Ground combat airforce design?

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

So I'm trying to design a plane (yes a plane, not a spaceship) that'll be part of my airforce aka fighter made purely for ground combat support.

I have a question: how does it work in regards to armor? How is armor for a fighter considered when hit by ground units? Should I add more than one layer? Also, is it worth putting engineering and maintenance supplies on such fighter?

[Droll]

There is a good chance you want engineering and maintenance for such a fighter since unlike star fighters it might spend time for more than one production increment outside of a hangar.

You definitely can consider adding armor to CAS fighters but in my experience against precursors, even at max armor tech (actually 50% stronger than collapsium armor) I was losing tons of fighters to AA fire and they were all getting one/two shot with 4 layers of armor. In my experience ECM is much more effective defense for CAS fighters.

Also one thing I didn't immediately realize is that the carrier does not need magazines unless you want to swap out weapon pods. Even then it does not need to be large because unlike missiles CAS pods do not get consumed when the fighter fires. I have always paired my pod launchers with MFCs but idk if its necessary.

Also in my experience CAS activities do not use fuel so you can get away with one tiny fuel tank and a supercharged engine if you are willing and able to park the carrier in orbit.

Finally, in 1.12 CAS fighters are vulnerable to STO and AA fire when providing whereas in 1.13 IIRC this is fixed. So in a 1.13 save you might consider adding more fuel anyways to allow the carrier to avoid STOs.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Ecm doesn't have to be specifically on a fighter, right? Will one do in a carrier instead?

[Droll]

Ecm doesn't have to be specifically on a fighter, right? Will one do in a carrier instead?

It has to be on the fighter - fighters cannot provide support from within the carriers hangar.