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[TrashMan]

For example, I want a ship that can only mount fighters, but not bombers.

If something like that does not exist, it should. An easy way to implement would be to add a column to the ships (hangar_size) and a column to the wing/fighter (fighter_size)
Those would be numerical values that would determine what fightercraft can be mounted.
1 - light fighter
2 - medium fighter
3 - heavy fighter
4 - bomber
5 - heavy bomber
6 - ultraheavy bomber
7 - insanity, etc...

So a carrier that has a hangar size of 5 can carry anything up to (and including) that size - any wing with a value of 5 and lower would be allowed.
Something like this would be useful to truly differentiate between purpose-built military carriers ad conversions and also to differentiate between sizes and complexity of hangars. Obviously accommodating a 15 meter fighter is not the same as accommodating a 50 meter bomber - the volume/mass difference alone and the size of hangar doors would be an issue.

If you want to go even further, the actual number of wings/fighter could be affected by volume - we have historical examples of carrier that carried different number of craft, depending on size (one us carrier managed to launch heavier bombers, but carried only a handful)

[Igncom1]

What's wrong with the current model that this would correct or fix?

It's not like space fighters are really all that different from bombers anyway. Usually just slightly better engines and manoeuvring with worse weapon hard points. Like little corvettes if anything.

[RedHellion]

Something like this would be useful to truly differentiate between purpose-built military carriers ad conversions and also to differentiate between sizes and complexity of hangars. Obviously accommodating a 15 meter fighter is not the same as accommodating a 50 meter bomber - the volume/mass difference alone and the size of hangar doors would be an issue.

I can kind of see where you're coming from, but isn't this already handled with fighter/bomber OP costs (bombers are generally more expensive than fighters, especially for the good ones) and wing size (generally based on fighter/bomber individual toughness already, bigger/tougher fighters/bombers already have a smaller wing size)? And most conversions are/were cargo haulers with their cargo decks ripped out and converted to hangar bays, so lore-wise I don't see a big issue with differentiating between purpose-built military and civilian converted hangars by limiting what can be put in them; the most I could see would be maybe adding a built-in "converted hangar" mod to such civilian cargo conversions (which would require re-balancing that hull mod I feel, since it would make early-game fighter use in such civilian conversions very OP-intensive).

I don't really understand the problem you're proposing to fix here that isn't already handled by the current way fighter/bomber OP cost and wing size is done.

[Deshara]

Alex beat you to it, OP costs already do this but inversed in an opportunity cost by scaling OP cost

[TrashMan]

What's wrong with the current model that this would correct or fix?

It's not like space fighters are really all that different from bombers anyway. Usually just slightly better engines and manoeuvring with worse weapon hard points. Like little corvettes if anything.

Weren't you reading?
They don't have the same size and requirements. Especially since space carrier are not flattops, they have internal hangards and bays, thus volume and other technicals become even MORE important.

So if I have a 200m freighter converted to a makeshift carrier, with a hangar opening just big enough for a standard fighter, how the hell is that ship supposed tolaunch andhold an entire wing of 50meter long super-bombers, when they can't evne fit trough the hangar door?


The current model DOES NOT allow fine tuning and makes no difference betwwen ships. The shittiest and smallest ad-hoc carrier cna easily accomade the same strikecraft as the bigegst and most advanced cariers? Does this seem logical to you?

[TrashMan]

Alex beat you to it, OP costs already do this but inversed in an opportunity cost by scaling OP cost

No, op cost does not do this, not evne close.
What I'm asking for is a hard allow/dissalow, like different weapon mounts simply prevent you from mounting specific weapons. Doesn't matter how many OP you have, you can't mount an energy weapon on a ballistic mount.

Basically, I want the same for fighter wings. They need finer control over them, given that they are weapons too and damn powerfull now.

[Darloth]

It does, actually.

The supercarrier can launch four wings of them, and they'll be significantly BETTER than the ones launched from the smallest and worst improvised freighter.

That improv frieghter will barely be able to manage a shield, let alone any actual guns.

You've ripped out the internals of that poor craft just to cram in all the support equipment for BADLY maintaining a pair of Tridents, wheras the Astral or Legion over there can do three wings of them and some interceptors without breaking a sweat, AND teleport them home / have actual guns on, AND still manage top-grade point defenses or armour or whatever.

The Mudskipper Mk2 makes the point that you -could- mount a heavy gun onto a frigate, it'd just be a bad idea.  The pirates regularly prove you CAN convert ships to use other weapon mounts, it's just we-the-player is not allowed to at present.


I agree that it's a bit generous of the game to let you add converted hanger to any ship and then anything in the converted hanger - why can't I convert all of my Cerberus to each have a large weapon mount for example, but it's not unworkable.  I think it fits in terms of game design and fiction.   It's very rare players will have the blueprints / LPCs to do this, and probably rarer they'll want to.

[TrashMan]

And I repeat, OP cost does NOTHING. It's not a hard no. And it's a BAD way to blance things strictly trough OP, because if I want a ship to be able to carry heavier fighters, I have to give it more OP. Which in turns means it will be able to mount more things on it and make it stronger in OTHER areas, ares I do not want, becaue OP doesn't JUST affect fighters.
It just creates more balancing problems, escalating in another direction, it doesn't fix anything.
At the end of the day, an option for a hard NO should be there, even if most vanilla ships wouldn't use it. Think of it beyond vanilla and look towards mods.

After all, if we follow your logic, there is no need for limiting weapon mounts - we can balance weapons trough OP cost too, right? Just put higher cost on a weapon you don't want the ships to carry...oh wait..

But if my example is not good enough, lets try something else.

Suppose a super bomber is 100 meters long. Should the freighter be able to carry it now too? 200 meters?
Say I want captial ships that can carry 4 frigates on it as fighters. Different types, so no built-ins.
Your ways of balancing means it doesn't matter how impossible or little sense it makes.


I don't see why one would be against this, since it's so simple to implement. Just a comparison between two numbers and a filter on mountable fighters based on it.

[Schwartz]

But it's a great way to balance carrier strength vs fighter strength. Pick one or the other. I don't see the problem with allowing Tridents on a Condor. Good luck making the ship defensible.

[TaLaR]

Could have separate OP pools instead. Like general, weapons, fighters, hullmods, etc.
So a combat ship might get 20 weapon OP + 80 general OP (essentally pools are targeted discounts, majority needs to remain general to avoid waste). While a Carrier might have 40 figher points + 60 general.

[Igncom1]

What's wrong with the current model that this would correct or fix?

It's not like space fighters are really all that different from bombers anyway. Usually just slightly better engines and manoeuvring with worse weapon hard points. Like little corvettes if anything.

Weren't you reading?
They don't have the same size and requirements. Especially since space carrier are not flattops, they have internal hangards and bays, thus volume and other technicals become even MORE important.

So if I have a 200m freighter converted to a makeshift carrier, with a hangar opening just big enough for a standard fighter, how the hell is that ship supposed tolaunch andhold an entire wing of 50meter long super-bombers, when they can't evne fit trough the hangar door?


The current model DOES NOT allow fine tuning and makes no difference betwwen ships. The shittiest and smallest ad-hoc carrier cna easily accomade the same strikecraft as the bigegst and most advanced cariers? Does this seem logical to you?

Yes. The cost of employing these larger strike craft into the hanger has it's cost. Logic has little to do with it considering the amount of cargo, fuel, and people who can do every job conceivable all into the same frame covered in guns, thrusters and sensors.

It's not like you could mounts infinite numbers of weapons on a ship either as both are limited by the amount of slots they take up.

I did read your initial idea, you just aren't selling very well. Don't accuse me of not reading what you have written just because I disagree with you.

[Histidine]

Make a mod API request (say boolean allowFighterInstallation(FleetMemberAPI ship, String wingId, int slot), although I'm not sure which class would get it).
Vanilla and almost all extant mods have no use case for applying size tags to flight decks and wings.

[SafariJohn]

Way back when "fighters as weapons" was first suggested, I suggested dividing fighter bays into three sizes like weapons: small = drones, medium = drones/fighters, large = fighters/bombers/heavy fighters. Alex passed it over then and I highly doubt he will consider anything like it now.

[TJJ]

Way back when "fighters as weapons" was first suggested, I suggested dividing fighter bays into three sizes like weapons: small = drones, medium = drones/fighters, large = fighters/bombers/heavy fighters. Alex passed it over then and I highly doubt he will consider anything like it now.

I wonder why 

It'd be a great balancing tool for fixing stuff like the Astral's ship system, which I think we can all agree is completely broken when paired with 6xtorpedo bombers.
It'd result in far less degenerate gameplay if the Astral was restricted to 2xlight fighters + 2xheavy fighters + 2xbombers.

More generally, reducing the numbers of bombers that can be fielded simultaneously would go a long way to curing the balance problems we have at the moment re bombers.
Specifically the force concentration possible with massed bombers completely overwhelms even their hard counters.

If we need a modern day (or WW2) analogy, you don't get heavy bombers on aircraft carriers.

[Megas]

Astral optimized for bomber spam is very powerful, but still less powerful than optimized Paragon with four tachyon lances and two HVDs (which is why I want my high-tech battlestation to use tac lances instead of autopulse).  I would not call Astral "broken".  I might if the ship could solo the 0.8 simulator or a full-powered Remnant battlestation.  (Note: 0.9 simulator has much less ships, so Paragon can probably solo it now.)

With battlestations to fight, I may consider Piranhas for battlestation killer.  A load of bombs can do much more damage than a few torpedoes or rocket spray.  Bombs are slow and overkill against most ships, but not against a battlestation that cannot move and has tons of armor and hull.