Topic: Carrier's

[markc]

 I have been looking at another games write up of space carriers and they commonly have 300 fighters per ship. IMO I think that about 1/3 of the fighters might be in repair or out of commision than that gives 200 fighters for op's.
 Does this seam right to you? Should a fighter carrier be larger or smaller?

Thanks
MDC

[David Johansen]

Traveller's carriers are huge on a scale that makes Darth Vadar weep with envy.  Seriously they have ships in Traveller that carry four star destroyers into battle.

I'm thinking Silent Death's escort carriers carry a couple squadrons.  A full heavy carrier could reasonably be expected to haul, maybe 60 fighters.  Especially in settings where fuel and supplies are an issue.

[Defendi]

We have carriers in Datanet one for the ISC and Jeronans.  They average 100 fighters.  A star destroyer held 72 ties, I think.

[markc]

 I do have the Data Net and I will be looking at it today when I need a break.

 I was looking at the Traveller product Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imp., which I picked up for $3 USD PDF. And David it does have that jump-monitor carrier you talked about. And in many ways it makes sense also as if you do not have jump engins and fuel you can have better armor and weapons. The big thing is IMO each ship needs more cargo but that is just me thinking and I know that cargo is not as sexy as weapons.
 Thier is also another T4 product that deals with running systems and managing star fleets. It also has some good ideas and 1 ship of the major classes. I do not know if these are the same ships as in the Fighting Ships book but they are fairly well done. Again with the idea that they have cargo ships following them every where.
 
 Also the "jump" ship or FTL ship comcept IMO world work very very well with SM:P quantum drives. One main FTL ship and a lot of piggybackers that ride in the FTL sphere [or what ever the nomenclature is], once in system most break off to attack and some guard the FTL ship and wait in support.
 I was also thinking of a smaller carrier with maybe 30-45 fighters and maybe some EW specialty craft. Its main mission would be scounting and exploring but also have some firepower to hold its own in case of attack. It would move into a system and other smaller scout ships would FTL to systems around it, to explore for goods and resources and then meet back up with the main fleet with the info. FTL to a new cnetral star system and do it all over again. [I think I need this in my campain as it gives quite a few other people in the fleet if a PC dies and they need a replacement character but it is still a small scale operation.]

Thanks
MDC   

[Dark Mistress]

I would say most fighters would be up at any given time baring them having a lot of combat. Also I always felt 300 seems like a lot 100-150 to me seems more reasonable for big ships and light carriers I agree 30-50 range. I would base them a bit on our own modern Aircraft carries.

I mean a ship X big can only carry so many and while there is no real limit on the ship size their is a pratical limit on them. But I always was a big fan of spaceship carries myself.

[Fidoric]

I have not a clue of what loistics and maintenance will be in several centuries, but today air forces enjoy a 10% to 15% aircraft indisponibility, leaving up to 90% on-line or combat ready.

[Oldgrue]

Lets presume 10% of fighters are offline at any one time.  That's still 90 fighters.  We come to further questions of launch capability.

Depending on a race's combat doctrine the whole concept of a Carrier could be different.  I imagine a Valeisan (still working out why.) carrier might be exactly enough structure to carry the fighters from A to B, a drive system, and enough life support for the crew and pilots.  That race's idea of a fighter is also terribly important in design methodology.

Valesian made fighters probably look as much like motorcycles with guns on them as anything else. How many of these can you slap in a launch bay?  With inertia-dampening technology, ships may as well be loaded in railguns for launch: reducing the volume needed for launch apparatus. 

I'm looking forward to more of the ISC design methodology.
 

[David Johansen]

No, Valesian fighters have the guns mounted to the rear.  They're a very practical race.

Star Destroyers are primarily battle line cruisers, their fighter bays are an incidental factor making them self sufficient for planetary suppression and scouting.

Anyhow, One thought I have is that the super sized ships would probably be the result of a long term build up between wars and that during wars you'd see more smaller ships because they're easier and faster to build.

In fact it I was going to turn the tide in a Privateers campaign I'd probably have the ISC move to churning out a single multi-role frigate model from all of its factories with modular component bays to allow for specialized roles.  One of these roles would be linking two frigates to a single spine that holds a kinetic cannon and the reactor to power it.

It seems highly appropriate that the ISC would win the war by exploiting economies of scale.

[markc]

DJ,
 Do you need spin if they are mainly robots manning the ships?

Fidoric,
 Thanks for the info, that is exzactly what I was looking for. And as you said in the future there will hopfuly be not as many breakdowns and reapirs.

 One thing I did like about the Traveller info is that some higher level Tech designs were not as efficient as the old Tech ones. Or I should say did not show enough improvement over the old design to produce more than 1 or 2 prototypes. This makes perfict sense to me.
 I am a big believer right now in moduler design and if a starship can be built that way, I want it. In general I use a 1-10% volume loss for the modules to hook up to a crafts internal systems and use power, living, storage, mission specific and gunnery modules as needed. I do not know exzactly how this would work to day but I think the 0.50 % to 5% range is what I may change it to when I begin to play again.

Oldgrue,
 Since it is the future IMO I think they could launch many at a time. Sincronise the computers and launch as many as is possible depending on what is happening. If you remember the old Babalon 5 raiders and thier mother ship that looked like a disk with a bunch of spokes poking out of it that the fighters docked to and launched from. This may also be a possibility for fast or quick launches of force.

 I also think that almost every big ship would have some small craft fighters, EW Craft or drones to use as sensor platforms and see just what is out there before there is trouble. But that assumes that there is FTL communication as with out it the sensor platforms would only be used to aid in radation belts, asteriod fields and any other space terrain I do not know about that they would help. 

ISC,
 I also think that the ISC would pump out older designs or even older gunboat designs to get a leg up. Maybe they need robotic combat munitions that are sensor platform and kamakai munition all in one package. They need no food or air do not get board and only need some maintance. I think you might be able to produce quite a few of them load them onto a large well protected FTL ship with communications frigits and some larger warships and go to war. If you can prepair the battle field and place them in hiding or low power mode and use them like mines or suprise munitions as your forces retrete accross the field of space. Once the enemy has taken a good amount of damage then move in and finish them off. Also it might be easier and cheeper to train a robot to fly and use combat tactics then people. If not then you can all ways try the remove vehicle operation method and have an EW ship hidding in stealth mode just communication with the drones. Hopefully they will get the job done before the enemy jamms there communication links with the ROV munitions.

MDC 

[Defendi]

NEVER spin a ship in combat.  You have enough to worry about without trying to steer a gyroscope.

Remember that the carrier will probably always dominate combat because fighters will probably always dominate combat.  It's always easier to make something small that destroys something big (because of entropy).  That's why we don't make battleships anymore (the ISC does, for planetary bombardment to take out fighters on the ground but the carrier still rules the field.)  The most cost-effective way of killing people will probably always be flying death into combat in a small, agile package.