I feel as though Carriers need to be more vital. I can understand the concern against requiring a Carrier for fighter operation, but as it stands now they're only important if you're relying on bombers.
I think what we all can agree on is that we ought to make a full carrier+fighter setup about as viable as a balanced fleet. Billy is concerned the changes would necessitate bringing in at least one Carrier capable ship to merely use a Thunder to capture objectives. But what I'd like to know is if this is really what we want to use fighters as - fast moving ships to only capture objectives. Honestly, that's not really what I'd like to see them be used for. Removing the ability of fighters to cap objectives, however, is another discussion altogether.
Tangents aside, the proponents of this suggestion want to see Carriers being used in a more central role for the deployment of fighters. However, its detractors, and the developer want fighters to see more action, because they're cool (and let's face it - they are!) Can anyone think of a compromise? A way, outside of the current system, to make Carriers more important to the operation of fighters, but ultimately allowing fighters to be fielded even in their absence? It seems to me like solving the problem of fighters being independent of carriers created a new one - carriers are no longer needed at all.
The current system only encourages carriers for long term efficiency of limited ammunition weapons on fighters, or in situations where the enemy fields many PD ships, or at least that's the way I perceive it. If a fleet wants to field a lot of ships instead of one or two carriers, they ought to have to invest in point defense and strike frigates instead of fighters and bombers (and by the way, I never seem to see the former two, so there's another benefit we could reap from this.)