Note from MM - AI MODDERS MUST READ THIS

[Barnacle Bill]

I second the request to make the custom Groups and requirements fields in vechiclesize.txt work as advertised. There are some mods I've been thinking of trying which will absolutely require them.

Here is an idea fix the problem of the AI building more carriers than fighters. In my own use of carriers, I have found it difficult to build the fighters. If I put the biggest planet in the system building a heavy carrier designed to maximize fighter bay III's, and the rest of the colonies in the system building fighters, I have a carrier long before I have its fighter load-out. Then you have to collect them all up, which is tedius (fighters can't even be set up to automatically move to a waypoint after being built, like ships can. Sub-suggestion, fix that). Expanding the fighter building to nearby systems cuts the time to get a fighter load-out built, but increases the tedium of gathering them up. The only thing that works is to have a wad of space yard bases so that while one builds the carrier several more at the same location build its fighters. It is clear to see why this is overwhelming to the AI - it causes me to use carriers a lot less myself.

So, my recommendation is to make an initial fighter load-out part of the design for carriers, so the carrier comes from the shipyard fully loaded. Replacement fighters, or fighters to base on planets, would still be built as today. If the fighter specified for a particular carrier's load-out becomes obsolete, that should prompt the AI to upgrade the carrier design to use a new fighter design. You should then no longer see empty or nearly empty AI carriers going into battle, unless they have already lost their fighters in a previous battle.

That Last sentence brings up another point. To effectively use carriers as a main fleet weapon you need a logistical system to build fighters, load them on transports and carry them to the fleet (or a colony near the front at least). Otherwise, your carriers are disarmed after a couple of battles. It would help in doing that if a fleet could be selected as the destination for orders, so that the ship or fleet with the orders would chase the target fleet until it caught up. Either way, the AI needs to be smart enough to deal with this. If a carrier goes below a certain percentage of its fighter load-out, it needs to withdraw to someplace where a bunch of fighters are stored to replenish. I see this working somelike like "resupply at nearest". If the feature of selecting ships/fleets as destinations is added, the depleted carrier and a transport full of fighters could be ordered to meet & make the transfer. Otherwise, transports with repeat orders shuttle fighters from planets that build them to depot planets near the front, and the depleted carriers would fall back to the nearest such depot planet to replenish.