SPG2 Carriers

Introduction
Main Article: Ships & Classes

A space carrier is a warship with typically more than two flight decks and facilities for carrying, maintain, arming, deploying, coordinating and recovering space fighter crafts, and it serves a mobile space base. It is usually the biggest warship of any fleet, a superior capital ship, as it allows any navies to project space force anywhere without relying on local bases for staging major operations. Carriers are extremely expensive and valuable addition to any fleet and it is important to provide protection to them. With their size that can easily get very close to the 2 kilometers mark, Carriers should never be underestimated, even if you face them with your own ships from that class.

The modern carriers evolved from the dreadnoughts, so in armour, armament and offensive/defensive capabilities are often comparable to their forebears. Since space fighter crafts are still considered as a new technology that has not found its right place yet in space warfare, the carriers are a bit of a mixbag: they have a large amount of turrets, troopers, cargo space and they're generally the strongest vessels in present days.

The first Carriers in the colonies were developed as an attempt to counter the Empire’s superior dreadnought-class vessel, the Perun. The Perun ruled the interplanetary space in every star system settled by the humans for a decade, and the colonies had a hard time producing their own dreadnoughts that could face the Perun. They looked back to the age of the seagoing naval warfare and figured that carriers could be the answer just as it was long ago, when battleships and dreadnoughts ruled the oceans and seas. They faced a huge problem right away: the carriers needed effective fighter crafts to carry as their main weapon, and the capital ships they were supposed to fare against were too heavily armoured for a ship of this size and power. Fighters could only hope to overcome any capital vessel in great numbers and thus requiring extensive supporting facilities on the carrier’s part, which in turn was far beyond the technological capabilities of any Colony. They settled for a fusion between a dreadnought and a real all-flight-deck carrier: the resulting vessel got as many turret hardpoints as the planned frame could possibly support, and received more flight decks than the normal dreadnoughts usually have.

Historically, the very first carrier appearing in Gemini's warzones was the Tzar, developed and manufactured by the Baeldor Republic. In their first engagement, two Tzar carriers annihilated an entire Imperial battle fleet consisting of a squadron of five Peruns and several support vessels. The Empire immediately saw the thread in the new class and rushed their own design to the fields called the Equinox. All the other major houses also created their own designs and these days carriers are effectively the flagships of any navies, backed by dreadnought battlefleets.

Additional Information
Carriers, as their name suggests, can field a huge swarm of AI Fighters which can, depending on their type, quickly focus down single targets. Those Fighters will be the cannon fodder, so expect to spend a lot of money on rebuilding your fleet. However, you will quickly notice their great advantages in the bigger battles. They are the most expensive class, but are mandatory for any powerful Captain and Fleet. The first Carrier developed, the Tzar, completely surprised its enemies who lost more than 60% of their fleet in a single battle. It was soon obvious that this class would be the biggest threat in the Gemini system for many years to come.

Basic Details
Only the basic stats are presented here. For full information, check out the specific page about each ship.

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