Should it cost money to build/refresh squadrons?

All that would do was ensure that fighters become even weaker, perhaps to the point where they aren't even used.  They fall far too quickly to flak already to justify spending 50 credits to replenish a squadron. Keep in mind only capitals and starbases replenish squads for 'free' right now.  Carrier cruisers and hangars both have to spend antimatter to do so.  And, light assault frigates from all races have techs to hinder or punish them.

I'd rather see fighters enjoy a slightly higher dodge rate against enemy flak.  Do that and everything should balance out a bit better.

Agree from experience. We messed around with this in Distant Stars. It totally ruined the SC. We dropped it from the mod.

[OP's post]I am curious as to peoples thoughts on whether or not it should cost resources to build/refresh strike craft squadrons.[end]

It's a terrible idea. Costing resources to rebuild or replenish (not "refresh" BTW) is a horrible mechanic.

Personally, I'd like to see carrier capitals have a slight (~half as much as a carrier cruiser) antimatter cost to replenish their squadrons.

You figured out a way to have the SC cost resources? Just from a modding perspective, I'm very curious.

the anti-matter system on the carriers vs Sc vs flak is completely broken and none functional to the point where one can say it doesn't exist. I made a mod a long time ago when I completely reworked the system and got it working.

Hear where a few findings: When I removed the build penalties that was IC's lame solution fix that did more harm then good.

Advent carriers will NEVER EVER run out of AM by getting it's SC shot down alone. To bring it inline with the other carriers It AM reserve needs to eb droped to 450 from 600 and AM recharge rate from 0.6 per secodn to 0.4 like the otehr carriers.

Vasary fighter AM consumption has to be lowered some since it has super terrible replacement capabilities.

Advent flak had to be nerfed. It was other performing the TEC and Vasari flak by 1.5 to 1.8 times.

Did quite a few changes. IT made Sc strong again but your strength was on a  time limit. Witht he enemy having 1 flak per winf of fighters you had it would take around 6 minutues to clean vasari fighters, 7 minutes Tec and 9 minutes Advent. At which point the carriers ran out of AM and no longer able to replace.

But that solution was completely ignored by IC.

Valid points.  Thanks for the feedback.

The problem with carriers is the differences in battle between early-game and late-game.  Without antimatter upgrades, and with the heavy emphasis on endurance and phase jumping in early-game battles, Advent carriers do run out of antimatter.  In fact, they run out far too easily and this is one of the primary reasons they go unused.  Late-game, bombers are a shock unit and not used for their longevity.  This means the ability to replace bombers isn't importat, but combined with some antimatter regeneration upgrades your carriers shouldn't have problems.

We need to somehow buff carrier cruisers in the early-game while nerfing them in the late-game.  Certainly the bomber needs to be addressed, but as I've said before I feel that the way to deal with bombers is to buff fighters.

Darvin advent carriers with fighter wings only will not ever run out of AM even when all fighter are killed installing after being build. And that is without the AM upgrades and without any build penalties. I have tested it and after 30 minutes advent carriers where still full of AM. Now unless their increased the AM cost of fighters/bombers and I have not seen it their is no reason that has changed.

One of the main tools to counter carriers are supposed to be LFs, and they work great they are nearly invulnerable and do great damage tot he carriers them selves. But a hand full of flak will wipe out  larger amount of fighetrs is so little time its ridiculous. But one reason is the LFs anti-AM abilities works great on support cruisers but not on carriers because SC building isn'T seen as a skill by the game. If it would LFs would be even better.

I had never gotten around to working out the bombers because it was clear IC wanted to persist int heir stupid ass balance change they made and refused to address in this beta. So why the fuck bother if they'll simply just chose to ignore a proper fix. Result we have LRF spam that has no counter because flak is so damned powerful and we have bomber spam because flak is so damned powerful vs fighters. I mean the problem is quite evident. At-least when carriers where supper strong and equal and much cheap number of LFs vs Carriers would cream carriers it was so fucking easy to beat a carrier spammer that I wonder why the fuck people where complaining about it. OH right because the idiots couldn't wrap their heads around they needed to build LFs, and IC listen tot he fucking idiots. Thus we have the results we have now.

Incorrect; I just tested this in-game.  Building all three fighter squadrons will reduce your antimatter by 130 after accounting for regeneration.  So yes, an Advent carrier will be depleted over time if it constantly replaces fighters.  Including the issue of phase jumping, this can actually happen relatively quickly in those endurance-oriented early-game battles.  This is one of two reasons (the other being move speed) that carrier capital ships are so favourable.

I realize if you max out antimatter regeneration this changes (+30% would have put it in the net positive), but with no upgrades it does deplete over time.

Then they have made a change to AM cost of SC without me noticing it. They nerf batted the carriers so bat. Because when I made the mod that you tested with me back then it would never run out.

I'm not sure when that change was made, because it was always my experience that unupgraded carriers would be depleted in an endurance battle.

yeah it was mine too until I tested it under controlled situation. I literally walk away from my cpu and came back 1 hour latter and he advent carriers where still almost at full AM. But their fighetrs wing where all dead because flak was slaughtering them and I had remover the build penalty for when enemies are in system.