...its a game...

In the Star Wars Requiem (and a couple others as well) mod the carriers have weapons. However, this has the unintended effect of making the carrier's unit AI just as aggressive as any other combat unit. It's kind of a pain of having to change the area of engagement every time you build a new carrier, though at least they have some sort of last line of defense. Was the AI the reason the Devs didn't give them weapons I don't know, but it would take a bit more work than you would think to effectively implement it.

1.  It was just done for game balance.  if you want armed multipurpose carriers, you have to make the capital carriers.

2.  If their primary role is to deliver strikecraft to a battlefield, they wouldn't want to be in a fight anyhow, so better to save money and save more space for strikecraft.  If you DID arm the carrier cruisers, they would have such weak armament that they still shouldn't be in the fight.  As you pile more capabilities onto the ship, you start to get something that looks more like a capital carrier, or you remove space for one of the strikecraft wings.

Well, you also have to imagine that a Kol probably has something utterly ridiculous like 12 meters of molecularly engineered crystalline steel or something for armor plating. I mean look at the armor sheathe on the prow of those things (ignore the lasers sticking out, look just to the sides). That's a pretty hefty amount of metal, plus it's being enhanced by some tripped out harmonic field of some sort that's reinforcing the molecular bonds that's retuning itself to better adjust to the dmg type(s) it gets hit with (and that's just w/ the shields brought down to hull level)

But yeah... the kinetic impact alone from one of those Kol gauss cannons (which is silly... rail > gauss), would probably be enough to flatten a square mile or two worth of city.

One thing that's always confused me in SINS is the phase missiles. Why do those things travel slower than the autocannon bullets in game? They use the same technology that's used for FTL... I realize they aren't applying anywhere near the same level of energy to thrust as a ship, and so that means they likely aren't travelling FTL, but you'd still think they'd be going faster than a bullet spat out of a railgun or by a chemical accelerant.

/geekspeak /nerdrage

-Itharus

i could see maybe on or two underpowered cannons, meant to only slow the destruction but not stop it. and one or two flak guns to guard against fighter/bomber attacks. Considering the real enemy to a Carrier is the units they carry.

Ah, but the Nmitz has deenses besides aircraft. If you gave the carrier a BB gun, then it would be defended. Not very well, but defended.

P.S. the Nimitz has a lot more aircraft on board than a SINS carrier cruiser.

still, the Nimitz is no wheres near the size of a Sova or Halycon. Which means the Sova and Halycon are undermanned when it comes to Strikecraft.

Well... the human-based carriers have large banks of lasers for ship to ship combat, among other anti-ship weapons... and on top of that, strike craft in SOASE are probably quite a lot larger than our own fighters (think about all the extra equipment you'd need to cram into a spaceborne fighter). The Vasari carrier cap has weapons too, and huge banks of nanites and probably stacks of random elements laying around ready to be assembled into something. Oh, and the TEC carrier has missile satelites it can deploy - I'm sure those take up quite a bit of room, too.

Modern carriers are really more dedicated to 'strikecraft' than that. I think the Nimitz carry like 90 or so planes... The Advent carrier cap carries 99 or some such, the Vasari one has only about 32, and the human one I think has 48? Well, that's when all are deployed... each carrier cap manages to replace it's losses somehow, so... I'm guessing they have spare strikecraft on board (or the materials to quickly assemble them).

16 squads for the advent is something like a full gross (144) of strikecraft. Hhhm, Vasari get shafted on the number of strikecraft they get... but that's another thread .

Edit: As for the Light Carriers... they used to only get 1 squad, so be happy that they got improved!

I hope that some day they actually give us dimensions on their vessels... because I know this game is not to scale in any way shape or form. I mean really, the Jarrasul would have to be several times the size of a Kol, lol... of course then it'd have several times the hitpoints, you'd think... and that would be imba as hell in game .

Yeah, if it were to scale, the Jarrasul would be about the size of the TEC SB.

The Nimitz also has a task force of destoryers, attack subs and support ships guarding it.  Food for thought when trying to figure out how to keep your carriers safe in Sins.

Your computer can only handle so many units. LOL, well mine can.