Last time I played CoX, you as the mastermind got the ability to summon variuos pets as you level up. More of the starting pets and fewer, down to one, of the bigger badder pets. Each pets is part of a group, ei' four base pets, 3 slightly better, 2 slightly more so, 1 really good pet. Each pet was controllabkle as an individual or as part of a group.
I don't see why a similair method can not be used in STO.

Oh, you mean that the fighters could not be targeted individually but only as a group, but the ship would still fire if any single one would be in weapons range? That would be cool. Might look somewhat more epic regarding broadsides, too - it'd be like a little built-in "fire at will".

actually just meant less- more powerful pets that can be resummoned into play, making for less clutter but better controlled pets.

Oh.

Well, that'd work for Shuttles or Peregrines launched from some Starfleet vessel, or the Vo'Quv's Birds-of-Prey, but I really don't think four fighters justify a dedicated carrier. Regardless of how powerful they are, it'd just "look" wrong. Might as well take it out of the game completely and enable all ships to slot pet devices as I have suggested here.

This would help solve the targeting issues, I suppose (at least with tab-targeting), and it would increase the efficiency of weapons used against the swarm I think.

It wouldn't solve the lag issue, though.

This post kinda nailed the entire PvP problem for the Federation side... giving Feds carriers won't make them into better players... would be the opposite result even, it'd make em even lazier!

A Vo'quv carrier gets the same number of weapon slots as a science ship AND a LtCmdr Tactical BOff. Plus if you've never seen a carrier move quickly when needed, I'd suggest you look up the 'Auxiliary to Dampeners' ability.

'the point of escort duty'? You do KNOW what PvP is about, don't you? Its all about getting kills and dispersing the enemy team. An escort's role is deliver high burst DPS and then move on quickly. I can only shoot one thing at once, and if I'm wasting my weapons fire on fighters then the actual players get away scott free.

This is what I'm trying to tell you. Adapting my tactics does not work, because the carrier is a fundamentally game-breaking ship.

Here are some more anti-carrier tactics from an actual carrier pilot. Study them.[/quote]Some rather generic tactics in that post... it doesn't really answer questions about how to address a build-up of fighters or how to down a carrier while under fire from its pets.

And yet the Klingons have carriers where the Feds do not. Can't you see how this is imbalanced?

I agree that it isn't very Start Trek.

And a BO less. Given the carrier's turn rate and weapon slots, the LtCdr Tac is not that useful - only makes the carrier more of an annoyance by adding its inflexible arsenal to the ongoing battle. Its most important asset remain the fighters.

Don't you mean Evasive Maneuvers? IIRC, Auxiliary to Dampeners merely strenghtens kinetic resistance.

(I hate these "escape" abilities as well, by the way - regardless of which ship uses them. Can't recount how many times I spent an entire minute chasing down some runner.)

PvP is about teamplay more than kills - the latter are a byproduct of the former. Staying alive is just as important as diminishing the opposition's presence on the battlefield, as these two things go hand in hand. This means cruisers have to heal, science ships have to debuff/control, and escorts have to ... well, escort. It's a bit more complicated than just "pick a target and shoot"; just like the cruisers should watch out for you, you should watch out for teammates requiring assistance as well. And I write this by playing escorts on both the KDF as well as Starfleet's side (in fact, I started the latter solely because of all the carrier complaints).

You still seem to think that the fighters are an added benefit to an already viable ship. That is not the case. Without its fighter screen, the carrier quite simply cannot stand on its own. It takes less time to kill the fighters than the carrier can possibly respawn them, so it is just a matter of time until YOU can have the advantage. The important thing in such a battle is for the team to survive long enough to turn the tide and go on the offensive (that is, if your team actually let itself get jumped by a carrier with a full fighter deployment), and this means that somebody has to deal with the fighters. Due to their cannons and maneuverability, escort ships are simply suited best for this job. Of course, this is even easier to achieve if you engage the carrier before it managed to deploy all its pets.

Escorts finish off the fighters whilst the rest focuses fire on the carrier - the escorts then join in as soon as the "air is clear". Alternatively, if you see that the carrier is too difficult to bring down, just negate its fighters and move on to a squishier target (like every time you see some pimped-out cruiser being untouchable). I've seen it work quite a lot of times. I agree that a carrier is somewhat difficult because you need to go away from your standard tactic (see above comment) and adapt, but it's not an iwin-button. I see a far greater balance between wins and losses in T5-PvP these days, so things are improving even without the devs doing something, strenghtening the notion that it truly is about teamplay and experience at the core.

As for the build-up, as posted in the other thread this can only start if the carrier has a target within 15km, and the carrier still needs time to deploy all its pets. If you can't close in by at least 5km within a few seconds, something is wrong.

Maybe Cryptic should make some sort of PvE tutorial mission to better prepare players for this - you don't get to see one in PvP until tier 5 and so have no experience in fighting one; I really can see this being a problem to the majority of players as the carrier is the only ship requiring a notably different approach.

No. I also don't see how it is imbalanced that Feds have Science ships where Klinks do not (granted, there's the Varanus now, but look at T1-4).

Balance does NOT mean boring total equality. I find it far more interesting when both factions have unique assets that somehow still do not put one faction in advantage over the other. I know the latter, or rather the topic of balancing in general, is a hot one, but the simple absence of a ship class alone does not mean there's an imbalance in any way. It's all about the way how something is implemented.

But hey, at least we agree about the issue of carriers in Star Trek at all.

Nope, it also grants you a turn and speed buff. But for a Carrier, the effects are marginal. All turn rate bonuses from BO abilities, Captain abilities or consoles are percentage-based, which means that they have very little affect on ships with low maneuverability like the Carrier.

I guess Valias just mixed "Aux to Structural" and "Aux to Dampeners" up.