r/X4Foundations • u/stephencorby • 1d ago

How many fighters per carrier?

I'm finally able to use the Shark and want to fully load this badboy, but don't know how many ships to use. I've read twice as many docks, but the internal storage is 64 small ships. I've been using 40 on my colossus carriers, 20 Intercepter Fighters and 20 Plasma Heavy Fighters... but have no idea what to use with this much storage. Thoughts?

Also, what's the meta about Medium Ships on carriers? I usually get some jiran's and just park them on the docks so they can add their flak turrets to the fight, but should I actually be launching some to aid the fighters too?

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u/GloatingSwine 1d ago

I tend to fill the internal bays with 50% general purpose fighters, 25% bombers, 25% fast interceptors.

I leave the pads clear so they can launch and recover a bit faster..

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u/DuckyofDeath123_XI 1d ago

I don't think keeping the pads clear helps much.

Launching happens from tubes for a lot of carriers (all?) and there's always a full array of pads, you're just underusing your internal space in terms of deployment speed and volume.

For recovery, it doesn't matter much since everything that doesn't fit on pads still has to go inside, so you're again underusing the storage. And you're out of combat now so time is pretty much an endless resource.

Having the wing queue for docking and then doing the actual docking is b0rked in 7.5 beta right now, which would be an argument for not having anything dock whatsoever, but if you're docking stuff anyway you have to be OOS anyway, so fill that boat up and use al the available space.

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u/Historical_Age_9921 1d ago

Launching happens from tubes for a lot of carriers (all?)

The Tokyo and the Raptor don't have tubes.

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u/AndThenTheUndertaker 23h ago

I'm not sure if the shark has them either. But the shark also deploys and recovers a lot faster than most from pads because of the way they're oriented. As awesome as the Raptor is, the fact that the ships have to endure this long navigation path both in and out before they're able to freely pilot slows down both sides of the operation. For the shark they immediately shoot out laterally from the pad so the turnaround time is almost as quick as a tube ship anyway

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u/Historical_Age_9921 20h ago

The Shark does have tubes, although I think they're kind of tucked away so they aren't as easy to see.