To be fair saturation bombardment with missiles or beams is quite good for wrecking a planet, and beam bombardment is a good way to neutralise STO. however an FFD is not needed for that and the equivlant cost of infantry with PWI will do more damage than an FFD with a 50,000 ton battleship on call, and you won't waste hours of your life setting up the bombardment. The nightmare of ineefectiual micromanagement which is fighters linked to FFD I will leave out in case it gives me nightmares tonight

Aye, I'm a big fan of "terraforming" enemy planets with saturated beam fire to invade on more favorable terms myself, but engaging non-STO GU's with ship weapons is meaningless whether done with FFD or without.

But what about using "fighters" that mass over 300 tons and sport huge weapons? An airship that might fit right in on Highfleet or something. I'm waiting on the new version before trying this, but it seems like it would cut down on the micro.

You'd still have to consider the unfortunate mathematics of orbit-to-surface weaponry. A comparison I've done a while ago told me that my destroyer escorts fire 196 10cm railgun (10/20 damage) shots at 5200 BP for ~26BP/shot, and railgun fighters cost me 51 BP/shot, while it costs PW infantry 0.15 BP for a 15/15 shot, and 0.24 BP for CAP infantry to fire 6 such shots. Of course, a specialized anti-GU design (a beam base?) would be far more economical to field, but I don't think even that could overcome a hundred-fold difference in cost-efficiency.

To be fair saturation bombardment with missiles or beams is quite good for wrecking a planet, and beam bombardment is a good way to neutralise STO. however an FFD is not needed for that and the equivlant cost of infantry with PWI will do more damage than an FFD with a 50,000 ton battleship on call, and you won't waste hours of your life setting up the bombardment. The nightmare of ineefectiual micromanagement which is fighters linked to FFD I will leave out in case it gives me nightmares tonight

Just to be sure, there is no way to put the parasites in a training command without the mother ship being in a training command? Right? Since I don't know how to do that, my brain is getting more convoluted thoughts.

I feel like I have (or once had) a good grasp on the maintenance side of things. A ship with a damage control and a constant supply of maintenance supplies has a functionally infinite maintenance life, you just spend more MSP the longer you go between overhauls because things start breaking down more often. Am I remembering that correctly?

If I am, then a space station which can hold the carrier (which has damage control) in it's civilian hold can keep the carrier's MSP topped up and the carrier can keep it's self and it's own parasites repaired. So, that would be a no-risk (other than burning a lot of MSP) way of training a fleet, I could just forget about it for a couple of years while the fleet trained non-stop. That is assuming the training will not go backwards, because deployment would never tick up, just maintenance. Do I have that right (regarding both types of hangar)? It is the part about deployment not ticking up in a commercial hangar that I am most unsure about. Do I have that right?

Commercial hangars will indeed freeze the parasite's development clock even if it's in training, and no, there's no way to have your carrier outside of the training admin while its parasites are training. The most important part here is to make sure your parasites have enough MSP storage to perform their max repair at least once, as commercial hangars cannot perform repairs on military ships. As long as your parasites have enough maintenance supplies to handle their most expensive component failure, they will function fine and the carrier will replenish their fuel and maintenance supplies and keep their deployment clocks down.

As for the training duration, you shouldn't need years for a FAC-sized ship, a couple training admin commands nested inside each other with good Crew Training officers will get your ships up to 100% rather quickly.

It does.

Avoid combat gives a 80% "buff" to target selection, meaning they are 80% smaller for target selection purposes. But it also gives an 80% accuracy malus.

The buff applies to FFD units, but since the FFD is not a weapon for the purposes of the malus, it isn't affect by it.

Just to be sure, there is no way to put the parasites in a training command without the mother ship being in a training command? Right? Since I don't know how to do that, my brain is getting more convoluted thoughts.

I feel like I have (or once had) a good grasp on the maintenance side of things. A ship with a damage control and a constant supply of maintenance supplies has a functionally infinite maintenance life, you just spend more MSP the longer you go between overhauls because things start breaking down more often. Am I remembering that correctly?

If I am, then a space station which can hold the carrier (which has damage control) in it's civilian hold can keep the carrier's MSP topped up and the carrier can keep it's self and it's own parasites repaired. So, that would be a no-risk (other than burning a lot of MSP) way of training a fleet, I could just forget about it for a couple of years while the fleet trained non-stop. That is assuming the training will not go backwards, because deployment would never tick up, just maintenance. Do I have that right (regarding both types of hangar)? It is the part about deployment not ticking up in a commercial hangar that I am most unsure about. Do I have that right?