What is the point of carriers in X4?

[mr.WHO]

@Walton: In real life fighters are repaired on board of carrier. You do not divert entire carrier and it's battlegroup to repair fighters. I don't see why this should be even more obvious in Sci-Fi thousand years in future.

[Walton Simons]

@mr.WHO: my idea was an extra, wasn't meant to replace the repairing onboard the carrier option which I'm perfectly aware they do that in real life.

All I want is to actually have a better method where we can repair multiple fighters instead of just micromanaging a fleet of damaged fighters on their way to the shipyard.

It's a royal pain in the ass to fix even 5-6 Foltors or Camulos in XR right now. Speak with shipyard seller, choose each fighter, go through stupid dialogue.

[Honved]

I'd love to see different carrier types have different repair capacities. A light carrier (TM) might only be able to conduct repairs on one fighter at a time. An escort carrier might handle 2 or 3, and a full fleet carrier might be able to repair 4-5 at a time. The lighter carriers would not only have less fighter bays and less ability to launch them quickly, but less staying power as fighters take damage and return for repairs and ammo reloads.

With Triage selected (repairing the least damaged first, to get SOMETHING back into action as quickly as possible), that could mean putting a dozen or more lightly damaged fighters back in the same fight, while the more heavily damaged ones would have to wait until there was more time available.

[koyuka]

Other uses of a carrier could be fleet support. As in any allied ships within the range of a carrier would receive bonuses, weapon accuracy, shields, weapon damage increases.

Although this would not be a very big increase and would not be worth the investment if you only owned a couple of ships in the local area other than your carrier, however if you had 60 ships all receiving these bonuses the carrier then becomes an important strategic investment but also target in fights which would need to be defended by the fighters in the local area to ensure their stat bonuses remained.

[Snafu_X3]

Other uses of a carrier could be fleet support. As in any allied ships within the range of a carrier would receive bonuses, weapon accuracy, shields, weapon damage increases.

This is not an RTS top-down game; this is (currently, effectively) an FPS with some management/basebuilding/strategy added. Hence 'combat bonuses from nearby units' make little sense within the X-verse

However, going back to the carrier discussion, what I would like to see is a graduating scale of dmg on its fighter/bomber fleet. So if an individual recovered ship sustains (say) >80% dmg then it's effectively scrapped for spares, allowing other fleet members to repair to (say) 90% (capped) effectiveness. This should allow carrier-launched fighter/bomber fleets to continually degrade while away from a shipyard & retain their (gradually deteriorating) effectiveness in combat, much like RL WW2. Optionally the carrier could retain its damaged squadrons & have them fully repaired once back within range of a suitable SY; /both/ options will take time & resources for R&R!

[Fulgrymm]

Fleet support carriers would be pretty cool. Some sort of SWACS setup would make the most sense I think.

[Spero]

I just want to be able to insure my fighters (even if it's for an absurd cost), just so I can enjoy having a wingman/fighter squad without having to worry about the micromanagement of replacing their ship when they inevitably smash into a station.

I loved carrier gameplay in X3 but it was only really achieveable with mods, unless you were willing to go through an incredibly painful replacement process every time you lost a fighter.

If insurance isn't a thing, I'd at least hope there's some kind of pre-built "drone" fighters that can be bought wholesale, but come at a disadvantage (like being unpilotable for exaple).

[Darlandra]

Honestly, a lot can be done with carriers. An X:Reunion mod from long ago called FBC or Fighter Base Commander took the carrier/m4/m5 system and made a very useful ai system out of it where the game had effectively no support for it. Fighter pilots learned, organized self-run patrols, and carrier ships would allow the ships to patrol entire areas together and acted as a command hub. It added a very interesting meta-game to the game. Carriers in the mod would automatically repair and rearm ships depending on what they were fighting.

Frankly, especially with mods, carriers can be made to be very useful, but I would agree that thier main use will come if there is a limiting factor somehow to smaller ships, ie shorter effective range of use or something.

In fact, if there is a reputation system, then it would be super easy to mod it in that carriers enhance reputation in areas you dont have stations, and fighters would be their method of defense and whatnot. Lots could make carriers useful I think.

[Spero]

However carriers are implemented, I sincerely hope that there's systems in place to reduce micromanagement for replacing fighters.

I love carrier gameplay. I don't love having to stress over the wellbeing of my fighters though, because replacing them is a time-sink that no other type of ship really has to deal with. Mods got around this with templates, but even they are a pain to use.

What I'd like to see is the following;

1) A way to repair fighters that are docked on a carrier. Maybe it's a big button with a credit value listed under it that says "repair all fighters" or maybe it's passive, free repair provided by an engineer but done over a long period of time. Maybe it's somewhere inbetween, but I really just don't want to fiddle around undocking with a shipyard. It's a carrier. It should be able to make repairs.

2) A way to replace lost fighters quickly. Maybe you stock carriers with resources and it can just rebuild lost fighters, maybe you insure your fighters and it just gets replaced at a nearby shipyard when you lose it, or maybe you can just designate your own ship templates before you buy them at a shipyard. Just anything to ease the pain.

3) Unless the AI is just flat out perfect, a way to reduce collision damage. Could be an upgrade for the fighter (collision dampener or whatever), could work on friendlies only, whatever would make it feel balanced.

Yeah, I really love carriers.

[pgllrdp]

I would like to see the ship repair option as an upgrade that could be purchased for any ship that has a hanger facility.

It would also be useful in repairing captured/purchased ships in the field as well.

[Général Grievous]

However carriers are implemented, I sincerely hope that there's systems in place to reduce micromanagement for replacing fighters.

I love carrier gameplay. I don't love having to stress over the wellbeing of my fighters though, because replacing them is a time-sink that no other type of ship really has to deal with. Mods got around this with templates, but even they are a pain to use.

What I'd like to see is the following;

1) A way to repair fighters that are docked on a carrier. Maybe it's a big button with a credit value listed under it that says "repair all fighters" or maybe it's passive, free repair provided by an engineer but done over a long period of time. Maybe it's somewhere inbetween, but I really just don't want to fiddle around undocking with a shipyard. It's a carrier. It should be able to make repairs.

2) A way to replace lost fighters quickly. Maybe you stock carriers with resources and it can just rebuild lost fighters, maybe you insure your fighters and it just gets replaced at a nearby shipyard when you lose it, or maybe you can just designate your own ship templates before you buy them at a shipyard. Just anything to ease the pain.

3) Unless the AI is just flat out perfect, a way to reduce collision damage. Could be an upgrade for the fighter (collision dampener or whatever), could work on friendlies only, whatever would make it feel balanced.

Yeah, I really love carriers.

Totaly agree with that.

[jukematt]

All that extra stuff like refueling, repairing, rearming, etc. is nice but there is one big reason why I like carriers. The other stuff is just a bonus. That reason is controlling where your ships are. Without a carrier, all of your ships that you're not using have to be scattered around the universe docked at space stations. Or you go through the personal starbase path and dock them there. A carrier allows you to store a bunch of fighters anywhere you want. You could even have this big flotilla of carriers, destroyers, etc. and that is like your home base.

[Lord Dakier]

Remove the destruction of various ship components when taking damage and instead have it become disabled while also making each component increase the time and cost of repairs. When a fully outfitted ship takes a beating it suffers then a higher cost and repair time simulating the fixing of these.

The components being destroyed completely was such a bad feature for the sake of the minimal immersion you got. Disabled systems is and always will be a much more gameplay friendly feature. I still think ships should have basic requirements for repairs such as metals, compounds, alloys which would improve immersion rather than some magical non-resource consuming feature that costs nothing but time.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Remove the destruction of various ship components when taking damage and instead have it become disabled while also making each component increase the time and cost of repairs. When a fully outfitted ship takes a beating it suffers then a higher cost and repair time simulating the fixing of these.

The components being destroyed completely was such a bad feature for the sake of the minimal immersion you got. Disabled systems is and always will be a much more gameplay friendly feature.

Surface elements in X Rebirth are not destroyed, and the more that are disabled, the longer it does take the Engineer to repair (or the more it costs if using a shipyard).

[Lord Dakier]

Remove the destruction of various ship components when taking damage and instead have it become disabled while also making each component increase the time and cost of repairs. When a fully outfitted ship takes a beating it suffers then a higher cost and repair time simulating the fixing of these.

The components being destroyed completely was such a bad feature for the sake of the minimal immersion you got. Disabled systems is and always will be a much more gameplay friendly feature.

Surface elements in X Rebirth are not destroyed, and the more that are disabled, the longer it does take the Engineer to repair (or the more it costs if using a shipyard).

Didn't know... I'm going on X3 knowledge here. Briefly played XR and would politely say it wasn't my cup of tea.

Just make carriers relevant is all I'll say. Carriers previously just felt like they was there for RP cause I think a lot of people would take either an M3, M6, M7 or M2 as they could generally kill a lot more stuff without the headache. More anti-capital bombers/missile ships would make carriers more relevant though. I felt in the past there was no answer for why have one carrier fully kitted when I can have two maybe three destroyers fully kitted. Diverse enemies will create diverse player fleets.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Carriers should be able to maintain and rearm the fighters it has on board.

However what we really need is station based logistics to supply the carriers and destroyers in our various fleets.

We need some kind of supply depot / warehouse from which supply tenders will deliver all of the wares and arms that the fleet ships require to continue to operate at maximum efficiency.

In "real life" carriers don't leave the theatre of war to resupply they do that at sea. Supply ships bring in what they need from land based storage facilities.

[Morkonan]

...We need some kind of supply depot / warehouse from which supply tenders will deliver all of the wares and arms that the fleet ships require to continue to operate at maximum efficiency.
...

Setting up logistics systems was one of the main attractions in X3TC. (At least for me.) But, it was basically limited to e-cells, maybe missiles, and that was about it. (Ammo-based weapons were a no-go in X3TC for OS ships.)

I don't know if that was a need in XR or not, but for a true X4 game, it has to at least be a possible inclusion.

On the need for "carriers:" A carrier projects force. If you need to project force somewhere, you need a carrier. No amount of "we can manage to get a bunch of fighters somewhere if we use fifty-eleven support craft for refueling and hauling needed supplies" equates to "we sent a carrier group there."

It's like picking up a military airfield and plopping it down wherever you want, whenever you want. In X3, working with them was a bit difficult and one couldn't actually exploit them fully very easily. IOW, you couldn't really "control" the sector they were in AND the adjoining sectors, to represent the units ability to move and project force.

I'd like a true "carrier" to be the locus of "game commands" that wouldn't be possible, otherwise, in order to represent the carrier's significant abilities.

ie:

1) Patrol these sectors with these classes of craft.

Click on your brand new, fully loaded, carrier and give its Captain the order that they are to maintain a patrol of fighters/scouts/etc through a range of sectors/regions within range of the selected classes of craft. The carrier loiters at its designated location and keeps a patrol "in the air" rotating/refueling ships as necessary.

2) Launch Strike Group: Either a player configured group or an auto-configured one based upon the carrier's compliment. It will launch everything needed for that strike group and attack all enemy targets in that area or selected ones and then recover/rearm the group.

3) Standard CAP - The carrier, when ordered, will maintain a combat-air-patrol consisting of 3-5 fighter craft and 1-2 scout craft.

etc..

IOW - We shouldn't be thinking in practical, real-life, tactical, terms in order to determine the true value of a carrier. We need to focus on the strategic uses of the object in the game and the power of "ease of use" that it can afford the player.

So, you want to manually gather fifty-eleven different fighters, mix in scouts and missile boats, manually, get them all to one location from which you can then give them a massed order to do something, fully construct that order to mimic a really basic military command function and then plan on refueling them and splitting them all up so they can fit in the limited quantity hangers you have available, spread out over the five different sectors you've got bases in..

Or, do you just really want a carrier to make all of that much easier to deal with "in a game?"

Don't get me wrong - I love logisticalfying stuffs. But, if we have to give an in-game asset a "killer app" that gives the player a real game-related reason to desperately want it, then this is the kind of thing it needs to be able to do.

If a carrier is for sale for a bajillion Quatloos, the player should be considering "How does this make my life better in-game?" The answer should, or could, be that "If I buy this carrier, it will help me automate some mundane military functions so that I'm clicking on four commands to get them done instead of spending half-an-hour nesting fifty-eleven different obscure AI functions in a set of commands the manual doesn't explain very well..."

Anyone ever use the "Wingman" function in X3TC? No, you didn't... Why? Because your Wingmen spent more time trying to paint themselves onto your hull or the nearest Gate than they did trying to be your Wingmen.

But, if the function had really worked well?

You would have used it all day, every day, and twice on Sundays.

THAT is the power that function was intended to serve and that is why, I assume, the devs thought it would be a valuable addition to the game. The simplicity of one-click-Wingmen was awesome, but it just didn't work well. If it had actually cost the player in-game an appreciable amount of something to acquire it, more people would have been upset that it didn't work.

It's that sort of convenience factor and value for the player that a carrier can serve in order to make its significance truly meaningful. Otherwise, just build bases everywhere and you don't need a carrier in the game... And, where would be the fun in that?

[recnelis]

Can anyone on the Dev team answer this? This was honestly the first thing I thought of when I heard there were no jump drives.

Can carriers repair fighters?

Can carriers rebuild lost fighters?

Can carriers travel faster than fighters long range?

If none of the above, what is the purpose of a carrier?

[mr.WHO]

I guess there is more chance that you will find it out yourself in about 47 hours.

[Zarjazz]

The largest carriers having repair or manufacturing bays seem like a good idea to me. Let's not forget that this is an X series game. Any good idea that seems to be missing on day 1 gets added later on or ends up as a mod.