@diamondback973 You're incorrect. Shuttles and Super Falcons use arrays that are powered directly from their reactors. The Super Eagles use energy banks that are charged before launch. I know this because Mr Brown himself has stated it another post in these forums.
So, the shuttles and Super Falcons can perform repeated sequential jumps of one light-year. Super Eagles have a enough of a charge to perform jumps of up to one light day before they've depleted their energy banks.
@darkscribe I stand corrected. I must have misread something. Thanks for clarifying that.
How many fighters have survived so far? about none. I've mentioned this before in another thread that a fighter pilot is practically a death sentence as their survivability is so low, in particular for the capital ship battles they are dead meat.
The second problem, which is man power. There is just not enough personnel, skilled pilots are extremely rare, and the last bunch from corinair all died, any raw recruits will take year(s) to train to the level of the corinair pilots only to probably die too.
In the context of the Frontier Saga, fighters have been very useful for ground support, air superiority, and intercept of enemy fighters and missile defence. The limiting factor hasn't been how many fighters the current fleet can carry but rather how many fighters can be built and piloted.
If there were to be a carrier it would more likely be in an escort carrier roll, which would act more like a shuttle service to deliver the fighters where they're needed while the capital ships are busy with engagements. Or a ship that would have a similar role to modern flat top amphibious assault ships, which would deploy ground forces and their air support.
Sounds about right. The thing is the standard in cruisers on up in the Frontiers sage is to have a large fighter presents. because of the relatively slow speed they travel (20 Light years for 2 years operating remotely for the Takarans and 20 Light years for the lifetime of operating remotely) these large ships had to act as mobile full sized bases, carrying troops and fighters. Even the Sol fleet had large contingents of Spec Ops and Eagles on board operating 2 years in the wider system.
When you think of Escort Carriers or Full Carriers, they are not yet needed based on fleet characteristics of the three main factions we have heard about. Essentially every large ship we have seen has been built around independent maneuvers (Including the Battle Platforms)
I would like to see Ships like the Aurora become more rare, designed for special missions, while general Fleet ships take on a Ship of the Line perspective, gutting Fighters and living space and packing in more armor, power plants, redundant life-support, weapons to compete with anything currently known and Shields capable of surviving a glancing blow from a slow moving KKV.
When we have a ship of the line fleet then we can talk carriers.
In the mean time the possible conception of and construction/conversion of cargo ships into Escort carriers could work. especially if the Eagle Program pumps out the numbers of Pilots and Fighters needed to fill them.
Also I refer to an earlier idea of mine. Hooking 4 Eagles to the exterior of a Cobra for long distance deployment. with low numbers this idea is a fast cheap alternative to the escort carrier dilemma.
@four-island,
Here is a twist on your idea. Convert a rock harvester into a mini carrier by hooking the 4 eagles/falcon on. Its seems to be that would be a bit larger (not sure how the scale works but would think that to be profitable, you need a boat load of rock).
At the current point of the story, carriers or escort carriers are not practical (per Ryk), not enough fighters, and every ship carries them. In the future, when true ships of the line come forth, then the carriers will become more practical.
Well I was thinking that a warship like the Cobra, could be in orbit, have some eagles "land" on flattened and reinforced sections of the hull where weapons like KKV's could otherwise be held, have an attachment arm hold the Eagle in place while also funneling power to the Eagles jump emitters for the required sequence of Jumps then detach the Fighter at the limit of the engagement environment, and then the Fighters and Cobra's form into they're respective units to engage.
You really do not need more then to reinforce some of the hull of the Cobra's around the normal mooring points.
Add the attachment arm.
Add the correct power relays on the Cobra.
Add the attachment point for the power / attachment arm to the Eagles
Figure out a way to power the upper jump emitters only, to the extent of covering the eagle with the Cobra's jump field.
It only one for one way trips into the hot zone, any surviving Eagles could come back at they're leisure on the Aurora or on the remaining undamaged Cobras's or possibly in Box cars. Seems practical to me.
No need to requisition more ships that are not easily available at the moment. and we are still only producing the innitial batches of the ships in question so retrofitting the next batches with the new tech required should not be too difficult. they extended the Aurora's fields before afterall.
An external flight deck would greatly limit your ability to re-arm, do repairs, swap out pilots or administer first aide to pilots (remember when the eagle came back without a canopy), loading/unloading shuttles.
If you are sending in Cobra's carrying Eagles, you are probably going to have the Aurora and or another capital ship in there too. those ships will double as the carriers, the Cobra is just a method of carrying fighters to the fight that would otherwise not be able to make it on they're own. The Aurora Holds what 60 fighters? Imagine them along with 200 hundredth others being delivered by Cobra, and then they just line up for rearm on the Aurora, repairs on the Aurora, and shipping out in stages on Cobra's, in Box cars, and the Aurora as needed (shipping back home doesn't need to happen immediately) this idea is purely for fast attack with Numbers scenarios. An Alliance specialty.
The idea is to completely overwhelm enemy forces with numbers when the enemy has they're defenses up already. we have seen the Alliance have difficulty when the locals pop they're defenses up in time. Parity in numbers would give the Alliance complete air superiority against the current Jung planetary forces on Alert.
I think it really comes down to the mission. In some cases, super carriers would be a big advantage. In others, they would be extreme overkill. When it comes to ship to ship engagements, fighters are fairly useless. Jung ships can just go to FTL if the fighters become a threat. And although fighters can take down larger ships, they need large numbers and a target that cannot go to FTL to escape.
Fighters seem more applicable to complex, layered engagements, where many of the ships are smaller gunships or frigates. They really shine for ground support and air superiority within the atmosphere.
As for super carriers, I think the Jung had the right idea with battle platforms. They are more like full on military bases. Their problem is that they were built to withstand attack from projectile weapons, and not jump ships with energy weapons. They were designed to be able to stand toe-to-toe with enemy ships and slug it out with massive rail guns. And they depended too heavily on their shields. Once they come down, the platform's big guns (which could not track fast moving jump ships) were ineffective. Solve those problems, and battle platforms could be more like super carriers that also serve as spaceports and bases for ground assault battalions.
I think that Jung held worlds in they're own sector / or newly captured ones in the Sol Sector would have thousands of Jung Fighters assigned to them in future. If the Alliance are serious about the possible future Jung threat, then they would have plans to level the playing field, and bring a fast response fleet to target quickly and having additional fighters above and beyond standard complements of they're ships would benefit that kind of mission.
