Carrier fix is not what you might expect

Join the club, I agree with everything you say. But the developers apparently are not listening to the countless posts about this very topic.   

I personally think to fix the carrier problem I think they should get a major speed decrease and a shield and hull point lowering. First, do you see aircraft carriers of today turning on a dime and outrunning the rest of the fleet. They are the biggest ships that turn the slowest and move the slowest. I know this game doesn't base itself on what happens in real life, but this would be at least believable. Also, making strikecraft cost something in all three categories or just in the metal and crystal category would be great because then losing each ship would mean something more than, oh no wait 30 seconds and try again.

I just downloaded the newest update though and i am thrilled they decided to add a second squad to the carriers. Only seeing 10 ships a carrier seemed kind of unrealistic. Once again though, i know this game doesn't base itself on realism.

um sry if i sound like a jerk but have you ever heard of the nimitz class carriers? they outrun the can outrun many ships in the fleet and CAN turn on a dime..... just wanted to put my 2 cents in

They added a third squadron to the light carrier? Holy shit that makes carrier spam 33% more deadly and uncounterable now. Soon, anyone who isn't spamming carriers will not be able to resist the OPness of them now. 

It all adds to the insanity.  

It wouldn't work. TEC Hoshinko repair cruisers would repair the damage, giving TEC an astronomical advantage over the other factions. Carriers will still run away to repair facilities to recoup and regroup, after doing substantial damage.

You need something that every faction has in roughly equal supply, but just different enough that it allows the factions to diversify in its field use. Like... antimatter?

i to find them disapointing even playing against the AI let alone human players they spam carriers, i switch all my defense planes to fighters build flak units and spam hte flak ability on my cap ships and they still our run my units run rings around me then leg it after leaving my fleet and planets shattered, ive only had the game for a short amount of time and they are ruining it.

apart from carriers this game is very very good.

Make the damage caused by squad loss perminant and unrepairible. The problem is while this would work gameplay wise it doesn't work "story" wise. Thats my main issue with fixing the problem.

Use to be nobody would build strike craft, now they are king.  But slowing carriers (and lowering their armor/shieds) would help greatly; maybe not taking damage when they lost strikecraft, but costing LOTS of antimater, even resourses to build more fighters.

It's an interesting approach but it seems much more complicated than it needs to be, especially considering the balance issues presented above.

Having read most of the threads on the subject, I don't understand why increasing the damage output of flaks is so taboo as a fix to this problem.  The sole purpose of that ship is to reduce the damage output of carriers.  It's not even an actual counter - something else has to get into the fray and actually bring down the carrier.  Beyond that, the flak is garbage in any other role, which would be fine if it excelled at the role is was intended for.  

Ditto what was said above - carriers today are some of the fastest, if not the fastest, ships in the fleet. As for turning on a dime - things like bow thrusters can be used. But at the end of the day, when you are in the big ocean, turning is not the critical factor, speed in a straight line to get to/from somewhere quickly is!!!

Personally, i am a fan or Rise of Nations and the dev had a great idea to avoid spamming (because, you will agree that carriers become overpowerful when they are numerous enough to make big damage in little time). The idea was that the cost of a unit increase each time you build one. So spamming become too expensive and you have to diversify. I think it would work for spam carriers and will make the game far more interesting.

For those who think it is an artificial trick, i thought the same but in fact, it works well (those who played Rise Of Nations will agree with me, i think)

More realistic than an odd hit point decrease would be --

- dual-track casualty system:  when damage is taken or strikecraft are destroyed, some fraction is *not* repairable or rebuilt except when in a friendly system and not under fire.  Damage control is realistic, but not to the point of perfection.

- strikecraft cost resources to build; ships take resources to repair. 

- for more realism, upkeep should be based on ships, wear/tear and usage.  Ships that have been obliterated or were never even under construction shouldn't be costing you.  Waging war should be more expensive than peacetime.

- if you want to get fancier, track ordnance and crew. 

Converting solar energy into missiles would seem to be not particularly trivial... and if the crew is mostly dead, the survivors probably shouldn't be magically spawning more crew while deep in enemy space, nor should they be repairing the ship as fast as a full crew.  As far as I can tell, completely robotic ships don't really fit in too well with the present story (or the training cost/experience system).

Except that the Advent use psitech drones, 'pilots' remain on board the carrier. But something could be thought up to get round that.

*shrug*  Regardless of how the drones are controlled, they're probably material objects.  There's not likely to be an infinite number of drones on board, making them would require parts, and drones obliterated by weapons fire seem unlikely to be 100% recyclable at no cost -- some of the mass might not even be findable, if it's been scattered into high-velocity fragments.

Of course, the same holds for missiles, armor and other parts of other ships; hence I don't think it'd be particularly fair to make strikecraft cost on the grounds of realism without  similar requirements on other ships.  If you've just had a ship near-obliterated, it should not only probably be not as functional, but it would also probably not return to peak until it limps back to a friendly colony.  Even if we ascribe extreme repair capabilities to Hoshikos and the like, some of that repair probably shouldn't be doable while the ship being repaired is actually fighting...

wow I honestly don't know what to say to you guys when I say carrier spam is easy to beat. then again what do I know I beat carrier spammers all the time. srsly people what is so hard about beating carriers. personally all I see explained here is that you guys can't adapt for naught. You have to use the right ships and the right strategy to effectively counter carriers. Start by using Light frigates because Long-range frigates are weak against fighter strike craft. Try building 3 LFs to evey carrier the enemy has and you should be set. Also try upgrading some defensive options.

Honestly if your being beaten by a carrier spammer obvioulsy they are mor knowledgeable than you so they got away with it cause you didn't counter them appropaitely.

I agree that carrier spam alone is easily beaten.  If you don't know how to beat it then its because you don't know how to do it, not because its overpowered.  There have been a few threads that tell you just how to beat it.  Feel free to try to carrier spam me though.  That just means another win for me.

[_]-Greyfox

Agent of Karma in his recent post just showed everyone how Carrier SPAM is NOT counterable by LF spam. 

Furthermore I've done this and the SC will just target your LFs and if its bombers they all be dead. Also, players tend have have 1 or 2 caps and some LRFs themselves in addition with their Carrier Spam, which WILL kill your LFs in a very fast ammount of time.

No, its not easy and No, its not that counterable. You guys must be either noob stomping or playing people who don't know how to protect their carriers.

Even with LF spam if ever the carriers are in serious danger they WILL jump out, esp since they are always at the edge of the grav well. Light Carriers have very high HP and Shields equal to that of a HC and LFs will take forever to kill them. You guys are demagogues and spreading lies. 

No, No and just No. People like you will ensure Ironclad there is not a balance problem when 80% of the community seems to think so, even Agent of Karma.    

You are just showing your lack of knowledge.  Fighters dont do as much to light frigates as they do lrf and bombers suck against anything but HC, caps and structures.  I play every day with the best online players.  The people I play with generally DO protect their carriers because they know they ARE vulnerable.  If they were not vulnerable, why would anyone try to protect them at all?  The fact that you said that players tend to have caps and LRFs to go along with their carriers is stating that they are not spamming just carriers like you gripe about and they in fact are building mixed fleets.  I don't think anyone that really knows how to play is advocating spamming anything to win much less light frigates.  You have to have the appropriate balance in everything. 

Carriers have high hp and shields because they are 2 or 3 of the old carriers put together and have increased supply and cost to go along with it.  To give you an example, an Advent drone host costs 1280 credits, 230 metal, and 220 crystal and a Destra HC costs something like 550, 90, 100 and takes 10 supply.  Why should they not close to but a little less shields and hull than 2 destras when they are more than twice the cost?  Even then they die easily if you dont watch them.  If you built the equivalent cost in light frigates, that high cost carriers would be dead in no time at all and plus carriers do take time to build their SC so there is a lag before they are even at their full power.  The balance in the game so far is pretty good.  There is nothing you can spam that will be a hands down game winner.  In 1.05 you just spammed LRF or kodiaks for TEC since LRMS are crappy to win.  Now you have to build a mix of units and actually use strategy and scouting to win.  There are things that are slightly overpowered such as the marza barrage but carriers aren't it.  Carriers aren't the ultimate by any stretch but they are very versatile and should be part of any fleet. 

[_]-Greyfox

@credit
That test by agent of kharma was flawed at best. He did use LFs but still didn't counter appropraitely and he was claiming he had andvantageous foothold. First off you don't need carreirs to counter carriers but you do need them to counter some of everything else from support ships to lrfs to heavies. his explanation said there were other ships present therefore the test was null. If it was pure Carriers vs LFs you would see a difference. you also need flak to improve the survivability of Lfs. Even though they are slightly resistant they still get eaten like everything else when a large number of strike craft converge on them.

ps: if you want me to show you I am available to play games later tonight.

And I posted back with the same comment that spiral made - he said he could not defeat a load of fighters, but he didn't build flack to kill them or do anything else. Of course he lost - he played stupid. You can't expect to kill carriers without some air cover/flak to work on the SC, same as it is hard to kill carriers with just fighters. You mix and match your fleet.

If I spammed HCs at the carriers, I would win assuming they don't get bombed. However, this will happen without something to kill bombers. Fighters do this, and flak will some as well...You can go into a fight with 1/2 the amount of fighters and still kill the bombers - you might lose some ships, but you are not supposed to be able to fight a battle without losses.

CreditSuisse and Dorien seem to be on a crusade to change the game. If they invested as much time in LEARNING the game mechanics etc..., they would be very good players and would understand the advantages/disadvantages of carriers vs other ships.