The metagame reason is that this is intended to let us make proper repair ships, which will need to be civilian. If you let big ships reload their launchers in the field, it might well make box launchers too powerful.Yep, I see... good point.
But IRL, almost all warships these days are built at civilian-owned yards, and a lot of refits take place there, too. The USS Cole was repaired in Pascagoula, Mississippi, a civilian yard.
I would do it the other way around. For repairs you need the trained military specialist crew; but reloading should be possible (on a second thought, does that not also need a specially trained crew?. Maybe it is best that both cannot be done on the civs).The metagame reason is that this is intended to let us make proper repair ships, which will need to be civilian. If you let big ships reload their launchers in the field, it might well make box launchers too powerful.
I would do it the other way around. For repairs you need the trained military specialist crew; but reloading should be possible (on a second thought, does that not also need a specially trained crew?. Maybe it is best that both cannot be done on the civs).You do realize that even military ships are built with civilian contracting? So those same civilian contractors should be able to repair what they built. And yes reloading does take trained military personnel, or else the ordinance may go boom.
Also, they can be used to repair ships but not to reload them.I would do it the other way around. For repairs you need the trained military specialist crew; but reloading should be possible (on a second thought, does that not also need a specially trained crew?. Maybe it is best that both cannot be done on the civs).
I'm personally of the opinion that commercial hangars should only be able to transport "mothballed" ships (such that it would be a ship with all ordnance, crew, and fuel removed, and would require industry/shipyard tasks to mothball or de-mothball), but I understand that maybe not everyone shares that opinion.
The commercial hangar bay is mainly for repairs. However, I have had fighters sat in orbit for months waiting for a carrier with no maintenance and not had any failures. Although they have no engineering spaces, their chance of failure is very low due to their small size. For example, here is the relevant portion of the US fighter from my current campaign:
F-40 Starfury class Fighter 300 tons 2 Crew 53.4 BP TCS 5.99 TH 42 EM 0
7011 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 2.25
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 59% IFR 0.8% 1YR 3 5YR 43 Max Repair 13 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.5 months Spare Berths 0
The class AFR is 59% per year and that is the rate when the fighter has already been in space for a full year (it starts at 0% and will get to 59% after one year of deployment and continue getting higher after that). A fighter with a low deployment clock will have very little chance of failure. A 3 month trip aboard an auxiliary carrier would be very low risk.
Unfortunately, maintenance modules don't work on fightersMaintenance module, giving maint to a series of "hangar shells" which are ships with no engines or anything, just military hangars, with nested fighters inside?
Or even just putting 1-3 maintenance modules on the carrier. That would make it so fighters would, you know, not explode when you don't want them to.
I cannot see how commercial hangar are going to be useful, say you want to transport 20 fighters 4 systems away and the transport take 2 months to get there, your fighters are aimed at 1 month deployments, and maintenance at a bare minimum. Because you extract speed out of it. The fighter engine or what is going to blow up even get to the destination, after runnign out of parts. Even if you do have a module since fighters have short engineering bays, it be drawing part every a day or 5 day cycle, you run out of parts on your 20 fighter very fast.
Unless Maintenance is stopped the commercial hangars are useless for transport. I would of love to see comm hangars the same as military hangar except you cannot launch fighters unless around colony orbit.
As I mentioned, commercial hangars do not provide maintenance so warships are no better off than before. Auxiliary carriers as a replacement for regular carriers won't work because your fighters will blow up through lack of maintenance, although you might use an auxiliary carrier for a short transfer run to a normal carrier.
The changes mean you can have forward-deployed repair ships that don't cost far more than the warships they are intended to repair, which is much more similar to the real world. We don't currently use the USS Nimitz as a repair dock for example.
You can also have maintenance facilities in planetless systems, which adds an extra dimension but doesn't strike me as game breaking.
Would it be possible to have them reload at, say, maintenance facility rates? I ask because at the moment it's practically impossible to use box launchers on larger ships because of reload considerations. I admit that my various attempts to do so failed for other reasons, too, but it would be nice to have it as an option.
You can't reload box launchers in civilian hangars.Would it be possible to have them reload at, say, maintenance facility rates? I ask because at the moment it's practically impossible to use box launchers on larger ships because of reload considerations. I admit that my various attempts to do so failed for other reasons, too, but it would be nice to have it as an option.
Not sure on nesting. I have never written any specific code for carrier in carrier but there are bug reports in this area. I need to do some testing.
