Help with my Carrier

[Rocier]

After days of playing the stock market and syphoning money from my 2 complexes (BTW, it sucks when i can make 10 times more money from the stock market than I can from 2 25+ station complexes...) I have finally purchased my first capital ship. An argon collosus.

One of my complexes is making 2gj shields, since I couldnt find them anywhere.

Few questions

1. What are the best turret guns for it and AI?
2. What kind of missles should I get for it?
C. What kind of ships should I get for it?
5. What kind of load out should those ships have? weapons, missles.
$. How do I set up the AI? I have the Anarkis Defense System script, but the Carrier option is unclickable...

And any other carrier tips welcome. I don't mind playing around and figuring this stuff out for myself, but its all so expensive and time consuming at this point, I just want to get this bad boy up and running.

[kolimbo]

After days of playing the stock market and syphoning money from my 2 complexes (BTW, it sucks when i can make 10 times more money from the stock market than I can from 2 25+ station complexes...) I have finally purchased my first capital ship. An argon collosus.

One of my complexes is making 2gj shields, since I couldnt find them anywhere.

Few questions

1. What are the best turret guns for it and AI?
2. What kind of missles should I get for it?
C. What kind of ships should I get for it?
5. What kind of load out should those ships have? weapons, missles.
$. How do I set up the AI? I have the Anarkis Defense System script, but the Carrier option is unclickable...

And any other carrier tips welcome. I don't mind playing around and figuring this stuff out for myself, but its all so expensive and time consuming at this point, I just want to get this bad boy up and running.

When your station complexes become more efficient, they make a hell of a lot more money than the stock market. A combination of UT/ST and CLS with large complexes can make your empire run by itself (whereas stock market is always hands on).

I make roughly 10M or so an hour with my empire and while I could probably do the same with stock market, I can't leave it on overnight and have a billion dollars sitting in the bank the next morning.


To answer your questions:
1. I would put PPCs on it's left and right, then flak all around the rest. (So flak artillery array for top & bottom and something fast firing for the front and rear). Set the T/B/R/F turrets to 'protect ship' and the left/right turrets to 'attack capitals'

2.Lots of mosquitoes for MMD and firestorms for taking out the big boys. I sometimes stock hornets as well as a back up. Still, you shouldn't be needing your M1 to be doing most of the heavy lifting.

3. The Teladi Falcon Hauler is a pretty good carrier fighter (It's slow speed and high shielding means that the AI can't muck up as much. It is also fairly cheap). Another good alternative is the Notus Hauler (much faster but less shielding).

4. HEPTs, HEPTs everywhere! also a few PRGs for good measure.

5. I believe you need 'carrier command software' check the encyclopedia for where it is.


Note: Running a carrier fleet is _very_ expensive. Fully kitted out M1 with all of it's fighters could cost upwards of $200-300M. A M1 battlegroup(M1+ Escorts) would burn you about $500M. It is highly advisable to bring escorts for your M1 if you ever intend on engaging anything larger than a M7. Unless you are running the Woden or similar 'assault-carriers', the M1s just don't do all that much in brawls.

Fighters are also fairly costly to replace, Expect to lose a fighter for each M7 you engage and 2-3 for each M2 you engage.

[Rocier]

Thanks for the Response.

Time to google me some abbreviations.

[zapza]

Take a look here http://roguey.co.uk/x3tc/help/

[kolimbo]

UT/ST: Universe/Sector trader. They are the automated traders for MK3 trade software

CLS: Commercial logistics software: like UT/ST but for goods transfer. From the Bonus pack.

PPC: Photon Pulse Cannon

MMD: Mosquito Missile Defense System, also from Bonus pack

HEPT: High energy plasma thrower

PRG: Phased repeater gun

[StarSword]

Here's what I said in an earlier topic regarding fighter selection:

My usual advice for player-piloted carriers is one large wing of heavy-duty strike fighters and a smaller wing of fast M4 (Sabre and Solano are good) to swat flies. In the strike fighter role, I've had good results with Chimeras and Cutlasses. Mind you, a full carrier-load of M3+ is extremely expensive (something like 100 million for hulls and outfits, and I was loading a Panther, not an M1).

Another build I've heard good things about is Falcon Hauler missile boats. Pack their cavernous cargo bays with Tornado missiles (50 MJ damage, eight warheads, unguided) and crank up the missile use rate when facing capital ships. This requires Tornado factories and a supply train.

Yet a third option if you've rescued the Aldrin economy is to take Spitfyres with less-than-full speed upgrades (220-ish speed is plenty) and fit them with some PMAML. That's an ammo-using corvette gun, and is lethal against everything but, again, requires a supply train.

[shawnburton]

I like the Colossus with 60 Venti. Give them each 10 HEPT, then put on Flight of the Valkyrie and stand off from the battle while they kill everyone! Carriers aren't really intended for direct engagement.

[Triaxx2]

I'm partial to Pikes as my M4 of choice. Fast, short front to rear, pick them up in their L variant and don't add more armaments, so they'll fire for a long time during their attack run.

I like the Eclipse as a carrier defender fighter, due to the strong shield and two turrets. The other option is the unbuyable Falcon Sentinel.

For heavy Attackers though, I like the Tenjin. Start producing HEPT's and some PAC's for the turrets.

I find that given (I use CODEA instead of ADS) Mosquito Missile Defense on all fighters, 10 Mosquitoes and 15 Wasps, with a 20-30% chance to launch works quite well.

[kolimbo]

Yeah, I like the venti and solano as well. However, I'm not convinced that the extra million or so is worth it for the Venti. It doubles the price of a Falcon Sentinel and not much better it terms of performance.

My set up is 4 Wings of Falcon sentinels for heavy attack/defense, 1 wing of Notus haulers(or solanos) for fast attack/skirmishing, 1 wing of Quasars(Xtra ship pack) for bombing duty. I'd probably replace the Quasars with Falcon haulers in Vanilla.

I'm currently running around with a Shuri, might upgrade to a Raptor or a J when I have the chance.

[Triaxx2]

If you can get access to the Medusa Prototype, that mounts Tornadoes, Typhoon's and Firestorms. Those are the best types of heavy bombers.