Fighters

"I do like the idea of seperating the hangers from the lauch bays (we
could use the SML mechanics, with launchers linked to magazines "how
long until you get the lift unjammed?")."

Seems like an excellent idea to me.  A point/mass cost structure like
the
SML's would give players more options - a hangar/catapult combination
would
allow more fighters per given mass but a mass of "bays" (SMR equivalent)
would allow the launch of a large strike in a single turn (a strike or
attack carrier).

Personaly I tend to go for the "paper-hull wet navy style carrier". 
Often
using converted merchants (a heavy freighter makes a nice base to build
a
carrier on).  Actually converting merchant ships to carriers has
historical
basis, WWII escort carriers were initially converted merchant ships. 
Later
ones were purpose built, but still had freighter hulls, engines and
speeds
-- hence the hair-raising moment of deep shit at Leyte Gulf when the
Japenese battleships suddenly appeared in the midst of the CVE task
force
providing air support to the beachhead, with only the suicidal
intervention
of a half-dozen DD's and DE's to save the day (sounds like an
interesting
FT scenario - a task force of light carriers and a few small escorts are
supporting the mop-up of a planetary invasion (with half the fighters
dirtside) when suddenly a BB strike force emerges from FTL and goes in
for
the kill?)  Some early escort carriers (the MAC ships) actually still
carried cargo along with a flightdeck of Swordfish.

And while the hybrid NSL style "Battle Carrier" has a precident in
Russian
Kiev Class (or the half-decked battleship conversions the Japanese used
at
Leyte) there is also a precident for strong hulled, heavily armoured
carriers mounting the same light weapons but carrying fewer fighters
than
their "paper-hulled" USN style bretheren: The Royal Navy carriers in
WWII,
with their heavy armored flight decks designed with the confined waters
of
the Med., North Sea/Baltic in mind.  The carried fewer aircraft but, in
the
Pacific, easily shrugged off Kamekazi hits that left US carriers
crippled
for days at a time.

			-M