Freighter as carrier

[Weylin]

Could the purpose of the freighter be expanded to behave as a mobile starbase and resupply?
I'm mainly just asking that the default servers are set to have it.
There's times a dock is needed, but no one is qualified to operate a Starbase.
Freighters are currently just a high volume newbie ship (Still less than a BC :| ). All I ask is they have an added support role. This would be especially helpful for players going as pirates.

To work as a carrier they just need 2 tractors and a factory, correct? If they just had a small version of the factory (machine shop?) it wouldn't repair armor as quickly as a fully fledged factory can.

[NiteHawk]

I'm not so sure about this overall.  A freighter is a freighter. Overall I was hoping to make it more useful via if we ever add 'resources' in game. I was also hoping instead of lugging around colonies, that you could lug around items you pick up and people in cargo space rather then most items going into the void. Thus freighters would be great at scavenging because they have tons of room.

I actually did want a support class ship though, a repair/build ship for structures and such, in the future...

[Weylin]

If a freighter is made for lugging a bunch of stuff, would it be out of the question for a ship to dock and refit at it?
What harm could it cause? they only have 1 gun slot.

The only problem I see is that damage reduction thing that would only be making the AI freighters tough as hell to kill.

I don't know, pirates need something for low ranking players that lets them be a mobile refit.

[ChillFactor]

Maybe not AS quickly, but fast enough. This sounds good mainly for pirates who just have one SB outside Sol, in Epsilon Eridani.

Also this would work good on larger scenarios, as these ships would act as staging points for players to recover from battle quickly, instead of having to go back to the SB.

[Blackdog]

Sounds interesting for sure.  I suggest the speed and turning be cut in about half if the freighter has a factory (or machine shop) and 2 tractors on board.  It they are to act more base like, they should have some drawbacks in doing so.

[Weylin]

Isn't having half as many guns as a corvette a bit of a drawback already?

EDIT: And that one gun they have, it only has a 10 degree arc. It's about like a narrow forward V

[Blackdog]

Good point.  Probably does not need any more drawbacks  .

[Weylin]

It's also 0.02c slower and has 500 less volume than a cruiser.

The only thing it has going for it is defaulting with armor:2 and room for some extra utilities like brakes and counters, but I took a SINGLE TORP hit while carrying a colony, and I just exploded (power:1 sucks). How the fuck does that work? Maybe that was before armor was fixed...

Anyhow, the freighters are totally out of balance from the other classes, there's nothing special they do. At least if they could be a resupply ship it would justify their poor weaponry and substandard volume.

[Mars]

come in the OE server and see what we did to carriers bigger volume than a sb yet limits on what it can have and speed we fixed the speed at 17 it will carry up to three rapid 2 and will only warp with h2

[Cykotitan]

Yea but it cant have a much bigger volume than SB which has 32k and the max is 32,727 (signed 16-bit integer)

sorry for being off for so long, net was going up and down constantly. turned out to be faulty usb cable in the end

[Weylin]

I figure carriers should be lightly armed, smaller and faster than a starbase, and carry only 2 ships at a time.

The emphasis would be on mobile supply, not planet defense.

[Mars]

well sf is about the future and what would take shape many years from now,  if you look at the current carriers on the oceans, they are the most feared ships there,   they can send up to 60 fighters and some even carry apache and commanche helos.   carriers often have two to 4 fast firing weapons as well anti ship to ship missiles and very good detection and jamming gear.    if you go many years forward you would assume upgrades to carriers since this time not just that they travel in space vs oceans but with the weapons also being the threats in space are much different than now.   it would be heavy armed with at least three long range weapons and at least two short range weapons to reflect the changes from various races that have been encountered.   it would hold many more than 60 fighters but since that in game would be a challenge i can accept fewer and more specialized ones.   To make up for the lack of in game fighters heavy guns should be placed to defend the carrier from attack being it is such a large target and may depend more on defensive weapons than brute force.  however brute force in space is required of larger targets because of speed limitations vs fighters or other craft.

i say more vol than a sb  but one fewer guns one fixed gun as a def weapon and at least 12 fighters with options to pick what kind bombers ect.

mars

[Weylin]

OK, just call Freighters Freighters and give them a factory and 2 tractors and we can stop the terminology bullshit of what a carrier should be.
Then the freighter actually, you know, freights supplies; Ammo, upgrades and repairs for friendly ships on the front line.
While you're at it, you can make the low weight factory unit not show up in the upgrades listing so only the freighter can have it.

[Harpor]

thats a great Idea weylin.
having cargo ships with cargo hehe anyway for pirate raiders to steal there goods ';..;'

i atually like the idea of 2 tractors but as long as refit goes to the dock and not some random starship i think its a great idea

[Sandtrooper]

i atually like the idea of 2 tractors but as long as refit goes to the dock and not some random starship i think its a great idea

Problem with this becomes a big one, since the game will kick in the Starbase HP protocol if a Freighter has twin tractors, because the game will see any ship design /w 2 tractors as a dock, regardless of what shape and size it is.