I kind of hope for autodesign templates, and/or fleet templates for this reason - so it is possible to raoidly roll out a New Doctrine fleet ... and maybe have your fleets having standing replacement orders according to your pattern.
Carrier Warfare
- Thread starter Lowki
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it all depends on the amount of Bombers you can fit on them. if its only a couple then Carriers will be rubbish!
i seem to remember sticking 1 bomber on every big ship in other space 4x games.
whatever, i am just really looking forward to trying stuff out.
i seem to remember sticking 1 bomber on every big ship in other space 4x games.
whatever, i am just really looking forward to trying stuff out.
From the stream it seemed as if you could fit one Hangar on a cruiser... I really hope battleships can have a total of three hangars to distinguish them from the cruisers in this regard.
I could see myself building a battleship hull carrier with three such hangars and some long range missiles and point defense cannons. Seem like a good type of carrier design if possible.
I can certainly see myself relying heavily on carrier fleets with heavy bombers and fighters, defended with Destroyer screens. I will then use Cruiser strike groups to strike at enemy infrastructure or combine the cruisers with the carriers for large naval engagements. I will most likely only use corvettes for scouting and picket roles, so mostly defensive in order to survive.
I could see myself building a battleship hull carrier with three such hangars and some long range missiles and point defense cannons. Seem like a good type of carrier design if possible.
I can certainly see myself relying heavily on carrier fleets with heavy bombers and fighters, defended with Destroyer screens. I will then use Cruiser strike groups to strike at enemy infrastructure or combine the cruisers with the carriers for large naval engagements. I will most likely only use corvettes for scouting and picket roles, so mostly defensive in order to survive.
I don't remember who said that "The line between hard and soft scifi is whether they allow 1-man fighters." I personally don't enjoy carriers in scifi games, as it is just another weapontype that flips between useless and overpowering depending on the particular balancing. You can always balance any weapon with more armor, but whenever you add fighters/bombers designers seem inclined to force dogfights with fighters v fighters so they make bombers effective vs regular ship armors. This is the problem with carriers in most scifi, as they want to relive WW2 carrier dogfights. It makes good cinema, but little sense.
There is no reason not replace fighters with unmanned drones or missiles. They are smaller, more resistant, and better at snap judgement than life. And the best way to take out a fast small things is not another fast small thing, it is a laser. Even today laser is the viable anti-missile defence as it can disable missiles at hundreds of kilometers. Anti-missile systems can track and shoot down tennisballs at 5km. Unless computers and lasers get weaker in the future, the kill range for unarmored things is quite long. With no atmospheric interference decreasing laser strength, modern point defence systems will have kill ranges above 1000km for any modern day projectile. A current day point defence would kill battlestar galactica fighters at hundreds of kilometers range if no atmosphere dampens it. So this whole fighter vs fighter thing is unrealistic and counteracts my willing suspension of disbelief.
Carriers are one of my most disliked scifi tropes. I hope stellaris carriers do not force counterplay.
There is no reason not replace fighters with unmanned drones or missiles. They are smaller, more resistant, and better at snap judgement than life. And the best way to take out a fast small things is not another fast small thing, it is a laser. Even today laser is the viable anti-missile defence as it can disable missiles at hundreds of kilometers. Anti-missile systems can track and shoot down tennisballs at 5km. Unless computers and lasers get weaker in the future, the kill range for unarmored things is quite long. With no atmospheric interference decreasing laser strength, modern point defence systems will have kill ranges above 1000km for any modern day projectile. A current day point defence would kill battlestar galactica fighters at hundreds of kilometers range if no atmosphere dampens it. So this whole fighter vs fighter thing is unrealistic and counteracts my willing suspension of disbelief.
Carriers are one of my most disliked scifi tropes. I hope stellaris carriers do not force counterplay.
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I do like that a ship as small as a cruiser can fit a single hangar bay, an "escort carrier" of sorts.
I'm thinking a "recon flotilla" should be effective by way of a scout wing carrying cruiser, 2 stand-off DDs and 8 corvettes (size 15).
A pure cruiser flotilla gives 5 cruisers for the same amount of fleet cap. A scout carrier, 1 or 2 battlecruisers and 2 or 3 light cruisers.
The intriguing element of a BB-heavy star navy are the station-grade modules that they can carry, one of which is the nanorepair cloud.
A large task force of 1 interdictor BB and 20 nanocloud BBs already gobbles up 84 fleet cap. 1:1 cruiser escorts generates another 21 cruisers, bringing that task force's size to a total of 147, a princely sum! 2:1 cruisers as escorts results in a satisfyingly even size of 210. However, the 20 nanorepair cloud BBs, in theory, could field repair the entire fleet away from prying eyes in a month at no cost (other than maintenance). Trimming 1 nanorepair cloud BB out evens the hull count to 20 BBs plus 20 or 40 cruisers, total fleet size of 140 or 200 respectively with the same effective field repair capability from almost completely destroyed to minty fresh
I'm thinking the 140 size task force is manageable by early mid-game-ish, although it puts a LOT of eggs in one basket, that basket is going to hit like a freight train.
Perhaps a size 70 task force is more reasonable (1 interdictor, 9 nano-repairers and 10 escorts) at about the same time, and it gives one the potential to construct and maintain several such task forces instead of only one for multiple fronts, multi-pronged offensives ad nauseam. While they're "only" capable of 45% monthly hull repair capabilities instead of 95%, they should be able to almost completely interdict an entire solar system instead of a partial system interdiction. If field repairs are a "must" (you're running very low on minerals or somesuch), then have two task forces form in close proximity to let the nanites do the repair work.
I'm thinking a "recon flotilla" should be effective by way of a scout wing carrying cruiser, 2 stand-off DDs and 8 corvettes (size 15).
A pure cruiser flotilla gives 5 cruisers for the same amount of fleet cap. A scout carrier, 1 or 2 battlecruisers and 2 or 3 light cruisers.
The intriguing element of a BB-heavy star navy are the station-grade modules that they can carry, one of which is the nanorepair cloud.
A large task force of 1 interdictor BB and 20 nanocloud BBs already gobbles up 84 fleet cap. 1:1 cruiser escorts generates another 21 cruisers, bringing that task force's size to a total of 147, a princely sum! 2:1 cruisers as escorts results in a satisfyingly even size of 210. However, the 20 nanorepair cloud BBs, in theory, could field repair the entire fleet away from prying eyes in a month at no cost (other than maintenance). Trimming 1 nanorepair cloud BB out evens the hull count to 20 BBs plus 20 or 40 cruisers, total fleet size of 140 or 200 respectively with the same effective field repair capability from almost completely destroyed to minty fresh
I'm thinking the 140 size task force is manageable by early mid-game-ish, although it puts a LOT of eggs in one basket, that basket is going to hit like a freight train.
Perhaps a size 70 task force is more reasonable (1 interdictor, 9 nano-repairers and 10 escorts) at about the same time, and it gives one the potential to construct and maintain several such task forces instead of only one for multiple fronts, multi-pronged offensives ad nauseam. While they're "only" capable of 45% monthly hull repair capabilities instead of 95%, they should be able to almost completely interdict an entire solar system instead of a partial system interdiction. If field repairs are a "must" (you're running very low on minerals or somesuch), then have two task forces form in close proximity to let the nanites do the repair work.
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I am hoping I can wait until D-Day for playing with Carriers.
Indeed!
Re: carriers overpowering the game, I doubt it, although they could potentially overwhelm those that are unprepared for them. Since missiles seem to feature very early, one's general purpose fleet designs seem likely to feature healthy point defense methods.
It'll be fascinating to see how the early AARs play out!
If you figure the "fighters" are more like attack crafts of the type of large torpedo boats or the size of a modern Corvette and that distances are hundreds of thousands of kilometers or even millions, then size and maneuverability is even a real thing in space.
But otherwise I do agree that manned fighters in space are kind of a moot point.
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Well, it's all up to your imagination I guess.
But, from looking at how the models look like of the ships in the game then Corvettes seem to be pretty large vessels and clearly MUCH larger than most modern wet navy warships. In my opinion.
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Personally I'm that a big fan of space carriers, at least not as the equivalent of the modern naval carrier. Space fighter don't have the tactical advantage over other space faring aircraft as modern fighter do over naval or land targets. It would be more like a naval ship deploying speedboats than a naval ship deploying jet fighters.
Atmospheric fighters could be useful in supporting planetary invasions and hangars on a space station could give it a better range, but in fleet vs. fleet fights I just don't see the advantage of fighters over ships, at least not when the ships have a good point defense system.
Atmospheric fighters could be useful in supporting planetary invasions and hangars on a space station could give it a better range, but in fleet vs. fleet fights I just don't see the advantage of fighters over ships, at least not when the ships have a good point defense system.
Oh unmanned drones are a very bad idea. You can see this already today where people hack military drones. This will only get worse in the future. It makes a lot more sense to have someone on that fighter. And a laser maybe good for long distance, but only if it knows where the target is. The fighter could employ effective ECM that are stronger the further away it is, which makes it sensible to have anti-fighter fighters (shooting on sight).
So, your dicison to see fighters as unrealistic only comes from your choosing what tech gets employed and what not.
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What kind of electronic counter measure works against a laser? Also you can only hack remote controlled drones. Drones with an AI can't be easily hacked on the battlefield.
Sellt said ECM against the Laser targeting system or more likley against the sensor marking the target. But since Lasers are in essence an electromagnetic wave one could argue that "shields" are an electromagnetic countermeasure against them.
Unmanned drones are a problem since they are fly-by-wire which means they fly from control signals. It is those signals that are hacked. A guided missile accepts no control signals and can't be hacked. You can already use evasive flying guided missiles. And means of travel is largely irrelevant when you have 0.0004 seconds to react from point defence acquisition of target to you being hit. A lightsecond is 300 000km, so if you are 300 000km from a target it takes 2 seconds from you leaving the carrier to you being hit by enemy point defence.
Spacecraft by necessity needs to weigh in at thousands of tonnes to not be instantly melted by lasers. The main issue is with heat. It takes a few seconds for modern lasers to melt through a missile armor and destroy its warhead/engine/computer. This is with well over 90% of the laser energy dissipating in the atmosphere. Given a standard scifi fighter we are talking about it reaching above boiling in less than a second. A system that does need to keep a human alive will survive past boiling, but at 300C electronics start to give way.
Visible light is just one way to detect things. The same system human eyes use, and human eyes are vastly inferior to cameras. A camera sees better at 1000km than a human eye does at 1km. A camera can use a convolution of the full spectrum and it is this that a countermeasure needs to fool. If it can effectively do this it will be invisble to humans at all but the closest distances. And if ever a human can see it then by necessity a camera can see it at 1000x that distance. I'm not saying electronic systems are foolproof, but any system that can fool an electronic system will be better at fooling a human for a given range.
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And again lasers can only hit what they see. If there is no way to cheat the targeting sensors then yes you are absolutely right. But what if there is a system that spoofs the targeting sensor? Suddenly it makes sense to have a small vessel (even less chance of a hit) that can get close and deliver deadly payloads, return and reload and do it again and again.
And its quite possible that this spoof works better the further away one is. So getting a vessel close to this attack fighter would become a reasonable strategy. hence Anti-fighter fighters.
As one above stated, when talking AI then yes, if AI's are possible then it makes more sense to use AI's instead of a person. There is then only the questions: are AI's possible? Can we trust AI's? Are AI's counted as persons too or not in that society? Are there "improved" humans that can react as fast as AI's?
You can have a lot of scenarios with possible technologies that make fighters a feasible strategy.
Ofc there is then the point why not just use missiles instead of fighters... In a world where explosive are the top dmg dealer it would make a lot more sense to use them and hit the enemy. But perhaps we have a non exploding energy source and a high damage energy weapon, in which case fighters again would be better.
The question if fighters are realistic or not depends a lot on what kind of tech you allow to exist.
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Spoofs by nature are better the less certain you are of a signal, and size/distance is directly proportional to certainty for targeting sensors.
The instant you fire a weapon you light up like a christmas tree. And then you have a fraction of a second left to live. It is possible to build missiles that are stealthy, as long as their exhaust is non-particle based and pointed away, or no exhaust like EM drive. Even then for any missile will get easier to spot the larger/closer it is.
Another issue, if two battleships are fighting with lasers or mass drivers at 100 000km range, how is a fighter going to get close?
A third issue, if you can with certainty stealth a fighter, you can also stealth a battleship at a slightly longer distance. Given how heat dynamics work, it is easier to stealth larger things in space for the same size/distance.
If you have better energy weapons you also have better point defence. If you can mount it on a fighter, you can mount a better version on a point defence. Point defence should definitely cost, but their primary target should be missiles. Fighters are just slow moving, easily hit missiles.
And we are back to fighters being soft scifi. I'm not saying fighters are some abomination that should never exist. New BSG is one of my favourite scifi shows (first seasons at least), but it is soft scifi. You can always invent a thingimajig that enables anything, but that is also the difference between realism and fantasy. For instance, KotoR uses shields that only allow slow moving projectiles through as an excuse to why swords are a thing in a place where people have plasmarifles. It is not realistic, but it is consistent. I don't have an issue with it, it enhances the game. Carriers too are not realistic, but they are consistent. Carriers don't enhance the game from my experience. They vary between op and useless (as stated earlier), and the amount of cool they bring is not enough to justify their unrealism and generally poor balancing. I don't see the charm fighters have over big ass lasers, nor why designers must include fighters in scifi, it just grates on me.
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I really want fighters/bombers for the visual aspect of the game. I don't want realism when it comes to space combat. Realism would probably be two fleets shooting back and forth from 1000's to millions of kilometers away. It's hard to argue for any but the largest ships when it comes to realism except a planetary assault where fighters launched from the planet would be useful against landing craft. Maybe a surprise attack where the fighters were hidden on an asteroid undetected and swarmed an enemy fleet before they knew what hit them.
The argument of why use fighters when there are missiles is completely valid but since I want fighters I'd make it so that only a certain amount of missiles could be fired from a ship. Fighters should be good at evasion and targetting weakened ships. If you target enemy fighters with your large ships you'll take some of them but miss a lot while the enemy large ships pound you. This would make the exciting option of fighter vs fighter at the beginning of combat with point defences also coming into play although they should prioritise enemy missiles over fighters. The fleet whose fighters win would have the advantage of heavily damaged ships being taken out more quickly by these remaining fighters.
The thing I'd love in a space game would be to add terrain bonusses to systems. Fighters would get defensive bonusses near small planets and asteroid belts. Large ships would be able to avoid the gravitational pull of large planets and so could stay out of range by getting closer to these. High gravity would adversely affect fighters evasion. Probably a discussion for someone who has thought about this more than me.
The argument of why use fighters when there are missiles is completely valid but since I want fighters I'd make it so that only a certain amount of missiles could be fired from a ship. Fighters should be good at evasion and targetting weakened ships. If you target enemy fighters with your large ships you'll take some of them but miss a lot while the enemy large ships pound you. This would make the exciting option of fighter vs fighter at the beginning of combat with point defences also coming into play although they should prioritise enemy missiles over fighters. The fleet whose fighters win would have the advantage of heavily damaged ships being taken out more quickly by these remaining fighters.
The thing I'd love in a space game would be to add terrain bonusses to systems. Fighters would get defensive bonusses near small planets and asteroid belts. Large ships would be able to avoid the gravitational pull of large planets and so could stay out of range by getting closer to these. High gravity would adversely affect fighters evasion. Probably a discussion for someone who has thought about this more than me.
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As I recall, ship models are quite larger than they actually are in the game world so that the player can distinguish them.
I don't care much for the realism in direct space combat either... although I rarely depict space fighter to be like normal fighter on a planet. I rather imagine them as assault boats who are much a ship with enough armour to withstand a laser hit and small enough to dodge a laser from a decent range.
I have no problem imagining the combat being abstracted and ranges being at thousands if not millions of kilometers. Ballistic weapons fire semi guided projectiles over vast distances... the guns are after all huge so they are practically firing small missiles, more or less.
With some techno babble you can easily fit in your WW2 style combat in a game like this.
Everyone are entitled to their own opinion when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi.
I have no problem imagining the combat being abstracted and ranges being at thousands if not millions of kilometers. Ballistic weapons fire semi guided projectiles over vast distances... the guns are after all huge so they are practically firing small missiles, more or less.
With some techno babble you can easily fit in your WW2 style combat in a game like this.
Everyone are entitled to their own opinion when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi.
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