350 m long, 80,000 hull: the carrier
Published
The carrier is 350 m long in game, just longer than USS Enterprise (CVN-65), at 342 m the longest naval vessel ever built[1]. It is the heart of your fleet: it carries your fighters, defends itself, and is the only big ship that can jump.
At a glance (in game)
| Length | 350 m |
| Mark | Mk3 |
| Hull | 80,000 points |
| Mass | 100,000 t empty |
| Top speed | 100 m/s, 30 m/s in reverse |
| Time to full speed | 16 s |
| Turn rate | 10° a second |
| Jump drive | 12 s spool |
| Fuel | 10,000 m³ in its tanks |
| Point defence | 3 mounts, 500 rounds each (25 shown a second, each tracer standing for three real rounds: 20 seconds of fire), 1,250 m reach |
| Hangar | 2 bays, room for 70 craft |
| Inside | 250,000 m³ |
When its hull reaches zero, the carrier isn’t destroyed: it is disabled. It limps on at a quarter of its top speed and can’t launch, jump, hot drop or burn.
The hangar
Two bays open on the flat of the hull, port and starboard, amidships: not at the stern, where the engines are, and not under the belly, because a landed carrier must still launch.
- Launch takes 4 seconds through a bay. Docking takes 6: recovering is slower than launching.
- Ships waiting to dock queue from a point 120 m out, 45 m apart, and each takes the least busy bay.
- A docked ship’s empty magazine is refilled in 20 seconds, and its fuel tank is topped up from the carrier.
- When enemies are near, launch and docking go “hot”: a catapult-style shot at full speed instead of the 4-second slide.
- While the carrier spools a jump, docking goes first. Whoever is inside when it jumps goes along. Docked ships can’t be seen or targeted.
The bay doors open in 0.8 seconds, three telescoping segments, and a blue force field fills the opening.
Defence
The carrier’s three medium mounts copy the Phalanx: two on top of the engine pods and one under the belly. They can retract into the hull, where they can’t fire and can’t be hit, and come out when a threat is in reach. The carrier starts with 20,000 light rounds in its hold, shared with its fighters.
Moving
You give the carrier orders on a flat plane; height comes from the place and the band. Press where to go and drag to set its facing. If the facing is more than 90° from the way to go, it backs up, stern first.
- Everything smaller keeps clear of it.
- It can drop between height bands at 2.5 km/s, nosing over by 18°, and make tactical burns at the same speed.
- It can land. With no pilot, it stays down once landed, and its turrets still fire.
- Its jump drive spools for 12 seconds per link. Fuel comes from the rocket equation.
Its wing
In game, the carrier’s design wing is 44 Strikers in four squadrons, modelled on a real US air wing. In play today it carries 4 Strikers and 2 Hawkeye scouts, all starting docked.
Related
- 10 g and 500 m/s: the Striker fighter
- 74 to 78 aircraft: what a US carrier air wing carries
- 4,500 rounds a minute: how the Phalanx defends a ship
- 36 tanks to Pluto: jump fuel from the rocket equation
Sources
- USS Enterprise (CVN-65), Wikipedia.
1,123 ft (342 m) (after refit) … she is the longest naval vessel ever built