I have a deployment time of 0.1 set to my fighters. Ive set them to my carrier and went to intercept an enemy fleet that uses a lot of long range missiles. A few hours after leaving the planet, all 80 of my fighters have exceeded the deployment time even though they were docked with the mothership(NOT LAUNCHED). My carrier is in excess of 125k tons with plenty of armament and MSP. It has a crew of around 2100 if Im not mistaken, so I added 1000 cryogenic chambers just to be safe and for roleplay reasons. How do I keep my fighters from exceeding deployment time? Do I need more cryogenic chambers? Or do I need a recreational module on my carrier?
If a ship has a deployment time shorter than your construction cycle time, once deployed, they’ll be over their deployment clock and receive a morale penalty whenever the cycle ticks over. As long as you operate within the window between construction cycles, they won’t receive the morale penalty, but you have to essentially schedule deployments around this to avoid the tick or run the risk of exceeding deployment time as above.
And no, cryogenic chambers do not count for reducing the deployment clock. Colonies of 100k population or more, hangars, either commercial or military, and recreation modules are the only things that count. Hangars would be my recommendation for most mobile carriers.
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“but you have to essentially schedule deployments around this to avoid the tick or run the risk of exceeding deployment time as above.”
- So it would be best to up the deployment time on my fighters to give me a larger window to intercept?
“And no, cryogenic chambers do not count for reducing the deployment clock. Colonies of 100k population or more, hangars, either commercial or military, and recreation modules are the only things that count. Hangars would be my recommendation for most mobile carrier”
- What exactly does a cryo chamber do? Also, my carrier has hangers, which is why Im confused how theyre deployment time is exceeded if they are docked with the mothership
Cryo chambers are for transporting colonists between populations. They’re mostly for commercial ships.
When you say “docked”, do you just mean in the same fleet? The fighters need to be inside the hangars. It might be helpful if you shared your ship designs, but, in the Naval Organization window, expand the fleet with your mothership, click your mothership, then click Create Squadron in the bottom left. Then, you can drag your fighters into the squadron. There are also movement orders that’ll accomplish similar things if you separate your fighters into their own fleet and target your mothership’s fleet (under orders such as Land on Specified Mothership).
As for deployment times, I also keep my fighters at sub five days, but you just have to make sure they’re at rest during that specific tick.
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50k population or more
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I cant find my 80 capacity carrier in saves so this is a modified one with 40 capacity but everything is the same except tonnage.
Has the morale of the fighters actually degraded? It may appear that they are over their deployment clock, but the morale penalty hasn’t kicked in yet, so they’re “safe” to use.
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Im unsure of how to check for that, I only noticed the popups telling me the deployment time exceeded and I went straight back into the editor to try and fix it. This is my first ever carrier and I wanted it to be my flagship. Any advice alongside what Ive already asked is also helpful.
Click on the fleet in the Naval Organization tab, and the Morale is listed in the window on the right. However, if you got the Deployment Exceeded event, then yes, seems like they’re ticking.
Without looking at your save, I wouldn’t know, then. Ensure they’re in the hangars rather than just flying in the same fleet as I mentioned above, and that your mothership’s deployment isn’t exceeded. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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byel_bye, I’m not sure why your fighters+carrier warn about deployment time. I have myself fighters with deploy time 0.1, and never received this warning when fighters were docked in the hangar.
In the thread linked just here below you can find some design of carriers and fighters, made by Steve himself.
May I suggest you something?
Remove the ELINT modules: they are not sensors able to reveal ships, but can give you intelligence on other races signals (from ships and populations) and IMHO are better on a dedicated ship. Then, reduce a bit the weapons: the rest of the fleet should protect the CV from enemy ships, while it keeps its own PD. Remove the long range sensor, and mount it on another ship accompanying the CV. And finally, reduce the armour: “18” seems to me really too large for a CV.
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Thank you for all the replies and advice. I will get the chance to play in a day or two, and then provide an update.
lumporr
- I will provide the save in a day or two if yall still care. I will also looking to making the squadron as you suggested.
palot
- ELINT: I didnt know what it did, so I made sure to keep one with the fleet, I will make a designated “Sentinel” ship that contains the recon modules.
- WEAPONS: The carrier travels alongside; x2 cruisers, x4 destroyers, and x8 frigates. Images provided. Against my current enemy I cant afford to cheap out on PD. Their long-range missiles are devastating. Even some of my commercial pioneer ships are equipped with basic CIWS, and it has saved a few of my tankers before.
- ARMOR: I had figured it was already a slow ship with my current ION drive tech, that even with low armor it could not keep up with the cruisers. My natural reaction, “MOAR ARMOR”. I will reduce it and see if I like it in the initial engagement.
- SENSORS: I wanted this as the flagship to be “self-contained”. The recon ship would be a good addition I will add but I enjoy treating my Flagship as a brain. It needs to be able to do a little bit of all. This will be further enhanced when I design more specific rolled fighters, bombers, strike, etc
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IIRC, and I may be mistaken but, I think Cryo also serves as “emergency life support” when the ships Crew Quarters take damage. Slowing the progress of life support failure by an amount proportional to the ratio of cry to crew.
Sadly, the old forums are… gone? Down for now if nothing else, so retrieving the post I pulled that from might be impossible. I will try to source this info regardless, and if I find it I will append it here in an edit.
EDIT: Aurora 4x — Documentation Archive
I’m no longer sure if it’s actually the case, but I would think in the event of Overcrowding, cryo would be used to store “excess” crew. It may only be recused crew though, I’m no longer sure.
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I have often avoided the whole issue after it happened to me the first time by setting all fighters and FACs to 0.2 deployment time, which is 6 days. It doesn’t add that much more mass, and gives you the option to have fighters hover (RP patrol?) over a target.
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How much mass it adds depends specifically on the total crew requirement of all the ship components.
I usually set the deployment time of fighters to the highest value that still requires only a single instance of the smallest Crew Quarters component.
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I’d love it if the game could do this automatically, since there seems to be no reason not to do it.
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No need for RP.
I routinely use fighters as patrol craft, when I am hunting down annoying stealth FACs. I’ll have one squadron with AWACS follow the rogue fleet around, while the others do bombing runs, flying back and forth from the carrier.
Then I use them to scan the system, having them fly every which way, scanning along planets, comets and such.
My fighters all have at least 3 months dep time, and several billion km fuel range, at a sacrifice of 1/6 missile launcher. Worthwhile trade, in my book.
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