As much as launching strike craft early might help, it's still not going to make them useful against a fleet prepared for them (aka large numbers of PD/flak). But then, hey, it's pretty realistic too... we're just getting a space version of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot
As interested as I am in grounding the game in as much realism as possible, making this as one of the only places to actually do so would absolutely suck. Based on anything approaching the ranges we are working with currently (often dozens of light-minutes), kinetic and even beam weapons should have virtually no chance to hit against any aware target. Missiles and strike craft would actually be the only ones with any hope of consistent contact with the enemy, and in THAT situation, yes, significant fleet point defense would be essential and would have to be near perfect in effectiveness to keep the three weapon systems (kinetic, energy, missiles/strike craft) at the same net efficiency.
That's not what we have here, though - kinetics and energy weapons both have near-instantaneous and high-velocity versions, both with no fleet-supporting defenses to mitigate attacks before they impact the defensive systems of individual ships. This, while missiles take FOREVER to reach their targets, assuming of course they can get past the extreme layering of fleet defense PD. On the other hand, we have kinetics, energy, and even missiles able to fire salvo after salvo for months on end without any apparent resupply, while strike craft get one shot to do their thing before they're shot down by the aforementioned PD and their carriers are now impotent for the remainder of all that time.
As I've stated earlier and elsewhere, there are a number of ways to improve the balance of power between missiles/strike craft and point defense, and between the three weapon systems (without getting too far into AI programming):
- Change how point defense is designed - I moved this one up from my previous list because I think it's most important to the design of all fleets. Primarily, point defense should be handled like other defense/utility systems: at an individual ship level, similar to the Phalanx systems seen on many US Navy vessels. It should be limited to a percent chance to defeat a missile attack immediately before impact, and it should reduce hull damage to the same net effect as comparable amounts of armor vs. kinetics or shields vs. energy. Fleet point defense should mostly be for dealing with strike craft (it can try to hit missiles, good luck with that) and it should continue to be on the offensive side of the slot equation, just like all other weapons for attacking other ships. I would move Flak Guns (and energy and missile equivalents) into the old fleet PD role - even though they wouldn't necessarily have to be in dedicated slots (may still need to for balance), their low effectiveness (due in part to improvements below for strike craft, but also lower range, accuracy, and damage) would ensure that they are only mitigation and not a hard counter. Again, the net effect should be to reduce strike craft damage by about the same ratio as the other defensive systems. All that assumes that a fleet doesn't overload its defensive/fleet PD profile, but that presents the same opportunities and vulnerabilities as going heavy armor vs. heavy shields, or anti-corvette vs. anti-capital weapons.
- Missiles need to behave closer to actual missiles - Missiles need to be considerably faster on average, with a preference for an acceleration model that would have higher tracking at low speeds/ranges (not having to correct for huge velocity vectors) and lower tracking at high speeds/ranges (not BEING ABLE to correct for huge velocity vectors). The lower initial speeds would make missiles less optimal in a close fight (except against corvettes), and a ship computer option for keeping the range out would be essential. Torpedoes can have higher initial velocities and corresponding lower tracking as befits a short-range, more dedicated anti-capital weapon.
- Strike craft need some love, too - The biggest issue with strike craft not already covered is the limited lifespan (i.e., once defeated in a battle, hangars are not able to launch until a post-battle regeneration). Unless strike craft are given extreme survivability upgrades (to where they would essentially only go away once the carrier is dealt with), hangars have to be able to launch follow-on squadrons. I would still make strike craft quite survivable to keep the hangars from becoming clown cars, but if you allow a hangar to launch half-squadron replacements once the first half goes down (and then a cooldown/windup), that should be sufficient. These improvements can be balanced with the idea that carriers, because they can launch their squadrons at extreme range, would be better positioned to make an emergency jump or simply survive the furball.
- Evasion and tracking is wrong - The smallest and hardest to hit vessels in Stellaris should be missiles and strike craft, not corvettes. The equations for evasion and tracking would have to be completely recalculated to put missiles at the very top, strike craft close behind, corvettes in the middle, and destroyers and the capital ships toward the bottom as usual. Then the weapons would need to be set to go after their preferred prey and bonuses would have to be limited to keep big guns from getting so good as to consistently hit tiny highly-agile targets (especially at full range). If you want to have the bigger ships have a chance at some "evasion" of their own, I'd look at implementing some kind of ECM (and then offer ECCM to help keep that in check).
- A well-balanced defender (comparable amounts of all three defensive systems) should suffer about the same amount of net damage from either a kinetic, an energy, or a missile attack of a given size and tech level, when balanced for range, accuracy, and rate of fire. Because missiles ARE affected by ship-PD (even if they're not likely to be affected by fleet-PD) while kinetics and energy are not, they need to be more effective normally against the other two defensive systems (i.e., penetration), so that they net out the same on average. And when those other weapons improve in tech level and start getting additional bonuses versus either of those two defenses, missiles need to see comparable improvements against one or more of the THREE they have to deal with.
- Hangars should be an option for more ship sizes and modules - Compared to other weapon slots, hangars are balanced out at about a (M)edium, with only the Battleship "Carrier" core module calculating higher than that. That means that any section that has modules that can support a (L)arge or two (M)edium offensive slots (namely destroyers, but also bow modules on cruisers) should be able to support a (H)angar slot. This would mean that even destroyer-capable empires should have access to strike craft technologies (which is also around the same time that defensive platforms come available that can use strike craft, too), to give them "pocket carriers" whose bombers can actually threaten capital ships, "escort carrier" cruisers with multiple hangars of interceptors that can switch between harassing corvettes and shooting down missiles, or "pure carrier" battleships that have SIX hangars (H2/P2 "Hangar" bow, H3/P3 "Carrier" core, H1/P1 "Flight Deck" stern) for crazy beehive action.
I've spent way too long thinking and writing about this tonight. I would appreciate your comments.
