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[Durendal5150]

As in, a carrier so huge that it can dock frigates for repairs during battle. I remember someone mentioning adding in ship-specific abilities or traits. This could be a good one; though a potentially gamebreaking one. Even if it's not for mobile ships, could apply to stations when they're implemented.

[robparker]

I was just wishing I could dock my frigates in a carrier. Like you said, however, balancing could be an issue.
To ensure balancing, perhaps one or a combination of the following features would help?

• No shielding
• Moves very slowly
• Immobile when repairing frigates
• Takes up a large amount of fleet points
• Only equipped with point defence turrets
• Can only repair frigates of it's own tech type
• can only repair a certain type of frigate depending on add-ons

[Temjin]

It would mean there would be a reason to have an Astral on the field instead of an Odyssey!

[Catra]

indeed. 2 / 3 docking ports can easily be converted to allow frigates to dock at them.

edit: apparently this has been talked about before http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=1393.0

edit2: my take on it is that if frigates were to be able to dock, then they should be rearmed and repaired, but the moment it is done rearming it should take off and not wait for 100% repairs.

[armoredcookie]

Maybe a hull mod to convert a flight deck into a drydock, to repair frigates at a very slow rate...

[Shoat]

Maybe a hull mod to convert a flight deck into a drydock, to repair frigates at a very slow rate...

That'd be an idea.
Though "a" flight deck would be too generous, because there are a lot of quite small ships that have "a" flight deck.
For one it'd be very difficult to balance if small carriers (destroyer/cruiser size) had access to that.
More importantly, though, it makes no sense to repair&refit a frigate in a Flight Deck that it cannot physically fit into.



In addition there's a little visual problem: Some modded ships (like the alien Behemoth or the Omega for example) - and maybe some future vanilla ships - have multiple flight decks, but they are not right next to each other (as they are in the Astral's large Flight Deck), but are small seperate bays instead that a frigate could not physically fit into.



In the end I think it'd be a better solution to modify how flight decks on a ship are handled and displayed.
Instead of representing Flight Decks as an arbitrary number, where it shows 3 in both the Astral's and the Omega's case even though one is a large one and one is three small ones, they should be named as they are.

(For those who do not know the modded ship I'm comparing the astral to:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2058.0
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/7646/omegaf.png)

Before:
Astral - 3 Flight Decks
Omega - 3 Flight Decks
Not possible to tell a difference until you see their sprites.

After:
Astral - 1 large Flight Deck - able to service three fighters at once
Can equip Hull mod: "Allows any large Flight Decks to repair&refit Frigates (at a much much slower rate than fighters) in addition to (or instead of) Fighters."
Omega - 3 small Flight Decks - able to service three fighters at once
Not able to equip aforementioned Hull mod.


Now, deciding whether or not it should be a hull mod or a native feature of anything with a large Flight Deck is another, more balance-related, issue that I doubt we could settle right now.
The main thing, however, is that ships who have larger or smaller Flight Decks visible in their sprites should have their stats represent that instead of just having an arbitrary number assigned to them - one large bay that fits 3 fighters is not the same as 3 small bays that fit 1 each.

[Catra]

Maybe a hull mod to convert a flight deck into a drydock, to repair frigates at a very slow rate...

no, the astral should just do this naturally, as theres really not much of a justification to field one over an odyssey (i might go as far as to say even over the venture), having to spend OP on something it -really- should be doing without it is just backwards.

[armoredcookie]

Astral - 1 large Flight Deck - able to service three fighters at once
Can equip Hull mod: "Allows any large Flight Decks to repair&refit Frigates (at a much much slower rate than fighters) in addition to (or instead of) Fighters."
Omega - 3 small Flight Decks - able to service three fighters at once

That sounds pretty good... Puts more value into dedicated carriers like the Astral and the upcoming dedicated carrier cruisers instead of just investing into a venture.

[Iscariot]

This just turns frigates into super big fighters. They're not even frigates anymore. I never thought I'd be in the position of defending fighters, but you're eroding their identity, their point. Not to mention it's incongruous with the game itself. Frigates take days to repair out of battle, and for some reason in combat they can get spat out like new in a jiffy? I don't think so.

[Upgradecap]

This just turns frigates into super big fighters. They're not even frigates anymore. I never thought I'd be in the position of defending fighters, but you're eroding their identity, their point. Not to mention it's incongruous with the game itself. Frigates take days to repair out of battle, and for some reason in combat they can get spat out like new in a jiffy? I don't think so.

Fighters also take days to repair outside of battle, snd yet they are nearly instantly repaired in battle.
Care to explain?

[Iscariot]

Easy. The out of battle repair is just replenishing internal stocks of spare fighters-- which Alex has already mentioned exist. Hence why when you enter battle, injured wings immediately dock to regroup and launch with their brethren, and to replace damaged hulls with fresh ones.

If that sounds wanky to you, it's a lot less wanky because fighters are small and you can get away with explanations like that. Frigates pointedly are not.

[Cryten]

I think a rearming grade frigate dock would be doable if its very very slow. I do not support a repair dock though, the abilility to repair armor plates mind battle would be to good for hit and run style gameplay and would like you saturate a field with frigates. I think fighters only really achieve thier balance in thier limited firepower they bring. Being able to get fresh frigates with medium slots would ruin balance.

I could perhaps see a hull only repair system. That way if a frigates taken a pounding it will still be weak as a front line unit after repairs since it will have no damage reduction. I would still think it could be ruinous for balance though.

[Hyph_K31]

Just a teeny tiny point i want to make here:

If fighters are repaired/replaced by a spare stock of fighters, wouldn't it be reasonable to limit the number of times a fighter wing can be repaired? because at some point the stock must run out.

[Temjin]

At the same time, this makes frigates much more usable late-game. Once my fleet grows to a certain point, I find that my fleet basically breaks down to primarily fighters (which can replenish) and destroyers and up (which have the toughness and firepower to last a whole fight.)

Frigates (that I'm not piloting) are useful, but I find myself retreating them early because they tend to die very quickly and expensively to larger fleets and larger ships.

[Zani]

I was just wishing I could dock my frigates in a carrier. Like you said, however, balancing could be an issue.
To ensure balancing, perhaps one or a combination of the following features would help?

• No shielding
• Moves very slowly
• Immobile when repairing frigates
• Takes up a large amount of fleet points
• Only equipped with point defence turrets
• Can only repair frigates of it's own tech type
• can only repair a certain type of frigate depending on add-ons

No shielding = would turn it into a DEFEND THE CARRIER mission in most battles
Moves very slowly = same as above
Immobile when repairing frigates = same as above
Takes up a large amount of fleet points = If it took up TOO much, then would there be much point in it at all?
Only equipped with point defence turrets = Would make it too vulnerable to anything other than small frigates or fighters.
Can only repair frigates of it's own tech type = would make it useless in most situations
Can only repair a certain type of frigate depending on addons = same as above

I think, it should have all-round shielding and a very high flux, but when repairing frigates (not fighters) it does not have shields and is immobile. Everything else still works, though. This is just my idea, you don't have to like it!