Or, they could just fix Flak; so we don't all have to micro Frigs against someone who's microing carriers and microing guardians to counter our micro'd frigs. 

Well, we all agree carriers were to weak. Now carriers are powerful and that is fine.

The problem is not the hurt a a carrier unleashes, the problem is it unleashes INFINITE squadrons.

The defence vessels (flaks, counter-fighters) are rendered pretty ineffective, they seem not to have any effect because each victim is replaced instantly.

"Why should i build defences VS something wich is instantly replaced at no cost? I rather eliminate the source."

If a carrier fleet unleashes it squads into oblivion it should cost them time to rebuild (not neccesarily resources). It should be possible to eradicate fighters/bombers at least temporarily with the right defences.

Then the carriers have to rethreat, resupply and try again. That would be a good solution i think. It would also solve the problem with the momentarily uslessness of flak, solving both problems.

So, simply slow down fighter construction and we are good to go. Or prohibit construction during a combat engagement (if an enemy is in the system).

yeah, pretty much what I meant when I suggeted massive increases in squads' am cost. but then some bonus for the inital sqauds should be given. would be bad if it took an awful amount of time for a carrier to ever start becoming effective after construction.

Freshly produced vessel should come with squads. If you are under siege and finish that last carrier to turn the tide it would be pretty bad to find batteries... excuse me... fighters are not included. So first squads instant fresh of the factory. Only the first two or three squads. There is no problem with insta squad upgrades (basically what you do how your carrier will be armed), the problem is just the reproduction of the squads.

well, but you would want to decide which tye you want,so they would still have to build them, which makes it a lot more complicated to regulate it via build times. you'd probably have to put in a line of code to distinguish first builds from later ones. doesnt exactly sound like a quick or easy solution, especially compared to increasing/ decreasing hp or dmg values for select vessels.

Flak still needs a buff over whats in 1.09. For sure.

Its actually quite easy. The moment you assign a squad it comes full force (ie - click on the icon) but if the squad is destroyed and needs rebuilding it takes time (not clicking an icon). It will surely need some additional lines of code but it should not be that difficult distinguishing between an assign click and auto rebuild.

The only issues i can think of would result in scutteling squads (wich is bugged in any case atm and needs work). A player could insta rebuild by scutteling and reasigning, some kind of mechanic has to prevent that - even if manually scutteling and reassigning is a micro nightmare with multiple carriers. maybe scutteling squads should only be possible outside of an engagement - or - even better: take as much time as autorebuilding a squad.

That would most elegantly solve both problems.

Not really with the current power of carriers what you propose is preposterous. If I have the resources and a planet dedicated to just carriers theres no stopping me. I would be building 4 advent carriers at once and popping out 3 squads instantly without having to wait on the squads to build. NO NO NO. that just wont do, its not balanced.

If there would be any way to make flak/sentinel/defense vessel able to protect capitals from incoming focus fire they would be useful. You can't really bring caps to a fight at all if they have 50+ frigates focus firing on them. IMO that's a bigger problem than countering strikecraft.

Well i have not played the beta 1.09, but if what you guys say is true and that carriers are too powerfull, then maybe they should just increased by +50% the cost and the command points, if i am not mistaken, Carriers cost something like 500 credits, 100 metal, 100 crystals & 8 command points.

So the new carriers would cost 750 credits, 150 metal, 150 crystals & 12 command points.

Problem solved, right?

they are actually even more expensive in the beta build. don't worry, they have a hefty cost involved, so there is a certain risk involved in the strat. main main issue is just that its very hard to effectively counter them with anything but even more carriers of your own. light frigs ... well .. I don't quite know. they can kill the carriers if they make it that far, but what kills the squads?

1.09 Percheron:

Cost: 835/150/135

Supply: 14

Build time: 64

Hull: 1580

Armor: 3

Shields: 650

I have an idea that might help.  If the carries are over powered (sorry, I'm still on 1.05) with two (or three for Advent) full size squads, then how about either one squad at 1.5x (2.25x size for Advent?) size or two (three for Advent?) squads at 0.75x size each?  i think this would also preserve the significance of the cap carriers, though fixing flak might just help too.

Wow,

Hull Strength: 1580

Armor Strength: 3

Shield Strength: 650

Your joking right, THATS INSANE, you need A LOT of firepower to take ONE down, and you didn't even take down the fighters/bombers. They need to rectify this soon!!!

I have a different idea on how to rectify the balance problem with carriers and fighters/bombers. What if strikecrafts had to rearm/repair/refuel after a number of attack runs? The time they would spend returning to carriers and the few seconds there to rearm would be time ships could take to either withdraw or blow up a few enemy ships while the strikecrafts are not fighting. Right now, fighters and bombers keep attacking until destroyed or they run out of targets, but if they had to go back to their carriers from time to time it would be an achile heel we could exploit if the player with the carriers did not bring some escorts...

also a nice idea. it could also serve to further disinguish fighter and bomber roles a bit more. f.ex.  bombers could have more damage but less ammo and need to reload more often, whereas fighters have lots of low-power ammo.

Well, that could cause another issue if fighters became just too effective at killing bombers due to be able to stay in the fight much longer than bombers. Bomber may get killed quickly by fighters, but it's less of a loss if they were killed while doing some damage rather than when they are retreating or comming back from carriers.

Well, i just stumbled on the real cause of fighters uberness : self repair. I watched a bomber squadron duke it out with a neutral flak frigate. The flak did damage the bombers, but it was randomly hitting them. So it never actually killed one, and the bombers were repairing themselves almost as fast as they flak figate was damaging them. So i think the most urgent fix would be to tone down, if not disable self repair on fighters and bombers so flak can actually wear them down with their lowered firepower...

Lets keep it simple for you since you don't understand this obviously by your post. Flak is only good at dealing damage at one armor type period. Even in 1.05 this true. That armor type is the armor is called Very Light. Its the armor that fighters wear. The do not do good damage to armor type Light. Which is what Bombers wear. Now not to be overly condescending but you do understand what that means, right?

There is a difference between dealing lower damage to bombers and not being able to kill them. I'm well aware of the difference between armor types.

OK, lets make this very easy for everyone, including the devs. Why don't they just change the armor of Bombers to Very Light.

If they change bomber armor to very light, there is no longer any need for Flak, just fighers.  Flak would be even more useless.  At least now, it was "suppose" to be Flak > Fighters > Bombers.  But Flak is too weak (or fighters too strong) for this to work in the state of the current beta.

According to the few tests i made, flak damage would be alright if it was not for strikecrafts quick self repair. Since flak don't always hit the same strike craft when targeting a squadron, the damage is spread between several units, and all have some time to repair between hits. Bombers, since they have more hit points and takes less damage due to armor type, can soak a lot of that random damage and repair themselves quickly enough to do so almost indefinitly against one or two flak ship.

OK, if what Foraven said is true, then why not allow carrier a ''healing aura''. So Carriers would have to be near Strikecrafts to repair the hull. This would mean that the player would have to make a choice: 1 bring the carrier into the center of the battle or 2 leave it at the edge of the gravity well. This would be a risky decision to make. Leave the carrier far from harm or bring it into the firefight to support the strikecrafts. I would like to know what you guys think of this idea?