Given the at least passing similarites between Aurora and SFB, has anyone looked at simulating the Fighter Conveyer concept? For those who don't know, a Fi-Con is a modified PF (SFB equivalent of a FAC) used to transport fighters into combat, at ranges beyond the normal strike distance of a fighter, sort of a low rent carrier.
In SFB, only the very fighter heavy races made any real use of it, since the tradeoffs involved basically mean you pay a lot of points for PFs with no weapons, and fighters with few real advantages. However, given the different design constraints in Aurora, it might work better. I've tried out a couple of basic designs, using low techs available to me :
Fi-Con FAC class Fast Attack Craft 1,000 tons 86 Crew 132.5 BP TCS 20 TH 94.5 EM 0
6300 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 1.69 Years MSP 21 AFR 32% IFR 0.4% 1YR 9 5YR 133 Max Repair 39 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 500 tons
GB Ion Engine E88 (1) Power 126 Fuel Use 880% Signature 94.5 Armour 0 Exp 21%
Fuel Capacity 40,000 Litres Range 8.2 billion km (15 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Lance class Fighter 500 tons 17 Crew 65.9 BP TCS 10 TH 28.5 EM 0
3800 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 2.87 Years MSP 8 AFR 20% IFR 0.3% 1YR 1 5YR 21 Max Repair 22 MSP
FTR Ion Engine E880 (1) Power 37.8 Fuel Use 8800% Signature 28.35 Armour 0 Exp 35%
Fuel Capacity 35,000 Litres Range 1.4 billion km (4 days at full power)
R3/C3 Meson Cannon (1) Range 30,000km TS: 3800 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S03 32-4500 (1) Max Range: 64,000 km TS: 4500 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Pebble Bed Reactor Technology PB-1 (1) Total Power Output 3 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR1-R60 (FAC) (1) GPS 192 Range 1.5m km Resolution 60
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Hardly optimised designs, but the combination would give a 4 day duration fighter with a normal max speed of 3800 km/s the ability to patrol at 6300 km/s for a couple of weeks. You'd need a sensor platform to spot targets for this particular combo etc, but I'm sure you get the idea. If the FACs were held on a FAC Tender with a decent sensor suite, this might make a decent deep strike group, for instance.