I don't know if you can cover carrier design without covering fighter design to some extent.
As a newb, lo those many years ago, I remember carrier use and design was daunting. So much to think about. I developed a simple process that made it a lot easier.
You don't start with a carrier, or even a fighter. You start with whatever the primary system is in the fighter. So a beam fighter, you design the beam weapon first. Missile fighter the missile first, and recon/early warning fighter the sensor suite you want it to hold.
Then you design the fighter to carry that package. Then you are in a position to design a carrier that will house and deploy that fighter or some mixture of many fighters.
I usually have 4 early warning craft, 2 rescue shuttles, some amount of attacking fighters.
But to know how to design and use the carrier you have to know first how much fuel, msp, missiles, and hangar space you are going to need. Which you can't know until you know what the parasites are going to be using.
I actually use this process for all design in the game now. So a PD destroyer. I design the main PD weapon first, them it's fire controls. Then I start to out a ship together around that.
It's greatly simplified the design process for me. It made something that was really confusing, actually very straightforward, and fun.
Anyway, my 2¢
