The Atrox doesn't have more hangar capacity. Just as you said, the Atrox's flight pods equal a modern day carrier. Literally.
Unlike a modern day carrier, the Atrox cannot use it's 'flight decks' as impromptu storage to increase the amount of Fighters it can support. That drops it's flight compliment.
Unlike modern day fighters, Star Trek Fighters have a fixed size. They cannot fold up their wings/pylons etc. and are typically bulkier, seating 2 with room for several passengers. They're more akin to Helicopters than your typical jet fighter. That also drops it's flight compliment.
The Atrox only has a crew compliment of 3000. While Modern carriers have the same amount, they also have the Flight Crew which usually counts for another 2000 or so. The Atrox doesn't have that specialty crew, thus it cannot support the same amount of fighters. Another drop to the flight compliment.
So while ships (including fighter and shuttlecraft) have gotten larger, carrier operations haven't.
The Atrox doesn't have more hangar capacity. Just as you said, the Atrox's flight pods equal a modern day carrier. Literally.
Unlike a modern day carrier, the Atrox cannot use it's 'flight decks' as impromptu storage to increase the amount of Fighters it can support. That drops it's flight compliment.
And why not? The flight pods very clearly have mag-con fields keeping them pressurized.
Unlike modern day fighters, Star Trek Fighters have a fixed size. They cannot fold up their wings/pylons etc. and are typically bulkier, seating 2 with room for several passengers. They're more akin to Helicopters than your typical jet fighter. That also drops it's flight compliment.
The Atrox only has a crew compliment of 3000. While Modern carriers have the same amount, they also have the Flight Crew which usually counts for another 2000 or so. The Atrox doesn't have that specialty crew, thus it cannot support the same amount of fighters. Another drop to the flight compliment.
Firstly, STO crew numbers are next to meaningless.
Secondly, crew complement and ship capacity are not at all related. An Akira class ship comes with a crew of 500, yet it has the capacity to transport 4500 additional personnel if need be, while still functioning as an active strike carrier with upwards of 40 strike craft in it's fighter wing.
And it's also less than half the size of an Atrox.
The Atrox only has a crew compliment of 3000. While Modern carriers have the same amount, they also have the Flight Crew which usually counts for another 2000 or so. The Atrox doesn't have that specialty crew, thus it cannot support the same amount of fighters. Another drop to the flight compliment.
it doesn't need a specialty crew, because star trek has photonics, which are just as capable of piloting fighters as flesh-and-blood pilots
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
I don't think anyone would want a carrier that is completely unarmed except for it's fighter compliment.
Replicators, industrial or otherwise are not the infinite material source some would perceive, they require energy on a massive scale and possibly some source of raw materials which would need to be housed somewhere. Also contributing to it's size is it's propulsion and energy systems, matter/antimater and fusion reactors all use reaction mass which must be stored aboard ship. Starships are meant to be afield for multiple years at a time, not simply a few months deployment, so the amount of interior volume dedicated to crew is considerably greater than would be the case of a modern carrier. A modern carrier built to meet those requirements and still be able to field 80 fighters would be considerably larger than an Atrox.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
if you think the pitiful amount of deployables this game can support constitutes 'spam', i suggest you go play a game like homeworld; you'll quickly realize just what 'spam' really is
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
You mean besides their inability to keep themselves alive regardless of what's going on around them?
Okay, you're discussing mechanics and I'm discussing story, but sure let's go with that.
Since small craft have an excessively high rate of attrition, don't you think without some way of replenishing small craft complement on-site a starship would inevitably and quickly run out of them? Which, mind you, doesn't happen in-game unless you're using consumables.
...Replicators, industrial or otherwise are not the infinite material source some would perceive, they require energy on a massive scale and possibly some source of raw materials which would need to be housed somewhere. Also contributing to it's size is it's propulsion and energy systems, matter/antimater and fusion reactors all use reaction mass which must be stored aboard ship...
That's exactly my point, sustainability at the cost of smaller maximum complements.
Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:
Starships are meant to be afield for multiple years at a time, not simply a few months deployment, so the amount of interior volume dedicated to crew is considerably greater than would be the case of a modern carrier.
Not necessarily. While it's absolutely true some ships were designed to go multiple years without resupply (mostly long range survey and research vessels), most were drawn up to operate within relatively modest supply constraints.
A modern carrier built to meet those requirements and still be able to field 80 fighters would be considerably larger than an Atrox.
Again, I disagree. Shuttlebays on a Galaxy-class ship hold roughly 30 auxiliary craft, while the bays themselves take up only a small percentage of the ship's overall volume. It's not at all inconceivable for a ship with much larger dedicated hangar space (such as the Atrox) to be capable of carrying and fielding several times that number.
Since small craft have an excessively high rate of attrition
So nice to see you running away from mechanics. Attrition rate in STO is not at all representative of what in-universe losses may or may not be, nor is STO's mechanic to keep you from running out of fighters representative of how carriers in-universe operate.
Unless you're going to argue that an Akira is a TARDIS since it somehow magically manages to stuff forty fighters, twenty plus support craft, a mobile factory, and enough weapons to be a viable frontline warship into a spaceframe under five hundred meters long (and without a substantial secondary hull like the Galaxy).
So nice to see you running away from mechanics. Attrition rate in STO is not at all representative of what in-universe losses may or may not be, nor is STO's mechanic to keep you from running out of fighters representative of how carriers in-universe operate.
So, in fact, the attrition rate and behavior of small craft in STO, brought up by this post,
The fact that STO's strike craft are as dumb as a sack of hammers does not in the least make carriers into floating drone factories.
has nothing to do with my original point, and you're merely pontificating.
Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:
So, in fact, the attrition rate and behavior of small craft in STO has nothing to do with my original point, and you're merely pontificating.
And yet, you used it (specifically STO's inability to keep a fighter alive for more than three seconds) to support your argument that somehow 25th century carriers have replicators they must somehow build their own fighters, supplies and munitions and don't actually carry their own fighters. Which then somehow equates to a massive ship having a capacity substantially less than a ship an order of magnitude smaller.
And yet, you used it (specifically STO's inability to keep a fighter alive for more than three seconds) to support your argument that somehow 25th century carriers have replicators they must somehow build their own fighters, supplies and munitions and don't actually carry their own fighters.
If this is what you believe, I strongly urge you re-read my two initial posts on the topic because not once did I say a word about rate of attrition until you brought it up, discussing small craft behavior in-game.
Not to mention that, if you really want to talk about small craft's attrition rate, I have about three seasons' worth of DS9 which features Peregrine-class craft being atomized with wild abandon to which I could point.
Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:
If this is what you believe, I strongly urge you re-read my two initial posts on the topic because not once did I say a word about attrition until you brought it up, discussing small craft behavior in-game.
That would be because it's a silly factor in a universe with industrial-scale replicators, at which point the primary limitations are crew, power and carried raw materiel. Even the former is hardly a limiting factor, given the prevalence of photonics in STO, and so is the latter since practically any matter can be harvested and repurposed for replication. Lost small craft complements could be replaced in a matter of minutes to hours, depending on the size and complexity of the replicators, energy requirements, and relevant craft.
Seems fairly clear to me that you made the loss argument before I did.
Not to mention that, if you really want to talk about small craft's attrition rate, I have about three seasons' worth of DS9 which features Peregrine-class craft being atomized with wild abandon to which I could point.
For starters, Peregrines only appear in I believe five EPs of DS9.
Secondly, you see two or three Peregrines go boom during Operation Return. That's it. In a firefight between literally thousands of medium to capital warships, that's pretty damn good.
(specifically STO's inability to keep a fighter alive for more than three seconds)
a capital ship-grade weapon starts firing on something that size (which has paper-thin armor, i might add) and you really expect it to live longer than 3 seconds? 3 seconds is actually being generous with regards to fighter survivability because i don't even give it 1 once it's targeted
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
a capital ship-grade weapon starts firing on something that size (which has paper-thin armor, i might add) and you really expect it to live longer than 3 seconds? 3 seconds is actually being generous with regards to fighter survivability because i don't even give it 1 once it's targeted
Targeting and hitting are two very different things.
if you think the pitiful amount of deployables this game can support constitutes 'spam', i suggest you go play a game like homeworld; you'll quickly realize just what 'spam' really is
I know exactly how a massive fighter spam looks like.
But a huge ship with a huge high efficiency warp core.
could make massive photonic fighters,crew and anything photonic.
Photonic fighters 50 fighters per squad ( increased by auxiliary power)
2 squads per item ( increased by aux power)
armed with 1 phot torp
1 anti-proton beam array.
I know exactly how a massive fighter spam looks like.
But a huge ship with a huge high efficiency warp core.
could make massive photonic fighters,crew and anything photonic.
Photonic fighters 50 fighters per squad ( increased by auxiliary power)
2 squads per item ( increased by aux power)
armed with 1 phot torp
1 anti-proton beam array.
That should get overpowered.
oh yes, it would
and to think, people across the forums are crying about fighter spam now; imagine if cryptic made it so science vessels could actually do that
if they can already create 3 large capital ships, hundreds of tiny fighters would be no problem...only problem is, neither the game engine nor the server can support something like that
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
yes, and fighters tend to get hit frequently in this game, which is why their life expectancy is 3 seconds or less
Once again, how things work in STO and how things work in-universe are two very different things.
In-game stuff is fine (seriously, carriers are in a fairly good place (aside from the borked pet AI) right now). Trying to apply the rationale behind said in-game stuff to the in-universe stuff...not so much.
For starters, Peregrines only appear in I believe five EPs of DS9.
Secondly, you see two or three Peregrines go boom during Operation Return. That's it. In a firefight between literally thousands of medium to capital warships, that's pretty damn good.
Operation Return and the Battle of Cardassia Prime. During the former, mind you, it took eight waves of them to draw away the Cardassian ships and allow the Federation-allied forces to attempt a breakthrough.
I'm not and you know it. I'm making the point that, unlike STO, carriers don't lose dozens (or more) of their fighters in every engagement.
Yes, and regardless of the rate of attrition eventually a carrier with finite resources must resupply. I misspoke earlier and meant to say I said nothing of rates of attrition; you read into my statement to interpret I was assuming high rates of attrition, when really I was making no assumptions about the rates at all.
Either way, it has no impact on the supposition hangar bays in STO are mobile manufactories opposed to storage facilities for large number of prefab craft. In fact, if we are discussing rate of attrition, having mobile manufactories would operate most efficiently in circumstances of low attrition (since otherwise, a carrier would exhaust its entire maximum complement and be waiting and vulnerable while new craft completed), which is your counterargument here.
Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:
In-game stuff is fine (seriously, carriers are in a fairly good place (aside from the borked pet AI) right now).
and to think, the pet AI has already been improved at least 3 times since i started playing, yet they're still too stupid to avoid exploding ships, necessitating the deployment of more...AI coders at their finest, eh?
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
During the former, mind you, it took eight waves of them to draw away the Cardassian ships and allow the Federation-allied forces to attempt a breakthrough.
i think that was more the cardassians not biting at what was an obvious attempt to draw their forces out of position than those waves being obliterated before they could actually open a hole in enemy lines
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Secondly, crew complement and ship capacity are not at all related. An Akira class ship comes with a crew of 500, yet it has the capacity to transport 4500 additional personnel if need be, while still functioning as an active strike carrier with upwards of 40 strike craft in it's fighter wing.
Alright I had to look this up to check your information. Memory-Alpha link here under Technical Manual.
That 4500 additional personnel is an 'evacuation limit.' Which can mean that everyone is crammed into living quarters and such, not that it has crew facilities for that amount of people.
The Galaxy class, for example, has a crew of 1000 with an evacuation limit of 15,000.
The way Crew is implemented in the game may be broken, but what it represents is still valid and in Star Trek there is no separation of duties for what Crew does what, everyone works on everything. Meaning that crew also man their fighter/shuttlecraft.
Meaning that every shuttlecraft/fighter lost is a possible emergency transporter failure and a lost crewmember. With the relaunching that carriers in game do, that's an unacceptable causality rate.
Trying to apply the rationale behind said in-game stuff to the in-universe stuff...not so much.
Except there is an in-universe reason for why Carriers don't field a lot of craft. Because they're not worth it. Regardless of anything else, the only thing small craft can do better than any other ship class is be in a whole lot of places at once.
Operation Return and the Battle of Cardassia Prime. During the former, mind you, it took eight waves of them to draw away the Cardassian ships and allow the Federation-allied forces to attempt a breakthrough.
I may be misreading here, but are you implying that all eight waves were completely wiped out?
Yes, and regardless of the rate of attrition eventually a carrier with finite resources must resupply. I misspoke earlier and meant to say I said nothing of rates of attrition; you read into my statement to interpret I was assuming high rates of attrition, when really I was making no assumptions about the rates at all.
Either way, it has no impact on the supposition hangar bays in STO are mobile manufactories opposed to storage facilities for large number of prefab craft. In fact, if we are discussing rate of attrition, having mobile manufactories would operate most efficiently in circumstances of low attrition (since otherwise, a carrier would exhaust its entire maximum complement and be waiting and vulnerable while new craft completed), which is your counterargument here.
Yes, they must resupply. As must every ship engaged in frontline combat. Very few warships are designed for long-term, unsupported deployments (be they present day ones or fictional future ones). In addition, given the capacity for just about any other 25th century vessel to carry a number of strike craft, the option of resupplying a carrier in the field is much more viable.
Which, operating under a non-catastrophic attrition scenario, leads me to conclude that operational firepower (IE: putting more fighters in the field at a given time), not operational stamina (IE: having endless waves of fighters) would take precedence in design and deployment theory.
The way Crew is implemented in the game may be broken, but what it represents is still valid and in Star Trek there is no separation of duties for what Crew does what, everyone works on everything. Meaning that crew also man their fighter/shuttlecraft.
Meaning that every shuttlecraft/fighter lost is a possible emergency transporter failure and a lost crewmember. With the relaunching that carriers in game do, that's an unacceptable causality rate.
If you honestly think that any sane commander is going to put Sergeant Schultz the brig guard into a fighter when he has trained pilots at his disposal, you're deluding yourself.
Secondly, for now I believe the third time: fighter loss rates in STO in no way represent actual in-universe fighter loss rates.
Except there is an in-universe reason for why Carriers don't field a lot of craft. Because they're not worth it. Regardless of anything else, the only thing small craft can do better than any other ship class is be in a whole lot of places at once.
Cite your source on any of that.
Carrier-launched craft carrying weapons capable of taking out a much larger warship redefined naval combat on Earth. Carrier-launched craft in STO are capable of carrying weapons that can depopulate worlds, let alone take out damaged/unshielded enemy craft.
An antimatter warhead is an antimatter warhead, regardless of what fires it.
and to think, people across the forums are crying about fighter spam now; imagine if cryptic made it so science vessels could actually do that
if they can already create 3 large capital ships, hundreds of tiny fighters would be no problem...only problem is, neither the game engine nor the server can support something like that
So science players can create ships.
that means a team of 20 could make a nice fleet. (vice admiral/brigadier general)
Then kindly stop trying to apply earth-bound ship designs, concepts and restrictions to what is a fundamentally different thing.
Okay. Technologically, fighters make no sense in Star Trek. Delete all fighter craft and hangars, because it's just a waste of time. You'd be better off filling that hangar bay with spare torpedo casings.
That is what applying space-bound ship designs, concepts, and restrictions gets you, always have. The fighter paradigm works well for sea ships because of the relative trade-offs of kinetic energy, speed, fuel, and transportation medium. Fighters are fast and have a larger sight horizon because they fly, and lifting wings are more efficient than pure rockets for long-distance travel. Ships are slower, have much greater endurance, and don't fall out of the sky if their engines run out of fuel but they have commensurately shorter horizons and kinematic disadvantages as a result.
Neither of these elements is relevant in space. In space, a missile is more efficient than a fighter because a missile only has to go one way and return whereas a fighter must go out and come back. It requires twice the fuel and has commensurate kinematic disadvantages. Plus, it must keep the pilot alive. You're much better off just building a bigger photon torpedo.
Star Trek, however, has generally adopted a modified wet-navy philosophy in these things. The stand-off advantage of carrier strike operations are nullified if you start merging carriers with ships of the line. For this reason, Russian carrier operations are quite different from American carrier operations. American carriers carry very limited self-defense armament on the idea that those carriers will utilize their fighters as their primary strike contingent and that the carrier itself will never engage in combat. Russian carriers carry heavy direct ordinance and significantly improved self-defense armament. In exchange, however, their fighters are primarily tasked for fleet air defense / air superiority.
The entire strike carrier paradigm presupposes that your carrier is not going to close to battle. It would be a waste of an extremely valuable (and expensive) piece of hardware.
So let us examine the paradigm in the context of STO. Some carrier fighters seem obviously tasked for strike roles, such as the Elite Scorpions. They are heavily designed around the anti-structure and anti-hull role with heavy torpedoes. Others are support based, such as the shield repair units. Still others seem to fulfill the idea of a 'battlegroup' concept- frigates, mostly.
Many, however, seem to have no useful purpose. The true 'fighters'- peregrines, stalkers, shuttles, to'duj, Jem'hadar fighters- seem to have no useful purpose in the game. They can't provide an effective fighter screen against hostile capital ships. They have limited efficacy in the long range strike role. They might arguably be effective in providing a fleet screen against enemy fighters and heavy missiles, but I've never seen anyone actually use them this way primarily; probably because of the way ranges are structured, and heavy enemy torpedoes and fighters seem to lack the kind of significance that makes this kind of operation viable.
Don't get me wrong, the 'escort' carriers- the Jem'Hadar Escort Carrier, the KDF Flight Deck Carriers, and the Armitage class- seem primarily to follow the Russian carrier doctrine. This would be fine, except that the fighters aren't capable of holding up their end of the bargain. Ideally, their fighter compliments would be for self-defense against enemy fighters and torpedoes. That's rarely the case, probably because there is not much call for this kind of role.
The heavy carriers, though, are in a much more paradigmatically tricky spot. An Atrox or a Vu'qov is not a true carrier; it has lots of guns and is expected to close to battle. But it's not ideally equipped for that role, either. Its fighters still don't perform suppression and defensive roles. It's basically a jumbo escort carrier, but it makes a lot of tradeoffs to get there. For one thing, the heavy carriers turn abysmally and give up at least one weapons slot for their fighters compared to other ships of their relative size and capability.
It just seems like a poor fit. Those true carriers are mediocre cruisers with fighter hangars bolted on for extra DPS, but that's all they are. Part of this has to do with the poor way fighters are designed in this game and much of it has to do with the poor fighter AI, but it has nothing to do with the fundamental paradigm of carrier fighters either in space or on the sea.
Comments
You mean besides their inability to keep themselves alive regardless of what's going on around them?
Unlike a modern day carrier, the Atrox cannot use it's 'flight decks' as impromptu storage to increase the amount of Fighters it can support. That drops it's flight compliment.
Unlike modern day fighters, Star Trek Fighters have a fixed size. They cannot fold up their wings/pylons etc. and are typically bulkier, seating 2 with room for several passengers. They're more akin to Helicopters than your typical jet fighter. That also drops it's flight compliment.
The Atrox only has a crew compliment of 3000. While Modern carriers have the same amount, they also have the Flight Crew which usually counts for another 2000 or so. The Atrox doesn't have that specialty crew, thus it cannot support the same amount of fighters. Another drop to the flight compliment.
So while ships (including fighter and shuttlecraft) have gotten larger, carrier operations haven't.
And why not? The flight pods very clearly have mag-con fields keeping them pressurized.
Not by 90% it doesn't.
Firstly, STO crew numbers are next to meaningless.
Secondly, crew complement and ship capacity are not at all related. An Akira class ship comes with a crew of 500, yet it has the capacity to transport 4500 additional personnel if need be, while still functioning as an active strike carrier with upwards of 40 strike craft in it's fighter wing.
And it's also less than half the size of an Atrox.
You do the math from there.
Never said they did get larger. I said they didn't shrink by 90%.
it doesn't need a specialty crew, because star trek has photonics, which are just as capable of piloting fighters as flesh-and-blood pilots
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Photonic pilots, photonic craft
massive photonic spam.
Replicators, industrial or otherwise are not the infinite material source some would perceive, they require energy on a massive scale and possibly some source of raw materials which would need to be housed somewhere. Also contributing to it's size is it's propulsion and energy systems, matter/antimater and fusion reactors all use reaction mass which must be stored aboard ship. Starships are meant to be afield for multiple years at a time, not simply a few months deployment, so the amount of interior volume dedicated to crew is considerably greater than would be the case of a modern carrier. A modern carrier built to meet those requirements and still be able to field 80 fighters would be considerably larger than an Atrox.
if you think the pitiful amount of deployables this game can support constitutes 'spam', i suggest you go play a game like homeworld; you'll quickly realize just what 'spam' really is
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Okay, you're discussing mechanics and I'm discussing story, but sure let's go with that.
Since small craft have an excessively high rate of attrition, don't you think without some way of replenishing small craft complement on-site a starship would inevitably and quickly run out of them? Which, mind you, doesn't happen in-game unless you're using consumables.
That's exactly my point, sustainability at the cost of smaller maximum complements.
Spock's Brain.
Not necessarily. While it's absolutely true some ships were designed to go multiple years without resupply (mostly long range survey and research vessels), most were drawn up to operate within relatively modest supply constraints.
Again, I disagree. Shuttlebays on a Galaxy-class ship hold roughly 30 auxiliary craft, while the bays themselves take up only a small percentage of the ship's overall volume. It's not at all inconceivable for a ship with much larger dedicated hangar space (such as the Atrox) to be capable of carrying and fielding several times that number.
So nice to see you running away from mechanics. Attrition rate in STO is not at all representative of what in-universe losses may or may not be, nor is STO's mechanic to keep you from running out of fighters representative of how carriers in-universe operate.
Unless you're going to argue that an Akira is a TARDIS since it somehow magically manages to stuff forty fighters, twenty plus support craft, a mobile factory, and enough weapons to be a viable frontline warship into a spaceframe under five hundred meters long (and without a substantial secondary hull like the Galaxy).
So, in fact, the attrition rate and behavior of small craft in STO, brought up by this post,
has nothing to do with my original point, and you're merely pontificating.
Spock's Brain.
And yet, you used it (specifically STO's inability to keep a fighter alive for more than three seconds) to support your argument that somehow 25th century carriers have replicators they must somehow build their own fighters, supplies and munitions and don't actually carry their own fighters. Which then somehow equates to a massive ship having a capacity substantially less than a ship an order of magnitude smaller.
But hey, kudos for breaking out the big words.
If this is what you believe, I strongly urge you re-read my two initial posts on the topic because not once did I say a word about rate of attrition until you brought it up, discussing small craft behavior in-game.
Not to mention that, if you really want to talk about small craft's attrition rate, I have about three seasons' worth of DS9 which features Peregrine-class craft being atomized with wild abandon to which I could point.
Spock's Brain.
Let's review....
Seems fairly clear to me that you made the loss argument before I did.
A: No.
And, are you arguing that attrition does not occur regardless of its rate among small craft in the Trek universe?
Spock's Brain.
For starters, Peregrines only appear in I believe five EPs of DS9.
Secondly, you see two or three Peregrines go boom during Operation Return. That's it. In a firefight between literally thousands of medium to capital warships, that's pretty damn good.
a capital ship-grade weapon starts firing on something that size (which has paper-thin armor, i might add) and you really expect it to live longer than 3 seconds? 3 seconds is actually being generous with regards to fighter survivability because i don't even give it 1 once it's targeted
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I'm not and you know it. I'm making the point that, unlike STO, carriers don't lose dozens (or more) of their fighters in every engagement.
Targeting and hitting are two very different things.
I know exactly how a massive fighter spam looks like.
But a huge ship with a huge high efficiency warp core.
could make massive photonic fighters,crew and anything photonic.
Photonic fighters 50 fighters per squad ( increased by auxiliary power)
2 squads per item ( increased by aux power)
armed with 1 phot torp
1 anti-proton beam array.
That should get overpowered.
yes, and fighters tend to get hit frequently in this game, which is why their life expectancy is 3 seconds or less
oh yes, it would
and to think, people across the forums are crying about fighter spam now; imagine if cryptic made it so science vessels could actually do that
if they can already create 3 large capital ships, hundreds of tiny fighters would be no problem...only problem is, neither the game engine nor the server can support something like that
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Once again, how things work in STO and how things work in-universe are two very different things.
In-game stuff is fine (seriously, carriers are in a fairly good place (aside from the borked pet AI) right now). Trying to apply the rationale behind said in-game stuff to the in-universe stuff...not so much.
Yes, and regardless of the rate of attrition eventually a carrier with finite resources must resupply. I misspoke earlier and meant to say I said nothing of rates of attrition; you read into my statement to interpret I was assuming high rates of attrition, when really I was making no assumptions about the rates at all.
Either way, it has no impact on the supposition hangar bays in STO are mobile manufactories opposed to storage facilities for large number of prefab craft. In fact, if we are discussing rate of attrition, having mobile manufactories would operate most efficiently in circumstances of low attrition (since otherwise, a carrier would exhaust its entire maximum complement and be waiting and vulnerable while new craft completed), which is your counterargument here.
Spock's Brain.
and to think, the pet AI has already been improved at least 3 times since i started playing, yet they're still too stupid to avoid exploding ships, necessitating the deployment of more...AI coders at their finest, eh?
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
i think that was more the cardassians not biting at what was an obvious attempt to draw their forces out of position than those waves being obliterated before they could actually open a hole in enemy lines
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Alright I had to look this up to check your information. Memory-Alpha link here under Technical Manual.
That 4500 additional personnel is an 'evacuation limit.' Which can mean that everyone is crammed into living quarters and such, not that it has crew facilities for that amount of people.
The Galaxy class, for example, has a crew of 1000 with an evacuation limit of 15,000.
The way Crew is implemented in the game may be broken, but what it represents is still valid and in Star Trek there is no separation of duties for what Crew does what, everyone works on everything. Meaning that crew also man their fighter/shuttlecraft.
Meaning that every shuttlecraft/fighter lost is a possible emergency transporter failure and a lost crewmember. With the relaunching that carriers in game do, that's an unacceptable causality rate.
Except there is an in-universe reason for why Carriers don't field a lot of craft. Because they're not worth it. Regardless of anything else, the only thing small craft can do better than any other ship class is be in a whole lot of places at once.
I may be misreading here, but are you implying that all eight waves were completely wiped out?
Yes, they must resupply. As must every ship engaged in frontline combat. Very few warships are designed for long-term, unsupported deployments (be they present day ones or fictional future ones). In addition, given the capacity for just about any other 25th century vessel to carry a number of strike craft, the option of resupplying a carrier in the field is much more viable.
Which, operating under a non-catastrophic attrition scenario, leads me to conclude that operational firepower (IE: putting more fighters in the field at a given time), not operational stamina (IE: having endless waves of fighters) would take precedence in design and deployment theory.
If you honestly think that any sane commander is going to put Sergeant Schultz the brig guard into a fighter when he has trained pilots at his disposal, you're deluding yourself.
Secondly, for now I believe the third time: fighter loss rates in STO in no way represent actual in-universe fighter loss rates.
Cite your source on any of that.
Carrier-launched craft carrying weapons capable of taking out a much larger warship redefined naval combat on Earth. Carrier-launched craft in STO are capable of carrying weapons that can depopulate worlds, let alone take out damaged/unshielded enemy craft.
An antimatter warhead is an antimatter warhead, regardless of what fires it.
So science players can create ships.
that means a team of 20 could make a nice fleet. (vice admiral/brigadier general)
Okay. Technologically, fighters make no sense in Star Trek. Delete all fighter craft and hangars, because it's just a waste of time. You'd be better off filling that hangar bay with spare torpedo casings.
That is what applying space-bound ship designs, concepts, and restrictions gets you, always have. The fighter paradigm works well for sea ships because of the relative trade-offs of kinetic energy, speed, fuel, and transportation medium. Fighters are fast and have a larger sight horizon because they fly, and lifting wings are more efficient than pure rockets for long-distance travel. Ships are slower, have much greater endurance, and don't fall out of the sky if their engines run out of fuel but they have commensurately shorter horizons and kinematic disadvantages as a result.
Neither of these elements is relevant in space. In space, a missile is more efficient than a fighter because a missile only has to go one way and return whereas a fighter must go out and come back. It requires twice the fuel and has commensurate kinematic disadvantages. Plus, it must keep the pilot alive. You're much better off just building a bigger photon torpedo.
Star Trek, however, has generally adopted a modified wet-navy philosophy in these things. The stand-off advantage of carrier strike operations are nullified if you start merging carriers with ships of the line. For this reason, Russian carrier operations are quite different from American carrier operations. American carriers carry very limited self-defense armament on the idea that those carriers will utilize their fighters as their primary strike contingent and that the carrier itself will never engage in combat. Russian carriers carry heavy direct ordinance and significantly improved self-defense armament. In exchange, however, their fighters are primarily tasked for fleet air defense / air superiority.
The entire strike carrier paradigm presupposes that your carrier is not going to close to battle. It would be a waste of an extremely valuable (and expensive) piece of hardware.
So let us examine the paradigm in the context of STO. Some carrier fighters seem obviously tasked for strike roles, such as the Elite Scorpions. They are heavily designed around the anti-structure and anti-hull role with heavy torpedoes. Others are support based, such as the shield repair units. Still others seem to fulfill the idea of a 'battlegroup' concept- frigates, mostly.
Many, however, seem to have no useful purpose. The true 'fighters'- peregrines, stalkers, shuttles, to'duj, Jem'hadar fighters- seem to have no useful purpose in the game. They can't provide an effective fighter screen against hostile capital ships. They have limited efficacy in the long range strike role. They might arguably be effective in providing a fleet screen against enemy fighters and heavy missiles, but I've never seen anyone actually use them this way primarily; probably because of the way ranges are structured, and heavy enemy torpedoes and fighters seem to lack the kind of significance that makes this kind of operation viable.
Don't get me wrong, the 'escort' carriers- the Jem'Hadar Escort Carrier, the KDF Flight Deck Carriers, and the Armitage class- seem primarily to follow the Russian carrier doctrine. This would be fine, except that the fighters aren't capable of holding up their end of the bargain. Ideally, their fighter compliments would be for self-defense against enemy fighters and torpedoes. That's rarely the case, probably because there is not much call for this kind of role.
The heavy carriers, though, are in a much more paradigmatically tricky spot. An Atrox or a Vu'qov is not a true carrier; it has lots of guns and is expected to close to battle. But it's not ideally equipped for that role, either. Its fighters still don't perform suppression and defensive roles. It's basically a jumbo escort carrier, but it makes a lot of tradeoffs to get there. For one thing, the heavy carriers turn abysmally and give up at least one weapons slot for their fighters compared to other ships of their relative size and capability.
It just seems like a poor fit. Those true carriers are mediocre cruisers with fighter hangars bolted on for extra DPS, but that's all they are. Part of this has to do with the poor way fighters are designed in this game and much of it has to do with the poor fighter AI, but it has nothing to do with the fundamental paradigm of carrier fighters either in space or on the sea.