Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

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Digitalcat
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Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Digitalcat » Mon, 20. Sep 21, 22:00

It kinda makes sense, doesn't it? A carrier is a massive craft that houses fighters, does repairs for them and refits them, and it would make even more sense if you could send out trade/transport/cargo or whatever they are called ships from the carrier to do automated supply runs for the items the carrier needs, like they can do for auxiliary ships, a carrier should be a massive mobile base and it shouldn't need to rely on a auxiliary ship to supply it's crafts.

To be fair I thought the way I described is how it actually worked as it felt the most logical logistic and game sense, until I found nope, that's not how it works. Either get massive expensive auxiliary ships, or have the carrier travel to trade places themselves to stock up, which is slow and a waste of time, I understand the need of auxiliary ships, like when corvettes and fighters are on their own and you want them to be able to resupply really far away from any bases, but a Carrier is a mobile base, and thus I feel like I should be able to send out the transport ships that I can store inside of the carrier out to go and grab actual supplies automated like I can with a auxiliary ship.

Idk I just feel like its a missed opportunity, I hope you guys add it in! <3

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Sandalpocalypse
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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Sandalpocalypse » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 02:23

i agree very much, i feel like auxiliaries were a mistake vs making carriers fully functional
Irrational factors are clearly at work.

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by flywlyx » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 02:44

Carrier is a mobile airport, not a mobile city.

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Treycore » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 03:22

Digitalcat wrote:
Mon, 20. Sep 21, 22:00
It kinda makes sense, doesn't it? A carrier is a massive craft that houses fighters, does repairs for them and refits them, and it would make even more sense if you could send out trade/transport/cargo or whatever they are called ships from the carrier to do automated supply runs for the items the carrier needs, like they can do for auxiliary ships, a carrier should be a massive mobile base and it shouldn't need to rely on a auxiliary ship to supply it's crafts.

To be fair I thought the way I described is how it actually worked as it felt the most logical logistic and game sense, until I found nope, that's not how it works. Either get massive expensive auxiliary ships, or have the carrier travel to trade places themselves to stock up, which is slow and a waste of time, I understand the need of auxiliary ships, like when corvettes and fighters are on their own and you want them to be able to resupply really far away from any bases, but a Carrier is a mobile base, and thus I feel like I should be able to send out the transport ships that I can store inside of the carrier out to go and grab actual supplies automated like I can with a auxiliary ship.

Idk I just feel like its a missed opportunity, I hope you guys add it in! <3
I 100% agree

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Falcrack » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 03:43

100%, there is no reason you shouldn't be able to assign freighters to carriers to trade for them.

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by sh4l0m » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 04:07

flywlyx wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 02:44
Carrier is a mobile airport, not a mobile city.
If deck size, fuel, buoyancy(in water as well as flight) were not factors you can be sure the surface navy would do every single bit of supply with helicopters & planes & the only purpose of fleet auxiliary would be to resupply depots to reduce round trip time for those craft. Indeed, as the longest a resupply trip could possibly take is a few hours even in the worst conditions..

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by humility925 » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 10:16

flywlyx wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 02:44
Carrier is a mobile airport, not a mobile city.
While that may be true that carrier is basic mobile spaceport/airport, but it's can be town/city mobile because in long deep space, long travel, it's could be people live, born and grow old in home of carrier, unless carrier had jumpdrive making short trips that is. Depend on if had jumpdrive and how powerful it is, and how powerful engine is it, so go on. Carrier could carry people from/to station, ship and planet
Had a compassionate when you able... :)

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by cjelliott » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 10:45

God yes, i thought Carriers were broken because this doesnt work for them. It's seems crazy they can't function in the same way given that the script already exists for Auxillery ships.

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Digitalcat
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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Digitalcat » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 11:17

flywlyx wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 02:44
Carrier is a mobile airport, not a mobile city.
Perhaps, but a mobile airport that can store several dedicated M trade ships, so I don't see why it shouldn't be able to send them out for supplies.

At the end of the day, you can do it all manually, but it's time-consuming, and a bit of a pain, but I feel that if you can do it manually, and the game doesn't restrict from doing so, why not just automate it? As cjelliott already said in this thread, the script is there for auxiliary ships, why not port it over for carriers.

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Ragnos28 » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 12:41

I would just be fine if Egosoft would just allowed carriers to...carry....torpedoes and missiles like RL carriers. I find the ideea of having a bunch of workers tinkering away with little hammers to make torpedoes and missiles, a bit ridiculous :gruebel:
And I'm so tired of doing the little dance of sending all my fighters and bombers...one by one...to rearm at the nearest EQ or wharf...after just a few engagements...at least give us the option to mass equip ships... :|

Edit: I know I could avoid all that by replacing the missile/torpedo launcher with a ion blaster, but I so want to have a "realistic" carrier combat experience in X4...to have my own Battle of the Atlantic, X4 style :|

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Digitalcat
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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Digitalcat » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 12:49

Ragnos28 wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 12:41
I would just be fine if Egosoft would just allowed carriers to...carry....torpedoes and missiles like RL carriers. I find the ideea of having a bunch of workers tinkering away with little hammers to make torpedoes and missiles, a bit ridiculous :gruebel:
And I'm so tired of doing the little dance of sending all my fighters and bombers...one by one...to rearm at the nearest EQ or wharf...after just a few engagements...at least give us the option to mass equip ships... :|

Edit: I know I could avoid all that by replacing the missile/torpedo launcher with a ion blaster, but I so want to have a "realistic" carrier combat experience in X4...to have my own Battle of the Atlantic, X4 style :|
That be cool too, make it an actual item or something, and make it be able to be stored on ships which you know *cough* would be even cooler *cough* if they then could be delivered by trade ships automatically ;)

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by GCU Grey Area » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 13:44

Ragnos28 wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 12:41
I would just be fine if Egosoft would just allowed carriers to...carry....torpedoes and missiles like RL carriers. I find the ideea of having a bunch of workers tinkering away with little hammers to make torpedoes and missiles, a bit ridiculous :gruebel:
Not sure it works quite that way. Pretty sure missiles are manufactured using entirely automated systems - don't need any crew on board a carrier for it to make missiles. Personally quite like the flexibility of being able to change missile loadouts at a carrier whenever I feel like it, rather than being restricted to only having access to whatever pre-built missiles happen to be in storage on the carrier. However I do still generally take the precaution of filling the carrier's own missile storage with an emergency supply of missiles (usually filled with whatever it's fighters are using and/or battlefield salvage), just in case it ever runs out of parts.

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Ragnos28 » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 14:14

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 13:44
Ragnos28 wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 12:41
I would just be fine if Egosoft would just allowed carriers to...carry....torpedoes and missiles like RL carriers. I find the ideea of having a bunch of workers tinkering away with little hammers to make torpedoes and missiles, a bit ridiculous :gruebel:
Not sure it works quite that way. Pretty sure missiles are manufactured using entirely automated systems - don't need any crew on board a carrier for it to make missiles. Personally quite like the flexibility of being able to change missile loadouts at a carrier whenever I feel like it, rather than being restricted to only having access to whatever pre-built missiles happen to be in storage on the carrier. However I do still generally take the precaution of filling the carrier's own missile storage with an emergency supply of missiles (usually filled with whatever it's fighters are using and/or battlefield salvage), just in case it ever runs out of parts.
In my opinion, the ES attempt to make carriers and aux ships like mobile ammunition factories is a failure. The concept is good in theory, but in practice fail with honors. I keep the suplies on full on carriers and aux, but just to cross of a task of my list...because my fighters and bombers still take trips to EQ and wharfs to rearm. A Chimera can hold 20 torpedoes or 20 smart missiles (just 1 launcher). I have 60 bombers and 40 fighters. The suplies on my Raptor can rearm about a single 20 Chimera wing (if that). To make matters worse, I use terran goods...my Raptor operates in Matrix #451...the closest source for..let's say computronic substrate...is my shipyard in Getsu Fune :|

So..."flexibility of being able to change missile loadouts at a carrier whenever I feel like it" is not so great for me :P

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Shadowofpeace » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 14:52

Carriers confusions

Carriers are not broken, first carrier jobs and role is different to aux. Carrier are meant mainly as a wing repair and mobile wing ship while using turrets in direct combat and to engage the enemy while aux is meant as a support ship as defensive repair and rearming ship while mainly staying out of direct combat while main fleet engages the enemies. If trade ship where to supply the carrier while in direct combat it is likely to be destroyed while trying to dock and while be using valuable docking bays and internal ship storage needed to repair damage ships in wing.

Note I set all my aux ship turrets for attack fighter as this help to defend s and m size ship while they retreat to repair and resupply and help to keep them out of direct combat.
I suggest for bomber have them set to aux ship, aux ship is safer as in not as often in direct combat as the other caps ships, hold more cargo and frees up docking port on carrier for wing resupply and support.

Use in game encyclopedia ship comparison to compare aux vs carrier.

The carrier is not meant to be solely a ammunitions resupply ship, the carrier and aux are similar but different. The carrier is more like a equipment factory for assigned wings primarily repair then supply while in direct combat while aux is similarly but less direct combat and function better for rearming ships, cap ship with a mix of missiles and non-missiles turrets can be just as affective as bombers.

I find bomber are best for stations attack with a aux support fleet ship parked outside of station weapon range to resupply. Cap ships have a higher missile cap and more missile launchers which often makes the more effective in none station combat then bomber.
Last edited by Shadowofpeace on Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:27, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by GCU Grey Area » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 14:56

Ragnos28 wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 14:14
In my opinion, the ES attempt to make carriers and aux ships like mobile ammunition factories is a failure. The concept is good in theory, but in practice fail with honors. I keep the suplies on full on carriers and aux, but just to cross of a task of my list...because my fighters and bombers still take trips to EQ and wharfs to rearm. A Chimera can hold 20 torpedoes or 20 smart missiles (just 1 launcher). I have 60 bombers and 40 fighters. The suplies on my Raptor can rearm about a single 20 Chimera wing (if that). To make matters worse, I use terran goods...my Raptor operates in Matrix #451...the closest source for..let's say computronic substrate...is my shipyard in Getsu Fune :|

So..."flexibility of being able to change missile loadouts at a carrier whenever I feel like it" is not so great for me :P
That is the main reason I avoid widespread use of torps for my carrier-based fighters - the vast quantities of parts required for each one causes logistical difficulties.

Currently my fleet uses Heavy Starburst as it's standard missile & carrier's got the capacity to make well over 500 of them (my aux can make over 1100), before needing to replenish it's stocks from the M freighters in it's hanger. Heavy Starburst still does a decent amount of damage (enough to smash enemy capitals) & are a more efficient use of the carrier's cargo capacity. Do find it convenient though that if I dock in one of my personal ships which uses torps it can make me a batch with exactly the same stuff it uses for it's fighters. Would be decidedly inconvenient if there were only Heavy Starbursts on my carrier, or if I had to nerf my carrier's ability to resupply it's fighters by using up some of it's space for torps which only my personal ships use.

Would also recommend switching your carrier's preferred build method to universal if it's going to be operating a long way from Terran space. Have built a fair few defence stations for the Terrans (& flipped control of those sectors to Terran) so the availability of Terran resources is much more widespread in my game, however still find it more convenient to 'live off the land' & resupply my fighters with missiles made from non-Terran components.

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Shadowofpeace » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 15:49

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 13:44
Ragnos28 wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 12:41
I would just be fine if Egosoft would just allowed carriers to...carry....torpedoes and missiles like RL carriers. I find the ideea of having a bunch of workers tinkering away with little hammers to make torpedoes and missiles, a bit ridiculous :gruebel:
Not sure it works quite that way. Pretty sure missiles are manufactured using entirely automated systems - don't need any crew on board a carrier for it to make missiles. Personally quite like the flexibility of being able to change missile loadouts at a carrier whenever I feel like it, rather than being restricted to only having access to whatever pre-built missiles happen to be in storage on the carrier. However I do still generally take the precaution of filling the carrier's own missile storage with an emergency supply of missiles (usually filled with whatever it's fighters are using and/or battlefield salvage), just in case it ever runs out of parts.
Please refer to my post below, hope it is helpful
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Shadowofpeace
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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Shadowofpeace » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:02

cjelliott wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 10:45
God yes, i thought Carriers were broken because this doesnt work for them. It's seems crazy they can't function in the same way given that the script already exists for Auxillery ships.
Carriers are not broken, first carrier jobs and role is different to aux. Carrier are meant mainly as a wing repair and mobile wing ship while using turrets in direct combat and to engage the enemy while aux is meant as a support ship as defensive repair and rearming ship while mainly staying out of direct combat while main fleet engages the enemies. If trade ship where to supply the carrier while in direct combat it is likely to be destroyed while trying to dock and while be using valuable docking bays and internal ship storage needed to repair damage ships in wing.
Palidor86

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by flywlyx » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 20:09

sh4l0m wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 04:07
If deck size, fuel, buoyancy(in water as well as flight) were not factors you can be sure the surface navy would do every single bit of supply with helicopters & planes & the only purpose of fleet auxiliary would be to resupply depots to reduce round trip time for those craft. Indeed, as the longest a resupply trip could possibly take is a few hours even in the worst conditions..
Carriers are supposed to be warships, they need armor, a lot of armor. These factors will only be more restricted in space
humility925 wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 10:16
While that may be true that carrier is basic mobile spaceport/airport, but it's can be town/city mobile because in long deep space, long travel, it's could be people live, born and grow old in home of carrier, unless carrier had jumpdrive making short trips that is. Depend on if had jumpdrive and how powerful it is, and how powerful engine is it, so go on. Carrier could carry people from/to station, ship and planet
In this case, you have your headquarters with teleportation ability, you don't need a carrier to do this job.
Digitalcat wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 11:17
Perhaps, but a mobile airport that can store several dedicated M trade ships, so I don't see why it shouldn't be able to send them out for supplies.

At the end of the day, you can do it all manually, but it's time-consuming, and a bit of a pain, but I feel that if you can do it manually, and the game doesn't restrict from doing so, why not just automate it? As cjelliott already said in this thread, the script is there for auxiliary ships, why not port it over for carriers.
On the contrary, I think carriers having the current ability is a mistake, it should only be able to store wares like missiles/deployables, all the manufacturing should be done by factories or auxiliary ships. And we should give cargo ships the ability to transfer missiles/deployables like typical cargo, I think this should be the way the carrier supply chain should work.

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by Ragnos28 » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 20:21

flywlyx wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 20:09
On the contrary, I think carriers having the current ability is a mistake, it should only be able to store wares like missiles/deployables, all the manufacturing should be done by factories or auxiliary ships. And we should give cargo ships the ability to transfer missiles/deployables like typical cargo, I think this should be the way the carrier supply chain should work.
This ^

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Re: Please allow carriers to resupply themselves through the use of cargo ships.

Post by sh4l0m » Sun, 26. Sep 21, 02:49

flywlyx wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 20:09
sh4l0m wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 04:07
If deck size, fuel, buoyancy(in water as well as flight) were not factors you can be sure the surface navy would do every single bit of supply with helicopters & planes & the only purpose of fleet auxiliary would be to resupply depots to reduce round trip time for those craft. Indeed, as the longest a resupply trip could possibly take is a few hours even in the worst conditions..
Carriers are supposed to be warships, they need armor, a lot of armor. These factors will only be more restricted in space
humility925 wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 10:16
While that may be true that carrier is basic mobile spaceport/airport, but it's can be town/city mobile because in long deep space, long travel, it's could be people live, born and grow old in home of carrier, unless carrier had jumpdrive making short trips that is. Depend on if had jumpdrive and how powerful it is, and how powerful engine is it, so go on. Carrier could carry people from/to station, ship and planet
In this case, you have your headquarters with teleportation ability, you don't need a carrier to do this job.
Digitalcat wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 11:17
Perhaps, but a mobile airport that can store several dedicated M trade ships, so I don't see why it shouldn't be able to send them out for supplies.

At the end of the day, you can do it all manually, but it's time-consuming, and a bit of a pain, but I feel that if you can do it manually, and the game doesn't restrict from doing so, why not just automate it? As cjelliott already said in this thread, the script is there for auxiliary ships, why not port it over for carriers.
On the contrary, I think carriers having the current ability is a mistake, it should only be able to store wares like missiles/deployables, all the manufacturing should be done by factories or auxiliary ships. And we should give cargo ships the ability to transfer missiles/deployables like typical cargo, I think this should be the way the carrier supply chain should work.


So, the logic of a carrier is built with surface navy and extrapolated into X-space. Pretty much the whole point of a carrier is that they fight with their small craft & escorts & rl carriers basically don't have armour, they have structure with which to attach engines to - with which they stay away from surface threats. In X it's different ofc, but in X - Carriers broadly are not supposed to win s2s brawls.



What carriers have is a great deal of open space internally. Which causes greater dimensions, but not greater mass except in the structure 'required' to surround it. In X volume & hitpoint pool do not need to be linked any more than they are in rl(where they obviously aren't being as hp don't exist.) In space ofc you don't get create more buoyancy by increasing the surface area, but then - you don't need more.

When you say 'These factors will only be more restricted in space' some reasoning would be great, because I can't detect any reasoning being done.

Hull material (or armor, as we might call it when talking about carriers, being as in X & rl they amount to the same thing) is cheap as chips relative to other components of a ship, both in X & rl




//

Re: 'on the contrary'

tbh I don't have an opinion either way as to which is better, except that it should make sense in-universe.


On the one hand when factories are never far away there is little point in putting much effort into providing a carrier with the capacity for independent action.

On the other, if the logic is adjusted to require frequent returns to factories for trivial issues then the in-game people would not want to deal with that logistical mess any more than player do, so they would build in self-service capability. As to whether it's plausible re: all the mention of 'a carrier is not a factory' - every fleet carrier that ever went into service had the capability to repair it's own complement. The majority of expected repair & replace work done on warships ever since the age of sail was not done in a dock - but on the ship either by the crew or by contractors taken onboard. By & large every warship ever expected to leave it's own coast was/had a factory.

But on the third hand of this Paranid fantasy, if a factory can build an entire fighter in a couple of minutes why bother repairing them. (See also - common user behaviour)

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