s, which means more than a 2 second travel time to the target, while your proposed 1800-2000m/s carrier weapons would have half that at the same distance.

Except, a cruiser is much smaller than a carrier. I've flown cruisers against solaris battleships before. I can still dodge a large amount of their shots, vastly reducing my damage taken, while they are too large to dodge my 900 m/s mortars. Look at a bomber vs cruiser fight. The snub will dodge the vast majority of the cruiser's 1000 m/s projectiles, while the cruiser will get hit by the majority of the bomber's 400 m/s projectiles.

You're forgetting how freelancer calculates ranges. A cruiser might have 2475 range on its mortars, but you wont actually get a crosshair on a larger ship until you're well within 2200, sometimes closer. Distance is calculated to the center of the target. Blind fire might make up for this, but against a ship with a thruster will be ineffective. That mortar also has a speed of 900m/s, which means more than a 2 second travel time to the target, while your proposed 1800-2000m/s carrier weapons would have half that at the same distance.

The last thing disco needs is more big ships that counter small ships. We need to be moving away from battleship-lancer.

There's a difference between countering small ships with a carrier, or countering small ships with a battleship.

You won't see a fleet full of carriers simply annihilating all small ships, because they will be vulnerable to battleships. With no heavy slots, a carrier can be annihilated by a quadcerb battleship simply ramming into it and firing everything it has.

For comparison, think of a full solaris cruiser. It annihilates gunboats and snubs, but leaves itself vulnerable to capital ships, because it lacks the heavy firepower to fight them.

These carriers would protect the fleet from smaller ships, but they would become the target of enemy battleships. These carriers would have to be well-protected by cruisers and bombers in order to survive.

Also, let's not forget that I am not suggesting a full thrust speed. I am suggesting 109 m/s thrust. It will still take the carrier, depending on the type, 3-5 seconds to fly its length, compared to a battlecruiser's 119 m/s taking about a second to fly it's own length, as it is much smaller, and doesn't have to fly as far before shots aimed at it are no longer hitting it.

Additionally, let's not complain about what the ships carriers are meant to fight, would do to them. That's like complaining about it being hard to kill a gunboat with a fighter.

The carrier will kill cruisers and gunboats.
The battleship will kill carriers.
The cruisers, bombers, and other battleships will kill battleships.
The fighters will kill bombers and disrupt cruise.
The gunboats will kill fighters and bombers.

The battlecruiser will go anywhere in the mix depending on how it's equipped.

And, of course, skilled pilots can still transcend the lines of countering and continue to fight against the classes that are meant to beat them.

I'm seeing a few issues with your suggestions here.
1: Carriers are supposed to counter smaller snubs, not leave them without a chance. Their current amount of secondaries suffices for that. Their current normal secondaries are also more than enough. You do not need to buff normal secondaries nor the solaris secondaries to make them effective at countering small craft. If you did that, that'd leave almost no room to counterplay.

2: You're entirely forgetting snubs in your equation. If we get a Class that entirely kills snubs with no counterplay within seconds in group fights while barely requiring any skill. And do not give me the " It's hard to hit snubs already" then I'll tell you to just learn to zoom all the way out and shoot at a cross. That works fine with secondaries, and with solaris it works even better. There is yet again no need to buff the guns even further.

3: The Carrier rework you are proposing would be an area-denying tool. Giving these things a thruster essentially harms the current groupfight balance where the Battleships form a line to either charge or kite, and their smaller craft playing accordingly. A Carrier could,- or even should deny a zone around it for smaller craft, but that only really works if the thing moves slow like Battleships. Giving it the ability to move around with 110m/s essentially means that the zone of denial can freely roam around, lowering the requirement of tactical placement of a carrier at the start of a fight.

4: With the Thruster, what would essentially happen is that the ship is flatout going to be a killing machine against cruisers and BC's. Yes, 110m/s is slower than the 119 or 129m/s but you need to factor in the fact that Battlecruisers and Cruisers need to Turretsteer, while a carrier is going to be strafing and as such is even going to be closing the gap instead of getting further away from the ship as you would think with the difference in thrusterspeed. If you fought a 1v1 in Cruisers and BC's then you know what I mean.



So I have to agree with Tenacity here. But generally speaking, I do think carriers need an overhaul.

[Tenacity]

Personally, I'd just go back to making carriers balanced just like any other battleship or dreadnaught (based on the individual carrier's size). The coalition carrier, for example, would be a dreadnaught (as would the liberty carrier) while those like the aquilon would be balanced more like a light battleship, others inbetween.

There's really no reason to separate them. The fact that they are carriers adds additional roleplay value, but it doesnt need to be reflected via gameplay mechanics. I RP'd my order light assault carrier as a fleet carrier for years without it having any additional functionality.

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[Antonio]

The fact that an entire class can be neglected for so long speaks volumes about the functionality of the balance team.

At this point since there's no effort shown to improve on the drones concept, just revert them to what they were before and make them proper battleships. They worked okay in that state before, except this time they should get the appropriate amount of heavy slots to be true battleships. For example before the rework Liberty Carrier had 2 heavy slots with a heavy battleship core and medium-heavy hull. After the change it'd have 4 heavy slots with heavy battleship core and heavy battleship hull (still one of the lowest hulls due to its size and shape).

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SNAC Montage Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Thruster SNAC

[Reddy]

yes, As Antonio said just revert carriers back to proper battleships. libcarrier, bretcarrier should have 4 hvy slots to resemble heavy battleships since they used to have hvy powercore already.
i do miss flying the beautiful bretcarrier. at the state that its in with the drones, its just a liability
There are already so many threads about how broken the carriers are and no changes have happened to fix them, this thread might also end up being ignored too

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[Titan*]

durandal wanted my ideas about carrier and drones few days ago, no response yet but i think dev team will work on drones and carrier soon so we just have to wait afaik they have some issues with admins etc atm

[TLI-Inferno]

Giving carriers 4 heavy slots and turning them into battleships sounds like giving up on the class to me.

Perhaps light carriers could receive 1 heavy slot and 5 primaries while heavy carriers receive 2 heavy slots and 6 primaries, along with appropriate core upgrades. Medium carriers would have 1 heavy slot and 6 primaries or 2 heavy slots and 5 primaries.

That is, assuming they don't receive the buff to secondaries and a very slight thrust (or have their impulse speed increased to 100 m/s). Giving them heavies AND doing that, could turn out to be overpowered.

They could also perhaps be given a second drone. I know people are worried about the possibility of people using a dozen carriers and having two dozen drones, but I really don't expect that to happen often, as they would be left extremely vulnerable to battleships.