Space Engineers: Warship Guide - 'Carriers'

[@PraetorPaktu]

A good idea is to have the carrier have command capabilities or be the main command ship. Given that it's not going to be in the main fight & that the fighters will need commanding in the first place.

[@VestedUTuber]

One thought about this, carriers could make use of having one or two extreme-range guns so that they can also contribute a bit of firepower on their own. For vanilla, a single railgun turret would allow the ship to sit back and take potentially devastating potshots. And under weaponcore you could use an AWE Ares Railgun or Hunter Coilgun in the same way, the former even having sufficient range to hit a ground target on a planet from outside the planet's gravity well.

[@the11382]

I don't think carriers have the range for that. I expect way more distance between you and the target than 2km. Vanilla doesn't have the range at least.

[@VestedUTuber]

@@the11382 Vanilla engagement ranges are just compressed all-around. 2KM doesn't seem like much but that's still more than double the automatic aiming range of turrets.

[@GusCraft460]

I think that it’s best for carriers not to attract attention like that in the first place. They are technically just support vessels with their main job being to give fighters a ride and resupply them between sorties. The primary armaments of a carrier are the fighters and bomber that it carries. Don’t waste space, mass, and power on a railgun when you could carry more fighters. There’s a reason you don’t see any big guns on naval aircraft carriers in real life.

[@VestedUTuber]

@@GusCraft460 1. Problem is, a carrier will attract attention just by existing. Besides, I'm talking about just adding a bit of long ranged fire support to a ship that already serves a long-range support role, not building a battlecarrier. 2. You're not really wasting space on weaponry in Space Engineers. In real life, carriers don't carry heavy weapons because they need their deck space for the flight deck. But on a carrier in Space Engineers, you don't need a flight deck like that because you don't have to worry about runway length. The hangar that serves as the flight deck can be mostly internal, with weapons on the outside. Additionally, on real life ships weapon systems take large amounts of below-deck support equipment, whereas in Space Engineers all vanilla and most modded weapons can just be stuck on the hull. Even a large grid custom railgun turret just needs a connection point for a conveyor and an advanced rotor.

[@GusCraft460]

@@VestedUTuber perhaps, but I still think that the role of a carrier is primarily to act as logistical support for fighters. I would personally try to keep them 5-10 km away from a fight with at least two escort ships by its side at all times. Even railguns don’t have that much range.

[@andrewwalton6236]

One thing I have noticed with space engineers is remote drone swarm carriers, basically the pilots are all aboard the carrier and can launch waives of tiny drones to harrass enemies wace after wave. Bloody annoying to be on the recieving end of.

[@LunarKolony]

that does sound really cool!

[@FrostWolfPack]

Hmm I have been thinking of doing drone carrier ideas maybe ad manufactoring base so you could build new ones when old is destroyed so maintaining pressure

[@doubt3430]

Ion know what server you were on but god damn

[@zakgrubb7512]

@@LunarKolony once I built a carrier that deployed frigates

[@SithFTW4072]

​@@zakgrubb7512That sounds awesome

[@DjigitDaniel]

I have loved this series since the start. Outstanding work, sir.

[@LunarKolony]

thanks buddy!

[@kevingriffith6011]

In space engineers specifically I think the role of the carrier is significantly diminished compared to it's usefulness as both a modern navy vessel and a science fiction vessel. In Space Engineers the biggest limiting factor for the scale of a fleet is number of available pilots, so it is best to maximize the effectiveness of all available pilots. Small fighter craft, even under remote control, just don't provide the impact required to justify committing a player to full time.

[@Comicsluvr]

Something else that limits the usefulness of fighters (at least in the vanilla game) is the inherent speed limit in the game. A ship at sea can go 30+ knots while a fighter can break Mach 1. The time for a fighter to cross the distance to an enemy ship in real life can be measured to a few minutes at most. Currently, the max range for a stock gun turret is 2 Kilometers. At 100 m/s that's 20 seconds for a fighter. Wet-navy battles are ought with ships a hundred miles apart or more. In SE that's simply not feasible. It's much harder for fighters to carry out a 'hit and run' when the target ship can move at the same speed.

[@kevingriffith6011]

@@Comicsluvr I kinda agree and disagree there. While the speed limit is the same, a large capital ship can't change direction and accelerate nearly as freely as a small fighter craft can. Anti-capital weapons are pretty impractical against small grid ships if they're not flying in a straight line, and as long as the fighter isn't flying the same direction as the capital ship then there is no way the capital ship can keep up. Naturally, large grid weapons (and custom small grid turrets) will just eat small fighters for breakfast, especially since the fighters will have to get much closer to the capital ships for their weapons to function.

[@whoisthatkidd2212]

@@Comicsluvr its worth mentioning that fighters in SE often operate in combat at or near the speed limit to avoid fire and possibly PMW missiles. Furthermore, Fleet ships are mainly concerned with other fleet ships, they do not go out of thier way to destroy fighters (unless they are skirmishers like patrol boats and corvettes) and they spend most of combat below the speed limit due to thier poor manueverability and constant need to avoid heavy battery fire from opposing ships by changing direction. Small attack craft can pick off parts of enemy fleet ships like thrusters and cannons by making attack runs at high speed. Also carriers with manned fighters can attack from distances very far from the actual fight (however, the extra manpower required is a steep investment). A real big issue is that fighter craft simply dont have the devastating anti-ship missiles and bombs that aircraft in real life carry. This makes hit-and-run fighter attacks far less of a threat to fleet ships.

[@A.Person.Who.Exists]

Available pilots are a non-issue with scripted combat drones. You'll just have to find a server with scripts enabled.

[@kevingriffith6011]

@@whoisthatkidd2212 "Fighter craft simply don't have the devastating anti-ship missiles and bombs" I actually think you could design a small-grid bomber that launches warhead-based custom torpedoes, especially since it's not necessary to power torpedoes on small grids if you're already traveling the speed limit. You'd have to rely on support fighter craft to soften up the point defense in the areas you want to bomb, naturally, but even small grid warheads to respectable damage to large grid ships.

[@scruffted]

never really thought about sub categories of carriers... going to have to make some new ones, great video one of the best yet in my opinion, love the warship guide series :D

[@bc175]

Found that really interesting. Would be interested to hear you thoughts on Gunship tenders, a ship which is mostly docking ports and a J drive that drops off over gunned gunships without the ability to jump themselves.

[@LunarKolony]

gunships are going to be tricky... but i will cover them

[@Dutch_Chucky]

This actually helped me in more than only space engineers.. i had a massive battle in starscape, a eve online kinda game, and now i knew wich ship did what, i knew wich ships i had to avoid and wich ships i could counter.

[@Zipplandia]

nice job on the video, thought I would add below my opinion on carriers , and a couple sub-types which can be useful depending on the fleet. I think there is definitely some use for both carriers and escort carriers in a fleet, with escort carriers being lighter, smaller, and having less fighters, being roughly destroyer sized, and larger carriers being cruiser or larger in size. This is just my opinion on it, and it depends a lot on the size of ships in a fleet, like if your largest ship is a destroyer or cruiser, you probably only need an escort carrier sized one, and thus that would be the main carrier. I liked your definition of assault carrier, haven't seen it used for that before, typically seeing "Battle Carriers" for that role, another possible use for assault carriers, and how I use them, is a carrier capable of both launching strike craft, and landing forces on a planet. I really like seeing your classes, as it can both show differing views on it, and has led to me actually changing my classing some. Appreciate the videos, excited for more warship guides.

[@nightfalc0n826]

It's so interesting to see how different people make their ships and their own lore. I just started making my own lore and go off of a different KZbinrs style of ships (Get Brocked). Though I still enjoy seeing these ships as well.

[@TomPrickVixen]

Back in the early days when we played the game the old "Big Red" was our exploration carrier. The ship has a lot of empty space in the back and at the top so its easy to refit with refineries, or even with extra jump-dives if necessary, without changing its looks, and the hangar can take up to 6 small crafts, and with the 3 doors its easy to dock and deploy them. We usually took out 2 miners, 1 grinder, and, 1 fighter to our starter exploration runs (after the refit/upgrade of the ship of course). And with the last update I refit it again, but this time the change is more drastic (obviously). BTW the original ship is unfinished (missing some stuff on one side, and overall piping) and its interior layout is not symmetrical in term of its systems (the 2 pilons are mismatching), just saying if someone decides to start at the "Green station" !

[@DatlTAE]

years ago man. You star citizen is crazy asf now too. Big red man that's nostalgic

[@-saca-1297]

Love this whole series you've been doing on ship classes btw! You should do a vid on different types of smaller fighters next!

[@gryf2diams]

There is one thing to say about space carriers that is often forgotten: Nowadays, fighters fly whereas ships don't. This allows fighters to be relatively protected against ship-to-ship armament. In a large space battle, fighters would be in the middle of the fire, and subject to stray shot from all sides. And since all anti-ship armament will destroy a light-armored fighter, this makes them a liability for large combats. However, carrier's projection capacity is still useful for occupying space and smaller skirmishes.

[@Mrman-wp2bi]

Should do battleships or dreadnought next Because I love these videos and keep up the good work 👍

[@LunarKolony]

thank you! :)

[@Hadfield15]

Thank you for this tutorial! I’m gonna use what I learned here to make a carrier that delivers hover tanks I’m making onto planets and moons. So, something like an Atmospheric Assault Lander or dropship

[@badgerwildgaming6908]

Another type of carrier is the assault ship, (see U.S. Freedom class) that brings both air and ground support for landing assaults. These ships resemble small carriers.

[@vp21ct]

It must be noted that any serious Carrier should have extensive resourcing and construction capabilities. A ship printer for it's fighter complement, along with sufficient assemblers, refineries, and parts storage to support semi-frequent use, are all absolutely critical.

[@PraetorPaktu]

Always nice to have.

[@atleybaldwin9199]

I have an Assault Carrier class of ship. It has a flight deck and also an inner hangar. Some of them even have a dorsal hangar in the back that can hold shuttles or gunboats. The lower half of the ship is lined with defense guns and such. I think it works quite well.

[@lohostege]

There is a new type of no-script drone that could be printed and deployed (plus if the ship has gravity launchers to catapult the drones) that could be potentially deadly, especially when the ship just sits back, and print put a ton of them.

[@felixsilverheart]

This video gave me some inspiration on carrier design :D great work and keep up the amazing quality

[@GusCraft460]

Thanks for listening to my request of a carrier video.

[@sethgilcrist8088]

Yay!!! Carriers. Thank you!!!

[@A.Person.Who.Exists]

My carriers are very barebones. Basically a rod of conveyors at the front with a lidar camera at the tip and rows of connectors. At the back, there's a scripted guided missile silo, manufacturing, connectors for utility ships, a heavily armored command/computer room, a metric fuccload of gyroscopes, a jump drive, a reactor and a gravity drive. The largest carrier I've ever built can support up to 6 corvette-size drones (large grid, 4 turrets, gravdive powered, heavy armor) or up to 20 fighter sized drones (this is impractical, as the drones may crash into each other while docking, the amount of scripts running will lag the server, and small grid ships get shredded by turrets anyway.) This type of ship is one of the most practical setups for vanilla servers with scripts enabled, as you can just sit just inside of view distance, flying away from the target at max speed and letting the drones and missiles do the dirty work. If your target doesn't have a speedlimit-breaking clang gun, they won't be able to do much against you.

[@cellular2234]

Most of my carriers personally are made with heavy armour light weaponry and large hangars sometimes to hold corvettes when on long distances

[@MultiGruntyable]

I love these videos man, after you work through the main types of ships you should definitely do some regarding sub types of these categories of ships and what they are for other potential videos

[@alpacaofthemountain8760]

Love the idea of a space carrier deck..

[@Weedaxe420]

I’m loving this series! Keep up the good work :)

[@LunarKolony]

thank you! glad you enjoy!

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

On a video about battleships or something may I suggest the main battery be situated in large grid rotor turrets? Like say a traditional looking twin (dual) railgun turret as apart of a capital ships main battery. Small grid railgun turrets could be used in secondary batteries to combat smaller warships.

[@kuhluhOG]

0:40 That heavily depends on one thing: Is it a fleet carrier or an escort carrier? Escort carrier are, as you say, about the size of cruisers. Fleet carrier are about as big (or bigger) than battleships.

[@FoXuissa]

Nice video of great quality like always !

[@LunarKolony]

thank you!

[@Piotrix_SE]

awesome

[@nobodyherepal3292]

1:46 Battlestars: I took that personally…,.

[@aethertech]

From my own in-'verse designation; though to caveat, that my verse, piloted starfighters, much like in Star Wars, are still the primary strike craft option, with drone/ai/remote piloted strike craft being rare due to ECM, and other factors. Patrol Carrier : Small corvette/gunship sized craft, typically using external docking mounts, with maybe a small internal hangar for board shuttle or two. Typically 4-6 starfighters. Deployed as 'policing' forces mostly, but also in small scouting and recon operations. The Star Wars Gozanti class, for example. Pocket Carrier: Larger corvette/small frigate sized. 1-2 squadrons of strike craft. Typically using an internal hangar. Typically fast enough to keep up standard warships in the fleet. (Acceleration wise.) Most often deployed with small strike groups or elements from a main fleet. Larger pocket carriers exist, usually as stripped down Fleet Carriers that maximize hangar capacity, at the expense of armor, weapons, and crew amenities/space. Star Wars Quasar Fire class Flurry, for example. Escort Carrier/Jeep Carrier: About the same size as a Pocket Carrier, but typically slower and less well armored, primarily intended to escort cargo and troop convoys. Typically carry a few heavier support bombers or gunboats to supplement the strike craft with heavier power. Fleet Carrier: Standard issue combat rated carrier. Typically between larger frigate sized hull, and up to heavy cruiser size. Carries several dozen, to hundreds, of strike craft, and other small support craft. The Star Wars Endurance class, for example. Super Fleet Carrier: Basically, battleship+ sized massive flying hangars, and typically not only well armored, but also well armed enough to directly combat most smaller ships if necessary. Hundreds, or even thousands, of craft in their massive hangar complexes. Star Wars Secutar class (on the small end,) as an exmaple.

[@christianaraje3569]

Lovely guide, as usual

[@LunarKolony]

thanks buddy :)

[@pegasusinnovation9392]

You guys are talented

[@MRBasgames]

I have been waiting for this one!

[@Lem_Nade_Music]

Can you do a guide on saturation attack ships ? They are pretty good at raids and with all their weaponry they can be devastating (but have slow firing guns) Also its cool having a ship that just jump in , kill enemies , and jump out of a fight .

[@aaronjaeger6861]

In my opinion carriers should carry a sufficient number of small craft fitted with magnetic plates or landing gear for bringing damaged or immobilized fighters safely back to the carrier. If the fighters are equipped with landing gear then they could double as retrieval ships.

[@fariin2174]

I use top and bottom connectors, it allows you to pilot a ship for retrieval if necessary. My main carrier is made from a freighter I hijacked (got a couple mods running) so I went for the double connector setup because I can just stack up fighters in space without issue and in atmosphere there’s no wobble at all if I use 2-3 ships stacked together, a timer block is setup to launch all of the fighters in sequence so they takeoff smoothly in any environment.

[@SatelliteEnthusiast]

How about a video on atmospheric combat? APCs and Tanks vs like atmospheric strike fighters and drop ships. Etc

[@EnRandomSten]

Something I really dislike when people make fleets are "super carriers". Personally I find the Idea of one large unwieldy ship for bringing fighters to be a waste of resources unless you can make use of that ship in combat as well, but at that point people fall into the trap of making a huge ship to fill all roles without succeeding in any of them. My personal way of doing it is to either have small corvette sized ships that basically just act as jumping docks for the fighters or, having a limited fighter capacity in the larger ships of the fleet. You always want the option of bringing fighters to an engagement but sometimes you can't risk bringing the dedicated carrier to the battle due to risk of loosing it. so instead of bringing a cruiser and a poorly supported carrier, why not just bring two cruisers that both carry like 3 - 5 fighters with them.

[@alexhail9971]

My careers tend to have a small gried 3d printer to print ICBMS and fighters

[@redranjer]

the new railguns are probably extremely effective for hitting fighters inside a carrier

[@SmokeyGamingUK]

Thought it was you I met in MES discord the other day lol

[@LunarKolony]

It was!

[@reentrysfs6317]

Nice

[@stuew6]

with Having very good Anti-aircraft Weapons

[@davidelliott776]

Does the unsc infinity class as a super carrier/dreadknot since it can do everything?

[@vexxen8232]

Will there be a video on super carriers?

[@wepntech]

Makes some sense.

[@ashjames5341]

you should do gun ship next

[@LunarKolony]

ssshhh

[@DariusT32]

My carriers only have point defenses and rely on corvettes for defense

[@bucketman7984]

How many hours do you have in space engineers?

[@LunarKolony]

4000 unfortunately

[@acanadianderg4035]

Do you think Rdav will update his Fleet Command script? Or do you think Keen will add a built in fleet system(s)?

[@LunarKolony]

i dont think so unfortunately, is the script broken?

[@acanadianderg4035]

@@LunarKolony Some have got it working but I haven't, plus I don't think the script knows wait bullet drop is.

[@A.Person.Who.Exists]

@@acanadianderg4035 The autopillock script by Cheerkin might work for your needs. The only issue with it is that it has very little documentation on it so you'll basically be working by trial and error. Reverse-engineering the XB-2 Combat Drone by pro100tv would be a good starting point.

[@evanescentenquirer2684]

Does anyone know any scripts to make automatic drones?

[@TheIronbuster]

I was thinking about building a dronecarrier. But i cant Script xD Nor build... I am a miner xD

[@highground2320]

@ 3:10 what ship is escorting the carrier?

[@LunarKolony]

thats a ship i built for a challenge, unfortunately i havent published it

[@highground2320]

@@LunarKolony could you publish it?

[@LunarKolony]

@@highground2320 im thinking of making an assets collection for all the unpublished ships I have made for videos

[@highground2320]

@@LunarKolony That would be awesome!

[@commanderfreakkz5688]

Can you do dreadnought

[@LunarKolony]

yep!

[@joyhoward6105]

Hi

[@LunarKolony]

hello there

[@joyhoward6105]

@@LunarKolony general kenobi

[@jonathandiaz4997]

12 months ago

[@lukxki1623]

First

[@RedIndominus1]

Ты русский знаешь?