Why is Strike Craft researchable so early?

[Nightmyre]

See https://turanar.github.io/stellaris-tech-tree/vanilla/ for reference.

Carrier Operations is researchable as a Tier-1 tech. However, the first ship type it is usable in, is a Tier-3 research (Cruiser).

Up until then, it is only usable for defence platforms.

That is absolutely *not* intuitive at all.

I'm fine with them not being usable on the smaller ships, but considering early-game you are faced with very important choices when it comes to research, wasting an all of that time on a tech you basically cannot use for quite a bit longer is a huge mistake, considering the alternatives are often tech that make your corvettes better (either better armor, better hull, or better weapons).

While yes, it is true that it can be placed on defence platforms so it's not *completely* useless, realistically, most of the time you're not building defence platforms to start off with.

I would say they should change it to requiring Cruiser research as a prerequisite. Keep everything else the same - research cost can be low, I'm fine with that.

[Stormsong]

Trade protection.

[Nightmyre]

I'm not sure what you're suggesting by that, Stormsong. Can you clarify?

[Visi]

Strike craft provide huge amounts of trade protection.
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Trade#Piracy

[Cryten]

Hangar modules are the single most effective building for trade protection. Double that of the gun and missile platforms.

[Stormsong]

Yep! The strike craft research enables strike craft modules on Starbases. These are more effective than other modules with regard to trade protection. Early on, that's pretty useful if you're pumping trade around the empire before you have enough of a Starbase cap to just plop the Starbases themselves on every node along the main trade routes. Less useful later, but then you can put the strike craft on ships as you said (whether or not the action of arming ships in said manner is a good idea is an entirely different discussion xD).

[Nightmyre]

Didn't know that. I'll admit that is a plus, but realistically, the normal gun/missile battery work just fine as well. You only need that higher level of trade protection later in the game. Until late-game, I've never been faced with a spot where the gun/missile didn't provide enough coverage.

[Danny]

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

Didn't know that. I'll admit that is a plus, but realistically, the normal gun/missile battery work just fine as well. You only need that higher level of trade protection later in the game. Until late-game, I've never been faced with a spot where the gun/missile didn't provide enough coverage.

One hangar bay does the work of two gun/missile bays, gives you more room for other bays on your starbase ^^

[Rush Knight]

I would think fighters would be a useful anti-corvette defense in early game, perhaps more so than the gun battery. Is that not the case?

[Cryten]

sadly not due to strike craft pathfinding bugs.

[Nightmyre]

@Danny - the more important part of getting the two batteries is that you extend your reach by one extra sector. Hangar bays don't do that.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by Nightmyre:

@Danny - the more important part of getting the two batteries is that you extend your reach by one extra sector. Hangar bays don't do that.

True but you can still just get two hangars and have the same reach but double the protection.

[Nightmyre]

Only if you spend the time researching Carrier Operations. Which is a complete waste with the sole exception of the extra protection, which is not important early game anyway.

[Defrost40kSMAH]

extremely important for trade protection until u can spam gateways. Good thing u can get this tech early

[Fried Noodles]

Besides trade protection, do the hangar bays provide superior fleet power to the citadel than the gun and missile batteries?

[Nightmyre]

I really don't think you guys are understanding my point. Carrier Operations (which is the required tech for strike craft) is a tech researchable from the start of the game. At that stage in the game there is absolutely ZERO use for it.

Even if your argument is for the purposes of trade protection, trade protection doesn't become relevant until quite a bit into the game, when the pirates first start to attack - which is a LONG time after you would have researched it.

And even when they DO start attacking, you don't need the extra levels of trade protection until piracy strength starts to get high - which doesn't happen until much, much later!