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[TaLaR]

I have always been saying we need a system where players and AI can raid fleets. The smaller fleets can choose to attack/destroy the support ships where the large fleet had to defend them.

The most important part is that player can be raided by AI. And considering that AI doesn't care for cost efficiency/resources/reputation, this is very likely to be a source of grief similar to gank burns or interdiction spam.

[Bastion.Systems]

Not all ships need to be effective in a player fleet, some can just be easy targets for some mercantile piracy. Lorewise also kinda necessary, it's not like most real life commercial ships have much capacity to deal with pirates.

[SafariJohn]

it's not like most real life commercial ships have much capacity to deal with pirates.

Throughout history you will find that merchant vessels have uparmed themselves in dangerous areas to match what their enemies can field, or at least be too dangerous to safely attack. Age of Sail: merchant ships carried cannon. WWI/WWII: merchant ships carried guns. Modern day: merchant ships carry armed guards (pirates are poorly equipped nowadays).

[Megas]

Currently, you NEED tankers to go anywhere beyond core.  If they can bypass your fleet and kill your tankers, your fleet is sunk.  With current trade, superfreighters are most useful for looting the enemy, not trading.

Meanwhile, NPCs have infinite fleets.  They do not care about resources or losses.

[Thaago]

Before you get a fuel hungry capital, you can do bounties about halfway out from the core without any tankers. If feeling adventurous you can even do it beyond your return line as you will get fuel from the fight, but this is risky as every once in a while the fleets are a no-show. Capitals do require a dram or two.

[Bribe Guntails]

Hypothetical scenario:
You're a medium-size fleet with a cruiser, some destroyers, and many frigates. You have a smattering of support ships for cargo, fuel, and crew.
Out in the fringes you get jumped by a pirate fleet. Their ships don't outsize yours, but their mobility allows them to quickly close in your support ships. Knowing this, your fleet is forced to assume a tight formation around those ships.
If a battle occurs your fleet will be on the field, though you can 'deploy' ships of your choice around the rest of your fleet. Without a doubt you'll want to protect your support ships and, if the fight isn't hard fought, you won't lose all the CR spent for every ship.

I think I'm a genius here: now that fielded support ships is much more likely to occur, the binary all-or-nothing strategies with them will be replaced with more meaningful choices e.g. Colossus/Tarsus to withstand ambush attack vs Atlas/Buffalo for Core trade.

[Eji1700]

Hypothetical scenario:
You're a medium-size fleet with a cruiser, some destroyers, and many frigates. You have a smattering of support ships for cargo, fuel, and crew.
Out in the fringes you get jumped by a pirate fleet. Their ships don't outsize yours, but their mobility allows them to quickly close in your support ships. Knowing this, your fleet is forced to assume a tight formation around those ships.
If a battle occurs your fleet will be on the field, though you can 'deploy' ships of your choice around the rest of your fleet. Without a doubt you'll want to protect your support ships and, if the fight isn't hard fought, you won't lose all the CR spent for every ship.

I think I'm a genius here: now that fielded support ships is much more likely to occur, the binary all-or-nothing strategies with them will be replaced with more meaningful choices e.g. Colossus/Tarsus to withstand ambush attack vs Atlas/Buffalo for Core trade.

As a tangent to this, maybe a deploy timer based on ship size (modified by if you're on defense/offense + all the usual stuff like buoys/skills/etc)

This way you can have all support ships on the field at the start when on defense, along with all frigates, with destroyers reinforcing near instantly.  Cruisers and capitals can take X seconds to get to the battle.

Its a new system though so a lot of dev overhead and I can already see area's where it'd need better balance, but again it'd give more point to battle ready cargo haulers if they start on the field with them.

[Megas]

Deploy all may not be an option if battle size is not big enough.

[Linnis]

Well currenty the simple large fleet  eats small fleets. I don't know how you can call small fleets fighting you greifing.

If the computer abuses it and annoy you there can be a simple system where of you have enough combat to civilian ratio they simply won't. Or most AI fleet like Pirates won't do that to you since if they can't win they don't get loot anyways.

[Retry]

it's not like most real life commercial ships have much capacity to deal with pirates.

Throughout history you will find that merchant vessels have uparmed themselves in dangerous areas to match what their enemies can field, or at least be too dangerous to safely attack. Age of Sail: merchant ships carried cannon. WWI/WWII: merchant ships carried guns. Modern day: merchant ships carry armed guards (pirates are poorly equipped nowadays).

Merchant vessels armed themselves but they hardly matched their contemporaries.  A typical WWI merchant vessel may add a single anti-submarine gun on the stern, and a WWII merchant vessel might augment their obsolescent WWI vintage low-angle deck gun with minimal fire control, with a machine gun for the occasional fighter raid.  Bigger ones might be converted to throw a few seaplanes around as scouts.  The modifications may have been enough to give a fighting chance against surfaced submarines & maybe the occasional poorly-armed PT boat, but the merchant vessels certainly couldn't match any proper seaworthy combat vessel like Destroyer or even Frigate-sized craft.

With that said, Q-Ships might be an interesting idea to see in-game.  "Cargo vessels" with concealed weaponry...

[SafariJohn]

Merchant vessels armed themselves but they hardly matched their contemporaries.  A typical WWI merchant vessel may add a single anti-submarine gun on the stern, and a WWII merchant vessel might augment their obsolescent WWI vintage low-angle deck gun with minimal fire control, with a machine gun for the occasional fighter raid.  Bigger ones might be converted to throw a few seaplanes around as scouts.  The modifications may have been enough to give a fighting chance against surfaced submarines & maybe the occasional poorly-armed PT boat, but the merchant vessels certainly couldn't match any proper seaworthy combat vessel like Destroyer or even Frigate-sized craft.

With that said, Q-Ships might be an interesting idea to see in-game.  "Cargo vessels" with concealed weaponry...

Now how often did merchant ships have to fight frigates and such? Compared to subs? One good hit on a sub and the sub is in a lot of trouble. Therefore fulfilling my statement:

or at least be too dangerous to safely attack.

To expound on the Age of Sail, in the 18th and 19th centuries merchant ships were VERY heavily armed.

For example, the East Indiamen class of ships were constructed from the keel up with defence in mind, with their heavy armament making them equivalent to naval ships of the line.

In Starsector, shields make anything less than full military armament pointless, so I expect you would realistically see three categories of merchant ships: load-and-pray, military-grade defense, and fully military-grade.

It's already kind of that way, the game just doesn't commit to it. For example, if the Tarsus had military-grade shields and armor it could see use as a meat-shield in addition to its cargo capability. If the Mule was equal to a regular combat destroyer (but cost a supply or two more) then it would be very useful.

But, IMO, the core issue remains that the player can make ships invincible by not deploying them.

[Goumindong]

Talking about "realism" probably isn't worth much. How armored and armed merchant ships are depends too much on the relative conditions. During an unstable time where there is no war you would expect them to be most weaponized. During a stable time with no war least. If we were, we would likely say that Starsector is an unstable world(lots of pirates and low state control of space) that isn't at war. Not in the "total war" sense that we know from history. So merchant ships would probably be pretty heavily armed/armored.

But really that isn't worth much because the primary question is "how does the game play". At the moment, cargo and fuel vessels are stat sticks for the player. They have little  to no use in combat and their defense doesn't much matter. For NPC's they're fluff or they're free targets. If you catch them you barely have to even kill them. The chase might as well be a text box.(or not worth attempting the deployment costs if they're fast).

This isn't great in either sense. Stat sticks are kinda boring. Players who choose cargo vessels should be doing so with strategic purpose rather than "I need hauling so i increased my hauling". That is; they want to run "risky trade routes" where they expect to get attacked by pirates... but also where it would be inefficient to run a full combat fleet with them. Though it would be OK to largely excise cargo ships from player fleets and have them be player objectives only.

I wrote a thing about this in general (tyranny of fuel) but i think i have an interesting solution in specific as well. Gonna go make poast.

[SCC]

But, IMO, the core issue remains that the player can make ships invincible by not deploying them.

It is. It means combat freighters have no use, since freighters don't have to defend themselves, bar retreat scenarios (which you can avoid in campaign), since all freighters can be defended by combat ships by not letting enemy win.

But really that isn't worth much because the primary question is "how does the game play". At the moment, cargo and fuel vessels are stat sticks for the player.

This doesn't bother me. Freighters are kind of boring like that, they just ferry stuff around, and that's okay. Most of them feels good enough for me (hounds and cerberuses are quite fast, shepherds are useful little critters, buffalos are fast strategically, tarsus tactically, colossus and atlas bring a lot of space for cargo), except for combat freighters (destroyer and cruiser grade), since they're underwhelming both in combat and as freighters.

[TheWetFish]

It's probably worth having another look through the ships.  Some other things to consider might include weapon mount types, specific hullmods (or lack of), amount of OP or base cost 

For example Mercuries can mount 3x Harpoon MRMs.  Hegemony variant Buffalo lack a Civilian-grade Hull.  Both Colossi modifications can bring both Nav Relay & ECM Package fleet hullmods.  Wayfarer is very likely costed far too highly, the base cost could do with some adjustment 

[Cik]

deployment mechanics need a rework to be made more interesting and then freighters and combat freighters would be better.

if you encounter an enemy fleet with your fleet, and your or the enemy's fleet has freighters in it, it would likely be impossible to prevent them from engaging them at least under most circumstances. if they are a better tactician than you, and/or on average much faster and/or with more initiative, you should probably be forced to deploy ships that the enemy might be able to choose depending.

then combat freighters would have a real purpose as they would be noticeably more resilient when they get jumped and forced to fight.

but i've harped on the fleet deployment system before.. often. i don't really like how it forces everybody into "ram combat ship into combat ship and whoever has biggest stick wins every time" ideally i should be able to engage a big, unwieldy fleet with a faster phase fleet, pick off a few of their supply chain ships, then disengage without facing the majority of the heavy hitters if i plan my ingress well, have fast ships and have tactical skills on my character(s)

i guess i don't really have problems with freighters per se. they have cargo space and that's nice. if you want them to be some sort of strategic objective as they should be that's not really a freighter-specific issue.