Carrier Class

Yes it would be sweet, but jump fighters kind of negate the need. If fighters can be called in from 100 light years away in the space of 20 minutes, and normal flight ops would cycle all the onboard birds in about that time then I don't see a problem with the current designs

@four-Islands you have a good point..here is a counter point.

So as it stands right now, the SF and SE have to jump to a staging area, wait for the go order, jump in, fight, expend all ordnance, Then jump back to staging area where ever that is, then jump back to Sol to re-arm.

Having a carrier class, have the carrier either at staging area, or jump 1/2 AU out from target area, fighters launch, jump in the the Battle Zone, fight then head back to the carrier to re-arm/refuel.

Depending on jump times/cooldowns back to sol from target area, this could cut a great deal of time off target.

Alliance Super Eagles don't have the ability to jump a hundred light-years. They only carry enough energy in their energy banks to jump up to one light-day before needing to be recovered by a carrier or other ship capable of recovering them. Super Falcons can jump continuously in a series of jumps, but as of the end of Episode 15 there are only four of them left.

A dedicated carrier would have to sacrifice offensive capabilities to include as many fighters as possible. Their purpose would most likely to be jumped into a combat zone, deploy their fighters, and jump out to a safe zone along with their escorts. The fighters would either jump back to the carrier for rearming/refueling/recharging or, if their reserves were too depleted, the carrier would jump back into the combat zone once hostilities had ended.

Now that you mention it, I'm pretty sure that I knew the Super Eagle had a short jump range (I completely forgot!) So yes! Super Carriers!!!

I see three stages for the Super Carrier idea (or how to ferry lots of Fighters to a target very far away quickly and efficiently)

1) The Super Carrier
I would really like to see a ship as large as a Battleship with engines, Jump drive, crew section, and a truly massive multi-level flight deck/Hanger set up for 200+ fighters. It would take a lot of time to build this and I do not know where to build it. I imagine that one of the Tua Ceti Ship yards four segments could be re-tasked to build something like this (Using Multiple Frigate components strapped together, it doesn't need to be pretty its not meant to see battle just be a ferry for the Fighters and stand off out of system). It could repair and carry the Eagles home after the mission , act as a command for the Fighter complements and be used to overwatch for Ground operations. Do we really want to keep battle ready ships like the Aurora stuck in orbit when other tasks might be required of it.

2) Modified Framework for Frigates
I see the Alliance using the cheapest set-up to furry Eagles to battle. Adding detachable scaffolding with extra jump emitters to a number of frigates (either clustered or individual) this would extend the jump field on these ships and allow near objects to share the Frigates "jump bubble" to piggyback say 5 or 6 Eagles (pre-launched) to the edge of the target system. (its not much, but it is something, especially while Eagle numbers (and especially Falcon numbers) are still relatively low)

Not a big fan of this for large attacks but or if a Frigate were to be flying "border patrol" with a CAP it would speed up the Recovery / Jump / launch. and if Alliance Frigates can actually hold fighters, then they could be cycled on board and travel in larger numbers then Frigates could normally carry.

3) Cobra with hull attachment points
Before the Cobra's going into production in Tau Ceti I would suggest a few minor hull adjustment. Imagine if an Eagle could "land" and "attach" to the hull of a ship. During jumps, power could be pumped though the attachment points to feed the Eagles topside jump emitters in line with the ship's own emitters, allowing the Eagle to piggyback on journeys far greater then it would normally be able to travel using the Cobra's Multi Jumps (allows the very quick launching of attacks over light years).

Imagine having a Cobra multi jump 50 light years to the edge of a system, detach from the hull 4 Eagles, and in the space of 30 seconds you have five jump ships ready to attack the system. Now imagine that you have 30 Cobra's, imagine that they do 3 trips each from Earth to Target system transporting additional Eagles to the staging point. In the space of 30 minutes you could have dropped 480 Fighters at the staging point with just the Cobra's. Then the Frigates, Cruisers and Battleships can arrive and cycle their fighters out (possibly cycling the on station fighters refreshing pilots prior to the attack). I would not like to be on the receiving end of say 600 Super Eagles, with say 10 Super Falcons, 30 Cobra's, Jump Frigates, Jump Cruisers and Jump Battleships with Jump Missiles, Jump KKV and Planet killer KKV's

After the initial attack, the Eagles can be cycled though the larger ships hangers for refresh and pilot swap out. And used to maintain control on the planets temporally. Bringing the Super Eagles back will involve using the Larger ships and Boxcars. Boxcars should be able to transport 2 or 3 of them at a time (Judging by the Pictures). I imagine that post mission the transporting of all of the Super Eagles home could take in excess of a full day (without using the Cobra's).

I really like this idea the most, but I'm not sure how practical it is "in story". What do you think @Rykbrown???

A massive carrier is a cool idea, but for now, I don't think it's a wise investment for the Alliance. Their biggest concern at this point has got to be defending what they have. And if the Jung tried to invade Alliance turf, they're not going to do so with swarms of fighters.

Super Eagles really on have two uses. Fighter Intercept and Close Air Support for ground operations. As neither of those scenarios are likely in the near future, building super carriers would be a waste. At the most, they might create a jumpable staging platform, but even that seems unlikely.

Super Eagles are probably overkill for close support. Did you notice the Air Force has backed away from retiring the A-10, again. Low and Slow makes the ground-pounders happy. 🙂

The A-10 is a special Air Craft, though.
It can still fly even after loosing an engine, half a wing and half its tail wing.
No other Aircraft could ever do that.

Having seen the A10 work up close and personal. I FREAKING LOVEEEEEEE those aircraft....We knew when those beautiful bastards showed up, we had some pain to dish out.

@Rykbrown While you are right about the cost and need of a super carrier for the Alliance, the idea is still sound. Maybe in the mid term future for the alliance. I would assume (i know, i know assuming is usually bad) that eventually, the SE and SF would have to be replaced due to attrition, tech advancement, contracts etc...so take into account the best aspects of both craft and create a superdupermega-kickass-raptor class "Aircraft" that has the ability to do the multi jump. The Carrier idea is more for pilot/crew rest flight replenishment.

Even the boxcars could be used for short term use....back the holds with aircraft jump in, dump the aircraft and bounce out. Either way, its a fun discussion. Nice to dream....

The fact that the Aurora & the Explorer class can carry 50-60 Eagles means that we have yet to see a proper full scale Alliance Attack yet. And with the Jung now aware of the Alliance and their Tactics, destroying all Jung fighters on the ground will never happen again. The Eagles will become much more important in the battles to come.

When we have a larger number of Eagles, A dedicated Carrier ship would be an amazingly powerful resource. (for attack or liberation or the whole scale defense of a system.)

Unfortunately the Alliance needs more warships in the Frigate/Cruiser/Battleship Classes first... so we will be waiting a a long time for a Dedicated Carrier class ship. (My guess 15-30 years, if Ryk feels they are necessary, between the Cruisers and Battleships carrying capacity there will be a lot of fighters anyway)

@four-island
True we will have to wait..here is a thought. How much room could you change over to weapons if you remove fighter alley and only leave a small shuttle/ landing zone? 60 SE's will take up a lot of room. How many missiles can that hold?

Energy weapons have the most effective use of space. Missiles get spent, then you have to go replace them. Fighters get chewed up, and you lose some, then you have to replace them and the physical ammo & missiles they spent. Energy weapons just keep on giving, though. It seems to me a fairly small ball, with just a huge reactor, shields, jump drive, and tons of Class X energy weapons would be the ultimate.

Or one really big plasma cannon on it kind of like the deathstar. Actually, why didn't anyone try to ram it at the greater part of the speed of light? I guess nothing in the Starwars universe gets up to a large enough sublight speed to cause generate the kinetic energy needed to destroy it / they have FTL but the star destroyers travel very slowly apart from that.

Either way in the FS universe, 1 big enough FTL ship or a full spread of planet killer KKVs and its gone.

You would be better off with a fleet of smaller ships with medium power weapons. Its just good sense.

Energy weapons would be a good thing for sure...and correct they would be better than missiles or Rail guns. IF the tech base gets better, maybe even some plasma gatling type guns for close in support/point defense

@Jason you must have forgotten that the jump emitter arrays on the fighters and shuttles take power directly from the reactors and have no energy banks. Since there are no energy banks on the fighters and shuttles, their jump ranges go up to about a light year. However, also because there are no energy banks, they can perform repeated max-range jumps without recharging.