"Fighting carriers" or dreadnoughts with fighter bays.

Not really...Though one of my races that I play...The Imperials. Their Cruisers carry( at tech level 1 of the BM) 10 samll fighters. Which I use for hunting run away ships or fighter protection. This may not seem like alot but once you get a few cuisers in a fleet the numbers soon add up and it can give some gd advantages.

Yeah, thats the best use for a 'battlecarrier'; cleanup. Now if only I could get an good pd/attack fighter...

The best use of a Battlecarrier would depend on the fighters it is carrying. I would have to guess that the most effective one would be loaded with fighters that target a specific part of the enemy ships - most obvious would be engines, so that the faster ones can't get away from your slow, heavy guns. Alternatively, they could be used to tie up a particular enemy while you deal with another. Fighters are plenty strong enough to cause a lot of trouble even in small numbers, so the tactic doesn't seem impossible. I've yet to implement it for myself, however.

(Of course, the fact that it resembles a Battlestar helps in the appeal, too )

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"No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his friend. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame... for one person. In the dark. Where no one will ever know or see"

Jack.

I sometimes use DN with one or two fighter bays and with the fastest fighters i can build.
In a fleet, they are useful to catch running ships.

Personally, I don't like putting Fighter bays on larger ships, compared to Drone Launchers and Satellite bays. How useful it would be greatly depends on whether you're allowed to go into Tactical Combat or not (as well as whether this is BM or IRM).

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Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Just give guns to your hvy carriers, fighters would disable the enemy ships and the battlecarrier will finish them off or kill PD ships that threaten your fighters. Very powerful as the fighters are hard to hit and when the DN is stripped of guns it will be easy prey. Only thing that seems to win this combination is a DN with lots of PD and long-range weapons, fighters won't stay alive long and the carr can't outgun the DN. If the enemy has no PD or even only missiles it's no match for this.

I put fighter bays on all my ships. (I can even get one on a destroyer with 4 guns) But in the end, Since all my ships can carry fighters...In goups you can easily get 60 or 70 fighters into combat, while still having "Big guns" in the back. I've kind of modeled my ships after star destroyers from star wars, and battlestars. Just as in modern navies, fighters own. We have carriers now, because a group of fighters can easily take on a Battleship with minimal caualties. Thats why there are very few battle ships still in operation. A plane is cheaper, and can do more damage. I'd like to see a change, but as of now, the best way is to imitate modern navies.

I have noticed that if you build a decently armoured and sheilded ship, With only 3-4 point defence batteries, you can hold off a small group of fighters. Fighters are important, but if you are smart in your designs, you still can keep other types of ship viable. (Using IRM and BM)

So just expeirement for yourself. A couple fighter bays on several ships can be constructed to beat out building a carrier time wise. Fighter bays are expensive, which leads to Longer build times for carriers. Plus with having "Fighting carriers" you don't have to go over kill with fighters. You dont need to send out 70 fighters to catch one colony ship. 10-20 will do.

I think a couple of fighter bays can be fitted into a medium ship along heavy guns. then you build a lot of that model of ship and make them a fleet. So in combat, every ship launches 5 or 10 fighters, but since you got at least 5 or 6 ships, you end with 50-60 fighters in the battlefield and still got a good firepower.

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Learn to overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone, for they warp the matrix through which we perceive the world. Extend your awareness outward, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self of group and the self of humanity. The goals of the group and the greater race are transcendent, and to embrace them is to achieve enlightenment.

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I'd have to say that pretty much any non-standard design is worth giving a spin. Just balance it's deficiencies with a careful choice and design of it's escorting ships. "All things being equal", 2 Hybrid Dreadnoughts vs. 1 BB & 1 CV should be a crap shoot. As it should be.

We shall then, make the rubble bounce ~~~ Winston Churchill

It makes sense though you know? A Huge ship should be able to do more than interact inside of itself. With all that space, Smaller vehicle bays should exist, so that it can be "split up" for pursuit, or retreat. If you just have a plain old battleship, It can only interact with things around it. But it can greatly increace it's interaction range with smaller vehicles. Their has to be some kind of small vehicle bay on every large ship, for the transfer of supplies and personel. Unless you dock with another ship....

Speaking of specialty ships:

I don't know that this is NOT possible -- but wouldn't it be slick to have a Ship Assignment where you could tell a ship to never exceed 3 spaces from it's Mothership (like a CV). This way you could have a group of PDC ships assigned to "Close Escort" the Carrier(s).

We shall then, make the rubble bounce ~~~ Winston Churchill

If it were possible to specify fighters as, say, a combat space patrol, or as scouts, rather than having each and every fighter launched with one mission : kill the nearest enemy, it might be worthwhile having a couple bays on all of your cap ships. With fighters not being able to jump through a warp point, however, and with the way that a fighter bay is somehow able to support 3+ heavy fighters but only able to launch them one at a time, unless you're preparing to make a jump you're better off having all of your fighters in space when you attack anyway.

I really wish that it were possible to simulate a warp point assault. Such an ability would demonstrate whether dedicated carriers, or cap ships with a small amount of interior volume dedicated to a bay or two would make more sense in an assault. Or, for that matter, a defense.

You can simulate WP assault
Choose a warp point from the stellar objects and the ships as usual to combat simulator, then use the place objects option to place your ships around the WP and the enemy ships in the WP.
If you mean ships emerging from WP:s then this is the only way I think it's possible to simulate it. Not exactly right but can give a rough picture about it.
Other way: put the enemy ships in a line so they will come to combat at the same pace as coming from WP:s
Also in the empire options you can create new strategies and modify the ones included in the game to better suit your needs.
For example (some of my favourites):
Fighter defense (failproof defense from drones)
target priority:
has undam weapons
type -drone, fighter, other
nearest
strongest at start

engage dist. point blank

Gunship defense (PD ship to defend other ships from fighters, seekers and drones)
target priority:
undam weapons
type -fighter, seeker, drone, other
nearest
strongest at start

engage dist. short range

It would be good to change the strategies to include nearest after undam weapons because ships won't then go after a DN miles away while being shot by cruisers and other smaller but dangerous ships

I've been experimenting recently with the target priority orders to try and develop just that, a functional Combat Space Patrol (CSP) strategy that fighters can be assigned to. Putting "Target Type" at the top of the Targeting Priority Order, and then moving "Seeker Targeted on Ally" and "Fighter" up at the top of the "Target Type Order and Settings" list is a start, but to get really good results will require more tweaking.

If this can be made to work well enough, my idea is that ships could mount fighter bays instead of some (possibly even most or all) of their point defense. Point defense is wasted space if you're going up against enemies or situations that don't need it; a fighter bay could be loaded with differing mixes of offensive or defensive fighters as the situation demands without having to refit.

The solution to the CAP idea ought to be to set the fighter model to Retreat Immediately, and then under the retreat options select Stay Near Our Combat Ships. This would set up a CAP over the entire fleet and not just the mother carrier, though. Probably the best that can be done.

Of course, this solution is a moot point until the Strategies bug is fixed and we can specify retreat modes again.

I usually add a fighter Bay I to the Light Cruiser and named them Arleigh Burke (in honor of the IIB class project)they had 3 heavy fighters + a few weapons

Heh, In stock I do that with all my ships. And I do mean All

In Balance Mod though, since fighters aren't half as good, I've yet to do so.

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I'll make one later.

I have a few such designs myself.
A cruiser with 4 figher bays, a battleship with 8 figher bays, a dreadnought with 12 figher bays, and a base ship with 16 fighter bays (and a space yard)

The main advantage to a regular ships with figher bays is you don't have to worry about the '50% of space must be figher bays' limit for carriers, so you can have a useful carrier type ship that can still have a decent amount of offense and defense, while a carrier isn't as well suited for slugging matches.

It is also handy with ships that tend to run away. A ship can stay out of range of missils/torpesoes, or otherwise run away long enough that the missiles/torpedoes 'run out of fuel'. With a few fighters packing small rocket pods or small anti-matter torpedoes, the enemy can't simply 'keep away' from danger.

I personally tweak my game of late to make fighters weaker and a little less durable, so they are a little easier to take out, and so mobs of them are much less effective unless they pack effective anti-ship weapons (small rocket pod, small anti-matter torpedo, and perhaps also the small incinerator beam).

I prefer dedicated carriers. I find I can load them up with spare ordinance and supplies so they can stay active longer. I keep the carriers in the rear well protected by a couple of point defense ships. If the carrier dies or is damaged, you lose your fighters.

My big guns go into another task force and go after the enemy behind the fighters. They are "Round Two" if the fighters don't finish off the enemy or to slow down and intercept anything that goes after the carriers.

But I have to say that I rely most heavily on fighters. Any enemy that comes after me will have to fight through a swarm of hundreds of fighters. Truthfully, my big guns rarely even engage the enemy.

BM related:
I'm thinking about Big ships with Long range seeking weapons and lot of PD (using emisive armor) acompanied by anti fighter fighters who should stay close to Long Range ships. Is there way how to do it?
In theory this should make fighters without missile racks/quantum torpedoes relatively weak aginst those ships and fighters with antiship weapons should be weak aginst antifighter fighters (APB).