dahaic
commented
5 years ago Honestly, I have never seen small size ships as equivalent to fighters of contemporary era, but more like smallest self-sufficient vessels, corvettes. (Large being just 4 times the size of Small). For the flight deck (FD) idea itself I am wondering would be real outcome of this? I can imagine these four scenarios.
Assault on defended position: FD ships will be in a big risk while attacking planets - there are no mechanisms to deprioritize them. So the attack would be probably as costly as when normal FTL ships are involved, just the split of costs would be different.
Assault of undefended system: Make a drop and get the hell out (with FD ships). That would work - defenders would clash with cost-effective STL ships, but STL ships couldn't retreat in case of bigger counterattack.
Active defense - moving to system before enemy arrives: This wouldn't work - if you have as many FDs as STLs, it would miss the point completely.
Passive defense - proactively moving to systems you plan to harden: This could work, you can move it chunk by chunk. But when comparing to the defense fleets with small FTL capabilities, the benefits are probably not so big. And you basically exchange more time spend in game [managing FD transports] for slight efficiency. I would prefer not to do that, the game shouldn't be a chore.
Only assault on undefended system seems interesting to me. Not sure it's worth the hassle, when it increases logistics micromanagement of whole game.
With the advent of STL engines, adding a flight deck for a unique take on space warfare is now wide open.
Pro: It allows a player to invest in a very expensive semi fragile BB that can carry many STL fighters which are cheap but can add a punch to the fight.
Cons: It will need to be defended meaning it pretty much will be a humans centric use (they make great medium and large ships better than other species @ using them to soak up damage). Also it would need to be designed to not break the balance, but still add value. Seeing as engines begin to get expensive later on, hauling a hundred fighters. They would have to be cheap and mass produced (as too much armor negates any benefit) So maybe Bios would find a use for them. Also coding for them would be a pain. there wouild be a need to be a check on the fleet composition that there are enough flight decks to allow movement (or hide from movement) all the STL capable fighters (maybe a count the number of small ships w/ speed 0 and compare against total # of flight decks (max fighter count) then ignore movement penalties for them........)
This idea is sounding worse and worse, but I have put it here in hopes it can be useful even if it is a "Never do an idea like this in a game, it is a headache and no one will like it.," type of thing.