Sylvester said:
What about removing 2 Ion Cannons and calling it a "Medium Fleet Carrier" IE, something much cheaper and easier to produce than Midway or Vesuvius ships.
Besides, the WC Saga team already created specs for the Eagle, the're on the Fleet Tactics site.
I think this idea about 'medium fleet carriers' was already shot down in your
LAST Medium Fleet Carrier thread. It comes down to the same issue I raised there - given the 'cost-cutting, more efficient' fleet of the WCP/SO era, why should they go back to normal fleet carriers which cost the same as two light or escort carriers which can cover two different systems, when you've already got power-projection capability in the Midway or Vesuvius-class vessels? They've already got fourteen Midway-class ships, plus the newer Vesuvius-class carriers for fleet engagements and areas which need a heavy Confed presence. Light or escort carriers do patrols or small task force duties, or even raiding behind the lines if there's a war going on, without the same amount of expense and time invested in building and equipping a larger vessel which is far less expendable. Quick-strike Cruisers exist to allow you to do smaller raids which require only a light fighter presence, and normal carriers provide extra fighter support to either light carriers, quick-strike cruisers, or else act as the nucleus of a small patrol group if fighters aren't really needed.
The main problem with designing a carrier is the compromises you make to support the purpose of said ship. Remember that the carrier is made to deliver and support a certain number of fighters, bombers, and other single-person strikecraft for a certain period of time. This means that it's not designed to take on whole capships by itself (which the Concordia was designed to do, though the inability to use the PTC reduced it to little more than a heavy carrier with a bit more armor and less speed or maneuverability than any other Confed capship of the time).
If you want the ship to be fast, you either sacrifice volume or you sacrifice mass - this means larger engines for the former, which reduces crew space and storage space for fighters or parts, or else less armor or weaponry. If you want to carry oodles of fighters, this means making the ship bigger, which increases mass and reduces speed unless you sacrifice armor or maneuverability.
If you want to be heavily shielded or armed, you lose both volume AND speed; volume that could be used to house crew that services fighters, pilots to fly them, storage space to carry missles or parts for fighters along with spares or broken craft is instead taken up by power generators for the weapons or storage space for capship-sized missiles or torps, shield generators, and so on.
There are a LOT of tradeoffs in ship design that have to be worked out, which is why light or escort carriers tended to carry few fighters (they had to have room to store munitions for them along with spare parts, along with the crews and repair bays) and little armor or weaponry. Fleet carriers sacrificed speed and armor in favor of fighter capacity and some weapons. The dreadnoughts sacrificed speed AND fighter space (it was almost 283m longer than a Bengal, but only carried a few more fighters despite having the space for quite a few more than that, in theory) so it could keep more shields and weapons. Midway lost some armor and a lot of speed so it could carry all those fighters and Marines, along with other starbase-style facilities. The Vesuvius is positively massive and carries a lot of fighters, but takes a horrific amount of resources to build, and despite its armor can be easily destroyed due to its design making a significant part of the ship empty space that's effectively unarmored.
This leaves the original Fleet Carrier concept out in the cold - sure, it's cheaper than a Vesuvius or Midway, but it's far less capable than either in a heavy fleet action. Light or escort carriers cost maybe a sixth, at least in WC4's timeframe, of what a normal fleet carrier costs to build, and puts more fighters into a half-dozen systems (assuming 30-50 fighters per carrier, while your normal 'fleet' carrier had up to 120 or so fighters). They're also more cost-effective from a patrol standpoint, since they're less heavily armed and easier to replace when they're too damaged or out of date to continue service. As I recall, the shift to Midway-class ships was initiated because it was noted that to continue using Kilrathi War-era fleet carrier designs would cost more to build and maintain than a single Midway-class ship... but at the same time, light or escort carriers are much cheaper and can still do the necessary jobs of patrol and fleet support. If you need heavier firepower, you've still got Vesuvius-class ships to hammer the enemy.
A Medium Fleet Carrier, from this standpoint, looks even worse than a 'normal' one, much less a simple Light or Escort Carrier - you're sacrificing the speed and cost-effectiveness of the latter, for something not quite as survivable as a Fleet Carrier, and much less capable than a Midway or Vesuvius-class ship. And you're trying to reduce expenditures now that you don't have an unlimited wartime budget to boot.
Besides, it's more dramatic to have a smaller carrier going up against larger forces - why else do you think WC1 did it with us horribly outnumbered in many engagements? Heck, WC:SO did it, as did WC3 and WC4 once you were on the BWS Intrepid. The novels also tended to use the escort carrier because it was more fun than being the overwhelming power that Thrakath was in a Hvar'kann-style dreadnought.