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[Argylas]

After a fair bit of experimentation with the new release, I finally found a carrier fleet setup that works for high-end bounties - meaning defeating them without losses in the old "deploy fleet and afk" kind of way.

The best hull I found strangely enough is the Mora, as it is sturdy enough to withstand much punishment (and the AI ships will dish a lot of punishment on the carriers, since now they don't have the firepower to just delete anything coming close to them). The Mora also has 2 medium missile slots, which is ideal, as fighters now need a bit of help in the damage department to win the fight. I chose to equip 2 Pilums in each of my Moras for the unnlimited ammo and added ECCM packages to make them do somewhat agreeable DPS in conjunction with the fighters.

On top of all this the Mora has the best peak performance time of all non-capital carriers, which helps greatly as the fights now are a lot longer than in 0.91 due to the lack of damage buff skills and fighter nerfs. With the right setup of officer skills I was able to get around 700 peak performance on them, which means that if they hold up without losses long enough (through turtling and concentrating on the high value enemy targets first), they will win any fight. The replenishment rate on the fighters has never been a problem even in fights where the Moras start bleeding significant combat readiness.

I am still using Thunders as I'm too lazy to farm a lot of Sparks, but even with the nerfs, they do enough. I imagine that with Sparks or possibly Broadswords (garbage before, but received significant buff in 0.95) the results will be even better. I also have not wasted any SP for S-mods on the Moras, as they have enough OP to do ok even without them.

Here's my end game fleet (I drive the Legion just for awesomness, 2 more Moras in its place will be more efficient):

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Here are my officers:

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And here's my Mora setup:

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Have in mind that I have yet to test this on multiple high-level REDACTED, as funnily my game doesn't have any high threat systems. However, I believe that with adding S-mods (to leave even more OP for the Mora's obscene turtling ability) and Sparks, they will not be such a problem. And even if I lose a Mora or two in the biggest REDACTED engagements, the option for afk fights when I'm not in the mood for the usual dogfighting in a Doom or a capital/cruiser is still pretty alluring. (plus they are not so expensive to replace if you have a few colonies).

[Arcagnello]

Nice showing, altough for the upcoming remnant fights I would highly suggest swapping most fighter for either Broadswords or, even better, Longbows & Daggers/Tridents/Perditions. You're going to have a hard time cracking their shields otherwise.

I'm also surprised you have not given in to your Inner Ludd and integrated Safety Overrides on those Moras. That would've been the first thing I did since the Overridden mora is possibly the strongest pound for pound carrier in the game, at least in 0.95.

Alright, you were the last supply that broke the Atlas' hull. I'll be a proud Luddite in the next campaign. I want to see a sea of Overridden Moras, hammerheads and Lashers washing over the worshippers of Moloch!

[Thaago]

Nice fleet! I'm using condors w/2 thunders or 2 bombers, and they are also doing extremely well. Thats not a pure fleet though, just low tech support.

I'm surprised at both no built in hullmods (they are fantastic) and at using pilums. Pilums are... well with ECCM backing them up they might hit a few times per battle I guess if you are already winning. (In case you can't tell, I don't like Pilums.)

[Arcagnello]

Nice fleet! I'm using condors w/2 thunders or 2 bombers, and they are also doing extremely well. Thats not a pure fleet though, just low tech support.

I'm surprised at both no built in hullmods (they are fantastic) and at using pilums. Pilums are... well with ECCM backing them up they might hit a few times per battle I guess if you are already winning. (In case you can't tell, I don't like Pilums.)

Salamander SRM > Pilum, especially if you're going combined arms fleets and you got ships that can directly exploit immobilized enemies.
Then again with ECCM, Officer Skills and maybe a longbow wing Pilums may be useful afterall!

P.S: You'll be much better off giving non-SO Moras double Salamander and double Piranha if you want the "long range ordinance delivery" message to be sent. It hits a lot more than it seems and nails kinds of enemies you might not expect.

[Thaago]

I'm a simple person: I see a medium missile mount, it gets a harpoon pod.

[WeiTuLo]

I agree that broadswords feel strong now, but what was the buff? Sparks feel really weak now, die fast, and are terrible on replenishment.

[Arcagnello]

I'm a simple person: I see a medium missile mount, it gets a harpoon pod.

Last time I saw a Mora was in my previous 0.95 campaign where I was doing a high tech playthrough and finished up all the 0.95 content, so I picked up a Mora, indulged in my Ludd tendencies and:

Integrated Expanded Missile Racks, Expanded Deck Crew and Safety Overrides, then also added Hardened Subsystems

Installed two Sabot MRMs on the mediums and a mixture of light assault guns and dual machineguns in the smalls

Gave it one Xyphos wing and one Perdition wing

I don't remember much else of the build, but it did run over the sim Dominator and the sim Aurora. The damper field is amazing.

[Thaago]

SO Mora is my favorite meme from tournaments past, I can't wait to see if its actually good this version. Given built in SO... yeah it probably is. Doubled dissipation while the Damper field is going (and still having the 50 speed bonus) is just fantastic.

[Argylas]

SO Mora is my favorite meme from tournaments past, I can't wait to see if its actually good this version. Given built in SO... yeah it probably is. Doubled dissipation while the Damper field is going (and still having the 50 speed bonus) is just fantastic

Yeah, SO Moras are good, but they just don't have the DPS to finish end-game fights before their peak performance time is up. The massed carrier playstyle against the AI now is more towards the outlasting them spectrum than the SO blitz tactics.

Salamander SRM > Pilum, especially if you're going combined arms fleets and you got ships that can directly exploit immobilized enemies.

I tried Salamanders instead of Pilums, but they just didn't have the range to help with the DPS, as my carriers tried to be at max range from the enemy and rarely shot their missiles...

[Flet]

My carrier complaint is the 6 hanger carrier skills. Its too big an investment if you are only going to have a few carriers in your fleet, and it becomes useless if you mass carriers. I tried to use it with a single astral i pilot to maximize smart use of the subsystem and do everything optimally and i feel like the loss of the alternate leadership skill and the fact i must spend extra points into tech to get emc means i could probably have just spent that dp on a few ai controlled cruisers and accomplished better results.

[intrinsic_parity]

If you do the math, the carrier skill is better than the skill from the last patch for 20 bays or less. It's twice as good as the skill from the last patch at 10 bays. It's really not useless unless you are properly spamming carriers.

[Flet]

If you do the math, the carrier skill is better than the skill from the last patch for 20 bays or less. It's twice as good as the skill from the last patch at 10 bays. It's really not useless unless you are properly spamming carriers.

You must consider what you dont get if you take it as well. missing out on crew training is a pretty heavy price, and since the emc skill is somewhat important to take you are spending 2 or 3 extra points into tech to wrap around.

[TaLaR]

If you do the math, the carrier skill is better than the skill from the last patch for 20 bays or less. It's twice as good as the skill from the last patch at 10 bays. It's really not useless unless you are properly spamming carriers.

We are not just comparing single skill though. Carriers, fighters and personal carrier skills were all nerfed as well, while average enemy ship got much stronger (because it has an officer now).

[intrinsic_parity]

I'm not saying that carriers are great, just that the skill is really pretty decent for a reasonable number of carriers. Crew training is also less good in end game. It's currently giving me ~10-15s of PPT and ~5% CR. It's not bad, but not really a 'must have' for me.

[Thaago]

Math on replacement rate scaling: Going up to 20 bays brings it to 15% (the same as the universal bonus from last version), which is either 6 cruisers and a destroyer or 10 destroyers worth of carriers: anywhere from 100 DP (condors) to 130 DP (cruisers + condor) to 150 DP (drovers). Or 3 astrals and a destroyer/4 legions for 160 DP. 15% better rebuild rate is pretty good!

But:

15% CR gives -5% to fighter replacement time and I think fighters inherit the CR of the carrier: better autofire accuracy, 5% more speed, 5% more damage, and 5% less damage taken. Testing just now, the piranhas on a Condor with 100% CR do cruise at 165 speed, so the fighters at the very least inherit the speed boost. For the 20 deck case... I think that might be a better deal than 15% faster replacements, and it keeps scaling beyond 20 decks (well up to 180 DP at least).

Huh, I think I've changed my mind and do agree with you about Carrier Group, but only because while the left hand skill also benefits carriers. I'm happy with 15% rebuild at 20 decks, but 15% CR is better. For fewer decks, a rebuild bonus of like 25% (12) probably takes the edge, but in that case carriers are taking some where from 50 to 75 DP, leaving the majority of the fleet as combat ships that want the 15% CR anyways. Well thats a problem.

[Edit]
Though as others have pointed out, for bigger fleets crew training is no longer giving +15% CR, its less. Which might tip the balance back in favor of carrier group. So for a small carrier-centric fleet, Carrier Group is best because of the massive bonus; for a ~180DP fleet of any kind, crew training is best because either there are lots of combat ships that want +15% CR, or lots of carriers that also want 15% CR instead of 15% replacement; but for a muc larger fleet, ~5% CR is a smaller bonus, but a non-officered carrier support group of like 6 destroyers with thunders would get 25% faster rebuilds, which is fantastic. So the balance of the skill relies heavily on total fleet size. A bit screwy tbh.