It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it!

Say you consider replacing a design with one that fills the same role but is twice as big.
If it's twice as capable and you'd build half as many,  armour becomes more efficient - you save weight, or you gain thickness.
If it isn't any more capable and you'd build the same number (commercial engines, many but low-tech weapons etc),  armour becomes less efficient - you need more of it, or you lose thickness.

For capital ships, one gigantic battlestar makes better use of a given amount of armour armour than 1 beam battleship and 1 heavily armoured carrier of similar combined capability.
However, one beam battleship and one unarmoured carrier make even better use of the same armour tonnage, if you can get away with it.

It's an old thread, but thanks to sneer, at least you can't blame the necromancy on me.

Well, 500,000 tons of weapons and defenses. Or you could have a 1m ton carrier with 500kton of hangar space and a 1m ton warship with 500ktons of weapons and defenses, which would mean thicker armor since it wasn't spread over a larger hull.

I never get tired of refuting the from presumptions about large ships: Large ships actually have more armor than smaller ones (or lighter on same thickness), so the total inverse to the statement is true here, and a quick (hopefully) enlightening explanation to why that is can be found by looking at the first graphic here:http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=7719.msg79299#msg79299
(more explanation in the text though)

But then again, with a 2m ton design (aforementioned several times) that is still 500,000 tons devoted to weapon systems.

Well, 500,000 tons of weapons and defenses. Or you could have a 1m ton carrier with 500kton of hangar space and a 1m ton warship with 500ktons of weapons and defenses, which would mean thicker armor since it wasn't spread over a larger hull.

Back when Newtonian Aurora was being actively worked on, one idea I found interesting was that hangars would weigh less when empty. That might make battle carriers more practical, since they would gain considerable speed when they launched their ships.

Would it be possible to produce a functional Infinity-style warship that not only carries missile destroyers, fighters/bombers and land units but also functions as a heavy hitting dreadnought?

I thought about having a go at it, but I would think the logistical issues of maintaining fuel as well as ammo supply of both the parasites and mothership would make the whole thing impractical, especially for a deep-space variant (which I would prefer).

Has anyone been able to produce something like this?

The problem with battle carriers/battlestars in Aurora is efficiency, I think. It's sort of the inverse of my reasoning for parasite warships; if you assume 50% of a warship's tonnage is devoted to support systems, then dedicating 25% of the remaining space to hangers will halve the space available for weapons and defenses. If you instead split the ships into separate carriers and warships, then you get a warship that's still as effective as the battle carrier would be for almost no additional cost.

The advantage, of course, is that they're really cool.


Back to parasite warships, while I think the idea was very effective, in the end it felt wrong to have a carrier with just one ship. So instead I settled on a 40kton carrier holding two 10kton battle riders. Probably less efficient than a single 20kton one, but it just felt right.

I even calculated the size/weight of many/most of the Halo universes ships in a post (I forget where). The Infinity class was around 2.1m tons while its complement of frigates weighed around 30k tons each. Hence the statement above Erik's where I did that (in a more recent version though). It as a pain, but it did work in the tests I did do. The carrier itself was very resilient and its escort of frigates could project their power quite a distance. It does work, and it has its uses cause you could give a ship 2m ton inefficiencies because of its size, while then maxing out the efficiency of its complement for great effect.

Would it be possible to produce a functional Infinity-style warship that not only carries missile destroyers, fighters/bombers and land units but also functions as a heavy hitting dreadnought?

Has anyone been able to produce something like this?

Uuummm... "I've carried around like 8 30k ton designs in a 2m ton carrier in a test game" Yes.

I've carried around like 8 30k ton designs in a 2m ton carrier in a test game, but they were slated for around 3 months of deployment. Of course there were fighter/bombers/facs as well.

Always a doable thing. Gets a little annoying to do with extremely large ships (dat fuel usage), but there's nothing mechanically wrong with it.

Personally what I've done most like this, is ships with a dedicated "travel" section. (basically a large carrier with fuel, low powermod engines for cruising, some ammo reloads, msp, and long endurance) with a 30kt "Brig". High powermod engines, fuel supply for about 2-3billion km, with a week or so of endurance (since they do sit around sometimes)
I personally give age of sail terms for naming of ships classes that are intended for extremely short range and endurance, such that they don't overlap with "fleet" warships. Battleships and cruisers that have built in endurance, and are generally used far away from supporting elements.

Though at the same time, many people use FACs of 900-1000t, and fighters.
Beam fighters are generally required to be 500t max due to the advantages of "fighter beam fire controls", but missile armed ones do not have this luxury. Something may be said for keeping 500t missile fighters due to their separate production chain and not tying up a shipyard. But 550-600t heavy fighters, or strike fighters, certainly have their heavy usage in my forces.
They're still small enough to be massed and carried inmasse. Are free to work a bit more in design with sensors and armament. And finally, if oyu keep them under 600, can have planet based maint from 3 maint modules. (which a supporting tender for them is only a 20-30kt ship rather than the 40-50 of a FAC tender.