I think a Carrack pilot would try to chase down the Ares individually, and since it is much faster than the Ares it could be successful. Failing this, rolling the ship gets you a new set of shields, so the Carrack is harder to crack than seems. If it has ballistics, the shields will regen the full 3k/s and it can roll back and forth regularly. However, it is the Ballista that is the game changer. It carries 8 S5 torps, each of which will remove all the shields off an Ares. You could kill 4 Ares with them outright (and the Ares has no real defense) or just take down their shields and then kill them with guns.
The Carrack is a bit faster in a straight line, yes. However, it has significantly slower turn rates than the Ares. In order to roll a new shield face, the carrack would need around 2 seconds if the Ares' are hitting a side shield. So that would certainly be possible, however, if they're hitting the rear or the fore, it'd take over 6.4 seconds even if the Ares' didn't try to keep up. If the Ares' get to 350m from the Carrack, their SCM speed would overcome the carracks pitch rate... Well, Carrack could use its faster straight line speed to escape though, but the guns on Ares have longer range so Carrack couldn't exactly be skirmishing. Staying in combat would be pretty fatal for it though.
Still, IMHO you cannot really theorycraft "fleet dynamics" without some kind of combined force, so you really do need to consider what fighters a Carrack would benefit from most. Lets suppose for argument's sake, a Carrack with 6 Shrikes (12 players) was attacked by a Carrack, Redeemer, HH, Tally and 3 Ares (24 players).
If the Shrikes targeted the Ares first, they could well defeat them before they were discovered and then turn their missiles on the Redeemer.
If Shrikes can be that stealthy, then the obvious choice would be to just bring along as many Shrikes as you can. Defeat anything without being seen. I don't think they're that stealthy though.
If Carrack can be used to detect the Shrikes, then you'd want to bring Carrack with only the number of players needed to operate the scanner. So like, a solo carrack. Later, when we get Endeavor in the game, you'd switch to that as it has even better scanning array, bigger shields and you can also throw in a hangar.
The latter would have a terrible time chasing Shrikes since they don't need to get within range of the Redeemer's guns and are faster. (Control the engagement!) Just getting the Redeemer to chase them is all full of win for the Shrikes. 6 Shrikes need 5 missile salvos to kill the Redeemer and that could take a long time, but the Redeemer is out of the main battle. No matter how many missiles the Redeemer shoots down, I don't think it can survive 6 Shrikes. If the Shrike pilots are good and a little lucky, they might all of them survive because they don't need to get in the Redeemer's guns range and they're maneuverable enough to avoid the Redeemer''s missiles.
If the lone Carrack launched 1 S7 at the Tally it could instantly vaporize. It should probably launch 2 in case the first is shot down. The S5 torps can then all go at the HH, which cannot evade them. The Ballista has 280k points in S5 torps. Say 2/3 of them get through the HH turrets. It's shields are almost down when the Carrack closes with all 8 Revenants. It will not last long.
The end of the conflict is a 1 Carrack against a better armed Carrack and 6 Shrikes that can launch salvos of 12 Thunderbolt IIIs for 55k@. It cannot survive.
Yeah, see how even in your scenario, the side with more solo ships is the prevailing one? That's exactly my point. The current balance heavily favors just bringing as many ships as you can instead of putting players in the same ship. Turret gunners have way worse DPS than solo ships, they got no missiles, they can't stay on target, and they don't bring in more shields.
Personally, I would prefer to have a second Carrack jump in once battle is joined and that is a more fair comparison (18 v 24 players), but you almost don't need it if everyone knows who to target right away. Shrikes should know to target fighters first, Redeemer second. Carracks should know to launch S7s and S5s before in gun range. All of that is surprise attack and will greatly overwhelm.
I mean, why not just bring in 12 more Shrikes? In your scenario, they're the real MVP.
And we have not talked at all about the Eclipse. Who would want a fleet without them? That's a whole 'nother discussion. Three men in Eclipses are much more dangerous than 4-5 men in a Tally since it is so hard to stop them, but they again require a light fighter presence. They can't move with a regular fleet because they are so slow, unless you get accustomed to micro-jumping. Also, my guess is we have a false scenario here because I can't imagine anyone flying a fleet with no light fighters. Killing light fighters sucks, because there is just no way to do that very quickly.
Yeah, sure. Bring along more solo ships. That's my whole point.
Just to reiterate, my point isn't that Ares is the best ship ever, my point is that you're far better off just putting players in solo ships, mostly light, medium and heavy fighters but I concede that having like one solo Carrack to scan for hidden ships could be quite beneficial. Still, putting people in turrets is a tremendous waste.
Oh, and brining along a Solo Carrack has the additional benefit of brining along a mobile spawn point, so any fighter pilots who die can just respawn in the Carrack. And since they got nothing better to do, THEN going on turrets isn't that bad of an idea. Could also put few spare snubs in the Carrack hangar.
