Make "Primary Flight Control" useful

Suggestions
1

Currently there is a command module called “Primary Flight Control”. Similar to other command modules, it allows a ship to staff an additional officer, who applies their specific skill. Except in this case the skill is “Fighter Operations” which I think just makes fighters reload missiles faster when in the hanger? Correct me if I’m wrong on that. I haven’t seen anyone mention using this module or seen it in ship designs, so it seems like it’s become vestigial.

I suggest changing it to allow the Fighter Operations skill to be added as if it were a tactical skill bonus to all fighters which have that carrier assigned as it’s home. This would make the skill useful for both beam fighters and (I think) missile fighters, and make it actually worth using that command module on carriers.

Yes, you could cheese that by assigning all ships in your fleet to that carrier despite them not being able to land inside it, but just because someone could cheese doesn’t make it less good as a basic mechanic for well-intentioned people who want to fly fighter-heavy ship designs.

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2

You could prevent abuse by adjusting the provided bonus based on the tonnage of the assigned fighters vs. the hangar capacity of the mothership the PFC is located in.

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3

That would work very well, particularly if it was non-linear when above capacity.

4

The Fighter Operations bonus for commanders has been renamed to the Carrier Operations bonus.

This bonus will apply to the rate at which fuel, supplies and ordnance are transferred to parasites in the ship’s hangar.

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Thank you for the reference to the current implementation.

I’d still argue that’s not a particularly useful benefit as it stands.

6

Well, I do use it. Just for flavour.

The problem is, this particular skill is relevant for very close peer-to-peer combat only, when both strike forces and detection distances are very similar and the fight would be won very likely by the side that is able to reload their strike groups faster (see WWII, mid Pacific carrier battles).
Aurora lacks the ability to provide peer-to-peer combat without playing for both sides simultaneously. AI isn’t even close to be capable enough, nor can it be, and Aurora isn’t a multiplayer game.

Therefore, this particular skill (reload time reducing) is doomed to be nearly useless with the current small craft mechanics.

The way to save it:

  1. Make fighters actually fighters

Currently, Aurora fighters are actually cutters/corvettes - there is no problem in setting their Intended Deployment Time in days, weeks and even more, which makes strike ranges nearly unlimited and, so, reload time between them completely irrelevant.
I’ve already suggested, that the distinction between small craft (light naval vessels) and proper starships may not be arbitrary tonnage but autonomy. Pilots and operators need rest. A ship that has larger crew with proper quarters is able to rotate the bridge staff. A figter has neither rotational crew nor a bridge vs restroom distinction. So, there may be a rule that a bridgeless vessel’s Intended Deployment Time cannot acceed say 8 hours (or a Game parameter Max Watch Duration), and if a vessel has a Bridge, then it needs a crew at least twice the sum of component’s crew need (that is - at least 2 rotational watches).
This way we’d have a functional distinction between ships and small craft without any need for arbitrary tonnage limits, and it would open much more space for relatively close-range fighter battles, because extra-long-range fighters became too heavy and ineffective (as they generally are, actually, in reality).

Very important, that this mechanics needs to be tech- and race-independent, so that the opponents with completely different tech levels would be affected with it nearly similarly. Isn’t very much realistic to have the same attention and readiness physiology for all sentient species, and for me personally it actually means just abandoning this particulr skill, yet IF you want to save it, then, well, you need this particular silliness in mechanics.

Light Naval Factories upper tonnage limit may be left as it is, the same as the tonnage limit for planet-landing craft, as it’s a different function, yet I’d like to see completely different mechanics with surface landing gear, scaled to the tonnage and integrated with reworked, more generalized Landing Gear Efficiency Tech instead of Maximum Orbital Mining Diameter, affecting both necessary size of the landing gear for a surface gravity level and Maximum Surface Gravity for Unassisted Landing, limiting Logistical (Troop loading/unloading including) and Mining operations. With this mechanics Light Naval Factories (or rather Surface Naval Factories) would be able to build any designs that are able to land to this particular body. Would be more interesting and flavourous to choose which colonies to specialize on building light craft.

  1. Make take-off and landing a different time-consuming operation

This would affect the 1st strike and well as the following ones. It cannot make any significant difference without shortening effective fighter ranges, yet WITH the effective fighter ranges cut to flight hours instead of current weeks, this mechanics would be really able to make Carrier Operations relevant, because it would define actual reaction time for carriers. Without Primary Flight Control or with incompetent CAG you would lose a battle before it even started, and even in planned long-range strike you’d lose ffective range because (just as in reality) your strike groups would lose time loitering around the carrier to wait all the group taking off (the important part here is that the Deployment Time needs to start from the moment the command to take off arrived, not from the moment the last fighter of the group is in the open space; that’s ok from my perspective, because launch sequence is dense and the pilots would have no rest during it, even being still inside the carrier).

Actually I’d make this mechanics even more general: any military ship has to be either ready (with the deployment time counting) or at supply-and-rest station (deployment time zeroing, yet it needs some time - scaled with it’s size - to get ready for any action).

This mechanics also opens a way for an additional option. Currently, the hangars are just stacking, yet it’s possible to make every hangar module operating independently (with it’s own take-off portal), so you may choose to have less efficient, yet significantly faster in launching parasites, just by stacking it with smaller hangar modules the same as you choose missile launcher sizes.

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7

The generalised switching-to-readiness task mechanics can also save Engineering skill from the current nearly-useless state, by implementing a low, yet noticable chance of failure during getting ship at readiness. You’d actually want a good Engineer at every combat ship to lower the chance of some critical component failure just at the moment you detected an opponent and ordered your nearest fleet to intercept it.

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And a bit unusual, yet I think it’s worth considering to use also the Logistics skills shortening the getting-ready time for non-parasite ships the same way Carrier Operations do for parasites. You actually need to know how to plan and run logistics to collect all your crew dispersed at the pubs and bordels and load all the postponed for the last moment supplies. There are actually thousands of small things you do not think about before you actually have to launch a ship into a battle suddenly.

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