Well to end the whole scientufic arguments behind all this. Ships in sins use antimatter to power everything (with exra reseves for abilities) basically antimatter is the best and most efficient sourse of energy there is. And the fact they restore antimatter overtime means they have apperently limittless energy so basically there no reasons from that point of veiw to refuel.
That said.Why do SC need to be fixed in the first place? There useful now. Remember way back, when you would never build them. As it stands now a pure carrier spam fails. Mixed fleets win battles. Now that carriers are strong it actually forces mixed fleets with support cruisers to help your other ships survive
In closing I like the status quo, and see no reason to change anything beyond normal minute balance tweaks.
first off, to the best of my knowledge, the only other Sci Fi show to use antimatter to power the ship is Star Trek. now, based on the theory from those series, yes, antimatter is very effecient, but not limitless. and, its not the anti-matter by itself that powers the ships engines, but rather, a controlled matter/antimatter reaction (very much like a nuclear reaction, except the power output from a matter/antimatter reaction is 100's of orders of magnitude above that of a simple nuclear reaction, fission or fusion) However, just like anything else, it is not perpetual, you still need to provide the materials to power the reactor. in nuclear reactions, its plutonium/uranium or the like, in matter/antimatter reactions (based on Star Trek theory) it is Deuterium... something like that, but nonetheless, it exists. so, point here being that regardless of its effeciency, matter/antimatter reactors still need to be refuelled.
now, id like to make a point here? how many people in this forum knows how a nuclear reactor works? i wont bore everyone with the little details, but basically, a particle is fired at the plutonium atom, the atom splits, hitting other atoms, splitting those, this is called a chain reaction. a nuclear reactor simply uses a controlled chain reaction to create heat, which it uses to heat water to steam, which is then channelled through turbines which generate electricity. the steam then cools back to water, cools down other equipment, and cycles back to the furnace to become steam again. point of interest, this is exactly how coal/gas power generatos work, except in that the heat that is used to make steam obviously comes from burning the coal/gas.
so... how do you intend to fit all of that on a fighter?
now, as for a matter/antimater reaction, the theory is, that when matter and antimatter come into contact, they cancel each other out, and this creates massive amounts of energy (most common/abundant of these being heat, and then probably radiation). another byproduct is that when the shockwave of this reaction reaches other matter or antimatter, the matter etc is consumed, and fuels the reaction, making the explosion larger. which effectively means that a large enough initial explosion could quite possibly destroy an entire solar system.
but, lets say for arguements sake that a antimatter reactor generates electricity as a product of the reaction, making the reactor smaller, it still needs refuelling, the smaller size means less power generation, and the nature of the reaction makes it very dangerous to put on a small, lightly armored fighter.
on a side note, think of it, if we put a small nuclear reactor on a fighter, and the reactor was damaged and went critical... imagine the fallout? it wouldnt be as bad as an actual nuclear weapon, due to critical mass values and all sorts of other science, but it would still make a heck of a bang. same thing would go or SC in Sins, except the explosion made by the antimatter reactor would, again, be hundreds of orders of magnitude greater than that of a simple nuclear reactor, meaning BIG BADA BOOM. methinks bad idea
so, thats the theory being antimatter reactions, but still, anti-matter reactions dont act as engines outright, as there is nothing to use as thrust... what they would do is power phase jump engines, but not sublight, because sublight needs something to expel as a function of creating thrust. in Star Trek, the Warp Core (anti-matter reactor) didnt generate the warp field, the nacelles (the blue things on pylons behind the ship) were the things that enabled warp, the warp core simply generated the power for it (i know, they should have called the warp core something different, but it still sounds cool)
and after all this, im still talking about the larger ships, and to be honest, everytime they are in a gravity well that you or an ally owns, they could be refuelling behind the scenes, its not a function we as commanders need to worry about, however as for SC: THEY HAVE NO ANTIMATTER. so... to be honest, i could have refuted your entire arguement right there, but i decided to go into the science of it for the understanding of the greater community. yes, larger ships wont need to refuel as often, caps probably not at all for the duration of the game considering onboard stores and like i said, behind the scenes refueling... i mean, TEC starbases withthe docking booms upgrade replenish antimatter? theres your refuelling right there!
now, onto your second point. i never said SC were not useful, i agree completely, sometimes they can be too useful though. if you had read all the posts, you would have known that i am quite happy to leave SC as they are, however, from my own style of play, i can imagine how irritating one of my massive bomber clouds would be, you spend hours getting a cap ship to level 6-10, and my bombers will erase it for you in a matter of seconds. from my point of view, i could say: screw all you guys, ill leave it like that and just erase all your cap ships and starbases for you
but no, i saw something that would be unfair, noticed a common concern with it in forums, and decided to put an effort in to maybe fix this... problem, for lack of a better word.
now, i have never built a pure carrier spam since entrenchment (and before then, that was just to protect my home star) and i ALWAYS build diverse fleets... but if you have 4 starbases in a gravity well with 56 bomber squadrons with weapons fully upgraded... show me the fleet that wont suffer serious attrition before jumping out or destroying the starbases.
In closing, I too, am fine with the status quo, but i can tell you, that if someone did to me with strikecraft what i do to my enemies, i would be VERY VERY pissed off. thats is why i am posting these proposed changes, because they, at the moment, seem to me to be some of the best ways to balance out a POSSIBLY OVERPOWERING AND NEARLY UNCOUNTERABLE game tactic.