hello,
as we all know, strike craft / carrier set up has been utterly useless for quite a while now. the obvious bugs aside (strike craft flying to the side instead of towards the enemy for example), they are still useless. sure they skip shields, but they dont have nearly enough firepower to make it worth it and practically no human player will use strike craft in ships. anyway the problem is obvious but lets look at potential solutions based on real life tactics.
in real life, the most obvious advantage of aircraft in naval warfare is its range. with aircraft carriers you can practically out range any missile - because you can just strap the said missile on an aircraft to give it extra range. you can strap sensors on said aircraft to make them excellent scouts. The in-game solution, then, is obvious: you give strike craft extra range. not just extra range in the same system, but let them scout ahead, one jump per tier, i.e. level 1 scout/fighter increases sensor range by 1 jump, level 2 by 2 jumps, etc. let the bomber engage the enemies early - multiple systems early, similar to the sensor range for scout/fighters. For example, if you have a carrier fleet with tier 3 strike craft, and the enemy dont, you can kite them - maintain 2-3 jumps away from the enemy and let the strike craft do the attacking. this will make carrier and PD/Flak ships a lot more useful, and similarly, allow scout/fighters to intercept bombers early to balance the bombers. the bombers will *not* engage stations other than defense platforms and ion cannons, however they can be stopped by FTL traps and receives a -75% penalty on damage and accuracy while being engaged by fighters. behavior wise, bombers should always target the biggest ships in range first.
in order to work with this, several things have to be changed - the most obvious one is jump drive. instead of a modest 50% reduction in speed and firepower, jump drive recharge should disable the ships weapon systems entirely - and the ships will be unable to recover or move out of the system in enemy territory during recharge (having a corvette fleet jumping past your bastion defense and your diplomatic ally only to run rampant in your territory playing hit & run is BS in the first place anyway). the range for PD and Flak need to be increased massively in order to have a chance to intercept the incoming bombers (and create an AA network if you will). Picket ship AI should make the ship move with the enemy bombers in the same system and increase the range of ship weapons. ships can move out of the system while bombers are present, however picket ship AI will be activated as long as enemy bombers are present (i.e. ships will be firing on the bomber but will move as usual, except for the picket ship AI of course - however picket ship will still jump with the rest of the fleet). there also need to be more hanger slots - not just the 1 on cruiser or 3-4 in a battleship, both cruiser and BB should have the option to be a dedicated carrier and allow hanger slots on all 3 parts of the ship. the last part of the change is the titan trap module. on top of combat disengagement chance, it should also prevent enemy ship from escaping the system (if you get caught by a titan, you should rightfully be severely penalized).
I honestly think this will make the game play a lot more interesting and allow carriers to be an valid option in the game. please let me know what you think of this.
as we all know, strike craft / carrier set up has been utterly useless for quite a while now. the obvious bugs aside (strike craft flying to the side instead of towards the enemy for example), they are still useless. sure they skip shields, but they dont have nearly enough firepower to make it worth it and practically no human player will use strike craft in ships. anyway the problem is obvious but lets look at potential solutions based on real life tactics.
in real life, the most obvious advantage of aircraft in naval warfare is its range. with aircraft carriers you can practically out range any missile - because you can just strap the said missile on an aircraft to give it extra range. you can strap sensors on said aircraft to make them excellent scouts. The in-game solution, then, is obvious: you give strike craft extra range. not just extra range in the same system, but let them scout ahead, one jump per tier, i.e. level 1 scout/fighter increases sensor range by 1 jump, level 2 by 2 jumps, etc. let the bomber engage the enemies early - multiple systems early, similar to the sensor range for scout/fighters. For example, if you have a carrier fleet with tier 3 strike craft, and the enemy dont, you can kite them - maintain 2-3 jumps away from the enemy and let the strike craft do the attacking. this will make carrier and PD/Flak ships a lot more useful, and similarly, allow scout/fighters to intercept bombers early to balance the bombers. the bombers will *not* engage stations other than defense platforms and ion cannons, however they can be stopped by FTL traps and receives a -75% penalty on damage and accuracy while being engaged by fighters. behavior wise, bombers should always target the biggest ships in range first.
in order to work with this, several things have to be changed - the most obvious one is jump drive. instead of a modest 50% reduction in speed and firepower, jump drive recharge should disable the ships weapon systems entirely - and the ships will be unable to recover or move out of the system in enemy territory during recharge (having a corvette fleet jumping past your bastion defense and your diplomatic ally only to run rampant in your territory playing hit & run is BS in the first place anyway). the range for PD and Flak need to be increased massively in order to have a chance to intercept the incoming bombers (and create an AA network if you will). Picket ship AI should make the ship move with the enemy bombers in the same system and increase the range of ship weapons. ships can move out of the system while bombers are present, however picket ship AI will be activated as long as enemy bombers are present (i.e. ships will be firing on the bomber but will move as usual, except for the picket ship AI of course - however picket ship will still jump with the rest of the fleet). there also need to be more hanger slots - not just the 1 on cruiser or 3-4 in a battleship, both cruiser and BB should have the option to be a dedicated carrier and allow hanger slots on all 3 parts of the ship. the last part of the change is the titan trap module. on top of combat disengagement chance, it should also prevent enemy ship from escaping the system (if you get caught by a titan, you should rightfully be severely penalized).
I honestly think this will make the game play a lot more interesting and allow carriers to be an valid option in the game. please let me know what you think of this.