Carriers can they be made better?

[Target]

With this talk is the poseidon useful or not which carrier is?
The Balvarix is actually not half bad with big guns fwd & aft just it's fighters aren't great.
Morshin looks all right as far as carriers go ( haven't used one so really know) maybe more firepower is needed.
T'Rann needs a troop score replacing 10 troops with 3 frazi flights & downgrade of it's main weapon is very rough, it should carry at least 6.
The Balavrian is just a poor mans Nova, very poor man.
How can we improve carriers so we will take them?
Our group has heap of house rules but many people like to play with the current rules so thats not a option.
The way to make them more effective might be to give them more fighters & scrap the whole VP for them as many are in favour of.
I was thinking
Poseidon 24 flights
3rd era Avenger 12
Early era add fleet carrier
Morshin 10 nials, 2 Flyers increase all AD by 2
Balvarian Fwd& Aft 2 AD Anti Matter Cannon or 8 flights carrier 2
Balvarix 4 Rutarian included
T'Rann 6 flights, Troops 4, carrier 2, maybe fleet carrier
Garosch Fleet carrier
Every other race some sought of carrier/ fleet carrier
What else could we do?

 

[Obsidian]

As a thought, what about simply dropping them all one priority level? Might need some slight tweaks, but for the most part I think that just might do it.

Looking over the newly broken out EA fleet lists, one of the first things that struck me was the Avenger's move from Battle to Raid. At Battle, I would never bother with one of the things. At Raid though... well that's a different story.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Not all of those carriers are that bad a choice to take.
The Avenger is ok. It needs more range on its plasma cannon thigh. Personally I would arm EA carriers with missile racks and not plasma cannon though so they can contribute from a safer distance.

The T'Rann is ok mainly because it is only raid level. It has a good fighter loadout for that level, good punch for that level, and is tough as nails at its level. The problem is that is as big a carrier as the Narn use.

The Morshin is just fine in my opinion. It is quick has a decent allotment of very good fighters and it has good range on its weapons.

The Balvarin is ok because it is only raid level. It is like the T'Rann but with less punch and more fighters. The ship itself is fine, it is let down by the weak anti-ship capabilities of Centauri fighters. Without the carrier trait it also takes TOO long to launch. It will never get 6 flights out fast enough to matter. Three rounds of scrambling fighters is just too much. Again, it is raid level so Centauri will just have to deal with it.

The Balvarix is too slow for its proiority. and has lousy weapon range for its priorrity. Increase the matter cannon range to 18 or so or give it one of those 20" battle lasers with maybe 3d of damage instead of the matter cannon. It carries a good loadout and has the fleet carrier properties but centauri fighters just suck for anti-shipping. Sentri and Razik fighters are bad, the Rutarian isn't much better but costs a LOT more. I don't think it would be unreasonable to let it have 2-4 flights of Rutarians as standard loadout.

In general, the issues I have are with carriers of Battle level or higher. At that point you are paying a lot for your carrier and it needs to contribute more than just a few loads of fighters (unless they are very good fighters). Fighters of all types are just too fragile to survive for long. Battle and higher carriers need to have enough speed to keep them alive (minimum 8) and at least 1 decent long-ish range weapon system to contribute to the fight after its fighters are wiped out. I would say that the weapon system should be no more than 1/2 as powerful as the one used by the standard warship of the race for that priority level.

Tzarevitch

 

[Silvereye]

I don't think upping the armament on an X-class Carrier is the right way to go, nor is just stuffing more and more fighters in.

Basically as I see it there are three kinds of 'carrier' employed within the game.

Fighter Transports: Those with more than two flights and no way to launch them quickly. Nova, Omega, Warlock, Sharlin, Balvarin, Octurion, Bin'Tak, G'Vrahn, T'Rann, Milani, Storm Falcon, Z'Takk. Basically either warships with lots of internal hanger space, or really, really poor excuses for Carriers (Balvarin (I guess the Sentris are carried in packing crates and some no doubt exit the ship still covered in the Centauri equivalent of bubble-wrap) and T'Rann).

Carriers: Ships with the Carrier trait, able to quickly launch their payload of fighters within a couple of turns. Early Avenger, Adira, Ka'Bin'Tak, Victory, Brikorta, Brivoki, Fireraptor, Nightfalcon.

Fleet Carriers: ships with both a high Carrier trait and Fleet Carrier trait. These ships also come with the Command trait. 3rd Age Avenger, Poseidon, Morshin, Neroon, Balvarix, White Star Carrier, Brokados.

Why are Sentris pants at attacking ships? Because they are designed to intercept enemy fighters. The result of this is that Centauri ships are not well defened against fighter attack (thats what the Sentris are for) but they mount better anti-ship weaponry instead.

Fighter use (and therefor the usefulness of carriers) by a race also depends on what role(s) they want their fighters to perform. Interceptor types (e.g. Centauri Sentri/Raziks) that prevent an enemy fleet from attacking your ships with their fighters, Anti-ship fighters (e.g. Narn Frazi, EA thunderbolt) designed to attack enemy shipping and some that are capable of both (e.g. Minbari Nial). Most Craft loadout values and Carrier trait ratings seem to be loosely based around the old B5Wars hanger spaces and launch/recovery (however under B5wars an empty Poiseidon cost the same as an empty Omega Pulse Destroyer which would certainly not be the case under ACTA).

A races fighters should be of a different quality and capability to any other races, these differences are "balanced" by the quantity availabile as a wing (as it stands 1 Nial = 2 Sky Serpents = 3 Starfury = 4 Sentri = 6 Kotha). This comparison only stands as true if fighter wings are purchased seperately.

Considering the Sharlin built around the following premise. If 1 War point (at War Level) equates to 6 Patrol points, then. A Sharlin carries 4 Patrol points of Nials and 1/2 a Patrol point of Flyers. So excluding the auxillary loadout (of 4 1/2 Patrol points) an 'empty' Sharlin is a pretty cheap at the equivalent of 1 1/2 Patrol points of choice.

A Poseidon under the same breakdown by comparison carries 5 1/3 Patrol points of Starfuries. The 'empty' Poseidon then comes in at 2/3 Patrol points of choice. So are two empty Poseidon then, about an even match for a single empty Sharlin?

So instead of whacking additional racially appropriate guns on every available flat surface of a carrier. I would perhaps suggest the following (although it will no doubt take ages to figure out):
Balanace all fighters costs against each other (rate them in auxillary points or something). Balance an Auxiallary point against a Patrol point. Re-level all ships with some (certainly more then 1 or 2) flights based on their empty capabilities and then re-cost the ships to include the value auxillary carried. Round any resulting fractions to the nearest PL you will get a semi decent representation of the cost of a ship + auxillary payload.

 

[angelus2000]

Good points but I'd go somewhat furthur. As it stand right now, the costs of the Independent Wings is based on thier pre-SFOS effectiveness, if I'm not mistaken; back when all fighters had Precise, insane dodge rolls, high hulls, etc. Which I believe is the reason independent Wings are a joke atm, unless its a very low PL campaign battle.

As the fighter rules stand, every ship that carries fighters should be carrying 1-2 more, and carriers can easily be doubled in capacity. The fighter hordes can pack a fearsome punch if used right, but you need a ton of them simply because of a complete lack of durability, even with Dodge scores.

En masse fighters are one shot raid or skirmish level ships, in essence. Once they hit range and fire, the return AF, MB, and plain old Vanilla AD usually kills every last single one. And thats without funky fun like E-Mines and Vorlon Charged Pulse.

 

[Locutus9956]

The Avenger dropped to raid? didnt notice that before but that just makes the Posseidon even less worthwhile by comparison .

For the posseidon either make it tougher (just hull 5 would do maybe drop a few hp to compensate of course, lots of hits and low hull just makes you crit fodder sadly and also lessens the usefulness of interceptors due to the extra NUMBER of hits you take per turn) or drop it to Battle and tweak it a bit. I actually dont think it would be too bad as a battle choice as it stands but its proably a bit TOO big for that and has a few too many fighters as it stands.

 

[Silvereye]

The Avenger dropped to raid? didnt notice that before but that just makes the Posseidon even less worthwhile by comparison .

It is only the Early Years EA Avenger that is Raid. 3rd Age is still a Battle level choice. Basically it is just a couple of AD here and there, and Fleet Carrier and Interceptors of difference. It just shows really how dreadful the Balavarin is.

For the posseidon either make it tougher (just hull 5 would do maybe drop a few hp to compensate of course, lots of hits and low hull just makes you crit fodder sadly and also lessens the usefulness of interceptors due to the extra NUMBER of hits you take per turn) or drop it to Battle and tweak it a bit. I actually dont think it would be too bad as a battle choice as it stands but its proably a bit TOO big for that and has a few too many fighters as it stands.

Dropping it to a Battle choice would put it in direct competition for a fleet slot with the Avenger. Which without massive tweaking it is very superior to. The Poseidon appears to be one of these beasts that is almost worth two of a Battle slot.

As it stands you need to consider when you would use a Poseidon - For me this would probably be at least 4+ War level. And when such a fleet might be made up of 1x Poseidon, 3x Omega, 2x Hyperion, 2x Nova, 2x Oracle, 4x Hermes. The Poseidon is suddenly much less of a priority target as it is pretty poor as an offensive platform.

To 'disable' a Fleet Carrier you need to inflict enough damage to cripple the thing - and hope to get that 4+ on the bits that count and/or skeleton crew to remove the Command. You cannot crit these traits away. Speed reductions, no special actions and no firing are not major problems as you are not going to steam into the middle of an enemy fleet and attempt to lay waste to suround ing ships with it's minimal weaponry. If you perform a Special Action you cannot Launch fighters (though once the bays are empty Close Blast Doors! looks appealing). However compared to the other options fielded Hull 5 and a minor stat tweak would increase its damage sponge abilities further.

 

[Chernobyl]

I've often argued to remove the 30" range restriction of the Fleet Carrier ability.

Chern

 

[Triggy]

A lot of the issue here is that with the current Armageddon rules, fighters are slightly overvalued. This not only makes buying Wings very expensive but in turn it makes Fleet Carriers overpriced (in general) too (excepting the Morshin and White Star Carrier). Without turning them all into combat carriers by increasing their weapons and toughness, the only available tools are to drop their PL (and correspondingly drop some of their ability to prevent them being overpowered) or to increase the Fighter complement/launch rate.

For most Fleet Carriers ask yourself this question, would I ever take one in a competative game? (i.e. one where you want to take a tough fleet to defeat) If not then it's moderately likely that it's not quite good enough and hopefully will be dealt with in future.

One example would be the EA Avenger - The Raid PL version is better for the PL than the Battle PL version but would you really rather take it over a Nova (or two)? Having the Fleet Carrier trait at Raid PL would be interesting though. Comparing this to the Morshin, it's already a better combat ship (worth about a Raid PL ship) and its payload of eight Nials and 1 Flyer is significant, particularly when backed up by Fleet Carrier.

p.s. I've found that the way fighters most often die is in ship explosions, which is a waste really as otherwise you could use them again and again in a battle (despite their already being a partial success) and limiting your firepower on a target that's about to die can often keep the remaining fighters alive just long enough to be a distraction or even useful in taking out another ship.

 

[High Sierra]

Vree really need a carrier.

its a bit pants having to use up patrol points just to have fighters on the table.

incidentally, having another fighter type available for Vree would be nice too - no need for a new model, just a variant maybe,.

 

[captainsmirk]

AoG already created a smaller Vree fighter, the Zorth. And they made a Fleet Action scale model of it as well so Mongoose probably has that. In fact I believe matt mentions it in his Love for Aliens thread.

Nick