As I was pondering what ships we may see in the future, a wild idea came across my mind. This may have been discussed before, as I don't get on the message boards very often. But two of my favorite ships in the SW universe are the Citadel Cruiser and the Wayfarer-class medium transport. Both of these could arguable fit into the "large" ship category. But what started getting my mind going was the fact that both of these ships have the capability of carrying support fighters.

So here's the idea: a new upgrade that allows you to equip fighters to the ship as you would a pilot, astro, ord, etc. These may cost just above or equal to the actual ship that you are attaching. There would then also be a "deploy" action, that would allow you to release one fighter into the playing field.

There is a ton of specifics that would come into play, and I think i've thought of most of them. I'm just curious how everyone would feel about this concept. The ships could be released in larger bundles containing the "large" ship and one or two smaller ones. It would be a great way to introduce those T wings or TIE Drone.

Nah. Thte idea of deployed fighterd has been thought of before, and it just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't they deploy their fighters before the engagement? The fighter escorts are the small ships we already have. athere's no reason to overcomplicate it

The ability to deploy a fighter with a high PS seems useful. Your opponent not knowing when you'll deploy will keep them on their toes. Its a surprise factor at minimal. In addition, the ships that deploy, or the deployed fighters themselves could have incentives and abilities to drop at a specific time.

Actually, this really is a bad idea. Fighters tend to be at their most vulnerable right when they're launching. Not to mention the possibility of having the points that you spent on your fighter go down the drain if your carrier is destroyed. Most captains would launch their fighters ahead of time so that they will be at combat speeds when they engage, as well as being available for screening duties.

Nah. Thte idea of deployed fighterd has been thought of before, and it just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't they deploy their fighters before the engagement? The fighter escorts are the small ships we already have. athere's no reason to overcomplicate it

Completely agree. Theres no logical game play reason why you go into a dogfight to slowly deploy a fighter during it, when theres the option of deploying it before hand (see every other ship available)

Maybe in Epic games. I could see a TIE/Ln or Z-95 starting the match as 'cargo' taking up a cargo slot. Also with it being cargo not count towards the limit of max ships of a single type.

That aside, rather than Ships launching I much rather see Player Controlled Homing Bombs be launched from a ship.

Within the board space the game is played I visualize that the 2 attacking forces spotted each other well before they reached Combat Ranges, meaning they deployed fighters while they were still closing and outside weapons range.

The map scale is too small for deploying fighters from larger ships, you're less than 250 meters from the target. You need to have deployed your fighters yesterday.

This is basically holding part of your force in reserve. You are playing a 70 pt list against a 100pt list for the first 3 rounds. This is essentially giving your opponent a huge advantage.

The only way reserves really make sense is if there is a way to outflank (enter from sides or enemies own board edge), or entering from your own edge after the enemy flight has turned around so you are behind them. (But this means at least one attack round has occurred most likely, so you again are purposefully limiting your own fire power to gain a potential positioning advantage.)

In a game like 40k where it can take 6 turns to cross a board then having Deep Strike and Outflnk capability is a huge boost, mostly because mobility varies greatly, and heavy hitters are often just sitting around the friendly board edge for most of the game. In X-Wing where you can cross the entire board in 2-3 turns the ability to hold units in reserve doesn't make as much sense.

There needs to be some upside to having a ship undeployed for a while. Otherwise, why would anyone do it?

If the carrier action of deployment gave the launched fighter a complete move immediately after, I could see some benefit from the extended range the carried ship would get from adding on to the carriers move. You could slingshot your bomber into ordnance range quickly.

Or maybe the player doesn't reveal what the carried ship is to his opponent until he launches it (he just declares how many points it is worth). That would certainly add an element of surprise... In tournaments, you could even let a player change what it is game to game so that other players couldn't find out what it would be by watching the previous matches. Although, the ships for each round should be pre-determined at the beginning of the tournament.

Or, if the carrier had a lot of shields and hull, it could protect a frail ship until it could be positioned somewhere it would be most effective. Evading long range epic ship attacks for low agility fighters like b-wings comes to mind.

Still, I'm not sure whether any of these benefits would be enough to get people to pay the points the carrier would cost in order to play.

I'd love to see something that makes carrier ops work. I'm not sure exactly how to do that.

The problem, as others have said, is that you're splitting your forces for... What gain? It would be interesting to rearm missile ships, but there are few enough of those. I do like the catapult idea, but getting the balance right on that would be tricky.

One idea that has been tossed around applies specifically to the Ghost. If the Ghost has an auxiliary arc that can only be used when the Phantom is docked, it makes for an interesting set of decisions. I'm not sure that idea scales to something the size of a CR-90, though.