So while I was editing an update for a major mod, I needed to calculate capital ship complements for a basis of comparison. I was gonna post my stuff on a brand new thread, but I saw this one and figured it was prolly best to necro it rather than start from scratch. As much as I really wanted to make a new thread with the title "Extrapolated Capital ship fighter complement; or 'Su-tehp talks out of his ass for the first time since returning from his 17 year absence from HLP,'" I figured I'd go for efficiency rather than try to go blue just to satisfy my ego.
Anyway, here's what I came up with:
Starting from the Colossus FS2 cutscene as my initial basis of comparison, we know that the fighter complement of the Colossus is 60 wings, with each wing consisting of 4 fighters each. So the Colossus has 240 fighters and bombers, which translates to 20 squadrons of 12 each. Using a 12-member squadron as my base multiple (12 is the traditional number of craft to a squadron and it makes no sense to have 4 member wings that are squadron-less), I was able to extrapolate the fighter complements of a few Terran and Vasudan canon ships:
GTVA Colossus: 60 wings (4 fighters to a wing) =
240 fighters =
20 squadrons (of 12 fighters in each squadron)
GTD Hecate: "over 150 combat craft" meaning 150+ so which multiple of 12 gets us over 150? 12 times 13 = 156, so the Hecate carries
13 squadrons or
156 fighters and bombers.
GVD Typhon: "up to 30 wings" so 30 x 4 =
120 fighters =
10 squadronsGTD Orion: "more than 2 dozen (or 24+) wings" so at least 8 squadrons, but if Typhon has 120, then Orion can have the equivalent since 30 wings is also "over 24 wings" so
120 fighters =
10 squadronsGVD Hatshepsut: doesn't make a direct mention of its fighter complement, but we can assume equivalent to the Hecate, so
13 squadrons or
156 fighters and bombers.
Forget trying to extrapolate Shivan fighter complements because their techroom descriptions aren't anywhere near precise enough if they're even directly mentioned. I'm also not going to consider the SCv Moloch's multiplayer fighterbay canon since it never appears in singleplayer mode.
Anyway, if you need canon fighter complements to use as a basis of comparison for your own mods, here you go. I hope you find it useful.