Concur that Tarqueline's analysis is very cool. Thank you very much! While I like Fallen's feedback, I'm really interested in the experience of other players. I've tried a bit of carrier myself, which I will relate below.
I carry far more gunners than I need to fill out the ship dice rolls because I want talents such as "Supremacy of Firepower". I try to stay friends with all actions, which means a lot of patrolling, which means I need as many talents to modify the patrol card game as possible. Playing at normal difficulty, I don't need to specialize my crew as much; so I have spies for collecting intelligence, scavengers for orbitals, and an exoscout and explorer for roaming strange new worlds. That's what space is all about, at least for me.
To carry this large crew I use a sword battlecruiser. I normally want as large a ship as possible because I want as many officer cabins as possible, the better to pick up side quests such as Da Rivesh's blade or call of the strong.
The sword I was flying had two empty bunks, so I decided to bite the bullet and bring in some brown-shoe flight crew. I hired a level 6 wing leader to fly an interdictor and a wing tech to maintain it. I don't know what ratio the Brothers have in mind, but I'm going to go for one tech for every two craft, as well as one pilot. This would require eight crew for the full complement of five craft, which would impact my other mission objectives, but the sword has enough crew that I can pick up a craft or two fairly easily.
Now that I had my personnel, now I needed a craft for them to fly. The Sword has four large slots, and I assume I need at least one for flight operations. I have a void engine, two cargo holds, and a 42-person barracks. I sacrificed a medium slot l-support rover and radiation seals for two mid-size barracks of 36 and 12 , respectively. This allowed me to swap out the large-slot barracks for an advanced launch bay, which can launch craft and maintain one.
I was at Alta Mesa Prime as a level 8 officer in that factions' military. On my map, the planet has starport 10 and military 10. I went to buy a craft, and found my options topped out at a level 5 interdictor, a level 2 shuttle, and a level 2 bomber.
I'm a bit puzzled why I only got level 2 shuttles and bombers but level 5 interdictors. Is it directly related to the level of the pilots? I had previously acquired the Officer from Call of the Strong, who came with level 2 wing commando and levels in soldier. And as I said, I had hired a level 6 wing leader crew and a level 5 wing tech. If I hired a wing commando and advanced levels to 5, would I get access to level 5 shuttles and bombers?
Level 6 craft are not available. I assume the event has not dropped; I'm playing on droid, so the Trese brothers' latest patch which ensures that it will is not in effect. I suspect it's not important at this stage. Is there really that much difference between a level 5 and level 6 ship?
So I start with two talents: Aegis defense, and strafe.
So I get into battle with a xeno and flash charge to range 4. On the first turn I deploy the craft while advancing in aegis defense mode. By the time it's on station, I'm already at range 3 and there's little for him to do.
Interestingly enough aegis defense is a 3-turn flight plan but it never landed. The battle lasted 11 turns as my ship closed to boarding range , and my little friend stuck around on patrol, waiting for missiles or torpedoes that never came.
Next time around , start at range 5. He deploys and is able to intercept 1 missile at range 4 but by then I've already pushed past and, again, there's nothing for him to do. Again, remains on station throughout the battle.
Next time, use 'strafing run'. This looks like it will be the best use against a non-carrier for my playstyle, as it deploys, flies up, strafes the enemy, returns and docks. This works exactly as expected.
Upon further review, I think this will become more useful once enemy carriers become available. I plan to sacrifice another medium module slot for a second interdictor. Those two craft , supplemented by on-board autocannons, can engage enemy craft and keep them busy while the mother ship closes to board and wrecks the enemy. This defensive umbrella will prove very useful. As useful as more guns and targeting matrices and talents? Maybe not. But I'm still going to make the experiment. So my use of carrier craft is in a defensive formation; not offensive themselves, but providing an increased defense umbrella over the mother ship as it performs the main effort.
So far I'm still not persuaded that carriers are worth it from a pure spreadsheet calculation of cost vs. benefit. But I will admit that they are
fun, and really, that's what we play games for, right?
fallen, if you see any misconceptions please correct me. Also, I would suggest a new vignette or even optional story mission which require the use of craft, the better to incentivize experimentation and familiarization with this new feature.
Also, I should note that I'm really looking forward to
fighting carriers. Bring 'em on! The sooner the better!
Respectfully,
Brian P.
