Carrier Battles Mod

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

SJ, I want to officially Thank You for sprouting the idea for this mod. I read a few early posts, and immediately started to implement a similar system of fighter combat in Capship (note: this was some time back, perhaps as much as 2 months). Therefore, hereby, I Thank You for this wonderful idea.

I customized it in Capship, however (didn't DL the actual mod);
-Fighter hulls are generally split up between Interceptors, Space Superiority Fighters and Bombers.
-Interceptors are the fast lot, they're the smallest but are excellently suited for swarming SSFs and bombers.
-SSFs are larger and slower, and can carry more potent weaponry. They are the principal means of defending your fleet against Bombers.
-Bombers are massive, lumbering craft which can strike hard at warships.
-Most fighter weapons can only target fighters and other small stuff, the anti-capital ship weapons are so large that only Bombers can mount them. These weapons are comparatively extremely powerful, so that Bombers remain useful and perhaps essential into the later game eras.
-Stock PD can only target seekers now, some/most ship-based weapons can also target fighters but are generally less effective than Interceptor/SSF escorts, because of the defense bonus of the fighters, and also because fighter armor is pretty strong. For truly effective fighter interference you're going to need your own strike craft escort.

There is nothing to stop you from placing masses of Interceptor weapons on a Bomber, that's a choice you'll have to make for yourself. It's not recommended or discouraged, but Interceptors were specifically meant for the light anti-fighter weapons, while Bombers should mainly be used as capital ship killers. Bombers have the potential to be more dangerous to powerful warships than a Dreadnought. It's always recommended you take at least one carrier stocked with ample supplies of all three fighter types when you send a fleet out on a (prolonged) campaign. This way, you'll have protection from enemy Bombers (which can utterly devastate a fleet if it isn't well-protected) as well as a means of performing quick, powerful strikes on an enemy fleet.

Strike craft are relatively cheap and fast to produce (though a powerful Bomber could take three or so turns to build), and the fact that they're real killers makes it easier for an empire under attack to build a modest fleet of Bombers to drive the enemy out. Said enemy could then build swarms of SSFs to counter the Bombers. Said Bombers would be generally useless then, but they can quickly build entire swarms of Interceptors to swarm the enemy SSF escorts and overcome their defenses, to cover for the Bombers.

Whoops, turned into a (promotional) rant there, sorry 'bout that! But still, Thank You SJ for this idea.

[Suicide Junkie]

You know, you really don't need to force a split between interceptors, superiority fighters and bombers.
I simply used a generic set of fighter hulls, and let the components speak for themselves.

- If you want anti-missile defense, you simply add lots of tiny mount guns and a big (QNP-style) engine to chase missiles with. More guns == more missiles shot down per turn.
- If you want a bomber, you use a smaller engine and cram the hull full of big missiles or heavy laser cannons for that big initial punch through the leaky shields. (You need to overload the quasi-emissive effect)
- Superiority fighters on the other hand, need heavier armor and the most efficient guns rather than the high damage-per-shot bomber weapons or the array of high accuracy weapons on the interceptor. (Make a wall, and chew up fighters without letting them pass)


In CB#2, Axel caught me by surprise with a squad of half-bombers.
They launched fewer missiles, but then followed up on the attack by picking off my lightly armored interceptors with guns as they rushed to the missiles.
I loved it. It didn't conform to my expectations, but made perfect sense in action Next time I'll have to bring some superiority fighters to take the hits and protect the interceptors while they do their job.


Getting rid of stock Point Defense altogether was one of the key features, too.
The autofire makes them essentially unbalancable.
Instead, you have to carry some sort of antimissile fighter type, or mount a bunch of short range 20mm cannons with lots of multiplex tracking to back them up. Or just armor up, and take the blows


It seems my ships have been resorting to the third method way too much in CarrierBattles #1
Massive assaults, running out of interceptors, and then being brutally pounded by bombardment ships. Its quite fun though, and I'll soon have some ships decked out with fifteen 20mm cannons just for point defense duty.