Suggested change is also what I thought about before but I discarded mentioning idea due to the so called "anchor ship". Once anchor get destroyed, you may loose entire fleet. Current way is awesome and fun, but as you said, complicated. Anchor ship could work if it get somehow balanced.

I don't care also about types of fleets, so it's up to you.

I m not sure how adding mods to steam works, but you could create seperate mod for Anchor Version just to check which one will work better.

My knowledge about programming is very basic but enough to know difficulties of doing it. If you don't mind, I will attempt data mining on your mode and try looking for bugs, but I will probably fail at that.

By 'Anchor' ship i mean simply using a standard ship to spawn others using the fighter script native to the game. But you won't loose a fleet if the anchor is destroyed. Fighters don't explode when their carrier is destroyed. When I get home from work I'll upload a proposed escort architecture. This version simply adds escorts to all ships using native fighter spawning.

引用自 spartan078ben：

By 'Anchor' ship i mean simply using a standard ship to spawn others using the fighter script native to the game. But you won't loose a fleet if the anchor is destroyed. Fighters don't explode when their carrier is destroyed. When I get home from work I'll upload a proposed escort architecture. This version simply adds escorts to all ships using native fighter spawning.

Something like this is what I'm talking about:

Overview:
Each group is structured around a single anchor unit using fighter-spawn logic to deploy a fixed complement of non-recursive ESCORT_ variants. Escort units may still spawn fighters but never spawn additional ships. This ensures save compatibility, performance, and modular fleet design.
------------------------------------------------------------
CORVETTE GROUPS (Even Lighter Escorts...)

CR90
- Spawns:
- 2x ESCORT_DP20

DP20
- Spawns: 2x ESCORT_CR90

------------------------------------------------------------
FRIGATE GROUPS (Light Escorts)
------------------------------------------------------------

Carrack Cruiser Inherits fighters from Carrack_Crusier_Laser
- Spawns:
- 3x ESCORT_CR90
- 2x ESCORT_DP20

Arquitens Light Cruiser
- Spawns:
- 3x ESCORT_DP20
- 2x ESCORT_CR90

Pelta Support
- Spawns:
- 4x ESCORT_CR90
- 3x ESCORT_DP20

Pelta Assault
- Spawns:
- 6x ESCORT_CR90
- 4x ESCORT_DP20

Class-C Frigate
- Spawns:
-2x LAC
-1x CUSTOMS_CORVETTE
-1x CONSULAR_REFIT

Class-C Tender
- Spawns:
-1x LAC
-1x CHARGER_C70
------------------------------------------------------------
CRUISER GROUPS (Mid-Tier Escorts)
------------------------------------------------------------

PDF Dreadnought (PDF_DHC)
- Spawns:
- 2x ESCORT_ARQUITENS at Tech 3 or Higher
- 2x ESCORT_CLASS_C_FRIGATE
- 3x ESCORT_DP20
- 3x ESCORT_CR90
- 2x ESCORT_PELTA_SUPPORT at Tech 3 or Higher
- 2x ESCORT_CLASS_C_TENDER at Tech 1-2

Standard Dreadnought (Rep_DHC)
- Spawns:
- 2x ESCORT_CARRACK_CRUISER
- 1x ESCORT_CARRACK_LASERS
- 2x ESCORT_ARQUITENS
- 4x ESCORT_CR90
- 2x ESCORT_DP20
- 2x ESCORT_PELTA_ASSAULT

Acclamator Assault Ship
- Spawns:
- 3x ESCORT_ARQUITENS
- 4x ESCORT_DP20
- 3x ESCORT_CR90

Acclamator II
- Spawns:
- 2x ESCORT_REP_DHC
- 2x ESCORT_PELTA_ASSAULT
- 2x ESCORT_DP20
- 3x ESCORT_CR90

Starbolt Assault CARRIER
-Spawns:
-2x ESCORT_CEC_LIGHT_CRUISER
-2x ESCORT_CR90
-1x ESCORT_DP20
-1x ESCORT_LAC
-1x ESCORT_CHARGER_C70

CEC_Light_Cruiser
-Spawns:
-2x ESCORT_CR90
-1x ESCORT_DP20
-1x ESCORT_CUSTOMS_CORVETTE
-1x ESCORT_CONSULAR_REFIT

------------------------------------------------------------
CARRIER GROUPS
------------------------------------------------------------

Acclamator Carrier
- Spawns:
- 1x ESCORT_CARRACK (Upgrades to ESCORT_DHC_CARRIER at Tech 3)
- 1x ESCORT_CARRACK_LASER (Upgrades to ESCORT_DHC_CARRIER at Tech 3)
- 2x ESCORT_DHC_CARRIER at Tech 3
- 3x ESCORT_CR90
- 2x ESCORT_PELTA_SUPPORT

DHC_Carrier
- Spawns:
- 3x ESCORT_CR90
- 1x ESCORT_CARRACK_CRUISER
- 1x ESCORT_CARRACK_LASERS

I know what are "anchors". i m not an idiot. I spend almost 2k hours in eaw.

And those suggested groups... They give far less impressive feeling than the original. I m not sure what to think about them. They don't give that feeling of power.

These are some of my original groups:

Picket Groups
1. Light Picket Group: 3x CR90
2. Heavy Picket Group: 4x DP20 and 6x CR90
3. Missile Picket Group: 1x Arquitens, 3x DP20

Frigate Groups
1. Missile Frigate Group: 3x Arquitens, 2x DP20
2. Escort Frigate Group: 3x Carrack Cruiser, 2x Pelta Assault
3. Support Frigate Group: 3x Pelta Support, 2x Pelta Assault
4. Standard Frigate Group: 1x PDF Dreadnought, 3x Arquitens, 2x DP20, 3x Carrack Cruiser, 2x Pelta Assault, 3x CR90

Cruiser Groups
1. Combat Cruiser Group: 3x Acclamator_II, 3x Pelta Support, 2x Pelta Assault, 3x CR90
2. Missile Cruiser Group: 3x Acclamator I Assault, 3x Carrack Cruiser, 2x Pelta Assault 3x CR90
3. Standard Cruiser Group: 3x Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser, 2x PDF Dreadnought, 3x Arquitens, 2x DP20, 3x CR90

Carrier Group
1. Light Carrier Group: 1x Acclamator I Carrier, 3x Carrack Cruiser, 2x Pelta Assault, 3x CR90
2. Escort Carrier Group: 3x Dreadnought Heavy Carrier, 3x Pelta Support, 2x Pelta Assault, 3x CR90
3. Standard Carrier Group: 3x Acclamator I Carrier, 1x PDF Dreadnought, 3x Arquitens, 2x DP20, 3x Carrack Cruiser, 2x Pelta Assault, 3x CR90, 3x CR90


If we used them as our escorts, You would still build a single ship but it would spawn escort versions of the same ship and its other escorts. For example:

With the Standard Cruiser Group, you build a Dreadnought, it would deploy 2x escort dreadnoughts, 2x escort PDF dreadnoughts, 3x escort Arquitens, 2x escort dp20 and 3x escort cr90.

In terms of balancing I'd have to seriously increase the cost and build time for almost every ship.

I could also hybridize the system keeping some groups around that still use the dummy ship spawner.

If a single Arquitens spawns 3x DP20, then an Arquitens Spawner can bring in three Arquitens and those would spawn a total of 9x DP20. I could downsize the spawned groups a bit, maybe just 1-2 groups in each catagory.

I don't get the last part but whatever.

Lets sort some things.
We have now Fleet unit, that spawns so called Dummy units.
We currently are talking about Anchor units, that would spawn Escort units.

So we have 4 types of units.
Fleet
Dummy
Anchor
Escort

Lets keep that names for easier navigating.

Mod currently works by using Fleet unit to spawn Dummies. Simple, but currently some fleets are broken (for my knowledge at this moment.) It also uses seperate shipyards, but I m not going question it now.

There is also possibility to create fleets by using escort mechanic. I personaly found this not suitable for this role.

Currently, Dummies works as fleet. Fleet get destroyed when all units are destoyed. So even if everything gets destroyed except one single corvette, fleet will survive and you won't lose anything at all, which make thing really overpovered.

Escorts works diffrent. They are using Anchor unit to spawn Escort units. But when Anchor get destroyed, you will lose that group no matter how many Escorts will survive.

I like hybrid idea. In my eyes it could work, that Fleet unit spawn few Dummy Units, that are at the same time Anchor Units. And Anchors would spawn Escorts. Doing that, we can balance entire thing without nerfing it too much, because to destroy fleet, you would need to destroy just Anchors and ignore all Escort Units.

I m just not sure, how complicated it was to make it working. My knowledge of programming is limited, the best I can do is Copy, Paste, Edit.