Oh man, hope I wasn't being difficult. I had just gotten off work and was trying to type stuff up on my phone. Let me see if I can make things a bit more clear.
I wouldn't call that "micromanaging". Micromanaging would be if you're doing it per-wing, this is regular "managing" 
You're pressing one button maybe every 10 seconds. Enough to be engaging since you need to pay attention and decide, but far from enough to be "micromanagement", if we take that term to imply an amount of controlling that's an unwanted hassle. I mean, I suppose that's subjective - maybe someone doesn't want to press any buttons, right - but this seems generally reasonable.
I absolutely understand a lot of this is going to be subjective. For sure, I haven't played your new mechanics and they could be great! But at the same time, they could just be going in a direction that I'm not really looking for.
When I'm playing a carrier, the idea is that I'm the conductor of a giant space orchestra. Flying the carrier is a lot more about predicting where I should be in the future while directing the action around the carrier (which means I spec a lot into the leadership skills). I use the carrier itself as an anchor of sorts for the front line. In many ways, the carrier and escorts is the anvil , and the fighters, bombers, and other ships of the fleet are the hammer.
When I say micromanagement, I'm kind of thinking that I'm now having to dance between 2 different systems. Managing the fleet in the map, and now managing the fighters separately with what's basically a hold-fire auto-fire command, as well as using the missiles/harassment/support weapon systems I generally try to run on the carrier. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the allure of flying the carrier was not as much about the carrier itself, but it's interactions with the entire battle.
Starsector is not an RTS, for sure. This may be an odd way to think about it, but playing like this feels a lot more like the old Rainbow Six games. You had the Planning phase where you figured out what you wanted to do, then you actually controlled one of the parts of that plan during execution.
Regarding flanking: if your carrier positioning doesn't matter very much (beyond "out of trouble" and "not too far"), then that's one less reason to fly it yourself. (I'll say, it'd be more interesting to see *why* you think that, and other things. As it is, all I can see is that you strongly don't think that should be the case (due to caps), but not what about it makes you feel that way, beyond it being the fighters' job. There's just not much discussion to be had without knowing about the "why" of things.)
I do see what you're saying regarding fighters doing this on their own, but to me that's far from being the "entire point" of fighters. If's just one more thing they could potentially do.
I would probably say the biggest strategic use of a carrier, at least in modern combat, is force projection. In Starsector, that meant being more of a support craft for these smaller, faster craft. The idea, I had always felt, was that positioning of the carrier was about maintaining a balance of being close enough to the battle for quick refit anywhere on the battle map, but just far enough to not be under significant threat from more deadly ships. Flying a capital-class carrier, that's about staying just close enough to the main task force of the enemy to trade potshots, but far enough to avoid more severe burst damage. You and your escorts are what make you an anvil here. A couple of destroyers or, late game, a couple of cruiser escorts create a very difficult defensive line to beat. The escorts duck in and out to deal stronger burst damage, while you try to maintain good overall directional and distance positioning to make them effective in both defense and offense. As a bit of an afterthought, this is part of why I generally don't have capital-class battleships and that sort of thing in my fleet, a carrier group's front line just isn't as concentrated.
And the strike craft come into play here. Usually with a fighter escort, the strike craft wait for an opportune moment, then I have them do a run to make a more severe blow. Daggers set up on a flank waiting for the fleet to bring the flux up on the ship, or a couple of Piranha wings to throw out their field of bombs from the rear to distract their shield facings for a swift assault from strike destroyers. The relatively high speeds and, surprisingly, survivability when they're separated from the fleet is what makes them useful here. (And when I'm talking about survivability, generally they're pretty good at avoiding enemies before their attack, rather than actually taking hits.)
That's why it's hard for me to say that that's not the entire point of fighters/bombers. Because, in use, the point of them is for swift, brief strikes to throw an enemy off-balance, not necessarily a weapon. They're more of a tool than that.
I don't understand what you mean. Why would you want to actually fly a carrier yourself if you have full strategic control over fighters anyway? Wouldn't you want to fly a more combat-capable ship where your ability to control it makes a difference to its performance, vs one where it doesn't?
I hope I've at least somewhat answered this already, but the ability to control the carrier really does make a difference in it's performance!
The control of it is just a bit more subtle and a great deal about planning and preparation. Flying the carrier means I'm not having to make constant command changes when it comes to placement and even then, using it in this way, the AI doesn't do a very good job of keeping it alive.
I'll be the first to say that this isn't really how carriers are used, and probably all of what I've said should be taken with a grain of salt. In reality, a carrier battle group's capabilities don't really come from direct naval engagement. It comes from being able to project force in a vast region, over massive distances. I really doubt that this is going to be modeled in this game. That's not really the point of Starsector.
But if the game's going to have them, I really do want to see some of the tactical flexibility of a carrier modeled at least in combat.
Edit: just want to make clear, this "loss of strategic control" is definitely a loss in my book, no argument on that point at all. I just think that what we get in return will turn out better.
In the end, Alex, I hope for the best! You're a great designer and I've loved what you've done so far. I love the game and I definitely will when this new update releases, but maybe just a bit less if the fighter redesign doesn't pan out well. We'll see when it comes out. I can say, though, that when it does come out, I may end up missing playing my favorite role.
Thanks for all your responses!
