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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks  (Read 16406 times)

Aeson

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Re: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks
« Reply #30 on: October 25, 2014, 12:27:59 PM »

Id love for a BS6 frigate carrier that was little more than a flight deck with engines. maybe a single PD. Delicate, but fast.
I would expect that any frigate capable of carrying a flight deck would be slow because of the amount of internal space it had to sacrifice in order to fit the flight deck. Especially since the majority of the frigates in the game have sprites with bounding areas less than one third the bounding area of either of the destroyer-scale carriers. I find it difficult to believe that any frigate roughly the size of any of the frigates currently in the game could fit a flight deck while remaining reasonably fast; in my opinion, your best hope for a carrier with more than burn-4 is for a high-tech destroyer-scale carrier, rather than hoping for a frigate when the apparent size of such a craft is at best questionably suitable for a flight deck given the current carriers.

Missing a Fast Carrier too.

Fastest in the game is either the condor or the gemini at BurnSpeed 4.
The Heron is also a burn-4 carrier.

Personally, I feel that burn-4 is adequate for a carrier group since you don't really want to employ fighters against small fleets. Fighters are typically at best no cheaper than frigates to deploy, and probably cost more once you factor in losses, so for hunting fast fleets I'd rather be using frigates.
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TJJ

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Re: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks
« Reply #31 on: October 25, 2014, 03:01:24 PM »


Missing a Fast Carrier too.

Fastest in the game is either the condor or the gemini at BurnSpeed 4.
The Heron is also a burn-4 carrier.

While superficially the same speed, it gets a smaller speed bonus from the navigation skill due to its larger class, so in reality the heron'fast carrier'is actually quite slow :-D
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Aeson

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Re: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks
« Reply #32 on: October 25, 2014, 03:21:08 PM »

While superficially the same speed, it gets a smaller speed bonus from the navigation skill due to its larger class, so in reality the heron'fast carrier'is actually quite slow :-D
The difference in burn speed between a Condor/Gemini and a Heron is never greater than 1 due to Navigation, and at Nav-0, Nav-1, Nav-4, Nav-5, and Nav-8+, there is no difference at all between a cruiser with base burn-4 and a destroyer with base burn-4 unless there are other modifiers coming into play. I would say that the Heron is much more than 'superficially' the same speed as the two destroyer carriers, and that differences in speed due to navigation skill levels are closer to being abnormal than typical.
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Kipcha

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Re: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks
« Reply #33 on: October 26, 2014, 02:29:02 AM »

Quote
you don't really want to employ fighters against small fleets. Fighters are typically at best no cheaper than frigates to deploy, and probably cost more once you factor in losses, so for hunting fast fleets I'd rather be using frigates.
Thats a shame. I really want to keep my fast fleet, i got tired of running naught but lashers with the odd wolf and vindicator thrown in.

Now though with 0.65's nerf to lashers shield (you can no longer hullmod it to have a 360* shield) ive mostly been sticking to Wolves, Might pick up a vindicator soon for the Pilum LRM support.

was just looking to diversify fleets a little including getting some anti-fighter fighters.

question are there any good missile carrier cruisers/destroyers? something i could stack with Pilum LRM's for long range support?
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c plus one

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Re: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks
« Reply #34 on: October 26, 2014, 04:24:06 AM »

question are there any good missile carrier cruisers/destroyers? something i could stack with Pilum LRM's for long range support?
You're really limited in hull choices for this purpose, on account of the Pilum launcher needing a medium missile slot instead of a small one.
Hulls within your desired size range include (but are not limited to):

Venture - two Pilums.
Dominator - three Pilums.
Gemini and Condor - one Pilum.
Vigilance FF - one Pilum.
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ahrenjb

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Re: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks
« Reply #35 on: October 28, 2014, 11:03:13 AM »

The Gemini and Condor fill the destroyer sized carrier niche quite well. Really, I don't think there's any reason a "dedicated military" destroyer sized carrier should exist. From an in-universe standpoint, there is no point. Fighters and carriers are inherently large-fleet craft, and military fleets with their massive budgets and R&D resources are always going to prefer a larger, more capable, more survivable carrier. The whole destroyer sized carrier concept is very neat, but conversions fit this role ideally. It's the whole "some civilian decided he wanted carrier capability but couldn't finance a full scale option, so this workaround is available". Alternatively "fighters and strike craft are becoming a part of military doctrine, and new cruiser or capital options take time to develop, so in the mean time here is this inexpensive standby".

A real military I imagine would always be using cruiser or larger sized carriers in fleets utilizing fighters or bombers. On that note, I absolutely believe there is a place in-game for additional cruiser and capital sized carriers. Maybe something a little less extreme than the Astral in the capital class, and something a little slower and heavier in the cruiser class.
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Aeson

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Re: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks
« Reply #36 on: October 28, 2014, 12:28:40 PM »

A real military I imagine would always be using cruiser or larger sized carriers in fleets utilizing fighters or bombers. On that note, I absolutely believe there is a place in-game for additional cruiser and capital sized carriers. Maybe something a little less extreme than the Astral in the capital class, and something a little slower and heavier in the cruiser class.
See "escort carrier" or "light carrier." The real world escort and light carriers may be more in line with the cruisers of the time than the destroyers and the real world fleet carriers may be more in line with the battleships of the time as far as sizes go, but in Starsector we can infer from the Heron and the Astral that the standard fleet carrier is a cruiser-scale vessel rather than a capital-scale vessel - or at least that if it is capital-scale, it's a small capital ship. What the navy would be building in peacetime is another question, as is whether or not there would be a dedicated design when converting the Tarsus or using the Gemini is adequate - though I still feel that the Gemini is more accurately described as a purpose-built escort carrier rather than a freighter conversion.

Also, the US Navy, a real military organization, built more escort and light carriers during the Second World War than full-scale fleet carriers. If Wikipedia's numbers are accurate, of the 151 carriers in service with the US Navy in the Second World War, 122 were escort carriers, and at least 50 of those were purpose-built escort carriers rather than conversions. It's true that real-world escort and light fleet carriers are about the same size as real-world cruisers of the same era, but then, real-world full-scale fleet carriers are roughly the same size as the battleships of the same era, and the supercarriers are even larger; in Starsector, this is not the case, and it is the supercarriers that are about the same size as the battleships and the full-scale fleet carriers which are about the same size as the cruisers.

The Gemini and Condor fill the destroyer sized carrier niche quite well. Really, I don't think there's any reason a "dedicated military" destroyer sized carrier should exist. From an in-universe standpoint, there is no point. Fighters and carriers are inherently large-fleet craft, and military fleets with their massive budgets and R&D resources are always going to prefer a larger, more capable, more survivable carrier. The whole destroyer sized carrier concept is very neat, but conversions fit this role ideally. It's the whole "some civilian decided he wanted carrier capability but couldn't finance a full scale option, so this workaround is available". Alternatively "fighters and strike craft are becoming a part of military doctrine, and new cruiser or capital options take time to develop, so in the mean time here is this inexpensive standby".
I agree that the Gemini and the Condor fill the destroyer-scale carrier niche reasonably well. I disagree that this means that there is no reason why there should not be whatever you mean by a "dedicated military" destroyer-scale carrier (presumably, one designed from day one to be a light or escort carrier, though in my opinion the Gemini already is this despite its description), though I also don't feel that there must be another light carrier introduced into the game. The rationale for including another light carrier really depends on how you think that Starsector's convoy escort and support details would be handled by a space navy charged with taking care of things. There is a clear trend away from guns in favor of energy weapons as you progress from low-tech to high-tech ships, which leaves a conspicuous lack of late-midline or high-tech light carriers. It's not necessarily a hole that needs to be filled, though, as if late midline and high-tech designs are peacetime designs, there's a decent chance that design priority was given to the big ships that are difficult to produce quickly, rather than placing emphasis on smaller ships that are easier to build quickly - though this doesn't help explain the relative abundance of high-tech frigates.
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Embolism

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Re: Ship Roles StarSector Still Lacks
« Reply #37 on: October 29, 2014, 03:26:22 AM »

I think the military doctrine of later eras focus more on speed and range rather than line-of-battle staying power, hence the focus on fast frigates and strike craft supported by heavy, dedicated carriers (which sort-of reflects modern day navy doctrine shifts since WWII). I really think that a high-tech cruiser carrier is warranted as I don't see every Expansion-era carrier fleet including an Astral.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2014, 03:29:05 AM by Embolism »
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