[CT27]

In the campaign Uncharted Territory the player ship is a small escort carrier.  In some other campaigns, the larger Warlock class is used.


As a general strategy after Capella, do you think the GTVA should develop classes of carrier ships?  I.e., ships that are around the size of destroyers but carry noticeably more fighters and bombers (with the compromise of let's say less armor and less anti-capship weapons...but with perhaps more anti-fighter/bomber turrets)?

[Trivial Psychic]

I would think that in FS a carrier is more like a mobile station.  Since GTVA would already have stations in its systems, a carrier would be more of use during a long and sustained campaign.  When conducting an invasion of enemy space, you'd want a carrier to be able to sustain command of operations in a newly-breached system.  Once you have complete control over that system you can then construct your own stations to take over long-term, while your carrier force prepares to breach the next system.

[karajorma]

I'm personally of the opinion that not only should the GTVA develop carriers but that they already have. The Hecate is basically a carrier. It's less capable in a one on one capship battle than the much older Orion. Presumably, it makes up for that in other ways (number of fighters and bombers carried, the speed with which it can launch them, etc). Yes the Hecate has guns on it, but we've seen how well it faired against a Moloch.

[Fusion]

I'm personally of the opinion that not only should the GTVA develop carriers but that they already have. The Hecate is basically a carrier. It's less capable in a one on one capship battle than the much older Orion. Presumably, it makes up for that in other ways (number of fighters and bombers carried, the speed with which it can launch them, etc). Yes the Hecate has guns on it, but we've seen how well it faired against a Moloch.

Pretty much this. The Hecate is functionally a "carrier destroyer." The standard consensus in the community is that at one point either prior to the use of the Orion or during Reconstruction when the GTA was cut off from Sol, carriers like the Sagittarius and the Canberra were used due to their greater tactical flexibility. Additionally most campaigns post-Capella have some variety of carrier, either a heavy combat ship like the Warlock or something lighter(eg. the Phoenix or the Hestia).

[starlord]

The warlock is a poor choice as a dedicated carrier, as it lights up enemy destroyers easily. It rather fits the battleship/super carrier hybrid. Essentially a freespace destroyer 2.0, as I believe the destroyer class in freespace to be an amalgamation of both concept to at some point project overwhelming force.

Something like hestia works well as a soc platform or retrieval ship, or fighter transport (jeep carrier). I’m very fond of the design.

However, a destroyer (which serves as a jack of all trades between brawl and carrier), will tend to revert towards more specialised designs because of tech innovations and theatre demands. That’s how the Hecate became much more carrier oriented to fit with the hit and run attacks of the NTF, but became cruelly susceptible to shivan warships up close.

All this to say that, depending on the timelines, you will either see a duo of specialised variants (brawler and carrier working in tandem) or, when enough resources or mastery of the field is achieved, hybrid ships which are a fusion of both.

[Novachen]

Nope.

Actually, the Destroyers in FreeSpace were always Carriers with weapons. The Bastion already had much more squadrons than needed.
So i think they should built more Iceni class frigates instead.

One Iceni with Aeolus for anti-fighter escort simply dominates a good range of everything the Shivans can throw at them.

[spart_n]

destroyers are already carriers so the GTVA is several steps ahead of you. firepower + mobile station is definitely a requirement in the dark sea where shivans and other dangers roam

[0rph3u5]

Drone Carriers.

[ShivanSpS]

Well, as i see it, in FS universe, Destroyers are Carriers, Cruicers are Destroyers, and Corvettes are Cruicers. Why the types are so mess up i have no idea, someone should ask Volition, but i think it was to separate a little from Wing Commander.

The GTVA do need smallers ships capable of carrying fighters, no idea why the Deimos does not have a hangar bay for a squadron, i think thats is 3 wings here.

To me they need something similar to a battleship or a battlecruicer, and just let carriers be carriers.

[Kie99]

The usage potential of carriers is pretty limited.  If you have control of a system you can just have them jump to where they need to be straight from wherever they're based.  The only time I could envision them being used would be if you need to breach a hostile system, and if you're doing that the last thing you want is a less armoured ship.

If they ever did develop anything that's distinct from destroyers I think something along the lines of the Warlock would probably be the best idea.  A gargantuan ship that's impossible to kill in a short period.  Jump into a hostile system, survive the blockade, jump out and start deploying fighters to hit supply lines, launch a bombing run on their bases or whatever they've got blockading the node, etc.   That's pretty much the function destroyers would have filled pre-beam cannons.

The only reason the Warlock doesn't really work for this is that it's too strong.  Not only is it extremely heavily armoured, it's extremely heavily armed.  Why does it need to be a carrier?  Unless it's heading deep into uncharted territory you can just jump the Warlock in, obliterate everything around the node, then send in reinforcements.  If you remove all the Warlock's facilities to look after a hundred wings of fighters you can probably add even more armour and beam cannons so it's even better at it. 

You could easily repurpose it to be a specialist carrier just by massively weakening its armament and maybe making it tougher, but it is difficult to know what sort of mission it would be in.  Gameplay wise what do you do with a ship that's whole USP is being unkillable and that doesn't really do anything except deploy fighters and bombers?  You're really back to square one with FreeSpace 1 style destroyers.  Do you just make the enemies' bombs ten times more powerful to level the odds?  Kamikaze ships?  A mission where you have to stop the enemy laying Meson bombs around it?

There's stuff you can do with it, but it might be something that's more interesting to think about than to play with.

[Jadehawk]

If there was any reason for a Carrier, it would be for Assault of a system as noted. Also, I would suggest a tactical Carrier which would be smaller, yet carry enough Fighters and Bombers for the task at hand. To me, the Tactical Carrier would be able to fend off Fighters and Bombers, but not able to take on anything larger than a Cruiser. As with all Carriers, would need a support group of Cruisers and Frigates class of ships to be worth their expense.  Rapid deployment and Rapid recovery of said ships would be required. 

[starlord]

I personally think that an evolution of carriers in freespace would be based on stealth. Something that would infiltrate a system undetected contrarily to a destroyer or warlock like supership, and deploy fighters behind the frontlines where they can wreck the enemies’ logistics.

[General Battuta]

Carriers are useful in real life because they can can send intelligent and multirole aircraft (vs missiles) 'over the horizon' to find and kill stuff, whereas most ships are restricted to fighting in the areas visible to their own sensors. Carriers let you operate at arms' reach without putting your own base in direct danger. If ships couldn't be damaged by fighters, or if ships were capable of reliably detecting and destroying fighters at range, carriers would go extinct.

Analogously, carriers are useful in FreeSpace because they can send fighters through subspace to other mission areas (or drop them off and then scoot). So you would want to build carriers if you can consistently wreck targets with these 'over the horizon' strikes, and if these strikes require a base to come back to for rearming/refueling/moving to another system/whatever. I think the FS universe meets those criteria: fighter strikes ARE really powerful and fighters do need a base.

HOWEVER the complication is that carriers are very vulnerable to ships which a) can kill the carrier quickly b) can attack the carrier with no warning c) have enough survivability to fight off the carrier's fighters and bombers, kill the carrier, and get away. (IRL, these are, roughly, submarines.) Subspace means that a ship meeting these criteria could visit your carrier just about any time.

I think that, given these two constraints, you basically end up back at what FreeSpace has settled on: armed and armored carriers capable of fighting off smaller warships. And in fact all the FS2 missions with the Aquitaine meet these criteria exactly: the Aquitaine relies on its air wing and weapons to keep it safe long enough to run away.

Carriers are also useful in real life space war in situations where small ships can generate a ton of thrust in a short time and carry effective weapons, but don't have the delta-V or endurance to make long journeys. The carrier can cruise around with its big fuel reserves and efficient drive, then release the fighters to do radical short-duration maneuvers for the final attack (like 'everybody converge on the target while firing coilguns from multiple angles'). Here, the 'horizon' that the fighters operate over isn't one of distance but one of acceleration: their small mass lets them get more delta-V more quickly, even if the carrier has better specific impulse. These carrier 'fighters' would probably be one-way-trip drones, though. And they stop being effective if ship design favors really huge weapons that are effective at very long range.

[karajorma]

Back in the day, I had arguments with Trashman that would peel paint over this very issue. My point of view was pretty similar to Battuta's.

Like a lot of things in Freespace the way the GTVA fleet is built up actually implies a lot deeper thought than most people realise. Carriers are going to have a real problem in that they are very vulnerable to beam attacks by something close up. A destroyer can leap in and immediately start raking a carrier with beam fire. A carrier needs to suit up its pilots, give them some idea what they need to do out there, and launch them. And the destroyer (having planned the attack) can jump at the same time as its own fighters and bombers, cancelling out any advantage a carrier might have due to superior numbers of fighters or speed with which it can launch them.

Battleships face problems from the other side of the spectrum. Without fighter support they are incredibly vulnerable to attacks by fighter craft. Without interceptors there is bugger all a battleship can even do against 3-4 wings of ships equipped with Maxims. They are firing at a 2km long target from 5km away. If the battleship's weapons can even reach them they are fast moving, 50m targets with shields!

So the solution to that becomes to operate the carrier with a battleship in tandem. Problem is that this combination is still inferior to simply building two destroyers. Two destroyers can operate independently. If one is killed, the other doesn't immediately become more vulnerable to certain kinds of attack.

And this assumes a battleship is even possible to build in the first place. We're assuming that volume is the limiting factor here, when it might not be at all. Power generation, heat dissipation or any number of other factors could be what prevents you from building something Orion sized with more weaponry on it. It could simply be that GTVA designers realised during designing the Orion that they'd reached the maximum weaponry you could fit on a ship that size, so they might as well bolt a fighter bay on the side of it.


*I should point out that all this is for the FS2 universe as is. In your own campaigns you can invent ways for the GTVA to get around these issues. But arguing that carriers or battleships would have helped or done better in the FS2 campaign, nope, can't agree with that assessment.

[Nyctaeus]

Short answer: Yays
Explanation: Because big-ass momma carriers are badass and epic.

Somewhat longer answer: Yes
Explanation: Strikecraft of GTVA is vastly superior then their Shivan counterparts, even if that's because balance etc. When GTVA battles Shivans, it usually happens in colonized space. Even in peacetime, a large carrier is excellent mean to provide accomodation for large quantities of fighters for peacekeeping duties, but also provide the military with advanced command and control facilities. Shivans loves deploying stray raider groups of fighters and bombers to harass civilian targets, so fast-response fighter squadrons would be effective counter.

Why can't they be based on stations? They can, but carrier has mobility. It's possible to reposition the carrier in case of emergency, but stations are sitting ducks. Goodbye 3rd Fleet HQ!

They way I see carriers in FS is basically something like Hera or Warlock. A single ship like that should provide enough logistics to maintain security in whole system, but smaller units like Sagittarius would also work, especially in rim worlds.

Also, I think that Carrier is vastly superior weapon against possible encounter with Sathanas juggernauts. Colossus wasn't prepared for engagement with such a threat. Instead, the best counter for Sathanas would be something like Jotun from Inferno, or Esarai's Stheno. I doubt if even Hecate or Hatshepsut can provide enough hangarbay space for such massive bombers, possibly armed with next-gen torpedoes and requiring extensive maintenance. Carrier provides such capabilities.

How to secure big-ass momma carrier from Sathanas itself? ECM, sprintdrive, low-power subspace weapons, you name it.

[Grizzly]

The GTVA should definitely not develop carriers since the FSO engine can't handle the BoE madness that is a proper escort fleet for said carriers.

[ShivanSpS]

You dont need an escort fleet when you can go from A to B in a moment notice, in fact, having all ships one next to each other means greater risk of detection, the GTA and GTVA actually makes things right by not traveling in fleets.

My point of carriers and battleships would be that, this "mix" of the two creates a hybrid that, is not as powerfull has it should be for combat and if it goes down, you losse your fighter base as well, and you dont want the enemy to known were your carriers are(the GTA you are actually use them for ship to ship combat), and if one is discovered and can still jump somewhere else, this is not WW2.

You cant replace carriers with static bases that would be suicidal in a universe where the enemy can come out of nowhere at any moment, you also need a place for repair, ream and rest. So you always need mobility.

This hybrid design makes sence for the Vasudan war, where the ships were so strong to the avalible anti-capital ship weapons that you needed something that was able to hold his own and deploy fighters as the main weapon. When you have a enemy like the Shivans that can melt your ships in seconds, you need to keep moving ALL THE TIME, the carriers need to be moving constanly to avoid detection, just stoping to launch and recover, not expose them to directly engage enemy ships to try to gain and maintrain space control. Hybrid ships makes the most sence for some behind the lines and special ops, the Hades is a perfect example of a ship designed for massive behind the line ops whiout support, but not as the bulk of your fleet when you face a enemy like the Shivans. And FS tells you that. The only carrier, that we know, that was suprised and destroyed is the Galatea, and we dont fully know how that happened. Then look at how many destroyers were put in harm's way in FS2 in order to maintain a position or guard a node.


I always had this idea on how a fleet should work in the FS universe, but when i played Empyrion galatic survival in multiplayer i confirmed all of that, when you are building a carrier, you are already making it weak by all the hollow/storage space inside that could be actually be used for armor and aux systems, and if you losse the carrier thats terrible because you are also lossing your fighters and everything to support that. And lossing it because you are attacking other ships directly when you can actually be using a ship designed for that and having the carrier very far away sending support and rearming and repairing from a safe place makes no sence.

[karajorma]

The problem with a doctrine based on never letting the enemy know where you are is that the GTVA know how to track a vessel through subspace. So a carrier is massively vulnerable from the second it is spotted.

[ShivanSpS]

Thats more of a operative issue than design, you just cant make the perfect ship, unless you are the Shivans and you can mass produce Sathanas... anyway, any real military would have that scenario in mind and had a plan to counter it, the fact you can blink and be in a diferent position is a huge risk, but also gives you a lot of flexibility to defend, no ship should ever try defend itself alone in this scenario, it will always go down, even when you think you are going to win, another ship or wave could appear out of nowhere.

Its not really a option, every ship is in danger once detected, the way that the GTVA does things you dont even need to be looking for them as they use them as musle to patrol, guard positions, attack other ships, etc. That how they lost a lot of destroyers on FS2, and once they go down, you losse the entire fighter wing as well, that hurts in the long run.

Still, when i say CARRIER im thinking in something like the Hecate, something with excellent AA defenses and enoght firepower to defend from smaller ships, but you just be never, EVER be using that on the offensive or to guard positions, unless it is a desperate situation.

[Nohiki]

I believe that on the GTVA side, resources play a huge role. The techroom and cutscene go out of their way to point out how expensive it is to build an Orion and how long it took to build the Colossus. Hence why I am for the doctrine of universality. That does not prevent them from moving the balance slider from one side to the other with the different classes of destroyer though. The shivans follow it to an extent as well - One can argue that the Hecate, Typhon and Demon are more defense and strikecraft oriented, whereas the Orion, Ravana and Hatshepsut are better suited to punch in their weight.

BP takes this to the extreme with the Titan and Erebus IMHO, one is a glass cannon (relatively) built around a giant fighter cavern, and the other is stated to have decidedly smaller complement IIRC, but both retain direct fire and launching capabilities.