Carriers. The final solution

[burger1]

The real problem ….

When an L-Class mining vessel can 'host' more S class ships than a carrier can.

Number of docking ports and launching ports makes a big difference. The Osprey frigate can carry 17 drones and 11 fighters but they make terrible carriers due to 1 docking port (11 fighters may make it so you can't launch drones ?). Carriers also have way more hit points and the ability to dock M class class ships is very useful for storing supplies on ships and increasing the ships firepower. Carriers require a lot of attention to run well. In the next patch they will be able to re arm and repair ships. Other than station attacks (destroyers are better and more cost effective) a full carrier is more powerful than any ship in the game including xenon I.

[ei8htx]

That is a bit of a short sighted view point

Conflict with the idea, not the person, Roger. No need to be a dick because you disagree with someone's point of view. Your hostile attitude is unwelcome, and makes reading the forums worse,not better. You can voice your criticisms and suggestions in a positive way.

Repatomonor is right about the jump drive fuel thing in X3. You could keep all your fighters on a carrier and jump the carrier. You didn't have to manage fuel cells or equip every ship with a jump drive; you just jumped the carrier (admittedly, jump drives were way too cheap in X3).

That said, I agree with MakerLinux that it isn't a great idea to nerf/remove features to give something purpose.

Problem is its much faster to field a bunch of individual fighters by sending them through the ring, than putting them on a carrier. I like the ring, but don't like that you basically become invincible when on it. In theory, an entire Xenon fighter fleet could land in Argon Prime with 0 resistance the whole way; this never could happen in X3 or earlier. There needs to be some type of control to knock out/blow up ships traveling into enemy territory.

Back to carriers, you could add jump drives, but that's a slippery slope that a lot of veteran X players don't like (the teleporter is a great compromise here, I wouldn't change it).

I'd suggest making every carrier a floating equipment dock. Rearming and repairing fighters would give them serious purpose. Give them a crazy fast travel drive and the ability to fly through the front of gates, combined with better fleet management overall (carrier or all), and it starts to make a lot more sense to combine fighter fleets with a carrier for easy sector control and battle strategy.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Jump fuel for Jump Tunneling Devices was a thing in X-Rebirth. Although it didn't touch upon direct flight, but it was a fuel system alright with complete refueling stations, fuel type cargo, and fuel related commands.

Jump Fuel (Fuel Cells in X-Rebirth) does not count - that is a very specific case which if you were truely paying attention in X-Rebirth ONLY applied to L/XL craft and ONLY for direct sector to sector travel via the Jump Beacons. In addition, none of the "fuel mechanics" had any relevance to the carrier mechanics either.

Even in X2/X3 the Jump Drive was an entirely optional mechanic and not actually required for general operations. It just allowed near instant travel with a fuel cost, not required for nominal flight.

The jump drive is not a thing in X4 (yet), maybe it will make a return in Vanilla (I suspect not) but if it does I suspect it will be deliberately limited in application/availability and probably implemented more along the lines of X1-X3 then X-Rebirth (i.e. probably based around standard cargo). Even if it is not limited in application/availability (i.e. available to fit to all ships or all ships of a given size and above) it still would not apply to nominal flight/cruise thus would be moot in the context of "refueling mechanics" where subordinates of carriers are concerned.

Overall, the context of nominal "flight fuel" has never been a thing in the X-series. Elite has a true fully fledged fuel mechanic but the X-series really has not - at least in terms of general flight and operations, and personally I do not think it should be added either.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

...

Calling a point of view short sighted is NOT attacking the individual, it is pointing out the point of view is flawed.

Overall, though the kind of game some want to turn X4 into is not what I bought. Basic flight fuel mechanics is not justifiable nor reasonable for the X-series games (at least in the form some seem to want).

[ei8htx]

...

Calling a point of view short sighted is NOT attacking the individual, it is pointing out the point of view is flawed.

It is. So is the eye roll. Your attitude is generally hostile and makes this forum a worse place.

[ei8htx]

Jump fuel for Jump Tunneling Devices was a thing in X-Rebirth. Although it didn't touch upon direct flight, but it was a fuel system alright with complete refueling stations, ...

that is a very specific case which if you were truely paying attention

More of the same. Stop being a dick.

[euclid]

Please keep it civilized ! In particular @ei8htx please refrain form any personal attacks; consider this as a warning.

Cheers Euclid

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The Osprey frigate can carry 17 drones and 11 fighters but they make terrible carriers due to 1 docking port (11 fighters may make it so you can't launch drones ?).

That is a change that slipped me by unnoticed. I thought ALL Frigates used to be able to only dock a single fighter in addition to being able to carry drones. Not sure when the internal ship count changed to 11 across the board for Frigates.

As for internally docked ships preventing drone launches - providing the surface dock is available, all drones should be able to be at least launchable - recovery may require internal dock space now, but it did not used to. I rarely have a ship fully populated with internalised ships - I have never found there to be a need to do so.

However, you are completely correct - the main advantages of the XL Carriers are launch/recovery times and shield/hit points - in addition to higher drone, missile, and service crew (for own ship repairs)/marine capacity. Further more, bar the Odysseus - Carriers are currently the only ships able to carry M size vessels too.

The Argon L mining vessels may be able to carry 80 fighters but the restricted number of surface docks and shield/hull strength makes it's use as a carrier limited. The Paranid L mining vessels have 4 internal S launch bays (Condor has 6, and the Zeus/Colossus have 10) meaning that while it only has a similar internal S sized fighter capacity to Carriers it still is slower at deploying/recovering fighters on-site and lacks the shield/hull strength.

Even though smaller ships may have similar or greater ship capacities, their launch/recovery times are far slower overall.

[graphicboy]

I don't get the reasoning when all models of all race's carriers have different designs, different weapons layout but all hold exactly 50 fighters. And a Mining vessel can hold 80??? The M1s in X3 had unique hanger capacities that certainly went into deciding which M1 to purchase/build/capture.

I popped in game because I didn't believe the "80" number ... I'd never noticed. WTF is that about.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I don't get the reasoning when all models of all race's carriers have different designs, different weapons layout but all hold exactly 50 fighters. And a Mining vessel can hold 80??? The M1s in X3 had unique hanger capacities that certainly went into deciding which M1 to purchase/build/capture.

I popped in game because I didn't believe the "80" number ... I'd never noticed. WTF is that about.

I believe it has it's lore based roots in the original name-sake ship design being a low-end drone/fighter carrier in X3:TC/X3:AP.

I think at some point the 40 internal S-ship count got increased to at least 50 for all Freighters, Destroyers, Carriers, and L Miners (possibly?) because of changes to drone recovery mechanics. The Argon Miners did not get an increase from the V1.0 internal S-ship count of 80.

[EDIT]The extra 10 internal S-ship slots indicated in the in-game Wiki do not show in ship-yard statistics thus they may be purely for drone recovery.[/EDIT]