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Author Topic: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?  (Read 4391 times)

Jaiden

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Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« on: March 05, 2020, 02:00:18 AM »

So I've not played the game for very long, especially compared to some people here I'm sure. I think I've gotten a pretty decent grasp of how to play the game, etc etc. Just went from a 'vanilla-ish' modset, that had a radar, lights, sounds, spinning rotary thingies, to 30 mods with lots of ship packs, Nex, Varya's sector, etc. I've yet to start a campaign with all of these mods, but I've been enjoying the arcade mode from a shippack I forgot the name of, was fun!

Onto the question

In my vanilla run I tended to get squashed pretty often until I started running a carrier heavy fleet, 4 midline fast carriers with 6 midline destroyers, excuse me whilst I casually forget their names, but they were the ones that had the maneuvering thrusters and laughed at any smaller frigates that tried to catch them.

At the start of every battle I'd assign a destroyer to a carrier, then up to 4 fighter strike orders, depending on the situation. I, myself was in a midline battlecruiser, the one meant for broadsides, with hellfire cannons and hypervelocity drivers, and tac lasers.

This fleet setup pretty much melts anything I've come across so far, granted that run never met the spooky redacted at it's strongest, nor fought several paragons, but big scav/pirate fleets that I was scared of now were running away at the sight of the carrier fleet after them.

One thing I thought about was the setup of the fighters and bombers themselves, I had 2 out of 4 carriers assigned an officer with lvl 3 in all carrier skills, these carriers had bomber heavy loadouts with swarm interceptors with flare launchers. The ones that didn't have officers had swarm drones, purely to get more numbers on the field, as the skills help damage and survivability of the fighter/bombers and the bombers needed them the most.


It's also noteworthy that with every deployment, I would max out ECM at 25% enemy range reduction (often vs 0%). My flagship had a ECM package and I had skills that enabled 1-5% increase per ship, often leading to something like ~43% vs 0% when I deployed every ship in my fleet (I had in my fleet smaller phase frigates, and others to round out my composition, but I never had any issues with just deploying my carriers and destroyers)


So was it just pure luck that I stumbled across a good fleet setup? Or in vanilla, do carriers with good LPCs make/break a fleet? Love to hear the thoughts of the long playing guys.

It's also noteworthy that until that point, I would actively avoid combat as I found it the least enjoyable experience, now I love it a lot!
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geminitiger

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2020, 04:36:11 AM »

tldr; no.

Is carrier spam an easy way to do a decent job of things. Yes.
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Tempest

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2020, 08:30:52 AM »

I'd say Doom is the god king of the battlefield.
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Igncom1

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2020, 09:03:58 AM »

Carriers are terrible. Fighters on the other hand are amazing.

Ship for ship capital ships are the best. DP for DP I'm not really sure, but probably some kinda pirate or luddite vessel.

The AI is rarely set up to properly counter carriers as the default load-outs even for anti-cv are simply terrible.
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Grievous69

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2020, 11:42:28 AM »

It may seem that way since a lot of fighters easily breaks AI and they don't really try to pressure the carriers and instead just try to kill fighters forever and dance around forever. In my personal opinion what I've experienced works best is a fleet with a mixture of ship types. I mean an all carrier fleet might be a ''good fleet setup'' but that seems super boring to me. I'm curious tho, what bombers and fighters are you using?
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lusti

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2020, 12:31:30 PM »

hey i am new player . i am playing this game like 4 day max. but i have similar experience at early stage of the game. they shred everythink. but later they became weaker when the batlecruiser and cruisers show up in large  numbers. its takes years to kill anything or they are shot down before they can do anything. i started using them as support units. to kill smaller ships or when any of my big girl has problem i just send the fighters there. they are still realy usefull . just not as damage dealer more like suppor. or at last thats how my fleet works lol
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Jaiden

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2020, 01:07:40 PM »

It may seem that way since a lot of fighters easily breaks AI and they don't really try to pressure the carriers and instead just try to kill fighters forever and dance around forever. In my personal opinion what I've experienced works best is a fleet with a mixture of ship types. I mean an all carrier fleet might be a ''good fleet setup'' but that seems super boring to me. I'm curious tho, what bombers and fighters are you using?

Lost my last save cause I put loads of mods in so forgive me if I don't exactly replicate my fleet comp..

4-6 Falcons depending on enemy fleet comp/size 4 Herons, my flagship a Conquest

Total fighter and bomber count across the 4 carriers:

2 wings of Dagger torp bombers, Longbow kinetic bomber, Cobra bomber, 4x Broadsword fighters, 4x Spark Interceptor drone, 4x Wasp interceptors

Edit: Using the combat statistics mod it's important to note that unless the torp bombers scored good hits whilst the enemy shields were down, my flagship usually did most of the damage to a single enemy.
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Aereto

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2020, 04:03:03 PM »

hey i am new player . i am playing this game like 4 day max. but i have similar experience at early stage of the game. they shred everythink. but later they became weaker when the batlecruiser and cruisers show up in large  numbers. its takes years to kill anything or they are shot down before they can do anything. i started using them as support units. to kill smaller ships or when any of my big girl has problem i just send the fighters there. they are still realy usefull . just not as damage dealer more like suppor. or at last thats how my fleet works lol

Carriers excel as support units. The bombers can make the difference that frigates and destroyers cannot do without taking heavy damage. I normally have fighters normally meant to screen out enemy fighters and bombers for the capitals and reduce odds of being overwhelmed. I normally have Astrals as specialized carriers due to the recall device teleporting fighters to repair and reload, using only a specific bomber or fighter, and helmed with steady (can shield a ship's flank in a pinch) or cautious officers (stay behind and let the bombers do the voodoo). I outfit the Legion as a more support oriented battlecruiser, delivering pilums while providing fighter screens for the fleet. Herons are what I refit with the most flexibility, from dedicated roles to generalized roles.
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Hellya

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2020, 10:28:06 PM »

I'd say Doom is the god king of the battlefield.

Very much this. A doom spam is unstoppable.
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TaLaR

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2020, 12:05:42 AM »

Doom mines don't scale all that well with character skills. They are strong in no skills fights, but not so much against IPDAI + AC3 + other maxed out skills. Officer-ed and PD-optimized capitals can pop them with ease.
And you want to optimize your caps against mines either way, because high-tier stations are even worse mine-spammers than Dooms.
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Jaiden

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2020, 11:42:09 AM »

I've never really had much success using the doom ship, never had a problem taking out the 1 i encountered in the wild either
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KCR

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #11 on: March 09, 2020, 05:38:21 AM »

I've never really had much success using the doom ship, never had a problem taking out the 1 i encountered in the wild either

Well, it's not really that hard to manage an enemy Doom. But it is very nice to have one in your fleet, because you can give it direct orders and prioritize targets, thus managing it battle impact. And, if your managing is good, you can end almost all battles before your AI driven Doom will run out of PPT.

Stormhawk Republic is god king of the battlefield, just because all of their fleets are made to have maximum possible number of carriers. Thus, making it an unstoppable mess. As for carriers alone, i do not think they are god kings of the battlefield and i don't use them that much. I usually pick maybe 1 or 2 just to give them escort orders. True Man don't rely on some wanky little spaceships, True Man rely on it's Brutal Frontal Firepower! Onslaught is life! Onslaught is love! 
« Last Edit: March 09, 2020, 05:52:09 AM by KCR »
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Tempest

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #12 on: March 09, 2020, 10:01:29 AM »

I've never really had much success using the doom ship, never had a problem taking out the 1 i encountered in the wild either
There are specific tactics you can use.

Staying hidden most of the time, and placing mines on fighter wings completely cripples enemy carriers. You can also sneak behind a slow ship and empty some missiles into its rear.
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Jaiden

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #13 on: March 10, 2020, 12:19:06 AM »

There are specific tactics you can use.

Staying hidden most of the time, and placing mines on fighter wings completely cripples enemy carriers. You can also sneak behind a slow ship and empty some missiles into its rear.

Yeah true, I don't really gel well with that type of playstyle though. I recently started a NG+ style of new save, gave myself a big honking dreadnought that I have decked out with all the support stuff, ECM, nav, command center.. Very nice.

Most of the other ships have fighters, and I have some of em specced out with heavy frigate type patrol boats, pretty sweet setup imo
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Aereto

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Re: Are carriers the god kings of the battlefield?
« Reply #14 on: March 10, 2020, 03:26:24 AM »

Staying hidden most of the time, and placing mines on fighter wings completely cripples enemy carriers. You can also sneak behind a slow ship and empty some missiles into its rear.

I place mines specifically on fighter wings to quickly detonate mines near target ships, as the explosion takes the ship before shields are raised. Otherwise, I just use mines to force the target between mines and a hard ship. For especially distracted or overloaded ships, I just launch reaper torps.
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